Getting to Know Seymour First Baptist Church

The latest in a series of eight major renovations, the rebuild of Seymour First Baptist Church's kitchen was completed in 2021-22 and caps off an extended campaign of improvement and expansion totaling nearly $1 million.

The church has been a staple in its East Tennessee community for roughly 130 years, according to lead pastor Corey Cain. For decades, a modest building tucked away on a property adjacent to a parochial school provided a meeting place and center of worship for the congregation. However, as Seymour's population swelled and the membership rolls continued to grow, church members decided it was time to make a move to a larger campus, and in 1997, they did.

Today, Seymour First Baptist operates out of an expansive building in a prominent location just off Chapman Highway, the busy thoroughfare that runs through the heart of the unincorporated community. Thirty acres of well-maintained land surround the spacious building, comprising a track, several sports fields, and a playground. The amenities inside and out are clean and modern and capable of comfortably accommodating the hundreds of people that visit the building each week. To an outside observer, there's no hint of the years of hard work, planning, and renovation it has taken to reach this point.

Building a Kitchen to Serve Congregation & Community

According to Cain, the kitchen project was a much-needed upgrade to the cramped cooking space and aging appliances that previously served as the church's only means of food preparation.

"The building was built 25 years ago," said Cain, who came to the congregation in July 2020. " I would not call what we had a commercial kitchen. It was really just a kitchen that would get you by."

As the congregation grew and built outreach programs around foodservice and hosting community gatherings, issues with the lack of food storage space, as well as the limited output of the aging equipment, began to take a toll.

"When our church first moved over here, we were on a bare-bones budget, so [the kitchen] really wasn't done the way we wanted," explained Cain. "As we continued to grow and try to use the kitchen for ministry … we'd outgrown its capacity, and everything in here was pretty much worn down and worn out."

These obstacles presented a problem for the church, placing constraints on the food-based ministries it provides in the growing community. In an area like Seymour, such programs have a big impact.

Providing Resources to the Region

Although Seymour is home to more than 15,000 residents, it remains unincorporated. Located where three counties converge, the city's homes and businesses are dispersed across portions of Sevier, Blount, and Knox counties, leaving local government minimal and disjointed. Many residents embrace their home's independence from city governance, but there are some drawbacks as well.

"It's great, we Love Seymour. Seymour is a transitioning community. We are very quickly becoming a suburb of Knoxville," said Cain. At the local level, the absence of public programs brings both benefits and disadvantages for residents.

"One of the things that doesn't happen is you don't have a city park. You don't have a place for people to just be with their family. You don't have those services," Cain explained.

The members of First Baptist Church take pride in offering resources to the community to help fill those gaps, including the track, ballfields, and playground on the campus.

"Our property never shuts down," said Cain. "We don't shy away from that. We don't have plans to shut the gates — we don't discourage people from being here. We want people to know that it's a safe place to come and find help within our community."

Pastor Corey Cain stands in the rebuilt kitchen

Building Bonds in the Community

Similar to the church's exterior amenities and social offerings, such as a youth soccer program, church organizers view the kitchen as another way to support the local community.

"We see it as a ministry and a resource to the community to help meet needs. I think our community is realizing that now," Cain explained. "We're shifting mindsets as we renovate the kitchen. There's more to it than just the equipment."

Over time, attendance at church-hosted meals for members and neighbors alike has grown with the congregation. Cain credits that popularity to the church's holistic approach to ministry, of which cooking and providing meals is a major component.

"Another neat aspect of what is going on here is breaking church trends. For the last eight weeks, we are averaging double pre-COVID attendance. Most churches are struggling to get back to 80 percent of their pre-COVID attendance," said Cain. "That's super exciting. I think a lot of that is reshaping and re-visioning how you meet needs within your community; being a resource for your community, not just something that is in your community."

Ministering with Meals

In support of its mission to provide resources to the community, the church manages a number of programs revolving around food, from serving meals and hosting banquets to providing a space for local homeschooled children to meet and learn valuable food preparation skills. Most weeks of the year, church members prepare hundreds of meals in the kitchen to be served in a variety of ways.

This commercial floor mixer was added in the renovation

"We have an every week Wednesday night meal, and then usually week-to-week we have one to two other times that the kitchen is being used for other meals — whether that's feeding football teams or feeding a senior adult banquet or doing some other type of community event," said Cain. "We've done something with every one of our Seymour schools [and] almost every sports organization in Seymour.

