West End church shuts down, donates building to younger congregation

Patterson Avenue Baptist Church is no more, but their legacy will live on. Following a final service this past Sunday, the aging congregation symbolically handed the keys to their building at 4301 Patterson Avenue to a younger generation–the congregants of Movement Church, a young church that currently meets in the Museum District.

It was a somber day for the church family, which began meeting in the space in 1989. Tammie Smith from the Richmond Times-Dispatch was there Sunday for the final service, and has more coverage below.

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The pews at Patterson Avenue Baptist Church on Sunday were filled with more people than had been there on a Sunday morning in some time.

There were so many people that there weren’t enough communion cups for everyone.

“We ran out of juice,” said Pastor William “Bill” Nieporte as he led the service, the empty communion trays stacked on a table at the front of the church.

In some ways, the shortage of communion juice cups and Nieporte’s words about running out of juice symbolized the church’s fate.

Sunday’s service was the last for Patterson Avenue Baptist Church, formed in 1989 from the merger of churches with longer legacies — Park View Baptist Church, dating to 1891, and Calvary Baptist Church, dating to 1877.

Read more here.