124 Years and Ready for More!
On September 21, 1898, at 11:00 o’clock in the morning, our church was formed here in the Poplar Springs community as a home base for ministry and mission in Jesus’ name! Christ Followers from Cleveland County named the church Poplar Springs Baptist Church because they envisioned a “missionary Baptist church” near the tall poplar trees surrounding the springs at the foot of the hill. They constituted the new church with the following vision on their lips: “Having the glory of God and the extension of the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus in view and looking to the Holy Ghost for guidance!”
Those original words of vision succinctly declare the purpose of the church of Jesus Christ into which we continue to live today. From our home base in the Poplar Springs community, our mission is to live lives that give glory to God as we join him in his kingdom purposes taking the good news of Jesus to our neighbors near and far! And it truly is good news that we have to share!
On that September Wednesday in 1898, the believers who gathered to constitute our church sang together a hymn that was about 30 years old at the time, What a Friend We Have in Jesus. Their conviction was that the journey of ministry into the future would not be accomplished by their own power. Rather, they knew that Jesus had declared himself their friend and he promised to be with them always as they served in his name. This is our conviction too! Jesus, whom the Scriptures observe as “a friend of sinners,” brings us, and our neighbors, the good news of God’s forgiveness and grace for the living of our days. We are not in this on our own – we’d make a mess if that were the case. Rather, Jesus lifts us when we fall and empowers us to live as his people in the world! He is, sure enough, our friend, and friend to everyone we meet! Thus, we bear witness to this good news.
At the beginning of our church history book, written down in 1973, Mrs. John Berry Hamrick reminded us that, “History is made by those who dare, recorded and preserved by those who care!” That being so, let’s embrace our place as the ones who dare to live the next phase of our Poplar Springs story, saying to all we meet, “What a friend we have in Jesus!”
In the Love of Jesus,
Tony Tench