An Open Letter to my home church, Dry Creek Baptist Church
An Open Letter to my Home Church, Dry Creek Baptist Church:
The most important man you never knew.
Robert Evans
October 26, 1943- January 8, 2025
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.”
–The Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 3:16
Other than a few of us, no one remembers the name of Bob Evans and his wife, Marcia.
Bro. Bob, as he was affectionately known, became Dry Creek’s pastor in 1968. He only served for four years before returning to pastor in the Carolinas, where he continued serving, with over 42 years as pastor of First Baptist Church in Granite Falls, North Carolina.
I view Bob Evans’s pastorate as the most consequential period in our church. The church he and Marcia arrived in 1968 was much different when he left four years later.
Bob Evans was a 25-year-old student at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. His young wife Marcia (produced “Marsha”) had an infant son, Rob. Their second son, Mark, was born during their time with us.
I’m not sure how he came to Dry Creek’s attention. If I remember correctly, his name was plucked from a seminary list of possible pastors.
Regardless, it was a match made in heaven.
Bro. Bob was a full-time student at the Seminary, drove a school bus during the week, arrived in Dry Creek on Friday night, spent the weekend ministering and preaching in Dry Creek, and arrived home late Sunday night in New Orleans to repeat this cycle.
Soon, Bro. Bob and Marcia Evans were enveloped in love by Dry Creek Baptist Church. One of the things I love about my home church is that it’s in our DNA to surround new pastors and their families with warm love and support.
This was especially true of this young couple, who looked as if they had just left their high school prom—they looked that young!
Bro. Bob could preach. He was a man of the Word and led Dry Creek into a deeper love of the scriptures that stretches to this day.
Several earthshaking events (at least in Dry Creek Church history) occurred beginning in 1968.
First of all, our church moved locations.
The Encampment surrounded the old Dry Creek Baptist Church on a measly two acres. Although a healthy relationship existed between the Camp and the Church, there was no room for growth. The old white wood-frame building sat approximately between the Camp and post Office parking lots and beneath the giant cherry bark oak that still stands by the Camp entrance today. The present Camp Office was the church’s educational building.
Our “Old Church” was beloved in spite of it being shivering cold in winter and windows-open hot in summer.
By the 1960’s, Dry Creek Baptist Church was slowly shrinking. Many of its young people were moving on to lives beyond the borders of Beauregard Parish.
It was a landlocked church with a dwindling congregation. One Baptist Building leader described it as “dying on the vine.”
Although I was a young teenager, his description highly offended me. However, if one stepped away, it was true.
The church, under the leadership of Bro. Bob Evans decided to relocate.
If Dry Creek Baptist Church was ever going to grow, it had to leave its location.
Although I was only a young, curious teenager, I carefully observed this process. It was difficult for the older members, as it was the only building they’d ever known. “The Old Church had been the site of funerals, weddings, Christmas cantatas, and (unbearably long) fifth Sunday night singings.
However, these elderly saints did not block this move. They realized this was the right thing to do. Their faces still run across my mind as I remember each of them, and I thank God for their openness to move and grow.
The biggest decision was what direction to move. Towards Reeves or the School on Highway 113.
Or west on LA 394 towards the “growing part” of Dry Creek and the newly-built Bundick Lake.
A member of the extended Miller family donated the triangle-shaped parcel where Greentown Road and 394 meet.
It’s the land we are on now. The “Church with the White Cross” on the front of it had a new location and elbow room to grow.
Under Bob Evans as pastor, the church began to grow steadily. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was exciting.
As I mentioned earlier, he was a strong preacher, but his most outstanding trait was how he and Marcia accepted Dry Creek folks into their hearts. Our rural people reciprocated in kind.
Churches don’t grow without a good leader, and Bob Evans was the right leader for this time.
Another event occurred that I attribute to the exponential growth that began at that time:
Dry Creek Baptist Church bought Monette Lindsey’s old school bus. It had seen better days. The men painted it white, and despite constant backfiring and emitting mosquito-killing smoke, it began picking up anyone, especially youth, who needed a ride to church.
This began the longstanding tradition where young people were welcomed into the open arms of a remarkable church.
I’ll be honest. Bus kids were trouble. They weren’t house-broken for church but were loved the same. Daddy worked with the R.A. Boys and insisted it stood for “Rowdy Apes.”
Much of the present membership of Dry Creek Baptist Church can trace their spiritual roots to a series of old buses and vans bringing young people to church.
The pastor of this new building and gaggle of young people was Bro. Bob Evans.
It is no accident that our present pastor, Charlie Bailey, is a product of that van ministry.
Dry Creek Church has always proven that you can’t outgive God. This was true in 1968, and it remains true in 2025.
He especially mentored young men. Bruce Butts, pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church, was one of many mentored by Bro. Bob.
He was my pastor during my early teen years, a key time in my spiritual journey. I maintained a friendship with Bro. Bob at Granite Falls until a cruel enemy called Alzheimer’s robbed him of the man we loved.
.
The night in 1972 when Bro. Bob announced they were leaving for a church in the Carolinas, which was one of the saddest in my life. I can take you to the exact spot in the old church where I heard the news.
I recall my father’s stoic words, “I’m not letting myself get this close to a pastor again. It hurts too much to lose one.”
Daddy didn’t keep his word, and I’m glad. For the remainder of his life, he was a friend of pastors.
But I don’t think he ever bonded with another pastor like his relationship with Bro. Bob Evans.
I’m nearly seventy, and I still consider Bob Evans, along with my Dad, as the greatest mentors in my life.
Bro. Bob did what every great leader does. He left a much better place than he’d found it.
That place was called Dry Creek Baptist Church.
I thank God for his life.
Bob Evans. One of the most important people in the line of Godly men and women who’ve served in a place I love deeply called Dry Creek.
Creekbank Stories Curt Iles, Storyteller
