Forest Home Baptist Church

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of Forest Home Baptist Church. In 1889, out in Rusk County, a reverend named J. R.

Goode sat down with eight charter members and organized a congregation. Eight people. Four couples, to be precise: Mr. and Mrs.

Thomas Jefferson Mercer, Mr. and Mrs. George Augustus Meadows, Mr. and Mrs. Isaac Johnson, Sr., and Mr. and Mrs.

Isaac Johnson, Jr. Now you might think that's a modest beginning for something that was meant to last. And you'd be right.

But modest beginnings have a way of tellin' the truest stories. Those first worshippers gathered in a one-room log structure with one door and no windows. One door.

No windows. You want to talk about faith, there it is, right there. You walked through that single door, and that was the whole world you needed.

But the congregation grew, and that little log room gave way to a larger frame building, one that did double duty as a school for children coming in from both Rusk and Gregg counties. A church and a schoolhouse under the same roof. Community and education, bound together in the same walls.

And still, that wasn't the end of the building. Additional facilities went up over the years to hold all the people who kept coming. And here's the part that lands like a good amen: the congregation that fills Forest Home Baptist Church today includes descendants of those very eight charter members who gathered with Reverend Goode back in 1889.

The names that started this thing are still in the pews. Some stories don't just survive. They multiply.

What the marker says

This congregation was organized in 1889 by the Rev. J. R. Goode and eight charter members: Mr. & Mrs. Thomas Jefferson Mercer; Mr. & Mrs. George Augustus Meadows; Mr. & Mrs. Isaac Johnson, Sr.; and Mr. & Mrs. Isaac Johnson, Jr. The first sanctuary was a one-room log structure with one door and no windows. It was replaced by a larger frame building which also served as a school for children from Rusk and Gregg counties. Additional facilities were built over the years to accommodate the growing congregation, which includes descendants of the charter members.