Growing up in Georgia, I devoured collards, cornbread and the columns by Louie D. Newton in the weekly issues of The Christian Index, the Georgia Baptist newspaper. Newton was a well-known pastor, former editor of the Index, and a denominational…
Return to Straightstone
Last week this column shared some of the history of Straightstone Baptist Church in Pittsylvania County. When the church recently celebrated its 200th anniversary, Rolen C. Bailey, a former pastor, was among those who returned to Straightstone. He served as…
Cut into the darkness
The sun was setting in the west and the shadows were lengthening when this columnist headed out one Saturday on his way to a Sunday speaking engagement in the country. The destination was Straightstone Baptist Church in the northeast corner…
It’s always homecoming in Orange
Orange is one of the prettiest small towns in Central Virginia; and in the middle of its commercial district, there is a red-brick Gothic building which houses the Baptists. With its tower the Orange Baptist Church sits like a sentinel,…
A church on the move
The church began in 1876, when some Baptists started meeting in a private home. They had been members of the nearby Sandy Creek Church and other Baptist churches. Later, the house was moved to another location and used as a…
Saving the General Association!
“You are acquainted with how its missionaries are suffering and its wants disregarded. [The General Association] must be more liberally supported than it has been for a year or two past. For it to go down would seriously injure our…
Down by the Old Mill Stream
Virginia Singleton Darnell has done it all in the First Baptist Church of Richmond. She has broken the gender barrier time and again. She was in the “second batch” of women to be elected as deacons about 1979; and in…
Finding a home
Shiloh Baptist Church, along the King's Highway in King George County, Va., has been home for many people in the course of its 150 years. It was created to give people a home during one of the great divisions among…
Now it can be told
About 100 years have passed since the following story took place. Maybe now it can be told! “Pastor John” had been at the country church for seven years and had earned the respect of the congregation. At age 65, he…