Pastors & Staff Introductions

Senior Pastor Responsibilities and Common Questions

My name is Jeff Shipley, and I'm the senior pastor here at Whitten Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee. My main job is to provide leadership and guidance to the overall program and ministry of Whitten Baptist Church, but also a lot of my time is given to doing one-on-one counseling with different members of the community, including other pastors and people that don't go to Whitten, as well as focusing on my people here.

I also provide oversight for the staff and the ministries, and we have many different ministries here, and I provide just a general oversight for those ministries and accountability to God's people. So the top three questions people ask me, honestly, one of the number one questions I get is, do you have an appointment available?

I get that all the time, and that's why God made a Kaylee. The other question I get are questions of theology or doctrine, and then I would say the third question I get is permissive of, what do you think about this?

What do you think about that? Can we do this? I guess that goes back to the guidance and the overreaching principle of guiding the different various ministries of our church.

Preaching, Counseling, and Ministry Coordination

Hey everybody, my name is Pastor Josiah Shipley of Whitten Baptist Church. I've worked here for four and a half years, and I've been a member here since 2005. In addition to preaching, I also do a lie and share the teaching on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights, co-teaching with Pastor Jeff.

One of my passions is to answer people's questions about the Bible. I always want, and the pastors of this church in general, want this to be a place where people can ask any question any time. But in addition to those general things, I'm involved with the counseling ministry here at Whitten Baptist Church.

If you have any questions about that, you can come see me or one of the admin to get a counseling appointment. But I'm also one of the coaches for MMA ministry, SOG MMA, and we have an adult's portion of that and a kid's portion of that, and we teach for the adults especially, fighting MMA, the martial arts in general, but with a foundation of biblical ethics and how we're to carry ourselves with character and honor.

And we introduce the kids to that too, and it's a it's a lot of fun. I also am involved with the podcast ministry here at church. That's a point-taking podcast. We have a lot of fun. We're on YouTube, and you can find every variation of topic you can possibly think of on that podcast.

We have a lot of fun doing that. If you have any questions, you can come see me. Again, my name is Pastor Josiah. I'm about six foot three, so you'll be able to, just kidding, you'll be able to find me at any point, and I look forward to meeting you.

New Membership, Evening Programs, and Counseling

Hello, everybody. I'm Pastor John Franklin.

I'm one of the associate pastors here at Whitten Baptist Church. My main focus here is inReach and helping with the new members. That's one of the main things people come to me for is new membership. I run the new member class.

I also am in charge of the evening programs of four, five, six, where we have multiple classes that go on. You'll learn more about that as you attend here. Also, I'm available for counseling appointments and anything else that Pastor Jeff needs us to do.

Thank you.

Education Ministry, MIT, and Accountability Groups

Hi, my name is Jeremiah Shipley. I'm the pastor of education here at Whitten Baptist. Three things that you would come to me for would be counseling. I'm the director of MIT, which is our ministers and training program.

It's a two-and-a-half-year program in which we go through a myriad of different topics, preparing people for ministry, and I also work with our accountability groups, our men's accountability groups.

People come to me to learn about what that is, what that looks like, and how to be a part of one. Hey, everyone. My name is Pastor Christian Torres.

I'm one of the associate pastors here at Whitten Baptist Church. My primary job is I am the youth minister. Three things that I usually deal with on a regular basis would be the youth ministry. I'm also in charge of the senior adults, and I'm a co-teacher of our ministers and training program.

All fun stuff.

Church Administration, Missions, and Scheduling

Hi, my name is Char Self, and I am the administrator here at Whitten Baptist Church. I am also Pastor Josiah's assistant. Some of the things that I do on an administrative level are assisting with the budget and the finances, a lot of personnel stuff, just the day-to-day administrative type operations of the church.

I also handle missions, so anything that we do with our mission trip planning and things like that, I do work on that all year, as well as scheduling appointments and helping keep Pastor Josiah on task every day.

My name is Rebecca Dillon.

I am the church secretary slash financial secretary. I oftentimes get asked about buildings and grounds and operations, and I can help anybody that needs help there, and I can help with the food pantry.

It is now an internal ministry, but I can also help externally if you have somebody that is outside the membership that needs help. Another thing I handle is funerals. We oftentimes do help the membership with loved ones that have passed, but we also help externally.

If you know somebody that cannot afford a funeral or a memorial service, we'll be glad to help. Just let me know, and I will help you best I can.

Children's Ministry, Safety Team, and Outreach Events

Hi, everybody. This is Jake and Michelle Romo. We run the children's ministry here at Witten Baptist Church. If you're ever interested in serving in the nursery or children's or the youth department, working with minors at all, you would come hunt us down, and we would get you set up for what you have to do to be qualified to go do that.

I also run the safety team. Michelle helps me administrate it. If there's an event or if you need access to the building, anything where you're curious about how things are secured, or if someone is there to cover the event, you come see me, and I can make sure that there's safety guys that are covering your event and.

Keeping everything safe. And to schedule those events, I'm in charge of the calendar, so you would come see me. There's a process for that. We are also in charge, in large part, of the outreach events that we do here at Witten.

So the trunk-or-treat events, the back-to-school block party where we hand out backpacks, as well as our VBS events. So if you're interested in volunteering in any of those, you would come see us.

Music Ministry and Platform Scheduling

Hi, church family. My name is Hunter Wilson, and I'm your music minister. If you or your ministry need a spot on our stage or need to address the church on a Sunday morning, I'm the guy you find. Also, if you have any musical ability or interest in having musical ability, and you would like to use that ability to serve the Lord and praise Him, I'm also the guy you find.

Senior Pastor's Assistant and Communication Support

Hi, I am Kaylee Dillon. I am the senior pastor's assistant. Oftentimes, people come to me when they are needing some counseling scheduled. I do schedule for all the pastors. I oversee the social media accounts that we have here for Witten.

All the Facebook pages, any events that we have, I do make slideshows for those and announcements. I also oversee the Wednesday meal sign-up. So if you're not on that and you're having trouble getting on it, just get in contact with me and I can get you signed up.