Bill serves as pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church, having begun his ministry in Clinton on October 1, 2002.
One of his overriding desires is to see evangelical churches in general and Baptist churches in particular return to their biblical and historical roots, all the while recognizing that they minister in the twenty-first century. For at least twenty years he has believed that pragmatism and a less-than-biblical view of evangelism and conversion now dominate American evangelical life. A biblical understanding of the doctrines of the faith and of the practice of the church must be recovered. Three of his published articles reflecting this concern are “J. Gresham Machen: The Power of Theological Reflection,” Trinity Journal (Fall 2001: 157-77), “A Mid-Nineteenth Century Baptist View of the Ministry,” Founders Journal (Winter 2001: 11-23), and “The Kind of Man God Uses: Early Baptist Voices,” Founders Journal (Summer 2004: 2-14).
Bill’s formal academic training began with a Bachelor of Science in Education from Georgia Southern University (1976) and concluded with a Doctor of Philosophy in Church History from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (2003), with several stops in between. His dissertation, written under the direction of Dr. Tom Nettles and entitled “From Biblical Fidelity to Organizational Efficiency: The Gospel Ministry from English Separatism of the Late Sixteenth Century to the Southern Baptist Convention of the Early Twentieth Century,” examines the shift in Baptist understanding of the ministry from one emphasizing biblical faithfulness to another concerned with quantifiable success.
He and Kynette were married in 1976 and have three married daughters.
