By Kate Hill
Staff Writer
Last spring, the historic Cazenovia Village Baptist Church at 7 Seminary St. merged with the Missio Church of Syracuse to form a new congregation based on a shared commitment to the gospel and service to the community in Christ’s name. The Missio Church of Cazenovia now holds weekly worship gatherings on Sundays at 10 a.m.
According to Jamie Evans — a longtime member of the Baptist Church — the Cazenovia Baptist Society separated from the New Woodstock Fellowship in 1816. Four years later, the Cazenovia Fellowship formed a covenant membership. The original church was constructed in the 1830s and burned down just after the Civil War. Archimedes Russell — the well-known Syracuse architect responsible for the Cazenovia United Methodist Church — designed the current church building in 1872.
“I feel like [my history with the church] is nothing,” Evans said. “I’m standing on the shoulders of people who have worshiped here for a hundred years. There are families in Cazenovia in our journals and logs from 120 years ago.”
Near the end of 2017, a member of the Baptist Church contacted Syracuse Missio expressing concern regarding the retirement of their pastor and the state of their congregation.
“Over the decades, we had grown much smaller,” Evans said. “It had become hard to maintain a fellowship any longer, so we reached out for help maintaining our services.”
The Missio Church was established in downtown Syracuse in 2008.
According to the Missio website, the church’s vision is to participate in the redemption and transformation of Syracuse by mobilizing people, partnering with other churches and planting missional churches throughout the region to serve as agents of the transformation.
“There’s been a bit of a resurgence in downtown Syracuse,” said Missio pastor Adam Bregou. “Our [goal] in starting the church there was to be part of that from a spiritual standpoint.”
Bregou is one of four Missio elders/pastors that collectively lead the church in worship. He has served the Missio Church for six years and has been involved in Cazenovia for the past year.
The name “Missio” comes from the Latin phrase Missio Dei, meaning Mission of God.
According to Bregou, the name serves as a reminder that the church is the people of God and its primary responsibility is to carry God’s mission forward by spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When the Baptist Church reached out to Missio in 2017, the leaders of the two churches started discussing possibilities for the future. In January 2018 Missio started sending one of their pastors to Cazenovia each week to preach.
As he became more familiar with Missio, Evans was drawn to the idea of the plurality of elders, as opposed to one main pastor.
“There are four people who share that role,” he said. “It works so beautifully. We thought this is something we need to have. We had never seen it in practice before.”
Evans was also impressed by the diversity and enthusiasm of the Missio members.
“We thought wow, this is so dynamic,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could have that in Cazenovia? We haven’t had that in years.”
According to Bregou, when the Baptist Church expressed interest in a potential merger, the two churches initiated discussions on what such a union would look like and how Missio would work to extend its leadership from Syracuse to Cazenovia.
The merger was made official on Easter 2018.
For the remainder of the year, the Missio Church of Cazenovia hosted a mid-week bible study, but was closed on Sundays.
Over time, the bible study started to grow, attracting people not only from the village, but also from Manlius.
“It got to the point where we thought it was time to start Sunday morning services again,” Bregou said.
Weekly services resumed at the historic church on Feb. 3, 2019.
“The bell was silent for nine months,” Evans said. “To ring it again before service is a big deal. We are very excited.”
The relationship between Missio and the Village Baptist Church has been entirely positive and productive, according to Bregou.
“The reason it has worked out so well is that there is a common foundation in terms of our beliefs and commitment to the gospel. There is a mutual desire to love and serve one another. Also, there is an understanding that what God has called us to be a part of is much bigger than any one person, so there is no need to pursue our own individual agendas.”
According to Bregou, the church leadership is now focused on understanding the community and discovering how best to do their job of preaching the gospel, loving their neighbors and enhancing the Cazenovia community.
They have also started to make connections with the student body of Cazenovia College. The surrounds the church building.
“We are trying to meet the people in the community to find out their needs,” Bregou said. “We know we can’t meet all of them, but we want to be a church that is active in the community and is hopefully not just taking up space, but is actually adding value to the community.”
Missio Pastoral Assistant Kody LaBarthe has taken on the task of coordinating the leadership in Cazenovia.
“Kody is really serving as the point person for our leadership team to [guide] the ministry out here,” said Bregou.
LaBarthe moved to the area earlier this year from Thailand, where he served as a missionary.
“Our doors are open to anyone with a sense of a spiritual or physical need that we might be able to help with in some way,” LaBarthe said.
The Missio Church of Cazenovia maintains a Baptist Fellowship. All services, including the upcoming Easter worship, are open to anyone in search of a church home.
For more information, contact Bregou at [email protected] or visit missiochurch.org/cazenovia.
