Sunday

Pastor Tony Credle is known for his stylish footwear. This Sunday, he sports gray Italian leather dress shoes to his service at West Branch Missionary Baptist Church in Bayboro. The shoes are laceless with a pointy toe. He ordered them online.

“My sister and I walked to school, just down the road here,” he tells me after the service. The church is on Neal’s Creek Road, where his family and his grandparents lived in neighboring houses. “I wore shoes that were cheap. Walking through that wet grass, they would deteriorate. Your big toe would show.” That’s why the shoes he is wearing today are “really fancy,” he says. “I like nice shoes.”

Pastor Credle, who is 54, first attended West Branch when he was 16. Before that, he belonged to a different church.

“I remember the day I first went. There was a youth revival. My mother was a church musician. She played the piano. I didn’t want to go. But at the same time, I put on the outfit she bought me.” The old wooden church was packed with choir members. “I was hooked,” he remembers. “I had no idea I would be the pastor someday. Now I’m coming up on my 20th year here.”

In 2014, the original wood-frame building was torn down and rebuilt. Next to the churchyard is a cemetery where 20 members of the Credle family are buried. Pastor Credle’s mother was buried there a year ago.

“Fortunately, we didn’t lose any members to corona,” Pastor Credle says, meaning that none of his congregation has died of Covid-19. Still, his mother and another member passed away during the pandemic from other causes.

During this Sunday’s service, the congregation is spread out across the nave’s 24 pews. Many pews hold just one person or family. The parishioners are wearing shined shoes and pressed clothes; skirts with pantyhose; hats with veils and flowers. Gray and salmon-pink are popular colors this morning. An elderly woman is helped into a pew from her wheelchair. A family arrives late with two babies in tow.

Everyone brings their own Bible. Most are well-worn, with tagged or dog-eared chapters. The exceptions are the deacons, older men who wear suits and sit in the front row; they read from Bible apps on their phones. Most of the congregation looks younger than one would expect for Pamlico County, which has an aging population. The 2000 census says that 47 percent of county residents report attending church.

Most of West Branch’s parishioners are vaccinated, Pastor Credle says. Anyone who isn’t has to wear a mask. At the front door, everyone must sign a waiver to release the church of liability in the event they are infected with the virus in the building. Pastor Credle wrote the waiver himself after researching ones that have been used at sports events. Several other churches in the county use his waiver.

“Three churches in the county stayed open during corona,” he says. West Branch was not one of them. It moved services online on the last Sunday of March, 2020. Pastor Credle delivered sermons via conference call and Facebook Live. Though he resumed in-person services in July, the church still offers them over the phone and online for those who want them.

Because of the conference calls and streaming, Pastor Credle says West Branch’s fellowship grew during the pandemic to include people who live out of state. His church, as well as others in the county that offered remote services, saw an increase in giving as well.

This Sunday, as usual, the service features a four-piece band and a choir. Pastor Credle has two microphones on his podium next to his phone, which is on speaker and dialed in to the conference line.

After several fast-paced songs, he slows his delivery. One of the keyboardists plays notes to emphasize pauses or certain words.

Each of Pastor Credle’s sentences ends with a stomp of his fancy shoes, and he grows louder and louder until the full band kicks in and his sermon becomes a song that he and the choir are singing. He takes a microphone off the podium and walks with it down, closer to the congregants. They are in thrall to his performance, standing, swaying and shaking their heads. A few wave their arms in the air. Sweat beads on the pastor’s forehead.

He urges them to honor their responsibilities—to God, to church and to their community. Then, they all bow their heads and pray.