By 1766, it was illegal to worship the Lord as a Baptist in the Virginia Colonies seeing the Church of England was the offical religion of region. Baptist at the time were referred to as "anabaptist" based on our stance against the saving power of infant baptism that the Church of England was perpetuating. That did not stop bible believing Christians from worshiping the Lord in Spirit and in Truth and so worship services were being held in houses to avoid arrests from British troops. In 1769, Reverend Lewis Craig of Spotsylvania County, an old leather lunged circuit riding preacher, extended his service to the Lord into Caroline, Essex, and Middlesex Counties. By 1772, the congregation of Essex were meeting at Diamond and Bethlehem. According to early church records, the first official Bethlehem Baptist church building was built in 1805 on one acre of land gifted to the church by Mr. & Mrs. Ellis Armstrong. The building was constructed of logs as seen in the picture below. In 1819 we have the earliest minutes from a church meeting at Diamond and Bethlehem as independent of Upper Essex and was constituted as such in 1857. In 1825, a larger church was constructed using the cross plan. In 1914, a new church was built as pictured below. On June 25, 1967, the church was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. Meetings were held at Lloyds School House until the new building was completed in 1968. The faithful families of Bethlehem Baptist Church still gather every Sunday to worship as Independent Baptist in that same building today.