Sr. Pastor Carver Adams Sr. and congregation look back in wonder
By Norma Adams-Wade
Credit College Park Baptist Church.(A) – Norma Adams-Wade
Rosie Brown was sitting on her porch in the College Park neighborhood near then-Bishop College in the mid-1960s. She was pregnant in her late 20s and unsure how she and her husband would handle raising this new life in this new neighborhood where they had recently moved.
She looked up as a preacher walked up and greeted her. College Park Baptist Church founding pastor, Booker T. Watson Sr. was out and about in the neighborhood, inviting residents to a new church that he was about to open in a house at 6360 J. J. Lemmon Road.
The church would be named after the community where it’s located. Ms. Brown and the pastor talked, and he shared encouragement. She thought about his words and came to the opening service.
Now, six decades later, “Sis.” Brown, now 87, is the oldest current, remaining founding member. She said she felt special to help celebrate College Park Baptist Church’s 60th anniversary on March 16 this year. The two-day weekend celebration gave the 100-plus member congregation an opportunity to look back in wonder.
Members assessed how they said God has used them to reach beyond the walls of their sanctuary and serve others; knock down barriers; revel in shared praise; raise up new generations; and expand their campus to offer better community services.
Members say a hallmark of College Park Baptist is its community outreach and how it ministers to everyone who enters inside.
First licensed female minister
Min. Thomas, the church historian, was College Park Baptist’s first licensed female associate minister more than 20 years ago. Several other women of the cloth have since followed. Min. Thomas said she is more comfortable with the title Minister over Reverend.
She eagerly shared some of the church’s distinctions, defining the main one as love that she said trickles down from the Pastor.
“College Park is a spiritual hospital for those in need,” she said. “We embrace people. ….I’m as close to many church members as I am to my own family.”
Current pastor
The current pastor, Rev. Carver Adams Sr., was installed as the church’s third pastor in 2014. He recalled that during his initial days, following the illness and hurtful death of the previous pastor, members battled against “broken spirits” and low valley’s. Yet, in less than two years, he led the membership forward and the church completed a long-unfinished sanctuary renovation, paid off all debt, and entered a new sanctuary during an Easter/Resurrection Day Sunday.
“When I think about it, I’m still scratching my head today, asking ‘God, how did we do that?!’ ” Rev. Adams Sr. commented.
Now in his 11th years at the helm, members laud him as a visionary who has kept the church striving forward. He led them through the COVID-19 pandemic; greatly increased the church’s male membership; keeps the youth department trained, active and entertained; and is in the process of further expanding the church building so that it can accommodate even more community services.
Rev. Adams recalls a specific incident that solidified the jumbled thoughts he was having more than a decade ago about his next steps before coming to College Park Baptist.
After members reveled in a prayer service he led one day as a guest preacher, an elder member blurted out what became a fulfilled prophecy.
“You’re the one!” he said the member declared boldly. “You’re the one God wants to lead this church!”
Not long after that, the members chose Rev. Adams Sr. as senior pastor. He was born on a farm in Lindale, Texas, 13 miles from Tyler, Texas, as one of his parents’ 11 children. He is a former Marine and retired 24-year veteran City of Dallas employee who accepted a spiritual calling.
He graduated from Southern Bible Institute and College in Dallas, now renamed Foster College in tribute to the late Rev. L. G. Foster Sr. of Dallas who inspired the original institute in 1927. Rev. Adams Sr. and “First Lady” Teresa Adams have two adult sons, Carver Jr. and Anthony, and three granddaughters.
Rev. Adams Sr. easily shares details about his journey from the bottom to the top of church hierarchy and how a leader must never forget their humble beginnings to avoid feeling they are above others.
“I came … from the back row, made a deacon, then God called me,” Rev. Adams recalled. “I know the spirit in the pews. I know how people can feel belittled. I’m passionate that we be…people-oriented, make them feel appreciated, let them know we feel God sent them to us.”
Serving the elders
Besides recalling College Park’s origin, founding member “Sis.” Brown also exemplifies how members care for College Park elders. She describes the hands-on personal care she and other elders receive, including church members personally bringing daily meals, driving them to and from doctors’ appointments, delivering prescriptions and medicines, communion items, ding in-home prayer and Bible study, and supplying any other personal needs they request.
“I just can’t believe it,” “Sis. Brown said. “People at the church do things for me all the time, and I am so thankful and thank God all the time.”
Memories of marriage and choir
Dyann Hornbuckle Watson views the history of College Park Baptist from a unique position. She is a former “First Lady” and widow of Rev. Booker T. Watson Jr., the church’s second pastor. His father founded the church and lead the first service on March 30, 1965. Mrs. Watson late husband died in 2013 after an extended illness. They have two adult sons who were also church members as youths.
