About Greater Bosqueville Baptist church

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Pastor Ron L. English

Ron has served as pastor of Greater Bosqueville Baptist Church since September 2008. He was born and raised in Houston, Texas and graduated from Willowridge High School. He graduated from Baylor University with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in management. In the fall of 1996, he began attending Baylor’s George W. Truett Seminary, where he earned a master of divinity degree in theology.

Ron currently works at Baylor University in the Paul L. Foster Success Center as the Strategic Intervention Program Manager. His work at Baylor is focused on connecting students with resources and the necessary tools to maximize their academic performance. In his leisure time, Ron enjoys playing with his two sons, reading, a good movie, and exercising. He also enjoys taking photographs and videos to create little “movies” that capture memories. He will do almost anything his sons want to try if they request his support (like roller coasters, jumping in the ocean, entering dark caves, and enduring large crowds). The joy comes from time spent with his children.

Ron’s wife, Alexia, spent most of her formative years in Houston as well. She earned her bachelor of arts degree from Baylor University in speech communication and completed the master’s degree in apologetics from Houston Baptist University. Lady Lexi, as she is affectionately known at church, works at Baylor in The Career Network where they focus on students being employed upon graduation. She is an integral part of Greater Bosqueville and has shown throughout the years that she is willing to make sacrifices for the ministry growth in the church. She has served as the music director for all choirs and she started the current children’s ministry, Kids Improved by Christ’s Kingdom (KICK).

Both Pastor Ron and Lady Lexi are grateful to God for the opportunity to serve Him with the wonderful people at Greater Bosqueville Baptist Church.

Ministry Leaders

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Syeeda Echols

Minister of Children & Youth
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Matthew L. Davis

Minister of Music
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Robert Stevenson

Men's Minister

Greater Bosqueville's Five Purposes

Worship

Magnifying God's name

Reach

Sharing the Gospel through love

Teach

Equipping God's people for ministry

Grow

Developing Christians to model His character

Serve

Ministering to the needs of the community

History of GBBC

By most accounts, less than 100 people lived in the Bosqueville community before 1854. The 1860 census indicated the population of Bosqueville was 531 and 238 of those were slaves. Bosqueville’s earliest African American residents came to Bosqueville as slaves and they usually worshipped with the white churches. In 1859 The Trinity River Baptist Association recommended separate preaching services for the slaves by their own preachers and on their own day of worship.

After the Emancipation Proclamation of 1865 secured the freedom of the slaves in Bosqueville, the slave congregation in Bosqueville churches separated from the white-dominated churches. The freed slaves formed what was known as the Bosqueville Baptist Colored Church and the Waco Baptist Association supported them in this. By 1870, black membership was obsolete in white churches in McLennan County.

Bosqueville Baptist Colored Church’s first meeting place was the campground alongside the Bosque River. Another site was under an oak tree located to the west and across the road from the current church. The church’s oldest member, Lewyn Weaver, remembers worshipping under the tree.

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The church is recorded as being a member of Willow Grove Sunday School Convention in 1907. In 1917, the second frame church was built. In 1928, the Greater Bosqueville Cemetery was purchased. In 1966, land was purchased under the name of Greater Bosqueville Baptist Church. The facility built at that time continues to serve the church and the community.

The Greater Bosqueville Baptist Church congregation, families, and community’s quality of life has been significantly enhanced through the presence of the church for more than 150 years. The African-American Community in Bosqueville was very close. The African-American School was across the road and to the west. It is likely that all of these students were a part of the church. The Bosqueville School Girls’ basketball team of 1948 was Central Texas Champions.

In recent years, the church has taken family bus trips, including a Civil Rights tour to Alabama, a trip to Macon and Savannah, Georgia, and a trip to Tulsa to visit the site of the 1921 Race Riots and Black Wallstreet, then onto Kansas City to see the National Blacks Baseball Museum, the American Jazz Museum and the Federal Reserve Bank.

Greater Bosqueville Baptist Church today – a historical landmark in Bosqueville. The church continues to be a lighthouse, not only for the African-American community, but for all of Bosqueville.