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Line Creek Baptist makes move to Coweta

By J. FRANK LYNCH
jflynch@theCitizenNews.com

Another church has left Peachtree City, and this time it’s one of Fayette County’s oldest.

Line Creek Baptist Church held services for the last time Sunday on a hillside overlooking Ga. Highway 54 West where it has stood since 1869.

This weekend, it will hold Sunday school and worship for the first time at a new temporary location at East Coweta Middle School.

Eventually, Line Creek will build a new 20,000-square-foot building on about 15 acres of land it bought last year on Bob Smith Road in eastern Coweta County.

The church, whose membership of about 500 includes some of Fayette County’s most notable family names, recently closed a deal to sell its seven-acre property to RAM Development.

As part of the deal, the church’s cemetery will remain, protected from future commercial development on all four sides by towering concrete retaining walls.

The sale took years of negotiation to finalize. Multiple deeds to the property originating more than 100 years ago stipulated that the land revert back to the original owners should the church ever move or sell.

Church leaders had to go to court to settle the matter. Details were kept private, as was the final sale price of the property.

The church was limited at its Peachtree City site, where driveway access was made near impossible by recent commercial growth and highway construction.

This week, volunteers worked every day to move the church possessions out of the old building and into storage, including pews, hymnals, Sunday school furniture and even the grand piano from the sanctuary.

A huge crowd turned out for the last Sunday in Peachtree City, said a member who answered the phones Thursday afternoon.

Former members came from all around to enjoy singing and dinner on the grounds.

The move is bittersweet, Pastor Bobby Carpenter has said.

“We realize that if we’re going to continue to go on as a church, we’ve got to find a place to go,” Carpenter said last year.

“But we’ll try to move on without losing contact with where we came from.”

The church plans to keep the Line Creek name, Carpenter said.

Line Creek Baptist is just the latest church to leave Peachtree City, where vacant land to expand church buildings is hard to come by.

Braelinn Baptist Church sold its south Peachtree City campus to Landmark Christian School and is building new facilities on Ga. Highway 74 North in Tyrone.

And Christ Our Shepherd Lutheran Church is considering an offer to sell its prime location at the corner of Hwy. 54 and Peachtree Parkway to Walgreens.

Through the years, numerous smaller congregations have relocated to eastern Coweta, including Christ the King Charismatic Episcopal Church, Peachtree City Church of God and Trinity Fellowship.