Layton Avenue Baptist Church                                     
 ….Grow in faith.  Serve with purpose.                                                                                                                                                               
 
        Home        Location         Contact Us        About Us        Calendar       Gallery        Links        VBS                  
         Worship       Bible Study       Missions       Events       Senior Adult        Adult       Youth        Children     i  i   

The earliest years in the church’s journey of faith: 1957-1962

The Layton Avenue Baptist Church was established at a time when the final chapters of Southern Baptists’ geographical expansion into a national denomination were being written.  Many of an estimated 1.3 million Baptists who migrated from the southern states to urban centers in places like the northeast and the cities of the Great Lakes region participated in church planting efforts.

In 1956, lay persons Del Dowdy and Ed Jennings initiated a quest to discover transplanted Southern Baptists living in the metropolitan Milwaukee area.  Their efforts quickly bore fruit in the organization of a fellowship which became the Northwest Baptist Church .  The first formal gathering of what shortly thereafter would become the Layton Avenue church was held on May 13, 1956, in a hall at 7338 W. Greenfield Avenue .  The growing “Green­field Baptist Mission” relocated the following year to more suitable quarters at the corner of S. 75th and W. Madison Streets, where it was formally constituted as the Allis Temple Baptist Church on July 11, 1957.  The next summer, William Stegall was called as the church’s first full-time pastor. 

Seeking a more spacious, visible, and well-traveled location, the congregation in 1961 purchased a large tract of farm land in the rapidly developing W. Layton Avenue corridor of Greenfield .  On February 4, 1962, the east section of the current building (now, the fel­lowship hall section), was formally dedicated.  The church again changed its name; this time, to the Layton Avenue Baptist Church .

The church’s major challenge was to structure its ministry and outreach in ways most appropriate for the prevailing culture of southeast Wisconsin .  Additionally, the church was expected to have a pivotal role and to set an example in further mission expansion for the area.  In its half-century of kingdom work, the Layton Avenue church has distinguished itself as a leading congregation in both the Lakeland Baptist Association and the Minnesota/Wisconsin Baptist Convention.  While proud of its rich heritage, the church nonetheless seeks to cast its gaze more on the work that lies in the future as it continues to grapple with many of the same challenges it faced on this earliest leg of its faith journey fifty years ago.  

 T