Our history

On Sunday morning, September 21, 1952, under the leadership of the missions committee of Arlington Baptist Church, the first service of the Clinton Highway Baptist Chapel was conducted in the Tillery Theater on Clinton Highway with 73 people present.

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On July 6, 1953, in the afternoon following the first service in the new location, the church was duly constituted, adopting the name Wallace Memorial Baptist Church in honor of Dr. William Lindsay Wallace, medical missionary to China for 17 years until his death at the hands of the Communists in 1951.

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In 1964, Wallace's pastor at the time, Dr. Jim McCluskey (far right in photo), and a team from Wallace Memorial Baptist Church planted Cumberland Baptist Church in order to reach the Cumberland Estates community.

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In 1988, as the church began to plan the construction of a new worship center, the idea grew to have an illuminated cross that would be high enough to be seen from nearby Interstate 75. The entire tower was designed with a stained glass front that would extend to the cross itself. The cross was erected on Sunday morning, October 7, 1990, as a part of the worship service of Wallace Memorial.

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On November 15, 2015 after a five month period of prayer and teaching, Cumberland Baptist Church voted with a strong majority of 85% to dissolve its charter and become part of the Wallace Memorial Baptist family of faith through the Legacy Church Planting strategy.

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In July 2017, Wallace voted unanimously to name Dr. John Green IV as the fourth Lead Pastor in the history of Wallace Memorial Baptist Church.

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Previous Lead Pastors:

• Rev. AW Parker (1953-1958)

• Dr. Jim McCluskey (1959-1996)

• Dr. Mike Boyd (1997-2016)