Sioux Falls church marks 150 years while planning for new location

The First Baptist choir performs on a recent Sunday morning

By Jill Callison
Pigeon 605

For 150 years, First Baptist Church has both seen change and created change.

The church, part of the American Baptist Churches USA denomination, has altered Sioux Falls almost since its beginning.

The University of Sioux Falls? It started in the First Baptist basement. When Martin Luther King Jr. visited the city, although he was unwelcome in a hotel, First Baptist members warmly welcomed him. When Sioux Falls’ young people needed a place to gather, the church started The Coffee House at 22nd Street and Minnesota Avenue.

Evangelist Billy Graham brought a crusade to Sioux Falls in the 1980s, and First Baptist leadership led the movement to bring him here. The former Children’s Inn, now the Children’s Home Society Shelter for Family Safety, the addiction treatment center Glory House and even the YMCA — all three depended on First Baptist when starting up.

First Baptist Church’s history has been richly integrated with the wider Sioux Falls community, said the Rev. Bill McCready, its lead pastor since March 2020.

“Honestly, this historically has been a very impactful church in the life of our denomination,” he said.

First Baptist itself has set its roots down in three neighborhoods since its founding and now, as it marks its sesquicentennial, is looking ahead to a fourth location.

First Baptist owns 19 acres at 95th Street and Louise Avenue in southern Sioux Falls, McCready said, and an architect firm has plans drawn up for a building.

“Every time the church has moved, it’s moved to the edge of town, and the town has outgrown it,” McCready said. “In the 1950s when we moved to 22nd Street and Covell Avenue, we were across the street from a cornfield. We had moved to the very edge of town, and we’re doing that again.”

Today, the Sanford Health campus and Sonia Sotomayor Elementary hem in First Baptist. Several decades ago, the church purchased residential property on Covell Avenue across from its building, hoping to convince the city to close the street. City officials said that would never happen because of the elementary school. Eventually, the property was sold, and the Sanford Imagenetics building now stands there.

First Baptist now must sell its current building to raise the funds to break ground on a new church. It also is raising funds to cover the rest of the construction costs. In the interim, between sale and finished construction, First Baptist will become a “mobile church,” renting facilities elsewhere.

McCready said he would love to see another church purchase it, but he notes philosophically: “Beggars can’t be choosers. We’ve pitched every idea to everybody who will listen. I have all the ideas I need; what we need is a buyer.”

If the building remains, there’s a chance that the chimes that ring out over the neighborhood every Sunday could be heard for years to come. The chimes play when McCready arrives for Sunday services; he jokes that the tunes are his “walk-up music.”

Church history points to an older woman known as Grandma Cummins as the guiding force behind establishing one of Sioux Falls’ earliest churches and the longest-tenured Baptist church.

“She started praying and gathered a group together for two years before they were able to call a pastor, and we incorporated as a church in 1875,” McCready said. “That’s a piece of the history that we grabbed ahold of. All the best things that have happened in the life of First Baptist are because people started praying. It’s a testament to the power of the Holy Spirit, what God does with those who take the time to focus.”

First Baptist members began marking the 150th anniversary last summer with an occasional message series on legacy and destiny. For its actual birthday week in late June, it offered a special night of worship, a birthday party and a worship service on July 6 that combined the contemporary and traditional.

In future months, the church will focus on prayer, the need to continue serving in Sioux Falls and its plans to move into a new neighborhood. At its congregational peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s, First Baptist was known for traveling around the Midwest, serving others.

“We want to be focused in prayer on what to do, where God wants us to plant our feet and be part of what we’re doing in the wider Sioux Falls community,” McCready said. “One of the things people have talked about, they remember when we were vibrant and full and thriving. We were connected to the neighborhood, but people would come in from other places too. … We’ll see where God takes it.”

McCready doesn’t worry about membership numbers. What matters is the people who show up on Sundays, then go out to serve the community the other six days. Average attendance runs about 270 on Sundays.

When McCready and his wife flew from the West Coast to Sioux Falls, they learned that the city was not what they had been picturing. Sioux Falls was thriving, the music scene was exciting and so much was going on. Sioux Falls is unique, McCready said, with opportunities and challenges, with voices that have been leading for years and a younger generation unafraid to speak up.

University of Sioux Falls students who serve internships at First Baptist become integrated into staff conversations. Church members want to keep their ears open and listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying about community needs, both church and city.

“We’re narrowing our focus, not trying to do too much,” McCready said. “A church starts a bunch of different stuff, and over time some things come to a positive conclusion. We do not want to stretch too far but make sure we can accomplish the things we’re setting out to do.”

First Baptist is blessed to have a congregation that is diverse age wise and multigenerational. That is becoming rarer in today’s world, McCready said. The church offers active ministry for children, for teenagers, for families, for older members, for grandparents, parents and kids, he said.