Ten years ago this month, our church building caught fire. The stories are still told — the smoke rising over Main Street, the long drive to a parking lot that suddenly looked unfamiliar. And yet, in the days and weeks that followed, this congregation discovered something no flame could touch: a freedom that does not live inside walls.
That first Sunday in the Grand Hall, when First Baptist gathered to worship without its sanctuary, the truth became clear. The church is not the building. The church is the people. It was a conviction our Baptist ancestors had long insisted on — no walls of brick or steel define the freedom of a soul to worship God according to conscience.
On July 19, we will gather for a special service marking the tenth anniversary of the fire, sharing stories and giving thanks for how faithfully God carried us through. This will help us all carry our story forward to those who come after us.
This July, as America marks 250 years of freedom and we remember ten years since the fire, let us remember our Savior who frees us from every kind of bondage, and belong to a people who have always known that the church is not a place, but a beloved gathering of free and faithful souls.