West End Baptist Church

The decade of the 60’s continued to bring tremendous growth to West End Baptist Church with many young people hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ every time they attended Sunday School.

As the decades of the 70’s & 80’s came and went the leadership of West End Baptist Church knew that changes were taking place in Rock Hill. Rev. Claude Dick began to lead the congregation to look for possible sites for a total church relocation. Many of the mills had been closed down and the community in which West End Baptist Church was located was becoming a transitional area. Many of the people who had formerly given their lives working in the Victoria-Arcade Mill had moved out of the community. The community was drastically changing and so after eighty years in the same location the fathers of the church thought it best to relocate the church to a more visible area of town to enable the church to continue to grow and reach more people for Christ.

Under the leadership of Claud Dick, 9.3 acres were purchased on the corner of Meadow Lakes Road and McConnells Hwy. at a price of $100,000.

Sunday, April 23, 1989, under the pastorate of Jim Murphy groundbreaking occurred at the Meadow Lakes property. After eighty years in the downtown location the church began construction on a 20,000 plus square foot building, which was to be completed that year. The church members voted in March to adopt building plans that were presented by the Building Steering Committee chaired by Clyde Ross. The building would include 29 classrooms to be used for education space. The first phase of the construction would be a multi purpose designed building to be used as a sanctuary, gymnasium, education facility, and as a fellowship hall. The church had hoped to begin a second phase permanent sanctuary in 3 to 5 years after the initial completion of the first phase building. The existing facility at 469 Hagin Street was sold to the Sword of the Spirit Family Church, which was meeting in York, SC. It was very important to the church staff, deacons, and church leaders that whoever purchased the building would continue to offer a ministry to the area. The Sword of the Spirit Family Church was already meeting once each week in the West End Baptist gym trying to work with the children in the community.

It was the desire of the church that once the relocation was made that whoever purchased the old site, would already have had a foot hold there in the community. By relocation to the present site, it was felt that West End could provide effective ministry to its existing members as well as be able to reach out more effectively to the entire city of Rock Hill.

Construction at New Site Begins

In the summer of 1989 construction began on the existing facility. In September of that year hurricane, Hugo, came through the area and destroyed the building under construction. It was difficult to find many churches or homes that did not suffer some damaged as this storm came through. It was estimated that the loss to the building under construction was approximately $75,000. It is ironic that this is the second time in the history of West End Baptist Church that a facility being built was wiped out by a storm. Eight years earlier the church was building and a terrific storm came through and destroyed the building. We are told that the pastor at that time, Rev. Hair, was working on the church during the storm and contracted pneumonia and passed away as a result.