Historically, on October 27,1949, a group of members of First Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem petitioned The Presbytery of Winston-Salem to be allowed to form a Presbyterian church in a neighborhood known as the Ardmore area. This was not a split but an act that was warmly supported by the other members of First Presbyterian Church. They saw themselves as planting another church.
The first act of this potential congregation was to establish a time of worship on Sunday afternoons and then in April they decided to worship on Sunday mornings at 11:00 am in the Assembly Hall of First Presbyterian while First Presbyterian continued to worship in their own sanctuary.
Before a building, before a pastor was secured, before they had a name, they worshipped because in worship they were a people. Within a year, in November 1950, they worshipped in their new building on Cloverdale Avenue. Like Abraham and Noah before them, they needed a place to worship.
This was not because a building was essential to worship but because in setting aside a specific place as holy — a place to come to worship God — they reminded themselves of what was true in all places. To worship God is to declare who and what is not God and who or what does not deserve your worship. It is to declare to all the pharaohs of the world that the loyalty owed to them has its limits.
