A Light on the Hill E-Book

Caleb Morell

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 479

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

God's Faithfulness on Display in an Engaging Church Biography Capitol Hill Baptist Church, located just blocks away from the center of American power, has a rich 150-year history. Its members have participated in significant world events, advocated for religious freedoms, and spoken out against the moral failings of the times. There's no doubt this church has had a unique impact on evangelicalism from a significant location. But these lively characters and their unique experiences only tell part of this engaging narrative.  Through real-life stories, A Light on the Hill reveals how God works through church bodies and remains faithful during times of uncertainty. Exploring themes such as pastoral ministry, faithfulness, courage, racial reconciliation, church and politics, and more, this book will help readers see the long-term effects of faithful church ministries. Ultimately they will be encouraged to invest in a local church and preserve the gospel for the next generation. - Engaging Biography: Compiled stories recount Capitol Hill Baptist Church's unique history and its impact on evangelicalism - Characters Come to Life: Abolitionist pastor who argued with Lincoln, a one-armed veteran, the widow who founded the church, a scamming pastor, a pastor whose beliefs were transformed by Martin Luther King Jr., and more - Reoccurring Themes: Pastoral ministry, faithfulness, courage, racial reconciliation, church and politics, and more - Appeals to Pastors, Church Members, and Historians: Offers valuable insights for leading congregations and provides personal spiritual encouragement  - Includes Over 80 Photographs

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“Every Christian congregation has a history and a story to tell. In A Light on the Hill, Caleb Morell tells the story of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. You can take for granted that any church located in the heart of the federal government of America’s capital city is going to have a particularly interesting story. But this is no ordinary history. It is one of the most compelling histories of a church that I have ever read. It is really well done and tells the incredible story of a congregation that started with a vision of ministry to the nation’s capital but now reaches to the ends of the earth with its witness and influence. This is an honest and moving story of faithful believers who, in season and out of season, kept a congregation alive. Above all, it is a story of God’s faithfulness to Christ’s church.”

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

“This beautifully written, well-researched book tells the story of a faithful, Bible-believing, gospel-preaching church in our nation’s capital. It provides a fascinating and instructive picture of God’s providence in the life of a congregation. Those who are called to shepherd the flock will find meaningful encouragement, useful perspective, and sobering warning in this history of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. Christ loves his bride, and histories of his people gathered into congregations afford us the opportunity to reflect on God’s faithfulness to use his ordinary means of grace to accomplish his purposes and build up the church. I sat in the pews of this church when I was a teenager serving as a US Senate page. More recently, I have followed the ministry of this congregation for the last thirty years because it is pastored by my dear friend Mark Dever. But I had no idea that the history of this church was so interesting and important. Caleb Morell has now remedied that, and delightfully so. I’m so thankful for his diligence in mining the past and presenting it in such an enjoyable and edifying way.”

Ligon Duncan, Chancellor and CEO, Reformed Theological Seminary

“Many books on American religious history offer surprisingly little information about the everyday life of churches, the institutions that define Christian faith for the average believer. Caleb Morell’s A Light on the Hill offers a major corrective to this deficiency with a riveting account of how one evangelical congregation changed and matured over time. Not only does Morell brilliantly tell the story of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, but he also places the church and its people in a rich cultural and theological context.”

Thomas S. Kidd, Yeats Endowed Chair of Baptist Studies, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

“I love the church, I love churches, and I love books about churches. I’ve always loved reading biographies of specific churches, and this is among the best I’ve ever read. Based on years of archival research, and with a good flare for the dramatic, Morell tells the fascinating 150-year story of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC. Morell’s approach is edifying without being pedantic, honest without being censorious, and rich in detail without getting lost in the weeds. The result is a book that deserves a wider audience than local church histories usually enjoy.”

Kevin DeYoung, Senior Pastor, Christ Covenant Church, Matthews, North Carolina; Associate Professor of Systematic Theology, Reformed Theological Seminary, Charlotte

“Through meticulous research and the lives of vivid characters, Caleb Morell tells the story of one of the most significant evangelical churches in America. He relates times of grim struggle as well as joyous success—because both shed light on the broader history of Washington, DC, and American Protestantism and both offer thought-provoking lessons for Christians today.”

Molly Worthen, Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

“The summer after September 11, 2001, I headed to Washington, DC, to help Congress bolster homeland security. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my career. A ministry recommended that I check out Capitol Hill Baptist Church. My life and ministry have never been the same. In the more than twenty years since that summer, I have never known a more influential church. I have met leaders around the world who were raised up and sent out by this congregation. Thanks to Caleb Morell we now have a history of God’s remarkable work among the saints on Capitol Hill. What an engaging and often inspiring story.”

Collin Hansen, Vice President for Content and Editor in Chief, The Gospel Coalition; Host, Gospelbound podcast

“The history of Washington’s Capitol Hill Baptist Church is an instance of luminous particularity—in this case how the story of a singular church sheds light on the entire landscape of evangelical Christianity in America. From the aftermath of the Civil War to the era of Donald Trump, this one strategically located church has borne witness to the faithfulness of God and continues to do so still. Well researched and well written, this is an irrepressible story and a great read!”

Timothy George, Distinguished Professor of Divinity, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University; General Editor, Reformation Commentary on Scripture

“The history of American Christianity is in many ways the history of local churches. The community of disciples now called Capitol Hill Baptist Church has long been a local church that gathers in one of the most significant and strategic locales in the United States. In A Light on the Hill, Caleb Morell offers a model for writing local church history. Morell’s book is well researched but sympathetic and edifying. He contextualizes the church’s history but acknowledges throughout that God is the one who has worked in and through the church. He draws upon the stories of key members (some quite famous!) and signals events (both good and bad) to illumine the church’s unique story. And he reminds readers that decline never has to mean demise. The Lord delights in revitalizing local churches, through godly leaders committed to scriptural means, for his glory and the sake of the kingdom. Highly recommended.”

Nathan A. Finn, Professor of Faith and Culture and Executive Director of the Institute for Transformational Leadership, North Greenville University

“Alongside the United States Capitol, the Supreme Court, and the Library of Congress, Capitol Hill hosts another crucial institution—Capitol Hill Baptist Church. Founded in 1867, the church has taken a stand for the historic Christian gospel and for a polity rooted in the Bible, making it a model for others. This carefully researched volume shows how that has been achieved.”

