At 150, historic Fort Worth church faces sale, but congregants say its story isn’t over.

by Marissa Greene, Fort Worth Report
December 22, 2025

Members of the oldest Black Baptist church in Fort Worth reflect on its legacy and look toward the future. 

One of Pastor Lorenzo Jones IV’s Christmas traditions is putting up the tree with his daughter. 

In past years, the two-person task often would turn into a one-man job after Jones’ daughter would get distracted and leave her father to finish the task, the pastor told Mount Gilead Baptist Church attendees during the Dec. 21 Christmas service. 

Not this year. Instead of leaving Jones to it, 11-year-old Kerrington stuck around for him to walk her through the process — and to have a moment to talk about their faith. 

From the top-down, the father-daughter duo decorated the tree with an angel, personalized mementos, and red and gold ornaments. 

At that moment, Jones’ curious daughter asked him two questions: Why did her father choose gold and red ornaments — and what does a Christmas tree have to do with Jesus? 

“First of all, it just looks good,” Jones said in response to his daughter’s initial question. 

But the colors also carry significance to their Christian faith. The gold represents the “king of kings,” or Jesus, and the red symbolizes the “blood that was shed for our sins,” Jones added. 

To which Kerrington responded honestly: “Ew. I don’t want blood on the tree.” 

Jones had been preaching through the Book of John since the church’s 150th anniversary service in late September. Instead of going through the traditional Christmas story in the Bible, he walked congregants through John 3:16, a well-known Bible verse describing God’s sacrificial love and the path to salvation through faith in Jesus. 

Jones shared this story with congregants Sunday morning as a part of his sermon on how, in his family, the tree is a reminder of the light Jesus brought into the world and how his sacrifice for eternal life is a priceless gift.

“The price that was paid was intense. The gift that you needed that you never knew you needed was simply love and all you have to do is believe,” Jones said at the pulpit. 

About 26 adults gathered inside the red-carpeted sanctuary lit by the golden stained glass windows for Mount Gilead Baptist Church’s Dec. 21st service titled “The Gift that Keeps on Giving.” 

Clad in poinsettia-red blazers and emerald green dresses and button-downs, congregants shouted out Amens, at times subduing the faint sound of children’s giggles and laughter downstairs. The church in downtown Fort Worth has held decades of worship services like this one, perhaps its last Christmas service in its longtime home.

Over the years the church has faced many trials and is one of many churches in the nation struggling to bring back its in-person worship numbers since COVID-19. But for Mount Gilead, the fight to survive continues even if that means a move into a new location.

Mount Gilead Baptist Church landed on Historic Fort Worth’s 2025 Most Endangered Places list in late May. Over the summer, the congregation voted 19-4 to put the building on the market. Only eligible members, those who have been actively attending service and contributing to the church, could vote. 

The historic building is now listed for $3 million. A portion of the funds from the sale will go toward purchasing a new building while the rest will go toward fueling different outreach or internal ministries, Jones said. 

“We got to set the next generation up for success,” Jones said.

For now, congregants still gather at the church every Sunday for vibrant worship while awaiting a buyer. 

A key thing Jones continually reminds congregants: The sale isn’t the last chapter of Mount Gilead. 

“This church has come very close to having to shut it down completely, but God has given us a second chance … we don’t want to waste that chance,” he said.

History of the ‘Mother Church’ 

The church wears its years openly. 

The white Tuscan columns that greet congregants outside the red brick church have shrugged off some of the color. Light peering through the stained glass windows inside the church illuminates the paint escaping the walls. Pale rings showing where moisture once resided bloom on the ceilings. The wooden stairs groan underfoot as congregants proceed up to the balcony or down to the basement. 

On Sept. 28, members and guests gathered for Mount Gilead Baptist Church’s 150th anniversary service. 

Jones initially envisioned a grand celebration with city and county officials, but as the congregation considered logistics — limited parking, weathered stairs and an air conditioning unit that worked on its own terms — the group decided to postpone a more public festivity for the time being. 

