Riverdale Baptist Church, New Jersey
Riverdale Baptist Church (RBC) originally began in the storefront of a building in the town of Riverdale, New Jersey. Two separate groups of people with separate storefront churches merged to create one group and this group moved to 6 Newbury Place directly off of Newark Pompton Turnpike, which is a main road crossing through the town. Upon gaining the property on Newbury Place, members of the congregation began building a church building and a Sunday school building. Shortly after construction, RBC called Ray Smith to be the Pastor of the church, where he pastored. During Pastor Smiths time, RBC also called a man named Pastor (1st name) George to be the assistant Pastor. Due to a lack of growth and other reasons, RBC decided to find a different Pastor and called Pastor (1st name) Wilson, who served as preacher for one year. Pastor Ed Degville was then called to be the next preacher. He pastored for approximately seven years and had to retired due to heart problems in the latter years. After Pastor Degville, RBC decided to call Wayne Briggs to be the next Pastor. Pastor Briggs made the decision to leave due to differences in IDeaS and plans for the future. RBC had a period of time where they were without a preacher and then called Pastor Kevin Fredd from Pensicola Bible Institute out of Pensicola, Florida. Pastor Fredd was a very young preacher that was ‘green behind the ears’ and after an initial period of being the sole preacher, a, experience preacher named Rev. Doug Whiteside was asked to come to help Pastor Fredd with this new ministry. Pastor Whiteside stayed for nearly two years and left Pastor Fredd with a flourishing ministry. After approximately ten years, Pastor Fredd made the tough decision to leave RBC due to a number of disagreements and RBC very shortly hired Pastor Whiteside to help a now struggling ministry. After only two years Doug Whiteside left RBC and moved to Pennsylvania to work out of a church Pastored by Doug Smith. Riverdale Baptist called Pastor Tim Flynn to be the preacher. Pastor Flynn was the Associate Pastor at the First Baptist Church of Caldwell for nearly ten years before being called as the Pastor of RBC and has been serving the ministry well ever since.