Historic Equity
Legacy Church’s building, which has historically been known as First Baptist Church of Sutton
Living in New England, we are surrounded by the ghosts of history. The Boston Tea Party, Boston Massacre, Paul Revere’s ride (though debated), Lexington, Concord, and many other events. Many of the buildings here are historic, too. New England has more locations entered on the National Register of Historic Places than any other region.
Many churches are listed on the historic register too, and with that comes a mixed blessing. Many revitalization practitioners will point out that you must celebrate your history to reconnect with your area. That can be difficult.
A few years ago, one Southern brother was called to serve a historic New England church and made his tagline, “Help Us Make History Again.” While that sounds good, it didn’t work. When I asked around for him at the time, people were unaware of how historic his church was. When I asked them if they knew that John Harvard, for whom Harvard University is named, was the church’s pastor at one time, many looked confused, and others seemed not to care or thought the church needed to advertise that more. It’s something I have discovered about many other churches, including my own.
Sutton, MA, where we minister at Legacy Church, is an interesting area. It is a mix of rural farms of old “townies” and newer wealthy families who have moved in the last twenty years causing homes to average $800,000 and has one of the highest land taxes in the state. The townies refuse to let industry in to help with taxes and improvements, which keeps businesses to the section of Route 146 that runs through town and a small area east on the border with another town. Sutton has designated land and buildings as historical and even a few sections as historic districts. Our church is one of them. Yet, that hasn’t meant that people know why, and it even took my history degree to uncover things our longtime residents didn’t know.
The writer of Hebrews reminds the reader, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.” History is important to God; it is a reminder to many of what he has done for us and others. While some might argue that history is not a factor in churches, we forget that Jesus would sometimes recall Israel's history to make his point. In Matthew 12:3-8, he reminds the Pharisees of David and what David did to feed himself and his men with the consecrated bread. When we came to Legacy Church, aka First Baptist Church of Sutton, we knew it had a history but never knew how deep it went and what had been forgotten.
“When we came to Legacy Church, aka First Baptist Church of Sutton, we knew it had a history but never knew how deep it went and what had been forgotten.”
Town father Benjamin Marsh started the church in the 1710s before it was formally incorporated in 1735 under refuge, as the Baptist faith was illegal in Massachusetts. In 1738, they planted a church in Leicester, MA that today is known as Greenville Baptist Church. In 1745, pastors of the Baptist and Congregational churches sponsored George Whitefield to evangelize in the area and had him speak on land that the Baptist church would later rebuild on. The British burned down the original building in 1775 and the bell that survived is one of the first church bells cast in America. The church is the oldest active Baptist church in Worcester County and the fourth oldest in Massachusetts. However, with all that history, when I celebrated it on the town’s Facebook page, many were shocked to hear these facts even though the facts are documented in the town history book.
At the church, many asked how celebrating history helps rebuild churches in the community. The answer is simple: look to recent history. While the town is unaware of its rich Christian roots through the church, it is connected by the community to the town. We began to reach out through the annual Chain of Lights Christmas celebrations the first week of December every year. The church had done this every year except for ten years before we came to the church. In the last five years, we have reconnected with the town and become known for our generosity during the event. We added a free movie night the following weekend, which this year saw 40 people turn out other than our church volunteers. The old ballfield, created to bless the town, was rebuilt and christened Legacy Field; it is home once more to the Sutton Little League.
We recently have been hosting one of the local society’s winter meetings and have made new connections through it. One thing was still missing in the reconnection, and we are aiming to restablish it in May. The town used to enjoy a covered dish dinner in the church; we asked if we could bring it back.
Remember what I said about George Whitefield? A letter was found that expresses the wishes of the church body to remember what Whitefield did by creating a yearly meeting on evangelism, not just for this church, but for all others. Many in our church struggle to do this in the rural setting, and I still have much to learn myself. When I saw the letter, I thought this would be our church’s new legacy, especially since many surveys have shown that evangelism is at an all-time low.
But Satan knows how to attack, and no sooner did this idea hit our radar than a season of rough seas began. Will an annual evangelism meeting happen again? I do not know, but all I can do is trust the Lord and keep moving forward in our efforts, letting Christ use us in building this body. We are doing that through our historic equity, which we hope leads to other forms of equity in the future.
Don McKinnon is the pastor of Legacy Church in Sutton, MA, co-host of the Church Revitalization podcast and blogs at www.donmckinnon.com.
