Location: Atlanta, Ga.

Presbytery: Great Lakes-Gulf

Organization: 2019

Membership: 12 communicant; 2 baptized

Pastor: Frank J. Smith

Website: atlanta-rpc.org

Originally called Terminus, Atlanta grew up around railroads. In 1864, during the Civil War, the city was torched because of its importance to the Confederacy as a vital rail junction and manufacturing center and became gone with the wind. Immediately thereafter, General Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea cut a 60-mile wide swath of pillage and destruction through Georgia.

Phoenix-like, Atlanta emerged from the ashes to become the state capital and an industrial and corporate powerhouse. Though passenger rail virtually disappeared by the 1970s, Atlanta remains a transportation hub. Major interstate highways crisscross and encircle the city. And the old joke from the 1960s is that if you died and went to heaven, you had to fly through Atlanta first. Today, Atlanta’s airport is the world’s busiest.

The city proper has about half a million people, but the metropolitan area boasts six million. Fueling the growth are Yankee transplants and immigrants from other countries. Their presence, while presenting opportunities for evangelism, has significantly changed the religious, ideological, and political landscape. Historically considered part of the Bible Belt, Georgia is swiftly being subjugated by perspectives that are overtly hostile to Christianity, with Atlanta being a focal point of the battle. While still having a bit of a Southern accent, Atlanta is, overwhelmingly, like any other metropolis.

Atlanta, Ga., RP Mission Church is located in “the Bluff,” an area notorious for heroin dealing and prostitution peddling. In April 2010, this ministry began with a Bible study conducted at a derelict AME church building—an edifice with four stone walls and no roof. At that intersection, drug deals would take place during the time of the Sunday afternoon study. For two and a half years, we met on the steps of that old church building—in all kinds of weather, week by week by week.

In December 2012, an architect and attorney who had a heart for the area and was accordingly operating a corner grocery store, came and listened to the study. He was duly impressed. Even though he was Muslim (a convert from Methodism), he offered for us to gather—gratis!—in the back end of the building he was renting. So we moved three blocks from where we had been meeting and began weekly worship. We eventually rented from one church and then another church and then, for four and a half years, one side of a duplex.

In 2019, we started leasing from an elderly congregation that was intending to dissolve, and in June 2020 we purchased their building, an old broom factory built in 1947. It’s a strategic location—two blocks from a so-called “peace park,” four blocks from a major conference site (the Georgia World Congress Center), and two-thirds of a mile from Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Also nearby are the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola, College Football Hall of Fame, CNN Center, Georgia Tech, and several historically Black institutions of higher learning.

We used to be deluged with children—unruly ones that mostly came without a parent. More recently, most participants are adults. We became a mission church in March 2019 and began receiving members.

We were blessed previously by being helped for several years by Chris Myers (presently RP pastor in Phoenix) and family, and Sean and Anne McPherson (RPCNA members from Pennsylvania). Amy Work, an RP preacher’s daughter, was a key staffer for 13 years, but in June moved to Pittsburgh, Pa., to be closer to family.

Our pastoral intern is T. J. Pattillo, a ministerial candidate and a remote student at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Nancy, and children, Hannah and Sawyer, started attending in 2019.

About a year ago, we had 13 communicants and 8 non-­communicants. However, one member died in November 2022, and a family of six was removed from the roll due to the matriarch’s excommunication the next month, reducing our membership by one-third. Average worship attendance currently is 18.

Prayer requests: Three additional families to join by year’s end. Idealistic 20-somethings to move here to help. Desperately needed building renovations. An experienced deacon or two. A solid family or two who can model family living to a broken community with extraordinarily few healthy marriages. Encouragement amid disappointments. Stamina. Financial stability.