by Steve Blanchard

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When Ebenezer Community Church in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, celebrated its 25th Silver Jubilee Anniversary in September 2025, the congregation welcomed a familiar guest, Jim Somerville, pastor of Richmond’s First Baptist Church, as their guest preacher for the occasion. The celebration marked more than 25 years of ministry and highlighted a partnership between the two churches that began nearly three decades earlier—a partnership that continues to bear fruit today.  

This story began in 1997, when Francis Tabla arrived in Richmond to pursue graduate studies at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology at Virginia Union University. Francis, his wife Christine, and their young son joined First Baptist Church after being introduced by a friend from Liberia. While there, Francis served on the church’s support staff and became active in several ministries.  

As he completed seminary, Francis and Christine began seeking God’s direction about whether they should return to Liberia. The country’s ongoing civil war made an immediate return impossible, and God began to place a different vision on their hearts: planting a church to reach Liberian immigrants in the United States.  

After conducting surveys in several states and consulting with leaders at First Baptist, Francis became convinced that Minnesota was where God was leading him. There, he found a large Liberian refugee population, many of whom had been deeply affected by the war and had little connection to a local church.  

In September 2000, eight people gathered in a small apartment for Bible study and worship. That small gathering eventually became Ebenezer Community Church.  

From the beginning, Richmond’s First Baptist Church stood alongside the young congregation. The church provided encouragement, financial support, ministry expertise, and connections that helped Ebenezer grow. Partnerships with the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention, the North American Mission Board, BGAV, and others further strengthened the church’s ministry.  

As Ebenezer expanded, First Baptist continued to invest in its future. The Richmond congregation helped arrange financing and contribute toward the purchase of church property in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Later, it partnered in the construction and furnishing of Ebenezer’s ministry facilities. In recognition of the relationship between the two churches, Ebenezer named its educational wing in honor of First Baptist’s pastor at the time their collaboration began; it is now the Rev. Dr. Peter James Flamming Educational Center.  

Today, Ebenezer Community Church has grown to more than 950 members. Its ministry extends far beyond Minnesota through three satellite sites, multiple international church plants, and partnerships that reach into Liberia, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Kenya, and Uganda.  

Some of the children taught by mission teams from First Baptist Richmond during Ebenezer’s first Vacation Bible School in 2004 now serve as key leaders within the church.  

“All of these and many more would not have been possible without the relationship we share with First Baptist Richmond,” said Francis, founder and current pastor of Ebenezer. “God has helped us to be good stewards of the resources shared with us by First Baptist Church, and the evidence is seen in the impact the Lord is using Ebenezer Community Church to have upon the lives of people at home and abroad.”  

What began as a friendship between a seminary student and a Richmond congregation has become a partnership that continues to shape lives, churches, and communities around the world.  

Rev. Steve Blanchard is associate pastor and minister of Christian compassion at Richmond’s First Baptist Church, a BGAV-participating congregation.

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