THE STORY

During the fall of 1876 some prayer meetings started in the school house in Randolph by some interested people who lived in the area.  Members of the Carleton Free Christian Baptist Church lead the prayer meetings.  By October, 1880 a Board of Trustees was appointed and the original brick shell building was organized and built in 1881 as the First Baptist Church of Fairville. It remains today as the overflow and welcome centre.

In October of 1895 the original brick shell building had an addition built on to it.  It includes the current sanctuary.  It increased the size and seating capacity dramatically and made more room for a growing Sunday School.

In 1953 the City of Lancaster came into being.  That prompted the Fairville Baptist Church to become the First Baptist Church of Lancaster.  Then in 1967 Lancaster amalgamated with the City of Saint John and the name changed again to the Lancaster United Baptist Church (United referring to a Baptist denominational union of two different Baptist groups in 1905/06).  Now we are simply known as Lancaster Baptist Church. 

The Christian Education Centre (C.E. Centre) was completed with a gym, classrooms, kitchen and other spaces in 1969.  The cost of that project was $225,000.  It continues to be a great space for all kinds of events and activities.

2020 Update.  In the midst of the Covid19 Pandemic the church was unable to meet in-person from March 15 to the end of September.   During that time, the church continued to discuss the possibilities of selling the property and starting new, putting hundreds of thousands into the old building to try and fix it, or demolishing and building new at a later date.  On July 5, 2020 after much prayer and discussion the congregation voted to move our operations completely to the C.E Centre and demolish the church building with hopes of rebuilding in the future.   July 12 we held three identical decommissioning services for our old building.  December 16, 2020 began the demolition of the church building.