An air of jubilation settled over one of Gary’s oldest churches as members prepared for their pastoral anniversary.
Pastor Nicole Guns sat at her desk, surrounded by mementos she brought from Virginia and those she collected in Gary, trying to figure out what her congregation had planned for her.
In October 2025, Guns came to Gary to become the first woman pastor of First Baptist Church of Gary.
The church is one of the few places in the city where a woman leads a congregation. After a year of firsts for the church, members wanted nothing more than to celebrate her first anniversary as pastor.
“It’s been amazing that it’s been a year,” she said, looking around her office. Between new community outreach, bringing in younger members, reviving children’s and baby dedications, and getting more younger generations involved in leadership, she said it’s been a big year of change for the church. “It’s brought a whole other energy here, and this community is building.”
A sixth-generation ordained pastor, Guns was raised in the church community.
“I think there are some things you’ll never fully be prepared for, but now that I’ve had this year, a lot of my life makes sense,” she said.
Before moving to Gary, she’d been a nurse, held several ministerial roles throughout her home state of Virginia, and participated in international missions to Kenya and Nigeria. She also serves as one of the assistant general secretary of the National Baptist Convention USA Inc., which is one of the highest-ranking roles held by a woman in the organization.
Guns first came to First Baptist when the church began looking for new pastor. Like many, her knowledge of Gary didn’t go beyond the Jackson family, but she knew it was an opportunity she should take.
“While this is my first pastorate, I don’t come completely naive because I’ve seen, experienced, and learned, and I have some really great mentors and teachers around me that I can call at any moment,” she said. That includes her father, Geoffrey Guns, who this year celebrated 43 years as senior pastor at Second Calvary Baptist Church in Norfolk, Virginia.
Throughout the year, Guns has tried to be inclusive of all the people who walk through her wooden doors, making sure everyone feels at home.
“I think that being a woman pastor, I’m much more intentional about the needs of everybody,” she said, as a believer that a healthy church includes everyone no matter gender or age. “A lot of times, pastors and the Bible come from a male-dominated perspective, and so I’m able to kind of bring that balance.”
Historic church, visionary leader
Jessica Sullivan-Wilson is among the people at First Baptist with an up-close perspective of Guns’ journey; she was part of the search committee that brought her here.
“First Baptist has been my church home all my life,” Sullivan-Wilson said.
When the 118-year-old church moved to its current location at 626 W. 21st Ave. in 1955, her grandparents were among the first to move with it. She has childhood memories of the building, and couldn’t imagine life without it. At 39, she is among the members who drive from Chicago weekly to attend service.
She remembers that when the church started searching for a new pastor; many questions arose about what the congregation needed as a whole, what they needed in a pastor, and how that person could serve the community.
When the initial search for a pastor was unsuccessful, they contacted consultant Charity Ware for help. That was a first for the church, but the congregation didn’t want just any new pastor; it wanted a gifted leader.
“Originally, when we started off our search, we wanted somebody who was from the area, but God saw something different for us, and I’m glad that God saw something different for us,” Sullivan-Wilson said. As part of the search team, she watched and listened to sermons before deciding on the finalists for the role.
She remembers not being able to multitask while listening to the videos at work during Guns’ sermons; her delivery was so captivating. As a theater teacher, Sullivan-Wilson enjoys listening to people before seeing them, because it reveals their true voice. Sullivan-Wilson realized how focused and engaged she was as she kept watching Guns. She knew that was what the church needed.
“Not only did she meet the needs of being a visionary, a teacher, and someone who wanted to be a part of the community, [but] she also [had this] energy [and] sense of humor; the way that she saw Gary and saw the community was really refreshing,” Sullivan-Wilson said.
At the same time that First Baptist was struggling to find the right pastor, Guns was struggling to find a church willing to hire her full time. She had applied to more than 30 churches and received just as many rejections. At that point, she thought that she’d remain at her home church and work until another opportunity arose. Then the consultant, Ware, asked Guns about coming to Gary, and she refused to take no for an answer, even after naysayers told Guns the church would never accept a female pastor.
When it was time to vote on Guns, even their oldest members showed up to cast a vote. By then, many had seen a century of the church without a woman in such a high position.
In the end, 90% voted yes.
Paying homage
When it came time to celebrate Guns’ first anniversary, church members wanted to go all out — especially following the Aug. 11 storm that impacted the community.
They wanted to pay homage to who she is and the effect she had on the church. That included customized sneakers featuring the church’s colors, her sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, and her name; fresh flowers from Trader Joe’s; and a purple palette — her favorite color — that decorated the church.
They kept a screen with a PowerPoint showing all the pictures they’d taken over the year. Her father returned as a guest speaker, fulfilling a promise he made at her installation. When it came time to eat the seafood meal they had for her, they made sure that the head table included pictures of her family from her installation, her grandfather Frank Guns, who couldn’t make the installation, and a special reserved place and memorial for her grandmother, who was the first to proclaim that Guns would be a preacher.
“It was just amazing to look at where we started and where we are now, and just kind of dream about where we’re going next,” Sullivan-Wilson said. She points to the firsts: Guns being the first woman pastor, and the First Baptist Church name.
“This is the first chapter but not the last chapter,” she said.
Guns was awed by the surprises her congregation planned for her. In her words, the way they’ve embraced her, and the love and attention they’ve shown her, brought her to tears.
“It’s one thing to be in a place where you’ve always been, but to go to a place and not know anybody, and have community … I’m so proud of my church.”
Building a legacy
Since her arrival, Guns — and the church — have continued to grow and evolve.
“I’m really excited about being a part of the continuation of the legacy of First Baptist and positioning [it] for a legacy that outlives me. That’s my goal,” she said. “To be the first in a legacy as rich as First Baptist … I hope that young girls will be able to see that they can be preachers because they’ve seen me.”
As a multigenerational church, First Baptist has more than 250 members on record and is growing as it digitizes its records. Each month, new, younger members join. About 40% of the congregation is new to the church.
For the first time, First Baptist is looking to build a nursery for the youngest members. Guns and her staff launched a youth ministry for the growing number of younger people and a general women’s ministry. They’ve started hosting many events that focus on connecting people, like line dancing, paint-and-sip, and vision boards. They say it’s been a lot of fence-mending and bridge-building to bring different generations together.
“We’re seeing our church grow; we had been in a phase of stagnation, like most churches in our community,” said Sullivan-Wilson, who has witnessed weekly Sunday attendance nearly triple since Guns took the position. “That is no small feat to really kind of knead together all of these generations, but she does it effortlessly.”
Embraced by her new church, Guns never has to worry about being alone on any holiday or in any moment because members want her to feel right at home — especially after she experienced the Aug. 11 derecho with the congregants.
“I’m still learning, but the more that I’ve learned about [Gary], the prouder I am to be a part of this city, even more so after watching this city go through a crisis,” she said.
Although the church and many of its members were without lights, that didn’t stop them.
“We may have been in darkness, but we never lost power because we had the power of God,” Guns told her members.
Leaning on Guns’ connections, First Baptist received aid from many church and humanitarian organizations that provided financial support and whatever else was needed. The church hosted several community days, including a kids’ day that provided relief, since kids are often overlooked during recovery.
Seeing how the community stepped up for one another warmed her heart. She sees herself as a proud member of the “GI” now and is excited to see what’s ahead.
“I think that we are about to enter into an explosive season,” she said. “I truly believe that God is restoring Gary, and God will restore Gary. Gary is a community of people who love this city, and I’m really honored to be a part of it.”
