FINLEY, Tenn. (BP) – Former police captain Jamie Reynolds considered himself a “reluctant AMS” when he began serving as an associational mission strategist for the Three Forks Baptist Association a dozen years ago.
“I was a reluctant AMS, in a manner of speaking, because I had never pastored a church,” he said. “But as the Lord led, we obeyed. He was faithful to give us everything we needed to do what He called us to do.”
Today, Reynolds is embracing yet another role in Southern Baptist denominational life he himself would not have chosen, but also accepts as God ordained.
Reynolds is the new executive director of the Bivocational and Small Church Leadership Network (BSCLN), following Joe Wright’s retirement.
“These guys are my heroes,” he said of the pastors BSCLN serves. “They’re some of the most faithful but under-recognized servant leaders in our denomination, in our convention. They’re leading churches and working jobs and caring for their families. and most of the time they’re doing it without a whole lot of support.
“And so it gives me the opportunity to be in their corner.”
Reynolds began in ministry in 2004 after retiring as a captain from the Montgomery (Alabama) Police Department. He and his wife Rachael first served in the North American Mission Board’s Mission Service Corps before Reynolds began as an AMS in 2012. For seven of his years as an AMS, Reynolds served as bivocational pastor of Premium Baptist Church in Premium, Ky.
“I’ve always really considered myself kind of a right-hand man, behind the guy that leads an organization. So organizational leadership, as far as a Christian organization, is new to me,” he said. “I was in organizational leadership in law enforcement, but that’s very different.”
Among the first opportunities Reynolds is providing for bivocational pastors and leaders of small churches is participation in the BSCLN Small Church Academy, offering free pastoral mentoring and coaching.
Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg, who will lead one of the six spring online cohorts, said the BSCLN provides valuable resources for pastors.
“Developing bivocational and small church pastors is essential to meeting the pastoral leadership needs among Southern Baptist churches,” Iorg told Baptist Press. “I appreciate focused efforts to help meet this need.”
Enrollment is open for the academy’s cohorts launching April 13.
“I think the biggest value to the cohort is not just the teaching as much as it is the fellowship and the encouragement,” Reynolds said. For example, “a guy comes home from his full-time job. He has time to have dinner with the family, help his wife get the kids to bed.
“And then he walks into his study or into his living room, he turns on his computer or his phone, and all of a sudden he’s in a room – online, if you will – with six, eight, 10 other bivocational pastors from all around the country who get what he is going through. They understand his challenges, and they can encourage one another, learn from one another. And there’s also the side benefit of he can do that and share honestly without worrying about whether or not this is going to get back to his church.”
Reynolds welcomes the opportunity to serve bivocational pastors, estimating 43 percent to 60 percent of the pastors of the nearly 48,000 Southern Baptist churches are bivocational. Estimates vary because about 15,000 or so churches don’t complete the SBC Annual Church Profile.
“Bivocational pastors are not an addendum to the Southern Baptist Convention. They’re the backbone,” Reynolds said. “I personally believe that they’re the backbone of our convention, because they’re the ones that are (serving and leading) on a daily basis.”
He is certain that 80 percent of Southern Baptist congregations have 150 or fewer members, with most churches under 100.
“They’re not just the backbone of our ministry and our work,” Reynolds said of small-membership churches. “They’re also the backbone of our giving, our cooperative giving, our missions offerings, all that.”
BSCLN provides free digital and educational resources including a library on its website, in concert with network partners, and is planning to hold a network meeting at the 2026 SBC Annual Meeting in Orlando.
“But I think the online cohorts is probably the very best thing we’ve got going to support bivocational pastors and smaller church leaders,” Reynolds said. “Our heart, our passion is simple. We just want to come alongside bivocational pastors, so that they can thrive in their calling, shepherd their churches well and remain faithful to what God’s called them to do. We just want to be their network.”
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