Meadow Oaks Baptist Church sits on a full city block along Meadow Oaks Drive in Temple, Texas, a congregation that has grown from five founding members in 1959 into a Christ-centered community of grace and faith known for its blended worship, mission-minded children and youth, and deep partnerships with food pantries, family shelters, and global relief efforts across Bell County and beyond.
Organized in 1959, Built in 1960
Meadow Oaks Baptist Church was organized on October 4, 1959. Five founding members first met in a building on the corner of 57th Street and Avenue M in Temple, and the new congregation immediately called Rev. Charles Tatum to serve as its first pastor. Within months, the church had begun construction on a permanent home: in January 1960, ground was broken at 3001 Meadow Oaks Drive on three acres of land donated by Mr. and Mrs. Ira Young. By the end of May 1960, a two-story brick building was finished and housed all the activities of the church.
The property grew alongside the congregation. In 1966, the church built a sanctuary and a connecting education wing and remodeled the original building into education space. Over time, the church acquired the adjoining lots to create a full city block for future growth and added a three-bedroom parsonage to house the pastor's family. In 1992, a fellowship hall was constructed, giving the church a kitchen and a large open area for meetings and shared meals. That fellowship hall remains the gathering place after Sunday worship and on Wednesday evenings.
Worship That Holds Hymns, Anthems, and Gospel Songs Together
Sunday morning worship at Meadow Oaks is shaped by thoughtful preaching, scripture readings, responsive readings, and dramatic monologues, along with music drawn from many traditions. The congregation sings traditional hymns and choral anthems as well as folk songs, spirituals, gospel songs, and global choruses. Children are invited to read and sing along with adults, and members of all ages are welcomed into the leadership of the service.
Sunday School meets before the service each week, with classes for every age, and worship follows at 11:00 a.m. in the sanctuary at 3001 Meadow Oaks Drive. Services are recorded and shared on YouTube and as a podcast on Spotify for those who want to watch or listen later in the week.
A Baptist Identity Rooted in the 1963 Faith and Message
Meadow Oaks describes itself as a Christ-centered community guided by the call to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, a phrase drawn from Micah 6:8 and used as the church's motto. The congregation aligns with the 1963 Baptist Faith and Message as its general theological outlook and affirms the historic Baptist tenets of justification by faith, the priesthood of the believer, soul competency, freedom in Christ, and the autonomy of the local church.
The church is affiliated with three Baptist bodies: the Bell Baptist Association, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Its statements of belief also reach outward. Meadow Oaks teaches that racism is contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ and that women and men can be called by God to serve in all leadership roles in the church, including as pastors and deacons.
Believer's baptism, practiced at Meadow Oaks, is described as a voluntary decision to follow Christ and a public profession of faith that knits a believer to Christ and to the congregation.
Music Across Many Traditions
Music is a defining feature of worship at Meadow Oaks. The church's music director leads a program that includes traditional hymns, choral anthems, gospel songs, global choruses, handbell choirs, and vocal ensembles. Whether the moment is congregational singing, a violin solo, or a piano prelude, music adds an important dimension to worship, the church says.
The music director is also a licensed Musikgarten teacher and uses the sacred Musikgarten curriculum with preschoolers at the church. She holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of Houston and did post-graduate work at the University of Louisville, and she plays violin in the Temple Symphony Orchestra and the Waco Symphony Orchestra.
Children, Youth, and a Mission-Focused Summer
Children's and youth ministry at Meadow Oaks is built around Bible study, music, and missions, and the scope of the program ebbs and flows with the congregation's needs. Preschoolers participate in Musikgarten, while older children take part in graded mission studies and choirs. Each summer the church hosts a mission camp where children engage in age-appropriate mission activities, learn scripture, and build relationships with senior adults in the church.
