Special to IFN

First Baptist Church on Davie Avenue in Statesville will host its 150th anniversary celebration on Sunday, November 16. Dr. Nelson Granade, pastor, invites all friends of First Baptist Church to attend the celebration, which will begin at 10 a.m.

Dr. Tony McDade of Greenville, S.C., will deliver the message. McDade, who served the church as minister of education and administration from July 1996 through June 2003, currently leads the Greenville Area Interfaith Hospitality Network, an ecumenical organization committed to helping the homeless.

Following the worship service, a meal will be served in the Family Life Center. Reservations for the meal can be made by calling the church office at 704-873-7231.

First Baptist Church began November 21, 1875, when Elder W. R. Gwaltney, J.B. Boone, and G.W. Greene met in the Iredell County Courthouse with a small group of people, five men and ten women, to organize a Baptist church. The church continued to meet in the County Courthouse for Sunday School and Worship Services until 1880, when a one-room building was constructed in downtown Statesville on the corner of East Broad Street and North Tradd Street.

Around 1905 a cyclone damaged the building extensively, forcing the church to again hold services in the County Courthouse until 1907, when they moved into a new church built on the same lot. This church served them well through the years. As the church grew, church leaders began to look at the possibility of building a larger church. In 1945, the church purchased a 10-acre lot on the corner of Davie Avenue and Oakwood Drive.

On October 3, 1945, the congregation moved into the current sanctuary. In 1972, the church added a new Educational Building, and in 1988 the Family Life Center was completed.

First Baptist Church was the mother church to Western Avenue Baptist Church and Front Street Baptist Church. Through the years the church has been blessed with outstanding ministers and associate ministers. The church has ordained 18 men and women to the ministry, and has sponsored 15 missionaries.