<\/p>\n
Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas steeple raising in 1965. Provided by Wilshire Baptist Church.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Provided by Wilshire Baptist Church<\/p>\n
Wilshire Baptist Church<\/a>, a congregation in northeast Dallas known for its ministry and historic votes to include women and\u00a0LGBTQ members <\/a>in church life and leadership, will celebrate its 75th anniversary this weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n The church was founded on June 14, 1951 when a group of 55 met at a Lakewood home with the intention of building a new Baptist church. It gained national recognition during the 1990s and 2010s, when its members voted on theological issues particularly related to gender and sexual orientation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The Rev. Timothy Peoples, senior pastor at Wilshire Baptist, said its history has been defined by drawing a wider and wider circle for its community.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cFaith is ever evolving,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before they had a church building, members attended Sunday service at the Wilshire Theater, then at the corner of Skillman Street and Mockingbird Lane, according to the church. Its first worship space was finished in 1954. Huber Drumwright was its first pastor, followed by Ralph Langley and Bruce McIver.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1991, the church voted in favor of allowing women and divorced people to become deacons, causing a rift with the Southern Baptist Convention, America\u2019s largest Protestant denomination. The same year, Wilshire Baptist was a founding church in the movement that formed the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in 1991, a national network of which the church remains a part.<\/p>\n George Mason, who was senior pastor of the church at the time, said the church believed the Baptist principles of local church autonomy and \u201cfreedom of conscience\u201d were being violated. Wilshire Baptist resisted the SBC\u2019s moves to restrict women\u2019s ministry<\/a> for more than a decade, Mason said, before it officially left the SBC in 2000.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas voted in November to grant full membership to LGBT individuals. (Jae S. Lee\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n Related: Historic church in Oak Cliff\u2019s Tenth Street district is celebrating 140 years with a party<\/a><\/p>\n In 2016, the church voted to grant full membership to LGBTQ congregants.The vote meant all members, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, could participate in leadership, ordination, marriage and baby dedications, according to the church.\u00a0<\/p>\n Peoples, who was with Wilshire Baptist at the time as a ministry resident, said the congregation participated in multiple book studies, listening sessions and roundtable discussions before the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou really saw a church wrestle and struggle with theology together,\u201d Peoples said. \u201cThere were really holy and sacred moments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The move severed ties with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, also known as Texas Baptists.\u00a0Wilshire Baptist was the center of national media attention and about 300 members left the church following the vote,\u00a0The Dallas Morning News<\/a> previously reported. The vote also drew new members to the church.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mason said many members were grieved by the loss of relationships to other Baptists. But 10 years down the road, inclusion is normal church life now.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTo see LGBTQ+ persons in our congregation who are fellow Christians, who are following Christ and serving among us, worshiping with us, living their lives without looking over their shoulder\u2026 this is a great joy,\u201d Mason said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Related: Dallas pastor’s book sheds light on painful discussions that led Wilshire Baptist to embrace LGBT members<\/a><\/p>\n Mason retired as senior pastor in 2022<\/a> after 33 years. The church selected Peoples as its next senior pastor<\/a> later that year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWilshire has demonstrated over the course of its 75 years an extraordinary amount of courage,\u201d Mason said. \u201cWhile tradition is something that gives us identity, there is always a call to examine whether we are aligned with where the spirit of God is leading us next.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Now in his fourth year as senior pastor, Peoples was previously a resident with the church as part of its Pathways to Ministry program. Often likened to a medical residency, the two-year program founded in 2002 offers real-world experience in church ministry after seminary.\u00a0<\/p>\n Peoples said the program aims to help ministers and chaplains build connections and skills to avoid burnout. About 45 residents have graduated through the program, Peoples said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day I hope that we continue to be a church that goes outside our comfort zones and actually do what it is God is asking us to do,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Rev. Heather\u00a0Mustain, an associate pastor who has been on staff since 2013, said the church has increasingly engaged with interfaith relationship building and advocacy since the 2010s. The church runs a number of ministries and partners with immigration legal assistance, the domestic abuse shelter Genesis Women’s Shelter and with Cornerstone Baptist Church in South Dallas, which is celebrating its own 40th anniversary this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n