History of Our Church
Organization and Early History of Wilsonville Baptist Church
Organization and Early History of Wilsonville Baptist Church
All denominations met for church services in the old school building
which stood facing the Four Mile Road on the site which is now the
Wilsonville Cemetery. In 1879 ten or twelve Baptists asked Dr. E.B.
Teague to organize the Wilsonville Baptist Church. They continued for a while to meet in the depot until a church building could be completed.
Dr. Teague was pastor from 1879-1887. Some of the charter members were: Mrs. Offie Ray, Mrs. Vennie Ray, P.T. Ray, J.L. Ray, Col. W.T. Smith, Mrs. A.M. Tomlinson, and George Tomlinson.
The church joined the Coosa River Association the year it was organized. The Association met at the Blue Eye Church, Anniston. The first letter to the Association states: "Letter, Credentials and Articles of Faith were presented by M. Henderson from the newly organized church at Wilsonville, Alabama." Thirty-nine members were reported, four having been baptized. The letter was signed, E.B. Teague, Pastor and W.T. Smith, Clerk.
In 1880 the church had grown to sixty members. A Sabbath School was organized that year. The minutes state: "So far as we can learn the Sunday School is using 'Kind Words' and the International Series of S.S. Lessons." The first children's organization mentioned was the Wilsonville Earnest Workers, in 1885. The average attendance in Sunday School that year was twenty-five.