David Bebbington, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Stirling

A Light on the Hill

A Light on the Hill

The Surprising Story of How a Local Church in the Nation’s Capital Influenced Evangelicalism

Caleb Morell

Foreword by Mark Dever

A Light on the Hill: The Surprising Story of How a Local Church in the Nation’s Capital Influenced Evangelicalism

© 2025 by Caleb Morell

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design and illustration: Jordan Singer

First printing 2025

Printed in the United States of America

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4335-9289-8 ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-9291-1 PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-9290-4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Morell, Caleb, 1992- author.  

Title: A light on the hill : the surprising story of how a local church in the nation’s capital influenced evangelicalism / Caleb Morell ; foreword by Mark Dever.  

Description: Wheaton, Illinois : Crossway, 2025. | Includes bibliographical references and index. 

Identifiers: LCCN 2024011449 (print) | LCCN 2024011450 (ebook) | ISBN 9781433592898 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781433592904 (epdf) | ISBN 9781433592911 (epub)  

Subjects: LCSH: Evangelicalism—Washingon DC—History. | Capitol Hill Baptist Church (Washington, D.C.)—History. 

Classification: LCC BV3775.W3 M67 2025  (print) | LCC BV3775.W3  (ebook) | DDC 286/.1753—dc23/eng/20240925 

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024011449

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2024011450

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2025-04-08 04:18:29 PM

For the members of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, past, present, and future. 

May you continue to shine as lights in the world (Phil. 2:15).

