History
Greenville Bible Church started as a home church on October 26, 1995, at the residence of Jake and Mary Shelton. The other families involved were Glen and Phyllis Onley, Bobby and Jane Wolfe, Gus and Judy Paulson, and Danny and Janie Crenshaw and their daughter Eugenia, Carl and Sherri Farmer, Selena Traverse, Robin (Hargrove) Howell, Melissa Wrinkle, and Annie Falconer. After a few weeks, the church rented the clubhouse at Dixon Club Lake. It offered more space, but everyone had to meet in the same room for Sunday School as well as church.
Jim Corbet started November 11, 1995, on an interim basis and became our first pastor on March 3, 1996. The church soon outgrew Dixon Club Lake and started meeting at the Fletcher Warren Civic Center. Glen Onley led worship and Annie Falconer played her keyboard. We added members like Scott and Nancy Gibson, Steve and Donna Barrett, Dale and Joy Phillips, Robert and Claudia Brewer, and Tammy Workman. These families had children, and our church began adding Sunday School teachers for all age groups. Because we were using temporary facilities, we had to set up the sound system and move equipment for two years. Due to a fire, the Civic Center had to close; and we moved to Cleek Retreat. Steve Barrett began leading worship with Amy Barrett playing the piano. We still met in homes on Sunday and Wednesday evenings for Bible study. During this time, we had a family church camp at Beavers Bend in Oklahoma. In 1997 the church began supporting Dan and Peggy Agee and Jon and Becky Woodworth as our missionaries.
The church continued to grow, and we began looking for land to build our first building. We purchased 7 acres of land on Traders Road for $20,000 in 1998. Walker McDonald was closing their business and gave the church three metal buildings and anything else we wanted. Jake stored many of the materials at his lumber yard, and Jimmy Cummings kept the metal buildings at his shop. We endured two years of the city council rejecting our plans and passing ordinances that went against our proposed building. There were some problems with securing the Cleek Retreat for another year, so GBC had to look for another building. Ridgecrest Hispanic Mission was selling their building on Jack Finney Boulevard. At the time, it was under contract, and it seemed it would be impossible to purchase that location. Our church began praying, and one Tuesday evening the missions committee from Ridgecrest Baptist Church called and told us the other contract had fallen through and we could purchase the property. We were able to sell the land on Traders Road for $50,000, the metal buildings and all the materials for another $50,000, and purchase the church for $125,000 on November 26, 2001. We used a portion of the money for remodeling, and Ridgecrest Baptist Church financed $50,000 at 4% interest for 5 years. Our new location was 5901 Jack Finney Boulevard. There were many renovations needed. Robert Brewer and Pastor Jim flew to Florida and purchased some fairly new pews from a church and transported them back to Greenville. Shortly after purchasing the building Annie approached the church about supporting Good News Clubs through Child Evangelism Fellowship. It was the beginning of a mission opportunity that would lead to several hundred children being saved and many other churches joining in to start clubs in each elementary school in Greenville, Texas. During this time, we began supporting the Jack Mills Evangelistic Association. Bro. Jack was Phyllis Onley’s uncle. Pastor Jim took several mission trips to Ukraine with the Jack Mills Evangelistic Association, and GBC helped build 12 churches in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. Over 100,000 Bibles were distributed, and over 12,000 people came to know Jesus through those trips.
In 2003, Marcia and Joni Corbet went on a mission trip to Trujillo, Peru. GBC also did mission work in Oaxaca, Mexico, with Dan and Peggie Agee. In 2005, Pastor Jim and James Cross, our youth pastor, traveled to Kenya to help Jon and Becky Woodworth with some building projects. Loren Everett served as our worship leader, and Carol Everett was our church pianist. Chris Elliott was our organist. In 2006, Matt Reynolds served as our youth pastor; and we later licensed him into the ministry.
In 2007 we were given the opportunity to begin a ministry with our local National Guard. Alpha Company was being deployed to Iraq. We provided a meal and worship service for their deployment dinner. We also had a photographer available to take family pictures. In case they needed any emergency services, we provided legal aid and a list of contractors for all the families. We partnered with Highland Terrace Baptist Church and provided support for the soldiers and their families for the duration of the deployment. It was a glorious day when they returned in March 2008 with no casualties. We have continued to support the National Guard through two other deployments.
