The Church of the Open Door on Grandin Road

For a hundred years now, the people of Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church have gathered at 1837 Grandin Road SW in Roanoke to worship, learn, serve, and grow together. The congregation took shape in 1924 around a poem written by a charter member, Dr. G.M. Maxwell, who gave the church its enduring identity as the "Church of the Open Door." The doors still stand open to anyone who wishes to follow Jesus Christ as Lord, and from that open doorway the congregation looks both inward - into a rich life of worship, education, music, and pastoral care - and outward into Roanoke, across Haiti and South Sudan, and toward whatever corner the next neighbor happens to be standing in.

Four senior pastors have shaped the congregation since its founding. The Rev. Dr. James Allison served for decades and gave the church much of its pastoral warmth. The Rev. Frank "Tupper" Garden was installed in 1991 and led Raleigh Court through a major capital expansion, the launching of the preschool board under Session, the building of the columbarium, and the start of many mission partnerships. The interim period that followed was carefully stewarded by the Rev. Carl Utley, and on August 17, 2015, the Rev. Andrew C. Whaley became the fourth senior pastor. Whaley is joined today by the Rev. Isabella Fagiani, who was ordained and installed as associate pastor in September 2020 in a service that blended a virtual Presbytery of the Peaks with hand-printed blessings taped around the sanctuary because the pandemic would not allow a laying on of hands. The Rev. David Dixon serves as Minister of Care, and together this pastoral team, along with Director of Christian Education Leigh Sackett, Director of Music Ministries Dillon J. Swanson, Preschool Director Betsy Prillaman, and a long list of lay leaders, holds the rhythm of the church together week by week.

Worship Grounded in Liturgy, Open to Questions

Worship at Raleigh Court is rooted in the historic liturgy of the Church. Paper bulletins guide the congregation through call-and-response prayers and creeds. Hymns come from the Glory to God hymnal, adopted in 2016 to replace the 1991 Songs and Hymns and Spiritual Songs. The pipe organ is the primary instrument, and the Sanctuary Choir leads the singing most weeks. Preachers deliver sermons meant to speak to the intellect as well as to hope. Worship typically lasts seventy minutes from beginning to end.

The schedule shifts with the seasons. From the Sunday after Labor Day through the Sunday before Memorial Day, two services are offered: a 9:00 AM service in the Roberson Chapel and an 11:00 AM service in the Sanctuary. The chapel service is intimate - about fifty people gather in what was the original worship space of the congregation - and follows the same liturgy and sermon as the later service, but without the choral ensembles. In summer, the schedule condenses to one service at 10:00 AM in the Sanctuary. The Lord's Supper is celebrated on the first Sunday of every month at both services, and all are welcome at Christ's table. Baptisms of infants and adults take place during regular worship.

An interpreter for the deaf and hard of hearing is provided at the 11:00 Sanctuary service every week. The deaf ministry at Raleigh Court dates back to 1990, when a family with two deaf children joined the church. Two members have interpreted services, Sunday school, and youth events for three decades, and the ministry has continued to expand with paid substitute interpreters, transportation for a longtime member who could not drive, and the persistent insistence that "all are welcome" actually means all.

The 11:00 AM service is livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube, and an online bulletin is available for those joining from home. An audio archive of sermons is published on Spotify, and PDFs of past sermons are kept in a Google Drive folder. Recorded services stretch back for years, making the preaching of every pastor since 2015 accessible to anyone who wants to listen.

A Sanctuary, a Chapel, and a Sanctuary Organ

The heart of the music ministry is the 77-rank pipe organ in the Sanctuary, an instrument with a complicated origin story. When the present sanctuary was built in 1958, the congregation could afford only a small sixteen-rank Moller organ, but the dream was always to expand. Nearly fifty years passed before that dream materialized. In late 2004, Second Presbyterian Church in Roanoke offered to donate its twenty-nine-rank Moller organ, which had been built in the same era as the Raleigh Court organ. The catch was that it had to be removed within a month to make room for the Goulding & Wood organ Second Presbyterian was about to install. The pieces were transported across town, joined with the original instrument, and combined with substantial financial gifts from the Warren W. Hobbie Charitable Trust, the Francis Petty Estate, the RCPC Endowment Fund, and the Juanita W. Ruble Estate, along with countless individual offerings. The new organ was first heard in worship on December 5, 2010, dedicated on February 27, 2011, and formally introduced with an inaugural recital by Richard Cummins on May 13, 2011. Today it has 115 drawknobs, 73 stops, 77 ranks, and 4,760 pipes plus digital notes.

