It was approximately the year of 2018 when God laid this question on my heart: “Is there anything in Spokane that is focusing on Family, anything that is available to the community, something that promotes strong family bonds, values, that is God-centered and Biblically based?” As a result, I began asking local pastors I knew, one of them being a pastor from the Mosaic church, John Repsold. He responded, “I did not find anything happening locally for the families.” After my unsuccessful search, I started sharing the Idea of celebrating Family Day in Spokane with other pastors. Spokane is known for its legacy of starting good events and celebrations, one being Father’s Day. It was started on June 19, 1910, in one of the downtown churches in Spokane, Washington, by Sonora Smart Dodd, who wanted to honor her father.

In addition, when researching Family Days in America, I discovered this is not a new idea in the US. Arizona is one of the states that celebrate “American Family Day,“ a state holiday in Arizona, and has been celebrated on the first Sunday in August since 1978.” Inspired by these findings, I thought, “Why don’t we do something like this for our town? Something that will promote good family values, God’s plan for families, and celebrate the family while offering great activities for families.”

A planning committee was established early in 2019 with three churches and two local non-profits: Pilgrim Slavic Baptist Church, Mosaic Fellowship, Hillyard Baptist, Spokane Fatherhood Initiatives, and The Way of Business. Our first celebration was held on Saturday, August 3, 2019, at Spokane Liberty Park. And since then, it has become an annual event that we are excited to promote, celebrate, and invite more people to come and benefit from.

Lastly, I want to share a story with considerable historical support for celebrating Spokane Family Day. It happened in March of 2019 when we started our preparations for Family Day with our committee, our Pilgrim Baptist church received an interesting letter from Mark Jakuboski from New Jersey. In his letter, Mark said that he had purchased a used book, and inside it, he had found an old letter. Deciding to see who it belonged to, he did his research and found out that it was from First Baptist church in Spokane, WA, which is the building and church Pilgrim Slavic is now located at. Mark sent that piece of history to our church address. The letter was from Circa 1938 to the First Baptist Church. Pastor Walter Bridge wrote to the church members and the community about observing a Family Week event offered to the church members and the community. It was a week of family-oriented activities that will be held during the month of May 1938, such as “National Family Sunday, Family Skate Night, Hour of Power, Mother’s Day celebration, and others.” It was so timely and special for us to receive that letter in March 2019. When we wanted to launch something significant for our community, it was very encouraging to learn the history of the same church, which was already doing such important work in Spokane in the 20th century. Now it is our turn to continue the legacy that was once started by our church almost 100 years ago, and now we are on a task to continue promoting and celebrating Family Day in our community. The original letter is available to see.

Our Statement of Purpose and Beliefs is as follows:

Spokane Family Day

Statement of Purpose and Beliefs

 Spokane Family Day is a volunteer association of Christ-centered churches and organizations in Spokane that come together annually on the first Saturday of August to celebrate, encourage, educate, assist, and resource families across our community. As an expressly Christ-honoring event, we ask any participating churches or organizations to support the following historic orthodox beliefs about God, Jesus Christ, salvation, and the family:

1.     God is triunity: one God, existing eternally, in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Deuteronomy 6:4; 2 Corinthians 13:14).

2.     Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God who took on human flesh and nature, being conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary (John 1:1-2, 14; Luke 1:35), who lived a perfect life, died on the cross and rose again, bodily on the third day (Heb. 4:15; 1 Pt. 2:24). 

3.     Eternal salvation is a gift of God brought to humankind by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his work of redemption on our behalf (Ephesians 1:7, 2:8-10; John 1:12).

4.     God’s design for family has always been and continues to be the joining of one man and one woman in marriage (Gen. 1:27-28; 2:24; Mt. 19:4-6). Loving, Godly families are God’s plan for raising the next generation of offspring (Malachi 2:15; Eph. 5:21-6:4).

Prepared by Vladimir Kronin (509) 992- 4844, on April 3, 2025
Pastor at Pilgrim Slavic Baptist Church