SBTC DR teams aid Oak Cliff church destroyed by fire

OAK CLIFF—Southern Baptists of Texas Convention disaster relief volunteers deployed January 14 to clear rubble and debris left after a fire destroyed Deliverance Missionary Baptist Church in east Oak Cliff. The DR team came in after city crews had torn down what remained of the charred building after the blaze was extinguished.

The cause of the Jan. 9 early morning fire remains unknown, said Kenneth Andrews, senior pastor of the SBTC congregation.

A team of four led by Doug Scott, with volunteers from Atlanta, Leonard and Dallas, worked throughout the day, moving debris to the curb by skid steer. Scott’s crew was joined at noon by a new SBTC DR unit from Mansfield on its first deployment.

“The church doesn’t have the funds to have a dumpster there or trailers to haul it off,” Scott said, noting that Andrews, who came out to the site to greet the DR volunteers, remained “upbeat, wondering what the Lord was going to do with the situation.”

“A large pile 10 or 12 feet tall is left, but it’s all in one place,” Scott added.

The area surrounding the church at 2600 East Ann Arbor Avenue is low income.

“Twice a week, we fed 65-70 homeless and hungry at our church during the lunch hour,” Andrews told the TEXAN.

“This is the type of area Jesus ministered to when He was on earth,” Scott said. “It’s a big challenge. That’s why we go. We end up interacting with people, and they either tell us something that blesses us, or we tell them something that blesses them. It is a mutual thing.”

With the debris cleared, the church’s future remains uncertain.

“We don’t know our plans,” Andrews told the TEXAN. “We’ve been on the news across the nation. Our insurance was canceled. We have no money to rebuild. We are hoping to rent a building, buy a building or find funds to rebuild where we were.”

Andrews, the church’s senior pastor since 2003—and only the second in its 51-year history—has been involved with Deliverance MBC since 1992.

Donations to help the church have started coming in, Andrews said. African-American churches and employees of DeSoto Independent School District, where Andrews has worked part time for the past nine years as a crossing guard, have made inquiries.

Meanwhile, the Deliverance MBC congregation of 80 is worshiping with another Baptist church in Oak Cliff, Greater St. John Primitive Baptist Church. Andrews was scheduled to preach and the Deliverance choir to sing Sunday, Jan. 18, at Greater St. John PBC.

A special service to support Deliverance will be held Saturday, Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. at Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, an SBTC church located at 2654 Kilburn Avenue, Dallas.