MONTICELLO, Ark. – After pastoring four churches in three states over a span of nearly 30 years, God called Joe Day a different direction in ministry.
“I felt the Lord calling me to move from being a pastor. I was a lead pastor for 27 years, and I just felt the Lord pulling me in the direction of being an associational missionary,” Day said.
Day sent out a couple resumes and soon answered God’s call to serve as associational missionary for the Southeast Arkansas Baptist Network. Originally from Oklahoma, Day has served in Kansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky and now Arkansas. He became associational missionary in October of 2021.
“We’ve just always said, wherever the Lord takes us, we’ll go there,” Day said of himself and his wife, Melanie. He and Melanie have two daughters, two sons-in-law, three grandsons, and two granddaughters.
Prior to coming to Arkansas, Day was called to Kentucky to help with a church revitalization. They spent two years in Calvert City, Kentucky, helping a church be revitalized before getting the call for southeast Arkansas.
“Three of the four churches I’ve pastored were small churches in crises when they hired me,” he said. “My passion is for church revitalization. To help churches. I don’t think there is any better testimony of God’s grace than to watch a church go from dying to alive and thriving in a community that they would look at it and go there is something beyond earthly things happening there.”
Day said the Southeast Arkansas Baptist Network (SEARK) is a fairly new association. It is a combination of the Delta Baptist Association and the Bartholomew Baptist Association. The two joined together to form the SEARK Baptist Network.
“They were floundering and trying to find a directive. My goal has been to get our churches to catch a vision for where and what God is calling them to do right now,” he said. “My goal is to get our churches to see that God has called for them to do more than just survive. … They need to get a vision for what God Is calling them to do and how to reach the community around them.”
Two ministries the association is excited about, Day said, is their disaster relief ministry and their Wolf Creek Baptist Camp.
“We have a wide range of disaster relief resources. We have multiple trailers and are training up teams so we can get to serving our brothers and sisters in Arkansas and surrounding states when disaster hits,” he said.
Additionally, they are working on resurrecting their Wolf Creek Baptist Camp. Day said the last time it saw serious ministry was when it housed refugees from Hurricane Katrina that affected the New Orleans area in 2002.
“We’re trying to rebuild it and get it up and going to where it can be a ministry to our churches and to our kids and communities to carry into the future,” he said.
For more information about the Southeast Arkansas Baptist Network, visit searkbn.org