A Family on Promise Land Drive
Tri-Cities Baptist Church sits on a low ridge along Promise Land Drive, just off Highway 75 in Gray, the Washington County crossroads community east of Johnson City where the Tri-Cities meet. From that single campus, a Southern Baptist congregation has spent years shaping itself around a single sentence: a redeemed community of Jesus followers on mission together. The four words that organize everything are Abide, Gather, Equip, and Go, and the church has built its calendar, its budget, its small-group system, and even its parenting curriculum to line up with them.
What surprises first-time visitors is not the building itself but the vocabulary. Members talk about Go Groups rather than Sunday school classes, about the Family Discipleship Plan rather than children's ministry, and about Give2Go rather than a missions budget. Behind those phrases sits a deliberate architecture: four doctrinal Principles, four Practices, and a set of Membership Promises that the church and each member make to one another. The shorthand for the whole package is PPP, Principles, Practices, and Promises, and newcomers are encouraged to learn all three before joining.
The Shape of TCBC: Four Principles and Four Practices
TCBC teaches that the local church is defined by unquestionable doctrinal absolutes drawn from Scripture. Those absolutes are grouped under four Principles. God's Glory teaches that God's glory is immeasurably significant, is the purpose of His creation, and is the aim of the church, anchored in Colossians 1:16. Biblical Authority affirms that the Bible is God-breathed, authoritative, and sufficient, anchored in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Gospel Sufficiency teaches that Jesus is the God-Man, is righteous, and alone is the Redeemer, anchored in Ephesians 2:8-9. The Church teaches that the church is a redeemed community of Jesus followers on mission together, a gifted people, and a diverse family, anchored in Ephesians 2:19-22.
The Practices translate those doctrines into weekly life. Abide In Christ teaches that Christianity is a relationship rather than a religion, that disciples are in Christ by position and set apart to be like Christ by pursuit, and that they abide privately and together as a church. Gather For Worship teaches that followers of Jesus gather weekly to celebrate the greatness and grace of God, to experience His unique presence, and to demonstrate that they belong to something bigger than themselves. Equip The Saints teaches that TCBC provides training and resources so that disciples become disciple makers in their homes and in every walk of life. Go Make Disciples teaches that the church equips and mobilizes members to make known the love of God and share the gospel, living on mission across five pursuits: Send Disciples, Serve the Vulnerable, Train Leaders, Reach the Unreached, and Plant Churches.
The Promises run parallel to both Principles and Practices. Each one is a two-sided pledge: the church makes a promise to its members, and each member makes a promise to the church, with both sides pursuing their promise out of obedience to the Father rather than as a condition of the other side's faithfulness. Members commit, among other things, to abide in Christ through regular Bible study, prayer, and spiritual disciplines; to gather with their church family to worship and to steward resources through tithes and offerings; to live in Christian fellowship and discover, develop, and use their gifts; to value their family as the first place of faithful ministry; and to go make disciples.
Sundays at 9:30 and 11:00 in the Auditorium
Two identical Sunday services are held at 9:30 and 11:00 in the auditorium on the upper level of the main building. Newcomers are encouraged to drive past the main building to the upper parking lot and enter through the breezeway doors, arriving 10 to 15 minutes early to get oriented. A Hospitality Team is posted from the front door to the auditorium to answer questions, and complimentary coffee and tea are available at the Give2Go Cafe on the lower level. After the service, The Hub in the upper atrium just outside the auditorium is staffed for anyone who wants to talk with a church leader, ask questions, or fill out a Connect Card so that a host can personally follow up.
The services themselves are structured around the four practices. Singing is led by a worship team and choir, with vocalists, band musicians, and a media team who handle lighting, visuals, and audio. Each week one of the teaching pastors from the Elder Oversight Team preaches, often working through a sequential book of the Bible. The current series, Believe and Live, walks through the gospel of John one chapter at a time, with each message keyed to a Big Truth drawn from the text. The order of service includes the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, a weekly offering, and a time of response. Members are invited to worship with their families, and Kid's Gathering Guides, designed each week to help a child engage during the worship time and follow along with the Sunday message, are available at the auditorium entrance. Preschool groups are available during both services, and the church encourages families to gather together in one service and connect in groups at the other.
