A History of our Church
Immanuel Baptist Church was born out of a commitment to biblical teaching and the authority of Scripture. A group of spiritually concerned Christians called upon Dr. James T. Jeremiah and Dr. J. Irving Reese to advise and assist them in starting a new Baptist work in Arcanum. The first meeting of the church was held at the farm home of Mr. and Mrs. Loren Brown on Sunday, June 24, 1951. Twenty-nine persons were present, including current members Dorothy Besecker, Nick Brown, and Dick and Carolyn Davison. The first prayer meeting was held the following Wednesday at the Davison home.
Approximately one month later the church called Tom Younger as their first pastor. Since its beginning the church has had nine pastors and two interims. Soon after the church was established, it was decided to join in fellowship with: the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC).
In less than a year the church had purchased its first property where the American Legion building once stood, the same ground upon which the church presently stands. The first floor of the building was used for services, while the pastor and his family moved into the second floor.
By December of 1952, one and a half years after the first meeting, Sunday school attendance was over 90. Near midnight on the 13th of that same month a fire broke out and ruined virtually everything in the building. "With God's help, we'll build a new church in the ashes of the old one," Pastor Younger announced enthusiastically in a local newspaper interview. That is exactly what happened.
Men, women, and even children worked together to erect the new building, where the pastor's office, nursery, and other rooms now are. Meanwhile, the church continued to meet in the Arcanum school building and in homes on Wednesday nights, during which time they began support of their first missionary, Carson Fremont.
Exactly one year from the date of the fire, the new building was dedicated as a house of worship. By June, 1954, only three years after the church's inception, the sunday school attendance was near 200. Feeling the need for more Sunday school rooms, a new basement was built, the area upon which our present sanctuary now stands.
The next major endeavor of the church was to use our own people to plant a new church in Greenville, named "Faith Baptist Church." Much Christian service and money was poured into that new church, which has now far outgrown the size of our own, and has its own pre-K – 12th grade Christian School.
Today the Immanuel congregation worships in the sanctuary built once again by our own people, which was finished in 1963, remodeled in 1985, and made handicapped accessible by the end of 1998. We share in the faith of all those of the past five decades, and we thankfully enjoy the rich legacy of our church as a testimony to that faith.