Columbia Baptist Church was constituted in 1835 after six people withdrew from Omussee Baptist Church in a dispute over the role of missions. Its first pastor, Edmund Talbot, served until 1853, donated the land, and had the church built at his own expense at the present site of the Willis J. Bell grave in Columbia Cemetery. In 1859, Nathaniel Ferris Oakley constructed a new building just south of the original church, and in 1885 this was replaced by a red brick auditorium. Omussee Baptist Church dissolved shortly after the split that led to Columbia Baptist Church's organization. Both churches probably belonged to the Chattahoochee River Association in their formative years. In 1839, Columbia Baptist Church joined the Bethel Association of Georgia, later affiliated with the Judson Association, and on November 7, 1885, participated in the organization meeting of the Columbia Baptist Association at Bluff Spring Church in Henry County, Alabama.