After a decline in members over the last several years, Masonville Baptist Church held its last service on Sunday. Now, they’ve gifted their building to Abundant Life Baptist Church, which launched just more than 6 months ago and draws nearly 300 attendees weekly.
For the first few weeks, Abundant Life met at various locations for Sunday services, but they quickly grew to need a bigger space.
At the time, the answer came when they worked out a 6-month lease with the Isaac Sterett Adventure Foundation to use their facility at 1010 Allen Street.
With that lease ending earlier this month, Abundant Life began searching for a more permanent solution.
Meanwhile, Masonville Baptist Church (MBC) had the opposite problem of a building (located at 6601 US 231 in Utica) with dwindling memberships. Masonville recently lost its pastor and was down to about 20-30 attendees weekly.
“We weren’t getting any new members or any visitors,” said MBC Deacon Stan Fister. “We were trying to figure out what we might do next on whether we wanted a full-time pastor or a bi-vocational pastor.”
About 5 weeks ago, Dr. Nathan Whisnant, Associational Mission Strategist with the Daviess-McLean Baptist Association, filled in as pastor for Masonville.
Fister said Whisnant asked if MBC would entertain the idea of merging with another church, and they said yes. Hearing that Abundant Life had more than 200 members made the idea even more attractive.
“For us, it was so exciting. Originally, we were thinking of a merger, but they wanted to keep their name,” Fister said. “… But we understood they were already established. They had the numbers and we needed someone to fill a building. We had been praying for a long time to get people coming in.”
Two weeks after the conversation with Whisnant, MBC approved gifting their building to Abundant Life.
Abundant Life Interim Pastor Farrell Isenberg said their leadership then voted to receive the property “with a resounding yes, yes, yes.”
Fister has attended MBC for the last 65 years and can vividly recall the history of the church. He said it started in 1956 when the charter members broke off from Sugar Grove Baptist Church, and the original MBC building was erected in 1958. The first floor of the educational building was built in 1965, the second floor went up in 1969, and the new sanctuary was added in 1981. The most recent development was closing the breezeway connecting the two buildings and turning the original section into an office suite in 2003.
While the early years were full of expansion and sustained numbers, the last couple of decades trended in the other direction.
“If you go back to when people weren’t so busy on Sundays and people went to church, we were averaging probably 150 to 200 (members). That number had stayed pretty good, so in 1981 is when we realized we needed more area for the sanctuary,” Fister said. “Probably from around 1990, attendance just started gradually declining. Then the pandemic hit and we shut down. A lot of people just got out of the habit of coming to church, and a lot of people stream online so they can stay home. Before the pandemic, we would probably be around 60 or 70. Now we’re down to about 20 to 30.”
While a few of the charter members are still alive, Nelda Taylor was the only one still active at MBC.
“She was at our first service and our last service,” Fister said. “She was excited. That was one of the things we wanted to know, was how our only charter member felt. She said, ‘You know, we didn’t fail. Look what we’ve accomplished as a church. Now we’ve got somebody else that’s gonna come in and fill the building. It’s a blessing.’”
Isenberg said Abundant Life is grateful for MBC’s generosity and plans to honor the tradition that was built on the property.
“We’re trying to keep their history, maintain their legacy,” he said. “We’re going to have a legacy wall outside the sanctuary which will show their charter members.”
Isenberg was the preacher at Crosspointe Baptist for 30 years before they mutually decided it was time for something new.
“I was what we might call retirement age,” he said. “I was just planning to do some interims and supply preach when preachers were out of their pulpit. The position at Abundant Life became available, and I said we’d see how it goes. I love it. It’s a great place to be.”
Isenberg said Abundant Life is blessed by the age range of attendees.
“There are 40+ children involved in children’s ministry,” he said. “Then we have young adults, middle-aged adults, and seniors. It’s a well-balanced church.”
He said the rapid growth of the church is due to the atmosphere created by the members. He noted that nearly 30 people, of all ages, have already been baptized at Abundant Life.
“I think a lot of it can go back to the people themselves because they are very much evangelistic,” he said. “They want to see people saved, they want to see people involved in church. They want to see lives changed. Their outreach has been tremendous. Their attitude and their friendliness (are great). When you first walk through the door, everyone is greeting you, and they make you feel at home. I think that contributes to people wanting to come back.”
Isenberg said Abundant Life was thankful to the Isaac Sterrett Foundation for the opportunity to use that building for the last 6 months. As they make the move to the new building this week, he said they’re eager to have a place to call their own.
“The advantage of being in a building that’s your own is that you have it 24/7 and there are things you can do with different age groups, fellowship times that you can have, training meetings that you can have,” he said. “You can choose when you want to have a meeting. That’s a pretty important part of your church, just getting organized for the future, planning what you’re going to do next, and working with different teams to get that done.”
Isenberg said there would likely be some renovations down the road — such as expanding the parking and connecting the lots on either side of the building — but for now, they simply want to get in the building to begin services and get familiar with the space.
Abundant Life offers Sunday morning services beginning with Sunday School at 9 a.m. and worship at 10:15. They also have a Wednesday night service with classes for all ages beginning at 6 p.m.
Fister said he thinks many of the MBC members will join Abundant Life.
“We’ll be right in the same building with a lot of numbers, so we’re excited,” he said. “Most of our members live in this area and came to this church for a long time so they feel at home here. So I’m pretty sure most of them will join their congregation.”