Wednesday Nights: Family Meals, Equip, Behind the Message, and Discover Tri-Cities
Wednesday night is the second pillar of the church's weekly rhythm. Once a month, dinner is served in the lower atrium starting at 5:30, either a Chick-fil-A meal reserved in advance or food brought from home. Programming begins at 6:30 and runs in three parallel streams.
For adults, the Adult Hall on the lower level hosts Equip, a collection of Go Groups that helps disciple makers take their next step alongside a coach or mentor. No registration is required. The same hour includes Behind the Message, a teaching-and-discussion gathering in which the teaching pastors and other leaders review the previous Sunday's sermon and set up the coming week's text in the shared Bible reading plan. Discover Tri-Cities (DTC), the three-week introduction to TCBC's principles, practices, and membership promises, meets in Room 100 downstairs by the elevator and is open to anyone who wants to drop in. Periodically, DTC is also offered in a comprehensive single-session format on a Sunday afternoon.
For children, AIM meets in the Preschool Hall and Gym for newborns through fifth grade, engaging the Big Truth, Bible Verse, and Bible Story from that week's Family Discipleship Plan. For students, Launch meets in The Outpost, opening with Pre-Party at 6:00 and teaching at 6:30, followed by age- and gender-specific small groups. Wednesday programming has become the spine of the church's ministry calendar and is one of the reasons the auditorium renovation will be designed to maximize midweek flexibility.
From Nursery to High School: TCBC Kids, Students, and College
TCBC Kids serves families with preschoolers through fifth graders and is staffed by a Kids Pastor, a Preteen Pastor, and a Preschool Coordinator. The team partners with parents to help children learn the foundations of who God is and discover His redemptive story through the weekly gathering, age-level groups, and the Family Discipleship Plan. Preschool groups (newborn through Pre-K) meet on Sundays at 9:30 and 11:00 and on Wednesdays at 6:30. Elementary groups (kindergarten through third grade) and Preteen groups (fourth and fifth grade) meet at the same hours.
Tri-Cities Students serves middle and high schoolers through Student Pastor Justin Ray. Sunday mornings include LaunchAM, an age-specific gathering in The Outpost: middle school meets at 9:30 and joins the 11:00 service, while high school attends the 9:30 service and meets at 11:00. Wednesday nights include Launch, with Pre-Party at 6:00 and teaching at 6:30, followed by gender- and age-specific small groups. Special events include LaunchX (a monthly outreach night), Crew (a student-family gathering after the 11:00 gathering), Life Group Finale, and the fall retreat The Great Escape at Doe River Gorge. Parents stay connected through a dedicated GroupMe hub.
TCBC College and Young Professionals reaches 18-to-25-year-olds through the College and Young Professionals Sunday morning group at 11:00 in Room 102, a Wednesday evening young men's Equip group, and Thursday evening men's and women's fellowship groups in The Outpost. Each fall the ministry hosts a Fall Retreat at Doe River Gorge, with study nights and a Christmas party rounding out the semester. The college ministry is paired with the ETSU Baptist Collegiate Ministry, and members serve international students at ETSU through the Go Serve platform.
The Family Discipleship Plan: An 18-Year Strategy
The signature ministry at TCBC is the Family Discipleship Plan, an 18-year discipleship strategy that walks alongside parents from infancy through high school graduation. The plan is built around the conviction that the discipleship of children should be diligent rather than impulsive and that parents are called to teach their children the great truths of God (Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Psalm 78:4). Each week the FDP offers one truth for each age group, and parents are encouraged to capture one intentional moment for discipleship, whether in the car after church, around the dinner table, or before bed.
