On Douglas Street in downtown Cartersville, Georgia, Tabernacle Baptist Church has spent generations pointing its community toward Christ. The church's four-part purpose - worship, fellowship, discipleship, and outreach - shapes everything from Sunday services to a weekday preschool, a food pantry, ESL classes, and mission teams that have traveled to New York City, major European cities, and the Rocky Mountain West. Whatever the season of life, Tabernacle aims to offer a place to belong.
Two Sunday Mornings, Two Worship Spaces
Tabernacle meets twice on Sunday mornings, at 9:00 AM and 10:45 AM, in what the church calls the A-Hour and the B-Hour. Each hour follows the same shape: congregational singing led by the Worship Choir and Orchestra, prayer and fellowship, and a Bible-focused sermon from Senior Pastor Dr. Patrick Latham. A typical service runs about 75 minutes, and LifeGroups for every age run at the same time so that the whole family learns together.
The music is a deliberate blend of contemporary and traditional pieces. The Worship Choir, open to anyone sixth grade and up without audition, sings every week. The Worship Orchestra, typically ninth graders and older, accompanies them. Together they fill the Worship Center with a sound drawn from multiple generations of musicians.
The Gathering Place: A Second Service, One Campus Over
Tabernacle also worships in The Gathering Place, a newer multipurpose facility on the same campus. There, the 10:45 AM service features a smaller rhythm-section-and-vocalist team whose preaching is streamed in live from the Worship Center. The space gives the church room to grow and offers a more intimate setting without disconnecting it from the wider congregation.
On Sundays, the parking team reserves spaces for first-time visitors, senior adults, families with special needs, and anyone needing accessible parking, all close to the front door. Visitors are invited to come as they are; Sunday morning attire across the congregation runs the full range.
Wednesdays: Dinner, Classes, and a Late Rehearsal
From spring through fall, Wednesday evenings at Tabernacle feel like a small-town gathering. A family dinner opens the night at 4:45 PM, with adult meals, kid-sized pizzas, and a family maximum designed to keep it affordable. Programming begins at 6:00 PM and runs more than an hour, with age-appropriate classes for preschoolers, kids, students, and adults, plus Champions of Light for special-needs families. Adult offerings rotate between Bible-study workshops and serve workshops, including a Share & Care Meal Team that delivers Wednesday-night meals to homebound members and a Serve & Support Team that writes cards and assembles outreach gift bags.
At 7:15 PM the Worship Choir and Orchestra reassemble for rehearsal, a long-standing tradition that lets Sunday mornings be led by the church family rather than outside musicians. During the summer the choir and orchestra meet at 6:30 PM instead.
Tabernacle Español: A Spanish-Language Congregation
Tabernacle Español meets every Sunday at 10:45 AM on the third floor in Salon 333 for worship, prayer, and expository preaching in Spanish. For bilingual families, the 9:00 AM English service is also offered with translation through personal devices. Once a month the two congregations share a Multicultural Fellowship lunch together at 12:30 PM in the Fellowship Hall, the same space where the Bread of Life Food Pantry operates during the week.
From Preschool Through College: Family Ministry
Tabernacle organizes much of its life around family ministry. The Preschool Ministry cares for children from birth through kindergarten in a one-story building on the north side of the campus, with secured check-in, background-checked volunteers, and at least two adults in every room. On Sundays, preschoolers participate in Bible learning, games, crafts, and worship during both worship hours; on Wednesdays during the spring and fall semesters they have their own classes while parents attend adult studies.
Tabernacle Kids, for first through fifth grade, follows a parallel pattern. At 9:00 AM the younger kids gather for Kids Worship, a high-energy large-group session, and move into graded LifeGroups at 10:45 AM using The Gospel Project for Kids. Fourth and fifth graders are encouraged to worship with parents in the Worship Center and to join IMPACT 45, a small-group Bible study built on the Answers in Genesis curriculum. Wednesday nights bring VIBE and ZIP for Kids, a rotating program of Bible study, missions, music, art, games, and service projects. KidVenture Camp (VBS) and PreTeen Camp fill out the year.
Students in middle school and high school meet on Sundays for grade-specific LifeGroups and services, and on Wednesday evenings for a 5:00 PM connect meal followed by The Gathering, a student-led worship night. Parent resources include partnerships with the Center for Parent/Youth Understanding, Ministry to Parents, AXIS, and Bartow Cares.
College students (ages 18-23) and young professionals (ages 24-35) form NextGen, a young-adult ministry that meets Sundays at 10:45 AM and gathers for a Thursday-night Bible study at 7:00 PM. The college group is led by Steve and Kellie Paige; the young-professionals group is led by Rudy and Tracey Alford and Travis and Heather Henderson. Throughout the year they take part in retreats, mission trips, social events, and a Disciple NOW leadership weekend.
The Worship Choir and Orchestra Across Generations
Tabernacle's worship ministry is built around intergenerational participation. Sixth graders and above sing in the Worship Choir; ninth graders and above play in the Orchestra. A Student Choir rehearses alongside the adults, and a Student Band leads worship during The Gathering on Wednesday nights. Children in preschool and elementary have worship built into their weekly gatherings, with special opportunities to lead during Christmas and Easter.
