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ABOUT US
OUR HISTORY
Deep in the heart
of Appalachia lies a small Southern Baptist church named Caney Baptist Church.
A faithful group of local residents met regularly for a period of years in the
1950s in one home or another to worship the Lord and pray for and serve their
community.
In answer to their prayers, the
building blocks of a little mountain church came together. One family
donated a plot of hillside while others brought cement blocks, lumber, and
nails. Labor and determination culminated in 1960 when a new church for
Pippa Passes, Kentucky, was constituted. The church was founded as a
mission of First Baptist Church of Mousie, Kentucky, and the Reverend Floyd
Titsworth, Jr. was the first pastor.
Caney Baptist Church has grown in
membership and is proud to be the home of a diverse mix of people from all
socio-economic and educational levels. Sunday morning church services,
vacation Bible schools for children, a food pantry for the needy, and an
outreach post accepting and distributing food, clothing, and housing assistance
for local, needy people barely touches the surface of Caney Baptist Church's
many forms of service. Read the
full history here.
OUR MEMBERSHIP
Since 1964,
the second and current pastor,
Reverend Lawrence Baldridge, has served at Caney
Baptist Church. Reverend Baldridge and his wife, Martha, have lived,
worked, and raised their family of three children in the Pippa Passes community.
The Church has been fortunate to have
ample volunteers serving as deacons, Sunday School teachers, youth group
leaders, bus drivers, music leaders, and food pantry coordinators. When a
need arises, prayer and the Lord's calling leads able church members to
volunteer.
Pippa Passes is a small community in
the Appalachian hills of Eastern Kentucky. There is a small private
college, Alice Lloyd College, which provides a significant portion of the
population with its 600 students and 100 faculty and staff, who for the most
part, live on campus. The other community residents vary widely in
education and income levels.
Members of Caney Baptist Church are
public school teachers, small business owners, self-employed service providers
such as a dentist, a plumber, carpenters, accountants, medical personnel,
Alice Lloyd College employees and students, and under-educated people --
especially children -- from mountain hollows such as Onion Blade, Hollybush,
Hempatch, Trace, Short Fork, etc.
A NEW CHURCH BUILDING
Caney Baptist Church was once in the hub of the Pippa Passes community, sitting
at the foot of Caney Mountain and the mouth of Spruce Pine Hollow. Since
its establishment, the community has grown and expanded in all directions,
leaving the original Church at the end of Alice Lloyd College's campus rather than in the
midst of the Pippa Passes community.
In the 1980s, Caney Baptist Church
members made a decision to work toward relocating the Church onto Kentucky State
Highway 899, the main road
through Pippa Passes. Property was purchased, and a new
church building was planned.
On April 1, 2007, the ground-breaking
ceremony for the new church building was held. Construction began in June 2008. A group of volunteer construction workers, the Carpenters for Christ, selected Caney Baptist
Church for their mission outreach project for 2008.
Since June 2, 2008, a new church
building has come into being in Pippa Passes. A 9,000+ square-foot church
now stands on the property on Highway 899. The sanctuary is designed to
seat 180 people, comfortably. In one wing, there are nine Sunday School
classrooms for Nursery, Preschool, 1-2 Graders, 3-4 Graders, 5-6 Graders, Teens,
College, Adult Men, Adult Women. The other wing houses a beautiful
new kitchen and fellowship hall, as well as a much-larger food pantry.
There are also handicapped-accessible restrooms and a spacious pastor's study.
Caney
Baptist Church members held the first Sunday service in the new church building
on March 22, 2009, and a dedication ceremony was held
on May 17, 2009. In 2010, the church sign was erected, the parking lot was
paved, and landscaping was done.
OUR MISSION AND PURPOSE
From
it's founding in 1960, Caney Baptist Church as served the community of Pippa
Passes, providing spiritual nourishment, food for the hungry, clothing for the
needy, and assistance with housing and home repairs. We are a doorway to
mission groups from other states who come into the Eastern Kentucky region to
assist and uplift the Appalachian people, and we support missions through
donations and the sending of missionaries into our region and the whole world.
Our purpose is to provide a sanctuary
for those in need -- whether it be spiritual, physical or financial need; a
closer walk with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for those who seek His
presence in their lives; and an outreach to the people within our small
community to show God's love in every way possible.
cANEY BAPTIST CHURCH † 4744 HIGHWAY 899 † PIPPA PASSES, KENTUCKY 41844 † (606) 368-2212