Fremont First Baptist Church turns bar to sanctuary

Where neon lights once hung and bar stools and pool tables filled the room, a pulpit will soon stand. 

 After a 2025 tornado left Fremont First Baptist Church without a building, the rural congregation purchased the former Rodies Bar and is transforming it into their new sanctuary, continuing a legacy that has endured storms, loss and rebuilding for more than 180 years. 

A History That Refuses to End

Founded in 1843, Fremont First Baptist has outlasted multiple disasters, including a tornado that destroyed its building in 1957. “The building was gone, but not the Church,” reads a line from the church’s archives document. 

Current members like Fay Moriarty, who has spent decades teaching Sunday school and serving the church and experienced the 1957 tornado, agree with that statement saying these tragedies have continuously opened new doors.  

“People can always grow through adversity,” Moriarty said. “It makes us more dependent on God and on the power of God, instead of on our human efforts.” 

Adversity returned to Fremont First Baptist nearly seven decades later when another tornado severely damaged the church’s most recent structure, tearing sections of the roof away, allowing water to spread throughout the sanctuary and classrooms, and leaving the building without utilities.   

An Unexpected Answer

In the days following the 2025 storm, members initially hoped the building could be repaired. After all, the building had served their church for almost 70 years. Damage from the storm, though, combined with years of past flooding damage, made that impossible. 

“We worked hard to find another place, another location for the church quickly,” Moriarty said. “We seemed to come to a lot of dead ends at first, but in time, the Lord worked it out for us.” 

With limited funds and no land to build on, the church began considering unconventional options. “I said, ‘We’re going to have to think outside the box,’” Debbie Turley, the church’s secretary-treasurer, said.  

When the Rodies building hit the market, Fremont First Baptist Church toured the building and found that the structure could do more than meet their needs. The space included a stage and enough square footage to create classrooms, offices and a sanctuary. 

“We began to get really excited about closing down a bar and opening a church,” Turley said. “We just feel like the community at large just has a lot of unchurched people and town didn’t need that bar.”  

The church moved quickly to secure the property, seeing it as a rare opportunity to continue meeting together without starting from scratch. 

Renovations are ongoing, as new sheetrock, lighting, painting, and flooring was needed. While the process has taken longer than expected, services have continued in a temporary location in Van Buren and the church hopes to begin meeting in the building by summer.  

Preserving History

The transition into a new building has reshaped how members view their church. “It’s made us realize who we are as a church, and that it’s more about the people than the building,” Turley said.  

 The new location sits outside of Fremont and several miles from the church’s original site, but members voted to keep the name, preserving a legacy tied to the Fremont community. That legacy stretches back generations.  

Lanita Sconce Smith, whose father pastored the church during the 1957 tornado, described the impact that Fremont First Baptist Church has had on her family in a letter to the congregation. “The spiritual investments that a small congregation makes are as sound and important as those of a large community church,” Smith said. “It’s not how small we are, but how big our God is.” 

She said that commitment to ministry is what allows the church to continue its work and make a difference in the community. “When a church body continues to be determined to make spiritual investment into its people and to share the Good News to those in her mission fields, God will bless mightily,” she said. “The ripple effect is astounding, and I want you to know that I am one of those ripples.”  

Looking Ahead

As construction continues, church leaders say they are focused on what the new space will bring. “I’ve been praying for revival, not just for our church, but all the churches in our area,” Turley said. 

 Turley says that the churches in the area have been supportive in making this new building possible. “Multiple churches have donated financially,” Turley said. “We feel people cheering us on.” 

First Baptist Church Fremont members hope the finished building will be a place of fellowship for both longtime attendees and first-time visitors. “I hope that they feel love there,” Turley said. “I hope they feel the sense of family that we have.” 

Moriarty said she is already looking ahead to the growth the new space could bring. “We need people who are willing to give—not just their money, but their time, their prayers, their work,” she said. 

Turley agreed. “I feel that our church has grown, even though it hasn’t happened yet, it’s happening.”  

For a church that has rebuilt buildings before, the transformation of a former bar into a place of worship marks another step forward in a long history of perseverance. “We’re going to be the First Baptist Church of Fremont, no matter where we are,” Turley said.