A Faith Family on Commonwealth Avenue
Erlanger Baptist Church sits on Commonwealth Avenue in Erlanger, Kentucky, a small northern Kentucky city tucked between Florence and Covington. From that address the church describes itself as a Christ-seeking faith family committing to grow, worship, and share the good news of Jesus. Members come from all kinds of backgrounds; what unites them is love for God through Jesus Christ and a shared calling, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to love, serve, and share the gospel in their own neighborhoods and beyond.
The church subscribes to the Baptist Faith and Message as adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention and practices believer's baptism by immersion, congregational polity under the Lordship of Christ, and the spiritual giftedness of every believer. Two pastors share the pulpit and the work of the church: Pastor BJ, who joined Erlanger Baptist in August 2017 with his wife Melissa and their five children after a decade of student, administrative, and senior pastor roles and a Master of Divinity in Biblical Studies from Southern Seminary, and Pastor Eric, the children's pastor, who came to the church with his wife Kelli and their two children after more than twenty years in children's ministry, a Master of Divinity in Christian Education from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and early years teaching elementary school.
Sunday in Erlanger: Coffee, LifeGroups, and Worship
The Sunday rhythm at Erlanger Baptist is built around two weekly gatherings. Doors open early: doughnuts and coffee are served in the Commons at 8:45 a.m., giving families and first-time guests a chance to settle in. At 9:15 a.m. LifeGroups meet for every age, from babies to senior adults. LifeGroups are the small-group heartbeat of the church and are designed for people to share in life's joys and hardships, to grow in the knowledge of God, and to apply biblical truth to daily life. Classes for preschoolers and children, students, and adults run at the same hour across the building, so an entire family can be in a LifeGroup at the same time.
At 10:30 a.m. the congregation gathers for the main worship service. The service blends a vocal and instrumental worship team with a choir that leads congregational singing and occasionally presents anthems, especially at Easter and Christmas. A tech team runs sound, lights, and media each week, with most volunteers serving one or two times a month. The 10:30 a.m. service is also livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel, so members at home or out of town can join in.
A Spanish-language worship service also meets at 10:30 a.m. on Sundays. The Español ministry welcomes Spanish-speaking families and friends to the same hour of worship in their own language, an expression of the church's conviction that the good news of Jesus crosses every cultural line.
A Building Made for First-Time Visitors
The building is set up so newcomers do not have to guess where to go. Visitor parking is on the west side of the property. Families with children, or anyone planning to attend a LifeGroup, are pointed to Entrance A on the north side of the building, the west-most doors under the overhang, where greeters meet them and walk them to the right classroom. Anyone joining the 10:30 a.m. worship service is pointed to Entrance C on the south side of the building.
At the Preschool and Children's Ministry area, volunteers at a Welcome and Check-In Desk fill out a registration form for each child, print a name badge for the child and a matching security tag for the parent, and walk the family to the appropriate room. To pick up a child, the parent returns to the same classroom and shows the security tag. A printable registration form is available online so families can fill it out ahead of time. For questions before a first visit, parents are encouraged to contact the children's pastor directly.
All2Jesus: The Heart of the Church
The phrase All2Jesus is the working title for the church's year-by-year ministry emphasis. Each year's pastoral letter, written by Pastor BJ, gives the focus a particular shape. Discipleship, evangelism, missions, family, obedience, experience of God, foundations, and gospel unity have all been named in recent years. The goal is the same: to grow healthy disciples who impact their communities, who invite others onto a faith journey, and who see fruit in their own lives and in the lives around them.
Evangelism is taught with a particular tool. EBC uses the Three Circles gospel presentation, a simple diagram that walks a conversation from God's good design, through the brokenness of sin, to the hope of the gospel in Christ. Small-group leaders, students, and adults are trained to share their faith in this conversational way.
The church's neighborhood is part of the mission. The pastoral team and members have walked Erlanger street by street in door-to-door outreach, hosted Saturdays of Service with car washes and visits to first responders, sponsored youth football banners, run a float in the city's Memorial Day Parade, and held an EBC-sponsored day in the park with a cookout and cornhole tournament. The church has also been part of Hope for Northern Kentucky, a regional evangelism effort in which more than eighty area churches cooperated around a shared sermon series, a community-wide youth rally, and a coordinated season of door-to-door outreach.
Music and Worship Arts
Music is treated as a way to point people to the Savior. The worship and music ministry is led by Jimmy Cantwell, the church's worship and missions leader. Jimmy grew up in Erlanger, accepted Christ at age nine, and has been in ministry since 2013, including worship leading and mission work in thirteen nations. He and his wife Naomi, whom he met on a mission trip to the Island of Grenada, were married in 2017 and both earned a Bachelor of Practical Ministry with a focus in Worship and Missions at Christ For the Nations Institute in Dallas. The team includes vocalists and instrumentalists, a tech crew for sound, lights, and media, a traditional choir that sings specials and calls to worship, and a children's choir that engages the next generation in leading the congregation.
Rehearsals are built into the week. The worship band rehearses Wednesdays from 6:15 to 7:00 p.m. in the sanctuary. The adult choir practices Wednesdays at 7:15 p.m., and the children's choir rehearses seasonally on Wednesdays from 6:30 to 7:00 p.m. in the choir room.
Children's Ministry and SonLight Preschool
Children are not an afterthought at Erlanger Baptist. The church teaches from 1 Timothy 4:12: "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity." Ministry is designed for every stage, from infants through elementary, and the church describes its purpose as making the most of every opportunity to teach children about Jesus through God's Word.
