Baptist History


Click HERE for The Baptist Light Podcast

Sandy Creek Baptist Church

Although records are sparse concerning the church’s beginnings in 1755, one certainty is that Shubal Stearns left his pastorate in Okehon, Virginia, because he carried a spiritual burden for the unchurched yet religiously enthusiastic backcountry farmers in Piedmont North Carolina.
  Image courtesy of the North Carolina Office of Archives and History, Raleigh, NC.

Battle of Alamance Monument, Alamance Battlefield

Front: FIRST BATTLE OF THE REVOLUTION
Rear: HERE / WAS FOUGHT THE / BATTLE OF / ALAMANCE / MAY 16TH, 1771 / BETWEEN THE / BRITISH AND THE / REGULATORS

Right of Monument: LIBERTY

Left of Monument: 1880

“Religious matters are to be separated from the jurisdiction of the state, not because they are beneath the interests of the state but, quite to the contrary, because they are too high and holy and thus are beyond the competence of the state.”
Isaac Backuscolonial Baptist from New England
“The great power of God was among us, the preaching every day seemed to be attended with God’s blessing. We carried on our Association with sweet decorum and fellowship to the end. Then we took leave of one another with many solemn charges from our reverend old father, Shubal Stearns, to stand fast until the end.”
Elder James Headspeaking of the first meeting at Sandy Creek
“I had a curiosity to go and hear him. Upon my arrival I saw a venerable old man sitting under a peach-tree with a book in his hand and the people gathering about him. He fixed his eyes upon me immediately, which made me feel in such a manner as I never had felt before. I turned to quit the place, but could not proceed far; I walked about, sometimes catching his eyes as I walked. My uneasiness increased and became intolerable.
I went up to him thinking that a salutation and shaking hands would relieve me, but it happened otherwise. I began to think that he had an evil eye, and ought to be shunned, but shunning him I could no more effect than a bird can shun the rattlesnake when it fixes its eyes upon it. When he began to preach my perturbations increased, so that nature could no longer support them, and I sank to the ground.”
Tidance LaneSpeaking of Shubal Stearns
Previous
Next