In 2018, a digital organ by Walker Technical Company of Zionsville, Pennsylvania, was dedicated in the Chapel. With three manuals, a pedal board, and forty-two stops, it has enriched the early service, funerals, small gatherings, and recitals in that intimate room.

The Sanctuary Choir rehearses on Wednesdays at 7:15 PM and sings at the 11:00 service from Rally Day in September through Pentecost. Its repertoire stretches from Renaissance polyphony to psalms, spirituals, and folk songs, and the choir presents an annual Christmas Concert and Good Friday Tenebrae service, frequently featured in the Music in Raleigh Court concert series. Past masterworks have included Bach's St. John Passion and Magnificat, the Fauré and Rutter Requiem, and Handel's Messiah. A smaller auditioned Chamber Choir, which rehearses Wednesdays at 6:45 PM, sings eight Sundays a year in both services and contributes to the larger concerts.

Three handbell ensembles span every age and skill level. The Raleigh Court Ringers, founded in 1984, is the advanced ensemble, rehearsing Tuesdays at 7:15 PM and playing eight Sundays a year in the Sanctuary. The Alleluia Ringers, an intermediate ensemble for sixth graders and older, rehearses Sundays at 4:30 PM. The Genesis Ringers, a beginning choir for fourth graders and up, rehearses Wednesdays at 3:15 PM and welcomes adults and children together. The Youth Choir, which rehearses Sundays at 5:00 PM for grades six through twelve, leads worship about six times a year, joins the Raleigh Court Ringers at Brandon Oaks for a shared Christmas program, sings at the 5:00 Christmas Eve service, and shares in the Good Friday Tenebrae. The God Alive Children's Choir, part of the Wednesday program for kindergarteners through fifth graders, also leads worship several times a year and anchors the children's Christmas pageant.

The Music in Raleigh Court concert series brings professional and semi-professional musicians into the sanctuary and chapel throughout the year, with selected performances livestreamed on Facebook and YouTube.

Children, Youth, and the God Alive Program

Children are welcome everywhere in the life of the church. A nursery staffed by paid nursery workers and trained, background-screened volunteers is open during both services and at Sunday school for infants and toddlers up to age three. Children's Worship, a Montessori-based program, is offered at each service for children ages four through first grade. After the children's moment at the front steps, the children move to their own worship room where, in a service with the same four-fold shape as the adult service, they "Assemble in God's Name," "Proclaim God's Word," "Give Thanks to God," and "Go in God's Name." Adult and youth volunteers serve as greeters and storytellers on a rotating basis.

Sunday school runs from September through May. The 3- and 4-year-olds use Growing in Grace and Gratitude, the kindergarten and first graders use Holy Moly, second graders use a year-long curriculum called "Our Faith" that incorporates the second-grade Bible presentation, Children's Worship graduation, and an introduction to the sacraments, and third through fifth graders use "Bible Depths," a three-year walk through the entire Bible presented in a script format that lets children take on the characters and reflect on what they find there. At the end of the year, rising sixth graders have covered much of the arc of Scripture and are prepared for the youth program upstairs in the LOFT.

God Alive is the Wednesday afternoon program for elementary children, meeting from 4:00 to 6:00 PM with worship, play, mission, music, and a meal. The year follows a single biblical theme - this year the focus is "Covenant Stories: God's Promises That Never Fail" - and the curriculum weaves together Bible learning, hands-on service, and intergenerational leadership. Older elementary children have their own outings focused on mission, fellowship, and leadership. Living the Word is a companion program for preschoolers that meets on selected Saturdays in the backyard of Director of Christian Education Leigh Sackett, where children plant gardens, cook what they grow, and turn vegetables into gifts for neighbors and the Rescue Mission.

For middle and high schoolers, Youth Sunday School meets in the LOFT during the Sunday school hour, and Youth Group gathers on Sunday evenings from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, September through May. A shared dinner opens the evening, followed by recreation, a youth-led abbreviated worship, and small groups broken out by grade. The annual calendar is packed: lock-ins, the Fall Festival that doubles as a fundraiser for the preschool, a progressive dinner through three homes during Advent, the Least of These supply drive in November, a Hometown Mission Week in Roanoke for rising sixth graders through graduated seniors, the Massanetta Springs Middle School Conference, the Montreat Youth Conference, and the Senior Send-Off in May. On Youth Sunday, the teenagers write the liturgy, preach the sermon, and lead the music at both morning services.

