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PARIS, Texas—A historic Texas church with early ties to the Buckner Children’s Home is seeing revival with time-tested methods of evangelism and missions. Under the leadership of its new pastor, Tommy Turner, First Baptist Church of Paris saw 30 people make professions of faith in a recent outreach effort that took church members beyond church walls into the surrounding community.
FBC Paris is one of several churches that recently voted to affiliate with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, bringing the total number of affiliated churches beyond 2,400.
“Next year, [First Baptist Paris] will be 160 years old,” said Turner, who came to the church from Eagle Heights Baptist Church in Harrison, Ark. “This church has such a rich history. As a matter of fact, the Buckner Children’s Home finds its roots in the First Baptist Church of Paris. Dr. Buckner was one of the early pastors of the church. The church has gone through a lot of changes in 160 years and right now we find ourselves in the midst of changes.”
Primary among the challenges facing Turner when he first arrived in East Texas was to rejuvenate the church’s historic commitment to personal evangelism and global missions. Since his arrival two years ago, the church has already taken a medical missions trip to India with plans to return this year to equip local pastors.
“When we received the call from the pulpit committee to come to Paris, we felt God was going to use us to help this church be revitalized and impact Paris and the world,” he said.
Noting that the church was without a pastor for three years before his arrival, Turner said he immediately set to work to minister to older congregants while providing ministry opportunities to attract younger families.
But among the blessings he found at FBC Paris when he arrived were the dedicated deacons and the multi-racial profile of the church that opened doors to reach a variety of people in the community, he said.
“One of the dreams I have is that our current facilities would become a multi-cultural center for the community,” said Turner, describing FBC as a typical downtown church situated in a changing community.
“This would be the place where we would provide washers and dryers at no cost for people to use. This would be a place where people can come and be trained on how to secure a job. I dream of a place where people are able to come and receive counseling that would be Bible-based, Christ-centered. With each of these ministries my desire would be that each one of them would point people to a relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Turner said he also hopes one day to call the first African American Southern Baptist minister to their community in order to aid in outreach efforts and better reflect their city’s demographics.
“Currently, we are hosting a Hispanic ministry which meets on Sunday nights and I would love to see this ministry explode and reach more of our Hispanic people in our community,” he said. “So my dream in the coming years would be that we would become a more ethnically diverse church.”
But instead of introducing the latest church growth strategy, Turner is leading the church to embrace traditional methods of personal evangelism through community outreach events and old-fashioned revival meetings.
Impact Paris
In May, the church hosted Impact Paris, a weekend event beginning with Friday night prayer and worship and Saturday ministry projects. Ministry teams included sports and medical clinics, a children’s backyard Bible Club, household repairs, free laundry service, homebound ministry and nursing home ministry.
“On Sunday morning we met in our parking lot and had a family time with bounce houses and it was followed by an evangelistic service,” Turner said. “Afterwards, we served lunch on the grounds.”
Through Impact Paris, Turner said more than 30 people made professions of faith.
“This has been such a blessing for our church to leave the confines of our buildings and to go out in the community and confront the lostness,” he said.
Turner said when Impact Paris first began a few years ago, the church started out small but asked each Sunday School class “to dream” about how they might reach the community.
This year, the church divided into teams and assigned a specific team member to share the gospel—a decision yielding real fruit.
“As we were paying for their washing and drying and folding their clothes, we had opportunities to share,” said Turner, recounting his time serving in a local laundry mat. “As I left my laundromat to check on another group, I was greeted by one of our members who introduced me to [a] new sister in Christ. It just thrilled my heart to hear the news of this young woman coming to Christ. But it also thrilled me by the fact that our people were out in the community serving.”
The Attic
Along with moving beyond the four walls of the church, Turner also led FBC Paris to refurbish the congregation’s real walls.
One of the first areas he tapped for renewal was an abandoned room on the church’s fourth floor—an area now home to a growing college and youth ministry called the Attic.
“It’s a room that can seat approximately 400 people, but it had been vacant and it looked dismal,” Turner said, adding that it wasn’t unusual to find birds living in the space. “I challenged our people … that the youth of this community and the youth of our church deserved a better place. It has become such a wonderful place where students can come and hear the gospel and be discipled in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Revival Meetings
Among its more traditional ministry methods, FBC also hosted a revival meeting this year.
“We have seen numerous people come to the Lord during our revivals,” said Turner, adding that one night it was almost standing room only. “We filled our main floor, balcony and had people sitting on the floor listening to evangelist Ken Freeman.”
Turner expressed praise for how the revival meetings were impacting the community.
“We are seeing people from other churches and denominations being saved. Not only have they impacted First Baptist Church, but these revivals have impacted other churches as well,” said Turner, adding that FBC Paris has scheduled another revival and the Team Impact power demonstration group for the fall.
“Our emphasis is seeking to reach young people in order that this great heritage of First Baptist Church might continue on to a new generation,” he said. “Revival services might be dead in some places, but I’m telling you they’re very much alive at First Baptist Church.”