Contents

List of Illustrations

Foreword by Mark Dever

Introduction: A Light on the Hill

1  “What Shall the Harvest Be?”: 1867–1878

2  “A Helper of the Downtrodden and Lowly”: 1878–1882

3  “With Conscience Void of Offence toward God and Man”: 1882–1884

4  “We Do Our Own Thinking in This Church”: 1885–1889

5  “We Have a Leader of National Reputation”: 1890–1895

6  “The Future Is Bright with Promise”: 1896–1912

7  “War, Fuel Famine, and Influenza Epidemics”: 1913–1918

8  “No Modernism Will Be Tolerated at All in This Church”: 1919–1943

9  “Holding Forth the Word of Life”: 1944–1955

10  “A Beachhead for Evangelical Christianity”: 1956–1960

11  “Jesus Doesn’t Need a Parking Lot”: 1961–1980

12  “When a Christian Leader Falls”: 1981–1993

13  “Preach, Pray, Love, and Stay”: 1994–2000

14  “Doing Nothing and Church Planting”: 2001–Present

Conclusion

Afterword

Acknowledgments

Illustration Credits

General Index

Scripture Index

Illustrations

Figures

1.1  Thomas Ustick Walter (1804–1887)

1.2  E Street Baptist Church, Washington, DC

1.3  Amos Kendall (1789–1869)

1.4  Joseph W. Parker (1805–1887)

1.5  An artist’s sketch of Capitol Hill in 1872

1.6  Celestia A. Ferris (1844–1924)

1.7  Metropolitan Baptist Church’s first building

1.8  Tombstone of Abraham and Celestia Ferris

2.1  Parker Hall, the main building of Wayland Seminary

2.2  Tombstone of Joseph W. Parker

3.1  Lester Edwin Forrest Spofford (1843–1887)

3.2  Letter of Resignation of W. M. Ingersoll

3.3  New building of Grace Baptist Church, built by East Capitol Street Baptist Church

4.1  William H. Young (1853–1915)

4.2  Sketch of proposed new church building at corner of 6th and A Streets NE

4.3  The 1876 and 1888 church buildings, side-by-side

5.1  General Green Clay Smith (1826–1895)

5.2  Church directory, Metropolitan Baptist Church, 1895

5.3  Children’s Sunday school class in front of Metropolitan’s new building

5.4  Warren C. Brundage’s life insurance policy application

5.5  Metropolitan’s membership and Sunday school scholars

5.6  Women’s Sunday school class in 1945

5.7  Front cover of the Metropolitan Messenger in 1910

6.1  Liston D. Bass (1854–1930) in a 1908 newspaper

6.2  John Compton Ball (1863–1950)

6.3  John Compton Ball’s preaching license

6.4  Newly constructed Metropolitan Baptist Church in 1912

6.5  Metropolitan Baptist cornerstone-laying ceremony

7.1  Stephen T. Early (1889–1951)

7.2  Interior of Metropolitan’s sanctuary decorated for Palm Sunday

7.3  Interior of sanctuary with folding chairs in the west hall for Palm Sunday

7.4  Billy Sunday’s outdoor tabernacle

7.5  John Compton Ball greeting Thomas Joseph Early Jr.

8.1  Newspaper clipping featuring Amy Lee Stockton (1892–1988)

8.2  Metropolitan’s Evening Star advertisement for T. T. Shields, W. B. Riley, and J. Frank Norris

8.3  John Compton Ball in the pulpit

8.4  John Compton Ball in the pulpit on Easter Sunday

8.5  Symbolic burning of Metropolitan’s mortgage

8.6  Service commemorating John Compton Ball’s retirement

8.7  Walter Brooks greets John Compton Ball

9.1  Billy Graham (1918–2018) preaching at the Capitol building

9.2  Metropolitan’s choir director and a church member in military uniform

9.3  Agnes Shankle and students from her Sunday school class

9.4  K. Owen White and John Compton Ball at portrait unveiling

9.5  K. Owen White with John Compton Ball and Agnes Shankle

9.6  Metropolitan’s choir

9.7  K. Owen White officiating a baptismal celebration

9.8  K. Owen White and missionaries with President Truman at the White House

9.9  Evening Star newspaper clipping picturing Billy Graham, J. Walter Carpenter, and Cliff Barrows

9.10  Crowds listening to Billy Graham speaking on the steps of the Capitol

9.11  Advertisement for Metropolitan Baptist Church’s radio ministry

9.12  Agnes Shankle’s Sunday school class

10.1  Announcement of Walter Pegg’s sermon series in the church bulletin

10.2  Carl F. H. Henry (1913–2003)

10.3  Revision of church roll, December 1956

11.1  Protesters blocking construction crews

11.2  Mary’s Blue Room

11.3  Metropolitan’s first parking lot

11.4  Jeanette Devlin directing the children’s choir

11.5  J. Walter Carpenter discusses school integration in the Metropolitan Messenger

11.6  Sketch of the Johenning Baptist Center’s new building

11.7  Front cover of the Metropolitan Messenger in 1961

11.8  John R. Stuckey officiating at the Lord’s Supper on New Year’s Eve

11.9  Margaret Roy, Luella Dicks, and Jessie Reichard

11.10  Wade Freeman pictured at the church’s centennial celebration

12.1  Walt Tomme Jr.

12.2  Bill, the young man and deacon who stayed and fought for the church

12.3  Harry Kilbride (1934–2022)

12.4  Harry Kilbride’s book When a Christian Leader Falls

13.1  Roger Nicole, R. Albert Mohler Jr., Timothy George, and Harold J. Purdy

13.2  Mark Dever on his balcony

14.1  Card advertising the fall 2001 CHBC sermons

14.2  CHBC net membership increases and decreases 2001–2019

14.3  T4G 2011 speakers

Tables

4.1  Protracted meetings at Metropolitan Baptist Church, 1884–1888

4.2  Measures of effectiveness of protracted meetings, Metropolitan Baptist Church, 1884–1888

14.1  CHBC membership and budget, 1999–2005

Foreword

Not long ago, I asked the author, “Who will buy a book on the history of a church?” He replied, “I’m not sure. Maybe people who like biographies? I’m telling the story of a life, the life of a congregation.”

As I thought about it, that answer sounded better and better. And then I read the manuscript, and I found it surprisingly compelling! People I’d never heard of sprang to life! The author has researched thoroughly and written elegantly. He has selected stories to typify themes in one decade after another. Individual characters come alive—the one-armed Antietam vet, the widow foundress of the church, the scamming pastor, the female evangelist, the pastor whose mind was changed by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” I could go on and on.

The reader will be glad to know that this is not a mere chronicle—that is, a verbal timeline along the lines of “this happened in 1894, and then this in 1895; in March this occurred, and then this other person died in July.” Caleb Morell has masterfully given us an overview of a congregation’s life—a moving, multigenerational picture. He has succeeded in telling one story, stretched over 150 years.

My interest in this church (and churches generally) is not unique. Pastors who’ve labored here before me have done many of the same things that I’ve attempted. There really is nothing new under the sun—everything from membership classes and purges to expositional preaching and prayer meetings—all these were being done before I became pastor or was even born! The compelling figures are numerous—Joseph Parker, the abolitionist pastor who argued with Lincoln in person; Agnes Shankle, the faithful member who stood up to the pulpit search committee and perhaps, thereby, saved the congregation from liberal compromise; K. Owen White, the reforming expositor who later gained fame for a question he asked Senator John F. Kennedy when he ran for president. So packed with characters is this story that not all of these tasty details could be included. But there are so many more stories and so many interesting characters.

My own connection with this congregation not only increases my interest but also gives me a particular, strange sensation in the last couple of chapters. If the Lord tarries, I am helped to see how little of me (or anyone) is left on the pages of a book that recounts thirty years of my life and ministry in a congregation.

I pray that God will use the story—humbling to me, helpful to you—of this one local church to encourage you to persevere in faithfulness and to consider how you can stir up others to such love and good deeds as we read about in these pages. And I pray that he will, in his grace, keep this light on the Hill shining brightly until Christ returns.

Mark Dever

Senior Pastor

Capitol Hill Baptist Church

Washington, DC

January 2024

Introduction

A Light on the Hill

Through the years of its history Metropolitan has been known as a Bible-believing, Gospel-preaching church. It has not been afraid to raise its voice in defense and proclamation of the truth!

K. Owen White, September 14, 19471

This is not the story of an extraordinary church. No sitting US president has ever attended its services. Little attention has ever been paid to it by press or academy. Even to this day, passersby and tourists visiting the national capital hardly take notice of the large brick building at the corner of Sixth and A Streets NE.

True, the church has had its share of colorful members and pastors: the abolitionist and educator Joseph W. Parker, the congressman and governor turned pastor and temperance advocate Green Clay Smith, early leaders of the conservative resurgence of the Southern Baptist Convention like K. Owen White and Carl F. H. Henry, and the pioneer of church health and Baptist ecclesiology Mark Dever. Capitol Hill Baptist Church has truly enjoyed an abundance of gifted preachers and larger-than-life characters. As church clerk Francis McLean commented in 1892, “If we’ve been spoiled with anything it has been by good preaching.”2

But this is not fundamentally a story about any of them. Ultimately, this story is about God and how he delights to do extraordinary things through ordinary people and ordinary churches.

Jesus’s promise that the gates of hell would not prevail against his church (Matt. 16:18) was not given to any particular church but to the church universal. No local church is promised that it will remain until Christ’s return. Rather, from the days of the apostles, new churches have been birthed and rebirthed, died and disappeared to this day. But though not given to any particular church, Jesus’s promise to the church universal will not be fulfilled apart from the local church as members faithfully pass the torch of the gospel from one generation to the next.

Oftentimes, however, our zeal for gospel advance exceeds our wisdom and our trust in God’s ordinary means. Like the Israelites of old, we are more impressed with the height of Saul than the heart of David. So we overestimate what we can do in the short term and underestimate what God can do in the long run. We settle for new programs rather than investing in people. And we operate in fear rather than by faith in God’s promises. In a dizzying world of distractions and new methods, where do we look for models of quiet faithfulness that endures?

From Celestia A. Ferris’s first prayer meeting in November 1867 onward, the story of Capitol Hill Baptist Church reminds us that the work of God has been carried on by ordinary people who lived hidden lives and who rest in unvisited tombs. Some, such as Celestia’s husband, Abraham Ferris, did not even live to see the church planted in 1878. But they believed that the local church was a cause worth giving their lives for, even if they did not see the results in their own lifetimes. And it is only because of their quiet faithfulness that the church is what it is today. As Francis McLean wrote in 1886, “We are working partly for those who come after us.”3Or as Matt Schmucker told his wife at one of the church’s lowest moments in 1992, “We’re here for the people who will come.”4

In our age of megachurches and celebrity pastors who burn hot and fast and rarely last, the idea of unpaid lay members spending their lives for local churches sounds absurd. But the fruit speaks for itself, and 150 years later, the gospel is still being proclaimed from the pulpit of Capitol Hill Baptist Church. This book probes the factors and conditions that contribute to gospel faithfulness. How does a church preserve the gospel? What factors contribute to church health? How does a healthy church steward success and grow without becoming unhealthy?

