October 3, 2026
POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — Chip Dean, the new pastor at First Baptist Church of Powder Springs, is a winsome and energetic Christian gentleman who embodied every trait that the congregation was looking for.
“Our search team was searching for someone who values who we are and who can lead us to reach our community for Christ,” said Bo Smith, who led the search. “We soon realized that Pastor Dean has the heart of a shepherd, the gift of preaching, a passion to disciple believers, and the ability to lead. We were looking for a pastor, but ended up getting an entire family that we love and that will be an example to us all.”
Prior to coming to Georgia, Dean served on staff in multiple roles from 2015 to 2023, primarily as the campus pastor of Harbour View Campus in Suffolk for Liberty Live Baptist Church, a multiethnic, multigenerational, multisite church with six locations in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia.
Grant Ethridge, senior pastor of Liberty Live Church, was impressed with Dean and his wife.
"They are one of the most winsome couples you will ever meet," Ethridge said. "They have the anointing of God on their lives. Chip’s biggest flaw is he is an Alabama fan. He will have a long and fruitful ministry in Georgia if he learns to say, ‘Go Dawgs.’”
Dean told the search team that God is not calling him and his family to leave our church but to lead a church.
"God’s call on my life is to bring gospel-centered alignment to a church and its ministries for missional synergy," he said.
The new pastor hit the ground running in Powder Springs with a series of three sermons in September. They were “The Presence of God in Our Church”, “The Power of God in Our Lives," and “The Presentation of the Gospel in our Community.”
Dean grew up in a godly home in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and accepted Christ as a young child.
“My mother was driving me to kindergarten one morning when I was five years old," he said. "My inquisitive mind was thinking, ‘If I don’t give my life to Jesus, then I will be living it for the devil.’
The thought prompted him to ask his mother, ‘Do you know what I want today?’
"What?" his mother asked.
“I want to give my life to Jesus," he said.
“At that point my mother drove me to our pastor’s office, Dr. Ron English; and he proceeded to talk to me about everything from original sin and Adam and Eve to the blood of Jesus. I asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior. That was November 3, 1983.”
When Dean went to college as a freshman, he started out studying accounting, but did not like it one bit and changed to business management. When his interest in those two subjects evaporated, he volunteered to work in the student ministry at Cottondale Baptist Church in Cottondale, Alabama under the Youth Pastor, Steve Robinson. It was not long until Chip knew that God wanted him in full-time ministry.
His original youth pastor’s son, Chris High, was about to go to Baptist Bible College (now Clarks Summit University) in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, and Chip decided to go with him.
Dean is married to the former Michelle Snow; and they have two children, Brooklyn, 4, and Cruz, 1.
Michelle was an incredible athlete and was the runner-up for Miss Tennessee Basketball the year she graduated from high school. In other words, she was voted the second-best women’s basketball player in the state in 2004. Eventually, she became the coach of the freshmen women’s basketball team at Cookeville High School.
The couple met in July 2013 and by December 19, 2013, Chip was ready to propose marriage to the beautiful blonde he had met only 5 months earlier. On the night Chip traveled to Tennessee to propose marriage, Michelle was coaching her team against the team and the coach she had played for years earlier when she was the star at Clarkrange High School.
By some clever and clandestined plan Dean had arranged for the game to be halted at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Michelle’s former high school coach she was coaching against that night called for a time out; and Dean walked out on the court, knelt, and proposed marriage to Michelle to her great surprise. However, the bleachers were filled with family, friends, and people who somehow got the word that a well-orchestrated proposal was going to highlight the fourth quarter. Incidentally, Michelle’s team proceeded to win the game by 20 points.
The new pastor, also an athlete who played football, baseball and basketball in high school, is a disciplined Christian. He gets up at 5 a.m. each day for his personal time with the Lord. He lifts weights four days a week and runs two days a week.
Primarily, the new Powder Springs pastor believes that Jesus is the central theme of all scripture. For that reason, Dean will begin on Sunday, January 7 his plan to preach through the Bible for around 10 years, showing his congregation that Jesus is the center of all Scripture.
“I am honored and blessed to be a part of this family of faith," Dean said. "Former Pastor Mike Woods led this church for 40 years with grace, love, and passion. I have already begun to reap the wonderful fruit from the seeds he sowed in his ministry here.”
Share with others
