Final look as a church moves on

This week we’ll conclude our look back at the centennial anniversary of First Baptist Church at 6th Street and Orange Avenue.

Last week we left off as the church was entering the 1960s, a decade of great change for America and ? as we will see ? for our little church.

As the decade began, Rev. Lowell Spangler left to teach at Huntington Beach High School, and Rev. Gordon Gilbert replaced him in 1961.

Rev. Gilbert, his wife Wanda and their daughter lived just a block away at 327 7th St.

In 1962 the church’s official Sunday morning greeter, William Somers “Shorty” Preston, passed away suddenly.

Preston was born in 1884 at his parent’s property in Umatilla County, Oregon. In December 1904, his family moved to Huntington Beach.

When Preston was 22, he joined a small group of Baptists who formed what became the First Baptist Church of Huntington Beach.

Preston graduated from Huntington Beach High School and later became a member of the Ocean View school board, an active member of the Baptist church and a president of the Santa Ana Valley Baptist Layman’s Assn.

In July 1965 the church board recommended selling two houses it owned on Orange Avenue to pay off the church’s bonded indebtedness. That sale brought in $26,000, but it failed to solve the church’s financial problems.

The church looked to surrounding towns for support. Church historian Jim Simpson told me that on Feb. 27, 1966, a merger of the First Baptist Church of Huntington Beach and the Community Baptist Church of Westminster took place in the sanctuary of the First Baptist Church of Fountain Valley.

Rev. Gilbert delivered his farewell sermon in the church on Feb. 27, 1966, having accepted the pastorate at the University Baptist Church in Bakersfield.

Taking over would be Willis Jack Loar.

During this time, Rev. Loar would give two Sunday sermons each week, one here and one for the Community Baptist Church at Peek Family Chapel in Westminster.

The church planning committee was established and given the task of finding a new site for both churches, and it found a plot at the southeast corner of Gothard Street and Center Avenue.

On Sunday, January 28, 1968, a groundbreaking ceremony took place, with a large attendance of church members from both churches. I have seen a picture of this proposed church, and it was beautiful.

The building committee met regularly to plan its construction, but in 1969 the First Baptist Church of Fountain Valley began looking at building a new sanctuary. The plans were put in jeopardy, and the only way to save it was to merge their church with the two newly merged churches here.

By 1971 the leadership of the Baptist Convention, the main body of the Baptist church, informed our church that it was putting the Gothard Street property up for sale.

In February 1972, Rev. Loar left the church, and on March 5 the First Baptist Church of Huntington Beach-Fountain Valley was created. That church remains to this day, with Rev. Vic Gordon as pastor.

Roots are very important to any organization, and for this church the roots are all around them.

The members have the opportunity of seeing the bell that called those first worshipers to service nearly a hundred years ago.

They also have the opportunity of seeing the original building that started their church and which still stands on Sixth Street. The experience of seeing the tower where their bell hung for so many years and stepping inside the church as so many did in earlier times is something that they can treasure as the past now meets the future.