Rockwall and Brin Church of Christ

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some churches arrive in a blaze of glory: big donors, grand dedications, the whole production. The Rockwall and Brin Church of Christ was not that kind of church.

It started the quiet way, the way most lasting things do: people gathering in each other's homes. No steeple, no pews, no deed to anything. Just meetings, and the kind of faith that doesn't wait on a building to get started.

Out of those home gatherings, the congregation was formally organized in 1896. They needed somewhere to meet that was a little more reliable than whoever's parlor was tidiest that week, so they made arrangements to use Odd-Fellows Hall. And that held them for a while.

But by 1900, they'd outgrown borrowed space. That year, they put up a small frame church on College Street. Their own four walls.

Their own roof. You can imagine what that meant to a congregation that had been meeting in living rooms. Now, here's where the story picks up speed.

Fourteen years later, in 1914, two things happened at once: and the marker doesn't rank one above the other, so neither will I. C. A.

Norred became the church's first full-time minister, and that same year, a brick sanctuary went up. Same year. Nineteen fourteen was apparently not a year for doing things halfway.

The congregation kept growing. Kept showing up. And eventually, the brick walls of 1914 couldn't hold what this community had become.

So in May of 1948, a new building was completed. Then 1966 rolled around, and even that wasn't enough; they enlarged it again. What started in somebody's front room had become something that needed enlarging twice over.

And the congregation didn't just tend to its own house. They actively supported Southwestern Christian College over in Terrell, and the Boles Home for Children in Quinlan. A church that began with nothing but a meeting put down roots deep enough to reach into the lives of an entire region.

What the marker says

Growing out of meetings held in members' homes, this church was organized in 1896. Services were held in Odd-Fellows Hall until 1900, when a small frame church was built on College Street. C. A. Norred became first full-time minister in 1914, the same year a brick sanctuary was erected. To accommodate the larger church membership, the present building was completed in May 1948 and enlarged in 1966. Southwestern Christian College in Terrell and the Boles Home for Children in Quinlan are actively supported by the congregation.