How a Local Church Preserves the Gospel

How does a church remain faithful to the gospel? What ensures a congregation thrives across generations rather than drifts into compromise? In an era of cultural upheaval and pastoral challenges, the survival of a gospel-preaching church is never guaranteed. Churches split. Pastors come and go. Congregations grow weary. Yet, for nearly 150 years, God has preserved the witness of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC.

This church’s story is not one of smooth sailing but of trials, setbacks, and hard-fought perseverance. Yet church has been shaped by seasons of prayer, courageous preaching, ordinary faithfulness, and steadfast endurance. From a handful of believers gathering in a small home to pray in 1867 to the battles over theological faithfulness in the twentieth century, to the quiet courage of members who stood firm when it would have been easier to leave—this is a story of God’s extraordinary work through ordinary means.

What keeps the gospel burning brightly in a local church? More than strategies or programs, the answer lies in the same means God has used throughout history: prayer, preaching, people, and perseverance.

Prayer

The story of Capitol Hill Baptist Church starts with a woman few have ever heard of: a 23-year-old named Celestia A. Ferris. In 1867, Celestia gathered a handful of people in her home to pray for a Baptist church to be established in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. At that time there was no church of any denomination in the area—so they prayed. No one there had seminary degrees. No one had grand titles or positions—there were only people with burdened hearts asking God to lead. They prayed for four years before starting a Sunday School to share the gospel with local children and families. That is how Capitol Hill Baptist Church got started.

Celestia had grown up in Washington D.C. during some of the most volatile years in American history—the Civil War era—when the city, divided in loyalties, witnessed deep splits even in churches. Celestia herself was part of one such church that split during the Civil War. She knew that the local church was not a natural but a supernatural institution that could only be built and sustained through supernatural means. So they prayed.

I wonder if more churches talk about the importance of prayer than practice the value of prayer. I wonder if we’ve forgotten something of the importance of prayer in our day. Amidst all our talk of strategic planning, marketing, and multiplication processes, have we traded God’s means for man’s methods? Our actions often speak louder than our words.

From the vantage point of heaven, I have no doubt that prayer is the single-most important ingredient sustaining a church’s gospel witness. In a city full of statues of long-forgotten men and women of worldly importance, Celestia Ferris’s example stands as an enduring witness to the power of prayer. Time and time again, in Capitol Hill Baptist Church’s history, prayer—especially corporate prayer—has been the powerful ingredient sustaining the church through hardship and transition. So dedicated was the Celestia Ferris’s merry band of prayer warriors that early on they considered calling the congregation, “The Church of Prayer.”

What role does prayer play in the life of your church? What are you asking for that God may still be answering fifty or a hundred years from now? How can Celestia Ferris’s humble and childlike dependence on God in prayer increasingly mark our church planting efforts?

Preaching

Capitol Hill Baptist Church has truly enjoyed an abundance of gifted preachers and larger-than-life characters. As church clerk Francis McLean commented in 1892, “If we’ve been spoiled with anything it has been by good preaching.” And indeed, the chief distinguishing mark of God’s kindness toward this church has been the faithful men who have heralded the gospel from its pulpit.

One of the most significant turning points in the church’s preaching ministry came under K. Owen White in the mid-twentieth century. Prior to his arrival, sermons at Metropolitan (as the church was then called) were primarily topical, often built around a single verse for both morning and evening services. White, however, was convinced that the congregation needed to be fed with the whole counsel of God. On October 1, 1944, he began his first consecutive expositional series through the book of Nehemiah. He encouraged the congregation in the church bulletin, writing, “Take your Bible and read each week the chapter we are to deal with the following Sunday.”

White’s commitment to Scripture didn’t waver. The following year, he launched a 22-part series through the Gospel of John titled That Ye Might Believe, instructing members to read the appropriate chapter each week before the sermon. His preaching was not the sentimental moralizing that had characterized some of the previous decades but was bold, scriptural, and deeply convicting. As White explained, only God’s Word could meet man’s deepest needs:

There can never be any substitute for Gospel preaching! Pageantry, dramatics, audio-visual aids, esthetic appeals, personal counseling—all these and many other things may have their place, but they cannot take the place of the plain, positive preaching of the Gospel by one whose heart is afire and whose lips are empowered by the Spirit of God.

God remarkably blessed White’s preaching. In just five years, the church baptized 848 new converts, each of whom was required to go through a five-week membership class and sit down for an interview with the deacons before baptism. This wasn’t revivalism built on emotional altar calls but the fruit of patient, Word-driven ministry. White knew that church growth that is not rooted in Scripture will not last.

Churches will not remain faithful to the gospel apart from faithful preachers of God’s Word. History proves that as goes the pulpit, so goes the church. A congregation may hold to biblical doctrine for a generation or two, but without sound preaching, the gospel will be assumed, neglected, and eventually lost. Pray for the Lord to raise up and sustain pastors who will not shrink from declaring the truth but will boldly proclaim the whole counsel of God in their churches.

