A Hundred Years at the Corner of Meyer and Wornall
For more than a century, a white building with four columns has stood at the corner of Meyer Boulevard and Wornall Road in the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. Inside it, generations of the same congregation have gathered for prayer, for preaching, and for the ordinances of believer's baptism and the Lord's Supper. Wornall Road Baptist Church describes itself with a single line, "Proclaiming Christ in the heart of Kansas City," and points to one defining rhythm: the Bible opened week by week, expositionally, and a people gathered around it.
The church's stated mission is short and direct. It exists to glorify God by proclaiming and displaying the gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. Sunday by Sunday, members gather for corporate prayer and Lord's Day worship, and they open God's Word together in expository preaching. The same conviction runs through every ministry the church offers, from the children's classes during the prayer hour to the nine-month Pastoral Internship that trains men for eldership.
The Idea, the Lot, and the War: 1916 to 1921
The story of Wornall Road Baptist begins not in a sanctuary but in a law office in downtown Kansas City. In 1916, David Proctor Sr. and John Pew, both active members of existing Baptist churches (Proctor at Calvary and Pew at Westport), were talking about where their city was growing. The city limits had just expanded to 77th Street, and there was no Baptist church between Westport and Grandview. They wanted to plant one.
In September 1916, Proctor rode with J.C. Nichols in his automobile to survey land plots in the new Country Club District. On September 22, 1916, the lot was purchased for $8,100, a figure the church notes would be roughly $203,292 in today's terms. It is the same lot on which the church still stands. The two laymen began canvassing for their new church plant, but their plans came to a halt when the United States entered World War I.
Wornall, Greene, and a Building with Four Columns: 1921
When the war ended, Proctor and Pew resumed their plans. They persuaded Roma J. Wornall, the wife of John B. Wornall and the namesake of the church, to join their efforts. The Wornall family were prominent Baptists, philanthropists, and early pioneers of Kansas City and Westport, and the land the church was built on had originally belonged to the Wornall family farm. With the trio of Proctor, Pew, and Wornall in place, enthusiasm for the new church grew.
In May 1921, a fundraiser dinner was held at the Muehlebach Hotel in downtown Kansas City. The guest speaker was Dr. John Priest Greene, President of William Jewell College. That night, $7,500 was raised to pay off the remaining balance on the lot. In October, a modest one-story building was constructed, 66 feet long and 35 feet wide, painted white, with the same four columns that welcome visitors today. Wings were added the following year to provide classroom space.
The first worship service was held a week after the building's completion, on Sunday, October 23, 1921. The preacher was Dr. E.B. Pratt, an evangelist from Denver, Colorado, and his sermon was entitled "The Great Vision." On November 6, 1921, thirty-three people formally covenanted with one another to organize Wornall Road Baptist Church. They came from four congregations: First Baptist Church of Kansas City (MO), Westport Baptist Church, Calvary Baptist Church, and Tabernacle Baptist Church. The membership roll was left open for sixty days, or until it reached one hundred.
Building Again, Filling the Pews: 1929 to 1947
Under the church's third pastor, Dr. O.R. Mangum, the decision was made in April 1929 to build a new sanctuary. The Lishear Construction Company was chosen, and the congregation pledged $70,000, roughly $1.1 million in today's terms. Work began that same month. On a cold Sunday morning, January 19, 1930, the pews were completely full to the balcony for Dr. Mangum's first sermon in the new building, entitled "What Mean These Stones?" A week of evangelistic services followed, with guest preachers from local churches including the Baptist Church in Liberty, Missouri, and the Linwood Presbyterian Church. The new building seated 800, but the membership rolls stood at 333. By the end of the decade there were 600 members.
After World War II, Brookside and the surrounding neighborhoods experienced a rapid boom, and Wornall Road Baptist sat in the heart of those growing families. By 1947 the membership had reached 1,171, with Sunday School attendance around 1,000 spread across 39 classes for all age groups. The church held a rededication service to celebrate paying off the debt on the now-fifteen-year-old building. Mrs. J.H. Markley, a charter member, presided over the burning of the mortgage.
Peak Years and a Sister Endeavor: 1957
By 1957, the membership reached the highest levels in the church's history, at 1,588 people. Free from mortgage debt and operating with a sizable budget, the church invested in the wider Kansas City area. They contributed $65,000, nearly $988,000 in today's terms, toward the Baptist Memorial Hospital, and seeded new church plants by lending money to congregations such as Santa Fe Hills at 85th and Wornall.
In the mid-1950s the church acquired 16 acres of land at 97th and Holmes for a sister ministry. They called the property WoRoBa, an abbreviation of Wornall Road Baptist, and built a Recreation-Mission-Sunday School building completed in 1954. Members began holding Sunday School and worship services there in the late 1950s, and a church plant eventually grew out of the effort. That church is now Holmeswood Baptist Church.
Renovation, Decline, and Return: 1977 and 2006
In 1977, a major renovation at a cost of $550,000 modernized the structure, which was then 47 years old. The work included a new kitchen and dining room, a new office suite, a nursery complex, a choir room, new restrooms, a bride's room, and a new library and conference room.