On July 12, 2010, Doris Laramee, one of our members, died and willed her home to Greenville Bible Church. We sold the property to Glen and Phyllis Onley. Many of our men had recently retired so we were looking for a place to invest the money. Bill and Janice Sherman were selling some property on the newly developed Roy Warren Parkway. We purchased the 5 acres for $45,000 on June 21, 2011. Even though we had no plans to build, in November of 2011 American National Bank asked if we would sell our property on FM 1507. The bank offered to purchase the church buildings and property for $230,000 and allow us to sell all the buildings and contents. We were also given 18 months rent-free to build another church. The sale was finalized in January of 2012. We began looking at plans and by February were able to begin making calls to different Volunteer Christian Builders groups. The estimated cost of the building and parking lot was $850,000. We had $285,000 in our building fund. As we prayed, God began to answer. In March we were contacted by two different groups that would help get everything dried in if we could have the foundation poured by the end of May. It seldom happens that more than one group of builders shows up for a project in the same year. However, another group contacted us and told us that one of their projects was cancelled. We had a groundbreaking dedication in April, and the foundations for both buildings and the parking lot were poured in early May 2012. We moved our fellowship hall to the new building site, and it served as a construction office and dining hall during construction.
The first crew, based out of Missouri with Lonnie Stansbury as the crew chief, arrived on June 17, 2012, and had a lot of the main structure completed the first week. The second group, Volunteer Christian Builders from FBC Henderson, Texas, arrived on July 1, 2012, with Shannon Coates as the crew leader. By the end of the week the main structure was ready for a roof. Both groups put scripture passages on all the studs of the building. A local roofing contractor, Mike Watts, allowed his crew to come and install the shingles the next week. He only charged the church their hourly wages to install the roof.
The City of Greenville required us to landscape. We received a call from Glen Beck’s organization, Mercury One, and asked if we needed any volunteers to do landscaping. We had not approached them about this, but Mr. Beck was doing a rally in Dallas and was sending the participants into the communities to do volunteer work. This was an unexpected blessing. When the group arrived, many who were supposed to go to a nursing home to volunteer were sent to the church by mistake. One of the families owned an insulation company in Michigan and volunteered to hang insulation while the others worked on landscaping. God has a way of supplying all our needs according to His riches in glory (Philippians 4:19).
In August a group from the Texas Baptist Builders arrived to do brick work on the church. As unusual as it is to have two groups, it’s almost unheard of to have three groups of volunteers working on the church in the same year. A local sheetrock contractor, Merle Little, offered to allow his crew to install the sheetrock for $3 per sheet. Within a few weeks the building was completely sheet rocked, taped and bedded, and ready to be painted. September and October were days filled with painting and installing floors, cabinets, and other fixtures.
We had our dedication service on Sunday morning, November 4, 2012. It had taken less than 10 months from the time we had the plans until the building was completed. Duane Farrow served as our worship leader, and his wife Betty was the church pianist. The total cost of the building project was $350,000. The church borrowed $90,000 from American National Bank, and that note was paid off in September of 2019. Micah McBay was serving as our worship leader at this time, and Wesley and Kay-Lin Mahand were serving as our youth ministers. In June 2019 we hired Carlisle Mott as our pianist.
2020 was a challenging year due to the Covid outbreak. We lost some beloved members, like Tim and Carla Bryant and Bob Smith. Several in our church came down with Covid. We never closed the doors of the church during this time, which caused us to get creative with our services. We began broadcasting our services through Facebook and even had some services in our parking lot. By Easter of 2020, we were back to having Sunday School and worship services in our main building. At this time, we started a ministry for nurses and doctors at Hunt Regional Hospital in Greenville. At least once a week we provided meals for the ICU staff. We also provided some special respirators to protect them as they worked. I believe we also provided hope and peace, knowing that Christ’s presence was with them. Glenn Nicholson became our worship leader on July 19, 2020. Despite Covid, 2020 was a year of significant growth both numerically and spiritually. Phrases like, “Faith over Fear” and “Normal Isn’t Coming Back, but Jesus Is,” helped us through the darkness and uncertainty of the pandemic.
In April 2021 the sanctuary was enlarged. The building was designed to eventually create more space by removing the walls of the pastor’s office and one Sunday School room. No money was borrowed for this renovation. This increased our seating from 100 to 175. We also had to expand our parking lot. As always, our ministries expanded as well. We began supporting more missionaries. In June 2023, Pastor Jim started serving as our full-time pastor. Until then, he had been a bi-vocational pastor. We began a Grief Share Ministry and started Trail Life Troop 2520 to help young boys become Christian men.
This is the history of Greenville Bible Church from its beginning in 1996 until now. There have been many who have come and stayed, while others have left to serve elsewhere. Some have even left and come back. Some have gone on to be with the Lord. Through it all, Jesus has been faithful. Prayer has been such an integral part of the life of Greenville Bible Church. It has connected us with many people throughout the world and opened doors so that we can discover and walk in God’s will. As you’ve read about our past, we invite you to become a part of our future and discover what God has in store for those who yield themselves completely to His will.