Mill Creek Baptist turns 200

Mill Creek Baptist Church to celebrate 200 years of ministry
Mill Creek Baptist Church will celebrate its 200th anniversary Sunday, July 17, with a worship program beginning at 10:30 a.m. followed by a cookout at noon, a program at 1 p.m. and cake and ice cream at 2 p.m. The church is located at 4241 W. State Road 56, in Salem.
Everyone in the community, especially those who have a connection with the Mill Creek family, is invited to join the celebration. To make a reservation for the meal or for more information, call or text, 502-558-7557 or email: djames@iglou.com.
The Mill Creek Baptist Church story
On June 15, 1822, twelve men and women gathered and formed a church which they named Mill Creek Baptist. It is believed that the church met in an old log school house near the cemetery. Rev. Royce McCoy was the first pastor. Later a church building was erected on what is now W. State Road 56, and the church remains at that location. After the Civil War, the church built a small meeting house which was destroyed in 1866 by a mentally disturbed man from the community.
The current building was then erected. This building has been modernized and added to over the past 150 years.
In those early years, Mill Creek was part of a four-church circuit (which included the New Philadelphia and Salem churches). They shared a pastor and had “preaching” once a month. The pastor would arrive on Sunday on foot, horseback or buggy, and occasionally by train from Louisville. During the Civil War, Pastor W.M. McCoy encountered troops from Confederate John Hunt Morgan’s raiders who took his horse and buggy, preventing him from getting to Sunday worship services.
Evangelistic revivals or meetings were supported in the community. Baptisms were held in the Mill Creek or sometimes near Beck’s Mill.
From its earliest days Mill Creek cared about reaching out to its community and to the rest of the world. A member of the Lost River Baptist Association, Mill Creek proposed to the association that funds be collected by churches to ensure that there was a Bible in each home in the community. When the association churches, influenced by anti-mission sentiments within the Baptist community, refused to do this, Mill Creek left and founded the Bethel Association.
Later Mill Creek helped start the Livonia Baptist Church. Today, Mill Creek partners with missionaries in Haiti and Zimbabwe for ministry and outreach. Locally, they have set up a small “mini food pantry” at the back of the Salem Lumber and Feed Store on S. Water Street for those in need.
Many seemingly small, but eternally significant events and experiences have occurred in the last 100 years. Hundreds of adults and children have been helped to grow spiritually. Young pastors have been nurtured in their training as Mill Creek was led by students from Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville.
Mill Creek has been a full partner in the work of the American Baptist Churches of Indiana and Kentucky.
What began as 12 people with a vision began a work that is now 200 years strong. Mill Creek Church continues to be faithful to its calling to minister in the community.