Southside Baptist Church in Troy will celebrate its 74th Homecoming on Sunday and all former members and friends of the church are invited to attend.

On Aug. 24, 1910, members of First Baptist Church of Troy took the necessary steps to begin an auxiliary to First Baptist in the Brundidge Heights area, which was growing rapidly. A church there would be a convenience to the people.

According to church records, J.S. Carroll and his wife promised $500 to the building of a church if this amount would be matched plus $100 a year to provide for maintenance. Other smaller pledges were also made.

On Sept 10, 1910, 26 people met on the front porch of the Thomas Daniel’s home in Troy and organized the Brundidge Street Sunday School.

The Daniels home was located about where the porch of Southside Baptist Church is now located.

The porch meetings were called BYOC, which meant bring your own chair.

Those who attended the Brundidge Street Sunday School were, therefore, seated in kitchen chairs they brought from their own kitchens and they fanned with paper “elbow” fans.

Eight months later, in 1911, the persistent faith and determination of the group of “Sunday schoolers” was rewarded by the building of a small white chapel called the Brundidge Street Chapel.

The first Sunday school meeting was held in the new chapel on April 11, 1911 and it was decided that the prayer meetings would be held on Thursday evenings and attendance grew to 100 or more. By 1930, attendance on Sunday was nearly 200.

Brundidge Street Chapel was organized into a church in February 1937 and chose the name Southside Baptist Church.

Since that time, Southside Baptist Church has grown continually.

In 1950, Southside started a mission church on Highway 231, which became Bush Memorial Baptist Church on Feb. 3, 1952.

In 1957, the church participated in surveying the Troy area to see if a new church was needed. A need was found to exist in the Trojan Terrace-Orion Street area. A Sunday school that started in a dwelling on Orion Street later expanded to include preaching services.

The meeting place moved a year later to a larger building and it was organized into the Calvary Baptist Church on June 21, 1959.

The church, Southside Baptist, that began as a mission in 1910 helped start two mission churches within its first 50 years.

Southside Baptist Church has associations with three churches in Troy and welcomes members of those churches to also join them on Sunday on its important day of celebration.