A Chattanooga Church in the Heart of East Brainerd
Ridgedale Baptist Church sits on Hickory Valley Road in Chattanooga's East Brainerd community, a short drive from Hamilton Place Mall and roughly fifteen minutes from downtown. The congregation has ministered in this part of the city since the early 1990s, when its previous property was purchased by McCallie School, but its roots in Chattanooga go back to 1908. Through more than a century of changes in location, leadership, and ministry focus, the church has held to a single mission: helping people Encounter Christ, Equip Disciples, and Engage the Nations.
Today that mission shapes everything from Sunday worship to Wednesday night classes to short-term mission trips. Ridgedale offers two distinct Sunday gatherings, a full Discipleship Pathway for every age and stage of life, and a network of ministries that includes a foster care safe house, a summer day camp, a Christian preschool, and a music school. The church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention and affirms the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as its doctrinal confession.
Sunday Mornings: Two Services, One Family
Each Sunday morning, Ridgedale offers two worship styles under one roof so that guests and members can pick the gathering that fits them best.
The Sanctuary service meets at 8:30 a.m. (hymns only) and 11:00 a.m. (blended with choir) in the main sanctuary. The early hour leans on classic hymn arrangements, while the later service blends choir-led worship with congregational singing. Preaching at both hours is Bible-driven and verse-by-verse.
The Encounter service meets at 11:00 a.m. in the gym. It is the contemporary expression of the church, featuring a full worship band and modern songs that walk through the same passages taught in the Sanctuary hour. Both services are also available online through Facebook Live and Vimeo, with new service videos posted each Monday.
For those who arrive early, Community Groups (Ridgedale's name for Sunday School) gather at 9:45 a.m. in classrooms across the campus. The classes are mostly co-ed and age-segmented, though some are open to mixed ages or meet by gender. Children's programming runs alongside these classes: Small Groups for preschoolers and kids meet at 9:45 a.m., and Preschool and Kids Worship begins at 11:00 a.m. On the first Sunday of every month, children join their families for a Family Worship Service in the main gathering, where Praise Packs are available at both entrances.
What to Expect as a First-Time Guest
Ridgedale asks guests to come as they are. The dress at most gatherings is whatever feels comfortable, ranging from jeans and t-shirts to suits. Each Sunday service runs about sixty to seventy-five minutes. Free children's ministry is provided from newborns through fifth grade, and a Multi-Age Sensory Room is available for preschool and elementary-aged children who need a quieter space.
Guests can park near the main entrance for easy access to the sanctuary, or on the back side of the building for the Encounter service. A Welcome Desk near the main doors is staffed to help newcomers find their way. A first-time check-in form for kids is offered online to make the arrival smoother. The preaching style is verse-by-verse and book-by-book, and the music combines classic arrangements with modern worship songs, drawing on both joyful and sorrowful themes centered on the gospel.
The Discipleship Pathway: Encounter, Equip, Engage
Ridgedale organizes nearly all of its ministries around what it terms the Discipleship Pathway, a three-part rhythm that puts the church's vision into practice.
Encounter Christ begins with weekly worship, whether in the Sanctuary or at Encounter, and is meant to overflow into daily personal worship. The church encourages members to read Scripture daily, and provides a church-wide Bible reading plan, a printable PDF, and links to a hard-copy Bible and the YouVersion Bible App.
Equip Disciples happens through Community Groups and Discipleship Groups. Community Groups meet on Sunday mornings, in homes during the week, or as small group Bible studies, and are open to anyone. They focus on Bible study, prayer, sharing a meal, and living out the faith in everyday relationships. Discipleship Groups (called D-Groups) are gender-specific, closed groups of three to five people who meet weekly for twelve to eighteen months for accelerated spiritual transformation. The groups are designed to multiply, with each member eventually starting a new group of their own.
Engage the Nations is the outward-facing arm of the pathway. Members are encouraged to live on mission in their workplaces, neighborhoods, and families, and to take part in short-term trips and long-term church-plant partnerships locally and around the world.
MidWeek: Wednesday Nights for Every Age
Fall MidWeek kicks off in mid-August each year and runs the length of the school year. Wednesday evenings are designed so the entire family can be in the building at the same time, with parallel classes for adults, students, and children, plus a college home group hour.
