On June 16, Mount Pisgah Missionary Baptist Church known to its members as The Rock will celebrate 160 years of faithful Christian service and ministry.

While there is healthy discussion, Mount Pisgah member Elyse Clark said that among the closely connected African American churches in Dallas County that legitimately hold the title of oldest church, Mount Pisgah has records supporting their claim.

The congregation also has a Texas Historical Commission marker commemorating its legacy.

Mount Pisgah was founded on the third Sunday in June — June 19 — of 1864, when a few enslaved people and Robert Fabius Butler, a white circuit preacher from Richardson, met under a large elm tree in the town of Alpha, in Upper White Rock, to establish a church.

The congregation named the church Mount Pisgah from Deuteronomy 34:1. The newest pastor of the oldest African American church in Dallas County, S. Micheal Greene, said there are no records explaining why that name was chosen. But he speculated the hope of the Promised Land might have resonated with enslaved people in Texas in 1864.

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