Adult Christian Education and the Life of the Mind

Adult Sunday school classes meet at 10:00 AM from September through May in the Chapel building. The Seekers class reads books together - this fall it begins with a study of Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited led by David Dixon, then moves through Genesis 1-3 and the Book of Job, and ends the year with Walter Brueggemann's Names for the Messiah during Advent. Other classes include "Christianity and the End of Life," a four-week series led by Andrew Whaley that pairs theology with practical information about palliative care, funerals, and end-of-life planning; a video-and-discussion study of the Reformation led by Mike Lockaby; and "Parent as a Verb," a class for parents of all stages that explores how the practice of love shapes the everyday business of raising children.

Small Group Bible study is woven throughout the week. Six small groups gather to reflect on the previous Sunday's sermon and scripture: Monday at 12:30 PM, Tuesday at 4:00 PM, Tuesday evening for women at 7:30 PM, Wednesday at 7:00 PM, and Thursday at 10:30 AM. A small group for parents of small children meets every other Monday evening at 6:00 PM, a men's small group meets Mondays at 7:00 PM, and a 20-Somethings group gathers on the third Tuesday of the month. Discover RCPC is a quarterly introduction to the Presbyterian church and to Raleigh Court specifically, led by the pastor for newcomers and inquirers.

Presbyterian Women meets on the second Tuesday of each month, September through May, in the Fellowship Hall from 10:15 AM to 1:00 PM. The morning includes sign-card ministry for shut-ins, a least-coin offering for worldwide missions, a brief business meeting, a Bible study (this year on Rhonda Mawhood Lee's "United Through Christ, Bound to Each Other"), and a luncheon. An evening circle continues to meet on the second Wednesday after the Fellowship Dinner. Men of the Church has been meeting weekly September through May for several years, working through a book together and checking in on one another's lives.

Young adults in their twenties and thirties have their own ministry, with seasonal gatherings for fellowship - a fall party, a brewery night with card games, a Christmas party at a member's home - and short-term devotional studies together.

The Preschool on Grandin Road

RCPC Preschool has been serving young children of the church and the wider community since 1980, and the church's relationship with preschool-age children goes back even further. In 1967, the church launched a preschool program for physically handicapped children, one of the first of its kind in the Roanoke area; that program eventually became the REACH Program in Roanoke City Schools. The current weekday preschool was approved by Session in April 1980 and has been a permanent part of the church's education ministry ever since.

Director Betsy Prillaman leads a staff that guides children from twelve months through Pre-K through a program of spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental growth. Five classrooms are offered: Parent's Morning Out for children twelve months and older; a Two-Year-Old class; a Three-Year-Old class; a Young Fours class; and a Pre-K class. Each classroom supplements core learning with chapel, library, music, and Spanish. The day runs from 9:00 AM to noon, with Early Risers beginning at 8:30 AM and Lunch Bunch extending the day until 1:00 PM. Specials include Soccer Shots in the fall and spring, Bricks for Kidz for ages three and older, and Creative Movement for fully potty-trained threes and older.

Each student has a developmental portfolio called a "Me Book" that follows them through their years at the preschool. The classroom ratios are well below state requirements - three to one in PMO, five to one in the two- and three-year-old rooms, and seven to one in the four-year-old and Pre-K rooms. Children in the older classes are screened for kindergarten readiness with Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) in the fall and spring. The school follows Roanoke City's inclement weather schedule, opens the week after Labor Day, and closes the week before Memorial Day. Tuition assistance is available through the Barbara Carter Preschool Scholarship, established by Presbyterian Women in honor of the longtime church secretary.

Hands and Feet: Mission in Roanoke

Mission is not a department at Raleigh Court; it is a way of being the church. The Hunger Mission Group, founded in 2007 after a Sunday school class read Bob Dole and George McGovern's Ending Hunger Now, packs weekend food bags for 142 students at Hurt Park Elementary and another 112 at Lincoln Terrace Elementary each week, and supports food pantries at Woodrow Wilson Middle School and Lucy Addison Middle School in partnership with other local congregations. Volunteers purchase food, stock the church's pantry, and deliver bags to the schools.

RCPC members serve monthly at the Roanoke Area Ministries (RAM House) lunch program for those experiencing homelessness, prepare and serve meals, and deliver leftovers to RAM on Thursday mornings. The congregation partners with Christ Lutheran Church to host up to four families at a time through Family Promise, a cooperative of more than thirty area congregations that supports families experiencing homelessness as they move toward employment and permanent housing.

More than twenty RCPC members serve as tutors and aides at the West End Center for Youth, an after-school enrichment program in the West End neighborhood founded in 1979. The church has supported the Center for forty years with volunteer labor, board leadership, school supply drives, a Christmas Socks and Underwear Project, and major financial gifts from the Endowment Fund, including the purchase of a second eighteen-passenger mini-bus and a grant for the renovation of the children's bathrooms.

