Dillon Evans

As Senior Pastor, I have been entrusted with leading Gloucester Point Baptist Church through a comprehensive revisioning process focused on spiritual renewal, community engagement, and long-term gospel impact. This process has involved casting a new strategic vision rooted in four pillars: outreach to the lost, discipleship of believers, transformation of our local community, and strengthening of the local church body. I have worked closely with church leadership to align our structure, communication, and ministries with this biblical mission.

A core part of this revitalization has been the launch of Gloucester Point Bible Institute, an in-house training program that equips lay leaders, ministry interns, and future pastors through robust theological instruction and hands-on ministry formation. In connection with this, I developed a structured internship program, mentoring young leaders for pastoral ministry and gospel service. We have ordained and commissioned one pastor per year on average, sending them into ministry roles within local area churches. This multiplication strategy ensures the ongoing health and expansion of gospel-centered leadership in our region.

In addition, I have led a relaunch of the church’s missions emphasis, creating new local partnerships and fostering renewed involvement in global missions efforts. This includes mobilizing our congregation toward evangelistic and missional living through short-term projects, mission-focused events, and active prayer support.

To strengthen communication and visibility, I implemented significant technological upgrades, including:

• A fully redesigned and rebranded church website
• Weekly livestreaming with sermon repurposing for multiple platforms
• Developed our church app with push notifications and digital Bible and discipleship tools
• Online giving systems
• Automated guest follow-up and digital connect card tools via Text-In-Church

I have also overseen the launch and development of high-impact outreach events such as Sports Camp, Vacation Bible School, Music Camp, the Fall Festival, and our community presence at the Guinea Jubilee. These events have strengthened our visibility in the community and led to measurable increases in attendance and engagement.

My weekly responsibilities include preaching expositional sermons, providing spiritual guidance and pastoral care, teaching Bible studies (including multi-week series on Romans, prayer, and the doctrine of Scripture), leading staff and volunteer training, and administering the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. I also coordinate worship planning, lead counseling sessions, conduct weddings and funerals, and serve as the public face of the church in our community.

Under my leadership, church giving, attendance, volunteer engagement, and online reach have all increased, as the church continues to grow in both spiritual maturity and missional effectiveness.

Led the church through a season of change. This included giving a vision for a future for the church after it left its former denomination due to the compromise of God's Word. This involved looking within to see what God has done with the church in the past. Looking ahead to the continued mission of the local church and how we must adapt and reform to be faithful to God in reaching the community. Part of this included changing the church's name, as it was a big barrier to reaching the community. At the beginning of 2020, we began the discussion of the name change with the congregation. While this type of change is always difficult, especially with nearly 120 years of tradition behind the current name, the name Protection Mennonite Church was laid to the side for the sake of the Glory of God and the need for the gospel to penetrate the community. We have launched several ministries, and the church's focus remains on Knowing Christ and Making Christ Known. This is done through preaching the gospel, Bible studies, prayer meetings, and outreach to our community.

During this time, we also had a successful building campaign in excess of 50% of the annual budget that could be raised during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. This campaign included a roof replacement, a new sign updated to reflect the new name, a camera system, updated sound booth, and new equipment including PC, video streaming equipment, and software, replacing the projector system with large wall-mounted monitors.

This has allowed us during Covid and after to stream every service to our local community. In addition, I developed the website and social media presence that has seen our church services being viewed in over 14 states and 11 countries. Along with the website, we incorporated online giving, which has given the overall tithing increase by over 20%. The vast majority of this increase has been from those who watch online outside the immediate area.

I also helped lead the community and other churches and pastors doing virtual services during this time, including a 3-day virtual community service since we could not meet for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday.

During this time, I was nominated as the President of the Ministerial Alliance in Protection, KS. This entails the leadership of the four churches in Protection, identifying ways to help reach the community with events that bring the churches together.

In my time at New Hope, God used my family to bring healing to a severely divided church. They had been through a very painful time where the previous pastor caused division by trying to take over the church and have the current lay leadership replaced. The church with me as the under-shepherd had an increase of nearly 100 percent in membership. We launched a midweek Bible study and prayer service. We also started a youth ministry and transformed the evening service from a time of a simple sermon to a time where we go deeper into the Word with a focus on developing the members as disciples.

In the first two years, the church went from having no baptisms in decades to being one of the leading baptizing churches in the state. We had actively engaged in working with parachurch ministries to impact the youth and outcasts in the community with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Including sponsoring Christian youth baseball teams and providing opening day outreach through food, prayer, and invitations.

The church was also hit very hard during this time, with crucial leaders being brought home to glory. Several were dealing with cancer and had never had pastoral care and hospital visits. We implemented a visitation and care program that enabled many to see the love of Christ in the most difficult of times. The church also had a deacon family living in sin, and leadership wasn't willing to address it up to that point. I led the family and the church in church discipline. Sadly, we had to bring them before the church, which was very difficult as the church had never enacted disciple on any member in its 50-year history. After a time away, I am happy to report that the family has sought reconciliation. The church rightly showed grace to them.

I have also updated the church to a mixed style of music during worship. This was a long journey, but we were able to show it's not the style but the content. Worship must reveal what God has done for us and needs to generate a proper and reverent response.

I used my background with technology to launch a website and social media ministry for the church that produced growth because many prefer to listen to a sermon before attending for the first time.

We had launched a small group ministry focusing on going deeper in the Word and fellowship. I have had many pastors, and regional ministers visit the church and genuinely say it is one of the most friendly and welcoming churches they have ever been a part of. I have been utilized as a conference speaker for my local association's yearly conference. I was ordained in Gospel Ministry at New Hope Baptist Church in Association with the Southern Baptist Conference on March 12th, 2017.