Instead, church members and guests gathered in the sanctuary to reflect on the congregation’s history.

In 1875, Pastor C.A. Augustus and 12 former slaves founded Mount Gilead Church and quickly grew to 40 members, according to historical records. They built a church near 15th and Crump streets in a Black settlement known then as “Baptist Hill.”

Around 1883, the church’s third pastor S.H. Smith oversaw construction of a new building off 13th Avenue and Jones Street. 

Then Pastor Lacy Kirk Williams oversaw the construction of Mount Gilead’s third building — and current church — located at 600 Grove St., completed in 1913. Wallace Rayfield, the nation’s second formally trained African-American architect, contributed to the design of the neoclassical church — adorned with six columns and a stained glass dome. 

The signature building now welcomes those driving into downtown from the east. But at the time, neighbored an area of town referred to as Fort Worth’s “Black Wall Street,” Jones said — a bustling area of African American-owned businesses, pharmacies, doctor’s offices, barbershops, banks and more. 

It was not a coincidence that the church was central to it all, Jones said. Mount Gilead wasn’t just a place for spiritual gatherings but served as an “integral part of togetherness,” Jones said.

The church had an indoor baptismal, a cafeteria, a nursery, a kindergarten and opera chairs in the balcony. Its library served as an educational hub filled with literature and once home to a paralegal school. 

The basement was built to include an indoor swimming pool, offering Black families an accessible place to swim in a time where public pools were racially segregated, Jones explained. 

“You can just see the fingerprints of the impact that Mount Gilead has had as the model for what a community-based church should look like,” Jones said. “I’m proud to say we set the standard.”

Attendance was booming and by the 1920s, Mount Gilead was classified as a megachurch because of its large membership and local influence. 

The church was a hub for spiritual, cultural and community gatherings. World-renowned contralto singer Marian Anderson once performed for guests in the sanctuary, Jones noted. 

Christopher C. Harper served as Mount Gilead’s longest-tenured pastor from 1943 to 1970, and was celebrated for installing central heating in the church, according to an archived portrait.

Over the years, Mount Gilead became known as the “mother church” for Black Baptist churches across Fort Worth. Other congregations that came out of Mount Gilead include the Greater Saint James, Mount Zion and Pleasant Mount Gilead in Como, Jones said. 

Over the decades, towering high-rises swallowed the skyline. The church has a front row seat to the bustling interstate system that vastly helped grow the city around it. 

In 2016 the church made headlines when its then-pastor Patrick Rucker tried to sell the church. Rucker and church leaders planned to sell the property to Paradox Church at the time for $2.5 million. 

Members of the church fought the plan by filing a temporary restraining order and successfully stopping the sale.

Many people split from the church after the legal battle, Jones said.

Jones was installed as the church’s pastor in 2019 and remembers having 10 attendees during his first Sunday sermon.

When he began leading the congregation, he promised members that if the church were to ever make the news again, it would not be for that reason, he said.

“One of my goals was to shine a positive light on the things that we can do here and to bring the life of Christ back into the conversation about Mount Gilead,” Jones said. 

The following year, COVID-19 rocked the church, like many across the nation. Services shifted online for the first time. He was concerned about the older congregants, many of whom he attended graveside funerals for during the pandemic. 

He waited a year and a half before going back to in-person worship. By then some people didn’t come back, Jones said. 

No matter how much money the congregation raised, it was difficult to keep up with major work needed, Jones said. 

Members raised about $25,000 to fix the air conditioning system, for example. The congregation was able to replace the AC fans and they did work for a while but they were “operating like a new system on an old platform,” Jones said. The system was outdated to the extent that some parts were no longer made. 

During the week of Thanksgiving, some of the original galvanized steel pipes burst, Jones. Considering the nature of the aged building, a replacement can be expensive, he added. 

Deciding the future of the church took time and wasn’t easy, Jones said.

After years of debating and talking about it among other church leadership, they came to a decision. 

