Morning Star Baptist Church celebrates 120 years of resilience and unity

Since 1904 – in a residential Gulfport neighborhood – the community has joined together for worship at Morning Star Baptist Church.

Morning Star Baptist Church has been around for 120 years, but the actual church has been rebuilt three times.

The first was destroyed in a fire, the second was too small, and the third… Katrina would leave nothing but a husk of that building, long-time member Gwendolyn Dunlap says.

“The church was devastated,” Gwendolyn said. “To come and look at it… surely your heart just sunk. You just felt… ‘What are we going to do?’. But here, again, because of strong leadership in this church, everybody came together and said hey, we’re not going to let this stop us.”

And so, they rebuilt again in 2008.

Despite the trials and tribulations the physical church has faced, the congregation has stayed strong through it all, showing that the material things truly don’t matter when you have a community to lean on.

Gwendolyn’s son, Keith Dunlap, is the associate pastor at Morning Star. he is the third of six generations to grow up at Morning Star. It’s this bond that has kept the church together.

“We’re not the only family that has different generations in this church,” Keith said. His grandfather once attended this church, and now Keith’s grandchildren attend it. “Our roots are entangled very, very deep. This is just home.”

So, there’s no question as to why Morning Star has rebuilt three times. Even if there came a day they couldn’t rebuild, this church is going nowhere.

“God had a plan to use our congregation to serve this community, ” Keith said. “which we have continued to do now for 120 years. This building is the evidence of what God can do if you allow him to.”

“We have a lot of love in this church,” Gwendolyn said. “I think that because we have a lot of original families from this community, and we have shown love to the newcomers, and I think that we will always be here. Morning Star will continue to exist for years to come.”