Woodland Hills Baptist Church will mark its final service Sunday, May 5, as the remaining members prepare to say goodbye to a church that has a storied history on the Northside.
The congregation, currently led by the Rev. Ty Pigott, is handing over the property to Fondren Church, which has been meeting in the building since 2013.
“The church began to dwindle a number of years ago. The young people like a different type of (service) than we had,” said Lonnie Welch, a Woodland Hills deacon. “We grew older and older and reached the point to where there weren’t enough (people) left to keep the church going.
“Fondren Church was in Duling Hall, and we talked with them about possibly co-habiting and eventually taking over the church, and that is what has happened,” he said.
Woodland Hills was founded in 1930 as the Northside Baptist Church. Services were first held in a brick store building at the corner of North State Street and Fondren Place.
At the time, it had 44 members, was the northernmost Baptist church in the Jackson area and was pastored by the Rev. G.H. Suttle.
The congregation quickly grew, and in 1931, moved to a building at the corner of North State Street and Mitchell Avenue, where Kolb’s Cleaners is today.
“We joined the church in 1962 and at the time they were putting chairs in the aisles to accommodate everybody,” Welch said. “I would say in the late 1950s, early 1960s was when it reached its peak.”
As the population moved north, Woodland Hills spawned off two mission churches, including Ridgecrest Baptist Church. The church also opened its own school, the long-defunct Woodland Hills Baptist Academy, with the first classes held there in 1970.
But in recent years, the church has been on the decline. By 2013, just 125 people were meeting there on Sunday mornings, a number that had dwindled to around 30 last year.
Remaining members voted to dissolve Woodland Hills a few months ago. “We’ve seen it coming for a while. We tried everything we could to boost our membership and attendance,” Welch said. “Young people didn’t like our kind of church.”
He doesn’t know where members will go but said he and his wife are looking at moving to Ridgecrest.
While the closing is bittersweet, Welch takes comfort in the fact that Fondren Church is bringing in the young people that Woodland Hills couldn’t.
Between 800 and 900 people attend Fondren Church’s non-traditional, non-denominational services each week, he said.
Fondren Church currently meets in the historic church’s gym and has two services each week to accommodate the hundreds of worshippers.
“They’re filling up the church again,” Welch said. “What seems sad to us right now is really a time of celebration for what God is still doing in that facility.”
The final service will be held at 9:30 a.m. May 5. That afternoon from 2 to 4 a reception will be held in the fellowship hall where members and former members can share memories from the past. It will also be an opportunity to meet members of the Fondren congregation. All former and current choir members are invited to participate in the choir for the last worship service.
