Central Baptist Church

Central Baptist Church’s origin goes back to the year 1933 when Revivalists Garret Graham and Marion Been held meetings at the Ritz Theater, which was located at 200 W. Grand Ave. After several weeks of revival services, Garret Graham along with 35 individuals who had attended that revival meeting organized the Tabernacle Baptist Church in the year 1934.  The church continued to meet in various homes and city parks until they were able to acquire property on the corner of Oak and Cleveland.

 

In the 1940’s, the church was renamed Oak Street Baptist Church, and by 1952 they had grown to an attendance of well over 200 individuals. With this growth, the church needed to make a few changes. This led them to rename the church Central Baptist Church in the fall of 1953 followed by the purchase of land on Hartford Avenue between 6th and 7th Street in January of 1955 in order to construct a larger meeting place.

 

Many wonderful and godly men had a hand in the leadership and development of Central Baptist Church during its lifetime. Due to the faithfulness of those men and the many members who held true to Biblical doctrine, Central Baptist Church has been a beacon of the Gospel in Ponca City for many decades.

 

Before our current pastor, a very godly man by the name of Kenneth Biddinger pastored Central Baptist Church from June of 1968 until the fall of 1993. His 25 years of leadership and ministry at Central Baptist Church solidified our church’s commitment to evangelism and desire for Biblical truth.

 

When Pastor Biddinger left Ponca City in order to pastor a ministry in Talihina, OK, the church called his son-in-law, John Waterloo to be the pastor. We believe the lengthy combined tenure of these two faithful and godly men has led our church to the great place that it is today.

 

Due to the growth of our church at that time, and an average attendance in the upper three hundreds to low four hundreds, the members and leadership decided to sell the property on Hartford, which sold in August of 2006, and began building on property which had been purchased in 2001 on the corner of Hwy 77 and Coleman Road. On December 1st of 2008, we held our first service in our current building and had an attendance of over 450 people.

 

Pastor Waterloo continues to lead Central Baptist Church in a way that we know glorifies our Heavenly Father. We are a church committed to Biblical preaching, world evangelism, and the discipleship of families who might carry on the work of God in Ponca City and around the world for many years to come. Our desire is that you too might become a part of our church’s great history by attending, joining, and serving with us as we strive to win souls and exalt our Lord and Savior.