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 – Known locally for his humor and love for Aggie football, Tim Skaggs is the lead pastor at Coggin Avenue Baptist Church. Born and raised in Midland, Skaggs says he has been attending church since 9 months before his birth.
Feeling a call to ministry in youth, Skaggs and his wife Jamie married after one year of college at Angelo State University, and pursued a career in the church. After working in the oilfield for a short time to save money to pay for seminary, 1st Baptist DeLeon contacted Skaggs to work as music and youth director while allowing him to commute to Fort Worth twice a week as he worked to finish his degree.
Skaggs later moved to Bryan/College Station to work in student ministry at Central Baptist Church in “good ole Aggieland” as he refers to the area. After his daughter graduated high school, Skaggs took the role of Associate Pastor at Central Baptist.
He credits Rick Cavett with his move to Brownwood and taking the lead pastor position with Coggin. After getting to know Cavett while taking their respective church’s kids to joint camps at Hardin Simmons, he suggested that Skaggs apply for the newly-vacated position at Coggin.
Arriving to take the lead role at Coggin in August of 2006, Skaggs had never actually planned to become a lead pastor. Having planned to “stay in Aggieland and retire.” Skaggs thought since he had no experience leading a church that the Coggin pastoral search committee would “not even look at me.”
After being offered the job after the committee met, he says that “when it was all said and done, it just felt like the Lord was leading me to take that step… and so far it’s worked out well.”
Coggin Avenue Baptist Church is a large church in Southern Baptist circles. Skaggs says “the average church in the Southern Baptist convention (has) about a… couple hundred members,” and Coggin has over 1,000 in attendance every weekend.
Skaggs says he has asked people in the community what they think of when they think of Coggin. He says the most common responses are youth ministry. He credits youth leader Rick Cavett, who was instrumental in bringing Skaggs to the church, with the ministry’s success.
Community involvement, mission work – both local and abroad – are also key features of the church’s outreach programs. The church sponsors missionaries in other countries, but also supports a missions team who’s sole focus is reaching out to Brownwood’s unchurched population.
Love Brownwood Ministries is a Brownwood-focused program run by Chris and Amanda Stuard that teaches parenting classes once a week. They also hold a backyard bible club once a month during the school year with increased meetings over the summer, as well as look for other ways to reach out to the local population
Located on Coggin Avenue, between 5th and 7th streets, Coggin has two Sunday worship services, at 8:30 and 11:00 with Bible Study at 9:45. More information about the church can be found on their website.
