WACO—Auctioneer/cowboy pastor Paul “Hoot” Wibbeler sees parallels between the ministry and the cattle industry.

“In the cattle business, you’ve got your mega-ranches,” said Wibbeler, 52. “But most of the steaks you eat come from farmers with less than 25 head of cattle.”

Roy Jackson of Temple (2nd from left)—flanked by (left to right) Cody Schwartz of Mansfield, Steve Belote of San Angelo and Danny Stanford of Linden—listen intently during a conference for small-church pastors at Truett Theological Seminary. (PHOTOS/ Matthew Minard/Baylor University)

On the church front, megachurches — those with 2,000 or more members — attract a lot of attention and more than a third of Baptist churchgoers. But they account for less than 2 percent of Texas Baptist churches. What’s more, 70 percent of Baptist congregations have fewer than 100 regular worshippers, according to figures from the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Pastors of tiny churches often are bivocational, with few financial, educational or staff resources for their ministry, leaders at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary noted. So, the seminary in 2005 began offering a self-paced, online certification program for those pastors or wannabe pastors.

“We tend to think about things being big in Texas,” said Larry Givens, program coordinator. “But I don’t find it phenomenal that there are so many smaller churches.

“My theology is that Christ preached to a lot of people. But he ministered one on one: ‘Zach, get out of that tree. I’m gonna eat supper with you.’”

Wibbeler wants that kind of intimate ministry. He was awarded his certificate at Truett in June after his final step in the training, a weeklong workshop on preaching skills.

Paul Stripling, retired associational director of missions, leads a preaching skills workshop in a program at Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary tailored to the challenges of pastors of small churches and bivocational pastors. (PHOTOS/ Matthew Minard/Baylor University)

“If I had my druthers, I’d love to be able to go to seminary, but I’ve got to make a living and don’t have the money,” said Wibbeler, lay pastor of Ranchhouse Cowboy Church in Maypearl.

“This is wonderful,” he said. “It’s not a seminar in a hotel for two hours; it’s much deeper than that.”

The $1,400 program, which usually takes two years to complete, grew out of a brainstorming session between Truett Dean Emeritus Paul Powell and Givens, a retired Air Force major.

“Not everyone who wants to be a pastor has the money or time to go to seminary, and not everyone wants to be the pastor of a big church,” Givens said.

But lack of training can be challenging for pastors—and their congregations, Powell and Givens agreed.

“In the Baptist denomination, there are not requirements to be a minister,” Powell said. “You just have to say, ‘I’ve been called to preach’ and find a church that will take you.”

Powell said he had long desired to help train people who cannot go to seminary, but “I couldn’t find the right person to do it.”

Then he met Givens.

“He’s a living example of the kind of person this could help, so he had the heart for it,” Powell said.

Givens, who was 46 when he felt called by God to be a pastor, began his ministry at a 20-member Baptist church near Taylor. He was trivocational: an elementary school teacher, a bus driver and a pastor.

Paul “Hoot” Wibbeler (center) shows his wife, Becky, a photo on his digital camera. Wibbeler, lay pastor of Ranchhouse Cowboy Church in Maypearl, has participated in the certificate program Baylor University’s Truett Theological Seminary offers for bivocational and small-church pastors. (PHOTOS/ Matthew Minard/Baylor University)

“That was tough, but it was good, because I was out there in the workforce,” said Givens, who has been pastor of two small churches.

“The key to pastoring is to being in touch with people, to avoid being insulated,” he said. “When you think about bivocational ministries, think about Paul and his tents.”

The ranks of the more than 300 pastors and potential pastors who have enrolled since 2005 include attorneys, cowboys, engineers, social workers, truck drivers and a helicopter pilot who served in the Vietnam War.

Several students from other states have enrolled, and 49 people have earned certificates, Givens said.

Givens wants to reach even more people. He will begin offering the course in Spanish in the fall with the help of a graduate assistant/translator, he said.

The first to complete the program was Carol Raulston, pastor of Abbott United Methodist Church, the boyhood church of country music icon Willie Nelson. Nelson purchased the church in Abbott, population 300, in 2006 after it closed. He wanted to preserve it, although its congregation had dwindled to a handful of people who were merging with another church.

Nelson helped bring the church back to life, and Raulston has helped keep it vibrant. It has grown to about 40 congregants since Raulston became its primary volunteer pastor in December 2007, nine months after receiving her certificate, she said.

Wibbeler hopes eventually to become a pastor full time, “even if it’s not much money. That’s not why you’re doing it anyway.

“I’m going to leave it up to God,” he said. “I’m available for whatever needs come up.”

Another recent graduate began his training behind bars.

“I would never have thought I’d end up here,” said Michael Ray Hayslip, 39, of Haltom City.

He spent 16 years in prison for drug-related crimes, he said. Addiction, the stress of his mother’s death and a foundering marriage made him turn to God.

“I went into the shower and cried out: ‘God, save me. I can’t live this life any longer,’” he said.

That was Oct. 13, 2006. Later, Hayslip felt a call to the ministry. While in prison, he began taking the Truett correspondence classes.

“It kept me grounded,” he said. “If God puts me in a pulpit, I’ll preach. I’m not quite sure where he wants me, but he’s brought me so far. I have my wife, my child and a home. I don’t have a drug addition. I don’t have a full-time job yet, but God has brought me from darkness to light.”

For now, he takes part in a prison ministry.

“Nobody there can say, ‘You don’t know what I’m going through,’” he said.

Students receive an overview of the New Testament, the Old Testament and Christian and Baptist beliefs during the correspondence classes, but, “preaching skills is one of those things you can’t learn from a book,” Powell said. “I wanted them on this campus at least one week.”

The preaching skills workshop in June was a special week for Michelle Pullen, 40, of Waco, a former officer at a juvenile detention center. She is the associate pastor at Pleasant Olive Baptist Church in Waco.

“I’ve been taking Greek at a seminary in Nolanville, too, but I like to hear others’ experiences, and this gave me a chance,” she said.

Paul Stripling, a former pastor and executive director emeritus of Waco Regional Baptist Association, finished the week with some practical suggestions for the group.

Don’t try to be Billy Graham; be yourself, he said.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can be heard just because you’re in a small church. It may have bad acoustics, so “preach from the diaphragm,” Stripling said.

One last thing.

“Friends,” Stripling said, “Your congregation may have five people, 500 people, or 5,000 people. The important thing to remember is that each one has a soul.”

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