What To Expect
What We Believe
Six Essential Beliefs
God
We believe that God exists eternally in three persons; the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that these three are one God. As God He is righteous and just but also merciful and kind. He is all powerful, all loving, always present and all wise. We believe that He is the absolute and sole creator of the universe and that He reigns with providential care over His universe even today. We believe that God, by His sovereign choice and out of love for men, sent Jesus the Christ into the world to save sinners. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, became a man without ceasing to be God; He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and was born of a virgin and He lived a sinless life.
Jesus Christ
We believe that Jesus voluntarily offered Himself as a substitu¬tionary sacrifice, that he was crucified, died as a penalty for our sins, was buried and was raised from the dead bodily on the third day. Later he ascended to the Father’s right hand where He is head of the church and intercedes for believers. Because we believe that by the death of Jesus, through His shed blood, He made a perfect recompense for sin, we believe that the salvation He offers, with its forgiveness of sins and its hope of eternal life, is entirely apart from good works, baptism, church membership or man’s effort, and is of pure grace.
Holy Spirit
We believe that the Holy Spirit is a person, that He also is God, and possesses all the divine attributes. He convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment and He brings new life to those who have trusted in Jesus. He indwells all believers, baptizes and seals them, bestows spiritual gifts upon them, and fills them in response to confession of sin and repentance.
The Bible
One of the foundational truths that we believe as a church is that the Bible is the Word of God. We believe that it was inspired by God so that it was without error when God originally gave it and preserved by God so that it is a divinely authoritative standard for every age and every life.
Forgiveness
We believe that each person must personally and specifically repent of their sin and by faith make a decision to trust in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of their sin. Such a commitment to Jesus will demonstrate itself in a changed life.
Spiritual Gifts
We believe that spiritual gifts are given by God the Holy Spirit for the building up the body of Christ (Eph.4:16ff, 1 Cor.12:7) however we reject the idea that any particular gift will be given to all or even that we should expect everyone to have any particular gift. (1 Cor.12:11-12, 27-30). Instead, we believe that God gifts people according to how He wills and how He sees a need in the body. (1 Cor.12:11) We believe that the marks of maturity and godliness are the fruit of the Spirit exercised with godliness (Gal.5:16-26) and we reject the idea that the gift of tongues, or any other particular gift, is evidence of spiritual maturity or godliness. (1 Cor.3:1-3, 12:11)
Staff
Jimmy Acree
Jimmy Acree (Pastor Jimmy) has served as lead pastor elder of the Bacon’s Castle family since September of 1987. Fresh out of seminary, he returned to the area where God brought him and this church together. There was actually only one week between the former pastor’s leaving and Jimmy beginning to preach.
Jimmy is a graduate of Ferrum College and Columbia International University. He had completed his course work for a DMin from Liberty University though still lacks to complete his dissertation.
Raised in Latin America, Jimmy is fluent in Spanish and loves to practice his Español!
He and his wife Anne have six grown children spread out across the country. Jimmy enjoys motorcycle riding and enjoying the company of friends, both old and new.
Michael Tuck
Michael Tuck serves as our associate pastor here at Bacon’s Castle. He previously served at Lawndale Baptist Church for 6 years as the worship and music associate. Michael was raised in Roanoke, VA and went to Liberty University where he met his wonderful wife Kelley. Michael is a graduate of Liberty University.
He enjoys being with his family, photography, technology and hanging with people.
Jenny Sommerfeld
Jenny started working as our church’s administrative assistant in the Spring of 2022. Jenny is married to her husband of over 20 years, Evan, and they have twin daughters, Eleanor and Mary. She is a Virginia Tech graduate and comes from Giles County, Virginia, an Appalachian Trail community. Surry became home in 2011 when she became Ranger of Pipsico Scout Reservation. In 2017 God shook up their lives, moved them to Florida, and then back home again to Pipsico in 2020 but this time with Evan as Ranger.
Elders
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 over forty years. He and Donna have three children, Landon and his wife Courtney, Ben, and Jennifer and her husband Jeremy. They also have been blessed with several grandchildren. Dickie became a follower of Jesus in the mid 1980s and he 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.
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 grown children, Darin and Meagan and he works for Dominion Power at the Surry Nuclear Plant. Jamey also serves as our worship leader on Sundays. He enjoys golfing and fishing.
Matt Washam
When Matt graduated from the University of Tennessee he moved to Surry to give leadership to a local Baptist camp. A follower of Jesus since his youth, he became a part of the Castle family back in 2008 and in 2012 he married his wife Meredith, a daughter of our church. Today they have three children, Sam, Adah, and Alice. Matt left the directorship of the camp and today is doing something he’s wanted to do for a number of years—he’s a farmer! Matt enjoys just about anything that has to do with being outdoors.
Micah Beachy
Micah has been serving as an Elder for about two years. Micah and his wife Melissa have been here since 2003. They have five wonderful children, Dietrich, Jonathan, Joshua, Serena, and Eric.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Our elders are in agreement with our constitution and our doctrinal statement.
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 men, demonstrating a Spirit-filled life and a consistent walk with Jesus. They are men who have strong prayer lives, are committed to the authority of Scripture and have a witnessing lifestyle.