Gethsemane Evangelical Lutheran Church, today known as the Historic Motor City Missionary Baptist Church, is located about three miles west of Detroit's central business district in a Late Victorian residential area of modest frame cottages. The church is situated in the middle of the block closely abutted by a modest frame Victorian cottage on the left and a 1926 church school on the right.

The church is architecturally significant as a rare surviving example of a wooden Victorian Gothic chapel in Detroit, designed by the well-known Michigan architectural firm Spier & Rohns.

The church was established in 1890 by 26 families from the Zion Lutheran Church congregation. These families, drawn from the fast-growing residential area east of 33rd Street, initially held services in Zion’s branch school on Twenty-eighth Street. For their new place of worship, the entirely German-speaking congregation commissioned Spier & Rohns to design a modest wooden church with a budget of approximately $2,000. The firm, led by German-trained architects Frederick H. Spier (1855–1924) and William C. Rohns (1856–1912), was renowned for designing churches, commercial buildings, and numerous railroad stations across Michigan, especially for Detroit's German-American community.

Though best known for more monumental masonry structures such as the Sweetest Heart of Mary Roman Catholic Church (1890–93), which is listed on the National Register, Gethsemane Church is the only known surviving example of their modest, wood-frame church commissions.

The congregation saw only moderate growth over the decades, and the building remained unchanged and sufficient for their needs until it became defunct in 1978. A parochial school was added in 1926, but the church itself, likely due to the congregation’s conservative values, was never altered externally.

In 1978, the church was acquired by the Motor City Baptist Church, which has since maintained the building.