Welch College Press Publishes New Book, Christians in Culture

by Anna Pinson | Aug 1, 2023

For Immediate Release

Welch College Press Publishes New Book, Christians in Culture

“I heartily commend this volume as one that will enable readers to think and live in an informed way, grounded in the redemptive work of Christ and the grandeur of our majestic and gracious God.” That’s what David Dockery, President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary said in his foreword to Welch College Press’s most recent publication, which can be purchased at www.welch.edu/welchpress.

Christians in Culture was written by ten Welch College faculty to equip readers to engage the spheres of culture in a manner that is equal parts biblical and winsome. This book was edited by Matthew Steven Bracey and Christopher Talbot, each of whom teach courses in theology and culture. Both Bracey and Talbot wrote chapters for the book.

“We’re incredibly thankful to see this book published. My prayer is that it would help readers better and more fully understand how to live faithfully under Christ’s Lordship in every sphere of life,” Talbot said. “We’re also thankful for how this book demonstrates our educational philosophy at Welch. Each discipline works in harmony with every other one, which our various contributors exemplify, as we each confess Christ as Lord.”

“Whether you are interested in the arts and entertainment, sports and recreation, technology and science, politics and economics, labor and vocation, or history and tradition, this book is relevant for you,” the book’s slipcover reads. R. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, describes Christians in Culture as “an incredibly helpful guide and resource. I highly commend it to Christians today. Read every chapter and put it into many hands.”

“In many ways, this book also serves as an introductory text to worldview thinking for Christians trying to make sense of the cultures in which they live,” Bracey said. “It is careful yet accessible, appropriate for high school and college students alike, as well as laypeople and church groups interested in the intersection of their Christian faith and the spheres of culture. I hope and pray that people will find it helpful in their Christian walks.”

Welch President Matt Pinson, who also contributed several book chapters, said, “Christians in Culture represents the sensibilities of Welch College by teaching us that we do not need to withdraw from the culture but also we do not need to be compromised by the culture. As Mr. Forlines once wrote, ‘We don’t need the culture to transform us, but we need to transform the culture.’”

People interested in the book may purchase it at www.welch.edu/welchpress.

Welch Rejoice! Ministry Team Announces 2023 Summer Tour

by Daniel Webster | Jun 2, 2023

GALLATIN, TN—The Welch College Rejoice! Ministry Team will begin their summer tour on Sunday, June 4, according to Todd Parrish, Vice President for Institutional Advancement. The group will hold services in fourteen churches in six states during their four-week tour. The team will also attend Free Will Baptist state meetings in Missouri, Texas, Virginia, and Kentucky.

The summer tour’s program will feature hymns, gospel songs, and modern worship arrangements designed to evangelize and encourage. The members of the 2023 Rejoice! Ministry Team are Malena Campis, Joy Green, Camden Lewis, Cheyenne Lewis, Sarah Lovett, Austin Owen, Brook Proctor, Daniel Rodriguez, Jacob Snow, Landon Wolfe, and Stephen Yerby. Rejoice! musical directors are Daniel Webster and Jacob Lute. Karen Owen will chaperone the group.

“God has given us the gift of songs, hymns, and spiritual songs to share His gospel with the world,” Parrish said. “It is our prayer that this team will lead our Free Will Baptist people to worship the Lord and that God will bless and use them as they minister around our denomination.”

June 4 AM – Fellowship Free Will Baptist Church, Park Hills, MO
June 4 PM – First Free Will Baptist Church, DeSoto, MO
June 10 PM – New Beginnings Free Will Baptist Church, Bryan, TX
June 11 AM – Fellowship Free Will Baptist Church, Bryan, TX
June 14 PM – Central Free Will Baptist Church, Wise, VA
June 18 AM – Evergreen Free Will Baptist Church, Erwin, TN
June 18 PM – Shady Grove Free Will Baptist Church, Whitesburg, TN
June 20 PM – First Free Will Baptist Church, Marion, NC
June 21 PM – Hardin Valley Free Will Baptist Church, Knoxville, TN
June 22 PM – Harper Road Free Will Baptist Church, Joelton, TN
June 25 AM – Hendersonville Free Will Baptist Church, Hendersonville, TN
June 27 PM – Good Springs Free Will Baptist Church, Pleasant View, TN
June 28 PM – New Pleasant Grove Free Will Baptist Church, Savannah, TN
June 29 PM – Cookeville Free Will Baptist Church, Cookeville, TN

For information on auditioning for future Rejoice! Ministry Teams, contact Daniel Webster at daniel.webster@welch.edu.

