About Charles Town Baptist Church

 Charles Town Baptist Church was constituted April 24, 1792 as “The Baptist Church of Christ Zoar”, in the home of Christopher Collins who became its first pastor.  The first “Meeting House” was built in 1801 in the Zoar community outside of Charles Town.  The congregation moved their place of worship into Charles Town in 1856.  That facility was undermined during the Civil War and condemned and razed in 1913.

The present sanctuary was completed in 1914, with building additions occurring in 1952, 1966, and 2009.  The church has been served by twenty-four pastors during its 200 plus years.

Baptists are a particular kind of Christian. We emphasize the autonomy of the local church, the priesthood of the believer, and the two ordinances of the church, the Lord’s Supper and believer’s baptism.  We believe that the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the means of our eternal salvation, and that by faith we are being restored to the Image of God that we were made in.

While we honor the proud traditions of our forefathers, we recognize that the Kingdom of Christ must move forward today, and our faith is lived and expressed in ways that are relevant to the  complicated and contrary world that we now live in.  There is great controversy in modern churches, and many are seeking to identify themselves with titles of traditional, contemporary, emergent, missional, and many other names.  We deliberately avoid those sorts of titles.

In truth our desire is simply to be relevant to the world in which we live.  We use a variety of musical styles, formats, and expressions of worship that enable us to express our love for God and one another, grow in this faith, and fulfill our purposes to reach, teach, love and serve.