In April this year, Central Baptist Church celebrated its 74th birthday. We hosted our Anniversary Birthday revival with Brother Brian Fisher as the preacher. We had good attendance each night and a great spirit of fellowship and spiritual encouragement.
This Church was planted in San Saba as a result of the desire of a group of believers desiring an independent, fundamental Baptist Church be established here. Brother L. A. Whatley from the Fort Worth Area was contacted and he agreed to come and seek the Lord’s will in the matter.
An independent, fundamental Baptist Church is simply a Church that is independent of any hierarchy, or interference from any convention, board, fellowship, or control by any government entity, of any of its doctrines or practices. The governing body of this Church is the membership of this Church. Fundamental does not mean a bunch of radical, religious fanatics, but rather, a group of believers who adhere to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, such as: The Virgin birth of Jesus Christ, The Verbal inspiration of the scriptures, The Vicarious suffering of Christ on the cross, The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and the Visible, and imminent return of Christ. There are many more scriptural and abiding truths that we strive to promote.
Brother Whatley first began preaching on the courthouse square and up and down the streets with a speaker attached to the top of his car. Fairly quickly he had generated enough interest and had won enough converts to merit purchasing property for their own building.
I hold the original warranty deed for the property purchased, and that was filed September 26, 1949, at 4 p.m. at the Courthouse, with a recording fee of $1.35. It was signed by County Clerk, Clovis Letbetter. The property was purchased from Sam P. and Kathryn Everett for $525.00 and is the same property that our current building is sitting on. The property was sold to J.E. Wilson, W.H. Eakin, and L.B. Watson as Trustees of San Saba Fundamental Baptist Church. L.B. Watson was my uncle. I was six months old at the time this property was purchased, and my Dad and Mom, Vernon and Jessie (Jakie) Watson were saved, and then baptized in the San Saba River in 1950. I literally grew up in this Church that God has now let me Pastor for the past 25 years. We still preach the same gospel out of the same old book, and sing the same songs out of the same book that we had when I was a boy. Yes, we open a real paper Bible and read and preach, and open a real book and sing the old songs. One difference is, we now have a brand new, modern building, given to us debt free by Gods marvelous grace.
We just completed a fourday Homecoming revival that we started about six years ago. The preachers for the meeting are both men who grew up in this Church. George Watson, my brother, was saved and called to preach in this Church and has now been the Pastor of the Fundamental Baptist Church of Clifton, Texas, for over 20 years. He is a great preacher of God’s Word. Alan Berrio, my nephew, was saved and called to preach at a young age in this Church and is now the Pastor of the Missionary Baptist Church of Whitney, Texas, and has been for over 13 years. He also is an exciting preacher of the gospel and a top notch Youth Camp preacher.
Our meeting this year was a great spiritual blessing as we had one adult saved by the grace of God. We are still an old fashioned, country, family friendly Church.