WORCESTER, Mass. — Worcester’s John Street Baptist Church celebrated 140 years in the community on Sunday.

The church was established in 1884 when several families from the south migrated to Worcester. They first held prayer meetings in each other’s homes and called themselves Mt. Olive Baptist Church.

The congregation would later worship at a location on 34 Front Street until they raised enough money to purchase land on John Street in 1887.

The church at the location today was built in 1891.

Members of the church marked the occasion by “proclaiming God’s faithfulness throughout all generations.”

“We’re here to give honor to the almighty, who has enabled us to be here all this time,” Reverend Roosevelt Hughes Jr. said. “We consider it as a privilege, as a tremendous blessing for the church to have endured all these changes that have taken place. COVID perhaps the most recent, but we survived that. We continued to thrive.”

The Reverend Adam Brusa of Skowhegan, Maine, came up through the ministry at John Street Baptist Church and was a guest speaker Sunday.

Hughes said it may not be a large congregation, but it’s a vibrant one. 

Worcester native and world champion bicyclist Major Taylor was a member of the church, and Martin Luther King Jr. made a visit there in 1952.