"I would say this season alone we have fed two bands, three football teams, soccer team, volleyball team," he added. "We try to do that on a regular basis, just meet a need within the life of our community here."

The church utilized its kitchen to support other organizations in the area with activities such as serving a meal for first responders or hosting a fundraising banquet. Requests from local non-profits are considered on a case-by-case basis to determine what level of partnership the church can provide. According to Cain, these organizations often don't have another local option for hosting large gatherings.

"For our community, outside of the schools, there's probably not another building that can handle, capacity-wise, what ours can," he said. "We're open to doing that with ministries that need help."

New Growth, New Challenges

According to Cain, the church is sometimes called upon to serve hundreds of meals a week, occasionally with little advance notice. Meeting such needs was difficult prior to the renovation, not only due to the limited equipment available, but also the lack of space to prep, cook, and store supplies.

Previously, the kitchen could accommodate about four volunteers at a time, making it difficult for the crew to keep up with demand. Coordinators also struggled with the convoluted logistics of making hundreds of meals with just a reach-in refrigerator and freezer for cold holding.

"With a meal for two to four hundred people, you'd have to have a delivery within 24 hours of what you're going to cook. If you've got something on Wednesday and something on Thursday, there was a lot of coordination to try to figure out how that's going to work," explained Cain.

For the staff of volunteers responsible for managing the church's food-based ministries, working with such limited space and amenities restricted their ability to meet goals.

The new kitchen includes plenty of space to work

It was clear to everyone involved that for the church to continue ministering to its growing flock, something had to change. As it turned out, during the long-planned renovation, everything would change. New equipment, floors, and even an optimized workflow were included in the scope, making this project one of the church's most impactful endeavors yet.

Partnering with KaTom

Although multiple potential partners were considered, the church ultimately decided to work with KaTom as its kitchen designer and equipment supplier. According to Cain, the choice came down to service and experience. Church members knew they were taking on a big challenge with the renovation, so they leaned on a team of experts during all stages of the project. One member of that team was KaTom Territory Account Manager Turner Whaley, who worked with the church from start to finish.

"Turner was great," said Cain. "I can remember the first time we met, we came in to meet in this little-bitty kitchen, and tried to figure out what was here and where we were going. Really, Turner's walked with us all the way through the process."

During the renovation, nearly every piece of equipment in the kitchen was replaced or upgraded, with several new additions also included in the mix. The kitchen was gutted and then rebuilt from the ground up, doubling the available workspace and allowing church staff to reinvent the room for an entirely new workflow.

The KaTom team took a hands-on approach to the project, participating from the planning and design stage all the way through to completion. According to Cain, the kitchen went through several iterations of design during this process.

"How many drawings did we go through?" he asked Whaley with a chuckle. "I was thinking at least ten."

Left to Right: Turner Whaley, Joe Fowler, and Pastor Corey Cain stand in the kitchen, post-renovation

As the plans developed and changed, revisions became necessary to ensure the church was getting the most out of the space available.

"Something had to move. Something had to shift," said Cain, explaining how even small changes to the prospective layout had a ripple effect on the overall kitchen design. "This equipment changes, so this need changes, over and over and over again."

Although the church boasts its own experts, including one congregant who has been part of building several QSR kitchens and another who served as project manager for countless construction projects across East Tennessee, contributions from KaTom's design and sales team played a vital role.

"The reality is we had a job that needed to be scaled, to make sure we had equipment in the right places that had a workflow and thought process," said Cain. "What are we going to use it for, how is it going to be used, and how do you use that not just with trained kitchen professionals but with volunteers on a regular basis?

"It was a process to get through that,” Cain continued. “I would say in the end, the choice to go with KaTom was because of the ability to walk through that well with us."

Choosing the Right Equipment

Deciding what equipment to include and where to put it was just the tip of the iceberg. Once initial planning was solidified, it was time to start sorting through the dozens of available options for each kitchen component, from lynchpin equipment such as ovens and ranges to more modest items, like prep tables and warming wells.

New commercial cooking equipment helps kitchen volunteers cook large batches of food

"We wanted equipment that will last," said Cain. "You need to buy equipment right so that you're not having to replace it every five years, you're replacing it every 20 years."

The KaTom team was happy to help narrow down equipment choices by providing candidate pieces and discussing the advantages and drawbacks of each.

" Sometimes you decide to buy on the lower end, sometimes you decide to buy on the higher end. We had those options laid out for us," Cain explained. "I think we talked through, several different times, the pros and cons of different equipment. We had a good process for those types of things."

