QCity Metro54%
Friendship Missionary Baptist Church surveys community on 'Friendship Village' development 11%
By QCity Metro Staff19%
7/16/2026, 7:33:08 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Attempt to Sell a Product or Service, and Optimism Bias, with Indoctrination as the most egregious example at 9.2% saturation with 51 hits. Analysis detected 421 faulty-reasoning hits from 554 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 28.6% and a BS Rank of 11% (17,160 of 19,233 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 89.20% of the article peer group.
Friendship Missionary Baptist Church is calling on its congregation and West Charlotte residents to help shape the long-term vision for "Friendship Village," a planned development slated for church-owned land.
The prominent church, located along the Beatties Ford Road corridor near Interstate 85, launched an online and in-person survey to gather feedback on potential community uses for a 91-acre tract of land it controls.
Friendship Village calls for community and congregation feedback via social media post.
Friendship Missionary Baptist Church facebook account
In a social media announcement outlining the initiative, the church noted it is "prayerfully planning for the future" and seeking feedback on concepts spanning housing, economic development, healthcare, education and recreation.
Early suggestions floated in an informational church video included senior housing, a commercial retail block, a grocery store, an expanded sportsplex, hospice care facilities and community park spaces.
In the video, the Rev.
Dr.
Clifford A.
Jones Sr., the church's senior pastor, noted that the project is the actualization of a vision first discussed in the late 1970s and early 1980s by his predecessor, the Rev.
Colemon W.
Kerry Jr., and early church leadership.
The church's video indicated a desire to host community forums to review survey data and develop recommendations for a "phase one" development rollout, with the hope of breaking ground as early as 2027 or 2028.
Church leadership emphasized that all planning elements remain fluid and did not offer a timeline for making a decision.
"Nothing is in cement," Jones said in the video message.
"I want you to dream.
As you look at where we are in the west Charlotte corridor ... as you visualize this, what do you see for housing?
A commercial block?
I need each of you to pray about this.
Enter the dialogue."
Friendship joins a growing list of prominent Black churches in Charlotte that have developed their own properties.
Most have worked in partnership with public and private funders to build affordable housing, which is in short supply nationwide.
In March 2024, Little Rock A.M.E.
Zion Church opened Varick On 7th, a 105-unit mixed-use apartment building with affordable and market-rate units in Charlotte’s First Ward.
That same year, Mayfield Memorial Missionary Baptist Church completed Sugaree Place, a 51-unit affordable complex on West Sugar Creek Road, serving families earning 30-80% of the area median income (AMI).
At St.
Paul Baptist Church, officials partnered with outside funders to build a village of 121 affordable rental and for-sale units for households earning no more than 60% of AMI.
And The Park Church, one of Charlotte’s largest Black congregations, is looking to begin Phase II of Gilfield Park on land the church owns along Beatties Ford Road.
Phase 1, completed in 2023, included 80 apartments for residents 55 and older earning 30-80% of AMI.
Charlotte historian Tom Hanchett said the trend is national, encompassing faith-based organizations of all races and denominations.
“We are short of affordable housing,” he said.
“And scripture, no matter which scripture you read, says religious organizations should care for ‘the least of these,’ and homeless people would fall into that category.”
In other instances across the country, Hanchett said, some older congregations that have lost memberships are using surplus land and housing developments to shore up their finances.
Glenn H.
Burkins contributed reporting.
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