By Callum Ludwig
The Wesburn Baptist Church is finally celebrating its 50th anniversary, having been delayed from coming together to do so previously over the last couple of years.
A special service will be held at the Wesburn Primary School undercover area (next to
the church) on Saturday 17 September at 2.30pm.
Deacon Kevin Currell said the congregation are thrilled and excited about the milestone.
“We’ve had a great turn up to the working bees and volunteers doing bits and pieces in preparation, it is wonderful evidence of the excitement,” he said.
“We’ve got three members who were there back in the founding days, one lady in her 90s and her son in his 60s who went along with Mum and Dad and is now one of our deacons. We also have another lady in her 50s who was also just a young girl in the beginning.”
Former pastor Les Thomas will be the guest speaker at the event and the meeting will be followed by an afternoon tea to be held in the church building.
The first rumblings of the Wesburn Baptist Church began in August 1970, with a small group of Christians who began to meet in Warburton. They drew up a constitution from the Benalla
Independent Baptist Church. Initially, they would meet in the home of local identities Fred and Joanna Boer, under the name of Warburton Christian Fellowship, steadily growing in number and called a pastor, Cecil Jackel, in June 1971. The little congregation continued to grow and they purchased their current building in 1973 when the old Church of England building was put up for sale.
Mr Curell said the building has provided a solid anchor base for community members.
“It has provided somewhere in their town they know they can go to fulfil their spiritual needs. Having a building is a symbol of the fact that there are people there and a place to be able to go to for counsel and help in all ways, spiritual and practical,” he said.
“We have had a rock solid base that has stayed steady and consistent along with our love for the Lord and the faithfulness to the Scriptures.”
Over the years the congregation has been served by a number of faithful pastors with the current pastor called as recently as last year. Andrew Leng and his wife Jessica relocated from regional Victoria, and have two sets of twins – two-year-olds and 6-month-olds.
The Wesburn Baptist Church’s works currently include being involved in the LinC program in the Valley (Love in the name of Christ) in helping the extremely vulnerable in the community, as well as supporting families overseas who are ministering to their needy communities. The church currently assists people in Romania, Spain, Chad, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Mauritius, The Philippines, and more. Just recently, one of the church families moved to Montenegro to serve the people there. The church also has a deaf ministry and is constantly seeking to expand the ways in which it can be a blessing to the people of the Valley and the rest of the world.
