May 1, 2000
New church makes East Texas
roadway a highway to heaven
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___GARRISON--Visitors to Highway 259 Baptist Church may not realize it when they see the East Texas church building, but they're looking at a miracle. At least that's the way Pastor Travis Lunsford sees it.
___"God sent wonderful people our way," said Lunsford, who recently was honored as small church pastor of the year by the State Missions Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. "It's been one blessing after another, one miracle after another miracle."
___It began in the heart of Lunsford, an 81-year-old Mission Service Corps volunteer, when he grew concerned about a particular area. He observed there was no Southern Baptist church along the 26-mile stretch of road from Nacogdoches to Mount Enterprise.
___He shared that burden with Wayne Keller, director of missions for East Texas Baptist Area. They prayed together, and Keller introduced Lunsford to Gerald Edwards, church starting consultant with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___Edwards helped put feet to those prayers. In April 1998, workers surveyed the area to determine the viability of starting a new Baptist church there. "We immediately found house after house with unchurched people," Lunsford said.
___A core group began meeting to pray each week. Edwards found a mobile building for the new congregation, but Lunsford needed a site for it.
___He found just the right place, some clear-cut acreage on Highway 259 with owners who were willing to sell. He brought a proposal to members of the Shelby-Doches Baptist Association executive board, who authorized the purchase.
___Then Lunsford received an unexpected call. Lloyd Woods, an 83-year-old layman from Tenaha, offered to pay for the land.
___"That was the first blessing," Lunsford said. But many others were to follow.
___First Baptist Church of Nacogdoches accepted the challenge of serving as sponsoring church for the mission, providing a $5,000 start-up gift and pledging $100 monthly support.
___Through the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, the BGCT Church Starting Center provided a $2,000 start-up gift and $960 monthly support for six months.
___Since last October, Shelby-Doches Baptist Association has supplied $150 per month in ongoing support for the church.
___Edwards helped the new church secure another mobile building to use as a chapel, allowing the initial mobile home to be converted into educational space. Almost immediately, the facilities were filled. Highway 259 Baptist Church needed a permanent building.
___The BGCT church facilities department helped the congregation design a new building with a 175-seat sanctuary. With an eye to the future, they designed it to be easily adapted as the church grows.
___The church was able to install its septic system at a fraction of the projected cost, thanks to a hospital visit by Lunsford, who mentioned the church's building project to a patient. The man offered his services, along with his bushhog, bulldozer and backhoe.
___"It turned out he was one of four people in the county authorized to test the soil and put in the septic tank," he said.
___Other volunteers continued to step forward as construction progressed. A representative from Lone Star Steel offered to build the structure at his cost. The church had its flooring, air conditioning and heating installed at no cost.
___At the ground-breaking service in June 1999--held after the concrete had been poured for the building's foundation--Pastor Allen Reed presented Lunsford a $3,000 check from First Baptist Church in Nacogdoches for a pulpit.
___Characteristically, Lunsford made each dollar count. He bought both a pulpit and a communion table and used the money left over for a piano fund.
___Edwards helped the church secure a $75,000 non-collateral loan from the BGCT Church Starting Center, offered at 4 percent interest. The church paid off the note in January.
___"As it turned out, we've not spent a dime of that money," Lunsford said. "When we started that church, we didn't have a shoestring. We ended up walking into the building debt-free."
___The church began meeting in its new facility Dec. 7.
___By mid-January this year, Lunsford had used the baptistry five times, and more new believers have been baptized since. The church also started Girls in Action and Royal Ambassador mission education programs for children and gave $5,725 to missions through the Cooperative Program in 1999.
___In just the first few months after moving to the larger building, attendance increased from 60 to around 90. Lunsford continued to look ahead.
___"I've told our people when we get to 125 in attendance, that's when we need to start looking at a new building program," he said. And he hopes to see Highway 259 Baptist Church help start another mission church sometime down the road.
Send this story to a friend
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!