Antioch Baptist Church, was planted on March 6, 1887. The first meeting was opened with prayer by C.W. McClellan. J.W. Sandlin was elected to moderate the meeting, and T.D. Wilkinson was elected as secretary. Brother John McClanahan was the first preacher to preach to Antioch Baptist Church, and he gave the young church much assistance. The meeting was held in the Farmers Grange Building (also used as a school), located south of the “Mayflower” building just below the church.
In the 1880’s, a determined group of worshippers passed over muddy, boggy forest roads in wagons until they came to Kirkland’s Ford on Flint Creek. Winter and summer they drove their wagon teams through the creek, going to Sunday worship. Water sometimes rose up to and into the wagon beds. When “the creek was up,” they could not ford the creek and could not get to church at all. There were no bridges from this area to Flint or Decatur. After they had splashed through the creek, they came to Mt. Pisgah Church, a very short distance from the creek on the west side of Flint Creek, where they worshipped. Antioch Baptist was formed on the east side of Flint Creek to alleviate this barrier. The first time these folks met as a church, they were blessed with conversions and new members joining. There were a total of 17 charter members at the organizational meeting (see Appendix). After this meeting, a call was extended to John McClanahan to preach (who was blind), with a salary of $35 for his services until the next association.