Baptist

Faith-based groups including YWAM and the National Baptist Convention built 15 homes in a week in Montego Bay, part of a 200-home target for Hurricane Melissa survivors at US$6,000 to US$8,000 per unit.

Bonny Downs Baptist Church in East Ham has started building a new church and day centre topped by eight studios for people with experience of homelessness and two flats for workers, with members raising £120,000 by buying bricks.

Missouri Baptist disaster relief teams put a new metal roof on Elderslie Baptist Church, built in 1872, and replaced the roof at Townhead Baptist Church in western Jamaica, reopening a preschool closed for months after Hurricane Melissa.

In Carthage, Texas, a growing Assemblies of God congregation and a Baptist church that needed less space swapped buildings with no money changing hands. Both churches then grew by about 30 per cent.

A 2026 LISC report, covered by Baptist News Global, set out how churches can become housing developers, noting LISC has guided 40 Bay Area faith groups with $2.1 million since 2019 and is helping a Buffalo-area Baptist church build a community campus.

Greater Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Pascagoula, Mississippi, founded in 1895 as Aimwell Baptist Church, held a mortgage-burning service to celebrate becoming debt-free, a milestone its 91-year-old pastor greeted with thanks.

A Gleaner letter writer listed heritage churches hit by Hurricane Melissa, including William Knibb Baptist in Falmouth and Calvary Baptist in Montego Bay, and called for diaspora and donor partnerships with clear timelines and dedicated funding.

Hurricane Melissa destroyed a 145-year-old Methodist church and a 125-year-old Baptist church in Duanvale, Trelawny. Church leaders want to keep the Methodist ruins as heritage, but engineers say they must be demolished and rebuilt.

First Genesis Baptist Church built 22 homes in a historically redlined Rochester neighbourhood, then won $38 million for 105 more. Why more churches are becoming developers rather than just donating land.

Christianity Today reported that the Jamaica Baptist Union was mapping damage across its 340 churches after Hurricane Melissa, including roofs torn at Sharon Baptist in Santa Cruz and Calvary Baptist in Montego Bay.

Early reports after Hurricane Melissa showed severe damage to at least 30 United Church congregations and about 10 per cent of Baptist roofs, with churches across Westmoreland, Trelawny, St Elizabeth and Hanover hit.

A 1902 former Baptist church in Rumford, Maine, with a pipe organ, stained glass and a basketball court in the basement, is listed for $150,000, below the town’s median home price.

Grace Community Baptist Church in Kingstown Park, St Vincent, plans to build Grace Christian Academy, a EC$1.4 million primary school on its own church site, funded by members, Christian organisations and overseas churches.

About 2,000 UK churches expect to stop being places of worship by 2030, a survey found, as six West Midlands churches show new futures, from a Wolverhampton banqueting suite to five flats in a Stourbridge Baptist church.

The town of Wilton, Connecticut, is suing the company that bought its former 1864 Baptist church for $500,000 for $142,708.89 in back property taxes, saying the church’s religious exemption should have ended at the sale.