OUR HERITAGE
 

Early History of Bothell First Baptist Church,
Now CrossPointe Church
By Mina Jo Scott

In 1939 Ruth and Carey Milam purchased a five-acre “stump farm” on a gravel road in Bothell at the location that would later be known as the First Baptist Church of Bothell on the corner of 104th Ave NE and NE 195th Street. This property was covered with “Old Growth” stumps and logs which the Milam’s had to clear so they could build a five-bedroom home and several out buildings for their cows, pigs, and chickens.

Both of their fathers had been pioneer preachers in the Northwest and Ruth and Carey had a desire to help share the Gospel. Later in 1943, while two of their three sons were overseas fighting in the Second World War, Ruth would go up to the Northeast corner of their property and kneel in prayer under the old cedar tree that is still standing near our church office. She and Carey were praying that someday God would build a godly church and Christian school on their property.

Fourteen years later, in 1957, God in His wisdom had brought five families, from different locations, to the Bothell area. Ruth and Carey Milam who had been living in the Chicago area for a few years returned to their home in Bothell. An FBI man, John Pearson, and his wife Doris had moved with their family from Missouri. A former dairyman, Pastor W.D. Williams and Katherine his wife, had moved here with their family from Texas. A meat cutter, Dewey Halvorson and Norma his wife, brought their three children from Seattle. A brick layer, Don Milam and his wife Betty, came back from living in Snohomish with their four children. These families all came to the Bothell area within a few weeks of each other and became the nucleus of a new Baptist church in Bothell.

After canvassing the area, W.D. was convinced he should start a Baptist church here. He got the Lake Washington Baptist Church in Seattle to sponsor a mission church in Bothell. Dr. Harvey Roys, who was pastoring that church, agreed to help W.D. buy a house in downtown Bothell.

Stepping out in faith, with no tangible prospects other than his own family, on August 11, 1957 W.D. rented the Ricketts Elementary School building for $20 an hour. He put a sandwich board on the sidewalk out in front of the school, and held the first worship service of the Bothell First Baptist Mission Church.

That Sunday morning, after getting settled in their new home in Bothell, Norma Halvorson with her three young children had decided to look for a church. As she was driving by Norma saw the small sandwich board on the sidewalk advertising a Baptist service inside. She and her children entered and W.D. asker her if she could play the piano since they didn’t have a pianist. From that service on for several years, Norma was the church pianist.

Since that was SeaFair Sunday and the hydroplanes were racing, Dewey Halvorson had decided to stay home. Undaunted, W.D. went to the Halvorson home that evening and led Dewey to accept Jesus as his personal Savior. Thus Dewey became the first convert of the new church.

It was about this time that John and Doris Pearson found the new mission church and started attending. It was decided that renting the Rickets Elementary School was too expensive so they started meeting in the pastors home in Bothell.

Shortly after this, Carey and Ruth were driving through Bothell looking for a church when they spotted a small sandwich board sign in front of a modest home that advertised a Baptist worship service inside. They went in and found that it was the home of the pastor, W.D. Williams. The mission was only a few weeks old but they had such a wonderful time of Christian fellowship that Ruth and Carey invited everyone to come home with them for Sunday dinner, which they did. This included the Williams, Halvorson, and Pearson families.

Don and Betty Milam joined the church soon after this. About this time Carey and Ruth offered to give enough property to build a new church building. The problem was that in order to legally accept the land the mission would have to incorporate as a church which they did in a service at the Ricketts Elementary School on November 10, 1957.

The seventeen charter members of this new church were as follows: W.D. Williams, Katherine Williams, and two of their four children – Jerry and Sharon, Ruth and Carl Graden, Dewey and Norma Halvorson with their son – Steve, John and Doris Pearson, with two of their children – Christopher and George Anna, Carey and Ruth Milam, and Don and Betty Milam

From the very beginning we had a weekly visitation program and God faithfully continued to add families week by week. We quickly outgrew the William’s home and moved to the Bothell City Hall. We paid $44 a month for Sunday mornings & evenings plus Wednesday evenings. Soon these facilities were not adequate and more space was needed. The Nursery was held in the Halvorson home, Beginners in the Williams’ home, Primaries and Juniors in the Odd Fellows Hall and the rest of the Sunday School classes in the City Hall where all of the worship services and Wednesday prayer meetings were held. On December 7, 1968, the church held its first ordination service, setting aside Don Milam, Dewey Halvorson, and Vernon Scot as Deacons.

Even under these cramped conditions we continued to grow and the need for our own building became acute. Whole families were joining the church and in 1959 100% were tithing.