Welch Names Brandon Presley as Men’s Resident Director

by Anna Pinson | May 31, 2023

For Immediate Release

Welch Names Brandon Presley as Men’s Resident Director

GALLATIN, TN—Welch College has named Brandon Presley as Men’s Resident Director, according to Dr. Jon Forlines, Vice President for Student Services. “We are pleased to announce that Brandon Presley will be serving in this important role,” Forlines said. Presley replaces Russell Houske, who served five years in this position. “We thank Russell and Amber Houske for their hard work and dedicated service to Welch over these past five years,” Forlines said.

Presley, a 2018 Welch graduate with a B.A. in history and an M.A.in theology and ministry (2020), received his M.A. in history from Arizona State University in 2021. While at Welch, both he and his wife, Dakota, served as student Resident Assistants. Since that time Presley has served as interim pastor, Sunday School teacher, editing and research assistant, and adjunct professor at Welch College, while working the last three-and-one-half years as a bank service representative and review appraiser at Home Federal Bank in Knoxville, TN. Brandon and Dakota have one daughter, Mary Kathryn.

“Our young men in the dorm have been blessed with an extraordinary history of dorm parents who have effectively discipled and walked them through their college experience. We look forward to the Presleys continuing this wonderful work of pouring the love of Christ into the lives of our young men,” Forlines said. “We warmly welcome Brandon and Dakota back to the Student Services team.”

Presley will begin his duties in July of this year.

Welch College Graduates 75 in Commencement Exercises

by Anna Pinson | May 29, 2023

Associate of Science Degrees

Associate of Arts Degrees

Bachelor of Science Degrees

Bachelor of Arts Degrees

Master of Arts Degrees

Master of Arts in Teaching Degrees

Master of Divinity Degrees

*** Summa Cum Laude – 3.75
** Magna Cum Laude – 3.50
* Cum Laude – 3.25

Welch Divinity School Grants First M.Div. Degrees

by Anna Pinson | May 19, 2023

For Immediate Release

Welch Divinity School Grants First M.Div. Degrees

GALLATIN, TN—Two years after its inception, Welch Divinity School celebrated its first two graduates, Dustin Walters and Joshua Hunter, according to Dr. Martin Sheldon, Director of Administration at Welch Divinity School.

Alabama native Dustin Walters currently resides in Chandler, Indiana, with his wife Laci. He serves as connections and next steps pastor at Faith Free Will Baptist Church in Chandler. Dustin graduated from Welch College in 2016 with his B. A. in pastoral ministry and moved to New Orleans, where he studied at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He later transferred to the newly established Welch Divinity School to pursue the three-year Master of Divinity (M.Div.) degree. He has a heart for pastoral ministry and ministering the gospel through the Free Will Baptist Church. 

“Dustin was not only one of our first M.Div. students, he was also the first Administrative Assistant for the Divinity School,” Sheldon said. “He approached his role as a student and employee with eagerness and excellence. He truly has a servant’s heart. While demonstrating academic acuity, his passion for local church ministry is perpetually evident.”

Josh Hunter is a native of Missouri. He came to Welch College for his bachelor’s degree in 2015 and completed it in 2019, moving straight into the Master of Arts program in Theology and ministry. Upon completing the M.A. in 2021, Josh worked as a curriculum instructional designer but returned to pursue the new three-year Master of Divinity program at Welch. He plans to pursue further study at other institutions to engage in scholarship from an evangelical Christian perspective. 

“When I first met Josh, I sensed right away that he had a sharp mind and humble spirit,” Sheldon said. “These are two qualities that are not often found together, but Josh has them both. Throughout his time as a Welch student, Josh has demonstrated the virtues of diligence, humility, and perseverance.”

The entire Welch community offers its congratulations to these first graduates of Welch Divinity School. For more information on Welch Divinity School or theological master’s degree programs at Welch, contact Jacob Johnson at jacob.johnson@welch.edu.

Harry Reeder, Present with the Lord

by Anna Pinson | May 18, 2023

Matthew Pinson

Today one of my dearest friends passed from this life, Dr. Harry L. Reeder III, senior pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. Reeder was killed in a tragic car accident this morning. He was a wonderful friend and supporter of Welch College and of Free Will Baptists who was always a favorite speaker in conferences, commencement ceremonies, and chapels at Welch.

It was about fifteen years ago, fairly early in my tenure as president of Welch College, that I stumbled onto Dr. Reeder. I received an announcement about a new book from P&R Publishers, From Embers to a Flame: How God Can Revitalize Your Church. Here at last was a book by a veteran church revitalizer that put into words the things I had striven to commit myself to as a pastor and teacher of pastors but could never articulate as artfully as he had done. 

The book was about biblical, organic church revitalization and growth. It was about church growth, but unlike much of the “church growth movement,” it was about natural, organic growth by means of church health. Dr. Reeder, who had several times led churches to grow from in the thirties and fifties in attendance on Sunday morning into hundreds and thousands, was waxing eloquent about practical ways to bring biblical, organic, growth to struggling, indeed, dying, congregations.