Other partnerships include CarePortal, through which the congregation meets material needs for vulnerable children and families referred by Roanoke City and County DSS and several local agencies; House of Bread, an ecumenical nonprofit co-founded by two RCPC members that mentors and trains women coming out of incarceration; Presbyterian Community Center in southeast Roanoke, which provides emergency aid, food access, and after-school education; Habitat for Humanity spring workdays on local builds; quarterly American Red Cross blood drives sponsored by the Pump-a-Pint mission group; the Rescue Mission; and the Bradley Free Clinic. The Justice, Equity, and Belonging Committee works to advance racial equity within the church and the wider community, and the Earth Care Committee, an Earth Care certified congregation, hosts events like the Blessing of the Animals and tree-planting days with the Roanoke City Tree Stewards.

Haiti and South Sudan: Neighbors Across the Ocean

Since 1998, RCPC has financially supported the teachers of the St. Timothee School in Larevoir, Haiti, seventy miles south of Port-au-Prince. The school is run by the Episcopal Church of Haiti and funded through the Haiti Education Foundation (formerly the Haiti Fund). It was named for the Rev. Dr. James Allison in 1997 in recognition of a $15,000 RCPC gift that built the cinderblock school to replace a palm-branch shelter. A lunch program begun in 2017 now feeds all the students, and the number of pupils has doubled. A solar-powered water purification system installed by RCPC mission teams in 2013-2014 provides clean drinking water to the school and the surrounding community. RCPC has also funded new classrooms, a library, a computer lab, an administrative room, terracing of the school grounds, repairs to the electrical system, and safety and security measures around the campus. An endowment gift in 2024 helped fund a well in South Sudan to provide clean drinking water there. Two members of the congregation currently serve on the Board of Directors of the Haiti Education Foundation.

The Sudanese Support Mission Group grew out of a 2002 ESL class for seventeen of the Lost Boys of South Sudan. Since then, the group has offered ESL classes, citizenship test preparation, tutoring, communication and computer skills, textbooks and laptops for college students, sewing supplies for a cooperative at St. James Episcopal Church, furniture and household goods, and the countless practical accompaniments - rides to biometrics appointments, court dates, citizenship interviews, and doctor's offices - that come with welcoming refugees into a new city. Through an Angel Tree Alternate Giving Program, the church has provided Christmas gifts to Sudanese children for more than fifteen years.

The Endowment Fund: Giving That Goes Back Out the Door

The RCPC Endowment was established by Session in 1985 as a long-term investment fund to support the charitable mission of the church. It is overseen by a Board of Directors that operates under the authority of Session, and its assets are invested through the New Covenant Trust Company, an affiliate of the Presbyterian Foundation. Three sub-funds make up the endowment: the Ministry Fund for internal programs and building needs, the Mission Legacy Fund, and the Maultsby Fund. Each year, a percentage of the fund's value must be disbursed into mission work in Roanoke and abroad.

Since 2009, the endowment has donated nearly two million dollars to dozens of organizations. Recent major gifts include $37,000 to Roanoke Area Ministries for shower facilities at its new building, $35,175 to LEAP for the West End Farmers' Market pavilion, $26,200 to the Rescue Mission for security upgrades, $25,000 to Tudor House to lease its first permanent space in the Jefferson Center, $24,000 to Huddle Up Moms for a mobile diaper bank, $32,000 to Restoration Housing for a recovery program for mothers in addiction, $20,000 to the Wild Way to purchase a bus, $10,000 to the Roanoke Valley SPCA for a roof replacement, $10,300 to the Abukloi Foundation for a well in South Sudan, and substantial support for Massanetta Springs, Camp Bethel, Children's Trust, Chris's Coffee & Custard, the Bradley Free Clinic, the Ronald McDonald House, and Senior Navigator. The endowment also funds ongoing building maintenance, including recent chapel roof repairs and HVAC work.

Congregational Care and the Pastoral Touch

Care for one another is woven into the weekly life of the church. The Visitation Committee pairs members with homebound congregants for monthly visits that often turn into deep friendships on both sides. It's a Calling is a ministry in which one caller each month checks in with everyone on the prayer list by phone or card. Wrapped in Love stitches baptism blankets for every infant baptized at Raleigh Court, ties fleece blankets for teenagers, and knits and crochets prayer shawls for members experiencing illness, grief, or other challenges. Meal Trains organize food deliveries for families with new babies, members recovering from illness or surgery, and families who have experienced a loss. The Funeral Reception Mission Group organizes and serves receptions after funerals and memorial services.

