Treasure in Earthen Vessels

Unlike most local church histories oozing with self-congratulations, Treasurein Earthen Vessels is an honest, critical assessment of a rural congregation thatbuilt a small, unpretentious church in a community that subsequently witheredunder the strain of economic realities and labor-saving technologies. In September of 1919, two Baptist families met in an old, creaky, three-roomwooden schoolhouse to organize a church in the newly-established community ofMcAdoo, Texas. This book details the contributions of legacy families committedto living a simple Christian life through the struggles and joys of a rural Baptistcongregation. The congregation also must navigate the geographical, social,cultural, political, religious, economic, and technological forces often arrayedagainst 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 communitiesexperiencing the depopulation of the Great Plains over the past century, butalso why a cherished way of life simply vanished.