By EMILY SPARACINO / Staff Writer

CHELSEA – A new church in Chelsea will open its doors to the community and celebrate its grand opening on Easter Sunday.

Chelsea Baptist Church’s inaugural service will be held at 10 a.m. on March 27 at 48 Chesser Crane Road, at the corner of Alabama 47 and Chesser Crane.

“We’re inviting folks in the community,” Pastor Steve Kilpatrick said. “Everybody is invited.”

CBC is a church planted out of Gospel Light Baptist Church in Helena, which Kilpatrick started 13 years ago.

“That’s like our mother church,” Kilpatrick said of Gospel Light. “I was pastor there for 13-and-a-half years. We stepped out to start this church in Chelsea.”

Kilpatrick and his wife, Debbie, will operate CBC, while Kilpatrick’s former associate pastor, Gary Bohman, will assume the role as pastor at Gospel Light.

Kilpatrick said Chelsea was among the places he considered outside of Birmingham when he was searching for a location to plant a church 13 years ago.

Although he chose Helena, Kilpatrick did not forget about Chelsea, a city brimming with young families laying down roots.

“Chelsea has been a city the Lord has had on my heart to get a church started over here,” he said. “Shelby County is full of young adults, so we’re trying to meet that need … to provide a place where families can grow and come to know the Lord.”

The Kilpatricks have been in the ministry for many years and have a background in missions. In the 1980s, they served as missionaries in the Philippines.

Steve, an Alabama native, has worked at churches in the state and in Arkansas.

Two of their missionary friends, Daniel Files and John Tinkle, will attend the Easter Sunday service at CBC.

Everyone that attends the service will be invited to join the Kilpatricks for a free lunch at a local restaurant afterward.

CBC will start with services once a week on Sundays at 10 a.m. As the church grows, plans include adding Bible study time, a Sunday evening service and mid-week services on a weekly basis, Steve said.

Construction on the church’s 2,500-square-foot space started about three weeks ago.

The facility includes an auditorium, nursery and a children’s Sunday school room.

Other churches in a group the CBC belongs to called Baptist Friends helped fund the facility’s construction, Steve said.

“We have nowhere to go but up,” he said.

For more information, call 602-0682 or visit Chelseabaptistchurch.com.