Building Bridges Just North of Dayton
Vandalia Baptist Temple is a multi-generational, multicultural Baptist congregation that has gathered at 724 Helke Road in Vandalia, Ohio, just north of Dayton, for over six and a half decades. The church's mission is to build bridges to every generation, every culture, and every community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that phrase frames everything from Sunday worship to short-term mission trips.
The vision that follows from that mission is to plant multiplying, multicultural churches across the Miami Valley and beyond. It is not about growing one church, but multiplying it. Members are encouraged to think beyond the building's walls, joining a Journey Group for relational discipleship and being sent as backyard missionaries where they live, work, study, and play. Worship and ministry together at 724 Helke are understood as a launching pad for that wider work.
A Sunday at 724 Helke Road
The week at Vandalia Baptist Temple is anchored to Sunday morning. Adult Bible classes and student discipleship groups meet across the campus at 10:00 AM. The main worship service follows at 11:00 AM and is broadcast live as VBT Live on YouTube and Facebook for those who cannot be in the auditorium. Children's programming runs on the same schedule, with Courageous Kids Bible Classes at 10:00 AM and Courageous Kids Worship at 11:00 AM, both for children from birth through sixth grade.
Sunday evenings bring two parallel gatherings. Courageous Kids Club meets at 7:00 PM for students in K4 through sixth grade during the school year, with games, lessons, and crafts. oneLife Student Ministries, the youth program for grades 7 through 12, also meets at 7:00 PM in a relaxed setting that typically includes games, snacks, worship, and a practical message from God's Word.
What to Expect as a Guest
Guests are received by a Hospitality Team committed to helping individuals and families feel at home. Fresh coffee is available by the Welcome Center. The congregation is generationally diverse, with members of all ages in the auditorium. Most people dress informally when they come to worship. Worship music is intentionally blended to include newer and older Gospel songs, hymns, and modern worship songs, all chosen for solid, biblical messages that exalt Jesus. The Worship Team draws on vocalists, instrumentalists, and media to engage every generation and culture in worshiping Jesus together as one body.
Courageous Kids: Birth Through Sixth Grade
Courageous Kids is the children's ministry of Vandalia Baptist Temple and one of the church's most intentionally developed areas of service. The program provides a biblical foundation for kids to thrive at school and home, teaching the truth of creation, the gospel, and life with Christ at an age-appropriate level. The ministry's theme verse is Joshua 1:9: "Haven't I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."
Sunday mornings include Bible classes at 10:00 AM in a small-group setting where kids study creation and historical accounts of the Bible, followed by an hour and a half of Courageous Kids Worship at 11:00 AM featuring age-appropriate games, music, lessons, and Bible verse memory time. On Sunday evenings during the school year, Courageous Kids Club gathers K4 through sixth graders for games, lessons, and crafts that point kids toward the truths of God's Word. Safety procedures include a registration form completed in the lobby or classroom before a child's first attendance, and a full set of childcare policies and procedures is published in the church's online ministry training area.
oneLife Student Ministries
oneLife is the youth ministry for students in grades 7 through 12, focused on engaging, encouraging, and equipping the next generation. The program's theme verse is John 10:10: "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." Students meet for interactive Bible discipleship on Sunday mornings at 10:00 AM, then return in the evening at 7:00 PM for a youth group time that combines games, snacks, worship, and a practical message. The ministry seeks not only to lead students to follow Jesus but to serve others as a vital part of His church. Each summer, oneLife organizes a youth camp for students ages 13 to 18.
Adult Bible Classes and Journey Groups
Three adult Bible classes meet on the Vandalia campus at 10:00 AM on Sundays. The Fellowship Room Class is an interactive, multi-generational group taught by Russ Miller. The Auditorium Class is taught by Lead Pastor Rick Washburn Jr. The Ladies Bible Class meets in Classroom A next to the Welcome Center and is taught by Teresa Duff. Together, these classes are designed to help members engage Scripture deeply and live out their calling to be disciples who make disciples.
Journey Groups are the church's small-group network, made up of small gatherings committed to God and to each other for the kind of real, authentic relationships that help believers grow and mature. Groups meet in homes and around the Miami Valley. The pastoral team sees Journey Groups as the primary context for relational discipleship, and every member is encouraged to join one.
