First Baptist Church of Kissimmee sits on the east side of North John Young Parkway, across from a Publix and a PNC Bank, on a campus that has grown from a small 19th-century congregation into one of the largest ministry hubs in Osceola County. The church gathers every Sunday morning at 9:30 and 11:00, with the later service translated into Spanish, and its doors stay open through the week for an unusually wide spread of programs: graded choirs for preschoolers, an on-site counseling center, a gymnastics and taekwondo program that draws families from outside the church, and an English-as-a-Second-Language class that has brought adults from Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, and Haiti into the same room. Members describe themselves in three words that also drive the church's strategy: love, connect, and serve.
From 1882 to Today: Five Generations on the Same Corner
The church was established in 1882, the same era that put Kissimmee on the map as a cattle-ranching town along the railroad. What began then has continued without interruption for more than 140 years, surviving the freezes, the tourists, and the steady growth of central Florida. A 1935 line from the wife of a former pastor, Mrs. A. C. Chapman, is still quoted from the pulpit of First Baptist Kissimmee: We want to go on. We want to do better work. We want to make as much progress in the future as we have in the past. We may not have much longer to work and we must not waste our time and neglect to use our opportunity. We want to be found faithful when the Master comes.
That same forward-looking instinct shows up in the long tenure of Senior Pastor Tim Wilder. Wilder arrived in 1985 as the church's Minister of Youth and Education, was named Minister of Youth in 1989, and was called as Senior Pastor in January 1996. On February 2, 2025, the congregation marked forty years of his continuous ministry at First Baptist Kissimmee, an occasion that drew a proclamation from the Kissimmee Vice Mayor and a crowd that filled the worship center twice over. At that celebration Wilder shared the five-part vision that has shaped the church since the early 1990s: Build for Strength, Build for Health, Build for Life, Build for Mission, and Build for Worship. Each pillar has produced a tangible ministry.
Build for Strength is the discipleship core. Sunday morning Connect Groups, Wednesday night D-Groups, and Sunday evening Equip Courses together formed what Wilder calls a leadership pipeline that, in 2024 alone, produced 1,855 baptisms. Build for Health led to a partnership with Foundation Counseling of St. Cloud and the opening of an on-site Christian counseling center with seven counselors and a sliding fee scale. In 2024 the center served 241 clients. Build for Life produced the Osceola Pregnancy Center, where at least 1,100 families have been helped and 19 babies were saved from abortion in 2024, plus a mobile anti-human trafficking ministry run jointly with the Florida Baptist Convention. Build for Mission turned the recreation ministry into a community front door and built partnerships with eight local schools. Build for Worship is the unfinished piece, the in-progress renovation of the worship center that the Vision 2030 capital campaign is now raising money to complete.
What a First-Time Visitor Should Know
The church sits at the corner of John Young Parkway and Columbia Avenue, just minutes from Osceola High School and the old downtown. First-time guests enter the campus from either road; on Sunday mornings the Parking Team watches for hazard lights and escorts visitors to the closest open spot. Reserved parking is set aside in front of the office building, to the right of the worship center, for first-time guests, senior adults, and anyone with a handicap tag.
Inside, the Welcome Center hands out a free cup of coffee and a small guest gift. A Connect Table sits in the foyer of the worship center with someone ready to answer questions, walk a family to the right room, or simply chat. Worship services last about an hour and follow a familiar arc: live congregational singing led by the Worship Choir and a full rhythm section, congregational prayer, and a Bible-saturated sermon from Pastor Tim or one of the other pastors. Each service runs roughly the same shape, so worshipers can pick either 9:30 or 11:00 without missing anything other than the morning light.
The dress code is come as you are. On any given weekend some arrive in jackets and ties, others in shorts and flip-flops. Children are welcome in the worship center, and a child-engagement bulletin is available in the foyer for families who want to keep younger ones occupied during the sermon.
For children from birth through fifth grade, secure check-in is offered at the Launch Pad. The system uses parent-and-child matching stickers; every volunteer who serves with children has cleared a background check. Nursery, preschool worship, and children's worship are provided during the 11:00 service; at 9:30, children and preschoolers join age-graded Connect Groups in Buildings C and D. Kids with special needs can be paired with a trained Buddy or placed in the Wonderfully Made Room, a sensory-friendly space staffed by trained volunteers. Parents complete a simple intake form ahead of the visit so the team can prepare.
Kids, Students, and Adults: Ministry at Every Stage
The Kids Ministry, called the Launch Pad, serves alongside families from birth through fifth grade with the mission of preparing preschool and children to become faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. The four verbs that frame the work are love, connect, grow, and serve. On Sunday mornings the Launch Pad offers Connect Groups at 9:30 and Kids Worship at 11:00 in both buildings, with preschoolers in Building D and elementary children upstairs in Building C. Wednesdays at 6:30 are reserved for Launch, a large-group discipleship hour with games, crafts, music, scripture memory, and Bible study for children, while preschoolers gather in Building D. Sundays at 5:30 bring the graded choir program, where children are discipled through music in age-appropriate choirs from three-year-olds through fifth graders. Kids Ministry Director Reilly Seccia and her assistant, Michelle Langer, lead the team.
