Weaver named pastor at 1st Baptist Church Slaton
By Melissa McCaghren
Slatonite GM
First Baptist Church Slaton had an interim pastor for a little over a year, searching for the man who would lead the congregation full time.
Its search committee found one – Darren Weaver, who was approved unanimously by the church
Weaver, who moved to Slaton from Forsan, has been married 32 years to wife Holly and has a son, Matt.
He said he was called to Slaton after feeling he needed to focus his calling.
“Our population in Forsan at the church was shrinking because we had a lot of members that were moving off to be with their kids, and it’s very, very traditional church the way it was originally set up,” he said. “There were not a lot of programs for kids or young families. So as people got older, and they were moving off to be closer to their kids for extended care, then we didn’t have really a great way to replenish our church’s population because we didn’t have anything for kids. So we started looking at it from a standpoint of just trying to do maintenance to keep the church going,” he said.
By Melissa McCaghren
Slatonite GM
First Baptist Church Slaton had an interim pastor for a little over a year, searching for the man who would lead the congregation full time.
Its search committee found one – Darren Weaver, who was approved unanimously by the church
Weaver, who moved to Slaton from Forsan, has been married 32 years to wife Holly and has a son, Matt.
He said he was called to Slaton after feeling he needed to focus his calling.
“Our population in Forsan at the church was shrinking because we had a lot of members that were moving off to be with their kids, and it’s very, very traditional church the way it was originally set up,” he said. “There were not a lot of programs for kids or young families. So as people got older, and they were moving off to be closer to their kids for extended care, then we didn’t have really a great way to replenish our church’s population because we didn’t have anything for kids. So we started looking at it from a standpoint of just trying to do maintenance to keep the church going,” he said.
Weaver started teaching for a time to give the church relief on finances. He taught eighth grade social studies, high school engineering, high school humanities class and at one time sixth grade leadership and technology
Then, COVID hit, which affected both education and the church, the latter of which saw the church reduce in size again. “We were beginning to get to the point where we were starting to consider long term you know, how do we keep the doors open? If we don’t keep the doors open? What are we going to do to close it down?,” he said. “The whole time I was teaching and then we had another group of people that came to us and said, We have a big group of people like 60 people, but we don’t have a church. We they had split off from another church. And we said well, we have a church, but we need the people. So we brought this big group of people in and they had a pastor that they were bringing with them.”
Weaver went into an executive role, and while some people left because of the change from more traditional worship to contemporary, there was “life” in the church with new members.
He added though this also taught him the executive role may not have been what “God had intended for me.” “I would fill in when the other pastor was gone, but I just didn’t feel like it was doing exactly what God had originally called me to do,” he said, adding more changes came along and he again assumed the executive role. “The ministry that I had at the school was really important. At that time, our youth group was comprised of so many of the students that I had taught, and so the youth group was going really strong. And I didn’t want to take a chance of losing that by leaving teaching right away,” he said.
But after the transitioning last year, the Weavers started feeling it was time to return and resume the duties originally placed on their hearts.
For more information, please read the Thursday edition of The Slatonite