Ordinary People

But the history of Capitol Hill Baptist Church is not just a collection of well-known preachers. While strong leaders and powerful preachers play their role, the real work of preserving the gospel is carried out in the quiet, faithful lives of ordinary saints.

One such example is Agnes Shankle. Unlike the pastors who stood behind the pulpit, Agnes never held an official title or commanded the church’s attention week after week. She was just a Sunday School teacher at the church. But when it mattered most, she stood up.

Right before K. Owen White assumed the pastorate, the church was at a crossroads. After the long and faithful ministry of John Compton Ball, the pulpit committee had brought forward a candidate named Ralph Walker. Walker was a capable speaker, well-educated, and already held a prominent reputation. But something about him troubled Agnes. She had heard reports that Walker was too theologically accommodating, hesitant to take a firm stance in the growing controversy between theological modernists and biblical conservatives.

When the pulpit committee presented Walker to the congregation for a vote, Agnes did something that would change the course of the church’s history. She raised her hand and, in a calm but firm voice, said, “I have heard considerable reports about this man—that he is compromising in matters related to the fundamentalist-modernist controversy.”

A hush fell over the room. Another member spoke up in agreement, confirming her concerns. Slowly, the mood in the room shifted. The pulpit committee had misjudged the man and the direction the church needed to go. They withdrew Walker’s nomination and reconsidered their course. The congregation eventually called K. Owen White—who would go on to lead the church into one of its strongest seasons of biblical faithfulness, implementing expositional preaching and deepening the church’s commitment to Scripture.

Agnes Shankle’s story is not famous. She never wrote a book, preached a sermon, or led a church program. But she knew her Bible, and she understood the stakes. Her moment of courage helped preserve the church’s theological faithfulness for generations to come. She may never stood in the pulpit, but she knelt in the prayer closet. And her courage at a key moment helped preserve the gospel witness on Capitol Hill. Heaven will testify to the cosmic impact of a quiet life centered around the local church. And so, as we labor today, we do so knowing that the same God who preserved the gospel in this church through ordinary saints will continue to do so, one faithful life at a time.

Perseverance

Another saint who modeled godly perseverance in the face of opposition was Margaret Roy. Margaret Roy was born in 1909 in Broad Run, Virginia, and worked as a high school principal in Washington, DC. She had never attended Capitol Hill Baptist Church—then known as Metropolitan Baptist Church—but she had heard the hymns on the radio. Drawn by the sound of gospel truth, she made a bold decision: as an African American woman she would walk through the doors of an all-white congregation and take her seat.

It was 1968, and Washington, DC, was still reeling from the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The city had burned, racial tensions were high, and churches—like the rest of the nation—were divided. The easiest thing for Roy to do would have been to find a church where she would immediately be welcomed. But she was determined to be part of this church.

“I wanted to disprove those who thought it was a church that didn’t want Negroes,” she later explained. “I wanted whites to know that there were blacks that weren’t all that bad.”

Margaret wasn’t looking to make a statement—at least not in the political sense. She was not there to integrate the church as a movement; she was there because she believed that Christ’s church was bigger than race. If these people loved Jesus, and she loved Jesus, then nothing should stop her from worshiping with them.

But it wasn’t easy. Four families left the church in protest when she became a member. Others ignored her entirely. Once, during a Bible study, a woman turned her back to Margaret as she was speaking. Her response? “I resolved that I would treat people right regardless of how they may treat me.”

Instead of growing bitter or lashing out, Margaret chose to persist in love. She killed hostility with kindness. She reached out to elderly women in the church and asked if she could visit them in their homes. At first, they were hesitant, but she kept showing up—listening, serving, and seeking to build relationships. Over time, she won them over, turning former skeptics into close friends.

Margaret Roy stayed. She didn’t leave when she was mistreated, and she didn’t give up when people made her feel unwelcome. She persevered, believing that the gospel was bigger than human prejudice. And through her perseverance, the church changed.

A Light on the Hill

For generations, God had been preserving the witness of Capitol Hill Baptist Church—through trials, through splits, through periods of growth and decline. From Celestia Ferris gathering friends for prayer, to Agnes Shankle’s courage to speak up, to K. Owen White’s commitment to God’s Word, to Margaret Roy’s quiet resolve to integrate the church, the testimony of Capitol Hill Baptist Church is one of humble perseverance.

But this is not fundamentally a story about any one person or one church. Ultimately, this is a story about God and how he delights to do extraordinary things through ordinary preachers and ordinary people who persevere courageously in the face of opposition.

Is the light of the gospel still shining in your church? What will it take for the torch of the gospel to be passed to another generation? It will take ordinary men and women who pray fervently, persevere faithfully, and trust God to do what only he can do.

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Editor’s note: For more on how God preserved the witness of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, read Caleb Morell’s book A Light on the Hill: The Surprising Story of How a Local Church in the Nation’s Capital Influenced Evangelicalism (Crossway, 2025).