Despite the presence of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, First Baptist Church (the church pastored by Independent Baptist leader and partial founder J. Frank Norris), and numerous Christian insitutions and entities, Fort Worth is still a city that needs to be reached with the Gospel.
Fort Worth has a population of 720,250 people. If the city holds to the national average of 87% being unchurched, a ripe harvest exists there. The preacher who grew up in a rural area need not worry about Fort Worth being a "big city" as the city prides itself to being a large city with a small town atmosphere (despite the presence of the Texas Motor Speedway and other major attractions.)
Fort Worth's culture is largely tied to its days as a stop on the Chisolm Trail, a trail cattlemen used to drive their herds to market in Kansas. The Fort Worth Stockyards was a place where local merchants could separate the traveling cowboys from their money. Today, the stockyards are a tourist trap, er, attraction where visitors can watch a real cattle drive, see a rodeo, visit a museum, ride a train, and purchase souveniers, goodies, food and beverages. In fact, alcoholic beverages are served at an outdoor bar. It is not uncommon to see tourists consuming beer as they walk down the sidewalk at the stockyards.
Fort Worth is also home to Billy Bob's Texas, a huge dancehall/bar complete with a 4,000 seat concert venue which hosts some of the biggest names in Country Music and an indoor bull-riding arena (where I'm told visitors can give the ride a try.)
The culture and history of the stockyards and Billy Bob's drives much of the mindset of Fort Worth residents, but aside from the tourism aspect of Fort Worth, mission work just makes sense here. It is populous, it is unchurched, it is the fifth largest city in Texas, twice annually more than 125,000 people converge on the city to see the NASCAR races, and it is home to only one ABA church (CrossRoads Mission moved to Crowley.) I tend to gravitate toward economic centers when I research mission fields, hoping that a new church in that particular city would lead to sister churches being planted in the neighboring cities. I believe the same could happen for Fort Worth. Cowtown could very well be the gateway to further evangelism in the DFW Metroplex.
The Missionary Baptist Association of Texas has well supported missionaries to Fort Worth in the past. Bro. W.S. Taylor was the missionary to Fort Worth for more than 11 years, working to plant Cross Roads mission. The exhorbitant cost of land and building construction hampered his efforts to get Cross Roads to become a self-supporting organized church. Any missionary who goes to Fort Worth should be prepared to work without land and buildings for many years (of course, the Lord could still provide those.) There is a large number of apartment complexes in Fort Worth. Perhaps using the tried and proven method of evangelizing those communities (as has been practiced in Houston and Brownwood) could be the key to gathering and organizing a congregation.
Funding is available through the MBA of Texas, or the ABA Interstate Mission Fund. The Central Texas Mission Council (which covers the DFW area) has also been known to support missions very well. Please consider Fort Worth as a viable mission field.
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