First Bible Baptist Church was originally an outgrowth ministry of Twin City Baptist Temple in Lunenburg Ma. The initial pastor was Tom Hart who came out of Twin City, and started FBBC in 1981. There were 18 charter members comprised of 8 families. Gardner was chosen as a sight at the direction of God’s Holy Spirit.
For the first three years, the church rented the building which it currently occupies, and then purchased it in 1984 for $44,000. The church was formally incorporated in September of that year. In 1987 the members re-financed the building for $50,000 and did some repairs and updates, including a new boiler.
Initially, as a ministry of Twin City, the church received monetary support as a missions work. This support was eventually terminated, the formal ties to Twin City were dropped and FBBC truly became an independent local New Testament Baptist Church.
During the period of 1986 - 1988, Sunday School rooms were added, along with front and rear walls of the present auditorium, walls were added in the basement and a baptistry was installed.
In 1997 major landscaping was done around the building, including the removal of two large pine trees on either side of the front door.
In 1999, new chairs were purchased for use in the main auditorium.
There have been 4 pastors at FBBC since Tom Hart:
1985 - 1993 Bill Smith
1993 - 1994 Joe Rizzuti
1994 - 1999 Steve Charette
1999 - pres Ed Hamilton
FBBC has two deacon positions:
Deacon Steven Fowler steven.fowler@firstbbc.org
Deacon Ron Merrill ron.merrill@firstbbc.org
|