Zion History

Zion was established in 1816, and is the oldest church in the Greater Cleveland County Baptist Association. A brush arbor was mentioned as a meeting place before the first church building, made of logs, was built in 1816. Zion held a membership of thirty at that time. The second church building was built in 1858. Zion began an organized Sunday School in 1865, with an organized WMU and Training Union soon to follow. The fourth church building was built of brick in 1927. Our present church is the fifth building, which was built in 1953. The church built and dedicated the new Family Life Center in May of 2002. The church is excited about the possibilities for ministry in the days ahead.

2016 was a special year in the life of our church. We celebrated our 200^th anniversary through many different activities, services, and memorabilia. In February, we began with devotionals written by our church family to uplift our soul for 200 years of faith. In April and May, we celebrated with music, history tours, greasy poles, opening of our time capsule, and our Memorial day service. In August, we gathered for revival to hear fishing stories from Dr. Kevin Meadows. A week later we celebrated our anniversary through the music of Clay Lunsford and Matthew Weaver. We finished our celebration service with a prayer of dedication for our church and the placement of our time capsule to be opened again in 50 years. In October, we gathered for an outdoor worship under the brush arbor followed by a delicious covered dish lunch. In addition to all the services and fellowship celebrations, we had numerous memorabilia available for our church family. A Zion Baptist cookbook, Generation to Generation, 200 Years and still cooking, a book of Zion Baptist past stories and pictures, Gleanings of Zion, t-shirts, cat’s meows, and a church directory. We still have cookbooks and t-shirts available, all monies raised from these items will go towards missions