The plan unfolds in four stages. In preschool, the foundation is God Is One, teaching that there is only one God in the universe, that He alone is Lord, and that every good thing comes from Him. In elementary, the focus is Story: The Gospel, an unfolding of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation across six unique focuses from kindergarten through fifth grade. In middle school, the focus is Identity: I Am In Christ, a three-year cycle unpacking what it means to be a new creation in Jesus. In high school, the focus is Influence: I Live For Jesus, a three-year cycle teaching that God has uniquely gifted every person with gifts, passions, and experiences that can be leveraged for His glory, with a special launch year for seniors.
The Family Discipleship Plan is not a curriculum but a pursuit, and TCBC has built its own companion site, familydiscipleshipplan.org, so that parents and churches across the country can use the resources. For TCBC members, access to the FDP and its resources is free. A parent guide is produced each fall, with a separate Preschool Guide and Elementary Guide, and the next-generation team publishes recommended books and Bible storybooks for every stage, from Jesus Storybook Bible for preschoolers to the ESV Student Study Bible for high schoolers.
Go Groups and the Discipleship Blueprint
Go Groups are the church's small-group system and are open every day. A Go Group is a group of disciples of Jesus led by a disciple-maker with an intentional plan to take a next step of growth toward Christlikeness through consistent investment. The aim of every Go Group is to put each member both in a discipling relationship where they are being helped to grow and in a discipling relationship where they are helping someone else to grow.
Three kinds of Go Groups meet. Go Study Groups are devoted to biblical truth and doctrine and run 6 to 12 weeks with a clear goal and next steps of obedience. Go Fellowship Groups are devoted to abiding fellowship, run 6 to 12 months, and pursue next steps of obedience through regular accountability, encouragement, and vulnerability. Go Serve Groups are practice-oriented, run 2 to 6 months, and pursue next steps of growth while regularly serving a specific ministry or people.
Many Go Groups meet on campus on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights alongside the family ministry programs for kids and students. Other groups meet nearly every day of the week throughout the Tri-Cities. Featured Sunday morning groups in the current semester include an 8:00am study on the book of Acts, a 9:30am group on Joshua, a 9:30am Christ-Centered Marriage group using Paul David Tripp's book Marriage, a 9:30am Senior Adult Study, and at 11:00am a group on the I Am statements of Jesus in John, a women's group, and the College and Young Professionals group. Wednesday evening Equip groups provide space for new and growing disciple makers to begin investing in others, and a Thursday morning group in The Outpost studies the Doctrine of the Word of God.
Every Go Group is anchored in the Discipleship Blueprint, a strategy for equipping disciples to make disciples. The Blueprint is built on Ephesians 4:11-16 and walks a disciple maker through a pathway of conversion, submission, devotion, comprehension, replication, and saturation, the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The process asks the disciple maker to observe the disciple, then to add what is missing, expand what is growing, or restore what is neglected, and to write a Discipleship Plan that names the disciple, the next step, and the path to get there. Accompanying Blueprint Guides walk through topics like marriage, family discipleship, parenting, evangelism, and missions.
The Five Go Pursuits and Go Trips
The Go team organizes the church's outward-facing life around five pursuits: Send Disciples, Serve the Vulnerable, Train Leaders, Reach the Unreached, and Plant Churches. Each pursuit is divided into three priorities, with the most pressing needs ranked first.
Send Disciples focuses on everyday gospel opportunities and longer-term missionary pathways. Go Moments are everyday moments that become gospel conversations, supported by resources like The Story app and the Three Circles gospel presentation. Go Groups serve as a sending community. Go Trips are strategic short-term trips of one to seven weeks. Go Seasons are mid-term trips of two months to two years, often a fit for college students, retirees, or those in a gap year. Go Stays are long-term missionary appointments of two years or longer.
Serve the Vulnerable prioritizes by risk. Social needs include feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and resourcing the underprivileged. Physical needs include defending the value of every life and caring for the suffering. Eternal needs include proclaiming the gospel and calling people to repentance and faith. Train Leaders prioritizes by access and multiplication potential: training believers for ministry in their homes and churches, training leaders and missionaries for ministry, and training churches that train and send other leaders. Reach the Unreached prioritizes by access: local, limited, and no access. Plant Churches plants churches where local churches already exist, where they are few, and where there are none.