The relevance of these questions is nowhere more clearly indicated than in the alarming rate that churches are closing their doors around our nation and cities today. In their 2023 book The Great Dechurching, Jim Davis, Michael Graham, and Ryan Burge describe a religious shift in the last twenty-five years greater than at any other time in American history, as more people have left the church than all those who became Christians during the First and Second Great Awakenings and the Billy Graham crusades combined.5 Many of these empty pews indicate churches that abandoned the gospel and ceased to be churches long before their buildings were converted to condominiums. Others left the city due to rising rates of crime and have yet to return to their neighborhoods of origin. To this day, few of Washington’s oldest churches remain centered on the gospel and present in their neighborhoods.

Though hardly the oldest Baptist church in Washington, DC, Capitol Hill Baptist Church has not moved on from the gospel nor moved on from its location. Ultimately, the church stayed centered on the gospel and present in the place God planted it because of the ordinary people who worked, prayed, sowed, and stayed. This book is an attempt to tell their story: the story of the church that stayed.

This is not a story of a perfect church. It contains as many warnings as it does positive examples. There were fights, splits, conflicts, and dissensions. There were contentious members’ meetings filled with vitriol and spite. There were as many nights of tearful sowing as there were days of joyful reaping. But throughout seasons of plenty and seasons of scarcity, the light of the gospel has continued to shine on Capitol Hill.

Early in the life of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, the bulletins often contained this prayer: “May the Metropolitan Baptist Church continue to be ‘A Light Set on a Hill.’”6 The prayer combines the two images from Jesus’s words in Matthew 5:14: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.” From its earliest days, Capitol Hill Baptist Church understood itself to be a light on the Hill. Not the light but a light. As the church’s music director wrote in 1963, “Therefore we will look to the future and work in the present and those future generations shall look back on us and say, ‘Yes, the light still burned brightly on Capitol Hill.’”7

This book tells the story of how Capitol Hill Baptist Church has navigated the past century and a half as an evangelical witness in Washington. Through wars and pandemics, racial unrest and church splits, God has kept the light of the gospel shining on Capitol Hill. Along the way, we are introduced to the ordinary people who made history, as Capitol Hill Baptist Church was transformed from a small congregation in sleepy East Washington to a thriving congregation just blocks away from the center of world power.

Capitol Hill Baptist Church has been known by three names throughout its history. It was formed in 1878 as Metropolitan Baptist Church. In 1963, the church added “Capitol Hill,” and for thirty years it was known as Capitol Hill Metropolitan Baptist Church (or CHMBC). In 1995, the name changed again, this time dropping “Metropolitan,” to its present name (or CHBC). All three names are used throughout, alternating use based on time period.

Throughout you will meet the warring factions that split during the Civil War and the pastor who reunited them. You will meet the washerwoman, Celestia Ferris, who started the prayer meeting and Sunday school that later covenanted as a church. You will hear how a church split nearly destroyed the church just six years into its existence—and meet the remarkable pastor who saved it. You will learn about the church’s involvement in the fundamentalist movement, participation in World War I, and response to the Spanish flu. You will discover how Capitol Hill Baptist became a bastion for neo-evangelicalism after World War II, organizing Billy Graham’s 1952 crusade in Washington and becoming the home church to Carl F. H. Henry, the founding editor of Christianity Today. You will hear about the church’s attempts to grapple with racial unrest during the Civil Rights Movement and its commitment to remaining a city church while other churches were relocating to the suburbs. Finally, you will discover the challenges Mark Dever faced when arriving in 1994 as a freshly minted PhD from Cambridge University. Behind all of these events and figures, however, is the eternal God and Lord of history who is writing the story of this church, and of every church, into a tapestry of grace that will stretch through eternity.

Is the light of the gospel still shining in your church? What will it take for the torch of the gospel to be passed to another generation? It will take ordinary men and women who share the conviction of missionary Jim Elliot, whose immortal words are etched into a pillar on the edge of CHBC’s property: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”8 It will take patience, perseverance, and—above all—prayer so that if the Lord tarries, it will yet be said, “The light still burns brightly on Capitol Hill.”

1  K. Owen White, “Pastor’s Paragraphs,” Metropolitan Baptist Church Bulletin, September 14, 1947, MS 1792, box 9a, folder 6, Capitol Hill Baptist Church Archives, Washington, DC (hereafter, CHBC Archives).

2  Francis McLean, “The Reunion,” February 29, 1892, MS 1322, box 5, folder 22, CHBC Archives.

3  Clerk’s Annual Report, December 31, 1886, MS 1583b, box 6, folder 5, CHBC Archives.

4  Matt Schmucker, interview with the author, September 7, 2022, part 1, Washington, DC.

5  Jim Davis and Michael Graham with Ryan P. Burge, The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back? (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Reflective, 2023), 5.

6  Fortieth Anniversary Celebration of Gilbert A. Clark’s Class, March 4, 1938, MS 1360, box 5, folder 25, CHBC Archives.

7  John D. Cochran, “85 Years on Capitol Hill,” February 24, 1963, MS 1371, box 5, folder 27, CHBC Archives.

8  Quoted in Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1981), 172.

1

“What Shall the Harvest Be?”

1867–1878

The snowfall was light on that Monday evening in November 1867. Hundreds of granite and marble gas street lights populated the emerging neighborhood of Capitol Hill with their oversized bronze and glass lanterns, illuminating the gently falling snow with a warm, white light. As the snow, interspersed with smoke, shone in the moonlight, a handful of warmly dressed figures could be seen making their way to a small, two-story frame house at 214 A Street NE—the home of a newly married couple, Abraham and Celestia Ferris.1

There was nothing ostentatious about the house. Built in 1857, the dwelling predated the late Victorian brick homes that would come to populate the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Yet from its perch on a berm atop a low brick wall, the home gave off an artificial appearance of grandeur as it peered over A Street. Its three bedrooms, each warmed by separate fireplaces, made for a typically modest Civil War-era home. The front door opened to a cozy drawing room, with a brick fireplace on the right, around which the Ferrises and their eight guests gathered.

