Mt. Zion Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Austin County. Now settle in, because this is one of those stories where the beginning is just as important as the ending.

In 1866, three men, Joe and Abe Osborne and Louis Thompson, organized a congregation. They called it the Bethlehem Baptist Church. The Rev.

Wesley Stevens stepped up as its first pastor, and right there, in the years just after the Civil War, something took root. Then came the 1880s, and under the Rev. P.H.

Collier, the church was reorganized, given a new name. Mt. Zion Baptist.

Members met in houses, the way so many congregations do when they're young and determined and working with what they have. But they had bigger plans. Under the direction of the Rev.

H.H. Anderson, Sr., they built themselves a log sanctuary. An actual house of worship, built by the hands of the people who would fill it.

Now, if this were a simple story, that'd be about where we'd wrap things up. But here's the thing about Mt. Zion Baptist.

The congregation had to learn something hard, and they had to learn it twice. Fire took the sanctuary. Gone.

And later, a major storm finished what the fire had started, or rather, finished the work of rebuilding that had come after it, destroying the sanctuary a second time. Two catastrophes. Two losses.

And both times, the members rebuilt. Not once. Twice.

That's not stubbornness, that's faith with calluses on its hands. And through all of it, the church kept expanding, kept developing, kept planting itself deeper at its current site. Well over a century after Joe and Abe Osborne and Louis Thompson first gathered a congregation together, Mt.

Zion Baptist Church is still standing, still serving, still leading. Some things you just can't burn down or blow away.

What the marker says

In 1866, Joe and Abe Osborne and Louis Thompson organized the Bethlehem Baptist Church. The Rev. Wesley Stevens was the first pastor of the church, reorganized as Mt. Zion Baptist in the 1880s under the Rev. P.H. Collier. Members met in houses and later, under the direction of the Rev. H.H. Anderson, Sr., built a log sanctuary. Through the years, the church experienced a fire and a major storm, both of which destroyed the sanctuary. However, members rebuilt both times and the church continued to expand and develop at its current site. After well over a century, Mt. Zion Baptist Church still serves as a spiritual leader in the community. (2006)