Go Trips have run to Bogotá, Clarkston (a suburb of Atlanta often called the Ellis Island of the South), Durango, Ashland (the Send Relief Appalachia Ministry Center), the San Francisco Bay Area, and the Karamoja region of Uganda, where TCBC has long partnered with the IMB and national pastors to reach the unreached Karamajong people. Upcoming trips include a fall Bogotá trip led by Wes Tucker, a late-fall Uganda trip led by Gene Mermilliod, and a 2027 slate that includes Ashland, Bogotá, Clarkston, the Bay Area, Uganda, and Montijo, Portugal, where TCBC partners with Montijo Baptist Church.
Give2Go and the Church Budget
Tri-Cities Baptist Church is debt free and funds the general ministry of the church through the regular tithes and offerings of its members, given through PushPay, by check or cash in the drop boxes outside the auditorium doors, or by bank transfer. The church frames giving as a worship response: cheerful, sacrificial, and rooted in 2 Corinthians 9:7-8. Members can designate giving to the Tithe, Give2Go, or Seminary Training; undesignated gifts are allocated toward the General Budget.
Give2Go is the church's missions fund and is the primary way members give above and beyond their regular tithes and offerings toward advancing the gospel and making disciples. The 2026 Give2Go budget totals $390,000 and is divided across the five Go Pursuits: Send Disciples $43,000, Serve the Vulnerable $70,000, Train Leaders $50,000, Reach the Unreached $125,000, and Plant Churches $102,000. TCBC has historically sustained a strong missions giving pace, having designated more than $1,069,000 in a 1BY21 campaign and another $1,030,000 across 2022-2025.
Mission partners supported through Give2Go include the International Mission Board, the North American Mission Board, Send Relief, the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, Tennessee Baptist Disaster Relief, the Sullivan Baptist Association, and Planting Appalachian Churches. The church also gives to church plants including Hampton Community Church (Hampton, TN), City View Church (Atlanta, GA), Refuge Church (Irving, TX), Overland Church (Durango, CO), Overland Church North (Fort Collins, CO), and Vintage Church (Livermore, CA). Local ministry partners include the ETSU Baptist Collegiate Ministry, Agape Women's Services, Good Samaritan Ministries, and East Tennessee Biblical Counseling. A seasonal Christmas Give offering each December directs every dollar to Give2Go, and the church also receives Legacy Gifts through annuities, living trusts, life insurance, and wills, as well as Memorial and Honor Gifts.
Care, Counseling, and Deacons
Care at TCBC is expressed through members caring for one another, pastoral shepherding, and biblical counseling. Members care for one another through Go Fellowship Groups, through prayer, and through the Deacon Ministry. The pastoral team is available to walk with members through new and challenging seasons of life, including theology and doctrine, preparing for marriage, and memorial services and funerals.
For deeper counseling needs, TCBC partners with East Tennessee Biblical Counseling (EastTNBC), whose counselors seek to help people view their life experiences through the lens of Scripture, fix their hope on Jesus Christ, and develop a path forward that is rooted in the sufficiency of the gospel. Areas of focus include emotional struggles, marriage and family issues, relational problems, grief and loss, and pornography addiction. Pastor Jeremy Bledsoe serves as Executive Director of East Tennessee Biblical Counseling.
The deacon ministry supports and serves the church family through three kinds of needs. Benevolent Needs address physical resources or financial help for those without family members capable of meeting the need. Care Needs address emotional help and cognitive support during and following seasons of suffering. Missional Needs address communication and reconciliation of fellowship within the church. Members of TCBC with a need that their Fellowship Group cannot meet can request help through the deacon ministry.
