Elgin's Second Baptist Church celebrates 150th anniversary
The excitement in the sanctuary at Second Baptist Church is electric. Palpable. Physical.
It had started as soloist Joe Bills began the Elgin church's 8 a.m. Sunday service with a solo rendition of the black gospel song, "Save A Seat for Me." Gradually the 15-strong Male Chorus had joined him, backed by a guitar and drums. Eventually the 300 people in the audience - all but two of them black - had begun clapping along in rhythm and rocking side by side as they joined in singing the chorus "Save a Seat For Me."
The spiritual pizazz continued to build through a Scripture reading, the introduction of visitors, more music, the announcement of a job training opportunity and the collection of offerings.
Finally it reached a climax as the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Edmond, pastor, stepped up to the see-through plastic pulpit and began his sermon about the "dry bones" story in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel.
After the 300 have read that Bible text in unison, reading words projected on a screen at the front of the room, Edmond announces with carefully choreographed emphasis that "if nothing else this morning, you should take home one lesson - that your SIT-U-ATION is not your DEST-I-NATION!"
The sermon that follows is often closer to a shout than a whisper. The short, slim preacher hammers his message home in the kind of oratorical rhythms mastered by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The worshippers respond with murmurs (and sometimes shouts) of "A-men!" and "Yes-sir!" and "Praise God!"
At the sermon's end, Edmond ascends into the baptismal chamber overhead and three more people - a young teenager and two adults - are baptized into the Christian faith and SBC membership.
Founded by escaped slaves soon after the Civil War ended, Second Baptist was Elgin's first predominantly black church. But as it celebrates its 150th anniversary this summer, it has become one of the Fox Valley's fastest-growing churches of any stripe.
Since Edmond was called to its pulpit 16 years ago, SBC's membership has exploded from 220 to 2,900. Its two Sunday services draw 900 to 1,000 worshippers - so many that the second Sunday service has outgrown this sanctuary and now must be held in the gym-like "multipurpose room" at the church's building along Summit Street on Elgin's far eastern fringe.
'Contraband' history
The church traces its roots to the arrival of the first 110 black people in Elgin on Oct. 15, 1862. They were escaped slaves from Alabama and Mississippi who had sought shelter with Union Army troops from Kane County after the Battle of Shiloh.
Though slavery was still legal, the Army sent them north in boxcars as "contraband" property seized from an enemy nation (the Confederate States of America).
Members of Elgin's white First Baptist Church, including Pastor Adoniram J. Joslyn, played key roles in arranging the journey of these "contrabands." They either went to work as servants in white residents' homes or moved onto three segregated blocks of new homes along Fremont, Hill and Hickory streets, known as "The Settlement."
By July 1866, with the help of Joslyn, these now-freed black residents started a church of their own and named it Second Baptist.
At first they held services in the woods east of Elgin Academy. For years they conducted their baptisms in the Fox River, even during the freezing months of winter.
The congregation then occupied a series of buildings - most notably a brick one built in 1876 at the northwest corner of Dundee Avenue and Kimball Street, where Newsome Park (named after one of SBC's founding families) is now located.
In 1961 SBC members marched as a body to a larger new church home at 280 Franklin St., which previously had held the predominantly white Church of the Nazarene. And in 1990 they erected the present modern building at 1280 Summit St.
Growing in numbers
With so many hundreds more people pouring in each Sunday, Edmond says, physical needs have become a problem.
In 2005 the multipurpose room and eight classrooms were added. The church has bought 10 acres of adjoining vacant land "with the intention of not having to leave Summit Street for a long time," Edmond says.
Cars from the overflowing parking lot now park on the grass on the vacant land and the church might expand the sanctuary so that the 700 people at the 10:30 a.m. service don't have to squeeze into that gym-style room.
"We have considered starting a second campus," Edmond said, especially since some members already come from as far away as Palatine, Woodstock and Geneva. The area's giant megachurches, like Willow Creek Community Church and Harvest Bible Chapel, have built multiple locations, with their pastor's sermon beamed to other campuses via TV screen.
"But it's hard to talk back to a screen," Edmond notes.
Why mainly black?
Someone once said that "11 o'clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week," as white people flock to mainly white churches, Hispanics to mainly Hispanic ones and black people to mainly black ones. And a century and a half after it was founded, SBC seems to bear that out. Edmond estimates 98 percent of its members are African-American.
"That's not by design," the pastor says. "We truly believe 'whoever will, let him come.' But I also don't feel the need to chase Caucasians and Hispanics."
But the people who attend are quite varied, he adds, ranging from people on welfare to executives of major corporations.
Edmond thinks most of that racial division is "a matter of comfort and worship style." If black newcomers started clapping and talking back and shouting "Amen!" during the sermon in more reserved denominations, he said, some might find that jarring.
"But if everyone here was quiet during worship, I'd know I was doing something wrong," Edmond said with a smile.
Longtime member Joyce Fountain, who works as a sociology professor at Elgin Community College, agrees.
"A lot of the racial segregation is cultural - our style of worship," she said after Sunday's service. "In our culture it's called 'call and response.' I am energized and strengthened by the enthusiasm of other believers."
Andrea Sullivan, a 51-year-old legal secretary from Elgin who began attending two years ago, said she likes how Edmond's sermons "take the Bible and bring it around to what's going on in your life." She said her 18-year-old son Patrick, who is autistic, also has found new friends in the Sunday school.
"This church is a place of refuge for me," Fountain said. "It's a place where I am embraced, where I can be authentic."
150th celebration
Second Baptist Church of Elgin began its 150th celebration in January and will hold monthly special events, climaxing with the actual anniversary in July.
In February, for example, children and members performed a living wax museum, portraying prominent people from the church's past.
Upcoming events include:
Sunday, May 29: The services at 8 and 10:30 a.m. will focus on a celebration of the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Edmond's time as pastor and will welcome back a former associate pastor who now leads a church in Maryland.
Saturday and Sunday, July 23-24: There will be a "Gospelfest" on Saturday, followed by a "Taste of SBC" at which members will bring potluck dishes from their hometowns. The celebration will conclude with special worship services on Sunday.