16911 Redland Road
  Derwood, MD 20855
  301-330-4326

Hello! My name is Charlie Baile, and I'm the pastor here at Shady Grove Presbyterian Church. It's my privilege to welcome you and to thank you for visiting our website.

I believe that we are a healthy and spiritually growing church with great potential to serve our community and world as we are being changed by the Gospel of God’s grace. We seek to be a welcoming and warm church with a place for everyone who enters our doors from our diverse community. Our vision statement is this: "We envision Shady Grove Presbyterian Church to be a worshipping family of believers who live out the truth of Jesus Christ, who are prayerfully growing in his grace, and who lovingly reach out to others locally and around the world."

I have been here since October of 2002, and I love walking shoulder to shoulder with the members and staff here at Shady Grove. We would like to have the opportunity to meet you and welcome you to worship with us on Sunday mornings at 10:45 a.m. Wondering what to wear if it's your first Sunday? Typically we range from suit & tie to jeans, with the majority somewhere in the dressy casual range.

Before coming to Shady Grove Presbyterian Church I served as an Assistant Pastor of Adult Christian Education and Missions at Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church in Greenville, SC for 4½ years. I was ordained as a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America in 1998. Prior to that, I received my Masters of Divinity from Reformed Theological Seminary/Charlotte in the spring of 1997. I became a Christian at the age of 17 through the influence of my youth pastor in Lisbon, MD, who shared and modeled to me what a life yielded to Christ looks like.

If you were to ask me, "What is the theme of your ministry or what does your heart want to communicate?", I would say it is the ongoing need for the Gospel of Jesus Christ to change believers to deeply love people and to uproot the idols of our hearts. The right foot and the left foot of the Christian life are ongoing faith in Christ and repentance from our sin. As we grow in the Christian life, we need to continually ask ourselves, "Am I living more dependently on Christ or am I doing my duties as a Christian so that I will need God less?" The difference may seem subtle, but the implications are huge. One way of living leads to pride and callousness, and the other leads to humility and compassion. I know (and sadly continue to see) in my own life how pride is the biggest barrier to my experience of God’s grace and to being able to really love my family and congregation.

The good news for you and me is that Jesus loves sinners and that means that He really loves me. Those who own up to their own spiritual poverty and look to Christ for help are the ones who experience God’s grace. As we grow up in Christ we continue to see more and more of our own sinfulness and selfishness because God’s commandments are more on the front burner than ever for believers. This seems like bad news, but the good news is that as the Holy Spirit uses Biblical commands to convict us and correct us, we have all of these Biblical promises of a Savior who has already made us righteous and is making us holy. All of this amounts to the Cross of Christ becoming bigger and more beautiful for the believer. This is at the heart of worship.

In Christ,

Charlie

Charlie Baile

©2008 Shady Grove Presbyterian Church. Contact Webmaster at pat.semple@verizon.net.
Last updated on 2008.05.05, pps. Background image from In His Image Christian Graphics and Web Design.