{"id":51040,"date":"2025-09-30T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/?p=51040"},"modified":"2025-11-04T16:26:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T21:26:17","slug":"blue-creek-baptist-church-keaton-beach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/blue-creek-baptist-church-keaton-beach\/","title":{"rendered":"One year after Helene\u2019s destruction, Blue Creek Baptist Church, meeting in pole barn, looks ahead to future and new building"},"content":{"rendered":"

KEATON BEACH\u2013One year after Hurricane Helene flooded their church and destroyed everything inside, members of Blue Creek Baptist Church<\/a> in Keaton Beach are now holding services beneath a pole barn on their new property, attracting visitors almost every week and looking ahead to the future and the construction of a new building.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re outside with the sand gnats, but God has given us good weather and that\u2019s amazing,\u201d said Henry Cannington, associational missions strategist for Taylor Baptist Association<\/a> who is serving as interim pastor. \u201cIt can be pretty hot this time of year, but we\u2019ve had just the right wind, and God is blessing us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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“The One who parted the Red Sea, who fed the Israelites in the wilderness, who rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls with Nehemiah, He\u2019s the One who can rebuild the church right here.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Henry Cannington<\/strong>
associational missions strategist, Taylor Baptist Association and interim pastor, Blue Creek Baptist Church, Keaton Beach<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

While holding services outdoors may not seem ideal \u2013 due to the heat and the bugs and all – Cannington said the \u201ccome as you are\u201d atmosphere is very attractive to area residents in the Big Bend area of Florida, which include vacationers and those with second homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing under a pole barn in a new location is sort of exciting,\u201d he said \u201cPeople show up who normally don\u2019t go to church. They see that we\u2019re not a so-called \u2018normal\u2019 church – the old traditional kind – and they see us as being flexible. We are not confined by four walls. We don\u2019t have any walls. We\u2019ve got open air out here. We\u2019re not worried about stained glass and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while this is in the Keaton Beach area, this is not the typical Florida beach that tourists think of, Cannington said, noting it\u2019s not like the beaches at St. George Island or Panama City to the west. \u201cOur beach is a different kind of beach. It\u2019s not a wavey beach. We call it the flats because it\u2019s not really deep. When you do baptisms at this beach, you got to make sure it\u2019s high tide.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Hurricane Helene struck in September 2024, it was the third storm to hit the area over the course of 13 months and the most damaging, with an estimated 90% of homes in the area destroyed. The reported 10-12-foot storm surge brought in about eight feet of water, flooding the former church building up to the ceiling and destroying everything, including all of the church\u2019s written history. In the days after, church members and volunteers came in to help with cleanup, pulling all the furniture, office equipment, supplies and more outside into large piles, resembling what you see at a landfill.<\/p>\n

To rebuild or renovate that building was deemed too expensive because the property is in the flood zone and building codes require any new construction to be high off the ground. \u00a0The church began holding services beneath a pole barn on a church member\u2019s property.<\/p>\n

When people learned about the church\u2019s misfortune due to social media and this story from the Florida Baptist Convention<\/a>, volunteers came to assist with cleanup efforts and donations came pouring in from churches, Christian and charitable organizations, and individuals from throughout Florida and beyond. The church was able to use some of those funds to buy 14 acres of land located about six miles away that is not in the flood zone and does not have the same building height requirements as the original property. They built a new pole barn on the property and began holding services there in the spring.<\/p>\n

Now the church\u2019s building committee is pushing ahead with plans for the construction of a new building on the property. They are hoping to start construction next summer with a mix of professional and volunteer help from churches and Christian groups like Carpenters for Christ<\/a> and Campers for Christ<\/a>. The church has raised about $300,000 from internal and external contributions toward its goal of $500,000 for this project.<\/p>\n

While church members are excited about the future, Cannington said change is not always easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s almost like God speeded it up for us to see great things happen,\u201d he said. \u201cWe would have been stuck there because you fall in love with your facilities and you wouldn\u2019t want to move. But you\u2019ve got to enlarge your space so you can reach people. That\u2019s what God has done. He has opened the doors for us, and this will probably be the largest church in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
A newly erected sign for Blue Creek Baptist Church at their new property has attracted visitors to their open-air Sunday services held beneath a pole barn. The church will continue to meet there until their new building is constructed on site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The church is currently averaging about 70 in attendance, but often it\u2019s more like 80 or 90. \u201cWe had over 100 on Labor Day weekend,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have visitors coming every week, like first-time guests. Not every church can say that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The church has a trailer near the pole barn that is used for its young children. Half of the space is used for a nursery, and half is used for children under third grade. Meetings for small group Bible study are currently held in members\u2019 homes, but soon they may begin meeting in the parsonage at their former location, which is high above the ground. Members are still discussing how they will use that facility or if they might sell the property. They have also started the process of searching for a new pastor.<\/p>\n

Cannington said he has often used these verses from Ephesians 3:20-21 to encourage members:
\n\u201cNow to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe One who parted the Red Sea, who fed the Israelites in the wilderness, who rebuilt Jerusalem’s walls with Nehemiah, He\u2019s the One who can rebuild the church right here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have really latched on to our great God. He\u2019s the One who is able to do it. He\u2019s the One we\u2019ve got to look to! So, there\u2019s that spirit of expectation and it has unified them. They are excited and looking forward to reaching their community.\u201d<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

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One year after Hurricane Helene flooded their church and destroyed everything inside, members of Blue Creek Baptist Church in Keaton Beach are now holding services beneath a pole barn on their new property, attracting visitors almost every week and looking ahead to the future and the construction of a new building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":51047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[140,17,49,22,23,25],"tags":[2867,871,2868,2869,853,345,883,2223],"class_list":["post-51040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disaster-relief-missions","category-missions","category-region-north","category-providing","category-sharing","category-stories","tag-big-bend","tag-blue-creek-baptist-church","tag-campers-for-christ","tag-carpenters-for-christ","tag-hurricane-helene","tag-keaton-beach","tag-recovery","tag-taylor-baptist-association"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51040"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67897,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51040\/revisions\/67897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flbaptist.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}