​70 Years
[1946-2016]
CHURCH HISTORY
In the month of April 1946 the Rev. L.H. Kelly visited Wichita, Ks. to conduct a revival for the Tabernacle Baptist Church located then at 8th and Water Street. Rev. F.K. Simon was the Pastor. Sister Virginia Mitchell and Sister Elizabeth Kelley asked Rev. Kelly if he would be interested in pastoring a church in Wichita. His reply was "yes," but he would not purposely search out for members from other pastors' congregations.
 
Deacon Wesley Mitchell, Deacon Tom Kelly, Deacon George Summers, Deacon James Kelley, and Brother Albert Robinson began to seek a location to hold a 3-night meeting. The group asked several pastors of the local Baptist Churches to allow them use of their facilities. However, they were refused.
 
An inter-denominational Pastor, Rev. James Jones, agreed to let them use his church for 3 nights.   Several Baptist ministers protested Rev. Jones allowing these meetings to take place in his church, and asked that he stop the meetings. Nevertheless, he permitted them to continue. The meetings were a success, and the small group continued to plan for a new beginning.
 
On May 19, 1946, the home of Deacon Oscar and Sister Flossie Wilson located at 2804 N. Wabash became the first organized meeting for the establishment of a new church. Rev. L. H. Kelly acted as moderator, Deacon James Kelley acted as Secretary, Deacon Tom Kelly acted as Chairman of the Deacon Board. Others present were Wesley Mitchell, Oscar Wilson, Henry Johnson, George Summers, Sister Elizabeth Kelley, Sister Virginia Mitchell and Sister Flossie Wilson.   In this meeting it was agreed that the name for the new church would be The Progressive Baptist Church.
 
The next step was to find a suitable location to build a church building.   The Deacons located 4 lots in the 1600 block of North Wabash Ave. for $500.00. Because they could not afford the 4 lots, they settled on 2 for $250.  Money would not be the only obstacle the young church would confront in getting started. Many local ministers attempted to stop the City from granting a building permit for Progressive to build a church on the newly purchased lots. Their argument was that there were enough Baptist churches serving the community in Wichita. The City of Wichita agreed and the permit was denied.  Rev. Kelly and Deacon Tom Kelly took their case to Topeka, Kansas as suggested by the City officials. They were granted 2 permits, 1 inscribed USA and the other City permit. The USA permit was planted on the lots. Rev. Kelly and his committee revisited the City of Wichita upon returning from Topeka and were granted a City permit to build a new church building.
 

Church History