0.11 3.1 sending the light: the organizing of texas baptist women  (Page 9/11)

At first, the gnawing effect of numerous controversies, exacerbated by drought and depression in the 1890s, had a debilitating effect on the infant Baptist state organization, but in the struggle it gradually developed strategies of resistance and survival. After four discouraged missions superintendents had retired following short terms, J. B. Gambrell of Georgia and Mississippi, former president of Mercer College, accepted the position. Gambrell impressed people as "the great commoner," but his blend of good sense, wit, and dauntless optimism were altogether uncommon. As corresponding secretary for missions from 1896 to 1910 and a frequent contributor to the Baptist Standard (he also served for seven years as its editor), he articulated a rationale for cooperation and change that the rank and file accepted. He was aided by J. B. Cranfill and the influential Standard in putting the message across, but it was George Truett, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas from 1897 to 1944 and the most popular and revered figure in Texas Baptist history, who won the positive emotional response of Texans for the convention's programs. Carroll, p. 868. This note was written by J. B. Cranfill, Carroll's editor. B. H. Carroll, probably the best theologian among Texas Baptists, gave orthodox legitimation to the new endeavor and was a key figure on numerous committees, as was the "perennially youthful" R. C. Buckner, who skillfully presided over the convention, sometimes holding a bunch of flowers instead of a gavel, from 1894 until 1914, his eighty-first year. Elliott, pp. 60-61.

"All organizational effort being assailed has had the happy effect of uniting the strong forces of the denomination from one side of the state to the other," J. B. Gambrell confidently told the convention in 1899, BS, November 16, 1899, p. 3. From 1898, the Standard printed the proceedings of the state convention based on a stenographer's script. See J. B. Cranfill's note in Carroll, p. 798. and by that time slight bulges of newly-developed muscle were beginning to show. For Gambrell, proof lay in the expansion of missions, the raison d’être of cooperative work among Baptists. From a decade low of 66 missionaries supported by contributions of $11,000 in 1896, the numbers were up to 149 missionaries and $24,000 in 1899 and continued to rise yearly to 447 missionaries and $133,945 in 1910, Gambrell's last year as missions superintendent. His reports were central events at annual state convention gatherings, which drew as many as 8,000 by 1903. BS November 12, 1903, p. 1. J. M. Carroll assumed the position of statistical secretary in 1890 and made his first report that year at the meeting of the state convention.

As a vehicle for promoting missions, the women's organization proved so effective that the women started "Sunbeam Bands" of children to instill in them mission giving and study habits, eventually adding groups for older girls (Girls' Auxiliary) and boys (Royal Ambassadors). Young adults also began meeting in the 1890s, a Baptist expression of the proliferation of similar groups nationwide. John Higham, Writing American History: Essays on Modern Scholarship (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1970), p. 77. The highlight of their activities was a summer retreat, held first at LaPorte, then at Palacios after 1906. Ministers had been organized since the consolidation of the state bodies and gathered annually just prior to the convention; R. C. Buckner brought together deacons to assist with his orphanage. The formation in 1922 of the Baptist Laymen's Union for adult males incorporated the final group into the organized ranks of mission soldiers. Concurrently the Sunday School Convention was marked by a similar pattern of age grading and institutionalization of materials and methods. Designations like "A-1 Schools" and "Standards of Excellence," teacher training normals, and statistics of every kind—the marks of standardization and centralization of authority—proliferated in reports of all divisions of the denominational enterprise.