Baptist worship services may have been conducted in this area as early as 1848, but the church was not formally chartered until 1868. On October 22 of that year, the organizational meeting was held in the home of James M. and Elizabeth Trammell, pioneers of the rural Block House community. Six charter members formed the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church of Christ, and the Rev. Thomas F. Bacon was chosen as the first pastor. The church cemetery was first used in 1869 for the burial of Martha Elizabeth Inman, wife of deacon S. C. Inman, and other marked gravesites include settlers who were prominent early leaders of the church and community. For more than a century, the church was instrumental in the development of the Cedar Park area, and from 1871 until 1919 the church building also served as the public school. Its pastors included leading Baptist ministers such as missionary J. E. Hamilton, who died in Brazil of yellow fever, and the Rev. D. E. Simpson, a board member and first treasurer of the Texas Baptist Children's Home, who was baptized and ordained here.