Stones River Baptist Church
The History Of Our Church
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MAY 1952 - MAY 2002
IN May of 1952, fourteen people, mostly military, met with the representatives of the Concord Baptist Association to consider the need for a new work in the Sewart Air Force Base area of Smyrna for there was no Baptist church for the military personnel and their families to attend except Smyrna First Baptist Church. The decision was made by First Baptist Church. The decision was made by First Baptist church, Smyrna, Concord Baptist Association and the Airmen and their families to establish the Stones River Baptist Church.
The first building was built using scrap materials from the new Wherry Housing area off Weakly road. On July 30, 1952, regular services were begun and on August 10, 1952, the church was duly constituted with twenty-seven charter members. The church was planned and construction began with Rev. Dwayne Amburn, Pastor, giving spiritual leadership. The original church building was raised from the ground up in just three days. On October 24 at 9:00
a.m. the foundation and floor joists were all that stood. By 3:00 p.m. on October 25, the walls had been raised and the roof rafters put in place. On October 26 at 9:30 a.m., the church met for their first worship service in their new building with thirty-five people in attendance while the sun peeked through the still unfinished roof. God has always had his hand on Stones River Baptist Church, a special church, filled with special people.
The church met for eleven years in the original building. This building was bricked and served an Annex to the Main Auditorium until is was torn down in April 1998 to make room for a two-story Educational Building and expansion of
our A-Frame Sanctuary.
Due to God's enormous blessings upon the church, our congregation was moved to construct the A-frame Sanctuary in 1963. This building was dedicated on October 21, 1963, and has served well the harvesting of souls for Jesus in the community for more than thirty-five years.
In early 1975, it became obvious that a larger, more comfortable, more efficient educational facility was needed. The congregation looked forward to taking the third step of faith, and through the selling of bonds, raised the money to build an Educational Building which would house a fellowship hall, offices, nursery, kitchen and nineteen classrooms.
On March 21, 1976, the Grover Kagy Educational Building was dedicated to the Lord for the teaching and training of God's people. On September 3, 1989 a note burning was held to celebrate the retirement of all indebtness against the Stones River Baptist Church. To God be the glory!
On March 1998, the process of tearing down our original Sanctuary to make room for the construction of a two-story
Educational Building was begun. The process of construction was a lengthy one, but on Father's Day, June 13, 1999, we entered our
new facilities. Praise be to God. The new two-story building is beautiful and houses a full Fellowship Hall and Kitchen, plus a spacious
storage room behind the Kitchen. The second floor also has six Sunday School Rooms, a Bride/Prayer Room, and men's and ladies restrooms. On the first floor is a beautiful Office Suite which contains the Pastor's Study, the Secretary's Office, the Minister of Music
Office, and Conference Room. In addition, there are three Pre-School Rooms, a large Nursery, elevator, and men's and ladies' restrooms. During construction, our existing Educational Building, the Kagy Building, was joined to the new building and existing. Sanctuary by a spacious foyer. Our Sanctuary, which was built originally in 1963, was completely renovated, adding a large foyer which
contains a ladies' and men's restroom. In addition, a balcony was added and the church was extended forward, increasing our seating.
Capacity to 465. We also added two dressing rooms and a state of the art Baptistery to our new Sanctuary. As you can see, God has His
hand on this church. As glorious as the past has been, there promises to be increased blessings in the future. October 3, 1999 the buildings were dedicated in the glory of God.
This church has been blessed to have wonderful Pastoral Leadership and faithful people of vision throughout her forty-six years of ministry.
The Pastors who have served faithfully the Stones River Baptist Church are listed below: |
