by David Flint
The First Baptist Church of Berlin was filled with well-wishers Sunday afternoon as Peter Seide was installed as Pastor. Following welcoming remarks from Deacon Charles Hakes, an opening prayer by Deacon Ray Bowman and a scripture reading by Rev. Trygve Tomlinson, Pastors from neughboring churches stepped forward to present greetings from their congregations.
They included Rev. Tomlinson – West Stephentown Baptist, Al Wolcott – Stephentown Evangelical Community, Robert Michaels – Cherry Plain Community Christian, Matthew Olson – Berlin Seventh Day Baptist, Jason White and Pastor Emeritus William O’Dell – Grafton Baptist, J. Mark Norlund – Petersburgh Baptist, Jay Bucci – East Poestenkill Baptist and Cal Witham, Whiteside Baptist, Cambridge.
Pastor Seide grew up in New Jersey. A star athlete, he turned down a full football scholarship at Rutgers Univesity to study for the ministry. As he said in his Testimony on Sunday, “God has given me a purpose in life which is to serve him.” He and his wife Holly of West Stephentown are graduates of Davis College in Binghamton. Seide served his internship with Rev. Trygve Tomlinson at the West Stephentown Baptist Church. Since last October he has been serving the Church in Berlin.
According to George Baker Anderson’s Landmarks of Rensselaer County (1897), The Baptist church of Berlin was constituted December 30, 1783. The first Baptist preacher in the town was probably the Rev. Joseph Barnes. Soon after his arrival a log meeting house was erected near the present line of Berlin and Stephentown on what was called the West Road. The first officers included Elder Justus Hull, who would become the first Pastor, and Deacons Joseph Bates, James Green and Elisha Berry. At this time the Church was called the Little Hoosick Church, afterwards the Stephentown Church and still later the Petersburgh Church. When the Town of Berlin was organized the congregation took the name of the First Baptist Church of Berlin. In 1798 a frame building was erected for a house of worship. In 1830 the Church was built that was later destroyed in the great Berlin fire of July 25, 1962. Baptist churches in Williamstown, East Poestenkill, Grafton and Petersburgh were offshoots of the Church in Berlin.