Young Street Community Baptist Church

Our Mission 

The Young Street Community Baptist Church is a loving fellowship of believers honoring Christ through worship, committed to serving him by reaching people for 

membership into his family and equipping them for  christian living and services.

Our Story 

After faithful years of ministry in the community, the membership of the former 

church Eastland Heights Baptist had moved. As a result, they began to discuss the 

possibility of selling the church property. However, after spending several months in 

prayer, this congregation of six members, Ms Mae Reavis, Ms. Judy Hembree, Ms. 

Thelma Sumlin, Ms, Ruby Huggins, Ms. Claudine Herbert, and Ms. Lorraine Morris 

decided that they would not sell the church. They decided they would rather dissolve 

their congregation and ask the Atlanta Baptist Association to assist them in building a 

new congregation. They desired a ministry that would intentionally reach and minister 

to this racially mixed community.

 God had already begun to prepare a man and a church to take on the responsibility of 

building a community for Christ. He chose the Mount Zion Second Baptist Church, under 

the leadership of Rev. Marty L. Henderson to be the sponsoring church. 

From the church, God called Rev. Marques L. Fletcher who had served as the minister 

of evangelism for seven years. In July of 1999 Rev. Fletcher served as the 

church planter. With the help of God, through prayer and fasting Rev. Fletcher and his 

wife Stephanie Syvonne Fletcher began to walk through the community. They invested their 

time knocking on the doors and greeting the neighborhood while touching hearts and 

changing lives. On the 2nd Sunday in July, 1999 the church had its first service as a mission church.

From that first service, this mission church began to walk with God through the process of 

developing Core Values that would minister to the needs of the people. It took six months of 

Bible Study and prayer to develop a Mission Statement, another seven months to pen a 

Constitution and a set of By-Laws. In May of 2001, the Lord decided it was time to 

constitute us as a church. At the time the congregation had grown to over 100 memberships.

Representatives from this mission church went to our sponsoring church (Mount Zion 2nd 

Baptist Church) to ask for permission to form as a fully constituted Church Body, under the 

name of Young Street Community Baptist Church. As a result they set a council in place 

consisting of Rev. Marty Henderson, pastor of Mount Zion 2nd Baptist Church, who chaired 

the constituting council, Pastor T. Dewitt Smith of West Hunter Street Baptist Church, First 

Vice President of the Progressive National Baptist Convention, along with Pastor Hopie 

Strickland of New Hope Baptist Church, President of the New Era State Convention of 

Georgia, and the officers and members of Mount Zion 2nd Baptist Church were in 

attendance. All were given copies of the Mission Statement, Constitution and By-Laws, and 

were allowed to ask questions concerning the documents. The meeting lasted four hours and 

with the hand of the Lord upon us the vote was cast to allow the Young Street Community 

Baptist Church to be constituted.

We are a praying church and have much to be thankful for, because we realize that it is not 

us, but Christ that lives in us. Our Pastor’s motto since arriving has been, “We don’t have 

money, but we’ve got each other” and “We can do all things through Christ that strengthens us.”