Events Calendar

Join us for Worship each Sunday at 11:00am

Church School for all ages begins at 10am every Sunday

Adult Sessions

January 12th

Lectio divina led by Linda Bausserman

January 19th

Beginning Again – Ruth Marris-Macaulay

 A look at how to begin a new year of spiritual commitments and meaningful actions. 

January 26th

 A presentation on new book by Jonathan Rauch:  Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain With Democracy (it will be published in February 4th ) – Ruth Marris-Macaulay. This will be based on a conversation between the author, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Jewish atheist, and David French, New York Times columnist, an evangelical Christian and political conservative.

On Saturday, January 25th at 6:00am, a group of Rhode Island Baptists will be headed to sunny LaRomana, DR to help our Haitian brothers and sisters provide medical clinics in the batays and continue work on the Good Samaritan Hospital. These projects serve the sugar cane workers.

Please pray for the safety of all involved.

A Time for Quiet Meditation and Reflection

Tuesdays – 12:00 – 1:00
Join us in the Auditorium for a few minutes or the full hour. Please enter and leave silently.

Book Groups

Wednesday Ladies Group at 1:00 via Zoom
Practice the Pause : Jesus’ Contemplative Practice, New Brain Science and What It Means to Be Fully. Human by Carolyn Oakes

Thursday Evening at 5:45 via Zoom
Sessions with Psalms by Eric and Alicia d. Porterfield

For more information contact Linda Bausserman

Garden of Earthy Delights

See you in March to plant peas.

Choir

You are invited to join the choir. Choir will resume on January 23rd in Fellowship Hall We meet each Thursday evening at 7:30 pm and on Sunday morning at 9:30 am.

Mark Your Calendar

On the weekend of October 11-12 we will be celebrating the 250th anniversary of our historic building. (This is the weekend closest to Roger Williams banishment from Massachusetts for spreading “newe & dangerous opinions“.) We will have tours, speakers and music. Plans are still developing. So stay tuned.

Did you know? The Meeting House will be 250 years old in 2025. While you wait for the celebration here are some building facts from the book First by J.Stanley Lemons. (You can purchase the book at the Meeting House.)

  • Until 1802, the basement of the Meeting House was primitive and unfinished. It had been rented out to local businessmen, was a practice room for an incipient church choir, and had been used to store the hearse which the Charitable Baptist Society had imported from England in 1791.
  • In 1802, it was improved to create a meeting room, which was still dim and damp when the Sunday School began in 1819. As the Sunday School grew, more space was carved out. In 1837, the floor was leveled and finally in 1857, after years of debate, the whole lower region was excavated and reconstructed.
  • In February 1774, some of the leading men associated with the church began planning for a new larger building. In addition to deciding on the design of the building, they needed land. Unfortunately, the main parcel they wanted was owned by John Angell who despised the Baptists. So, an Anglican friend, William Russell Purchased the Angell property and sold it to the Charitable Baptist Society.
  • Monetary pledges were made to cover most of the cost of the meeting house. Those who could not give money donated labor and materials. Daniel Hawkins pledged £6 to be paid in timber & bords, and John Pettis pledged £9 to be paid in stones. The expense accounts also record “Licker at Raiseings & at other times…£22.
  • James Gibbs sketched four designs for the steeple of the Church of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fieldsin London, one of which was chosen and used in 1726. The other three appeared in Gibb’s Book of Architecture (1728), and Joseph Brown, architect for the Meeting House, picked one of those for the Meeting House.
  • The steeple was erected in 3 1/2 days in June 1775.