A quarter mile off Highway 19/23 in the Hominy Valley outside Asheville, a white-frame sanctuary has stood on Candler School Road since 1949. Hominy Baptist Church grew up around it, the latest chapter of a congregation that traces its origin to twelve men and women who walked to a log house on the banks of Hominy Creek in 1812 and called Humphrey Posey to be their pastor. Today the church runs a five-star child care program, an adult day care center, a hot-meal delivery service for homebound neighbors, a 14,752-square-foot family life center, and a partnership with a sister congregation in Cuba, all from a campus that still answers to a 200-year-old name.
Two Centuries on Candler School Road
The story most visitors notice first is the long one. The story begins in 1812, when James Madison was still president and fewer than a thousand settlers lived west of Ridgecrest. The early record includes a second church building in 1854, a sanctuary fire in 1923 that produced the Bennett Building still in use, and the present sanctuary built in 1949. The 1970s added an Education Building and pulled the church into the wider community: Hominy was a founding member of ABCCM, helped start Hominy Child Care, and began Meals on Wheels and the First Counseling Center. The Smith Building followed in 1980. Polly Bryson was ordained as the first female deacon in 1981, and Mary Caldwell was ordained to ministry in 1988.
In 1997 Joe Yelton became pastor. A year later the congregation made a denominational decision that reshaped its identity: it left the Southern Baptist Convention and entered into fellowship with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. The twenty-five years that followed brought a Ministries Center, the Daily Bread commercial kitchen, the founding of DayStay Adult Day Care in 2004, and a stream of mission trips that began in Kentucky in 2004 and now reach to Cuba. The 200th birthday in 2012 was the day the building debt was eliminated and the Ferguson family's gift of more than two million dollars was announced, paying for the Ferguson Family Life Center that opened in 2014. Joe Yelton retired in 2022 after twenty-five years. A new Sanctuary Welcome Center was dedicated in 2018.
Sunday Mornings at Hominy
Sunday morning flows from Bible study into worship. At 9:45 a.m. the Adult Bible Study groups gather, with classes for the young and middle adult crowd meeting in a Ferguson Center classroom and the long-running Ron Piercy Adult class meeting in the Bennett Assembly behind the sanctuary. Children have their own rhythm: Sing 'n Celebrate Choir runs from 9:30 to 10:00 a.m. for ages three through sixth grade, and SHINE Bible Study begins at 10:00 for kindergarten through fourth grade. Nursery care is offered for birth through age two for both Bible study and worship.
The 11:00 a.m. worship service is 'carefully structured, but intentionally personal.' Hominy follows the full liturgical calendar - Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Ordinary Time - with the flexibility that has marked Baptist worship for four centuries. A different theme ties each week together, and a different combination of choir, instruments, vocal soloists, drama, or visual art fills out the music. Communion is celebrated regularly; baptisms happen in the same service. People are told to wear what they feel comfortable in and to expect to be welcomed for who they are.
Services are livestreamed each Sunday at 11:00 a.m. on YouTube and Facebook. A video archive stretches back through 2026 and into special services such as the 2023 Advent Concert and the August 2022 service honoring the late Dr. Dan McCurry.
Children from the Nursery Through Sixth Grade
Hominy's children's ministry is organized by age and runs in parallel with the Sunday morning Bible study hour. The nursery, at the end of the children's hall behind the sanctuary and downstairs, welcomes infants through age two and stocks rocking chairs and comfy gliders for parents who would rather keep their baby with them in worship. Pre-K children, ages three through kindergarten, take part in Children's Choir and Bible Study every Sunday morning under leaders who 'help them begin their journey of faith.' Elementary children in kindergarten through fourth grade experience age-appropriate learning, music, and fellowship; their year is anchored by a Children's Sabbath in October, Advent celebrations in December, and Vacation Bible School in July.
Fifth and sixth graders (the 'tweens') have outgrown the children's wing, and Hominy offers special fellowship events for them throughout the year rather than a separate Sunday class. Registration for the children's ministry is available online.
