Calvary Baptist Church members are celebrating the church’s 100th birthday with a weekend full of events for the Tuscaloosa community.

The church celebrated its 100th birthday on Jan. 1, said Timothy E. Lovett, senior pastor at Calvary. The church was started in 1910, and, because the community was growing, in 1911 left the First Baptist Church of Tuscaloosa to become its own church of 77 members.

“They felt like the distance from here to First Baptist, which is on Greensboro Avenue, was too far,” Lovett said. “Our beginning is about providing another Baptist congregation in this community that was closer to the University of Alabama.”

Events will include a history fair at the church’s Family Life Center and a mission blitz, Lovett said. The history fair will be open to the community from 9 a.m. till 4 p.m. on Saturday and 8 a.m. till 3 p.m. on Sunday.

For the mission blitz, church members will go out into the community to show acts of kindness. They are making cookies and will take them to the police departments, fire departments, hospitals and emergency care centers, Lovett said.

Church members have also put together care packages filled with basic need items that will be taken to struggling areas of the community, Lovett said.

“It’s our birthday, but you get the gift,” he said.

The history fair will include three timelines, one about what was going on in the world, one about what was going on at Calvary Baptist Church, and one about what was going on at the University.

The history fair will include a display of events that have taken place in the last 100 years, said Eula Shannon, co-chairman of the fair. The displays will be shown in segments of decades starting from 1910.

“We have collected all the material we can find,” Shannon said. “We’ve had to reproduce a lot of things.”

Members have also given items that belonged to past members in their families.

They began organizing the event in May 2010, but started planning it in September 2009, Shannon said. Having been a member of the church for 53 years, Shannon said going back and looking at the history makes her appreciate it more.

“We have wonderful people here, and we are a wonderful ministry to a lot of people,” Shannon said.

Community members are also invited to attend worship services Sunday at 8:25 a.m., 9:45 a.m. and 11:05 a.m.

Special guests, including city and county government officials, have been invited to attend the 11:05 a.m. worship service. The Alabama Baptist Historical Commission will also be in attendance to give the church an award, Lovett said.

Several members of the Monnish and Nichol families, the original charter families, will attend as well. UA President Robert Witt and his wife will also be in attendance Sunday, Lovett said.

The church will unveil a new mission statement on Sunday to help represent them for the next 100 years. The mission statement is “Calvary is an all-inclusive community of loving people living out the story of God,” Lovett said.

Jerry Elmore, co-chairman of the history fair, has been a church member for 55 years and said it has been revealing to read about the history of the church, the people and their struggles.

“This church has touched the lives of people all over the world,” Elmore said.