Our History

On June 24, 1849, Reverend Asahel Chapin and forty-two members constituted Second Baptist Church in Holyoke. This young church would live, grow, and minister in the city of Holyoke for the next 137 years.

In 1986 the members of Second Baptist had a vision and a challenge. They made the decision to come “across the river” to South Hadley and be named, Second Baptist Church of South Hadley.

Over the next 20 years the church would grow into its new building and enjoy its new location; during this time, in 1991, the church was blessed to receive Pastor Donald Bradley as its Pastor. In over 160 years of serving Jesus Christ the church has truly built “A Great Heritage”.  Stepping out in faith in 2006, the church made a commitment to grow for the Lord once again by funding an addition to the existing building. The results were 7 new classrooms, storage space, a full-size gym, locker rooms, a fitness room and a new kitchen, which enabled existing rooms to be used for extra purposes. The new addition was dedicated in October 2007.

The expanding of the building led to growth and the need for an assistant pastor.  Pastor Mark Lawrence was voted in as the assistant pastor in early 2008.  Pastor Mark served at SBC for over a year and began helping the Shutesbury Church where he currently serves as a missionary pastor.  The church was blessed yet again by the voting in of Pastor Ryan Bradley in 2009 as the assistant pastor.  After 30+ years in ministry, Pastor Don stepped down as lead pastor in 2011 which led to the voting in of Pastor Ryan as the lead pastor. 

A new round of changes occurred to the building in early 2010, as the Sanctuary area was expanded by using some of the Narthex area, and then in late 2010 when the Fellowship Hall was split into separate rooms for new Nursery and Pre-School areas. All these changes are needed because God is consistently blessing our church and adding to its numbers!