Greetings! And thanks for checking out my blog.
I’m Alex Martin, the pastor of First Baptist Church in Marshville, North Carolina. It’s a small church in a small town. But as the blog title suggests, I serve a great God…so the possibilities are endless.
I’ve been in ministry a few years, but this is my first pastorate. I came to the church in 2004, fresh off of 13 years as a collegiate minister at various campuses in Virginia (mostly George Mason University in Fairfax and University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University of Richmond). Honestly, I had planned on making a career of student work, but things didn’t work out that way. However, serving alongside these people in this community has turned out to be an amazingly good fit. That’s not to imply that small town/small church ministry is free of frustrations. But I look forward to sharing my reflections on The Way.
The blog title — Rural Rev — is intended to be a double entendre. I suppose the most obvious meaning is “Rural Reverend,” which is what I am. But I also hope that buried in there somewhere is the implication of “Rural Revolution,” which is what I hope to be a part of. I’m participating in a wonderful training process called “Sustaining Pastoral Excellence,” and in the course of developing a future ministry story I hit upon the notion of “congre-cultural architecture” as an organizing idea for my calling in ministry. Just as an architect envisions and structures space in a manner that allows a certain set of objectives to be achieved, so I hope my role as pastor will be one of envisioning and structuring “sacred spaces” that help develop the kingdom potential of my congregation and my community’s culture.
I’m a graduate of The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia (BA in Economics) and of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky (M. Div). I’m married to Teresa — a native of Durham, North Carolina, and a creative and loving companion of whom I am completely unworthy. We have one beautiful child — Windham Olivia — who is only 7 but who demonstrates talent and intelligence beyond her years. I enjoy cycling, reading, playing with computers, a little bit of gardening, and occasional efforts to stay in shape.
Feel free to email me at pastoralex4 @ gmail.com (remove spaces).
Alex,
We share a commonality as pastors of rural churches. I stumbled on your blog today, and I have a similar one as well. I went to Southeastern, went to church at the Summit in Durham while there, and now serve as a pastor at Little Mountain Baptist in Wellford, SC. I will bookmark you. I have another SBC friend in rural Kentucky with a similar passion as you for the rural church. His blog is Rural Route Church (www.ruralchurch.wordpress.com). Mine is http://www.ruralamericanpastor.wordpress.com. Nice to meet you.
Josh
Pastor Alex, it is good to finally find you after 20 years. I was at UGA when you were the campus minister there. Would love to catch up with you sometime. Send me an email and we can exchange numbers and we can catch up. I live in Atlanta in the Buckhead Community.
Cheers,
Todd
AMartin4! It’s amazing what a little Internet search for “Alex Martin Windham” can bring up. I cannot believe Windham is 7. Wow.
Glad you’re doing well. Think of you and your years at UR often!
Jessie (Schumann) Weaver
Alex, as a member of your “congre-cultur” I must say your desire for excellence and order are obvious and appreciated by all. I particularly appreciated your massage this Sunday making the demand that we refocus out mission as a church. That being of course soul winning. As we are about to complete the new building I believe as you do that our potential for ministry will increase dramatically. The “rural” area in which we live will require us to form “visiting teams” to canvas the area around the church to minister to people in there homes and invite them to church. It’s a simple growth mechanism exampled by Paul and the other apostles as they “went house to house breaking bread (the gospel). Unfortunately we Christian are being beat at our own game by the Mormons and JWs.