By Michael Gryboski, Editor Thursday, March 12, 2026

A Southern Baptist church in Kentucky has gifted $100,000 to help a congregation pay off the cost of a recently acquired building.

Bethany Baptist Church of Warren County recently gave $100,000 to Mission Church of Bowling Green, another SBC congregation founded 12 years ago, which has around 50 members and as many as 100 people in weekly worship attendance.

Mission Church Teaching Pastor Eric Baker told The Christian Post in an interview Monday that he and his congregation were “simply overwhelmed by the generous gift of Bethany Baptist.”

“The grace of Jesus is unmerited, hilarious and lavish — this gift was a reflection of the greater gift and miracle found in salvation by grace alone, by faith alone, and in Christ alone,” he said.

Last December, Mission Church decided to buy an older building from the South Central Baptist Association, with the price for the new sanctuary being $500,000, according to Baptist Press.

Baker told CP that “our desire would be to pay off the mortgage” for the newly acquired building “as soon as possible, as we do not want to be burdened by debt.”  

“This gift will go toward helping us accomplish this,” he said. “We also want to pay a portion of the gift forward as well and are considering other churches to bless.”

Baker noted that while this was “the first financial support” that Mission Church had received from Bethany Baptist, the two churches do have a history of supporting one another in other ways.  

“Our churches and leadership are like-minded and have supported each other through prayer and some activities,” Baker said. “Our pastors meet monthly for prayer and encouragement.”  

Bethany Baptist Pastor Lucas Page told Baptist Press that the donation was “a clear opportunity of a like-minded faithful, healthy church that had a need and we had more than we needed.”

“That significant amount of money is not money that the current membership at Bethany raised or gave sacrificially. That is part of an investment account that someone I never even met gave years ago,” Page told the SBC news outlet. 

“They left it to the church and it grew and its amount was more than we had a current need for. It was good that we’re giving this money, but the real sacrifice wasn’t even to us. We’re just taking that money that we kind of inherited and found a need for it and gave it away.”

When asked by CP how he hoped the financial gift would help spread the Gospel, Baker replied that he and his church wanted “to worship Jesus and make disciples in all of life.”

“Our prayer is from this new space many will be saved, baptized, become covenant members, and be sent out as missionaries to neighborhoods and to the ends of the Earth,” said Baker.

“We are involved in partnerships in Africa, Poland and a local ministry called Hope House. We pray the gift is stewarded faithfully to impact eternity for the sake of the Gospel.”

News Source : https://www.christianpost.com/news/southern-baptist-church-gives-100k-to-neighboring-congregation.html