Temple Baptist Church invites you to join us Sunday, November 8, as we celebrate 100 years of God’s faithfulness. We will have a blended service at 9 a.m. and a contemporary worship service at 10:30 a.m. And grab a piece of birthday cake immediately following each service!
by Wesley Harris
There was nothing particularly impressive about Temple Baptist Church’s first building. The walls were little more than a framework of two-by-fours covered with tarpaper. There was no towering steeple, no elaborate sanctuary, and certainly nothing to suggest the modest structure on West Alabama Avenue would be the beginning of one of Ruston’s largest churches.
But the congregation had something more important than an impressive building. It had people determined to establish a church, even if they had to worship in a building that looked more like a construction project than a house of worship.
One hundred years later, Temple Baptist Church is celebrating a century of growth that took it from that tarpaper-covered building to a sprawling campus overlooking Interstate 20.
The transformation did not happen overnight. Over the decades, the little church on West Alabama Avenue grew into a complex of buildings that eventually occupied the entire city block. When Temple finally moved to its present location, it left behind a property that reflected generations of construction, expansion, and changing needs.
Humble beginnings
Temple Baptist Church was established in 1926, when Ruston was a much smaller community. Calvin Coolidge was president, Louisiana Tech was still known as Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, and the automobile was gradually changing how Americans traveled and lived.
Ruston was growing, but the town had not yet experienced the expansion that would come in the decades following World War II.
Against that backdrop, Temple’s congregation began worshiping in its simple building on West Alabama Avenue.
The contrast between the first building and what followed is striking. A congregation that began under tarpaper would eventually construct facilities accommodating hundreds of worshipers, Sunday school classes, and an expanding assortment of church activities.
As membership increased, the original building gave way to more substantial construction. Additional buildings followed, and the church gradually spread across the block.
The West Alabama Avenue property became a familiar part of Ruston’s landscape. Generations of children attended Sunday school there. Families gathered for weddings, funerals, revivals, and holiday programs. Members who had known the church as children returned as adults, sometimes bringing children and grandchildren of their own.
A changing town, a growing church
Temple’s first century unfolded during a remarkable period in Ruston’s history.
When the congregation began, much of the town’s business activity was concentrated downtown. The railroad remained an important link to the outside world, and Louisiana Polytechnic Institute was still developing into the university it would become.
The Great Depression arrived just three years after Temple’s founding. World War II followed, sending young men from Ruston and Lincoln Parish into military service and bringing significant changes to the home front.
After the war, Ruston expanded. New neighborhoods developed, automobile traffic increased, and Interstate 20 eventually reshaped the town’s commercial geography.
Through those changes, Temple continued to grow.
The church’s expansion on West Alabama Avenue was a physical record of that growth. What began as a makeshift structure eventually became a collection of permanent buildings occupying an entire block.
One of Temple’s most memorable traditions was its Singing Christmas Tree, an elaborate holiday production that brought the Christmas story to life through music. Choir members performed from a towering, tree-shaped structure decorated with lights, creating a spectacle that drew audiences from surrounding communities. More than a seasonal concert, the Singing Christmas Tree gave Temple a distinctive way to share the Gospel and the message of Christ’s birth.
For longtime members, the old property was more than a collection of bricks and mortar. It was the place where friendships began, families worshiped together, and countless personal milestones were observed.
But as the congregation continued expanding, the limitations of the downtown property became increasingly apparent.
A new home on the interstate
The most visible change in Temple’s history came when the congregation relocated from West Alabama Avenue to its present campus along Interstate 20.
The new facilities opened in January 1998, during the pastorate of Dr. Robert Magee.
The move represented a dramatic departure from the church’s beginnings. Instead of occupying a downtown block assembled through decades of additions, Temple now had a campus designed to accommodate a large congregation and a broad range of ministries.
The location also made the church one of the most visible religious landmarks in Ruston. Magee compared the church’s prominent setting to a city on a hill, an image drawn from the biblical Sermon on the Mount.
For a congregation that had begun behind walls of tarpaper, the comparison carried particular meaning.
More than Sunday mornings
Over the years, Temple developed programs reaching well beyond traditional worship services.
Its college ministry has served generations of students attending Louisiana Tech University and Grambling State University. Other ministries have focused on children, families, senior adults, and individuals seeking counseling or assistance.
Temple also became involved in mission projects and church planting, supporting new congregations in communities across the United States.
Closer to home, the church’s LoveLincoln Freedom Fest has brought residents together for patriotic music, fireworks, and community fellowship.
The activities illustrate the church’s expanding role. What began as a congregation meeting in a rudimentary building became an institution with programs serving people of different ages and backgrounds.
Preparing for the centennial
Temple began another major construction project in January 2025, this time renovating the sanctuary and adjoining areas of its I-20 campus.
The work included improvements to the sanctuary, foyer, first-floor hallways, and a gathering space called Connections Corner.
The congregation returned to the renovated sanctuary in August 2025, completing a major improvement in advance of its 100th anniversary.
Executive Pastor Jason Walsworth said renovating the sanctuary before the centennial had been a goal in the church’s strategic planning.
The project marked the first major renovation of the sanctuary since the current campus opened in 1998.
Temple also invited members and former members to contribute memories and devotional writings for a commemorative anniversary book. A separate project gathered a century’s worth of photographs for a published pictorial history.
Those recollections provide a different kind of church history, one that cannot be measured in square footage, construction costs, or membership totals.
A century in the making
The people who first gathered on West Alabama Avenue in 1926 could scarcely have imagined the Ruston of 2026.
They lived in a town without Interstate 20, without many of today’s neighborhoods and businesses, and without the modern campus Temple now occupies.
They could not have known how large their congregation would become or how many families would pass through its doors over the next century.
The church survived the Depression, a world war, changing generations, and the inevitable challenges that come with a growing congregation.
Its buildings changed repeatedly. Its pastors and members came and went. The community surrounding it changed almost beyond recognition.
Yet the congregation established in that tarpaper-covered structure remained.
A hundred years after its founding, Temple Baptist Church’s history can be traced from a few two-by-fours on West Alabama Avenue to a campus visible from one of Louisiana’s busiest highways.
It is quite a journey for a church that started with little beyond a congregation willing to begin.
