A Riverside Congregation Since 1954
Spinning Road Baptist Church sits on a two-acre corner at Kemp and Spinning Roads in Riverside, Ohio, just across the Greene County line from Dayton. The brick building and the surrounding neighborhood grew up together. In early 1953, the Dayton Baptist Union was looking for a place to plant a new church and chose the Page Manor - Beverly Gardens area because of the rapid residential growth on the eastern edge of the city. The Union purchased two acres for $6,000 in November 1953, and on March 7, 1954, the first Sunday School class and worship service were held in the cafeteria of Page Manor School, with the cafeteria and gym shared with a Catholic fellowship that would soon move into St. Helen's School on Kemp Road. Within a few months, Sunday School attendance topped 200 and morning worship was running above 100, and the building campaign began.
The little mission chapel organized formally on June 30, 1954 as the Beverly Gardens Community Baptist Church. The original charter members included the Bennetts, the Schmidts, the Rentzes, the McLains, the Wagoners, the Seigneurs, the Worfs, and others who had been gathering at the school. The first pastor, Rev. S. Joseph Duell, arrived in March 1954 straight out of Colgate-Rochester Divinity School. Over the decades the church took its name from the road it sits on, and today the property on the corner of Kemp and Spinning is still home to a congregation that calls itself theologically conservative, racially integrated, and blended in its worship.
Sunday at Spinning Road
The Sunday rhythm begins at 9:15 a.m. with Sunday School for every age, from nursery through adult. The Pursuers class meets at 9:50 a.m. as an additional option, and at 10:30 a.m. the whole church gathers for Morning Worship in the Sanctuary. Children start the service with their parents and stay through a children's message aimed at them, then children ages three through fifth grade are dismissed downstairs for Children's Church, divided into age-appropriate groups for worship and instruction. A fully equipped nursery with separate infant and toddler sections is available during the Sunday School hour and the 10:30 service. The evening opens at 6:00 p.m. with Power in Prayer, a time when adults gather to pray for the needs of the church and the community, and continues at 7:00 p.m. with Evening Worship, an informal service built around favorite hymns and choruses, prayer requests, and expository preaching from Scripture.
A Blended Style of Worship
Worship at Spinning Road intentionally mixes the old and the new. The 10:30 a.m. service begins with organ-accompanied traditional hymns, pastoral prayers, Scripture reading, and a Bible-based sermon, then moves into contemporary elements such as a praise band, special music of various styles, a welcome and fellowship time, a children's message, and the occasional Christian drama or skit. The 7:00 p.m. service is looser still, with the singing of favorite hymns and choruses, open sharing of prayer needs, and expository preaching. Sometimes the Sunday evening service shifts into a special format with outside speakers, Christian video, or a Singspiration with sister churches. The blended approach is one of the things Pastor Elliott Rinehart and the congregation point to as a defining trait: young and old worship side by side.
Wednesday Nights: Dinner, AWANA, and Bible Study
Wednesday is one of the busiest evenings of the week. At 5:30 p.m., a fellowship dinner is served in the fellowship hall for a suggested donation of $2 per person, a chance for the whole church to eat together before splitting off into the evening's programs. From 6:05 to 7:30 p.m., AWANA fills the building with games, Bible teaching, and Scripture memory for children from age two and a half through high school. At the same time, a pastor-led Adult Bible Study meets in the Sanctuary from 6:15 to 7:15 p.m. Chancel Choir practice follows at 7:30 p.m. The combination of dinner, children's ministry, Bible study, and choir is built so that families with kids of different ages can come for the evening and find a place for everyone.
AWANA: A Quarter-Century on Wednesday Nights
AWANA, which stands for Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed from 2 Timothy 2:15, is one of the signature ministries of Spinning Road and has been running for more than twenty years. The current season is the 23rd year of the program at the church. Clubs meet most Wednesday nights of the school year from 6:05 to 7:30 p.m. and include Puggles for ages two-and-a-half to three, Cubbies for ages three and four, Sparks for kindergarten through second grade, Truth and Training for grades three through six, Trek for grades seven and eight, and Journey for high school students. The program is led by Co-Commanders Tere Sharp and Michelle Prince, with a large team of adult volunteers, listeners, and youth leaders in training. Clubbers earn points for attendance, Bible verse memorization, completing handbook sections, wearing their uniform and gym shoes, and participating in theme nights; they spend those points at the AWANA Store, which opens three times a year, including a special Christmas Shop where clubbers pick out gifts for the adults in their lives. A signature night is the Grand Prix, when clubbers build and race wooden derby cars. The club raises money for Awana missionaries through Nickel and Dime Nights, and every November the kids bring non-perishable food for the church pantry and pack Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes for Samaritan's Purse. AWANA is open to children from the wider Dayton community.
Vacation Bible School: Illumination Station
Each July the church turns its building into a one-week adventure for the neighborhood. Vacation Bible School runs six evenings from Sunday through Friday, 6:00 to 8:30 p.m., and is open to children from age three (if potty trained by the start date) through just completed sixth grade. The current theme, Illumination Station, focuses on John 8:12 - I am the light of the world - and walks kids through a week of Bible teaching, worship, games, crafts, snacks, and meaningful conversation about who Jesus really is. The week closes with a family program on Friday evening. VBS is free, but online registration is required, and the church recruits both adult and youth volunteers (grades 7-12) to help run the program. The whole church pitches in: AWANA pauses for the week, the choir supports worship, and youth group members serve as crew leaders.
Impact Youth Group
Teens in grades 7-12 are invited to Impact, the church's youth ministry, which meets on Sunday evenings from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The group gathers for Christian fellowship, conversation about the Word and how it applies to daily life, games, service projects, and outings throughout the year. Registration opens in September. On Wednesday nights during the school year, seventh and eighth graders can also join the AWANA Trek program, while high school students can take part in Journey or serve as leaders in training with the younger AWANA clubs. During the summer months, the Wednesday night programming continues with a Summer Youth Group for grades 7-12 alongside Christ Kids Klub for the younger kids. The youth leaders are Mary Ann Stemley, Melissa Marks, Bud Koogler, David Chambers, Marla Richardson, and Betsey Henry.
SpinKemp Christian Preschool
SpinKemp Christian Preschool is a ministry of the church that has been part of the Spinning Road family for more than fifty years. The preschool serves children ages two-and-a-half through five, and all children must be fully potty trained. Classes run in the morning, 8:30 a.m. to noon, and the program is structured around the physical, social, intellectual, emotional, moral, and spiritual development of each child. The director, Carol Boersma, has led the preschool for several years and works with a teaching team that includes a Pre-K lead teacher and aide, a Middlers teacher, an Early Beginners teacher, and a small group of regular substitutes. Communication with parents runs through ClassDojo, and the preschool publishes a monthly newsletter that runs the full school year from September through May. The Trike-a-Thon each spring raises money split between the Ronald McDonald House and SICSA, while canned food donations collected at the same event help restock the church's food pantry. The preschool holds an annual Pre-K graduation, a Muffins with Mom morning, a Donuts with Dudes morning, and a Last Day Luau at the close of the year. SpinKemp is licensed by the state and follows state requirements for paperwork, immunizations, fire drills, and nut-free classrooms.
Adults Growing Together
Sunday mornings offer three adult Sunday School classes alongside the all-church Sunday School hour. The Seekers class alternates between topical studies, books, and video series. The Pursuers class uses a team-teaching approach with various Bible study discussion guides and meets at 9:50 a.m. The Midway class is generally made up of younger adults and works through theme-based curriculum. On Wednesday nights at 6:15 p.m. a pastor-led Bible study draws adults from across the church for an hour of teaching. The men's ministry includes a monthly men's breakfast on the first Saturday, October through June, where the men do their own cooking and stay for devotions and prayer, plus small groups through the week that grew out of the Promise Keepers movement. The women's ministry centers on the Tuesday morning Bible study at 9:30 a.m. (with babysitting provided) and a Saturday morning Bible study at noon, along with several other small groups that meet at various times for Bible study, fellowship, accountability, and prayer. The church runs a Grief Support Group on Wednesdays from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. in the prayer room behind the piano in the sanctuary, using Stephen Ministries materials and open to anyone who wants to come. A church bowling league meets at Beaver-Vu Lanes during the summer months, and the men have a periodic retreat at a nearby camping facility.
Music at Spinning Road
Music is woven into both services and into the wider life of the church. The Chancel Choir leads worship and rehearses on Wednesday evenings at 7:30 p.m., with the choir season resuming in late August and running through the church year. Soloists and small ensembles provide special music in the blended Sunday morning service, and a praise band leads the more contemporary elements. The Sunday evening service draws on a mix of favorite hymns, choruses, and congregational singing, and a Singspiration with sister churches is a periodic highlight.
Reaching Beyond Riverside: Missions
Spinning Road has a long history of supporting missions at home and overseas. The church supports the United Mission of the American Baptist Churches USA and participates in the four annual American Baptist mission offerings: America for Christ, One Great Hour of Sharing, World Mission Offering, and Retired Ministers and Missionaries Offering. On top of that, the church's budget includes direct support to Wycliffe Bible Translators, SIM (Serving in Mission), and local ministries including the Dayton Christian Center, Dayton Christian Schools, and the Dayton Gospel Mission. The Johnson family - Dale and Florence and their sons Caleb and Joel, the son of former Spinning Road pastor Tom Johnson - serve with SIM in Burkina Faso, West Africa, and have shared their work with the church on a Sunday morning. Long-term missionary Bev Dawson, who grew up in Riverside, spent forty years creating a written Wapishana language, teaching people to read it, and producing a Wapishana New Testament translation in southwestern Guyana. She was joined over the years by other missionaries and Wapishana believers, and on November 2, 2013, Dave and Rita Look represented Spinning Road at a four-hour celebration in the village of Karaudar, accessible only by four-wheel-drive, marking the dedication of the Wapishana New Testament. The church continues to support the Old Testament translation work that is still in progress, and Dawson sends updates from JAARS, the Wycliffe center south of Charlotte, North Carolina, where she now volunteers.
A Neighborhood Food Pantry and Christmas Outreach
The church operates a food pantry stocked by congregation members with non-perishable food and household items. The pantry is available to households in the church and the surrounding neighborhood in need, and the church prepares holiday food baskets at Thanksgiving and Christmas. In a recent year the pantry distributed more than 30 baskets at each of those holidays. The Fellowship Fund, a confidential fund maintained by the diaconate board, provides financial assistance to members of the church and others in the wider community with special needs. An offering for the fund is taken on the third Sunday of every month. Each Christmas the church also collects items for Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes, decorates a Mitten Tree in the foyer for the Dayton Christian Center, and gathers new, unwrapped items of all ages for the Dayton Gospel Mission.
What Spinning Road Believes
The church describes itself as a theologically conservative congregation that places its faith wholly in the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and embraces the historic distinctive principles of the Baptist tradition. The Bible, especially the New Testament, is the supreme authority and the only rule of faith and practice, and the church accepts the Bible as an inerrant guide for faith, life, and the understanding of salvation and new life in Christ. The congregation affirms the preeminence of Christ as Lord and Savior, the right of private interpretation, the competency of the individual soul in direct approach to God, the separation of Church and State, regenerate church membership, believer's baptism by immersion as a symbolic ordinance of obedience, the independence of the local church and its interdependence in associated fellowship with other Baptist churches, majority rule under a democratic and representative form of government, the spiritual unity of all believers, and a worldwide program of missionary fervor and evangelism. The two ordinances observed are the Lord's Supper and Baptism by Immersion. The church's stated purpose is the advancement of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ through public worship, Christian education, preaching and teaching the Bible, consistent Christian living by its members, personal evangelism, and missionary and benevolent endeavor. The theme verse is Colossians 1:10: that believers may live a life worthy of the Lord, please Him in every way, bear fruit in every good work, and grow in the knowledge of God. The church is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA and the American Baptist Churches of Ohio.
Visiting Spinning Road
Spinning Road Baptist Church is located at 538 Spinning Road, Riverside, Ohio 45431, on the corner of Kemp and Spinning Roads, directly across from Page Manor and a block from the Airway shopping area. Sunday services are held at 10:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., with Sunday School for all ages at 9:15 a.m. A blended style of worship, a friendly children's program, and a fellowship dinner on Wednesday evenings make the church accessible to families with children of any age. Sunday morning sermons are posted to a YouTube channel, and giving is available online through Tithely, with a mobile app option. The church office can be reached at (937) 252-5311 during the week, and Pastor Elliott Rinehart and the staff welcome the opportunity to answer questions and walk newcomers through what to expect on a first visit.