For nearly 130 years, Fountain Baptist Church has stood strongly in the Black prophetic tradition as a beacon of faith, social justice, and community engagement in New Jersey. Founded in 1898 -- one year before Summit was incorporated as a city -- Fountain emerged as Summit’s first African-American church, under the spiritual leadership of Violet Johnson, a 27-year-old domestic servant whose service grew from housekeeping to helping lead the movement that won women’s suffrage in 1920 and to co-founding the Summit chapter of the NAACP. From its earliest days, the congregation gathered at 19-21 Chestnut Avenue, where, by 1918, it dedicated its first permanent sanctuary that would serve as Fountain’s spiritual and community home until 1989 when the congregation moved to its current 116 Glenside Avenue location and sold its historic Chestnut home to the City of Summit in 1989 to anchor the new City Hall campus. That site, is now marked by a permanent historical marker on City property, commemorating Fountain Baptist Church’s pioneering presence in Summit and its enduring witness at the heart of the city’s civic and religious life.
We are an ever-evolving family of faith, compassion, and innovation, created by God to live lives of wholeness, compelled by God to learn the ministry of Jesus, and called by God to liberate the world through Love.
With just over 2,000 members today, and roughly 500 who attend weekly, Fountain has distinguished itself as a modest church with mega impact:
We are active members of the American Baptist Churches USA, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, General Baptist Convention of New Jersey, American Baptist Churches of New Jersey, The Fellowship of Black Churches of Hackensack and Vicinity, Lott Carey Global Missional Christian Community, National Council of Churches, Baptist World Alliance, and the World Council of Churches. We are also affiliated with the Ecumenical Women at the United Nations. With a wide range of over 30 ministries and missions addressing a “glocality” of social justice concerns, including criminal justice and the carceral state specifically, we are actively engaging in the good fight and staying in “good trouble.”
Much of this rich legacy was the product of the visionary leadership of Pastor Emeritus Dr. J. Michael Sanders, who served for 40 years. And our new (millennial) Senior Pastor, Rev. Dr. Willie D. Francois III is reinvigorating that legacy as pastor-scholar-activist at the intersection of racial equity, economic justice, and criminal justice reform. Pastor Francois is an Associate Professor of Theology at Union Theological Seminary, where he directs the Master of Professional Studies Program at Sing Sing and Bedford Hills Correctional Facilities, and co-directs the Doctor of Ministry program. His first book, Christian Minister’s Manual: For the Pulpit and the Public Square for All Denominations, has been credited as “the most progressive and comprehensive clergy resource and the first interdenominational manual written for Black clergy in 56 years.” In addition to serving as President of The Black Church Center for Justice & Equality — a national think tank and policy advocacy organization — Pastor Francois also serves on several national boards and commissions, including the Social Action Commission (Co-Chair) of the Progressive National Baptist Convention (the denominational home of Dr. King), and the Martin Luther King Jr. Commission of the New Jersey State Department. Under his leadership, Fountain Baptist continues to serve at the forefront of social justice initiatives, recently hosting a Statewide Decarceration Forum focused on healing and power-building for liberation, and winning a Lilly Endowment-funded grant through the Louisville Institute to jumpstart a groundbreaking podcast series (“Dialogues with the Disinherited”) to bring the lived experiences of justice-impacted people to the forefront as they champion their own probation, prison, parole, and post-release stories of trial and triumph.