Worship, Media, and the Creative Team
The Worship Team at Vandalia Baptist Temple is composed of multiple smaller teams: Choir, Band, Vocal Team, and Tech. The mission of the Worship Team is to engage every generation, culture, and community in true worship of the one true God through Scripture, prayer, music, and technology. The team is dedicated to discipleship on and off the platform, training and mentoring new musicians, technicians, and leaders who want to worship God in all they do. A separate Social Media Team supports the church's online presence, taking photos and videos at events, designing graphics, and producing content for social platforms.
Six and a Half Decades of Global Missions
Global missions has been a defining mark of Vandalia Baptist Temple since the beginning. In 1957 the church began giving ten percent of all offerings to missions. In the 1970s the church transitioned to Faith Promise giving, and by 2020 the cumulative total given directly to missions through Faith Promise surpassed four million dollars. The church currently supports around one hundred missionaries in dozens of countries every month.
In 1975 Vandalia Baptist Temple sent out Rick and Jackie Washburn as the church's first church-planting missionaries to Colombia, South America. Rick and Megan Washburn were sent out in 1996 and served in Colombia and Spain for eleven years. Shelley Grimm, raised in the church, was sent to Honduras, and Jenni Stukkie, also raised at VBT, serves in the Dominican Republic. The most recent missionaries sent out are Isaiah and Monica Fitch, preparing to serve in Spain. Since 2008 the church has sent missions teams to the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, Latvia, Italy, and locally in Old North Dayton and Cincinnati.
Locally, the church partners with Hope Rising, a ministry that provides resources and counseling for women in crisis.
What We Believe
Vandalia Baptist Temple describes itself as an unaffiliated Baptist church and holds to a detailed statement of faith centered on the Bible as the inerrant, infallible, verbally inspired Word of God. The church affirms one God who exists eternally in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and confesses that Jesus Christ is the one and only Savior of mankind, fully God, born of a virgin, sinless in life, crucified as a substitutionary sacrifice, physically raised from the dead, and now seated at the right hand of the Father awaiting the Rapture of the church.
Salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, and the gift of salvation, once received, can never be lost. The two ordinances of the local church are baptism by immersion and the Lord's Supper, observed with unleavened bread and unfermented fruit of the vine as a memorial of Christ's death. The church believes in the imminent Rapture of the saints, a seven-year Tribulation, the literal thousand-year reign of Christ, and the final Great White Throne Judgment. Creation is understood as six literal twenty-four-hour periods. Marriage is defined as the union of one man and one woman. The church teaches that human life begins at conception and that the unborn child is a living human being.
Becoming a Member
Membership at Vandalia Baptist Temple is open to those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and have been biblically baptized by immersion under the authority of a Gospel-believing church. Members may be received by baptism, by letter of transfer from another Gospel-believing church, or by testimony of faith and baptism. At the end of every Sunday service there is a public time of response, when individuals can come forward to pray at the altar or speak with a pastor or counselor about decisions of faith or membership. Voting to receive new members is done by the congregation.
Pastoral Leadership
Rick Washburn Jr. has served as Lead Pastor of Vandalia Baptist Temple since 2007. He grew up in Medellín, Colombia, was saved at age five, and began preaching at fifteen. He graduated from Arlington Baptist College in 1996 with a B.S. in Missions and, with his wife Megan, served as a second-generation church-planting missionary for eleven years in Colombia and Spain before returning to lead VBT. Megan Washburn, a native of New Carlisle, Ohio, serves as Creative Director and has been on staff since 2008. Rick Washburn Sr., Director of Senior Ministries, grew up in the Dayton and Vandalia area, came to faith at VBT in 1968 after serving in the Navy, and, with his wife Jackie, served as a church-planting missionary in Colombia for thirty-eight years out of VBT before returning to serve in 2013. He helped found the Bridge Builders Bible Institute.
The church offices can be reached at 937-898-5761 or Office@vandaliabaptist.org. Online giving is available through the church's giving platform, and the full worship service is livestreamed each Sunday at 11:00 AM as VBT Live.