Mrs. Watson and Rev. Watson Jr. carry the distinction of being the first couple married at College Park Baptist. She said her parents joined College Park when she was around age 10. And as a youth and later as “First Lady,” she said she was active is just about all the church’s ministries.
But the choir has a special place in her heart that overflows with memories of the choir’s signature booming, spirited singing and harmonizing.
“This was grilled into us: ‘Open your mouths and sing!’ We would visit other churches and before we sang, we would stand outside and pray then go back inside with power,” she recalled. “We would get standing ovations.”
After her husband passed, she opened a new chapter of her life and joined a different congregation. But she returned for College Park’s 60th anniversary celebration and says she will not forget the joyous experience of singing with an ensemble of former choir members.
“That was a pivotal moment… I was able to sing with one of my sons who with his wife still attends College Park,” Ms. Watson said. “And with the former choir members who came back to sing together again … It was absolutely heartwarming.”
[NOTE: The church is currently leading a revival that began with a three-day in-person gathering, May 21-23, and continues virtually with various speakers on Facebook and YouTube at 7 p.m. Mon.–Fri. May 26-June 6 @collegeparkchurchdallas.]
Youth members speak
Two members of the youth department spoke equally of the comfort and love they and their friends feel for College Park Baptist Church where on certain Sunday’s youths are trained to conduct the full worship service.
Idris Wara, 16, and his sister, Ianna Wara, 14, grew up in the church from infancy and are active in all the youth ministries. Idris participates in culinary services, broadcast services, prayer ministry, choir, Sunday School, and the Brotherhood. Ianna is Sunday School secretary, sings in the choir, and serves in the prayer and women’s ministry.
They said their fond memories include their annual out-of-state youth Kids Across America camping trips where they interact with youth from across the nation. Those trips foster friendships that continue through correspondence and social media long after the summer ends, the youths said.
“It’s like a reawakening that helps you get back into or get deeper into a relationship with God,” Idris said. “And it exposes us to new activities, like on one trip, I had not been on a zipline or near a big lake.”
Ianna said the church summer Vacation Bible School sessions were a fun attraction for a large number of youths in the neighborhood, although COVID-19 curtailed that drawing card for a good while. She and her brother said their pastor’s warm personality also draws youth to their church.
“When you meet him, you want to be his friend,” Ianna said.
“He’s very approachable,” said Idris. “He loves to laugh, and I’ve never seen him upset. Even in uncomfortable situations, he remains calm.”
For his part, Rev. Adams sees young people as a gateway to the future of any congregation.
“If you don’t have youth in the church, the church is dying,” Rev. Adams said.
But his community outreach passion keep the doors swinging open.
“What makes me proud is that God placed me where I would be surrounded by good people. And when people come in the door, the members help me let visitors know we feel God sent them.”
History and ministries
College Park Baptist has had three pastors plus a lead minister who presided during the search for the current pastor. They are Booker T. Watson Sr., founder; Booker T. Watson Jr. second pastor; Rev. Joseph Thomas, presiding minister appointed by Rev. Watson Jr. before he passed; and current pastor Rev. Carver Adams Sr.
The church is named after the community where it is located and the college it referred to is Bishop College that prominently existed in the area from 1961 until it closed permanently in 1988. The church originally worshipped in a house at its current location, completed a building, then moved in in 1972.
College Park Baptist’s strong reputation for community and social outreach programs spotlights programs that include drug prevention classes and a drug overcomer program, premarital counseling, grief support, health fair and screenings, marching through the community to highlight ministries, supplying uniforms and school supplies, senior citizen and singles ministries, and making worship services available virtually and in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic and afterward.
Rev. Adams also exercises his passion for community service as president of the Neighborhood Churches Alliance and vice-moderator of the Christian Fellowship Association. To further increase its impact in the community, College Park Baptist is expanding its two-property campus by upgrading its fellowship hall to a 5,000-square-foot Multipurpose Center that will accommodate more community events and activities.
Perhaps one of the most evident victories has been the positive result of the church’s outreach to men. College Park’s male membership swelled overtime with the church offering a variety of programs for males, ranging from discussion groups to a Prison Outreach/Overcomers ministry wherein the pastors and some members routinely visit prisons and warmly welcome the formerly-incarcerated to regular church services.
That warm welcome includes assisting some formerly-incarcerated to re-enter society by helping them fill out paperwork on computers as needed to get documents such as social security cards and drivers licenses.
“We build relationships,” Rev. Adams said. “I tell people, be yourself, because God knows who he’s dealing with. I don’t try to force anything on them. We tell them, you’re not obligated to us just because we help you.” His prison ministry has not gone unnoticed. Among various other awards and honors he has earned, he also received the State of Texas 2021 Governor’s Criminal Justice Volunteer of the Year Service Award.
Norma Adams-Wade, is a proud Dallas native, University of Texas at Austin journalism graduate and retired Dallas Morning News senior staff writer. She is a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists. norma_adams_wade@yahoo.com.