The church also welcomes neighborhood children through a Fall Festival on Halloween and an Easter Egg Hunt on the Saturday of Easter weekend. Youth at Meadow Oaks join in Sunday Bible study and Wednesday discipleship, and the church makes a point of involving them in mission trips alongside families, retirees, and single adults. The whole congregation often travels together, and youth are encouraged to participate fully in congregational worship by reading scripture, singing in the choir, working with sound equipment, or leading a responsive reading.
Wednesday Suppers and Bible Study
Wednesday evenings are a second weekly gathering time at Meadow Oaks. Supper is served at 5:45 p.m., followed at 6:15 p.m. by adult and youth Bible study, children's music, and children's missions. The supper costs $7 per adult or $20 per family, and the time together is described as a key way the church practices fellowship.
After Sunday worship, the congregation moves to the fellowship hall for cookies, coffee, and conversation. The church also hosts book clubs and other informal gatherings during the week, describing fellowship in the early Christian sense of partnership. Simply being present together, the church teaches, strengthens bonds and enriches faith.
Local Missions: Food Pantries, Family Promise, and Backpack Buddies
Local mission work is woven through the life of Meadow Oaks. The church is a longtime supporter of Churches Touching Lives for Christ (CTLC), a non-denominational food pantry in Temple that offers groceries and household goods free of charge to low-income families. CTLC is a member of the Central Texas Food Bank network, and Meadow Oaks members volunteer throughout the year to help distribute food and clothing and to give financial support.
Meadow Oaks also partners with Helping Hands in Belton and supports Family Promise of East Bell County, which assists young homeless families with shelter, food, and transportation while they look for jobs and affordable housing. Several times each year, Meadow Oaks members provide a week's worth of meals for Family Promise clients along with encouragement and support for parents and children.
Each summer, Meadow Oaks takes part in the Backpack Buddies program coordinated by CTLC and Temple Independent School District. Church members sponsor backpacks filled with grade-appropriate school supplies that are distributed free to children in low-income areas of Temple and east Bell County. During Advent, the congregation sets up a special Christmas tree whose ornaments invite people to purchase gifts for those facing hunger, homelessness, loneliness, or economic hardship, from toys for children to socks and lotion for nursing home residents to warm coats for those in need.
Global Mission Partners and a Beloved Community
Across the world, Meadow Oaks supports mission work through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Offering for Global Missions, gathered each October, and the Texas Baptist Hunger Offering, an annual emphasis of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Both offerings fund hunger relief, transformational development, and field workers in places often forgotten.
The congregation also keeps in touch with several former church members now serving abroad as missionaries. They follow Casey and Brittany Ramirez and their children, Juniper and Finnley, in the Philippines, and Amelia and Trey McCain and their son, Derwen, in Wales, supporting their work and hearing their reports as reminders of life in cultures beyond their own.
Underpinning this global work is a commitment to what the church calls Beloved Community, a vision associated with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that emphasizes reconciliation, racial justice, and the replacement of discrimination with an inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood. For Meadow Oaks, building Beloved Community is a calling that leads to action for the common good and is one more way of describing the Kingdom of God.
Pastoral and Music Staff
Maddie Rosenblad became the pastor of Meadow Oaks on June 5, 2022. A native of Sugar Land, Texas, she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Christian Studies at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in 2017, a Master of Divinity with a concentration in Theology at Truett Seminary in 2020, and a Master of Theology by Research at the University of Edinburgh in 2021, where she was a Parish Pulpit Graduate Preaching Fellow. She is married to Caleb, and they have two dogs, Thea and Lucy. She can be reached at mjrarick@meadowoaks.org.
Janet Crawford serves as Music Director. A former orchestra and Spanish teacher in public schools in Texas, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, she leads the Musikgarten program for preschoolers and plays violin in both the Temple Symphony Orchestra and the Waco Symphony Orchestra.
The church office is open Monday through Wednesday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. and can be reached at secretary@meadowoaks.org or (254) 773-2589. Giving to the church can be done through the offering plate on Sunday, online, or by mail to 3001 Meadow Oaks Drive, Temple, TX 76502.