The Leadership Training Program
The Leadership Training Program is a cooperative effort between TCBC and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, offering both a full Master of Arts degree and lower-cost certificate options. The program follows a cohort that meets together, benefits from the depth and resources of seminary, and experiences ministry within the trenches of the local church. Since its inception in August 2013, sixty students in eight cohorts from ten different churches have completed the program. Cohort 9 launched in August 2025 and is set to graduate in May 2027. Wes Tucker serves as the program site director. Students can be supported through the Charles Chandler Scholarship Fund, named for one of TCBC's founding elders.
Elders, Pastors, and the Leadership Team
TCBC is led by a plurality of Elders who shepherd, equip, and send out the church for the work of ministry. The Elder Oversight Team is responsible for overseeing the church's teaching, vision, and faithfulness. Elders are biblically qualified men (1 Timothy 3, Titus 1) who oversee the church through the proclamation of God's Word. TCBC Elders serve in different capacities: those on the Elder Oversight Team provide leadership for the whole church; those who serve specific ministries provide leadership for areas within the church under the direction of the Elder Oversight Team. Some are vocational, some are lay. The Elder Oversight Team does not vote; through prayer they seek and act in consensus.
The teaching rotation on Sunday mornings is led by three of the Lead Pastors, Daniel Broyles, Mike Laughrun, and Paul Mermilliod, who carry most of the preaching and writing of the weekly message notes, with a fourth Lead Pastor on the Elder Oversight Team rounding out the teaching team. Justin Ray, the Student Pastor, also preaches regularly. Jeremy Bledsoe serves as Pastor of Member Care and as Executive Director of East Tennessee Biblical Counseling.
The staff team supports the elders in ministry. It includes a Stewardship Pastor, a Lead Team and Ministry Director, a Communications Coordinator, a Media Coordinator, an Equipping Coordinator, a Teaching Ministries Resource Director, a Preschool Director, an FDP Resource Assistant, a Preschool Assistant, an Elementary Assistant, a Campus Operations Assistant, and a Financial Assistant. The Family Ministry team includes the Kids Pastor (Austin Whittington), the Preteen Pastor (Brandon Van Huss), and the Preschool Coordinator (Angela McFall). The congregation is served by a sizable deacon body organized around Benevolent, Care, and Missional Needs.
Discover Tri-Cities and Church Membership
Anyone considering TCBC as a church home is encouraged to start with Discover Tri-Cities. DTC is offered as a three-week Wednesday-night series at 6:30 in Room 100, and periodically as a Sunday-afternoon comprehensive session that covers all three classes in one. DTC walks through the Principles, Practices, and Membership Promises, and is also the place where participants meet pastors and other members in a relaxed environment. Upon completion, participants who wish to join are invited to complete the TCBC Membership Form and are presented to the church family at the next New Members Celebration in both Sunday gatherings.
A TCBC member has a personal relationship with Jesus, has been scripturally baptized by immersion, and affirms and pursues faithfulness to the Membership Promises. Baptism is taught as the immersion of a believer in water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, an act of obedience symbolizing the believer's faith in a crucified, buried, and risen Savior. Only a born-again follower of Jesus is a proper subject for baptism, and the ordinance is reserved to the New Testament church. Members interested in baptism can contact the church through a baptism interest form.
Advent and the Year at TCBC
The church year at TCBC follows the steady rhythm of weekly Gather and weekly Equip, with seasonal accents at Advent and around Love Your City and Neighbors & Nations. The Advent season is anchored in a four-week emphasis called Remember to Anticipate, with weekly readings, family resource kits distributed in the kids halls and the Outpost, and an Advent devotional by Paul David Tripp. Music for the season is gathered on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Music, and Advent wallpaper is published for phones and desktops. The Christmas Eve service hosts the Christmas Give offering, with every dollar directed to Give2Go.
Beyond the calendar year, the church has built a year-round infrastructure for the next generation and the next church. The Family Discipleship Plan runs from infancy to high school, the Leadership Training Program runs through cohort after cohort, the Give2Go fund runs through the year, and Go Trips run whenever a team is ready to go. The promise at the center of the church is the same one TCBC makes to every member: to pursue the Great Commission by equipping disciples to go make disciples, and to abide in Christ while they do it.