CINCINNATI — May 2021 marks a new era for Cincinnati’s West End neighborhood. TQL Stadium opens to fans of the city’s newest major league sports franchise, FC Cincinnati, and with it comes the promise of millions of dollars in neighborhood investments and improvements.
Though the towering structure also casts a shadow on parts of the neighborhood now conspicuously absent. An apartment complex on Wade St. is now a parking garage, a small, locally-owned restaurant on 15th St. has now set up shop in a new neighborhood and a predominantly Black Baptist church, that’s stood at the corner of John St. and Bauer since 1865, is now reduced to rubble.
What You Need To Know
- Revelations Missionary Baptist Church sold its former home to FCC
- The building was demolished in May of 2020
- The church moved to Mount Healthy and is rebuilding its congregation
- The board saved historic pieces like the stained glass and reincorporated them in the new site.
But 20 minutes north of West End, the congregation of Revelation Missionary Baptist Church still gathers every Sunday.
Pastor Kendall Washington sings to his congregation
Rev. Kendall Washington takes charge both at the pulpit and behind the organ, filling the sanctuary in Mount Healthy, with songs, shouts and spirit.
During a Sunday service, his sermon zeroed in on the importance of church, keeping their community together and celebrating their faith.
“Not being able to come to the building does not cancel my relationship with the one that keeps giving me strength daily,” he said.
Washington took on his role as pastor at the church last fall, helping his congregation cope with a trio of difficult transitions. Within two years, the previous pastor died, the church board voted to sell its building and days after its last service in the West End, the pandemic hit.
Photo of the West End RMBC building hangs in the new church
John C. Lewis, a lifelong member, called them stressors.
“What stress will do, it will either bind or drive,” he said. “We’ve got growing pains and learning pains all at the same time.”
Moving was a controversial decision for the church. After 86 years in the same location, the building had history and meaning to the congregation. Some families had gone there for generations.
Charlie Brown, the co-chair of the RMBC board said he was opposed when he first heard FCC wanted to buy the church property. That’s when he went to a series of community meetings.
“After going to the meetings and thinking about it, I said ‘Is this where we really want to stay? Is revelations a building?’” He said. “And that building had began to deteriorate.”
On top of that, Brown said the neighborhood was changing. Many of the families who attended RMBC had long moved away from the West End, but stuck with the church for what he called, “its flavor.”
In the end, Lewis said, the church weighed its options for months, ultimately coming to a vote.
“In the Baptist Church it is a family and it’s a family decision,” Lewis said. “Basically what happened was the family when presented with the facts decided overwhelmingly that it was in our best family interest to relocate.”
RMBC sold the building to FCC in May 2019 and hosted its final service in March 2020. The building was demolished in May.
“We could stay if we wanted to but we found out that it wasn’t in our best interest and if you go over there now and look at that big stadium coming over top of where we used to be, it wouldn’t be a decent place to be,” Brown said. “Not today.”
Brown said FCC helped RMBC find a new location and begin its renovations.
Historic stained glass at RMBC
When the congregation finally got to worship in the new space in October, Washington said they were happy to see a few surviving pieces of their former home, especially the stained glass windows.
“They were able to send them out to have them totally restored,” he said. “The expense of it didn’t even matter. It’s what we had to do.”
Like many churches post-pandemic, Washington said rebuilding the congregation had been difficult. People have been slow to come back to the new space, but Brown is optimistic that will improve with time.
“I think it’s beginning to sink in and they’re coming back around,” he said. “I think every Sunday, I see new faces.”
Despite it all, RMBC has survived. Now Washington said the next step is setting down roots and growing into its new Mount Healthy community.
“It’s about doing what we have to do because it’s a calling,” he said.