Smaller worship-leading ensembles, including the team that leads the B-hour service in The Gathering Place, are formed by audition and require a Wednesday-night practice commitment. Anyone interested in joining the choir, orchestra, or a worship team can reach out through the worship ministry.
Champions of Light: Special Needs Ministry
On Wednesday nights from 6:00 to 7:15 PM, Champions of Light opens its doors in room B115 to mothers and their children of all ages with special needs. The goal is to seek the Lord together while taking the stress out of questions like "is my child OK?" and "are we being distracting?" Children of every age are welcome to attend alongside their moms. Volunteers receive specialized training, pass a background check, and serve as one-on-one buddies, classroom assistants, or special-event helpers.
Care and Recovery: Celebrate Recovery, GriefShare, and the Bread of Life Food Pantry
Three weekly ministries form the heart of Tabernacle's care-and-support work.
Celebrate Recovery meets on Tuesday evenings at the Douglas Street campus. The night begins at 6:30 PM with a meet-and-greet and light snacks, opens into a large-group meeting at 7:00 PM with worship, biblical teaching, and testimonies, and then breaks into gender-specific small groups at 8:00 PM. Free childcare is available with a Monday 5:00 PM RSVP. The program is open to anyone struggling with hurts, hang-ups, or habits.
GriefShare is a 13-week support group for those walking through grief, hosted by Larry and Recee Bledsoe on Wednesday nights at 5:30 PM from September through December and again from January through May.
The Bread of Life Food Pantry opens every Tuesday from 12:45 to 1:30 PM in the Fellowship Hall. Guests are welcomed with a short time of worship, prayer requests, and an encouraging message before receiving groceries. The purpose is both spiritual and physical - to feed the community while sharing the love of Christ.
Tabernacle also points neighbors to Bartow Family Resources, a partner organization on Leake Street that runs support groups, parenting courses, pregnancy counseling, adoption support, and The Baby Store.
Outreach and Mission Trips: From Bartow County to the World
Outreach at Tabernacle flows through three rhythms: pray, serve, and go. Locally, members partner with ministries throughout Bartow County. Across North America the church supports gospel work in cities and on campuses, sending vision and evangelism teams that have served alongside IMB missionaries and partner Baptist associations. Internationally, Tabernacle supports ministry in Europe, the Middle East, South Asia and the Himalayan region, and South America. Recent teams have shared the gospel with hundreds of attendees at a major fishing tournament using a fishing-lure gospel tool, partnered with IMB missionaries for university campus evangelism and citywide outreach in one of the country's most diverse cities, led prayer walking and relational evangelism in a major European capital, and mobilized high school seniors and chaperones for a discipleship weekend with teens through a partner Baptist association in Utah.
The church's outreach strategy emphasizes personal gospel conversations in everyday life, serving the community through real needs, local outreach events, mission trips and ministry partnerships, and equipping the church family to share their faith.
English Practice for the Community
On Wednesday evenings during two semesters each year, Tabernacle opens its third floor for English Practice, a free English-as-a-second-language program that runs from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. The ministry exists to share the love of Jesus by helping English learners reach their goals of speaking and understanding English. Free childcare is provided through church activities for children and youth during the class time. Registration and questions go through the ESL coordinator, with Spanish-language correspondence handled by the Español ministry.
Tabernacle Weekday Preschool
Sharing the Tabernacle campus is the Tabernacle Weekday Preschool, a Christ-centered half-day program for children fifteen months through kindergarten. Hours run from 8:30 AM to 12:00 PM, with an early-morning room opening at 7:45 AM for working parents and a slightly longer day for kindergartners (8:30 to 12:30). The preschool is monitored and secured, staffed by First Aid and CPR certified teachers, and uses the Abeka and Wee Learn curricula alongside weekly music and art classes, daily Bible lessons, and chapel services.
Tuition runs from $220 per month for two-day toddlers to $315 per month for kindergarten, on a ten-month basis with a $200 non-refundable registration fee. A Certificate of Immunization (Form 3231) is required for all students and Form 3300 for kindergartners. The preschool office can be reached at (770) 382-8894.
SEEK: A Building Project for Downtown Cartersville
In 1947, Tabernacle members envisioned a brick sanctuary on the corner of Tennessee and Church Streets as a place to reach people for Christ. Three generations later, Tabernacle is launching SEEK, a generosity initiative to replace the south end of the campus. The plan is to send a single welcoming message to the community, create one clear point of entry, expand student ministry space, and provide effective administrative offices - a building that will serve the church and the city for the next generation.
Today, almost 20,000 cars pass the facility each day on Tennessee and Church Streets, and just over half the people living within ten miles of the church have no involvement in a religious congregation. The SEEK vision is to keep Tabernacle strategically positioned downtown to shine the light of Jesus into Cartersville and the surrounding community, fulfilling the church's four Biblical priorities of fellowship, worship, discipleship, and outreach.