Our Story

Belmont Baptist Church began in 1901 in Southeast Roanoke at the turn of the 20th century!  A small group of people started meeting in a little structure that stood at our current location but they quickly outgrew that and built a new sanctuary in 1915. People walked from all over Southeast [SE] to attend services. In the 1950’s Belmont had some of its most memorable years with over 1,000 in attendance on Sunday mornings. The local industries in SE were booming and the hard-working people of SE were faithful in church attendance.

However, in 1957 the largest manufacturing plant in SE closed its doors and three years later the railroad cut back its production. The loss of these revenue sources was tough on the community. Like many older downtown neighborhoods, SE has suffered from the flight of people to suburban areas. Churches and houses now sit vacant in SE and it has a new reputation for drugs, crime, and homelessness.

Renovation Church began as a small mission effort in 2012 to reach into one of the challenging corners of Southeast Roanoke with the light of the gospel. As this group began to reach people, they started holding church services in an empty church building on Bullitt Ave. just a few blocks away from Belmont Baptist. The soil was rocky but God blessed their labors and Renovation Church became rooted in the neighborhood.

In 2014, Belmont Baptist began praying about ways to bring new life to their congregation. They were concerned that their aging congregation would soon have to close its doors and the legacy of Belmont would be lost. The Lord saw fit to allow these two churches to connect and soon the idea to merge the two congregations was presented. In March of 2015, Renovation Church moved into the large Belmont Baptist Church building and began sharing space.

On January 3, 2016 the two churches officially became one! It’s a Brand New Day at Belmont Baptist Church. God is on the move, binding people of different generations, ethnicities, and incomes into one diverse family for his glory. We hope that you will come to visit with us and see how God can use you to be a part of the new story that he is writing in Southeast Roanoke!

In 2022, Belmont Church began the process of selling the building. On January 8, the church began meeting on Sunday evenings at Crystal Spring Baptist Church in Roanoke. On February 1, 2023, Belmont officially let go of the building on Stewart Avenue. Belmont is in the process of launching a microchurch network in Roanoke Valley.