Another newly married couple, Bentley and Francis Murray, attended the gathering that evening. Originally from New York, Bentley Murray had come to Washington in 1863 seeking a political job in the Lincoln administration.2 A third pair of newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Forrest Spofford, were present, having married just three months earlier.3

Also present were John and Fannie Skirving, the oldest couple in the group. John Skirving Jr. had come to Washington in the 1850s with his father, who had been an associate of the nationally famous Thomas Ustick Walter, the chief architect for the US Capitol dome. As the Skirvings walked from their residence at 108 Eleventh Street SE along East Capitol Street toward the Ferrises’ home, John and his family enjoyed an unobstructed view of the newly completed Capitol dome, the project that had originally brought their family to Washington.

Not to be left out, Celestia’s sixty-year-old mother, Anna, and older sister Camilla likewise made the familiar trek to the Ferrises’ home that evening. The group of friends had been called together by Celestia, but the cause for their gathering was near and dear to the hearts of each one. They had gathered to pray for a Baptist church to be established on Capitol Hill.

This prayer was no small request. At that time, no Baptist church—or church of any denomination—could be found east of First Street or north of Pennsylvania Avenue.4 Other than the Murrays, who were members of Second Baptist Church in Navy Yard, the families were all members of E Street Baptist Church, which met just over a mile away on the 600th block of E Street NW.

Celestia, who was twenty-three at the time, had moved from upstate New York to Washington with her family in 1849. Her mother immediately joined E Street Baptist Church, followed by Celestia, who joined by baptism at age fourteen on June 6, 1858.5 Alongside her sisters Camilla and Emily, Celestia was active in the Sunday school work at E Street, as well as the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society, supporting missionary work internationally and locally.6

A Nation at War and a Church Divided

But as Celestia was coming of age, the nation was coming apart.7 At twelve, Celestia would have listened with horror to stories of murder and intrigue in “bleeding Kansas.” At fifteen, she would have watched fear overtake the capital in October of 1859 in the wake of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry only sixty miles away. At sixteen, she would have witnessed tensions rise in the city leading up to the presidential election of 1860 and heard reports of a mob attacking a local Republican office on the night of Lincoln’s election. Weeks later, she would have heard shouts of jubilation a few days before Christmas at the announcement of the secession of South Carolina. Walking the streets of Washington, she would have overheard scarcely veiled talk of treasonous plots coming from saloons, cafes, and open carriages.

Then the war came. As the Mason–Dixon line divided the country, sectarian strife enveloped Washington’s churches, with some churches supporting the Union, some supporting the Confederacy, and others seeking to remain neutral. Celestia’s own church—E Street Baptist Church—was not spared from strife, a fact that no one knew better than Thomas Ustick Walter.

Walter had come to Washington in 1851 as the chief architect of the US Capitol expansion, including the erection of its magnificent dome. He was a world-famous architect, professor, and inventor. He was also a devout Baptist. Walter’s religious sentiments were decidedly conservative. He considered the Calvinistic Philadelphia Baptist Confession of Faith (1742)—the American version of the Second London Baptist Confession—the true standard of doctrine (“the faith once delivered to the saints”).8 He opposed innovations in settled ecclesiological practices, even minute details such as the manner of dispensing communion or the posture of the pastor when baptizing.9 In the worship gathering, he hoped for simplicity and reverence. In preaching, he longed for clarity on doctrine, the simple (though not simplistic) recounting of the gospel, and the plain exposition of Scripture.10 As he wrote to his wife after one disappointing church service, “I want that instruction to be in accordance with the Bible, but I fear that the days of such teaching are passed.”11

In politics, as in religion, Walter favored the old ways. Although he was a native of Philadelphia and not a Southerner, he was a slaveholder. While he disdained abolitionists, he reserved his greatest ire for so-called Black Republicans like Abraham Lincoln and Charles Sumner, who in his view were entirely to blame for bringing “these horrid evils upon us.”12 When it came to abolitionism, Walter did not mince words:

Abolitionism I hate with a perfect hatred, and believe both [Abolition and Unitarianism] to be unreasonable, impolite, contemptible and wicked in the highest degree, and I have no doubt that the day is not far distant when both will be rooted out of every hole and corner of our land: they both feed on the same pabulum and both must fall before a pure gospel.13

To what extent Walter’s anti-abolition views were representative of the sentiments of the members of E Street Baptist Church, which Walter joined with his family on moving to Washington, is impossible to say. Nevertheless, Walter soon began teaching a weekly Sunday School class at E Street, which may very well have been attended by Celestia Ferris.

Figure 1.1. In addition to architecture, Thomas Ustick Walter (1804–1887) taught Sunday school classes at E Street Baptist Church in Washington, DC, where he was a member.

Everything changed with the onset of the Civil War. On Saturday, April 13, 1861, news reached Washington that the federal garrison at Fort Sumter had come under fire by Confederate forces. The Evening Star—Washington’s evening paper—was the first to break the news: “War commenced. Conflict at Charleston. Immense excitement. Bombardment of Fort Sumter.”14 No papers were printed on Sunday. Washingtonians were completely in the dark as the fog of war descended on the nation.

The Evening Star described in detail the panic that engulfed Washington from Saturday night into Sunday as residents surrounded newspaper offices for “any news from Charleston.” “On Saturday afternoon the pressure upon the Star office was the most intense we have experienced,” they wrote. Not only was the interior of the office jammed but also the street in front of the office for some distance was blocked in all directions by the anxious crowd. Those who obtained papers were unable to exit because of the crowd. Fast as the presses worked, they were entirely unable to supply the demand or to thin the crowd of news seekers. Late Saturday evening, the Evening Star received news of the surrender of the Union forces at Fort Sumter. The news, the paper later recounted, “was really so unpalatable, that it was at first utterly discredited.”15 But once verified, disbelief gave way to white-hot rage and a thirst for revenge.

