On July 15, 1911, a group of Baptists agreed to sponsor a tent revival meeting at the corner of Springfield Avenue and Commercial Street. On August 14, 1911, these believers met in the tent after the revival meeting and organized as Seventh Baptist Church and became a cooperating church with Greene County Baptist Association.
E.T. Sloan was elected the first pastor on September 24, 1911. The church first met in the second story of a building at the corner of Commercial and National. In January 1913, the church moved to Kohler’s Hall at the corner of Dale and National Boulevard where services were held until the first church building was erected at the corner of Blaine and National in 1914.
Though the Southern Baptist Convention Cooperative Program was begun in 1925, records show the church was raising funds for local, state and international missions as early as December 1911. In 1921, Mrs. T.F. Simmons organized the first Women’s Missionary Union.
In 1924, the Seventh Baptist Church became National Boulevard Baptist Church. This remains the legal name of the church, though in actual usage the name was shortened to Boulevard Baptist Church.
In 1947, a new enlarged front was added to the church and later classrooms were added to the back of that building. In 1959, the church voted to build a new auditorium. The first services were held in that building on Easter Sunday 1960. In 1975, the church constructed a new educational wing on the south side of the auditorium. W. L. Murdaugh was pastor during this time of growth.
For some time the possibility of moving to a more advantageous location had been considered. On March 18, 1998, representatives of Boulevard Baptist Church, Washington Avenue Baptist Church and Drury University met to discuss the possible sale of Boulevard’s property. Drury University had plans for a new science center, which they hoped to build on the south end of their campus by purchasing Washington Avenue Baptist Church’s property. Washington Avenue Baptist Church wanted to stay in the immediate area and had looked at other existing buildings. The meeting on March 18 came after some preliminary conversations of all three parties in late 1997 and early 1998.
After months of prayer and discussion the church voted on January 13, 1999, to relocate. In a specially called business meeting, Sunday, May 23, 1999, the church voted to accept an offer from Drury University and to purchase the current location on Eastgate Avenue.
Drury University offered an additional financial incentive to move early and make use of their facilities until the building was finished. On March 12, 2000, the church overwhelmingly approved the building plans and Drury’s offer.
Boulevard celebrated her last Sunday at 1722 North National Boulevard on October 1, 2000, and worshipped on the Drury campus in the Findley Student Center and Congregational Hall until the first service in the new facility at 1030 South Eastgate Avenue on April 15, 2001 (Easter Sunday). A building dedication and 90th anniversary celebration was held August 19, 2001. Since then, the church has added more parking, an education building, and expanded the current auditorium.
Before this move, in 1994, God gave us Douglas R. Shivers as our Pastor. Under his leadership, the church underwent the great move discussed above, and has since grown considerably spiritually and in number, adopted a church covenant joining our members in union together, understood and adopted a more reformed soteriological view, and moved to a post-Acts 6 church polity where, in 2017, the office of elder was established alongside the existing office of deacon. Today elders serve through leadership and deacons lead through service in a beautiful representation of the biblically described New Testament church. In 2021, the church adopted an elder-drafted, congregational-approved church confession of faith that will serve as our church’s essential doctrinal statement. Today, the church stands as a well established Reformed Baptist church in the Springfield community.
In the summer of 2021, Boulevard will recognize its 110th anniversary with 143 families representing 423 folks who actively attend as members or nonmembers during this season of growth. Of all of those who actively attend, we rejoice in the 148 children God has brought our way to raise in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Our Father in heaven has certainly been good to us and we look, with great anticipation and hope, to see those who are in our midst whom do not know Christ to repent and believe upon Jesus alone for their salvation and to see many more people come to Christ for His glory and for their good.
To God be the glory for His faithfulness to His people!