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Elder Leadership

Our Leadership: Biblical Eldership
The leadership of our church family is invested in a plurality of men we call our elders.  More and more churches, including Baptist churches, are embracing the Biblical teaching that the church is to be led by not just one elder, the pastor, but by a group of men set aside as an elder team.   Our pastor serves as the leader for the elder team, but our church is led by all our elders together.

What Is an Elder?
According to 1 Timothy 3:1-7, 1 Timothy 5:17-22, and Titus 1:5-9, God appoints elders to pastor the church as a leadership team.  Through out the New Testament the terms Elders, Pastors and Overseers are often used interchangeably of the same office so elders are to pastor and oversee.  Specifically the Bible says that elders are responsible to provide leadership to the church by visiting the sick, judging doctrinal issues, teaching, preaching, protecting, exhorting, and praying.

Who Are the Elders at Bacon’s Castle?
Our pastor is a vocational elder. That is, he is supported full time by the church.  The rest of our elder team are non-vocational.  Together, under the Lord Jesus, our elders lead us.

Are All Those who Serve as Pastors at Bacon’s Castle Also Elders?
No. At the present we only have one vocational pastor who also serves as the leader of the elders.  However we believe that men can serve as assistant pastors without necessarily serving as elders. They will also provide valuable leadership.

What Do the Elders Believe?
Our elders are in agreement with our constitution and our doctrinal statement.

What are the Qualifications for Elders?
The qualifications for an Elder are listed in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1.  A church Elder shall be: "...above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to much wine or pugnacious, but gentle, uncontentious, free from the love of money, good manager of his household, not a new convert, having a good reputation outside the church, having children who believe, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled..."

Elders serving at the church meet the above qualifications. They are not perfect men but they are spiritual man, demonstrating a Spirit-filled life and a consistent walk with Jesus. They are men who have strong prayer lives, are commited to the authority of Scripture and have a witnessing lifestyle.

More Information about Our Elders and Their Relationship to the Church can be found in our Constitution.

Meet our Elders

At the present time, Bacon’s Castle is led by four elders.  Our pastor, Jimmy Acree, serves as the leader of our elder team.  He has served here for over twenty years and you can find out more about him by clicking on his name below.

Pastor Jimmy Acree

Ray Barrett
Ray has served for quite a few years as an elder here at Bacon’s Castle.  This is his home church so he grew up here as a child.  He and his wife Jill have five children.  Meredith, their oldest, is a student at Atlantic Bible College while his other children Josiah, Hannah, Noah and Gracie are all still at home.  Ray works vocationally for Northrop Grumman Shipyard.   He presently teaches one of our children’s classes  and also leads our audio/visual team.  

Jamey Cowan
Jamey and his wife Nancy have been a part of Bacon’s Castle since January of 2004 and three years later he began serving with us on our elder team.  Jamey and Nancy have two children, Darin, a freshman at Liberty University, and Meagan who is in high school.  Recently Jamey changed jobs and today works for Dominion Power at the Surry Nuclear Plant.  Jamey serves as our worship leader on Sunday.

Dickie Pittman
Dickie grew up right here in Surry County.  After attending Clemson University, where he met and married his wife Donna, Dickie returned home to take over the family farm.  He has worked as a farmer for about thirty years.  He and Donna have three children, Landon and his wife Courtney, Ben and Jennifer. They also have one grandson, Will Pittman.  Dickie became a follower of Jesus in the mid 1980s. Dickie has served here at Bacon’s Castle as an elder from the appointment of our first elder team.  He presently leads our young men’s small group on Sunday morning.