First Baptist Church celebrates 150 years

GRUNDY CENTER - Looking at church statistics across the nation, Pastor Nathan Barkley of the First Baptist Church in Grundy Center says the trend over the last 10 years has led to an increased popularity towards larger churches in larger cities, with larger congregations; but that’s not the case for the First Baptist Church in Grundy Center, which is celebrating 150 years this Sunday.
 
“Our church, along with other churches around Grundy Center, are unique in that we’ve bucked that trend of the downward spiral for small churches,” Barkley said. “I’m on my fifth year here, and we have more people attending now than we have for a long time. You see so many small church populations dying out, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here.”
 
Barkley says there’s a rich history behind the First Baptist Church in Grundy Center; strong foundations that prepared them for 150 years of service.
 
“Since the late 1800s, our church has been one of the largest Baptist Churches in Iowa,” he said. “If you read any church history, you’ll usually find our church at least mentioned in there somewhere because it’s essentially one of the oldest and largest Baptist Churches in Iowa due to how people expanded West way back when. You won’t find a lot of churches as old as ours on the West Coast, simply because of the logistics of expansion westward.”
 
Barkley says he has found people all over the place who have a connection to the First Baptist Church in Grundy Center in some way, shape or form.
 
“I went to school in North Carolina, and after I was called to come here, I found out one of my professors in college grew up in this church; there’s connections everywhere,” he said. “There’s a lot of history in this church and in the county, and it’s so neat to be a part of that.”
 
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