"It's a dance," said Whaley. "[Choosing] where you can spend money, where you don't need to spend money, what's going to be an anchor, and what's not going to be an anchor."

Many of these choices are integral to the kitchen's operation, determining the amount and type of food that can be produced. Along with an upgraded range and hood, notable pieces of equipment include a new ice maker, floor mixer, bakery-depth convection oven, and tilt skillet.

Looking back on the project, Cain says church members are pleased with how the kitchen turned out and happy with the final design.

"Equipment-wise, I think we're very happy, " he said. "We were trying to hit a kitchen to feed 600 to 800 people when it's never been done before in this space, in this setting. I think we hit a home run on the design end of it all. What equipment we got in what places and the space we have it laid out in, I think that was a win."

Overcoming Obstacles

As with all major construction projects, unforeseen issues often crop up during a commercial kitchen remodel, and the project at First Baptist Church was no exception. When unexpected things go wrong, it's important to have a team you can rely on to find solutions. According to Cain, he felt confident reaching out to the KaTom team for help when a new piece of equipment started to malfunction shortly after it had been installed.

"When we put the ice maker in, within about two to three days we had a sound that it shouldn't have been making," he said. "It would make [ice] for two or three cycles and it would shut off."

Church members reported the issue and the KaTom team was happy to coordinate a warranty visit from a qualified repair technician.

"The [repair] guy came in immediately," said Cain. "It was a little low on refrigerant, probably from something that had happened in shipping, and a wire had gotten moved so it was hitting a fan. All [he] had to do was move it, no big deal. It all worked great, and there was not a problem. We knew who to call and that was taken care of."

Looking back on the experience, Cain says church members feel confident KaTom stands behind the products it sells.

"I don't think we've had any problem. I don't think we felt any concern on that end," he said. "If we have a problem with that tilt skillet, I have no doubt that we'll figure it out and get it going."

The Benefits of Change

Post-renovation, the team at First Baptist Church is excited to explore the full capabilities of its new kitchen. Demand for hot, delicious meals hasn't slowed, and with new and improved equipment at their fingertips, church cooks are able to produce more food than ever.

"As far as capacity, it's great," says Cain. "Three weeks ago, we fed 700 to 800 meals through here in a week's time. I would say right now, on a weekly basis we're feeding anywhere between 300 to 500 meals through here. Those are good things. It's working well."

Church members are able to turn out larger batches of food than before due to the double-deck bakery-depth convection oven and can now experiment with a greater variety of dishes thanks to the cooking flexibility provided by the tilt skillet.

According to Cain, however, one of the most impactful changes was installing a new walk-in cooler with separate storage areas for refrigerated and frozen goods.

Kitchen staff can order supplies in advance thank to their new combination walk-in refrigerator/freezer

"Right now, we can have food delivery for two weeks, three weeks, for the major known meals that we're having," he explained. "Before, we wouldn't have had a place to store any of that. You had to have spot-on ordering, and if the truck was off by twelve hours, it may throw you off a lot."

Additionally, the kitchen now boasts an improved layout that leaves hot and cold areas separated but accessible. The new equipment has been installed according to a carefully developed workflow, with every step geared toward streamlined, intuitive operation. Twice as many people can now fit inside the space, and the new layout enables those folks to operate more efficiently than ever.

"There is no one paid to run this kitchen, ever," said Cain. "Right now, this is run by volunteers all the time. And when you're talking about volunteers, ease is great."

Looking Toward the Future

The kitchen renovation may have been the final step in a long campaign of improvements, but the church is just getting started with its efforts to elevate the surrounding region. Through meeting practical needs, the congregation hopes to attract new members while building stronger bonds in its own ranks. Cooking and serving meals is a good way to do that, as food really does bring people together.

"It's a great opportunity to meet people in the community and try to help them see the importance of the gospel and how that lines up with where they are in their life," said Cain, explaining how the church forges new relationships through offering practical solutions to those in need. "So, we look for ways to do that, to engage people on our property, in our community."

He feels confident in the church's ability to continue meeting needs in the region and says church leaders are excited to continue forging new relationships and bringing new members into the parish. It has been working well, and Cain has high hopes for the future.

"I think, for people that live in the area, when they come by it's not just 'There's a church that's sitting on Chapman Highway,' but, 'That's a church that cares about Seymour, that's trying to do something and engage people where they are.' And that's our goal. That's the vision why we're here," he continued.

"Getting a kitchen that helped move that vision forward, that could undergird that type of vision, was important," he added. "What we hit does that."