According to Senior Pastor Jim C. Burns, the Liberty Baptist Church of Van Wert, Ohio, has paid off their building mortgage and is now debt free. Liberty Baptist Church was established in 1982. In 2007, the congregation urgently needed to move from a small church building on Main Street in Van Wert, Ohio, for more space. Liberty Baptist Church has only had four pastors. Founding pastor Keith Stoller, Gordon Parsley, Mike Donald, and Jim Burns, who has been the pastor for 27 years. All four of these men are graduates of Baptist Bible College, Springfield, Missouri. The congregation needed a larger parking lot, larger classrooms, plus handicapped accessibility. The Horace Mann Elementary School had just closed, but the building was still usable. After surveying the property, church leaders saw what great potential this property had for their ministries. The Horace Mann School building at 501 E. Third Street, Van Wert, Ohio, had 4 & 1/2 acres, a parking lot, playground, ball diamond & an 18,000 square feet concrete block building with a gym, a lobby, office space, and ten large classrooms, all on one level. The Van Wert School Superintendent and the school board voted to auction the Horace Mann School property on December 29, 2007. A large crowd filled the school gym that day for the auction, but only three bidders showed up. On that day, Liberty Baptist Church won the bid at a price of $92,000.00.
The congregation needed an additional $200,000.00 to meet the requirements of the state of Ohio for fire protection and handicap standards, plus all the remodeling, including a new roof. The church family would like to thank Citizen’s National Bank and the bank’s branch president, Pat Ryan, for taking a risk for Liberty Baptist Church by loaning the needed funds to purchase the building and complete its building project. Although the congregation worshiped in the building three months after the purchase, the 2008 recession hit, and it took three years to finish the remodeling. To save money, much of the work was done by the donated labor of faithful church members.
The church’s building dedication was on September 18, 2010, in the remodeled gym, which is their auditorium. On September 18, 2022, twelve years later, Burns announced to the congregation that they were paying off their building loan and the church would be debt free!
Liberty Baptist Church has been in three previous locations before purchasing the Horace Mann School under the leadership of three previous pastors. In October 1982, when Liberty Baptist Church was founded under the leadership of Keith Stoller, the new congregation rented the HORACE MANN SCHOOL on weekends to start their church. This year, 2022, is the church’s 40th Anniversary.
On Sunday, November 6, 2022, there will be an official mortgage burning during the 10:45 am Worship Service, and the following Sunday, November 13, 2022, will be the church’s 40th Anniversary Celebration. The public is invited, and everyone is welcome.