Plans were obtained from an architect, Benjamin McAdoo, a loan was approved by the Home Mission Board, and a ground breaking ceremony was held on March 17, 1960. We called it “God’s Miracle Church” because God was obviously blessing our efforts. Many gifts were received including: $2,500 worth of electrical heaters, all of the plumbing for the building was supplied and installed by one of Carey and Ruth’s sons. We were given stone for facing the building, a piano from the manager of Kenmore Premix, roof shakes at cost, twenty five new oak pews at a greatly reduced price. Bothell First Lutheran Church gave the cross for the end of the Building, and numerous small gifts were received from all over the country. Our men volunteered most of the labor. All of the buildings electrical wiring was voluntarily done by one member who was a licensed electrician with the help of many others. Meals for the workers were provided by Ruth Milam and other women from the church. Many of our women members spent long hours doing everything from spackling, painting and even helping with the roofing of the building.

Two church members, Carey Milam and Vernon Scot, suffered work related injuries during the construction, each with a broken leg.

One year after breaking ground the first service was held in the new building on March 19, 1961. Although it was only partly finished, the whole church was meeting in one place for the first time. Ruth Milam knew that God had answered her prayers because although she was terminally ill she was able to attend that first service in our new building. She died seven months later.

The next year was spent in visitation and continuing to complete the building.

In December 1962 W.D. accepted a call to the Enumclaw Baptist church. From the very start in Bothell and during the five years he served as our pastor, W.D. was a full time minister of our church but due to the church’s limited finances he helped support his family by holding a second full time job as a meter reader for Washington Natural Gas Co.

In June of 1962 Harold Hitt came with his wife, Ellen, and three daughters, Deanne, Kay, and Joy. Under Harold’s guidance the church continued to grow. Additional land, about 3.25 acres, was purchased from Carey Milam. We continued to complete the building and expanded the mission church in the Moorlands and started a work in the Chadwick nursing home.

After five years as our pastor, Harold Hitt resigned in March of 1968 to accept a mission appointment with the Baptist General Convention of Oregon – Washington.

In 1968 Sam Friend was called as the third pastor of Bothell First Baptist Church. Shortly after Sam came we started a bus ministry. Under the leadership of Richard Rolfe, who later served for many years with his wife Kaye as missionaries in Columbia SA., this ministry grew to include 11 school busses. We had teams under the leadership of bus captains that went into the surrounding neighborhoods each Saturday and invited the children to ride one of our busses to Sunday School the following day. In a short time we had hundreds of children attending, most of them had never been to a church before. Due to the limited size of our first building we were forced to rent outside facilities including space in the then new Maywood Hills school and in Canyon Park Jr. High.

Because of the number of families represented by these children we started an “Evangelism Explosion” program where we visited each of these families and presented the “Four Spiritual Laws”. That year we had over 90 baptisms of new converts so we started a program of “Growth Groups”. These consisted of groups of 8 – 10 people who would meet weekly in private homes to do Bible study based on the Navigator lessons.

Our church continued to grow in numbers so an additional educational hall was built in 1971 and was added to the South West corner of our chapel. This is the building that was financed in part by selling “Wooden Nickels” for pledges of support from our members.

By 1972 our chapel was remodeled to increase the seating and the original oak pews were sold to Eastgate Baptist Church. We were then holding two preaching services and two sets of Sunday School classes. Several visiting evangelists, including Barry Wood and John Hunter were invited to hold a series of meetings and we soon had to increase to three preaching services and three sets of Sunday School classes.

By 1975-6 we were ready to expand again and began building our multipurpose building. This required the purchase of the Wyscaver home which became our church office. This was all financed by the sale of church bonds and was completed on the Labor Day weekend of 1977. In 1977-78 we also started the Heritage Christian School, beginning with K through 3rd grades which expanded each year through 9th grade.

About this time we purchased additional property for parking from the McAlisters, consisting of most of the 5 acres to the north. We also purchased about 3 acres west of the McAlister land thus giving us access to 100th Ave NE. bringing our total to about 13 acres.

It wasn’t long before we outgrew the classroom space in our existing facilities and had to purchase portable classrooms which were placed on the west end of the McAlister parking area.

On October 19, 1986 we dedicated another addition with 18 new classrooms which like our other buildings has the dual purpose of serving our Sunday morning Bible classes and also our Heritage Christian School.

We still have two Worship services and two Sunday School sessions each Sunday and for many years we have had a church sponsored food bank for those in need.

For several years Dewey Halvorson served under Sam as assistant pastor in charge of outreach, part of which involved our Telephone Ministry where several of our Seniors contacted each of our members by phone on a monthly basis.

Hank Robison served as Church Administrator under most of Sam Friend's ministry as well as all of Jim Reimer’s ministry and part of Dan Hill’s ministry.