Here at First Baptist Kingsville, we are committed to becoming fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ and are inviting others to do the same.
So, what does that look like?
A Church That's Been on a 200-Year Journey
This year [2023], First Baptist Kingsville will celebrate an incredible 200 years of God’s faithfulness in its church, placing it among the longest-running congregations in the CBOQ family.
Founded in 1823 on a farm in what would later become the town of Kingsville, the First Baptist Church was planted by Richard Herrington, a travelling horseback preacher who ministered for over 50 years to Baptists from the Detroit River to St. Thomas, Ontario. Although Elder Herrington was responsible for helping get many Baptist congregations off the ground in the Essex-Kent territory, it was First Baptist Kingsville on his own farm that became his home base.
Twenty-four years later, Herrington’s son-in-law, Alex Augustine, would pick up the torch to build a more permanent home for First Baptist Kingsville — a frame construction building with room for 300 congregants on the property where the church has resided in various forms since 1847.
Although First Baptist Kingsville has remained on the same parcel of land for 176 years, Augustine’s original building is no more. While it was expanded several times — a basement was built in 1920 to make room for a Sunday School, new halls were add- ed in 1948 and 1958, and a large kitchen and nursery were added in 1965 — by 1973, the congregation decided that it was time for a new church building.
With a $200 donation from the youth group and God’s faithful provision, the former sanctuary and parsonage were demolished in 1975 to make way for a new sanctuary and auditorium. Since then, First Baptist Kingsville’s facilities have seen two major re- models and the addition of administration offices in the 1990s.
Today, First Baptist Kingsville is the sole Baptist church in the small town of Kingsville, Ontario — the most southern town in Canada — and one of only three in the larger Kingsville municipality. It’s also home to families that can trace their heritage back nearly to its founding, with some going back as many as five generations. The story of First Baptist Kingsville is not unlike that of many other churches, with the same cycles of dryness and revival that many congregations go through — just over a much longer period of time.
For instance, a letter from the 1870s expressed a feeling that the cause of the Baptist church was hopeless, with a lack of spiritual vigour in Kingsville that left little to build upon. However, records showed a revival in the decade following, with numerous baptisms and additions to the church family. In the 1890s, one of Herrington’s sons also planted the Brooker Church near Cottam, Ontario, a small town about ten kilometers away that’s since become amalgamated into the greater municipality of Kingsville. Brooker remained associated with First Baptist Kingsville, steadily growing and eventually setting out independently in 1960.
Despite its ups and downs, First Baptist Kingsville has a long legacy of ministering to the spiritual needs of the community, both in the local Kingsville area and through missions abroad. Pastor Dave Page, who currently co-pastors First Baptist Kingsville with his wife, Pastor Marlee Page, carries on the mission and legacy of the church today, which he describes as “to go outside these four walls and help people that don’t know Jesus Christ come into a relationship with Him.”
“This is not ‘Fortress Kingsville’. This is a launching pad.”
– Pastor Dave Page
To that end, First Baptist Kingsville has enjoyed a strong relationship with Canadian Baptist Ministries (CBM) over the years, with five mission trips to Bolivia and one to the Dominican Republic, plus regional and global outreaches. A sixth excursion
to Bolivia is also in the planning stages for 2024, following three other recent mission adventures done as part of CBM’s STEP, a global discipleship program that keeps it actively involved with the churches it works with in Bolivia and the Bolivian Baptist Union.
However, First Baptist Kingsville hasn’t focused solely on spreading the gospel abroad; it’s also been a spiritual cornerstone of the Kingsville community for 200 years. While much about the church’s specific contributions have been lost to history, parts remain that show how much First Baptist has been appreciated by the town of Kingsville.
Heather Peterson, a longstanding member of the congregation who served in the youth group that first sponsored the new building in 1973, shared an anecdote about this kind of community support that she recently came across while researching the church’s history. In 1944, when the church was putting in a Woodstock organ at a cost of $3,000 (approximately $52,000 in 2023 dollars), 25% of the funding for this new organ actually came from people outside of the congregation, who “felt that such a historic church which had served its community so faithfully needed a better organ.” Unfortunately, Peterson found nothing in the documents that explained what that faithful service was specifically, but the willingness of those who didn’t even attend to come up with the equivalent of $13,000 in today’s money speaks volumes about how FBK has been viewed by its community over the years.
First Baptist Kingsville has been running a Vacation Bible School (VBS) program for all the town’s children as far back as the records go. Today, it’s the only VBS in Kingsville, and it regularly attracts as many as 150 kids from four different churches, including the local Anglican and United churches, plus the community at large.
Kingsville Public School (KPS) is also adjacent to the church, sort of a “backyard neighbour,” as Peterson puts it, and is the daytime home to around 500 kids during the school year across the whole economic spectrum. This gives First Baptist Kingsville many opportunities to get involved with the youth in the community, and the Essex Country School Board has been very open to this support.
Shortly after former Pastor Jim Bagley came to FBK in 2004, his wife Tracey, who would eventually serve as Christian Education Director, proposed the church sponsor a new “Adopt-a-Christmas Child” program at the nearby school. Heather Skeates, who served as Church Secretary at the time, recounted how they set this up with the principal at KPS, who had just moved to the area and had no relationship with the church. The principal thought it was a great idea and asked if the church would also be willing to sponsor a breakfast program for the kids. The school didn’t want any money, just volunteers and somewhere to host it. Pastor Jim and Tracey agreed, and for over a decade, up to 120 kids would get off their school buses three mornings a week and head straight into the church for a hot meal. “It was awesome, and we got to know kids in the community, and they felt loved,” Skeates said. Every year, the school would also invite Pastor Jim to open the graduation ceremonies in prayer — an opportunity Skeates believes wouldn’t have likely come if they hadn’t developed a relationship with the school.
