Our Story
Our Mission & Purpose
Eureka Baptist Church exists to glorify God through helping people to seek and find salvation in Jesus, to seek and find His Church, to seek and find His teachings, and to seek and find His holiness.
We help people to seek and find salvation in Jesus through Christ-centered preaching and teaching of the Holy Bible and equipping members to herald the Gospel in the community and beyond.
We help people to seek and find the Church of Jesus by facilitating regular opportunities to gather in corporate worship of the Lord Jesus Christ, which includes faithful preaching of the Scriptures and observing the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
We help people to seek and find the teachings of Jesus by teaching and explaining the Bible in a variety of settings.
We help people to seek and find the holiness of Jesus by fostering a community of believers that stirs up one another to love and good works and by examining one another for evidence of repentance and faith.
Our History
Eureka Baptist Church was organized on December 7, 1919. Two acres of land were donated by the John Wilson Watts family and plans for the meeting house were drawn by Otis M. Locke, Sr. The first complete service in the meeting house was held on August 14, 1920. The church shared a pastor in a field of churches until a decision was made in 1973 to support a full time pastor. In the same year land was given for the parsonage and then on February 2, 1974, Rev. and Mrs. Dale Proctor moved into the new parsonage. There have been many improvements to the church grounds over the years. But it was in that first sermon ever preached that the people of Eureka were reminded from Haggai 1 that the church should be a people "stirred up" by the Lord in order to do his work. Our story is more than brick and mortar, but a people being moved by God to be a part of his mission on the earth.
In 2015 we implemented a church membership class to teach the importance of church membership and the expectations of church members. Since 2017, members of the church have been involved in short term mission trips to Guatemala to help plant and strengthen churches in her western mountains. In 2019 we joined the SBC of Virginia, which is a group of Bible-believing autonomous churches that cooperate together in order to build up the kingdom of God in Virginia and across the world. In 2024 we established a Board of Elders to oversee and shepherd the church in accordance with the multiple pastors/overseers/elders described in each local church in the Bible (see Acts 20:28; Philippians 1:1; 1 Peter 5:1-2).
Our story is not finished yet. While we retain much of our traditional identity from our inception, we look forward to reaching the current generation with the good news of Jesus. May we be marked by faithfulness to his Word and the Lord as God continues to move his people towards his mission to reach the nations with the Gospel until Jesus returns.