Baptist General Convention of Texas

The Baptist General Convention of Texas is the oldest surviving Baptist convention in the state of Texas. The churches cooperating with the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) partner nationally and internationally with both the Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, among others, for missions. In 2009, the BGCT began to also go by the name Texas Baptists to better communicate who they are.

There were Baptists among the first Anglo-American settlers of Texas, but under Spain (and later Mexico), non-Catholic religious worship was prohibited. The first Baptist sermon preached in Texas was preached by Joseph Bays of Missouri as early as 1820. The first Sunday School in Texas was organized by a Baptist, Thomas J. Pilgrim, at San Felipe de Austin in 1829. Mexican authorities forced the Sunday School to disband and hindered the attempts of the earliest Baptist preachers.

The first Baptist church in Texas was organized in Illinois by Elder Daniel Parker. Parker visited Texas in 1832, and concluded that the Mexican laws clearly prohibited organizing a church in Texas. He also decided the immigration of an organized church into the state would not violate the colonization laws. To this end, he and several others constituted a church in Illinois, then traveled to Texas by wagon train, arriving in Austin Colony January 20, 1834. Parker held a strict predestinarian theology, as well as his controversial Two-Seed theology. Like those travellers, the church was named Pilgrim. This church, and those churches of like faith that followed, remained aloof from the majority of Baptists in Texas. Pilgrim church is the oldest Baptist church in Texas, and survives today as a Primitive Baptist church.

The first missionary Baptist church in Texas was organized at Washington-on-the-Brazos by Z. N. Morrell in 1837. The following year, Isaac Reed and R. G. Green formed the Union Baptist Church, about 5 miles north of Nacogdoches, Texas. This church, now known as the Old North Church, is the oldest surviving missionary Baptist church in Texas, and cooperates with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. After Texans achieved independence from Mexico, Baptists began to flourish in Texas. Many churches were formed in the days of the Republic of Texas. With the multiplication of churches came also the organization of associations. The first association was the Union Baptist Association, organized in 1840.

...
Wikipedia