‘A lighthouse on the hill’
First Baptist Church to celebrate 100 years in Santa Fe
Many Santa Feans probably know the First Baptist Church of Santa Fe best for its living Nativity, a family holiday tradition in which live actors from the congregation play the roles of the holy family around a manger set up outside the church on Old Pecos Trail.
Because it is cold at that time of year, they’re on stage for only about 30 minutes at a time, requiring numerous casts and costumes. The tableaux includes live animals, including sheep, goats, a donkey and recently a camel. Occasionally the infant Jesus is a real baby. “It’s our gift during the Christmas season to the community,” said Dorothy Smoker, a lifetime member of First Baptist.
The church, which on Sunday is marking 100 years in Santa Fe, has long been a fixture in the faith community, or, as member Gene Gray says in an online video, “a lighthouse on the hill.”
Baptists have been in New Mexico since the second half of the 19th century, but their faith didn’t quite take root here until 1917, when a group of women made the
charter members.
The times were ominous, but also stimulating. The U.S. declared war on Germany in April. Suffragists were protesting in front of the White House and in New York City. Alfred Stieglitz opened the first one-person show of the work of modernist Georgia O’Keeffe, a New Mexico icon. The temperance movement was gaining traction, with Prohibition three years away.
But the people had faith. In August of that year, they staged an old-fashioned revival in a rented tent on the corner of Manhattan and Don Gaspar avenues.
Soon they decided they needed a permanent building on the site and some of the early members mortgaged their own homes to secure a loan to build a brick church. The
cornerstone was laid in 1921, and the Baptists continued to worship there for the next 34 years.
In 1955, the church bought more than 9 acres on what is now Old Pecos Trail and construction began on a building designed by renowned architect John Gaw Meem and his firm. The structure was dedicated in 1960.
Smoker, Santa Fe’s second rodeo queen, who was baptized and married in the old brick church, said the members paid off the debt for the new one in one year. Meem, she said, was always involved in the project and, “When you look at the church, you can see his footprints.”
In 1977, the congregation added the Christian Life Center, which includes a fullsize gymnasium, Bible study classrooms, a kitchen and restrooms. On Monday nights, it is open to the community for men’s basketball.
For over 40 years, the church supported a ministry that provided day care to children in the community. About six years ago, the center closed because of the financial burden brought on by various state regulations and insurance issues.
For a decade or more, the church sent mission teams to Honduras to build houses. First Baptist helped organize the Rodeo Road Baptist Church in 1985. In the 1990s and 2000s, it had an active deaf ministry that helped establish deaf churches around the state. It provides meals for the homeless at Santa Fe’s Interfaith Shelter, and late in the summer, it sponsors a corn giveaway.
Like many traditional churches nationwide, First Baptist has lost young families, who in the 21st century have many activities competing for their attention on Sunday mornings. But the numbers have been rising again and church has a new pastor, Reed Redus, who has a young family, and Smoker said rebuilding youth programs is a high priority.
The members realize “we cannot do the same-old, sameold,” Smoker said. “There are things that are going to have to change to meet the needs of the millennials.”
Today, First Baptist offers a Bible Memory program with games for children through sixth grade, summer camps and vacation Bible school as well as Bible studies, outreach events, mission trips, concerts and other opportunities for young people.
A conservative denomination that believes the Bible is “divinely inspired and … God’s revelation of Himself to man,” is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
When the old brick church was torn down, Smoker said her mother rescued two stained-glass windows and kept them for more than 60 years. Smoker recently had them repurposed into suncatcher crosses and is selling them to congregants after services as “a piece of history.”
The church also commissioned a centennial anthem by musician Randy Eagan that is titled “The Shining Light on a Hill.” Its last line — “May we always be his shining light on this hill” — “really sums up the spirit of our church,” she said.
More than 300 people, including former pastors and other dignitaries are expected to attend the special worship service on Sunday, which will be followed by a lunch.