The original church building for North Tiverton Baptist Church was erected in 1885 and the name on the building was Temple Chapel. Temple Baptist Church of Fall River was instrumental in the establishment of this church. According to The Phillips History of Fall River (printed 1944), “Temple Baptist Church was responsible, by its assistance and support of chapels on Tucker Street and on Foster Street, for the establishment of the Third Baptist Church on Brayton Avenue. The ‘Temple’, by giving assistance to a neighborhood effort helped to establish the Temple Chapel in North Tiverton, now known as North Tiverton Baptist Church.” Rhode Island lists the date of foundation being 1879. This would have been when a group organized before the building was actually constructed. The church was incorporated under the name, The North Tiverton Baptist Church, in 1917.
Over the years, the church has grown and shrunk in attendance. In many ways the church was in its height in the early 1960s and coming into the 1990s, the church had been in a steady state of decline. By 1997, the membership had shrunk to just a few people and it seemed that the church would close its doors like so many others.
But in July of 1997, the church agreed with Pastor Michael Hamilton to give him a three-month trial. He had offered himself as a serious, hardworking minister and his wife as an equally hardworking pastor’s wife, who would give all that they could for the benefit of the church and the people who remained. After three months, he was asked to stay. Since then the church has had steady growth. The church came to the point where it was struggling to meet in the original building at 331 Main Road. The building was pressed to seat 60 people and the parking lot was almost non-existent. There wasn’t enough land footprint to set up a picnic table! The building had also developed significant structural issues that had remained unknown to the membership until it was too late.
As God would have it, a building that belonged to the First Primitive Methodist Church of North Tivertona became vacant. They had suffered membership decline over the years but never recovered. Pastor Hamilton set himself and the church membership to pray for this building. It was very close to the original church building, much larger building with a much larger parking lot and land. North Tiverton Baptist Church made an offer on the property, but was refused. The property was leased to various groups several times over the years that ended up being to the detriment of the property. After seven years of making this a matter of prayer, the Lord moved in a very miraculous way that North Tiverton Baptist Church was able to acquire this property at 198 Main Road, which is now our current location. We moved to our new home in December, 2008. This property has been a trememdous blessing for us since we moved there and we expect it to continue serve us wonderfully for many years to come.
