March 19, 2025
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (KT) — Investing in young men in ministry carries great rewards — as evidenced by what has happened at First Baptist Church Fairdale.
More than a decade ago, senior pastor Josh Greene met a young student in ministry, Jake Beattie, and that relationship resulted in a blessing for both men as well as the church.
Greene, who has been a staff member at Fairdale since 2003 and the pastor since 2009, recalls that early in his pastoral role the church had a “single elder model,” which meant staff roles other than the pastor were filled by people on a part-time basis. Greene was getting numerous opportunities to not only preach at church, but at youth retreats, Fellowship of Christian Athletes events, and other gatherings. For two straight summers, he preached at another church’s summer camp. “They had all kinds of volunteers — people called into ministry,” Greene said, and it was there that he met Beattie.
“Jake and I started to talk and he told me that God had called him to be a pastor.” He was involved in the camp because he was “trying to serve somewhere.” Greene saw there were others called into ministry who had been at the church longer, which meant Beattie “was fourth in line for their young ministry, which means he never got to teach or preach.”
The two men talked later, and Greene related that when he arrived at Fairdale, he was given the opportunity to be involved in many ministry areas. “I wanted to put that opportunity before him … at our church he would get to do funerals, counseling, and preaching to the congregation on Sunday mornings.”
Not long after that, Beattie and his wife visited Fairdale, and he soon was called to a youth ministry position at a salary of $100 a week. Later he was ordained, then became a pastor of the church, and is now one of four ordained pastors at Fairdale. “He’s a wonderful pastor — he does funerals, weddings, he preaches, baptizes people — he does everything I do,” Greene said.
Beattie joined the Navy out of high school, and as he was nearing his separation from military service, he “started to really feel the pull to ministry, but I didn’t know what it looked like,” he said.
The desire to pursue a theological education led him to Louisville where he began undergraduate work at Boyce College and later at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. “I knew I wanted to do ministry full-time, and I knew real quick exactly what God was calling me to do — study theology, the Bible, preach, and teach. I knew this was where God was leading me. From the church I came from, I understood the importance of being involved and committed to the local church.”
New to Louisville, he visited a Louisville church that was bigger than any church he had been in before, with the desire to be “taught by somebody who was doing ministry. I started asking about pastoral internships, and the only thing they had was student ministry. I knew I wanted to teach and preach, but since that was the only thing offered, I took it. I met with the student pastor every week, along with a couple of unpaid interns, and we talked through discipleship — how to reach and disciple kids. It was great and I was loving it. Because it was a bigger church and there were quite a few other interns, there were not a lot of opportunities for preaching and teaching.”
Then came the summer camp where he met Greene. “He asked if I’d be interested in checking out Fairdale. He knew I wanted to teach and preach and get more opportunities to do that. As a smaller church in a less populated area, I knew there were opportunities.”
Beattie and his wife “considered and prayed about it,” visited the church and in 2013 decided to make the switch.
“I didn’t come for a specific position but wanted to get plugged in and do whatever was needed. I started serving in student ministry.” Not long afterwards, the student pastor found his role at Southern changing to the point he stepped away from that role. “It was a natural fit for me to step in and be student pastor. I went through the interview process and was called part-time in 2014.” He stayed in that role until 2021 when he was named associate pastor.
He is bivocational, working full-time at Humana. With three children at home, he said he realized that time with family would not enable him to spend as much time as he wanted to with students. “I felt it was a natural transition point to let somebody step in who has more time to give and less outside responsibilities. It has been a really smooth transition. I shifted into the role of associate pastor and preach whenever needed and fill in whenever there is a need to teach, do weddings and funerals.”
Fairdale has experienced a “boom of young children at our church. That has worked into me shepherding and building relationships with young families and encouraging them to read the Bible with their children.”
He added that it “is wild to think I have been here over 10 years, and bivocational the whole time. When I felt the call, I never felt the call to be bivocational. But the church, being smaller, can’t afford a lot of full-time people. God has blessed the church to provide me a good stable job so my wife and I do not have to depend on the church for our whole paycheck. I would have never considered that, but it is cool to see how God has provided.”
Fairdale now is approaching 300 people each Sunday in worship. Also, there are “about eight or nine people who are going to be baptized very soon,” Greene noted. Fairdale is also one of the top 10 sending churches recognized this year by the Kentucky Baptist Convention.
___
This story first appeared in Kentucky Today.
