Mount Olive Baptist Church in Kings Mountain celebrating 100th year

KINGS MOUNTAIN, N.C. — A church in Kings Mountain is celebrating a major milestone. On Saturday, Mount Olive Baptist Church will celebrate its 100th birthday.

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Deacon Charles Stephens has attended the church since he was a kid. Going to church was just a way of life for Stephens.

“It was just as simple as eating -- you were going to church as a teenager,” Stephens said. “Every person that traveled through this church received something to enrich their lives.”

The enrichment started in 1923 with his great-grandfather, one of the founding fathers of Mount Olive.

“I think I’m probably about the fourth generation,” Stephens said.

Decades later, Mount Olive is hitting the rare milestone that very few institutions achieve.

“Somebody had a dream back in 1923. And that dream has lasted 100 years,” pastor Charles Webber said.

Webber’s journey to the church is tied to who came before him after being baptized by a past reverend.

“I never knew when I was being baptized by Reverend White that my life would go full circle,” Webber said. “Now, I’m the pastor and he’s a former pastor. So I think that’s kind of interesting.”

The church also has a clothing sanctuary, which has spent decades feeding the community spiritually and psychically.

“We have a clothing ministry here also,” Stephens said. “We were all giving to whomever needed it.”

Webber said the determination of the church’s members has been the key to success.

“It shows the determination and the vigor of the members of the Church, to have continued what began in March of 1923,” Webber said.

Webber hopes to keep serving the community for another 100 years.

“Our goal is to embrace what the Castle brothers started,” Webber said.

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