Mike Palmer recognized the dearth of pastors and other church leaders at least 15 years ago, not quite halfway into his now 27-year pastorate at Salmon Valley Baptist Church Salmon, Idaho.
The county seat town has fewer than 3,300 residents, all of whom drive three hours one way to either Idaho Falls, Idaho or Missoula, Montana to shop at a Walmart. In other words, Salmon is rural, as is much of Idaho.
“We have counties and communities all over the Mountain West that don’t have Christian churches, so there is no voice for the gospel there, and we’ve been commanded to go,” Palmer told The Baptist Paper.
In 2009 he and Scott Hanberry, friends from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary days — Hanberry now leads a parachurch ministry in Southern Mississippi — discussed the need for training pastors and other church leaders in rural areas of the West. Preacher School emerged from that discussion.
Raising up supply preachers
This was the 14th year for the Western Preacher School, and the 11th for its counterpart in Wyoming. Palmer teaches both. For the first time a “worship leader” track was added to the two-day training for those interested in learning more about leading a church to glorify God more completely. Wes Dykes, dean of the Winters School of Music at William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, taught the worship track.
Western Preacher School was started out of need, Palmer said: “The need to raise up supply preachers in our rural context and the need to better equip and raise up teachers and preachers.”
The worship track was started for much the same reason, he added.
“The majority of our churches have volunteer worship leaders. This provides training to encourage them and strengthen their skills.”
Don Whalen says it a bit differently. He is a church planting catalyst for the Wyoming Southern Baptist Convention and Palmer’s friend. It was Whalen who asked Palmer to bring Western Preacher School to Wyoming.
“Preacher School is an opportunity to train men and help them affirm God’s call in their life,” Whalen told The Baptist Paper, “providing them tools to faithfully and fruitfully share God’s Word.”
Attending a Western Preacher School can be like jumping in the deep end of a pool. It’s like a semester’s worth of sermon preparation in two days, and it’s fun.
The students visibly relax and begin to enjoy themselves as they listen to Palmer’s self-deprecating humor, coupled with his encouraging words as he engages students, sometimes with gentle guidance or direction.
“This school is especially important in Wyoming because we’re a rural state with a lot of small communities,” Whalen noted. “We have at least 60-plus communities that have no church whatsoever.
“Because of our small communities we really encourage our churches to raise up others to begin new works … . It’s sad when you can be born, live and die in one of these small communities and there’s not a body of believers to love you into the Kingdom of God.
Applicable
Utah Idaho Southern Baptist Convention has the Salt Lake School of Theology in cooperation with California’s Gateway Seminary for pastors wanting formal training. The Wyoming Southern Baptist Center for Leadership Development also partners with Gateway to further Wyoming pastors’ religious education.
Western Preacher School is different. It’s “a taste” of theological education designed to tease the benefit of inductive Bible study, teaching a method to plumb new depths for sermon preparation and more.
“The material from Western Preacher School is applicable in every area of ministry that involves teaching the Word,” Scott Plath told The Baptist Paper. Pastor of South Fork (Idaho) Outdoorsmen Church Rigby, he brought 15 people from his congregation to the school.
“From children’s church to small groups to men’s and women’s ministry and more, the aim of every ministry at South Fork is based on the teaching of the Word,” Plath declared. “Bringing all those folks was an effort in being obedient to the Ephesians 4 call on pastors to ‘equip the saints for the work of ministry.’”
Church planter Andy Reeves moved to Rock Springs, Wyoming, in the far southwest corner of the state, from Texas in January. He had heard good things about Western Preacher School, he told The Baptist Paper, so he drove 230 miles to Casper to check it out.
He learned to study the context of Scripture, to see what it meant to people in Bible times and how to put it in context for people today, Reeves said.
“One thing I’ve learned, people [in Wyoming] want to know what’s in the Bible and ‘what’s in it for me.’ We’ve got to know how to apply the Scriptures to our daily lives.”
It was Joshua Grosse-Helweg’s second year to attend Western Preacher School. The member of Silver Sage Baptist Church Boise has started supply preaching over the last year.
“Preacher School changed my life,” Grosse-Helweg said. “I’ve been a Christ-follower all my life but coming to this class lit a fire. It’s definitely got me to dig deeper, to expand my knowledge and get deeper into the Word of God. Formerly I was pretty much just going to church on Sunday. Now I’m reading the Bible every day.”
Western Preacher School takes place the last weekend in April in Wyoming and the first weekend in May in Idaho.