Students in the Middle of Everything
The Hominy Student Ministry meets twice weekly. On Sunday mornings the youth gather in the Youth Room from 9:45 to 10:45 for Bible study and discussion; on Wednesday nights they meet from 6:00 to 7:15 for hang time, food, and a lesson. The middle school and high school years are also when special events pile up: life groups at leaders' homes, mountain hikes, mission weeks, lock-ins, retreat weekends, a back-to-school bash, and churchwide Vacation Bible School nights where the older students serve alongside the younger ones as role models and encouragers. Summer mission trips in recent years have gone to the North Carolina coast with Baptists on Mission; older students have also joined the Cuba team. Online resources such as the Nurturing Faith studies and the 'Fruits of the Spirit,' 'This I Believe,' and 'Being a Good Samaritan' video series let students keep up when they cannot be on campus.
Adult Bible Study and the 3rd Thursdays
Adult connection at Hominy happens in several rhythms at once. The Sunday morning Bible study hour at 9:45 a.m. offers multiple classes: a Young and Middle Adults class in the Ferguson Center classroom led by Co-Pastor Melissa Hughes and Co-Pastor Paul Raybon, the Ron Piercy Adult class in the Bennett Assembly led by Jerry Sutton, Joe Johnson, and Doug Williams (a lively mix of working grandparents, retirees, and longtime members) and additional choices for those who prefer to study from home through the church's Hominy Online, which includes live Zoom gatherings, video studies, and downloadable materials.
On the third Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m., Jeff and Tonya Cupples open their home to a wider range of adults for fellowship, a shared meal, and a Bible study discussion. Sign-up is available online. Men's ministry and women's ministry (the women's side organized through three active mission circles and a Ladies Breakfast Club that meets Thursday mornings) round out the connection points for adults who want a deeper circle than the Sunday hour allows.
Music and Creative Worship
The music ministry at Hominy is one of the more visible pieces of the church. The Sanctuary Choir rehearses on Wednesday evenings at 7:30 from September through May. A 'Pop-Up' Choir gathers on fourth or fifth Sundays at 9:15 a.m. to learn a new anthem in one rehearsal and sing it in worship that day; a Summer Choir follows the same quick-rehearsal pattern on selected Sunday mornings from June through August. Sing 'n Celebrate gathers preschool through sixth-graders each Sunday from 9:30 to 10:00 a.m. from September to mid-December and again from January to May. A Student Band for grades five through college meets on selected Sundays and Wednesdays, while handbells and handchimes, mountain dulcimer and guitar ensembles, string ensembles, bluegrass groups, and a piano and organ team fill out the available instruments throughout the year.
The Altar Guild ties the auditory and the visual together. Volunteer teams care for the baptismal and communion table, create and rotate banners and paraments for the seasons of the church year, arrange floral displays, manage candles, and serve as sound technicians and multimedia assistants during worship. Seasonal projects across the year have included Advent services and concerts, Lenten Tenebrae, Holy Week, summer PraiseMakers Music and Arts Camps, choir retreats, Homecoming services, shape-note hymn sings, and Hanging of the Greens.
Daily Bread, DayStay, and a Long Reach Into Hominy Valley
Hominy's community footprint is unusually wide for a single congregation. Daily Bread, founded in 1977, prepares up to twenty-six hot, nutritious meals each weekday in the Ministries Center kitchen and delivers them along Upper and Lower Hominy Valley routes to elderly and medically disabled adults who still live at home. More than fifteen volunteer drivers from the church and surrounding community make the rounds; each route is more than a meal drop: it is a daily wellness check on a neighbor who might not see anyone else that day.
DayStay, started in 2004, is an adult day care ministry for adults who cannot be left alone during the day, including active seniors, individuals with dementia or Alzheimer's, and adults with other conditions. DayStay is open Tuesday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. Participants share a nutritious lunch and an afternoon of chair exercise, brain-stimulation activities, reality orientation, and friendship. A weekly community worship service is held at DayStay every Thursday at 11:00 a.m., with hymns, prayers, and a short sermon brought by Hominy's ministers and other local pastors. The program serves about eighteen adults and their families; an annual Bluegrass & BBQ fundraiser helps cover the gap between tuition and the actual cost of care.
Hominy Child Care, Martha's Kids, and the Ferguson Family Life Center
Three more programs keep the Hominy campus humming. Hominy Child Care, a five-star-rated program that the church helped found in the 1970s, serves children from six weeks through age twelve year-round from 7:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The program uses the Creative Curriculum, the Brightwheel family-communication app, and USDA breakfast, lunch, and snacks. After-school care runs from mid-August to mid-June for students at Candler Elementary, Enka Intermediate, and Enka Middle schools, and a full summer camp serves the entire Enka district with on-campus activities and weekly outings to swimming, water parks, mini-golf, movies, bowling, the lake, and the WNC Nature Center.
