When a handful of neighbors organized Cole Spring Baptist Church 180 years ago, it became more than a place for worship. It was the social and entertainment center for the community.
Reminiscent of that role, the church will celebrate its exceptional anniversary with revival services featuring a different former or local pastor each night at 7 p.m. Sunday through Sept. 18. Then, Sept. 19 will begin with Sundaes on Saturday 2-5 p.m. with ice cream, Calvary Road trio sharing music, a car show, bounce house and games.
"We hope to reach the whole community," said long-time member Harold Graham.
The current church building was completed in 1890, after fire claimed the first building located near a cold spring. The church changed its name from "Cold Spring" to "Cole Spring" at that time.
The membership may have lost most of its original records. But it has kept a piece of the original church by way of its offering plates, carved from the surviving lumber.
The church also retains generational family memories. For church pianist Mary Jane Graham, she grew up in this same church that her mother grew up in a century ago.
"We've stayed because I like it," Mary Jane said. "I grew up here, so we're like family.
"There's a camaraderie in this little church."
Today's membership numbers may be small, but they continue the same spirit of helping fellow members and their neighbors, she said.
Across the road from the church, a family lost its home to fire and a son to a car accident in the same day a year ago. Mary Jane said she was proud of how the church pulled together to offer that family assistance.
Missouri only a 14-year-old state when Cole Spring Baptist Church organized in Belleville, a stage stop between Jefferson City and Sedalia.
Within the next 60 years, the root of the Belleville community had birthed new churches in other growing communities.
First, Prairie Home Baptist Church was formed in 1881, followed by Mt. Olive Baptist Church in 1888.
Cole Springs organized Russellville Baptist Church in 1903 and finally Corticelli Baptist Church in 1905.
The rural church may be the smallest congregation today in the Concord Baptist Association, but it played an integral part in the early history of the Baptist faith in Mid-Missouri.
After the first Cole Spring church building burned in 1889, First Baptist Church of Jefferson City donated the granite-topped pulpit still used today.