Events Calendar

Join us for Worship each Sunday (except May 25 when Brown uses the building) at 10:00am

Christian Education for all ages will begin on September 7. There is a staffed nursery for preschoolers through out the summer.

Worship Services will be held outdoors (weather permitting) on June 22, July 27, and August 24.

A Time for Quiet Meditation and Reflection

Tuesdays – 12:00 – 1:00 (returns May 27)
Join us in the Auditorium for a few minutes or the full hour. Please enter and leave silently.

Book Groups

Wednesday Ladies Group at 1:00 via Zoom
How to End Christian Nationalism by Amanda Tyler

Thursday Evening at 5:45 via Zoom

For more information contact Linda Bausserman

Garden of Earthy Delights

Join us after church on June 1 to plant seeds.

Choir

You are invited to join the choir. Choir will continue through the end of June. We will meet each Sunday morning at 9:00 am.

Mark Your Calendar

On the weekend of October 11-12 we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of our historic building. (This is the weekend closest to Roger Williams banishment from Massachusetts for spreading “newe & dangerous opinions“.) We will have tours, speakers and music. Plans are still developing. So stay tuned.

Did you know? The Meeting House will be 250 years old in 2025. While you wait for the celebration here are some building facts from the book First by J.Stanley Lemons. (You can purchase the book at the Meeting House.)

At the December 11, 1911 meeting of the Charitable Baptist Society, a vote was taken to add an “additional water closet”. Our historian’s best guess is that the original water closet was added in 1902 when the sub-basement was dug out and a new steam heating plant was added. What we know for sure is that during the building’s 250th year, an ADA bathroom will be completed.

Until 1802, the basement of the Meeting House was primitive and unfinished. It had been rented out to local businessmen, was a practice room for a church choir, and had been used to store the hearse which the Charitable Baptist Society had imported from England in 1791.

In 1802, it was improved to create a meeting room, which was still dim and damp when the Sunday School began in 1819. As the Sunday School grew, more space was carved out. In 1837, the floor was leveled and finally in 1857, after years of debate, the whole lower region was excavated and reconstructed.

In February 1774, some of the leading men associated with the church began planning for a new larger building. In addition to deciding on the design of the building, they needed land. Unfortunately, the main parcel they wanted was owned by John Angell who despised the Baptists. So, an Anglican friend, William Russell Purchased the Angell property and sold it to the Charitable Baptist Society.

Monetary pledges were made to cover most of the cost of the meeting house. Those who could not give money donated labor and materials. Daniel Hawkins pledged £6 to be paid in timber & bords, and John Pettis pledged £9 to be paid in stones. The expense accounts also record “Licker at Raiseings & at other times…£22.

James Gibbs sketched four designs for the steeple of the Church of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fieldsin London, one of which was chosen and used in 1726. The other three appeared in Gibb’s Book of Architecture (1728), and Joseph Brown, architect for the Meeting House, picked one of those for the Meeting House.