New Harmony Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about New Harmony Baptist Church, up in Smith County. Now settle in, because this is one of those stories that starts quiet and just keeps on growing. The year is 1867.

The Civil War has barely cooled, Texas is still findin its footing, and somewhere in Smith County, nineteen people decided they were going to build something together. Nineteen charter members. That's it.

That's your foundation. Not a grand assembly, not a crowd. Nineteen souls who said, we're doing this.

They called it New Harmony Baptist Church. Two years later, in 1869, that little congregation knocked on the door of the Cherokee Baptist Association, and the association said, come on in. Now, seven of those original nineteen charter members are buried in New Harmony Cemetery, which the congregation established in 1870.

Think on that a moment. The people who started the church helped consecrate the ground right next to it. The early services were held in a log building.

No frills, no ornamentation, just four walls and a roof and the kind of faith that doesn't require much in the way of decoration. In time, a frame structure rose up adjacent to that same cemetery, a little more permanent, a little more settled. By 1891, they had organized a Sunday School, which is one of those quiet milestones that tells you a congregation isn't just surviving, it's planning ahead.

Over the years, as the membership kept expanding, the church built new sanctuaries to keep up. More people, more room, simple as that. And as recently as 1993, a brand new sanctuary went up right here on this ground.

That's not a congregation that peaked somewhere back in the past and coasted. That's a congregation still in motion. All these years on, New Harmony Baptist Church continues to support local missions, state missions, and foreign missions.

Nineteen people planted a seed in 1867, and it's still reaching. This marker was placed in 1994, right on the eve of the Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood, that 1845 to 1995 celebration of one hundred and fifty years of Texas as a state. And in a way, that timing fits.

Because New Harmony Baptist Church is exactly the kind of institution that Texas was built around, one small community at a time, one act of faith at a time, nineteen people at a time.

What the marker says

This congregation was established in 1867 and accepted into the Cherokee Baptist Association in 1869. Seven of the church's nineteen charter members are buried in New Harmony Cemetery, established in 1870. Early services were held in a log building and later in a frame structure adjacent to the cemetery. A Sunday School was organized in 1891. Over the years several new sanctuaries have been built to accommodate an expanding membership. A new sanctuary was built here in 1993. An important local institution, the church continues to support local, state, and foreign missions. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995