First Baptist Church in Richmond-one of the oldest congregations of any denomination in Virginia-marked 225 years of ministry with a June 12 celebration that featured packed worship services, a specially-written anthem, historical displays, a luncheon and the burial of a time capsule.
By Robert Dilday
When First Baptist Church in Richmond moved to the corner of Monument Avenue and the Boulevard in 1928, the “suburban” site seemed far removed from its former home in the center of town near Virginia's state capitol.
But today the church, which is marking its 225th anniversary, is frequently praised for its commitment to remain in what 21st-century Richmonders think of as the inner city.
Hundreds of members and friends flocked to the church in Richmond's historic Fan district on June 12 to celebrate well over two centuries of ministry in central Virginia.
The church, one of the oldest of any denomination in the state, still draws as many as 1,200 worshippers each Sunday from the city and five counties that make up Richmond's metropolitan area.
“We have been a church in four different centuries,” pastor James Flamming told the congregation at the June 12 celebration. “But our heritage has remained the same. … If you want to know who we really are, don't look at our history. Look at the Lord who is the same yesterday, and today and forever.”
The anniverary celebration featured former staff ministers who led in worship and historial displays in the dining hall and gym. The sanctuary choir sang an anthem written for the occasion by Phil Mitchell, the church's minister of music.
Following the service, church members gathered around the congregation's venerable bell tower for lunch and later watched as children and adults buried a time capsule near the tower.
Flamming said the site was chosen because of the heritage of the bell, which is rung each Sunday before worship, as well as at weddings and funerals.
The bell hung in the tower First Baptist when it was located at the corner of Twelfth and Broad streets in the heart of the city. In 1862, the congregation offered the bell to the Confederate government to be melted into cannon. But a couple in the church, Mr. and Mrs. James Thomas Jr.-convinced that the bell had been cast to call believers to worship and not to war-bought the bell from the government for gold, at the time far more valuable than Confederate currency. They held it in safekeeping until the end of the war, when they returned it to the church.
The Thomases were “two members of this congregation [who] understood what it meant to keep their eyes on what Jesus stood for,” said Flamming. In his anniversary sermon Flamming recounted the founding of the church in 1780-which began when pastor Elijah Baker of Boar Swamp Baptist Church was impressed by the need for a Baptist presence in Richmond, to which the state capital had recently moved from Williamsburg.
Baker, whose church-now know as Antioch-is near what became the Richmond International Airport, sent Joshua Morris to be the new congregation's pastor.
“We were birthed because of missions and we have been that way ever since,” said Flamming. “We sent Lott Carey to Africa and we sent Lewis and Henrietta Shuck to China, and as I speak there are 20 across the face of the earth that have come through this church.”
Last year about 100 members of First Baptist participated in partnership missions, he said, “not to speak of the weekly service of our people who minister to those who have been marginalized by our city.”
After several moves from its initial location on Church Hill, the congregation eventually settled on Broad Street in a Greek Revival building-which, still standing, is among the facilities of the Medical College of Virginia.
The final move to Monument Avenue was the result of a generous gift of church member W. S. Forbes, who in 1920 donated a $150,000 city block “ as a tribute of love to my Savior and as a memorial to my sainted mother and wife.” The congregation moved into its new building in 1928.
In his sermon Flamming whimsically recounted the “conflicts that have dogged us as a church.”
“In the early days it seemes our congregation could argue just about anything,” he said. “But we grew out of it. We argued about whether we should have hymnals, whether we should have a choir. Well, they finally voted to have a choir, but they put them in the back. Nothing wrong with that, but then they had an argument on whether you ought to face the altar when you sing or face the choir.”
Apparently, not even Sunday school escaped the church's contentions. In her 1950 history of the church, Blanche Sydnor White wrote that Richmond's first Sunday school began in 1816 and met in First Baptist's gallery. Any problems in the teaching program were resolved in a weekly prayer meeting over which each member in turn would preside. Explicitly excluded from presiding, however, were any of the church's ministers, who according to a contemporary “habitually monopolize all the exercises” and so were not allowed to “interfere with the circle of prayer.”
By 1820 pastor John Courtney branded the Sunday school “a secular organization” and, apparently supported by the majority of the congregation, banished the group from the church's gallery.
A minority in the congregation, convinced of the Sunday school's value, left to form a new congregation-Second Baptist Church, the first of many churches started by First Baptist members.
Flamming said other, more recent, conflicts-including the two-decade dispute in the Southern Baptist Convention-impacted the church. But through it all, he said, the church has remained on mission. “In the midst of everything, I have never seen a more loving, accepting, tolerant church than this one,” he said.
“If you want to know who we really are, don't look at our problems-past, present and future. Look at our possibilities, which are made possible because of the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever.” <
Robert Dilday is associate editor of the Religious Herald.