As churches gathered for worship the next day, pastors had a choice to make: How would each pray for the divided nation? Joseph Spencer Kennard was only a few years into his pastorate of E Street. As he stepped into the pulpit for his customary pastoral prayer that Sunday, he invoked divine blessing in support of the Federal government, omitting to pray for Jefferson Davis and the Confederate States of America. The deliberate and public display of his political sympathies did not go unnoticed by the congregation. As soon as the prayer concluded, the Southerners in the congregation rose in unison and, after a strained moment of silence, walked out.16

Meanwhile, chaos reigned outside the church. Rumors of an imminent Confederate invasion of the capital prompted thousands of Northerners to flee further north. As Thomas Ustick Walter wrote to John Skirving, “Things are in an awful condition here—so terrible that I consider it my duty to get my family off as soon as possible.”17 Telegraph lines to the North and South were cut, leaving Washington in complete darkness. From banks to mercantile shops, the sound of hammers could be heard as owners fitted doors with iron bars and covered windows, preparing for an imminent siege. Meanwhile, local militia were called out and stationed in the Capitol building, the Treasury, and the White House. “This place is done,” Walter wrote. “War is upon us.”18

Figure 1.2. The congregation of Third Baptist Church, founded in 1842, changed its name to E Street Baptist Church in August 1846 after completing its building at 602 E Street Southeast.

As war descended on Washington, divisions deepened at E Street Baptist Church. A New York Times article claimed that the church was under the sway of “those who believed in the divine nature of the peculiar institution,” namely, slavery.19False rumors spread that E Street’s former pastor and current president of Columbian College, George Whitefield Samson, was a Confederate sympathizer.20 But the real crux of the matter came down to questions of church membership and control over the church’s Sunday school.

Over the previous months, a proxy war had started over control of the church’s Sunday school, with the majority—including Celestia Ferris and Thomas Ustick Walter—deciding that nonmembers would not be permitted to teach or hold the office of Sunday school superintendent.21 Seeing that they had lost, the minority sought to disband the church and divide up its assets, but when this too failed, Kennard resigned, taking forty-one members to constitute a new congregation: Calvary Baptist Church.22

When he resigned, Kennard took with him the chief agitator against E Street’s strict practices of membership: Amos Kendall. Kendall, who had served as postmaster general under President Andrew Jackson, made a fortune investing in the company of Samuel Morse, the inventor of the telegraph. Kendall had attended E Street since 1847 and supported the church financially, but he refused to join as a member as a matter of principle. “Your creeds require men to believe undoubtedly altogether too much,” he explained to one pastor, “and make religion consist more in professions of faith than in the active performance of Christian duties.”23

Thomas Ustick Walter did not shrink from laying blame over the split at E Street squarely on the shoulders of Kendall. “My impression is that all these reports originate in that quarter,” he wrote to his wife on July 8, 1861. “I would as soon have a family of wild buffaloes after me, as to have that Kendall tribe at my heels.”24

Figure 1.3. Amos Kendall (1789–1869), postmaster general under President Andrew Jackson, pictured during or shortly after the Civil War.

Frustrated by his lack of control over E Street as a nonmember, Kendall agreed to financially support the newly formed Calvary Baptist Church, personally bankrolling its building but only on the condition that he, as a nonmember, would be in control of the church. He accomplished this in two ways. First, Kendall ensured that the church’s constitution made provision for nonmembers (such as himself) to vote in church elections and business meetings. Second, he retained personal control over the church deed, meaning that if the church at any point failed to keep the terms of their agreement, it would forfeit the property.25 Control of the building would belong to him and his descendants in perpetuity. In this way, Kendall would keep the church under his thumb, as he had failed to do with E Street. Such was the nature of church life in the nation’s capital.

Meanwhile back at E Street, Walter’s own family was imploding. His oldest and youngest sons enlisted in the Union Army. But his second son and namesake, Thomas Ustick Walter Jr., enlisted in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Walter’s unbearable pain over the possibility of his sons meeting on the battlefield only increased with Thomas Jr.’s parting words. Thomas Jr. told his father that if he met his brothers on the “field of blood,” he would know “neither kith nor kin.”26

The war, and the possibility of losing his sons, rocked Walter to his core. Even though he had previously defended that “peculiar institution,” he now prayed for its end: “Let slavery go—the quicker the better!”27 Whereas before the war he had been content to blame both sides (“Northern fanaticism and southern fire-eating has brought it all about”), he now leveled his denunciations squarely at Southern secessionists.28

Alone in Washington, with his wife in Philadelphia and his sons fighting for opposing sides, Walter continued his work of constructing the Capitol dome. But the project had lost its luster. He could no longer gaze at the colossal cast-iron structure without thinking of the cast-iron cannon balls tearing limb from limb on countless battlefields. Even Walter’s crowning achievement, the raising of the Statue of Freedom on top of the dome on December 2, 1863, seemed like a twisted farce. The Lady’s sheathed sword and calm repose atop the nation’s motto, E Pluribus Unum (“Out of many, one”), all seemed to mock Walter’s pain and the plight of the nation. How could a divided country, divided families, and divided churches ever hope to be reconciled again?29

Reconciled at Last

In January 1865, an old man bearing a striking resemblance to Gen. Robert E. Lee arrived in Washington, DC. In fact, just days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the citizens of Richmond frequently mistook Joseph W. Parker for Lee. But Parker was a pastor, not a general. He had recently retired from Shawmut Avenue Baptist Church in Boston and moved to Washington to coordinate the efforts of the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society in establishing schools and colleges for African Americans in the South.30Though his primary objective was training Black teachers and starting schools, Parker did more than anyone to bring unity to the fragmented Baptists of Washington, and his work started with none other than Amos Kendall.31

Figure 1.4. Joseph W. Parker (1805–1887) pastored two of Boston’s most prominent churches before resigning to coordinate the work of the New England Freedmen’s Aid Society among former slaves during the Civil War.

On his first Sunday in Washington, Parker walked three blocks from his hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue to the old law school building of Columbian College at Fifth and D Streets NW for the worship service of Calvary Baptist Church. Instantly recognized, he was prevailed upon to preach the following Sunday. Afterwards, the church’s benefactor, Amos Kendall, invited Parker to dine, but the pastor declined. The next Sunday, Parker preached again and, for a second time, declined Kendall’s invitation to dinner. Only after preaching a third time and receiving still another invitation to dine with Kendall did Parker finally accept. After supper, when left alone with Kendall, Parker began to inquire of him if he regarded himself as a Christian, to which Kendall replied that he “hoped he was.”32

“Have you ever declared yourself as on the Lord’s side?” Parker pressed.

