Charlottesville, Virginia’s Ebenezer Baptist Church was established on March 25, 1892 with Reverend Alexander Truatt as the first pastor. The inaugural worship service was held at the Daughters of Zion Hall located on the corner of Fourth and Commerce Streets, N.W.
On November 27, 1907, Ebenezer Baptist Church was destroyed by a fire emanating from the adjacent Jefferson Auditorium on Main Street. The church was rebuilt within eleven months, and stands as it is today at its present site at 113 Sixth Street, NW.
Two of the seventeen ministers who have stood in the church’s pulpit in its over 130 year history, Reverend Dr. Edward McCreary, Sr. and Reverend Dr. Elisha G. Hall, served more than thirty years.
Reverend Dr. Edward D. McCreary, Sr. led Ebenezer Baptist Church from 1934 to 1966. During his pastorate, the church obtained an historic Roosevelt organ built in the early 1870’s by Hilbourne L. Roosevelt, a first cousin of former president of the United States, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. This magnificent instrument continues to grace the front of Ebenezer’s sanctuary.
Reverend Dr. Elisha G. Hall served as pastor from 1967 to 2004. Under his leadership, the Church purchased additional land in the rear as well as the building next door.
On February 1st, 2006, Reverend Lehman D. Bates, II, Ebenezer’s seventeenth pastor, was installed. He became the third minister to lead Ebenezer over the past seventy-eight years. Under Pastor Bates’s leadership, the Ebenezer Baptist Church is an active community partner in the Charlottesville and the Central Virginia region, with a collaborative distribution network of over forty organizations, representations on numerous area boards, and missions outreaches locally, nationally, and internationally.
In October 2008, after continuous, faithful service as a Licensed Ordained Deacon, Rev. Mark Anthony J. Mills was called to preach the Gospel as a Pastoral Assistant at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and has been involved in multiple outreach ministries.
“The Black Church is the only thing we have that was born on African soil, survived black slavery and has become the biggest and most powerful institution we have today.”
