Sandy Baptist Church is celebrating its 200th birthday this weekend.
The church, at 9331 Sandy Church Road northeast of Hillsboro, is believed to be the only church of any denomination in Jefferson County to have served its congregation continuously for 200 years. It also is believed to be the oldest Protestant and Baptist church in the county and one of the oldest recorded Baptist churches west of the Mississippi, according to the church’s history.
Church members will celebrate the church’s anniversary during their annual church homecoming on Saturday and Sunday. While the Sunday celebration is a church service, the public is welcome to come out from 2-6 p.m. Saturday to learn about the church and its history.
Kate Seitz, one of the homecoming organizers, said booths will be set up to provide information about the church’s ministry programs.
Festivities will include old-time music and hymns, games, activities, a chainsaw demonstration and food. In addition, a cake walk and a small classic car display will be held, Seitz said.
“Hopefully it will be a nice day and we can enjoy time together outside,” she said.
Some members of the congregation dress up in period clothing for the homecoming. From left are Joe and Polly Cardona and Lyal and Ginny Chase.
Throughout the afternoon, the church will have a reenactment of a circuit preacher riding in on a horse to an open-air brush arbor church, Seitz added.
According to church history, in 1816, a circuit rider preacher named Thomas Donahue would ride horseback from Jackson to preach along the Sandy Creek near Hillsboro. Then, in 1824, a group of seven charter members got together to establish Sandy Creek Baptist Church.
Members hewed logs and built the first church building at a cost of $200. That building was later abandoned, and in 1843, the congregation built a frame church in a new location for a total of $600. In 1878, with bricks congregation members made from clay, a church was built that is still used today for the church’s youth ministry.
Over the years, it’s become tradition for youth group members to scratch their names in the bricks, Seitz said.
Sometime in the 1950s, the church lost the creek part of its name and became Sandy Baptist Church. In 1964, members broke ground for the congregation’s current church building. It was completed in 1966.
On Sunday, members and past members are invited to a 10:30 a.m. church service with a special speaker, Brother David Wells, who was the pastor from 2003-2019 before becoming the state director of disaster relief for Texas Baptist Men.
The service also will include a brief pictorial history of the church, and the church will honor members who died over the past year. Church members will have the chance to talk about what the church means to them, said Sietz, who joined the church in 2006.
She said her husband has been a member of the church for almost 50 years.
Seitz said Sandy Baptist is a small southern Baptist church whose members have been involved in missions all over the world.
She said the church helped clean up communities and provide comfort to people affected by Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Sandy and the tornado in Joplin.
Seitz said the church also has an active children’s ministry, bus ministry and Vacation Bible School.
Jason Sparks is the church’s pastor.
Sunday services include Sunday School at 9:45 a.m., morning services at 11 a.m., Team Kid from 5:30-7 p.m. and evening worship at 6 p.m. Wednesday services are at 7 p.m.