“No,” Kendall answered, understanding that Parker was referring to baptism.

“Then you are reckoned with his enemies,” Parker charged the affronted Kendall. “Wicked men use your name and point to your life as an argument against the church, saying there is no necessity of maintaining the institutions of the Christian religion,” said Parker, gaining momentum as he spoke. “They say, ‘Mr. Kendall is a good man. But he is no Christian. So why should I join a church?’ Because the better the men, the stronger the testimony against the church.”

Kendall was perplexed but still defensive. “But what can I do?” he protested. “I can’t accept the creed of any church.”

“Do you regard baptism as a rite by which men declare themselves as friends of Christ, as separating themselves from the world?” Parker asked.

“Most certainly I do,” Kendall answered. “The ordinance of baptism makes this declaration of loyalty to Christ and of faith in and submission to him.”

“Then if you are willing to take your place as his disciple,” Parker explained patiently, “and declare yourself as his disciple, I should baptize you. Obey; do what you know as duty and the way will open before you.”33 With this, Parker bade the flustered Kendall goodnight, leaving him to ponder the state of his soul.

To everyone’s surprise, just a few weeks later at Calvary’s weekly prayer meeting, Kendall stood and declared his intention to join the church by baptism.34 He explained his reasons, using almost verbatim the words Parker had spoken to him weeks earlier: “Though for many years I have endeavored to live the life of an upright man, yet, by not attaching myself to the church, I feel that my life was a standing opposition to Christianity.”35

So on Sunday, April 2, 1865—a week before Lee’s surrender in Virginia—Kendall was baptized into church membership of Calvary. As a sign of good will, the baptismal pool at E Street Baptist Church was graciously offered to Calvary for the occasion.36 “The next news from Washington,” Parker wrote, “was that he [Kendall] had been baptized and united with the church. As he moved forward his difficulties with creeds disappeared and his happiness increased.”37 Alongside sectional strife, church membership had played no small part in the conflict at E Street. But all of Amos Kendall’s concerns seemed to have been alleviated by his encounter with Joseph W. Parker.

The battle between E Street and Calvary Baptist Church had ended, just in time for the end of the Civil War. A month later, Thomas Ustick Walter concluded his work on the US Capitol dome, returning from fractious Washington back to the City of Brotherly Love. Even as E Street and Calvary found a way to settle their differences, somehow Walter’s family was reunited as his son Thomas voluntarily took the oath of allegiance to the federal government and was restored to his family.38

The war had taken its toll on the country, on its churches, and on Walter. Gone were the 620,000 brave men who fought “kith and kin” on endless fields of blood. Gone were the scattered members of the churches of the once-populous metropolis turned overnight into a military encampment. And gone were the proslavery sentiments of millions who, like Walter, once held the institution as a matter of political and scriptural necessity. But out of the ashes of death, a new day was dawning.

As Lady Freedom sheathed her sword on the pinnacle of Walter’s Capitol dome, her gaze settled on a part of the city destined to emerge from the rubbles of war: the long-overlooked neighborhood known as Capitol Hill.

Figure 1.5. An artist’s sketch of Capitol Hill in 1872 depicts pre-Civil War era townhouses at 7th and Maryland Avenue NE in Washington. The empty lots, newly constructed gas streetlamps, and worn picket fence give a sense of what Capitol Hill looked like.

A Sunday School Started

By the time Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia on April 9, 1865, Celestia Anne Hunt (as she was then known) was two weeks from turning twenty-one. As Union troops repopulated the war-weary city, one man caught her attention as they attended services at E Street Baptist Church: a handsome corporal from New Jersey named Abraham Ferris.

As a soldier in Company K of the Seventh New Jersey in the Army of the Potomac, Ferris witnessed the worst of the war, including the Peninsula Campaign and the Battle of Gettysburg. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Williamsburg in 1862 by saving his captain’s life. While the captain was searching for wounded men in the woods during a lull in the battle, a Confederate soldier appeared and shot him just below the ear, nearly severing his tongue. Ferris gave chase, killed the rebel soldier, and carried the wounded captain back to safety.39

Ferris began attending services at E Street Baptist Church after an injury forced him to transfer to the Veteran Reserve Corps. Not long after, he was converted and, on July 29, 1866, was baptized into membership of E Street Baptist Church.40 Less than a year later, on April 23, 1867, Abraham and Celestia were wed.41 Soon after settling into their home at 214 A Street NE, the Ferrises called their friends together on a crisp November night in 1867 to pray for a Baptist church to be established on Capitol Hill.

Figure 1.6. The only surviving picture of Celestia A. Ferris (1844–1924), founder of the prayer meeting and Sunday school that led to the formation of Metropolitan Baptist Church.

Although Celestia Ferris and her band of friends did not know all the difficulties facing the Baptists of Washington, they prayed to an all-knowing God who did. And as they prayed, he answered—in ways that will only be fully comprehended in eternity. For four years, they continued to pray, until by 1871 their group had grown large enough to open a Sunday school on Capitol Hill. They called it the Capitol Hill Baptist Sunday School. Each Sunday afternoon, the Ferrises, Murrays, Spoffords, and Skirvings sang hymns, read the Bible, and memorized Scripture with neighborhood children. They did not have their own building yet, so they rented a one-story, wooden school building at the corner of Seventh and A Streets NE.42

In the nineteenth century, Sunday schools did not exist to provide childcare during services but to evangelize and catechize those who would not otherwise be afforded religious upbringing. Many of the children attending the “Sabbath school” worked during the week and lacked elementary education. Many could not even read. They were the children of immigrants, freed slaves, or poor Whites who lived in squalid conditions, “Alley Dwellings,” as they were known, often with one leaky latrine servicing up to thirty families.43

Sunday school workers like Celestia Ferris went to such decrepit places to, in their words, “compel the people to come in that the Lord’s house might be filled.”44 They hoped to provide children with educational opportunities and religious instruction not otherwise available at home. They hoped to divert children from the sin of “Sabbath-breaking” which, in their minds, would taint the city and the nation.45 But most of all, they hoped and prayed that the seeds sown into the hearts of these young people would eventually yield fervent and faithful church members.46As Francis McLean would later recall in 1891, “Thus from the starting point, step by step, have all these interests grown, and all are indebted to the Sunday-school.”47

