First Baptist Church of Birmingham

First Baptist Church of Birmingham is a Southern Baptist congregation located at 2209 Lakeshore Drive in Homewood.

History

Jonathan Hillyer arrived in Birmingham in the fall of 1871 as a missionary on behalf of the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. On June 9, 1872 he chaired a meeting in the Bryant Building with the aim of founding a new church in the city. The group met again on June 21 to organized the congregation and elected Hillyer as pastor. A month later the Elyton Land Company donated a lot on the corner of 6th Avenue North and 22nd Street for the erection of a church building.

The church worshipped in 3 different facilities throughout their first 30 years. Construction of the first building began in 1873 under the church's second pastor, E. T. Smythe. During construction the Baptists met at First Methodist Church of Birmingham and First Presbyterian Church of Birmingham.

A second church building was completed in February 1886 on the same site. During its construction the congregation, which had grown to 500, met at O'Brien's Opera House, and also established two missions, West End Baptist Church in the Spring of 1885 and Southside Baptist Church the following December.

In 1903, the church dedicated its third and longest-standing home at its downtown site. An education building was constructed nearby in 1926, providing space for church ministry as well as office space for other companies and the first [[Baptist Book Store]. Throughout this time, many members of this congregation served in denominational life and in the community, including support for the Baptist Hospital.

Civil Rights era

The Civil Rights era greatly affected First Baptist Church. Throughout this time, the church became a growing commuter congregation as the neighborhood around the church changed. However, the church remained committed to ministering in their downtown location. As members had to face the issues of race, the church placed a toll on pastors who served it. In the Birmingham campaign of 1963, African-American visitors were welcomed by pastor Earl Stallings to the congregation, much to the ire of some segregationalists in the congregation. Stallings was one of the ministers to whom Martin Luther King, Jr addressed his "Letter from the Birmingham Jail." Community ministries led other African-American families to attend the church in the late 1960s. In 1970, one family applied for membership, leading to a sharp divide in the congregation. Herbert Gilmore, pastor of the church at this time, was very supportive of allowing these prospective members to join, even leading to a move to remove him as pastor. The division in the congregation, which also included issues of theology and personality, led Gilmore to leave the church to form the Baptist Church of the Covenant.

New location

In 1984, First Baptist voted to move from downtown to a new facility on Lakeshore Drive, on the location of the President's Mansion at Samford University. They sold their property to AmSouth Bank, and it has since been demolished.

Pastors

• June - October 1872: John Hillyer
• February 1873 - January 1874: E. T. Smythe
• 1874: C. A. Woodson
• 1874 - October 1877: A. J. Waldrop
• December 1877 - 1884: I. H. Hendon (with David Purser as co-pastor)
• 1884: W. O. Bailey
• 1885 - March 1889: David Purser
• September 1889 - 1893: W. L. Pickard
• April 1893 - June 1, 1901: B. D. Gray
• August 1901- Summer 1918: A. J. Dickinson
• February 1, 1919-1936; James Hobbs
• J. T. Ford
• 1961-1965: Earl Stallings
• 1966-1968: James Landes
• Andrew Tamping
• Samuel R. Jones, Jr
• Tom Caradine
• Anton Fourie
• Stan Lewis

References

• Bass, Jonathan. "Blessed are the Peacemakers: Martin Luther King, Jr., Eight White Religious Leaders, and the ""Letter from Birmingham Jail" Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001.
• Flynt, Wayne. Alabama Baptists: Southern Baptists in the Heart of Dixie. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1998.

External Links

• First Baptist Church of Birmingham website