On Sundays, a team of ushers and greeters meets people at the door, offers a bulletin, and helps direct newcomers to Sunday school, the nursery, or the Sanctuary. Ushers serve in one-month rotations each year, while greeters sign up for individual Sundays. Ushers and greeters are always needed, and so are receptionists, who serve weekday shifts at the front desk between 8:30 AM and 4:30 PM, office assistants who help fold publications and prepare mailings, members of the Grounds and Building Support team who spread mulch and paint hallways, the Floral Guild that arranges flowers for the Chapel and Sanctuary, and the Chancel Guild that prepares communion elements and the liturgical pieces for each season.

The Columbarium and the Buildings on Grandin Road

Just outside the Gathering Area, reached through a pair of glass doors or through metal gates at the back of the church, lies the columbarium - a rectangular, garden-filled memorial space of roughly three thousand square feet with teak benches, flowering beds, and Japanese maple trees. It was envisioned by the Rev. Tupper Garden during the 1997 capital expansion, designed by Marsh Witt Associates, built by Lionberger Construction, and dedicated on September 19, 2004 in his honor. The columbarium was built in two phases; the second phase added 112 niches in 2016 so that all four panels could be filled, and 65 niches have been sold. Single niches are $1,200 and double niches are $1,800, with all proceeds returning to the Endowment Fund.

The buildings themselves tell the story of a century of growth. The 1958 sanctuary houses the great pipe organ and the stained glass windows that Andrew Whaley preached through in a "Worship Through the Windows" series during his first Christmas and Easter at RCPC. The 1997 expansion added the Gathering Area, the Allison Fellowship Hall (which seats 225), a commercial kitchen, an elevator, the columbarium, expanded preschool space, and additional classrooms. By the time the final check was mailed to the bank in 2005, the building debt had been retired. The chapel organ was added in 2018, a comprehensive stained glass study was completed in 2016 with an estimated $158,815 in repair needs and a $919,290 replacement value, cameras and a fob-keyless entry system were installed, parking lot lighting was upgraded to LED, the parking lot was resurfaced, and the 2019 flood of the chapel building led to months of repair work. A new round of chapel roof repairs is currently underway.

Fellowship Around the Table

Fellowship Dinner is a Wednesday-evening tradition. At 6:15 PM the congregation gathers in the Fellowship Hall for a shared meal, often prepared by a church group celebrating a milestone or marking a ministry. The dinners draw newcomers and longtime members, youth group kids and senior adults, and they have become one of the most reliable places for the intergenerational friendships that the church has come to be known for. A Saturday morning Breakfast Bunch for older members, a progressive dinner for youth during Advent, the Fall Festival's Organ Spooktacular, the spring church variety show, and the annual congregational retreat at Massanetta Springs round out the social calendar. The book club meets on the second Wednesday of each month, September through May, in the church library.

Becoming a Member

Anyone who wishes to follow Jesus Christ as Lord is welcome to join Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church. The path to membership begins with marking "wish to join" on the friendship pad during worship; someone will follow up. A New Member Class is offered periodically and is encouraged though not required. Prospective members meet with the elders of the Session to share their faith story. There are three ways to join: profession of faith and baptism for those who have never been baptized, transfer of letter from another congregation, and reaffirmation of faith for those who have been away from the church for a long time. Baptism is never repeated at RCPC; the church recognizes the baptism of every Christian tradition.

The Neighborhood and the World

Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church sits on Grandin Road in the Raleigh Court neighborhood of Roanoke, just down the street from Grandin Village. The church has long been a neighborhood church, and that sense of place is woven into how the congregation thinks about mission. Members know the neighbors whose houses they canvass for the Least of These drive. They know the principals at Hurt Park and Lincoln Terrace. They know the staff at the West End Center and the families who pass through the Family Promise program. The Mission Study Report of 2014 took this calling seriously, identifying the church's niche as a neighborhood congregation committed to Roanoke and to the world beyond.

Presbyterians trace their roots to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century and to the Church of Scotland. The PC(USA) numbers about 1.5 million members in just over 9,000 congregations. Raleigh Court is part of the Presbytery of the Peaks, a regional body of Presbyterian congregations that covenant together to support and encourage one another. Theology is held within the Book of Confessions, a collection of ten historic Reformed statements of faith, and the Book of Church Order guides the practice of worship, education, mission, and discipline. But as the church itself notes, the best way to learn about being Presbyterian is to come and be present.

The doors are open.