Adults can choose from several study tracks. Jeremy Griggs teaches a study through the writings of James, Paul, Peter, John, and Jude. Ryan McBride leads Deep Discipleship, a twelve-week teaching and discussion class through the New Testament from the incarnation of Christ through the story of Revelation. A young couples class works through Gary Thomas's Sacred Marriage. For parents, Choices partners with Ridgedale to host a free nine-week Thrive series introducing Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), a trauma-informed parenting approach. Women have several Wednesday and Thursday options, including studies through Exodus to Deuteronomy, the prophecies of Ezekiel, and the parables of Jesus. Men gather for a study of David Platt's Counter Culture. An English Through Scripture class meets in the Conference Room, welcoming non-native English speakers who want to build conversational and reading skills using Bible passages as the primary text. Young professionals meet in separate men's and women's D-Groups for accountability, prayer, and fellowship.
Children in preschool through fifth grade take part in VBX (Very Brite Xperience), a Wednesday-night program that rotates kids through themed stations with music, activities, and Bible teaching. Students in grades six through twelve gather for House Night in the student worship room for hang-out time, basketball and nine square, a worship set, a message, and breakout small groups. College students meet in guys' and girls' home groups at 7:00 p.m., reading through Tyler Staton's Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools for the fall semester. The Sanctuary Choir and Orchestra rehearse at 6:10 p.m. in preparation for Sunday worship.
Kids, Students, College, and Young Adults
Ridgedale's ministry to children, from birth through fifth grade, is built around helping every child become a lifelong disciple-maker. The Ridgedale Kid's Pathway walks parents through the stages from preschool through elementary, with a Resource Hub that includes Family Guides, Prayer Guides, the Ridgedale Kids Podcast, Gospel Cards, and a Recommended Resources Guide. Volunteers must be church members and pass a background check. Alex Davis serves as Children's Ministry Director, with Seth Weaver as Children's Ministry Associate.
The student ministry, branded RSM, follows the New Testament word Oikos, meaning family or house. The student team rests its ministry on the conviction that students are best reached when the church feels like family. Wednesday House Night and Sunday Small Groups are the weekly anchors. Special events include a summer camp at Covenant College, a Portland, Maine mission trip with Centerpoint Church, a Fall Retreat at Camp Toknowhim in Pisgah, Alabama, and a DNow Weekend in February. Chris Frakes is Student Pastor and AnnaKate Potter is Student Ministry Associate.
College students are led by Alan Denton, Teaching and College Pastor. Weekly programming includes Sunday morning Community Groups at 10:00 a.m. and Wednesday Home Groups at 7:00 p.m. The fall 2026 Sunday study works through A.W. Tozer's The Knowledge of the Holy, while the home groups read Tyler Staton's Praying Like Monks, Living Like Fools.
Bailey Biddle serves as Pastor of Young Adults and Discipleship Associate. The Young Professionals ministry meets for a multi-generational Sunday School class at 9:45 a.m. in Room 211, a Sunday evening Bible study at 5:30 p.m. during fall and spring semesters, and separate men's and women's D-Groups on Wednesday nights. The Young Married ministry gathers on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. in Room 402 for a class called the Upper Room and on Wednesday nights for a class through Sacred Marriage.
Adults and Senior Adults
For adults in every other stage of life, the church offers the same Community Group, D-Group, and MidWeek structure. Jeremy Griggs, Senior Adults Pastor, leads ministry to the church's older members, valuing their faithfulness and the way they serve as a generational bridge to younger believers. Senior adults participate in Community Groups, D-Groups, Women on Mission, Quilts of Valor, the Deacons Ministry, the Homebound Ministry, a Thursday morning Ladies Bible Study, two or three retreats and field trips each year, and a Senior Adult Lunch on the first Tuesday of every month in the Ridgedale Room. Senior adults are also active in the Sanctuary Choir and Orchestra.
Missions and Outreach: Local Partners, National Plants, Global Missionaries
Ridgedale's Compassion Ministries Director, Danny Hesterly, oversees the church's partnerships with like-minded organizations in Chattanooga. Community Partners include Choices, which provides free pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, and counseling; Volunteers in Medicine Chattanooga, a free primary-care clinic for uninsured adults; Tennessee Baptist Children's Homes; the Hamilton County Baptist Association, a network of 107 partnering churches; Bible in the Schools; FCA Chattanooga; the Pray for Me Campaign; Quilts of Valor Foundation; the International Mission Board; and the North American Mission Board.