By 2006, the church that had once been a prominent presence in the community and the Southern Baptist Convention had dwindled to a small remnant. After a period of turbulent leadership, a few members began meeting across the street in what the church describes as a kind of exile, gathering to worship and to pray for the church they loved to return to preaching the true gospel. They invited pastor John Mark Clifton to pray with them and lead a Bible study. Through a series of events the leadership left, the small group returned to the building, and they called Clifton as their pastor. As expository preaching came back to the pulpit, the church began to grow again, and the church's own history describes steady and sustained growth since.
What Wornall Road Believes
The church describes its identity with four words: historically Christian, Protestant, Congregationalist, and Baptist.
As Christian, the church holds the historic Christian faith handed down through the centuries, including the full deity and humanity of Christ, the Trinity, and salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone. As Protestant, it stands in the tradition of the Reformation, affirming Scripture alone, faith alone, grace alone, Christ alone, and the glory of God alone. As Congregationalist, the congregation believes Christ has entrusted final authority in matters of doctrine, membership, and discipline to the local church gathered together under his Word. As Baptist, the church baptizes by immersion those who have made a credible profession of faith in Christ, and it practices a regenerate church membership.
These convictions are set out in three governing documents. The Statement of Faith summarizes the biblical truths that unite the church. The Church Covenant is a set of promises that members make to one another about how they will live. The Constitution and By-laws define the doctrinal foundation, membership commitments, leadership structure, and the processes by which the congregation makes decisions. All three are posted as PDF documents.
Sundays in the Fellowship Hall and the Sanctuary
The Sunday rhythm at Wornall Road begins at 9:15 a.m. with Corporate Prayer in the Fellowship Hall. For fifty minutes, members gather to pray for the church, for specific life situations, for ministry work, for missionaries, and for the concerns of members, who share regular life updates during the hour. Visitors are welcome to join. The formal Lord's Day worship service follows at 10:30 a.m. in the main sanctuary. Everything takes place at 400 W. Meyer Boulevard in Kansas City.
During the 9:15 a.m. prayer hour, the church offers equipping classes for children from toddlers through middle school. During the 10:30 a.m. worship service, childcare is available for children ages four through six. Questions about children's ministry can be directed to the Children's Ministry Coordinator, Stephanie Chang.
Preaching Verse by Verse
The preaching at Wornall Road is expository. The pastors work through books of the Bible one verse at a time, so that the shape of the teaching is set by Scripture itself rather than by the preacher. The sermon archive is organized both by the book of the Bible being preached and by the preacher. Recent series have included a long walk through Genesis titled "Origins" and continuing through the flood narrative and the call of Abraham, a sustained exposition of Matthew 13, a series on 1 Peter titled "Elect Exiles," a series through Hebrews on Jesus as Great High Priest, and a study titled "The Church according to Jesus."
Sermons are available as audio recordings on the church's archive page and can be downloaded as MP3 files. They are also distributed through the church's podcast feed, available on Apple Podcasts under "Wornall Road Baptist Church." A printed bulletin for each Sunday's service is posted alongside the audio.
The Pastoral Team
The pastoral team is led by Philip Van Steenburgh, the seventeenth Lead Pastor of Wornall Road Baptist. He grew up in Albany, New York, and then Greenville, South Carolina, and moved to Washington, D.C. after college to work in congressional politics. While there, he began attending Capitol Hill Baptist Church and grew increasingly drawn to the gospel and the local church. He left politics to pursue pastoral ministry through an internship and staff role at that church, and in 2010 married his wife, Katherine. He earned a master's degree from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. The couple moved to Dubai, where Philip served as Associate Pastor of Redeemer Church of Dubai, and from 2017 to 2021 he was Senior Pastor of Grace Harbor Church in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Wornall Road called him as a staff pastor in August 2021, and in February 2023 he became the church's seventeenth Lead Pastor. He and Katherine have three children.
He is joined on the preaching team by pastors Andrew Evans, Geoff Chang, Derrick Haskins, and Kenneth Kinney. The pastoral staff also includes Quinn Mosier, the Pastoral Assistant, who helps oversee the internship program, and Stephanie Chang, the Children's Ministry Coordinator.
The deacons of the church are Matthew Emerick (Audio and Visual), Lillian Henry (Member Care), Charlie Smardo (Hospitality), Jared Schnefke (Finance), and Ben Wright (Security). The elders of the church meet on the second and fourth Wednesday evenings of each month.
Training Pastors for Christ's Church
One of the most distinctive ministries at Wornall Road is the Pastoral Internship, a nine-month program that runs from August through May. The internship is intentionally designed as an ecclesiology-focused formation: a year of reading, writing, observing, and discussing the doctrine and life of the church. The program's stated aim is to train future pastors who think carefully, biblically, and affectionately about the church.
