Congregation celebrates 125 years with renewed purpose

Before Charles Conrad built his mansion and before the creation of Glacier National Park, the First Baptist Church of Kalispell took its place as “a light on a hill” for the infant town in 1893, a year after its birth.

That same year, Kalispell became the county seat of Flathead County, and the church began to welcome new businesses, a hospital, banks, hotels and other churches to the neighborhood, and would remain steadfast in its service to the town for the next 125 years.

Despite its history and devotion in the community, however, First Baptist came within touching distance to closing its doors forever a few years ago when a decline in numbers and a misstep in leadership plunged the church into financial crisis.

One of the church’s few remaining longtime members, Renee Sievers, grew up in the church and remembers what her congregation was like before its decline.

The congregation focused much of its attention on supporting foreign missionaries by sending supplies, fundraising and letter-writing.

Its other smaller programs included Neighbors in Need, a support system established more than 30 years ago with the purpose of providing for community members who were “down on their luck,” a thriving Sunday school program and support of community organizations such as local Boy Scout troops.

When the recession hit Montana hard around 2008, it forced many residents, including longtime members of the First Baptist Church, to leave the state in search for better-paying jobs. Attendance on Sunday morning dwindled to less than two dozen by the time the economy began improving around 2012, leaving the church unable to pay an ordained pastor.

During their time of desperation, church members put their faith in an outsider, a non-ordained pastor, with the hope of staying afloat.

But over the next few years, the decision would turn the church’s financial struggles into financial turmoil as accounts were drained and the congregation debated whether to close the church and walk away, as advised by their leader.

“You can count on difficulties and hardships,” Sievers said. “But I think it’s often when things get difficult that we realize we do need God.”

In the midst of her church’s darkest season, Sievers said its remaining members leaned on their faith and prayed about the future in the wake of such a misstep in leadership.

God, she said, provided a surprising answer.

With 14 heartbroken members left, Sievers said, “God was letting us know he isn’t done with this church.”

The church pushed forward to keep its doors open for three months without a pastor.

Sievers lead several Sunday sermons herself during that time, determined to hold onto the family and the community in which she had grown up. She had experienced the security of other parents and elders looking out for you and loving you as they taught and served, Sievers said.

Sievers and her fellow parishioners hoped to one day regain that sense of a “village and community,” gathering Sunday after Sunday until God turned the page to begin their next chapter.

That chapter began in March 2015 when Pastor Mary Todd walked through the doors.

Todd had been leading a satellite church through the Purpose Church in Pomona, California, from a bed and breakfast she owned and operated in Marion for five years when the leader of the American Baptist Church contacted her about a tiny Baptist congregation in Kalispell that was nearing the brink of extinction.

She agreed, and after preaching a few sermons at First Baptist in Kalispell, Sievers and the rest of the church board asked Todd if she would be interested in a six-month trial period as the church’s full-time pastor.

According to Sievers, however, it only took a few weeks before Todd and the church had bonded beyond separation.

“I really do think that it’s divine that I’m here. That’s God, not me,” Todd said. “They were very hurt and wounded people, and I think the reason God put me in this place is to love on them and build trust. And that’s what I did.”

Through constant prayer, Sievers said she saw her little church begin to make a comeback as Todd worked to help them grow their connections.

In the year and a half that Todd has lead the church, its numbers have grown from around a dozen to an average of about 40.

Despite Siever’s determination and Todd’s leap of faith, both women agree that it was God who revived their church.

First Baptist’s new beginning has given its members the opportunity to reflect and reprioritize their efforts, both internally and externally.

When they saw how close they came to losing the church, Sievers said she and the congregation realized how much they’d been leaning on tradition rather than truth.

Todd, Sievers said, has helped bring out an honesty and an openness in the church by sharing her own story and the mistakes that have come with it.

“God uses my bad behavior to make biblical points of what not to do,” Todd said, laughing.

Sievers said Todd’s open demeanor has helped pave the way for a more welcoming environment in the church than ever before.

“Some pastors try to act perfect and it’s hard to relate,” Todd said. However, she believes that the ability to relate is crucial to the message and actions of love Christ calls the church to extend to the lost and the outcast.

“You can get so caught up in traditions that you start not being welcoming,” Sievers said.

The need for truth has become more crucial than ever, she said, in a culture that she believes has begun to wander from the church as changes in entertainment and lifestyles drive people away.

People struggling to make time for church at all rarely want to commit to the kind of “church family” she experienced as a child, trading a valuable community for an in-and-out service.

Todd and Sievers described their now growing congregation as a “very huggy group,” with a goal of welcoming anyone and everyone who walks through the doors in hopes of sharing all the richness their family has to offer.

Community outreach and local ministry has taken the place of foreign efforts as the church’s focus as its members pour more into their Neighbors in Need, Sunday school, Boy Scout and other programs. In addition, they have begun a spouse support group for law enforcement wives and husbands in collaboration with Braveheart Ministries, as well as providing opportunities for children and parents of the Russell School across the street from their campus.

The church will take on a new name in the coming months.

Now an affiliate of Purpose Church, the First Baptist Church will remain a Baptist church, but will work with its supporting church for technology and other supporting factors.

Its Sunday services reflect more gospel-based preaching, making them open to people of all denominations and walks of life.

As the church approaches its 126th year, Todd said she believes they will soon fill the pews.

“I think that it’s only going to grow,” she said.

Reporter Mary Cloud Taylor can be reached at 758-4459 or mtaylor@dailyinterlake.com.