Out on East Colonial Drive in the small community of Christmas, Florida, a white-painted Baptist sanctuary has stood for generations. Fort Christmas Baptist Church is the kind of country church where the pastor still opens a Bible and works through it verse by verse, where Sunday School runs from cradle to great-grandparent, and where a calendar of weekly studies in Romans, 1 Peter, Hebrews, and Revelation fills the bulletin board behind the pews. The congregation describes itself simply: a family of believers committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, to growing in grace, and to letting the Word of God shape daily life.
150 Years on East Colonial Drive
Fort Christmas Baptist has been teaching and preaching the good news in this stretch of east Orange County for more than 150 years. The church takes its name from the nearby Fort Christmas, the 1837 reproduction of a Second Seminole War fort, and it is one of the older Baptist bodies in the area. That long history is part of the reason the current pastor is patient with a book of the Bible: preaching at Fort Christmas moves slowly, deliberately, and verse by verse, working through Romans, walking through 1 Peter, or sitting down with Hebrews week after week until the text is finished. Visitors stepping through the doors on a Sunday morning walk into a congregation that has seen a lot of Sundays and is not in a hurry.
A Verse-by-Verse Pulpit
Expository preaching is the centerpiece of the church's identity. The congregation's own description of its teaching is that the Bible is taught "verse by verse, chapter by chapter, and book by book," with attention to the historical and grammatical context in which the text was originally given. The goal, the church says, is to understand what God is actually saying in His Word and how that meaning applies to daily life. A look at the sermons archive confirms the approach: recent series include the "Victory in Jesus" walk through 1 Peter, a multi-part study of Romans 8 ("Life in the Spirit"), an extended look at Romans 9 ("God's Chosen People"), a study of Romans 11, and sermons on Psalm 2, the parables of Luke 15, the Lord's Table, and the Christmas Evans drama in church history. A short series titled "What is Worship?" and one called "Voting Righteousness" round out the catalog. The pattern is clear: pick a book, open it, and preach it through.
Sunday Mornings at the Church
Sunday is built around two gatherings at the church on 23600 East Colonial Drive. The morning begins at 9:45 a.m. with Bible Training, the church's name for Sunday School. The classes are open to every age from 0 to 100, so nursery care, children's classes, youth, and adult electives all meet at the same hour. At 11:00 a.m. the main Worship Service begins. Nursery is provided during the service for the youngest children, while older kids attend the worship gathering with their families. Songs, prayers, Scripture reading, and the pastor's exposition of the text form the order of service. The congregation describes the music, the prayers, and the preaching as all grounded in the Bible.
What to Expect as a Visitor
New faces are a regular part of the week at Fort Christmas Baptist. Greeters are stationed at the doors and at a welcome desk, ready to show visitors around, point them to restrooms, the sanctuary, the fellowship area, and the nursery and Sunday School rooms. The church is firm that no one needs to worry about what to wear: come as you are. The congregation includes people in shorts and people in suits, ties and no ties, and the church wryly notes that Jesus never wore a tie either. Visitors are invited to stick around after the service for coffee and conversation and a chance to meet the pastor and other members. Parking is on site, with spaces nearest the doors kept open for anyone with mobility restrictions or small children to carry.
Studying the Word Together Through the Week
The teaching does not stop on Sunday morning. Wednesday evenings bring the church back together for an in-depth Bible study. The current Wednesday study, held from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m., is a chapter-by-chapter walk through the book of Revelation. AWANA, the children's discipleship club, also meets at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, a sign that the building is alive with multiple generations during the midweek hour. On Thursday nights at 7:00 p.m., the women of the church gather online for a Ladies Zoom Bible Study, opening the Word together from their homes. Together these rhythms give the congregation a steady diet of Scripture from Sunday morning through Thursday evening.
What the Church Believes
The statement of faith posted on the church's pages is unusually full and reflects a classic, careful Baptist doctrinal tradition. Fort Christmas Baptist holds that the sixty-six books of the Bible are the plenary, infallible, and inerrant Word of God, given by the Holy Spirit and pointing to Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation. Scripture is interpreted in its normal, literal sense, with room for poetry, figures of speech, types, and symbols, but with one true meaning for each passage. The church confesses one God eternally existing in three persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - and affirms the absolute sovereignty of God over creation, history, and salvation, including the doctrine of divine election. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ's atoning death alone, and those who are saved are eternally kept by the power of God.
The church teaches the total fall of man in Adam, the virgin birth and bodily resurrection of Christ, the present ministry of the Holy Spirit within the Church, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit that forms the Body of Christ at Pentecost. Two ordinances are observed: baptism by complete immersion of believers and the Lord's Supper, which is a remembrance of Christ's sacrificial death until He returns. The church teaches that the apostolic and revelatory gifts have ceased with the completion of the New Testament foundation, that the next great prophetic event is the rapture of the Church, that Israel will be judged and ultimately saved during a future tribulation followed by a thousand-year millennial reign, and that the Bible presents these ages through dispensations of progressively revealed truth. On the question of ministry, the statement affirms the spiritual equality of men and women in the body of Christ while reserving the offices of elder, pastor, and deacon to biblically qualified men. Women are encouraged in personal ministry, in teaching other women, and in teaching children.
Leadership at the Church
The pulpit is led by Pastor Ken Mann, who has been the consistent teaching voice in the sermon archive for years. He is the one who has walked the congregation through Romans 8 and 9, through the parables of Luke 15, through the "Victory in Jesus" series in 1 Peter, and through the long look at the book of Revelation. The pastor serves alongside a body of six deacons. The deacons form the lay leadership that helps shepherd the life of the church alongside the pastor.
Giving, Sermons, and Staying in Touch
Fort Christmas Baptist does not pass a collection plate during the worship service. Members and friends who wish to give may do so through the church's online giving page, which routes gifts through PayPal as a one-time or monthly donation, with the option to direct the gift to the general tithe, the youth mission trip, or the building fund. The church's sermons are posted online, with both video and written transcript options. Many of the most recent messages include a Scripture text alongside the video, making it easy to follow along in the Bible at home. The calendar is also online, with monthly views and printable PDF options, and a blog at my Simple Thought Musings carries additional reflections from the pastor between Sundays. The church can be reached by phone at 407-568-2668 or by email at info@fortchristmas.org, with mail addressed to PO Box 89, Christmas, FL 32709, and the building itself sitting on East Colonial Drive just up from the historic fort that gives the community its name.