He used catchy phrases like “cultural steroids”—that’s the term he used when he referred to all the extrabiblical secular gimmicks and marketing and entertainment techniques he thought the evangelical church had come to rely on to “get the numbers up.” But he insisted that, not only was this reliance on—this obsession with—secular consumer marketing to increase the numbers of people in the pew unbiblical. Not only was it despising the ordinary means of grace—replacing those Spirit-ordained methods found in the New Testament with the “inventions of people.” It was also pragmatically counterproductive in the long-run.

He would often point to what steroids do to a physical body. They’re artificial stimulants that bring quick, artificial growth but leave the body weaker and sicker than it ever was in the first place. Similarly, he’d say, cultural steroids leave the body of Christ spiritually anemic—weaker and sicker than it ever was before.

Cultural steroids, he’d say, also make churches less effective evangelistically. That’s because believers’ evangelistic and missionary effectiveness correlates directly to their practical engagement with the meat of the Word. And the evangelical church, he’d insist, was starving for the meat of the Word, quoting Amos 8:11, “‘Behold, the days are coming,’ says the Lord God, ‘That I will send a famine on the land, Not a famine of bread, Nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the Lord.’” “The famine is here!” he’d say, describing too many churches as “an inch deep and a mile wide.”

But perhaps the most remarkable thing about Harry was his cool-headed confidence in the ordinary means of grace. He was so positive and hopeful. He had a smooth level-headedness about him that allowed him to make incisive, prophetic critiques of both church and culture while keeping the focus on the soul-nourishing means of grace in Holy Scripture that always bring about human flourishing, for individuals, families, churches, and cultures.

His refreshing emphasis was that we naturally structure our congregations according to the means God has given, affirming the sufficiency of Scripture. Scripture really is enough for the life, health, and growth of Christ’s church, he stressed. And when we do this, the spiritual blessings of our Lord will follow as we wait patiently on Him.

That was the message of From Embers to a Flame. I was so encouraged, and I began to give away copy after copy of that book. I said to Melinda, “We’ve got to go meet this man.” And on one trip back from my parents’ home in Pensacola, Florida, our eight- and six-year-old in tow, we stopped in Birmingham and attended a service at the church Reeder served, Briarwood Presbyterian.

I introduced myself to him after the service was over, and he said, “I answered the call to the Presbyterian ministry in a Free Will Baptist deacon’s tobacco field!” Then he told me this long story about his first ministry job being the youth pastor at Trinity Free Will Baptist Church in Greenville, North Carolina. He told me about preaching his first sermons in a Free Will Baptist church (even though he was a five-point Calvinist). With that characteristic twinkle in his eye, he reminisced about singing in a quartet and traveling to dozens of Free Will Baptist churches with Jack Paramore and Al Davis. Even though some of his convictions differed from some of those of Free Will Baptists, Dr. Reeder deeply valued those years and how his experiences in Free Will Baptist churches, with Free Will Baptist people, helped shape him spiritually.

It wasn’t too long before I asked him to come and speak at Welch College. He has done so a half-dozen times since then, and he gave me opportunities to speak at Briarwood as well. Melinda and I also grew to love his dear wife Cindy, who has also spoken at Welch. She has been such an integral part of his ministry, and her graciousness and gift of hospitality were so obvious when I visited in their home. We at Welch surround Mrs. Reeder with prayer in this difficult moment.

Dr. Reeder also spoke at the National Free Will Baptist Leadership Conference and became involved with several Free Will Baptist state associations, local associations, and local congregations through his church revitalization ministry, Embers to a Flame. That organization, now known as Lampstand, has helped struggling churches in several Christian denominations to experience revitalization in biblically faithful ways.

To some people, it seems ironic that Dr. Reeder, a die-hard Calvinist Presbyterian, and I, a die-hard Free Will Baptist, became such fast friends. But it’s really not. When it came to the gospel, orthodox Protestant theology, ordinary-means-of-grace church renewal, and Christian cultural renewal, we were of one mind. He knew where I stood, and I knew where he stood, on the issues on which we differed, but our friendship was one of iron sharpening iron, and we agreed on far more than the things on which we differed. I learned so much from this man, and in amazing ways he helped me develop as a young Christian leader.

Most will remember him as a gentle, consensus-building, but stalwart confessional Presbyterian churchman. I will remember him as a giant that the cross-denominational evangelical community has lost. Evangelical Protestantism does not know what it has lost in Harry Reeder and his influence. But my prayer is that God will raise up scores of young Christian leaders across denominations like Dr. Reeder, leaders who like him will bear kind and unwavering witness to the faith once delivered to the saints, which alone, through Christ, brings human flourishing now and forever.