A Living Legacy | 1902-2027
In 1902, a small congregation of believers gathered in obedience to a simple conviction: that the gospel of Jesus Christ was worth building a church around. They could not have known what the next century and a quarter would hold. They only knew that God had called them together, and that was enough. This year, Union Avenue Baptist Church begins a season of celebration unlike any in our history — an eleven-month journey from now until August 2027, marking 125 years of a living legacy.
A hundred and twenty-five years is a long time by any human measure. Generations have been born, raised, and sent out from this place. Wars have come and gone. The city around us has changed in ways our founding members never could have imagined. And yet the message preached from this pulpit has not changed at all. The same gospel that gathered a handful of the faithful in 1902 is the gospel we preach today: Christ crucified, risen, and coming again. That continuity is not our achievement. It is God's faithfulness on display.
Scripture calls God's people again and again to remember. When Israel crossed the Jordan, Joshua instructed them to set up stones of remembrance so that future generations would ask what they meant, and their fathers would tell them the story of what God had done (Joshua 4:6–7). Our 125th anniversary functions much the same way. It is not nostalgia for its own sake. It is an invitation to tell the story again — to let our children and grandchildren ask why we are celebrating, so that we can point them, not to a building or an institution, but to the God who has sustained His church here for twelve and a half decades.
Every congregation that endures does so for the same reason: not because its people were extraordinary, but because its God is unchanging. Hebrews 13:8 tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. The pastors who have stood in this pulpit across 125 years were ordinary men entrusted with an extraordinary message. The members who have filled these pews were ordinary families trusting an extraordinary Savior. What has held this church together through every season is not our consistency but His.
This legacy is not only about what has been. It is a living legacy, which means it is still being written. The same Spirit who moved among our founding members in 1902 is present and active in this congregation today. The faith that was handed down to us was never meant to be preserved under glass; it was meant to be lived, taught, and passed on. Every believer who walks through our doors this year becomes part of that same unbroken thread — not observers of a story that already happened, but participants in a story God is still telling.
Over the next eleven months, we will pause often to look back with gratitude. We will remember the faithful men and women who gave their time, their resources, and their prayers so that this church could exist for those who came after them. Many of them we will never know by name this side of heaven, yet their obedience built the foundation we stand on. Psalm 100:5 reminds us that the Lord's faithfulness endures to all generations — and that is precisely what we are celebrating. Not a church that has simply survived, but a God who has never once let go.
But we are not only looking back. A church that only celebrates its past has already begun to die. Deuteronomy 6 makes clear that remembering what God has done is always in service of what comes next — teaching the next generation to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and strength. So as we mark 125 years, we do so with our eyes forward as much as backward. The same call that brought a small congregation together in 1902 is calling us still: to make disciples, to love our neighbors, to hold fast to the gospel in a city and a culture that need it as much now as ever.
In the months ahead, you will hear this theme woven through our worship, our teaching, and our fellowship together: A Living Legacy, 1902 to 2027. It will shape the way we gather and the way we give. It will remind us, week after week, that we are simply the latest chapter in a story that began long before any of us arrived and will continue long after we are gone. We hope every member of this church family — longtime and newcomer alike — will feel the weight and the joy of that truth.
If you have called Union Avenue Baptist Church home for decades, thank you for your faithfulness. If you are just beginning your journey with us, welcome — you are now part of this legacy too. And if you have never walked through our doors, we would love for you to join us this year as we celebrate. Come and see what 125 years of God's faithfulness looks like, and become part of what He is still doing here.
To Him who has kept us for a hundred and twenty-five years, and who will keep us still, be all the glory. Join us at 2181 Union Avenue on Sundays at 10:45 AM, or online at unionavenue.org, as we begin this season of celebration together.