From its very beginning and through most of its life, Samaria Baptist Church has shared a common history with the Chickahominy Indian Tribe. The two entities have been intertwined. This began to change in the mid-twentieth century and the church began taking in members with other heritages. Besides the obvious cultural diversity one sees on a typical Sunday morning at Samaria, perhaps the most concrete evidence of this shift was in 1987 when the church changed its name from Samaria Indian Baptist Church to Samaria Baptist Church. Another characteristic of the church is that most of its members grew up in Samaria Baptist Church. Nearly 30% of church members share the same last name, Adkins. Several other family names (Stewart, Canaday, Cannada, Bradby, Holmes, and Jones) account for another large percentage of the membership. This heavy family representation has created strong values, trust, and traditions among all church members. Support for strong Christian families is a major focus at Samaria.
Under the leadership of Pastor Jay, the current church vision is to "Reach Charles City County for Christ" (CCC4C). We have reviewed the demographics and recognize the huge ministry to "be Christ" in the community right on our doorstep. There are 2400 people, including about 400 under the age of 18, within a 3 mile radius of our front doors. We share that radius with 4 other churches, Samaria being the largest. If all five churches were filled to capacity on Sunday mornings we would not be serving much more than a quarter of that population. "The harvest is abundant, but the workers are few".
