Portraits of the Pulpit is a new recurring feature for BrownwoodNews.com and will highlight a different church and pastor every week. If you would like your church to be included, please email us at ben@mitdil1.dream.press
Written by Ben Cox – Union Presbyterian Church’s pastor, Doug House, has been in the pulpit for over two years after moving to the area from Kansas City in late 2015. A Texas native, House was born in Port Arthur and came to preaching after a career in accounting.
Visible from atop the Austin Avenue overpass, the church sits close to the corner of Fisk and Austin Avenues in Brownwood. The large, white columns that adorn the front of the church give it a traditional, yet warm and familiar appearance.
House describes the Presbyterian faith by quoting the Apostle Paul, as a belief “in doing things decently and in order.” Members of the church believe that “There is a God, and God loves us deeply,” according to House.
The term “presbytery” means a geographic area where a group of churches have decided to be in a relationship together.” Union Presbyterian is a part of the Palo Duro Presbytery, which includes churches from the panhandle area of Texas to Brownwood, which rests on the southern-most border of the group.
House’s mother played piano in the church, so he attended faithfully as a child. However, he left the Presbyterian church at 18 because he “felt it was crutch” and that he didn’t need it.
He later fell into a bout with alcoholism that he has now been free from for over 30 years. House credits a counselor that his sister recommended with helping him regain his sobriety.
House felt an emptiness after only a few months sober, and began “a grand experiment” involving the church. Seeking an answer to questions like “How has the church held together for 2,000 years if it is just a bunch of people with a dark side? Shouldn’t there be a God there if the church can hold together?”
House chose a small Presbyterian church that he had never been to, and began his experiment looking for God in the church.
After over a year and a half, he realized the church’s congregation was continually praying for a small child with leukemia. “It seemed atrocious to me that a 4 year old should die of leukemia” and that spurred him into action.
He felt called to begin a writing ministry, writing original poetry on postcards that he would mail to the girl and her family. House feels that he “gained a lot more than I gave.”
He quoted, from memory, one of those poems:
The presence that you have today, suppose you gave a smile away
By discipline you do your chore, to give away for evermore
Or might the mirror disagree, sure hope of happy day you see
To give but have and have to give, appreciation for to live
That by a curving dimpled look, the power wielded not mistook
That all to whom a smile you gave, are now a happy days hope slave
House says he felt he had to do this. What was an attempt to be a support for a family in a time of trial and suffering, led to the beginning of a lifelong ministry.
House urges “anyone who has questions, has doubts, is lonely…come take a look and try.”
The church has several outreach programs, including a book study at 4 p.m. on Tuesdays. At noon on Wednesdays the church offers what it calls Soaking Prayer. The term, which was coined by a former pastor, is described by church elder Gene Deason as “a time of quietness” to pray and be bathed in prayer.
Thursdays see the church offer a BLT & Bible study at noon. House, a self described bacon lover, jokingly says he started the meeting because Presbyterians “are also caffeterians, and like to eat at many of our functions.”
Union Presbyterian Church came to be when Cumberland Presbyterian, the first church organized in Brownwood, joined with 1st Presbyterian Church in 1967. 1st Presbyterian was looking for a new building after a fire claimed their original building and Cumberland Presbyterian Church was in search of a pastor at the time.
Both churches decided to should band together and create a new church, hence the name Union Presbyterian. The original churches founded in the the 1870’s give Union roots that go far back to the original church-goers of Brownwood.
Sunday school is at 9:15 every Sunday, followed by the worship service at 10:30. Those interested in the church can visit their website, call the church office at 325-646-8569, or come to Sunday service.
