Baptist Builder—Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, Toronto, ON
Appeal: #246
The story of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church spans more than a century and is the product of a merger in January of 2024.
Mount Pleasant Road Baptist Church opened its current building in 1923 and over the next century, the church remained faithful to the Gospel. It was at times influential in the Baptist history of Ontario and was a flagship church when The Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches formed in 1953.
In the late 2010s, the congregation experienced some decline and began to seek options for strengthening its witness.
In the fall of 2008, Grace Fellowship Church in Toronto sent out John Bell to be the founding pastor of a downtown church plant. On July 3, 2010, during a special baptism service, the core members formally covenanted together as New City Baptist Church, and in 2018, they joined The Fellowship.
Word of Mount Pleasant Road Baptist’s situation reached the elders of New City Baptist in late 2022. Over the next year-and-a-half, the two congregations considered what it would look like to merge toward the ultimate end of preserving a fixed Gospel outpost in an expensive, global city for generations to come. On January 21, 2024, the two congregations merged to form Mount Pleasant Baptist Church.
Davisville Village, which is home to Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, is a multicultural area and one of the most “building-dense” areas of the city, rivalling downtown Toronto. The spiritual need in this community is great, and faithful churches in the area are few. Mount Pleasant Baptist Church is committed to preaching, reading, praying, and singing the Word of God, and being a lighthouse in this growing metropolis for generations to come!
Since 2020, the church’s front entrance has been cordoned off with an orange caution barrier, due to the hazard of falling concrete from the exterior window casements. Fixing this would solve several issues:
- first and foremost, it is a safety hazard
- the building aesthetic is greatly marred both by the deterioration, and the unsightly caution barrier
- the front entrance is much easier for elderly/disabled congregants to access
- the alternate side entrance, while safe, does not make a good impression as people wind their way through the 100-year-old basement (which is itself in need of renovation) and up steep stairs to the main sanctuary.
Will you prayerfully consider how the Lord would have you partner with Mount Pleasant Road Baptist Church in meeting this need?