The Student Ministry, called the Salt Factory, gathers middle and high schoolers around the same four-verb framework: know God, find community, make disciples, and change the world. Sunday mornings at 9:30, gender- and grade-specific Connect Groups meet on the second floor of Building E (the gym) so students can study the Bible with peers in the same stage of life. Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 8:00 are reserved for Wednesdays @ Salt Factory (WSF), a worship experience that opens the gym doors at 5:00 for games, sends students to the Canteen for a snack, and then lifts up a student-led worship band and a teaching time from the Word. Student and Young Adults Pastor Brian Coon and assistant Daphne Castillow lead the team. Beyond the regular schedule, students can audition for the student praise band, serve on the media team as a sound or lighting tech, or join the Serve Team helping with children's ministries during the 11:00 service (a path open to those twelve and older).
Adult ministry at First Baptist Kissimmee has more moving parts than any other corner of the church, organized as a Discipleship Hub with multiple entry points. Connect Groups are the open weekly Bible studies that meet around the church or in homes; D-Groups (Discipleship Groups) are the closed, gender-specific groups of three to five that meet for accountability and accelerated growth; Equip Courses are the deeper Sunday-evening classes in family, ministry, Bible, and leadership. Care Groups provide specialized support for grief, divorce, marriage, and military and veteran life. Separate ministries serve men (Kingdom Men, led by Danny Mascarenhas), women (Kindle, led by Nancy Wilder), senior adults (the OASIS ministry led by Carol Kerns), and the Spanish-speaking community (the Hispanic Ministry). Discipleship Pastor Ariel Irizarry, known as AJ, oversees the entire adult discipleship pathway.
A Sanctuary of Song: Music and Worship Across Generations
Music is treated as core worship, not a program layered on top of it. The Worship Pastor, Charles Darus, oversees a graded music ministry that reaches from three-year-olds to senior adults, with the working assumption that every believer, at every age, can be shaped by the music of the church. The Worship Choir, the adult ensemble, rehearses on Wednesday nights from 6:30 to 8:00 in the Choir Suite of Building B and sings regularly in the Sunday services. A Student Choir for grades six through twelve rehearses Sunday afternoons at 5:30 in the same suite, while Children's Choir (grades 1 through 5) rehearses in the Kids Worship Room on the second floor of Building C and Preschool Choir (ages 3 through kindergarten) gathers in the Preschool Worship Room of Building D, both at 5:30 on Sundays during the school year. The music ministry is always looking for talented, music-reading instrumentalists who play rhythm or orchestral instruments, and it operates the Shepherd's Heart School of Music, which offers private lessons in voice, piano, guitar, bass, and drums from qualified Christian instructors. Lessons are scheduled on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday according to availability and are open to children and adults.
The church's musical tradition is old enough to lean choral and blended, but contemporary enough to use a full rhythm section and to put a student-led band at the center of the Wednesday night Salt Factory service. The expectation of excellence shows up in everything from the adult choir's weekly rehearsals to the graded choirs that perform throughout the school year.
Recreation as Mission
Few Southern Baptist churches of this size run a recreation program on the scale of First Baptist Kissimmee, and the leadership treats the gym as a deliberate mission field. The Recreation Ministry offers basketball, soccer, taekwondo, gymnastics, and pickleball, with leagues and classes for kids, students, men, and senior adults. In 2024 the ministry served 441 families, and roughly 300 of those participants had no church affiliation before they showed up. The senior adult pickleball and recreation hour runs on Tuesdays during the fall and spring seasons for ages 55 and up. Men's Open Gym, a twice-monthly drop-in night for men eighteen and over, offers basketball, pickleball, ping-pong, pool, and simple fellowship.
The recreation ministry also undergirds the church's partnerships with eight local schools. Through the Serve the City ministry, the church provides meals to partner schools during preplanning days and runs after-school Bible programs for children. The Fall Festival, now a tradition of more than four decades, grew out of the same instinct: to draw families from the neighborhood onto the church grounds. Attendance has climbed to roughly 1,300 people, with bounce houses, carnival games, a petting zoo, a balloon artist, popcorn and cotton candy, a Prayer Tent staffed by the Gideons, and the Kissimmee Police Department's mounted unit.
Hispanic Ministry, ESL, and the Pregnancy Center
Reaching the Spanish-speaking community has been a stated priority of the church for years, and the practical expression runs through three channels. First, the 11:00 Sunday worship service is translated into Spanish in real time. Second, an adult Spanish-language Connect Group meets Sunday mornings at 9:30 in Room B-112, with a second Spanish-language group meeting on Wednesday nights at 6:30 in the Chapel. Third, the Hispanic Ministry exists as a distinct ministry area with its own programming, although many of its details remain in members-only pages.