The work was an instant success. By 1874, the Sunday school workers were ready to purchase property and formally incorporate as an association, which they called the Metropolitan Baptist Association. In their constitution, adopted on June 12, 1874, the forty-four members stated that their aim was the “organization and establishment of a Baptist Church in the Eastern section of the city.”48 Their progress toward that goal took a significant step forward with the purchase of a vacant plot of land at the corner of Sixth and A Street NE on November 7, 1874.49 The trustees chose the lot because it was one of the highest points of elevation on Capitol Hill.50

With property in hand, the association began constructing a one-room, brick Sunday school building. To keep the cost low, they agreed to provide the materials themselves. Celestia Ferris even suggested that each child bring any bricks they could find to the construction site. Enthused by her instructions and no doubt eager to please their teacher, two of the girls visited a brickyard in the southeast section of the city and asked for a few bricks. When the owner of the brickyard asked their reason, they explained that they were helping to build a church and that their Sunday school teacher had instructed them to collect bricks. Impressed by their importunity, the owner promised to see what he could do.

In short order, a large stack of brand-new bricks appeared on the church property, courtesy of the brickyard owner. Encouraged by their success, the two girls proceeded to visit two other brickyards, telling them what the first man had done. As a result, two more loads of bricks appeared overnight at the corner of Sixth and A Street NE, one from each of the brickyard owners.

Through the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the children, the only bricks purchased for the erection of the building were the ones used on the front of the building. The rest were collected by children. As Celestia Ferris and others had prayed for the Sunday school children to become “living stones” (1 Pet. 2:5), the very bricks through which the chapel was constructed were the result of prayer.51

On February 6, 1876, nine years after their first prayer meeting, the new chapel was dedicated.52 The trustees congratulated the association on the completion of the chapel, writing that “there is every encouragement to go forward in the good work for which it was organized.”53 With an association formed, property acquired, and a building erected, Celestia Ferris and her band of friends were finally ready to begin holding Sunday services on Capitol Hill.

Figure 1.7. The earliest known photograph of Metropolitan Baptist Church’s first building, built in 1876 and demolished in 1911 to construct the present building.

A Church Formed

Between 1876 and 1878, the Metropolitan Baptist Association began hosting a weekly prayer meeting on Wednesday evenings and, soon after that, a Sunday evening prayer service.54 At last the Baptists of Capitol Hill felt ready: they had a suitable building, manageable debt, and favorable prospects for growth. But they still needed the financial support and the encouragement of other Baptist churches in Washington.

Financial support proved exceptionally difficult to acquire. In 1878 the United States was in its fifth year of an economic recession. The “Panic of 1873” had settled into the “Long Depression,” with unemployment peaking in 1878 at an estimated rate of over 10 percent.55 For many DC churches, it was difficult enough to maintain their own churches, much less contribute to a new one. Thus, the revered Baptist statesman and deacon at E Street, Andrew Rothwell, argued that the organization of a Baptist church on Capitol Hill should be delayed to “a not distant future day” when “they have cleared their property from debt.”56

When a group of representatives from Capitol Hill met with Calvary Baptist and E Street on January 3, 1878, most of the questions revolved around “financial prospects and numerical strength.”57 Even beyond contributing to the work financially, Calvary and E Street knew that by encouraging the formation of this new church, they would be losing members who would be diverting their time, attention, and resources elsewhere.

Despite the recession, everyone chipped in to help get the work off the ground. Former rivals—like Calvary and E Street—locked arms together to plant a church on Capitol Hill. Calvary Baptist Church gave $200, Second Baptist $100, and E Street $75. Joseph Parker contributed $25 of his personal funds toward the new venture, and Calvary Baptist also donated old hymn books.58

Finally, on February 4, 1878, a group of pastors and representatives of the Baptist churches of Washington, DC, convened at the small brick chapel on Capitol Hill to discuss the prospect of giving recognition to a new church. The chair called the meeting to order by asking those gathered to open Philip Bliss and Ira Sankey’s Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs59 to sing Emily S. Oakey’s hymn, “What Shall the Harvest Be?” Though only a few years old, the song was already a favorite among Baptists. Many knew it by heart.

Reflecting on Jesus’s parable of the sower, the hymn describes various seasons of sowing—in “weakness and might,” with an “aching heart,” and with “teardrops”—before concluding with confidence:

Sown in the darkness or sown in the light,

Sown in our weakness or sown in our might,

Gathered in time or eternity,

Sure, ah! sure, will the harvest be.60

With their rich bass and tenor voices reverberating throughout the brick chapel, the pastors and delegates reminded each other of the common mission and purpose that had brought them together that evening. Despite the years of infighting, the church splits, and the war that had rent the nation apart, they were still united by one Spirit in a common mission: gospel sowing and harvest gathering.

That evening the Baptists of Washington came together to lend their support for the first time since the war to establishing a new church in the nation’s capital. By passing the following resolution, these once alienated churches were doing more than planting a church. They were planting a flag for Christ in the very heart of the nation:

Resolved, That we tender to the brethren and sisters composing the Metropolitan Association an expression of our fraternal sympathy in their efforts to establish a Gospel church in this section of the city; and reposing confidence in their discretion, wisdom and piety, we recommit to them the matter of organizing said church and the time such organization shall be made.61

The jubilant Baptists of Capitol Hill wasted no time in communicating the good news to the rest of their band, urging all interested parties to bring “their letters” to a meeting to be held on Sunday February 27, 1878, where they would formally covenant as a church.62

At long last, the church was born. On Sunday, February 27, 1878, at 7:30 p.m., dozens gathered in the chapel at the corner of Sixth and A to covenant together and form the Metropolitan Baptist Church.63 After a reading of Scripture and prayer, the business began. Letters from various Baptist churches were read one by one, indicating the name and city of the church each person was coming from, as well as the date of the letter. The plurality of letters came from Second Baptist Church in Navy Yard (thirteen in total).64 Ten came from E Street Baptist Church.65 Also represented were members joining from Calvary Baptist Church and First Baptist Church, with the four remaining constituent members joining from churches outside of the District.66

After the reading of the letters, the members rose to covenant with each other before the Lord: