Our History
Little Britain Community Baptist Church began in the later years of the 1830’s. The first recorded church to be founded in Elm Grove, (the prior name of Little Britain), was in 1837 when Harrison Haight gave lot number 1 on Mill Street East, (now Little Britain Road), for the construction of a house of worship. This log structure served the “Christian Church” until 1850. In the year 1850 the log chapel was replaced by a building erected at 21 North King Street West on a parcel of land donated by R. F. Whiteside Sr. The new church was a simple 30’ x 40’ white frame structure. At this time, it was a member of the Christian Church of Canada which was headquartered in Oshawa, Ontario. It was at this same time R. F. Whiteside Sr. instigated the changing of the name of the settlement from Elm Grove to Little Britain, in memory of his birthplace – Little Britain Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
By the beginning of the 20th century the structure and its facilities were in dire need of enlarging and modernizing, to this end a large-scale renovation was under taken in 1914. A basement was dug underneath which provided room for Sunday school classes and meetings, a 12’ extension was added which included a belfry with a bell, large stain-glass memorial windows replaced the old smaller windows, while the interior received new pews, piano, and electric lighting. Despite the need for enlargement at the beginning of the 1900s, by 1926 the effects of The Great War and urbanization on the local population, the depleted membership regretfully voted to close the church. The closure lasted for a decade, until 1936. At that time three former members of the congregation felt led to seek to restore evangelical worship to Little Britain. Thanks to their diligent and enthusiastic efforts in the early 1930s the church reopened in conjunction with the Christian Congregationalist Conference of the Newmarket-Keswick area. In the early 1950s the church transitioned from the Congregationalism Conference to joining the newly established Fellowship of Evangelical Baptist Churches of Canada (FEB), where it continues to the present. It was as a FEB institution (first as the Fellowship Baptist Church, then as Little Britain Community Baptist Church), that the church experienced great growth and enlargement. By the early 1990s the church membership determined that to meet their needs, further expansion was necessary. Rather than doing more renovations of the existing 140-year-old building the congregation decided that a new building should be constructed. In 1994 a 6.5 acre parcel of land next to the lot on which the older church sat had been purchased. In April 2002, the ground was broken for the new building and the doors opened 18 months later on September 2003. From 2003 until the present, the Lord has continued to bless the congregation of LBCBC as we faithfully meet each week to proclaim the Word of God, to worship and to fellowship one with another.