It’s not just about feeding the kids, though. First Baptist Kingsville also offers a free community meal on the third Wednesday of every month, typically hosting around 50 people, although attendance can grow to well over 100 some months, particularly during the Christmas season. In addition to showing the love of Christ to the town, this also ties into the church’s main purpose — outreach and evangelism.
“The purpose of the church is not pastoral care.
The purpose of the church is not community meals. The purpose of the church is not even really Sunday school. The purpose of the church is to go outside these four walls and help people that don’t know Jesus Christ come into a relationship with Him.”
– Pastor Dave Page
A few years ago, First Baptist Kingsville began running an Alpha program. While that originally ran mostly inside the church, Pastor Dave says the community is ripe for Alpha, and they’ve become more focused on drawing in outsiders, seeing many come to Christ and be baptised in the church. They’re also expecting to start a Cafe Church program this Christmas season, which will hopefully attract more folks from the community and eventually direct them into Alpha and then into the church’s Discipleship Pathway program, which helps them to grow in becoming a member of the body of Christ.
Heather Peterson describes this kind of community- focused outreach as being something that’s been a gradual shift over the past two or three decades, from the 1960s and 70s when First Baptist Kingsville, like many churches of its era, focused predominantly on serving the needs of its congregation to instead going out in the community. However, at some point, Peterson said they asked themselves, “If FBK were to cease to exist tomorrow, would the community notice?”
“As a congregation, we’re willing to look toward where it is that God is calling us and not be so afraid of change that we miss the opportunities that are there for us.”
– Heather Peterson
That led to a refocus where it became not merely about inviting people into the church but asking, “Where can we go out and what can we do?” to reach people who might otherwise never dream of walking through the doors of FBK.
This has become a delightful example of God’s sovereign preparation since the demographic of the Kingsville area has shifted dramatically over the past two decades — and He ensured First Baptist was ready for it.
Pastors Dave and Marlee came to First Baptist Kingsville in September 2021. Despite both hailing from Kingsville, neither had attended FBK before the calling came to become pastors there. In fact, both had pastored at separate churches but were taking a break when Pastor Jim Bagley announced his retirement at FBK, and God called Dave and Marlee to approach the FBK search committee with a proposal for a co-pastorate.
Unbeknownst to them, God was already at work in the search committee, which Heather Skeates noted had already been considering the idea of hiring a woman for the role but felt that the congregation wouldn’t be ready to accept a female pastor. So, when Pastors Dave and Marlee approached with the idea of a co-pastorate, “God worked it out beautifully,” Skeates said.
“Even though we’re a little wee-wee church in a little wee-wee town, we’re ahead because we have a couple co-pastoring, and it gives us the best of both worlds with a Pastor who can meet the needs of women who would be uncomfortable speaking with a man.”
– Heather Skeates
Further, as Pastor Dave explains, Kingsville is also “going through a bit of a renaissance right now where everybody with a two million dollar home is selling it in Toronto” and setting off for quiet communities — and for many of these folks, that’s Kingsville. This has resulted in an influx of relatively well-off and middle-aged folks who are mostly un- churched. With money to spare and lots to do in Kingsville, going to church is often the farthest thing from their mind.
“We view it as an opportunity. We have a demographic that is unchurched and dealing with mortality issues for the first time in their life and wondering what their purpose is now that they’re retired. It’s a rich environment.”
– Pastor Dave Page
Pastor Dave sees this as a tremendous opportunity, but it’s also a group that’s much harder to reach as most of these people are disconnected from anything to do with religion. Plus, they have options. “It’s one thing when people are suffering or homeless to find religion,” Pastor Dave adds, but “when you have everything, it’s different.”
Going into the next 200 years, Pastor Dave and Heather share the same hopes for where First Baptist Kingsville will go and the priorities that should be set. Heather Peterson said she’d like to see FBK continue to “operate as if our walls were invisible” since “much of what we do as a church should happen outside the walls.” However, she emphasises her hope that the congregation will continue to join together corporately in prayer to seek God’s will and “look for where it is that He’s at work and where He would have us join Him.”
“We’re a small church, doing small things, but they really matter to God.”
– Heather Skeates
Heather Skeates concurs by sharing one of her favourite quotes, “God is working all around us, we just need to see where we can join in,” and adds that she sees people who sit in the pews every week and “wonder if they even get it.” Her prayer is that “more people will get it and realise the gift we’ve been given and want to pass it on to others.”
Heather Peterson adds that she doesn’t want anybody to get the wrong impression and believe that FBK is a perfect church; she says there have been many struggles, but God’s faithfulness has always led them through.
“There are lots of ways that God has regularly shown Himself through FBK, and some of the biggest ways are to be so faithful and have brought us through the rough times. All the glory to Him.”
– Heather Peterson
For her hope for First Baptist Kingsville, Pastor Marlee cited Hebrews 12:1-3 as expressing “hope through generations,” — that hope will continue on as long as we keep our eyes on Jesus.
“We are stewards, for a period of time, of a church that’s been on a 200-year journey.”
– Pastor Marlee Page
Pastor Dave’s and Pastor Marlee’s prayer for Kingsville is that God will bring many of the area’s unchurched people into the church community.
“Our job, as Pastors, is to equip the congregation to go out and help these people meet Jesus.”
