Rev. Mark Rockwood knows a thing or two about serving his community. He has been doing so his entire life.

“My first big mission was over in Ukraine,” said Rockwood, senior pastor at the Berean Baptist church in Brunswick. “I helped the people there build a church in ’96, not long after the cold war ended. There was still a lot of unrest in that area, and what I wanted to do was help unify people wherever I could. Three hundred people came to know Christ during construction of that church. There’s this great big God who cares about the whole world, but He cares about each individual too.”

Rockwood attended the Bible Institute in Canada, and in 2002 he learned about a little church in Brunswick that had fallen into obscurity. He visited the area that summer, and in 2003 became a full time resident and pastor of Berean Baptist church.

“When I first settled down here I was getting my hair cut by a local barber, and he said he had never heard of Berean Baptist,” said Rockwood. “So after my haircut we went outside, and I pointed to Cumberland Avenue. I explained right where the church was, and the barber remembered. The church has been here for so long, but for years they weren’t doing any community outreach. I wanted to change that.”

Berean Baptist Church was built in the late 1880s, after a Baptist group came across the river from Topsham. The church was dedicated in 1890, and prospered for much of the 20th century. But limited funding and the wrong communal approach threatened to make the church obsolete. With Rockwood’s help, the church now hosts 120 people every Sunday, and organizes multiple local events.

“Our Bible school program begins on July 11, and we have a group going to Texas the first week in August to help with church repairs,” said Rockwood. “Our last big mission was in Togo, Africa, in 2012. We built a church there and the people were so thankful. I’d love to do something else like that in the future.”

Rockwood can be seen throughout the community of Brunswick, helping out at Brunswick Downtown Association functions and showing up at business grand openings. 

“There’s this saying in the Christian world,” said Rockwood. “‘People don’t know how much you know until they know how much you care.’ We can quote scripture at anyone we want, but if we don’t relate that to people’s lives, we haven’t done our job.”

“A lot of people know what the church is against, but most don’t know what the church is really about,” he said. “And that’s our fault. We have a responsibility to minister to the people. We’re just regular folks in the community, just like everybody else. Lets work together and encourage each other, support one another.”

The Berean Baptist church is located on 15 Cumberland Ave.

bgoodridge@timesrecord.com