The core of the program is a 3.5-hour weekly discussion on Tuesdays, from 1:30 to 5:00 p.m. The interns, the Lead Pastor, and the Pastoral Assistant work through assigned readings and written reflections for the first two hours, then review the previous Sunday's service, discuss the upcoming sermon, and plan the following Sunday's service. Interns read an assigned book each week and write a one- to two-page double-spaced reflection paper that engages personally with the material. Each intern also writes a five-page "What Is the Church?" paper using only the Bible, and a ten-page position paper on an ecclesiological topic such as elder-led congregationalism, church membership, the plurality of elders, the administration of the Lord's Supper, baptism and church membership, women deacons, or excommunication for non-attendance.
The curriculum draws on several hundred pages of selected reading across six areas of pastoral formation: the call and character of the pastor, the nature and order of the church, worship and the ordinances, pastoral care and counseling, missions, and preaching. Authors on the reading list include Abraham Booth, Mark Dever, Kevin DeYoung, J. Ligon Duncan, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Jonathan Leeman, David Powlison, C.H. Spurgeon, Matt Smethurst, Robert Letham, Colin Marshall, Tony Payne, Fred Malone, and Carl Trueman, among others. The church purchases all of the books for the interns.
Beyond the weekly discussion, interns attend every elders' meeting on the second and fourth Wednesdays of each month, sit in on at least two membership interviews, attend all leadership meetings the week before Members Meeting, and travel to the Simeon Trust Workshop in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in early March. Once a month the interns share a church-funded lunch. On select Tuesdays the group is given a real-life pastoral case study to read for the first time in the meeting and ten minutes to draft how they would approach the situation, before discussing and sometimes role-playing their responses as a group. The program is described as "come and see" rather than "go and do." Its purpose is to lay a foundation of healthy biblical polity, not to provide hands-on ministry experience. Applications and inquiries go through Quinn Mosier.
Becoming a Member
Wornall Road takes membership seriously. The church describes it as a covenant commitment to walk together in the life, discipleship, worship, and mission of the congregation. Four times a year, the church hosts a Membership Class for those interested in joining. The class is taught in three sessions: why join a church, what the church believes (the Statement of Faith), and how the church lives out its faith together (the Church Covenant). Coming to the class does not obligate anyone to join, but it is the first step in becoming a member. RSVPs are needed for the next class.
After the class, prospective members participate in a one-hour membership interview with a pastor and church members. The interview gives the church an opportunity to hear a personal testimony and affirmation of the gospel and to answer questions. The elders then review each application at their regular meeting, and with their approval the application moves to a vote at the quarterly members' meeting.
Hospitality Groups and Growth Groups
Outside the Sunday gatherings, Wornall Road runs two kinds of small groups. Hospitality Groups are intentionally fellowship groups, designed to deepen existing relationships and form new ones among members. They meet for about eight sessions spaced over four months, ideally every two weeks, and they focus on life, prayer, and mutual care rather than on a book or theological study. Only members of the church may lead a Hospitality Group, but anyone interested in joining the church may attend. Groups run on a quarterly calendar: January through April, May through August, and September through December. Questions about Hospitality Groups go to Quinn Mosier.
The Growth Groups are the church's study groups. Hospitality Groups are "fellowship groups," the church explains, whereas Growth Groups are "study groups."
WRBC Kids
Children are woven into the Sunday rhythm at Wornall Road. During the 9:15 a.m. Corporate Prayer hour, the church offers equipping classes for children from toddlers through middle school. During the 10:30 a.m. Lord's Day worship, childcare is available for children ages four through six. The Children's Ministry Coordinator, Stephanie Chang, oversees the program and is the point of contact for parents.
The Building on Meyer Boulevard
The building that worshipers step into on a Sunday morning is the same one described in 1921, a one-story white structure with four columns at the entrance. The interior was rebuilt in 1929 and 1930 and then substantially renovated in 1977, when the church added the kitchen, dining room, office suite, nursery complex, choir room, restrooms, bride's room, and library and conference room that the building uses today. The Fellowship Hall, where the Corporate Prayer hour meets, sits within the same structure.
The original lot at the corner of Meyer Boulevard and Wornall Road, purchased for $8,100 in 1916, has been the church's home for more than a hundred years. The church's name comes from the Wornall family, whose farm once occupied the land and who were among the early pioneers of Kansas City and Westport.
Giving, Recordings, and Documents
Giving is available online through Planning Center Online Giving. The church encourages ACH transfers for the lowest processing fees. Checks and cash gifts can be mailed to the church at 400 W. Meyer Boulevard, Kansas City, Missouri 64113.
Sermons are posted each week as downloadable audio recordings, distributed through the church's podcast feed, and accompanied by a printed bulletin. The sermon archive goes back to 2018 and is searchable by book of the Bible, by preacher, and by year.
The Statement of Faith, Church Covenant, and Constitution and By-laws are all posted as PDF documents. Visitors interested in attending the next Membership Class can RSVP online, and the Pastoral Internship's overview packet, reading schedule, and commitment sheet are available for prospective applicants. Online giving is available through Planning Center.