Just because the congregation will one day no longer gather at its downtown building, it “does not mean that it stops here,” Jones said during one fall service. Members are “charged” to keep the legacy going “for the good of those who love the Lord,” he added. 

After all, before there was Mount Gilead — or anything for that matter — there “was the word,” Jones preached. 

“I’m here to tell you today that a pastor and 12 former slaves looked at the words ‘In the beginning’ and they saw that they could not do it without Jesus,” Jones preached from the pulpit. 

Congregants reflect on memories, legacy

DeLois Jean Paley remembers the kindness she felt when she first entered Mount Gilead Baptist Church in 1960. 

She joined after moving to Fort Worth with her husband and worked as a special education teacher and later at a pre-kindergarten school in the city. Her husband was an Army veteran who worked as an art and history teacher at I.M. Terrell Academy, the city’s first public school for Black students and O.D. Wyatt High School. 

Congregants didn’t show their warmth by just their words but by actions, Paley said. 

If you didn’t have transportation, members made sure you had the means of coming to church. When you were sick, they were right there to help you, Paley said. 

Mount Gilead’s downtown building holds fond memories, she said. It was the place where both her children were baptized. 

At first, Paley was not in support of the church’s sale. Today, the 91-year-old’s perspective has shifted. Mount Gilead may become more than what it was in the past if congregants continue to be faithful in God, she said. 

“What God has done for this church is because we were so faithful in everything that he allowed us to stay here this long,” Paley said. “God will not forsake you nor leave you. So he will be there for us, no matter where we go.”

An hour and half before service, Joseph Cantey is the one opening the church doors, turning the lights on and making sure the space is clean and prepared for worship. 

Cantey, one of the deacons of Mount Gilead, joined the church in 1995. The building holds fond memories, like meeting his wife. 

Today, the 77-year-old said he has no regrets about leaving the building. 

“I just want to be moving forward no matter what happens because I am still going to be a part of this family,” Cantey said. 

Xavier Clark, 32, is one of the newer members of the church, joining six years ago after moving from Arkansas. 

He noticed Mount Gilead didn’t have a keyboardist and drummer, so he filled in. Over time he began to learn and appreciate the church’s legacy in the city. 

Clark wants the congregation to grow, but he wonders if the condition of their current home is a barrier “between people coming in and us growing and making that stamp on the city,” he said. 

“For me and my spirituality, we are the church — the people are the church. Wherever we reside, it doesn’t matter,” Clark said. “As long as we are lifting up and worshiping God.” 

‘We are still making history’

Now, 150 years later and a move looming ahead, everyone wants to know what the congregation’s next steps are, Jones said during the anniversary service.

Some may think it’s the end of Mount Gilead, he said. 

“It’s not the end of the story because we’re still here,” Jones added.

With a napkin, he wiped away beads of sweat building up on his brow. The air conditioning and circulating fans struggled with the Texas heat that day as the sanctuary’s high ceilings, large windows and poorly insulated walls made it difficult to keep cool. 

Jones wondered aloud what Mount Gilead’s founders would say if they could see the state of the church today.

“They would probably say, ‘You look a whole lot like we did,’” Jones said. 

The pastor gazed out into the room. Scattered among the historic wooden pews sat about 25 members and guests: mothers and daughters, brothers and sisters, grandmas and grandpas. 

The founding congregants might say they, too, didn’t have a whole lot of people. They might also add that they didn’t have any AC either because it wasn’t invented yet, Jones said.

Even though the journey is different today, both congregations once were and still are “a handful of people, just wanting to do more for Christ,” Jones stressed. 

The congregation that stands before Fort Worth today is a testimony of the power of Jesus’ name, he said — how Christ brought worshippers through significant moments of history: slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, world wars, COVID-19.

In the beginning 12 freed slaves and a pastor “accepted the challenge of Christ and walked into their potential,” Jones said. 

“They would probably look at us today and say, ‘If God could do all of this through us, how much more could he do through you?” Jones said, addressing the crowd. 

“Mount Gilead, we aren’t just a part of history,” Jones said. “We are still making history.” 

Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. You can contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org.

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