Who We Are as the Family
of Blacksburg Baptist Church
Someone once said, “If you want a united church, involve them in missions.” Perhaps no truer statement has been made since Christ himself. Why? The answer is simple. Christ was a mission. He was not on a mission. He was God’s mission of love, peace, joy, hope, and unity to the entire world.
Jesus embodied a love so full, so complete and so life-giving it has found no equal in the universe for 2000 years.
Jesus embodied a peace so miraculous it exceeds understanding, yet its capacity to calm tortured souls and encourage frightened lives has been unmatched in all the ages.
Jesus’ presence brings joy far exceeding the realm of happiness, for Jesus’ presence is joy! To know the loving, empowering embrace of One whose deepest promise is to never leave nor forsake us, even when we deserve to be forsaken; to experience His forgiveness, strength, comfort, and blessing even when we have disappointed our Lord; that is joy ... a joy that exceeds the boundaries of happiness.
Jesus’ life brings hope, a hope that offers not only eternal life to death-fearing souls, but it pours itself out through human lives to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned, and build shelter for the homeless and the helpless. Jesus’ hope holds the dying with comforting arms ... both His and ours! His hope stirs the hearts and hands of the church to grasp the diseased, the broken, the battered, the bruised, and yes, even those who seem to have everything. Christ’s hope calls God’s people to rise up and become a channel through which God’s grace can flow in whatever form it is needed to whomever needs it. Bible study, inspiring music, soul-stirring preaching, physical aid ... this and more flows from the grace of God. And when it does, it builds the future God dreamt when He inspired the Prophet Jeremiah to write, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for you welfare and not for harm to give you a future with hope.”
And what does this mission breed? It breeds unity! No, not a unity of nation, but a unity of spirit. It unites people from local congregations and distant lands, and it makes them one ... brothers and sisters ... a family united in a common cause no less lofty than the recreation of the planet in the image of God!
Our mission focuses on growth in all its forms, but we are particularly centered upon both numerical growth and spiritual growth. As a church committed to relational, positive evangelism we make no apologies for promoting outreach that is centered on reaching the unchurched in our region. Likewise, we also focus on outreach to those who relocate to the Blacksburg area and are in search of a place of worship. Every face we reach is a soul in need of transformation and/or continued spiritual development through the family of faith. Thus, our mission is one that seeks to make disciples of those who have not previously believed, those who once believed and fell away, and those who are new to our community and are in search of a spiritual home. However, our view of growth does not stop at the waters of baptism or at the first handshake of welcome. We believe in growing spiritually mature believers through study that embraces intellectual as well as biblical integrity.
We also believe it is impossible to grow spiritually without putting feet to faith. Therefore, we not only encourage our members to involve themselves in hands-on service for Christ, but we create the opportunities for such involvement. Our church is an avenue of call. BBC is a congregation that produces ministers for Christ, both dedicated lay ministers and those who are called to vocational ministry. As a result we take seriously our need to be a “congregational seminary,” a place that takes seriously its role in developing, educating and empowering the called for service. We do not simply say, “Go preach.” We invite the called to “come preach.” We do not say, “Go do missions.” We invite the called to “come join us on mission.” We believe fulfillment in faith only comes when our faith, knowledge and spiritual gifts are matched to God’s call through the practice of ministry. Thus, we take seriously our role in identifying God’s call to his people while also taking seriously the root of the word seminary. We are indeed a “seedbed for learning.”
Blacksburg Baptist church has been ministering in Blacksburg for 155 years. It has been actively involved in ministry and missions on all levels. We run an ecumenical Food Pantry on our premises. We founded a program called Hearts and Hammers. Now an ecumenical ministry led by our church, we do small repairs to houses of people who cannot afford to do such work. This ministry also builds quite a few wheel chair ramps to make houses accessible for the disabled. We have both Youth and Adult Mission trips every year. In recent years our church has participated in mission trips to India, Macau, Liberia, Brazil, Colombia, Yugoslavia, the Czech Republic, and Mexico. We have sent teams or individuals to do tsunami relief in India and Indonesia. We have sent mission teams to inner-city Boston, Chicago, Providence, RI, Washington, DC, and Atlanta. We have sent several teams to Slade, KY, the second poorest county in America. We have done disaster relief in Gulfport, Mississippi and we have sent several relief and construction teams made up of adults, college students and youth to New Orleans. We strongly support the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. In fact, two couples from our church are C.B.F. missionaries in Southeast Asia.
We are located across the street from Virginia Tech. There is a good presence of both faculty and staff families as well as college students in our church. We offer monetary support to the Baptist Collegiate Ministries on campus. Interestingly, over the years, many of the buildings on campus have been named after members of our church (Payne Hall, Derring Hall, Harper Hall, Litton-Reaves Hall, Slusher Hall).
Our pastor is currently one of two chaplains of the Blacksburg Police Department (along with the local Presbyterian pastor). He is also the BPD’s chaplain-on-call for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office and the Blacksburg Fire and Rescue Services. This presence has brought a growing number of law enforcement personnel and fire/rescue personnel into our church in recent years, thus enhancing our already diverse membership.
Another area of growth in recent years has been among the members of the medical community. We have had an increasing number of physicians and their families joining our fellowship. Some of these are faculty or adjunctive faculty at the Via-Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine at Virginia Tech (VCOM). Others are physicians who have relocated to the area. However, other ministers in town have recently taken to calling BBC “the physician church” of Blacksburg because of our success in attracting this group of community professionals as well as a number of medical students attending VCOM.
In terms of worship we have three worship services each Sunday morning. The 8:30 service is quite traditional; the 10:00 is more contemporary; the 11:10 service is a blended service. We also do an off-site service at a local retirement and nursing center. With the completion of the Graves Youth Center renovations we will again hold a worship service that focuses on reaching community youth. On Wednesday night we gather for a small fellowship supper and a worship time that is devotional and prayer oriented. Periodically the congregation shares a meal together as well as some outdoor parties on special occasions (4th of July, the annual welcome to our college students, tailgate parties on our front lawn during football season where we project the game onto a big screen). Additionally, the Korean Baptist Fellowship holds worship at BBC on Sundays at 1:00 PM and we have a Chinese Bible Study and Worship Fellowship that meets on Friday evenings. The Chinese program is led by two of our members, a husband and wife team, Dr. Y.A. Liu, a VT chemical engineering professor, and Dr. Hing Har Lo, a professor of radiology at VCOM.
Our church is also quite proud of its program ministries. There are far too many to list in this document, but three of them deserve attention. First, it is no exaggeration to say our church has the best children’s and family ministries in the region. The branches of this program are also too many to name, but they include Children’s Worship, Mother’s of Preschoolers (MOPS), Parents Morning Out, the children’s education ministries and such healing ministries as DivorceCare and DivorceCare-4-Kids.
Our church’s music ministry is one of the largest and most diverse programs in the New River Valley. It includes graded choirs, music education ministries, instrumental teams, praise teams and creative programming offered for purposes of worship and outreach.
Our youth ministry has been known as the best in the region for decades. It includes Bible study ministries, small group programs, a strong mission component and a focused outreach to unchurched youth.
We are proud of what our church is doing as a center of mission and ministry, and we try to inspire God’s people to make personal commitments to get involved! We pray for our hands, words, and lives to be the avenue upon which God’s grace flows, and in so doing we proclaim the promise … Jesus’ promise ... that if we will follow, neither our lives nor the life of the world will ever be the same again! This is who we hope and pray we are as Blacksburg Baptist Church. At least this is the vision to which we aspire.