We do care about having a Baptist church in Campaign

This letter concerns Campaign First Baptist Church. People from some of the churches and other denominations cannot understand why the church building was sold. Around 25 to 40 people, some of us charter members, wanted the building to have another Southern Baptist Church.

Just a few years ago we supported a pastor full time financially. Today this church has the potential to grow more than most churches in the association. Not one person in the association came to check with me or anyone else in the community to see if they could help the church survive.

Garvin Haley came to help us and did what he could. He was not treated very well by some of the preachers and a few of the executive board members. They thought he wanted a place to preach. He said from the beginning he would not be pastor.

We were told by members of one church we were called outlaws. There is a lot of unhappy Baptists over this. We have already been told some members have already left their church and this association over this. We are sorry this is happening.

The fall of the church began with a pastor who did not seem to be a Southern Baptist. He soon had the majority members on his side. He asked the members to sell the church property and relocate and they voted to do it. There was a group of us left and we went to other churches to keep from having trouble, hoping one day to be back.

The members who stayed continued to have problems. Finally it was down to four people and they could not pay the bills. They turned the keys over to the Central Baptist Association. As soon as the association got the keys, they voted to sell the church property.

We met association leaders and asked them to let us have the building for two months. If things did not work out we would give the keys back and we agreed to pay all the bills, but they would not let us do this. They said the only way we could get the property back was to get some church to be the mother church.

We tried to get three different churches to be our mother church but some preachers and executive board members meddled in this to these churches and they rejected us. We had a church ready to vote to be the mother church, but they sold the property before the church voted.

The people in Campaign do not think the executive board cares if we have a church in Campaign. Some of the members do care. They did not know the whole truth and some have told us they did not know what was going on and would not have voted to sell. Twenty people have agreed to have this letter published.

May God bless everyone. We are praying for all.

L. J. Matheny

Charter Member

Maple Drive

Campaign