Jeff began to serve as our pastor in June 2022. He was born in Tampa, FL and was born again and baptized at West Broad Street Baptist Church in Tampa. Upon graduating from Tampa Bay Tech High School, he served in the Florida Army National Guard and attended the Baptist College of Florida, earning a B.A. in Theology and later an M.Div. from Andersonville Theological Seminary. He has served in several community ministries such as, Florida Baptist Disaster Relief, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Character Education Now, and a trustee of his alma mater, the Baptist College of Florida.
Pastor Jeff enjoys attending Sunday School class. In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with his family, reading, hiking and exploring the communities and culture of North Carolina. He is motivated by God’s infinite, matchless grace and a love for people.
Pastor Jeff is married to Adeena. Adeena is a veteran teacher currently teaching Chorus at Gamewell Middle. Together they have three daughters.
Layne was appointed to serve as Friendship Baptist Church's Minister of Music on June 12, 1994.
His love for music began at an early age and began taking piano lessons at age 7. He discovered his love for singing when he joined the choir at his child-hood church when in the 7th grade. In high school, he took freshman Beginning Chorus, and then followed up the other 3 high school years in Advanced Chorus. The choruses earned superior ratings each of those years. The chorus director taught Layne many things including how to lead and direct music. Layne sang with his chorus teacher a couple years in the Chorale to the Western Piedmont Symphony.
Layne loves all types of Christian music, ranging from Southern Bluegrass Gospel, Southern Gospel, Classical Hymnody, and Contemporary Christian. He especially loves those “toe-tapper” kind of songs that gets the auditorium involved with singing, tapping, clapping, and most of all worshipping Jesus Christ. Jesus is worth celebrating every day, and our goal is seeing people ministered to with lives affected in a good way and in the hope that many will accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. Layne also loves to see the children grow up through the church, to become good worshippers, singers, and musicians for Christ.
Layne has been happily married for 44 years to his wife, Sheila.
Christopher was appointed to serve as Friendship Baptist Church's administrative assistant on January 3, 2021.
Raised and homeschooled by Christian parents, he felt God's hand on his life and received Christ at an early age. After graduating high school in 2009, he went on to college at Western Piedmont Community College and took programs focusing on Business Management.