Martha's Kids is a Hominy ministry that grew out of one teacher's vision. Founded more than forty years ago by Martha Wolfe, an art and reading teacher at Candler Elementary, the program helps children in the community with food, clothing, school supplies, and Christmas gifts. Martha passed away recently at the age of 88, and her legacy continues: every dollar given to Martha's Kids goes directly to the children and families the program serves. Donations can be made online or mailed to the church address.
The Ferguson Family Life Center was dedicated in 2014. The 14,752-square-foot building, fully funded by a gift of more than two million dollars from the Jack and Carolyn Ferguson family, includes a high school-size basketball court, an exercise equipment room, a concessions kitchen, a classroom, and a meeting room. A solar energy system on the roof generates much of the electricity used across the campus. The Center is open to the wider community: a $24 annual user fee provides fob access for walkers, fitness-center users, and basketball players, and the gym is rentable for approved events. Operating hours include morning walking class, pickleball in the middle of the day, and a full evening schedule Monday through Saturday.
Scouts on Tuesday Nights
Two Scout units call Hominy's campus home. Cub Scout Pack 45 meets in the Ministries Center on Tuesdays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.; Scouts BSA Troop 45 meets in the Youth Room on Tuesdays from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Both are chartered through the Daniel Boone Council.
A Cuba Partnership with Las Tunas
For several years Hominy has maintained an ongoing prayer, supply, and mission partnership with Nueva Ebenezer Baptist Church in Las Tunas, Cuba. Twice a year, at Easter and Christmas, the church collects over-the-counter medications such as ibuprofen, Neosporin, and Benadryl that are shipped through coordinators Kim Christman and Stan Dotson. The congregation has also raised seed money for Granja Sostenible, a sustainable farm raising goats and chickens to provide protein and income for the surrounding community. Teams from Hominy travel to Las Tunas every other year or so; the 2024 trip with First Baptist Asheville moved more than four hundred pounds of medications, school supplies, solar phone chargers, and food through five sister congregations, and the January 2025 trip continued the work. Gifts for the Cuba partnership can be designated online by noting 'McCurry Fund' in the notes box.
How Hominy Thinks About God, the Bible, and the Church
Hominy's stated mission is 'Loving God, Loving Others, Loving You - with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength,' and the four dimensions show up in every program on campus. Heart covers relationships and emotional health; soul covers worship, prayer, and spiritual nurture; mind covers Christian education from nursery through adult; strength covers ministry that flows from the gifts of every member. Six core values sit underneath the mission: grace and acceptance, transparency, loving care, ministry to the spiritual and physical needs of neighbors, generosity, and a 'courageous faith' willing to step beyond comfort zones.
The church affirms a classical Baptist set of convictions: soul freedom (the priesthood of all believers and the right of every Christian to relate to God directly), Bible freedom (the authority of Scripture under the Lordship of Christ and the right of every Christian to interpret it under the Holy Spirit's leadership), church freedom (the autonomy of each local congregation to determine its membership, leadership, and worship), and religious freedom (the church supports the separation of church and state and 'freedom of religion, freedom for religion, and freedom from religion'). The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is the national fellowship with which Hominy walks; the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina and the Western North Carolina Baptist Fellowship are the regional partners. Local mission partners include ABCCM, the Baptist Children's Home, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, Baptist Retirement Homes, Baptist Women in Ministry NC, the CBF Emmanuel McCall Fund, Habitat for Humanity, Transformation Village, and the Western North Carolina Baptist Collegiate Ministries. Every gift funds a room full of children, a delivered meal, an adult at DayStay, and the global reach of the Gospel.
The Hominy Cemetery
Just behind the campus is the Hominy Baptist Church Cemetery, still active for members and their families. Burial spaces are limited to current and former members of Hominy Baptist Church or relatives of those already interred.
A 200-Year Welcome
After more than two centuries, the message from Candler School Road is the same one the twelve founding members carried to a log cabin on Hominy Creek in 1812. The welcome message reads: 'We are glad you are here. Hominy welcomes everyone. We are a unique family of faith who loves people for who they are and where they are. We value love over labels and community over categories.' From a sanctuary built before the Second World War to a family life center built last decade, from a daily meal delivered to an elderly neighbor to a crate of ibuprofen shipped to a Cuban sister church, Hominy Baptist Church keeps that welcome in motion.