The Ease into English ESL program brings together adults from a striking range of countries. In a recent semester, the beginner class had thirty-five students from Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Haiti, and other nations, many of them sitting in an English classroom for the first time. Volunteers teach and assist every week; the church also pairs ESL students with the Spanish-learning students in the Equip Courses for occasional joint gatherings. The classes meet Sunday evenings from 5:30 to 6:30 in Building A during the school year.
The Osceola Pregnancy Center, housed on the church's campus, is the centerpiece of the Build for Life pillar. The center provides material support and counseling for women in unplanned pregnancies; its boutique offers baby clothing and supplies, and its staff share information about its services at community events like the Fall Festival. In 2024 the center served 1,100 families and reported nineteen babies saved from abortion. A newly donated five-acre lot behind the church, the answer to twenty-eight years of prayer, will become the Osceola Life Center, a two-story facility that will house a Christian adoption and foster care ministry, a single moms ministry, a counseling office, and an anti-human trafficking ministry alongside an expanded pregnancy center.
Counseling, Care Groups, and Walking Through Hard Seasons
Pastoral counseling is available through the pastoral team, and a licensed Christian counseling ministry partners with the church to provide professional services on campus at a floating fee scale. Anyone interested can contact the church office for details and an appointment.
Care Groups meet the more specific, ongoing needs of the congregation. GriefShare runs as a weekly support group for those who have lost a loved one. DivorceCare is a thirteen-week, video-based program that helps people work through separation and divorce with biblical counsel. Re|Engage offers marriage enrichment through large-group teaching and small-group discussion for couples whose marriages are strong, struggling, or somewhere in between. Next Gen Moms meets on Tuesday mornings during the fall and spring semesters for fellowship and Bible study, with childcare provided for babies through fifth graders. Pathfinders is the church's ministry to veterans and military families.
Vision 2030: Building the Worship Center for the Next Generation
The capital campaign at the heart of 2025 and 2026 is called Vision 2030, anchored in Matthew 16:18: On this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. The goal is $2.5 million over two years, 2025 to 2027, to renovate and update a worship center that has not seen significant improvements in twenty-five years. The list of projects includes the stage, carpet, seating, audio-video-lighting systems, and bathrooms, along with minor structural repairs. The design vision is a thriving, multi-generational sanctuary that welcomes newcomers and gives longtime members a more beautiful and functional place to gather.
The campaign is built around a deliberate principle: not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice. Pledge Sunday is observed each spring, with one-time gifts collected in a special offering chest during both Sunday services and ongoing pledges spread over the next two years. The campaign literature quotes Mrs. A. C. Chapman again, reminding the church that the past 142 years have been carried by the faithfulness of God and that the next generation deserves the same.
RightNow Media, the Realm App, and How the Church Stays Connected
Members are encouraged to use RightNow Media, a streaming library of more than 20,000 Bible-study videos taught by leaders such as Francis Chan, Jennie Allen, J.D. Greear, and Tony Evans, plus a kids' library of more than 2,000 safe videos. The church also provides free access through its own custom sign-up page, and the app is available on all major streaming devices.
For internal communication and giving, the church runs on the Realm Connect app. The app keeps events, group connections, and recurring giving in one place, and members can find people, share resources, and track their giving history from their phones. The app is available in the Apple App Store and on Google Play.
What the Church Believes
The congregation holds to the Bible as the sole authority for doctrine and Christian conduct and uses the Baptist Faith and Message Statement, adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000, as its primary guide. The church frames its mission around the Great Commandment, to love God and love neighbor, and the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded. From those two passages, three values flow into every ministry: love, connect, and serve.
On baptism, the church teaches what it calls a simple framework: baptism is not required for salvation but is the first step of obedience for a believer. The water itself does not save; Jesus does. Baptism is an outward picture of the transformation already accomplished in the heart, illustrating Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, and the new life that follows. First Baptist Kissimmee practices baptism by immersion, following the biblical model. A baptism class is led by one of the pastors on the first Sunday of each month at 9:30 in Room C-101.
Church membership is introduced through Beginning Point, a two-session class held the second week of every month that walks newcomers through the church's beliefs, mission, ministries, and how to discover and use their own gifts.
Getting Started
For a first visit, anyone can fill out a Connect Card online or simply show up and stop by the Welcome Center. Office hours are Monday through Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and the phone rings into a real person during those hours. To get involved before attending, the church recommends Beginning Point for understanding the church's teaching and ministry, a Connect Group for community, a D-Group for deeper accountability, and an Equip Course for training. Volunteering starts with an interest form and continues through a background check and training.