By Loretta Fulton

Three historic Black Baptist organizations will be meeting in Abilene in June, including one this week.

The Progressive West Texas Missionary Baptist Association and the 83rd Congress will be hosted by Macedonia Baptist Church June 16-19. The church’s pastor, Matthew Lubin Sr., also is moderator of the association. The meeting begins with an education banquet at 7 p.m. Monday, June 16, at Oak Street Arbor Event Venue, 137 Oak St. About 125 are expected for the 110th meeting of the association, Lubin said.

“It’s been around a long time,” he said.

Rev. Matthew Lubin Sr.

The district extends from Abilene to Amarillo, Midland, Wichita Falls, and Mineral Wells. Sessions will be held all day Tuesday and Wednesday and until noon Thursday at both Macedonia and New Light Baptist Churches. 

Two other historic Black Baptist organizations will be meeting jointly June 23 through June 27 at Wylie Baptist Church. The 122nd annual session of the Original West Texas Baptist District Association, Inc. (OWT) and the 111th session of the Congress of Christian Education will kick off their activities with a musical beginning at 7 p.m. Monday, June 23, at Wylie Baptist. From 125 to 150 people are expected to attend. 

“Changing our Course Not Our Conviction: The Gospel Still Works,” based on Isaiah 43:18-19 and Romans 12:1-2, will be the theme of convention.

Congress of Christian Education theme will be “The Challenge to Change: Serving the Present Age with an Unchanging Gospel,” based on 1 Chronicles 12:32, Romans 12:1-3, and 2 Corinthians 10:12-18. 

Moderator for the Congress of Education is Virgil Nesbit Jr., pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Wichita Falls. Moderator for the Original West Texas Baptist District Association, Inc., is Demotis Sherman, pastor of Mt. Zion First Baptist Church in Abilene. Sherman was elected in 2023 to replace longtime moderator Andrew Penns, pastor of Valley View Missionary Baptist Church.

Rev. Demotis Sherman

Sherman is pastor of the oldest Black church in Abilene. Mt. Zion was organized in 1885, just four years after the city was founded. The church was organized by the Rev. James Curry, a missionary from Sherman. 

Events for the week will include classes, women’s auxiliary meetings, children’s competitions and activities, and worship services. Following the opening musical on Monday night, the Congress will convene at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, June 24, with classes from 8 to 11 a.m. Morning worship will be held in the sanctuary beginning at 11:15 a.m. 

Both groups will meet in the afternoon, with the evening worship scheduled for 7:30 p.m.. The early start is by design, Sherman said.

“We plan on being out each night no later than 8:15 to 8:30,” he said. “We’ve gotten a little bit older.”

No meals will be served on site, but a ministers’ wives luncheon is scheduled for Thursday at the MCM Elegant Suites, the conference hotel. A highlight of the week will be the moderator’s address beginning at 6:45 p.m. 

The historic organizations that will be meeting in Abilene are made up of Baptist churches with predominantly Black congregations. A history of the OWT states that Black Baptist congregations date to a meeting at Silver Bluff, Aiken County, South Carolina some years prior to 1776. The second meeting was held at the First African Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia, in 1778, which George Leile, the first ordained Black Baptist preacher in the New World was instrumental in founding. 

In 1805, the Joy Street Baptist Church, the first Black church in New England, was organized in Boston. In 1808, the Abyssinian Baptist Church was founded in New York City, and in 1809, the First African Baptist Church of Philadelphia opened. The history of the Original West Texas Baptist District Association, Inc., dates to 1903 under the leadership of the Rev. W.F. Talley and the Rev. B.B. Johnson, along with the ministers of the churches listed below:

St. John, Stephenville
St. John, Decatur
Mt. Zion, Weatherford
Mt. Zion, Colorado City
Mt. Zion, Abilene
First Baptist, Thurber
St. Luke, Annetta
Macedonia, Albany
Mt. Hermon, Mineral Wells

They met at St. John Baptist Church in Stephenville in August 1903 to lay the foundation for the association. Rev. Johnson, pastor, preached the first sermon of the new association. The first moderator was Rev. F.B. Williams, who served in 1903-1904. 

Loretta Fulton is creator and editor of Spirit of Abilene