Helping Hands Ministry is an in-church network of volunteers who give aid to widows, senior adults, and others who need an extra hand, with projects like building stair rails and ramps, cleaning, organizing, and running errands. The ministry is a quiet but steady expression of the church's commitment to caring for its own.
On the national front, Ridgedale partners with the North American Mission Board and the SEND Network to support new church plants in Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The church supports Favor City Church in Las Vegas and The Abiding in Los Angeles, sending short-term teams to assist each congregation with outreach events such as Vacation Bible School and Christmas concerts.
Internationally, Ridgedale partners with the International Mission Board and supports a church plant in Cabudare, Venezuela, named Iglesia Bautista La Santa Biblia, started by the Arce family. The church also maintains a Missionary House on campus for furloughing missionaries or church planters looking for a place to rest and recuperate. Previous partnerships include Hope Church in Dublin, Ireland, pastored by a former Ridgedale mission pastor, and Calvary Lakewood in Denver, Colorado. Annual short-term trips have included Las Vegas in the summer and Los Angeles in December.
The Haven: A Safe Place for Children in Foster Care
One of the most distinctive ministries at Ridgedale is The Haven, a comfortable, temporary home on the church campus for children entering foster care. The space gives children a chance to receive a meal, a warm shower, new clothing, and the love of Jesus while child welfare staff complete necessary paperwork and identify a longer-term placement. Kimberly Alexander serves as The Haven's Director.
Around The Haven, the church's Foster Care Ministry also builds WRAP teams, an acronym for Words of Encouragement, Respite Care, Acts of Service, and Prayer. Each team member picks one area and supports a foster family in the Chattanooga area each month. The ministry serves foster, adoptive, and kinship families and welcomes volunteers who want to write cards, deliver meals, help with housework, or pray. Caroline Pendergrass oversees foster care ministry.
Camp Ridgedale, School of Fine Arts, and Child Development Center
Ridgedale operates three distinct programs that extend its ministry beyond Sunday and Wednesday gatherings.
Camp Ridgedale is a ten-week summer day camp that follows the Hamilton County Schools calendar. Summer 2026 runs from May 26 to July 31. Programming is divided by age: Elementary Camp for campers who have completed kindergarten through fifth grade, a Counselor in Training Junior Camp for grades six through eight, and a Counselor in Training Program for grades nine through twelve. Standard hours are 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., with extended care from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Each week offers a different theme with field trips and activities. Ciara Frakes is Camp Ridgedale Director.
The School of Fine Arts, directed by Viktoria Lindsay, offers piano and music theory instruction. The school has been part of Ridgedale since 2000, with Lindsay serving as director since 2016. The program is built on the conviction that every child arrives with a gift of music from God and that the school's role is to help students develop that gift for the glory of God. The broader music ministry includes the Sanctuary Choir and Orchestra, the Encounter worship band, vocal and instrumental ensembles, and music missions trips.
The Ridgedale Child Development Center is a weekday preschool offering a Christian-based curriculum divided into age-appropriate thematic units throughout the year. Daily activities are planned for each age group to stimulate creativity, encourage individual thinking, and develop listening, motor, and social-emotional skills. Bible stories, devotions, songs, and memory verses are part of the weekly rhythm. Michelle Bailey, who has worked in child care for more than twenty-seven years and has been at Ridgedale CDC since 2007, directs the program.
What We Believe
Ridgedale describes itself as a church committed to historical Christian orthodoxy and affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The church affirms the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as its doctrinal confession. Its core beliefs, summarized in its own statement of faith, include:
- God is Triune. One God exists eternally in three co-equal Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
- God the Father is the Creator of heaven and earth, sovereign sustainer of all He has made, and the one who gave His Son for humanity's redemption.
- Jesus Christ is the only Son of God, the eternal Word made flesh, fully God and fully man, the only Savior, now at God's right hand interceding for His people and one day returning as Lord over all.
- The Holy Spirit is equal with the Father and the Son, present in the world to make people aware of their need for Jesus, uniting believers to Christ, bringing about the new birth, and actively sanctifying the Christian.
- The Bible is the written Word of God, inspired and therefore free from error as originally given. It is the essential and infallible record of God's self-disclosure and the authoritative guide for Christian life, practice, and doctrine.
