Lone Oak Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Lone Oak Baptist Church, out in Burleson County. Now, before there was a building, before there was a congregation with a name on it, there were traveling preachers. Men who moved through the Lone Oak area, holding worship wherever folks could gather, carrying the gospel on horseback and on foot.

That went on for a good while. Then in 1905, the local residents decided it was time to put down roots. They organized a Baptist church, and something permanent began.

For the first several years the congregation found its footing, called its ministers, built its life together. Then in 1911, they called a man named Reverend A.S. Broaddus as pastor.

And here is where the story gets interesting, because Broaddus was not the kind of pastor who stayed a season and moved on. He led that church for the next forty-two years. Forty-two years.

With, as the record notes, time off to serve as an Army chaplain during both World Wars. The man answered two different calls to duty on two different continents, and both times he came back to Lone Oak. But somewhere in the middle of all that, every summer, something happened that the whole community looked forward to.

The summer revival. It lasted several days, and it was not just a church service, it was an event. Families came and camped.

Services were held under a brush arbor, that open-air shelter of cut branches that kept the sun off and let the breeze through. And when it all built to its culmination, there was dinner on the grounds. Now if you have never stood in a Texas summer with a plate of food and a hundred of your neighbors around you, all of you just having sung yourselves hoarse under a brush arbor, well.

The marker calls it a culmination, and that word is doing exactly the right work. The congregation that grew from those traveling preachers and that 1905 organizing meeting carried forward a long record of community service, associational involvement, and mission support. Ties, the marker says, to the foundation laid by its early members.

That is the thing about a forty-two year pastor and a brush arbor revival. The roots go deep, and they hold.

What the marker says

Traveling preachers conducted early worship services in the Lone Oak area, and in 1905, local residents organized a Baptist church. In 1911, the congregation called the Rev. A.S. Broaddus as pastor. He led the church for the next 42 years, with time off to serve as an Army chaplain during both World Wars. An important annual event was the summer revival, which lasted for several days and included family camping, services under a brush arbor and, as a culmination of the event, dinner on the grounds. The congregation has a long record of community service, associational involvement and mission support, with ongoing ties to the foundation laid by its early members. (2005)