Treasure in Earthen Vessels: A Contextual History of the First Baptist Church in McAdoo, Texas 1919-

Unlike most local church histories oozing with self-congratulations, Treasure in Earthen Vessels is an honest, critical assessment of a rural congregation that built a small, unpretentious church in a community that subsequently withered under the strain of economic realities and labor-saving technologies. In September of 1919, two Baptist families met in an old, creaky, three-room wooden schoolhouse to organize a church in the newly-established community of McAdoo, Texas. This book details the contributions of legacy families committed to living a simple Christian life through the struggles and joys of a rural Baptist congregation. The congregation also must navigate the geographical, social, cultural, political, religious, economic, and technological forces often arrayed against them. By exploring the contextual history of this Baptist congregation as a case study, the book not only chronicles what happened to rural churches and communities experiencing the depopulation of the Great Plains over the past century, but also why a cherished way of life simply vanished.