One of Huntington’s most storied congregations celebrates 150 years of faith and leadership.
By Jean Hardiman
HQ 117 | SPRING 2022
A year after the city of Huntington celebrated its sesquicentennial, one of Huntington’s oldest religious congregations is celebrating its 150th anniversary as well.
The congregation of Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, located at 1135 Fifth Ave. in downtown Huntington, first gathered at Marshall College in 1872, built their first official church in 1882 and built their current building in 1919. But just as it’s been said about the city itself, it is not the church building but the people of Fifth Avenue Baptist who make it something worth celebrating.
The six towering columns aligned at the front of the church building serve as reminders of the values that have inspired thousands of faithful members over the years: love God, love one another — followed by church inreach, outreach, spiritual growth and missions. Foster all those values in your members and you have a pretty sturdy lot, the kind that have helped sustain their community in hard times and flourish in good times.
In other words, they have a lot to celebrate, and have an entire calendar filled with activities throughout 2022 to do just that. From a global service project to special guest speakers to celebrating with food, music, national spiritual leaders and the recognition of members who have been there for over 50 years, the church will fling open its doors to anyone in the community who would like to come back or visit for the first time. The theme is “Honoring Our Legacy of Faith,” and the celebration comes in the third year of the global pandemic — yet another challenge through which the congregation has supported each other.
“We’re hoping this will help people re-gather,” said Donna Dingus, chair of the sesquicentennial celebration committee. “I think it’s going to be a great year. We’re so excited.”
The celebration kickoff took place on Feb. 6, 2022, with a visit from the general secretary of the American Baptist Churches, the Rev. Jeff Woods of Newark, Ohio. Fifth Avenue Baptist has been a leader in West Virginia for giving to American Baptist Church missions.
In the spring, Fifth Avenue Baptist will recognize members who have attended Fifth Avenue Baptist in excess of 50 years.
Sally Cyrus, a former physical education teacher at Marshall University, is among that group. She joined at 9 years old in 1941. She taught elsewhere in West Virginia but said she never did find a congregation quite like Fifth Avenue Baptist. She’s been actively involved, teaching and participating in Sunday school groups, which the church offers for members of all ages. It’s been a lifelong pleasure for her. The Bethel Bible Study in the 1970s was particularly memorable.
“It was a study of the whole Bible and gave you an overview,” she said. “They said it was worth one year of seminary.”
Mary Beth Elmore, a church historian, joined the church while attending Marshall in 1964. Her membership has been nothing short of life-changing, she said. Not only did she and her husband develop wonderful friendships, but the community service projects in Huntington and international mission work inspired their son.
“I have a son in Honduras who works a foundation,” Elmore said. “He said, ‘Much of who I am came from watching the people of FAB and how they lived their lives.’ It’s a church that gives people a good foundation.”
On May 15, Fifth Avenue Baptist celebrated its spirit of mission work by participating in a meal-packing event to send 30,000 meals to Nicaragua, where their church has supported an orphanage. The project is offered through Numana, a Kansas company, which helps organize massive meal preparation events to serve the hungry.
“We needed over 100 volunteers,” Dingus said, adding that volunteers from the community were invited to join the event as well. It involved an assembly line with beans, rice, vitamins and protein powder.
On the weekend of Aug. 20-21, the church is getting a visit from Michael Belk, a fashion photographer turned religious photographer, who went to Italy and photographed the relevance of Jesus in the 21st century. He now shares Jesus through his thought-provoking photos.
“He goes over his interpretation of Scripture and the relevance for us living today,” Dingus said. “Some of the pictures are happy, some are thought-provoking, some are challenging. It’s really, really interesting.”
The church also will add panels to a quilt that celebrates church history, will put on a drama that walks through the 150 years of the congregation and will provide an audio booth where church members can record their stories and memories.
Fifth Avenue Baptist is also commissioning musician Matthew Jackfert to write an instrumental composition. The idea for the song was the brainchild of Joyce Bunch.
“I see the church as always being here, steadfast and steady, through 150 years,” said Bunch. “From the Great Depression to floods, wars, the Marshall plane crash, 9/11 and more, the faith of the church has lived on.”
That instrumental composition will be performed over a homecoming celebration weekend Oct. 22-23 that will also include a roundtable with former pastors, a banquet, special guests and a large congregational photo on the steps outside.
“It’s going to be a big birthday bash. After 150 years, you need a big party,” Dingus said.
On Dec. 3 there will be a “Singing Tree” reunion concert with a gathering of the singers and Shawn Berry, who played organ for the popular holiday concert. The church’s former “Singing Tree” involved scaffolding shaped like a tree filled with choral singers.
“It was Fifth Avenue’s gift to the community every Christmas,” said Dingus, who also played organ at the special event for more than 12 years. “It was a major production. They wore green choir robes with tinsel around their necks and would start with ‘Silent Night’ and end with a big arrangement of ‘O Come All Ye Faithful.’”
The group will perform, minus the scaffolding, topping off a year the congregation hopes will be filled with memories and spiritual renewal.
“There is a great variety of events that will help us touch on events of the past and stay engaged with today’s ministries,” said the Rev. Eric Porterfield, one of only 11 head pastors leading the congregation over 150 years. He was most recently preceded by the Rev. Allen Reasons and before that the Rev. R.F. Smith.
“It’s a privilege to serve such a wonderful congregation with such a rich history,” said Porterfield, whose wife Alicia serves as associate pastor. “They’re an amazing group of people who have served God and our community wonderfully in the past and built a church that is a place of mission and energy to do what God has called us to do.”