- Man was made in God's image, male and female, but rebelled against God and is now subject to divine wrath, unable to return to God apart from grace.
- The Gospel is the good news that God is reconciling sinners to Himself through the person and work of Jesus Christ, whose sinless life, substitutionary death, and resurrection satisfy God's holy justice and reveal His grace.
- Salvation is the gift of God, received by repentance and personal faith in Jesus Christ alone, and secured by God's power forever. Eternal life begins the moment a person receives Christ by faith.
- Eternity. Man was created to exist forever, either eternally separated from God in hell or eternally in union with God in eternal life.
- The Church is a spiritual organism made up of redeemed humanity, with Christ as its head. Local churches are clearly taught in the New Testament as the places where believers are nurtured, equipped, and sent to bear witness.
- Baptism is an ordinance for individuals who confess belief in the gospel. By immersion in water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a believer gives a public testimony of union with Christ.
- The Lord's Supper is an ordinance for followers of Christ, symbolizing the breaking of Christ's body and the shedding of His blood, observed with self-examination and in remembrance of His death until He returns.
Leadership
Doug Plumlee has served as Senior Pastor of Ridgedale since June 2013, a church he has called home since childhood. He and his wife Pam married in 1996 and have three grown children and grandchildren.
Alan Denton serves as Teaching and College Pastor. Alex Davis is Children's Ministry Director, with Seth Weaver as Children's Ministry Associate. Chris Frakes is Student Pastor, with AnnaKate Potter as Student Ministry Associate. Bailey Biddle is Pastor of Young Adults and Discipleship Associate. Jeremy Griggs serves as Senior Adults Pastor. Ryan McBride is Discipleship and Missions Pastor. Danny Hesterly is Compassion Ministries Director. Michael Johnson, who joined the Ridgedale family in 2005, serves as Worship Pastor, with Lara Fisher leading the Encounter worship team. Ciara Frakes directs Camp Ridgedale, Michelle Bailey directs the Ridgedale Child Development Center, Viktoria Lindsay directs the School of Fine Arts, and Kimberly Alexander directs The Haven. The internship program includes College Ministry Intern Ben Pesterfield, Pastoral Interns Bill Halladay and Gary Heitmuller, and Worship Intern Ethan Sculley.
Becoming a Member, Getting Baptized, and Next Steps
Anyone interested in becoming a member is invited to a quarterly Membership Class, which runs from 9:45 a.m. to noon on a Sunday, with breakfast and childcare provided. The class covers the church's mission, beliefs, and theological distinctives, with time for questions and conversation with each of the pastors. Attending does not commit anyone to joining.
Baptism is reserved for those who have made a genuine profession of faith in Jesus Christ. The first step is a conversation with one of the pastors, after which baptisms are celebrated together during a Sunday morning service.
For those ready to explore further, Ridgedale offers a Community Group directory and a downloadable D-Group overview. The church-wide Bible reading plan, a printable PDF, a hard-copy Bible, and the YouVersion Bible App all support daily Scripture reading as part of the Encounter Christ rhythm.
Giving, Facilities, and Staying Connected
Online giving is available through the church's secure giving portal, with options for one-time gifts or recurring bank drafts. The church also accepts checks and cash through offering envelopes during services. For questions about giving, contact Financial Assistant Sharon McGhee. The church accepts facilities-use requests through a form and rents space for weddings, funerals, and other events.
Weekly announcements are sent by email through a subscription form. Sermon archives, baptism stories, mission updates, and testimonies are posted regularly and can be browsed by service type, scripture, topic, series, author, or date. Ridgedale is active on Facebook and Instagram, with separate accounts for kids, students, college, young adults, and Camp Ridgedale. A YouTube channel hosts worship videos, and Vimeo carries the live broadcast.
Looking Ahead
Ridgedale Baptist Church has been a fixture in the Chattanooga community for more than a century, moving with the city as neighborhoods changed and new generations arrived. Its ministry today stretches from infants in the Child Development Center to senior adults sharing meals in the Ridgedale Room, from college students meeting in Chattanooga homes to missionaries serving in Venezuela. At the center of all of it is the same conviction that has shaped the church since 1908: that the gospel of Jesus Christ is for Chattanooga, for the nations, and for every believer who wants to grow deeper in their walk with Him.