SPRINGFIELD — Kenneth Mason has attended Hopewell Baptist for 76 years, and the little details still bring tears to his eyes.
He points to the hand-painted mural behind the baptistry, the basement dug by hand with pond scoops, the homemade meals cooked from the church’s own cookbook, the repaired ceiling of a building that has stood for 170 years.
Community, Mason said, has kept the church alive for two centuries.
“One of the things I’ve seen that has endured at Hopewell is the unity of it,” he said.
Generation after generation has supported and loved the church, he added, and that hasn’t changed.
“The unity and the fellowship, and when someone has a need, it’s taken care of. When someone needs to be supported and prayed over, they get it. And that has been consistent for the generations I’ve been here,” said Mason.
Today, more than 1,000 people are buried in the old Hopewell Cemetery, but the church itself is still very much alive.
‘Hope it well’
Hopewell Baptist was born out of a theological disagreement. In the 1820s, Cave Springs Baptist practiced “foreordained predestination,” the belief that God has already determined who will and will not be saved. A heated discussion over the doctrine drove a group of worshippers out of the church one Sunday morning in 1826.
Members disagreed over Calvinism versus free will and whether the church should actively pursue people for Christ or leave salvation entirely to God’s will, Mason said. One group insisted the church needed to intentionally pursue missions and evangelism.
“Missions was just part of that DNA from the beginning,” he said.
No one recorded how many left the church that day. On their way home, they stopped to eat lunch together by a spring and worshipped there instead. They named the new congregation Hopewell, choosing to “hope it well.”
Hopewell Baptist Church organized Sept. 2, 1826, as part of the Bethel Association in Kentucky. Members secured a log building for worship in 1832 and built the current structure in 1853.
The church prospered through revivals and during the Civil War.
Hopewell helped organize four other congregations: Bethany (Orlinda) in 1832, Bethlehem in 1838, Oak Grove in 1854, and Mt. Carmel in 1894. It was also one of 16 churches that formed the Robertson County Baptist Association in 1915.
Congregants built the present building in 1889, incorporating the 1853 structure into it. In 1960, a new indoor baptistry replaced the outdoor spring-water baptistry where generations of believers had been baptized.
Pastor Adam Hodges has led Hopewell for one year. He grew up a missionary kid in West Africa, then pastored for five years at Barren Plains Baptist, about 15 miles west of Hopewell.
He and his family later felt called back to the mission field, this time to Central Asia, but circumstances brought them home earlier than planned.
“We love missions. I grew up on the mission field,” Hodges said. “I started praying, ‘God, if you’re taking us back, you’ve got to lead us to a church that’s passionate about missions as well.’”
For the next 200 years
Hodges wants to carry that passion into Hopewell’s future.
“As the community grows, I want us to plant new churches,” he said.
Hopewell already supports missions financially and sends short-term mission teams, he said, but he wants to go further by training and sending out missionaries while remaining “a multigenerational family church that’s serving the Lord, that’s reaching the nations.”
Robertson County remains heavily agricultural, but its proximity to fast-growing Nashville has drawn more young people and families in recent years.
“I’d say the first 150 years … it was family-oriented, community — that type of a congregation,” Mason said. The last 50 years have brought more change as new residents moved in, he said, but the church has always emphasized missions and community support.
Hodges sees that pull toward roots as part of a larger trend.
“I know there’s a running from institution, but there’s a desire for legacy,” he said. “You see it in a lot of churches that are turning back to kind of a liturgical style, and I think people are hungry for deep, long roots — something that’s lasted and established but still relevant. We have legacy families here that have several generations that are here and still have young kids growing up, who will likely continue here, Lord willing.”
Missions remain central to that legacy. In fact, Hodges calls Hopewell one of “the most missions-minded church per capita.”
The church sends regular trips to Oklahoma and Mississippi to help build churches on Native American reservations and supports 14 missionary units worldwide, including in Honduras and Nicaragua. Leaders are also considering new mission work in Central Asia.
About 200 people attend Hopewell each weekend. Mason recalled the church’s strong emphasis on the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering even 70 years ago, an emphasis that continues today alongside support for the Cooperative Program.
“It’s the passion for missions and their giving of themselves,” Hodges said. “God just blesses this church because the church is pouring themselves out to send the gospel to the nations. But while I’m bragging on the church, it’s really God’s working in this church.”
Hopewell will celebrate its 200th anniversary with a homecoming Aug. 16. B&R