Sunday mornings include a full LifeGroup hour for children, parallel to the adult LifeGroups at 9:15 a.m., and children's programming during the 10:30 a.m. service. Wednesday nights at 6:00 p.m. offer children's Bible studies that run alongside the youth and adult studies until 7:30 p.m. Throughout the year the church runs Upward Basketball and Upward Cheerleading, an evaluated sports league where every child plays, and VBS each summer, both of which fill the building with kids and volunteers from the wider community.
SonLight Preschool is a weekday preschool ministry housed in the same building, directed by Pam, a retired educator and longtime EBC preschool volunteer who joined the staff in 2021. SonLight serves young children and families from the Erlanger community and beyond. A separate registration form and information page are available through the church's website.
Student Ministry
Students in middle and high school have a ministry of their own with a clear three-word aim: know Jesus, grow in relationship with him, and go on mission with him. The student ministry is led by Shane Hufford, a northern Kentucky native who came on staff after completing a Bachelor of Strategic Communication at Morehead State University and seminary work at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Shane and his wife Meredith, themselves parents by adoption of six children, are passionate about foster care and the lostness they have seen in the lives of young people, and they want to put youth on a path toward daily living out their faith for life.
Students meet in several regular rhythms. On Sunday mornings at 9:15 a.m. they gather for LifeGroup, where they study the gospel and its implications for everyday life alongside adult leaders. On Wednesday nights at 6:00 p.m. they meet for XChange, a weekly time of fellowship and Bible study that always points back to the gospel. One Friday night a month is set aside for Friday Night Life, a casual evening built for inviting lost and unchurched friends. Each summer students gather on Tuesday evenings for Swim Bible Study, combining pool time, food, and Scripture. A Disciple Now weekend each year brings students into host homes for an extended weekend of worship, teaching, and small-group Bible study. In the summer the student ministry heads to Crossings at Jonathan Creek, a week of camp with worship, teaching, and community.
Men, Women, and Family
Men's ministry at EBC is built around the conviction that as the men go, so goes the church. Men meet at 8:00 a.m. on the second Saturday of every month for a home-cooked breakfast and a devotional message, a regular chance for fathers and grandfathers to walk the same faith journey together. Service projects, an annual trip to Red River Gorge, and discipleship groups round out the rhythm. The stated goal is to push men to model integrity, character, discipline, commitment, and love as they pursue Christ and lead their homes.
Women's ministry exists to help women experience life change together through Jesus Christ. The group gathers for book studies, an annual tea party with hats and gloves, retreats, and seasonal events, with contact through the women of Erlanger Baptist email address and the church office. Quilters of Love, a homebound ministry, and the WMU have both been active in recent years.
Marriage and family are a sustained emphasis. EBC has walked through The Meaning of Marriage in a church-wide book study, a summer sermon series, and an ongoing Grace Marriage Ministry to ground families in biblical truth and grace. A ladies' tea party is held each year, and the women's book studies rotate through authors and topics that have included prayer, holiness, and family discipleship.
Missions: From Erlanger to the World
The church's mission field is shaped by Acts 1:8, beginning in Erlanger and extending to the ends of the earth. Locally, EBC partners with the Northern Kentucky Baptist Association and other area churches, hosts Upward leagues and Whizkids, and serves in the city's parks and schools. The church supports foster and adoptive families through a list of trusted organizations including Nightlight Christian Adoptions, the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, Sunrise Children's Services, Compassion International, the Christian Alliance for Orphans, and CASA of Kenton County, and provides an orphan care resource page for members exploring adoption or foster care.
Internationally, EBC has sent teams in recent years to Grenada, Bulgaria, Poland, and Letcher County in Eastern Kentucky, with multiple trips to Poland in a single year to lead winter and summer camps. Mission giving is a regular part of church life, and a portion of the church's giving supports ministry and missions around the world. The worship and missions leader, Jimmy Cantwell, leads the missions emphasis alongside his worship responsibilities, reflecting a conviction that worship and witness belong together.
Beliefs and How the Church Is Led
Erlanger Baptist Church affirms the Bible as the inspired Word of God and the basis for everything the church believes and does. The doctrinal summary includes the Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the authority and trustworthiness of Scripture, the image of God in humanity, salvation by grace through faith in Christ, the eternal security of the believer, the reality of heaven and hell, and the priesthood of every believer. The church practices tithing as a starting point of giving, believer's baptism by immersion, daily dependence on the Holy Spirit, daily Bible reading and memorization, and the priority of sharing the gospel both with those who naturally cross the church's path and with those the church goes out of its way to seek.
Christ is the recognized head of the church, not any person, group, or religious organization. The scriptural officers are elders and deacons, and the office of elder or pastor is open only to men qualified by Scripture. EBC has spent several years working through an Elder Pathway Process to identify, train, and affirm lay elders. Members approved the process in October 2023 with a strong majority, and a group of men has been walking through training, preaching, and teaching under the pastors' guidance. The process is designed to be intentional and unhurried, with each candidate eventually brought to the congregation for affirmation.
Getting Connected
Anyone interested in knowing more about Jesus can read the Know Jesus page on the church's site, which walks through the gospel in four movements: that all have sinned, that God is holy and must punish sin, that God sent his Son to save, and that repentance, belief, and receiving Christ open the door to eternal life. A sample prayer is included for those who want to pray it, and the church invites anyone who has made a decision to follow Christ to share that so the congregation can rejoice with them.
Giving is available online through a Realm giving page, and a weekly bulletin highlights upcoming events and services. For prayer requests, members and visitors can submit a request through a form on the site, and the prayer team responds in confidence. Sunday morning remains the front door of the church: LifeGroups at 9:15 a.m., doughnuts and coffee in the Commons at 8:45 a.m., worship at 10:30 a.m. in English, and a Spanish-language service at 10:30 a.m. as well. The church's YouTube channel carries the livestream and a sermon archive, and the office is reachable at (859) 727-2588 or office@erlangerbaptist.org.