October 1, 2026
EVANS, Ga. - After more than three decades of leading worship, discipling students, serving senior adults, and pointing people to Christ through music and missions, the Rev. Ken Bennett has retired from full-time church ministry, though he says he is not finished serving.
Bennett, 59, retired May 29 after 35 years in ministry, most recently serving at First Baptist Church in Epworth.
“My only job right now is being Pops,” Bennett said.
He and his wife, Debbie, have two daughters, Katheryn and Jessica, and a granddaughter, Naomi.
“It doesn't take long to realize that Ken has a servant's heart, and he loves to help people. He's willing to help just about anybody and everybody,” said Epworth Senior Pastor Chris Clark.
Clark said Bennett’s impact through music and senior adult ministry was significant.
“He really has a gift for working with senior adults,” Clark said. “He communicated not just through what he said, but his actions.”
Looking back, Bennett said ministry taught him that faithfulness is measured by more than Sunday and Wednesday responsibilities. It is built through daily relationships, pouring into the lives of others, keeping family a top priority, remaining faithful to God’s call, trusting the Lord’s provision, and refusing to base success on the opinions of others.
Bennett’s road to ministry started early. Growing up, he sang in the choir while attending Brookhaven Baptist Church in Atlanta. At Cross Keys High School in Atlanta, he played tuba and trumpet in the high school band and sang in the chorus.
“All kinds of folks poured into me musically at church and at school,” he said.
Bennett has loved Christian music his whole life. “My first album was an old Imperials album. I was early into contemporary Christian music,” he said.
He graduated from high school in 1985 and began serving in music ministry with the Baptist Student Union at Georgia State University in Atlanta. He earned his bachelor’s degree in business in 1989. “I got a lot of opportunities to be involved in ministry,” he said, “and that’s what God used to call me.”
At the time, Bennett said, he did not know whether God was calling him to music ministry or preaching.
After college, he married Debbie and enrolled at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1991. He earned a master’s degree in religious education in 1992. While in seminary, he served as music and youth pastor at Hilltop Baptist Church in Weatherford, Texas.
He described his first ministry assignment at Hilltop as a learning experience.
“My pastor was a retired Army chaplain, and he said, ‘You’re the Bible school director.’ And I said, ‘I’ve never done this before.’ And he said, ‘I know. You’re the Bible school director.’ He threw me in and taught me a lot,” Bennett said.
Worship there included traditional hymns and, at times, no instruments. His favorite hymn is “Blessed Assurance.”
After seminary, Bennett served five years as music and youth pastor at University Baptist Church in Huntsville, Alabama. It was a different experience from Hilltop.
“I wasn't leading worship regularly but served with a phenomenal music minister who taught me tons,” he said. “I learned more in the first week than I learned in seminary.”
Beginning in 1997, Bennett served six years as music and youth pastor at Walker Baptist Church in Monroe. He said the church’s worship style was more blended and contemporary.
“It was an older church still, and I was just trying to navigate that,” he said.
He left Walker in 2003 for Statham First Baptist Church in the Athens area, where he again served as music and youth pastor for 12 years. From 2015 to 2018, he served as music and families pastor at First Baptist Church in Blue Ridge. In 2018, he became the music and senior adults pastor at First Baptist Church in Epworth.
At Epworth, Bennett helped the church transition its music ministry from a more traditional service to a blended service aimed at reaching more people.
“He did a really good job of handling that transition, which is not always an easy thing to do,” Clark said. “Leading change and initiating change.”
Rhon Carter, worship and music catalyst for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, said Bennett has been a humble and faithful leader.
“I have known Ken for many years, and he has been a faithful and consistent minister of music throughout all of those years,” Carter said.
Carter said Bennett always has something kind and helpful to say and is always building up others for ministry.
“He has been a great personal encourager of me personally,” Carter said. “He has been a wonderful worship and music leader, and what an honor to call him friend.”
Bennett said, laughing, that a friend once referred to him as the most traveled poor youth minister he knew.
He has done mission work in Ecuador, Jamaica, Russia, Moldova, Thailand, China, North Korea, England, France, Israel, Canada, and across the United States. Much of that work came through the Sons of Jubal, the Georgia Baptist men’s chorus. Bennett has sung with the group for 27 years.
“That’s been a huge part of my ministry,” he said.
Bennett recalled one trip to North Korea when the team did not know whether it would be allowed to share the gospel or sing openly about the Lord. To their surprise, he said, they were permitted to sing songs of faith.
“We were able to sing ‘Amazing Grace.’ We sang ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic.’ We sang one called ‘Thou, O Lord,’ based on Psalm 3,” he said.
As a worship pastor, Bennett said he did not make musical decisions lightly.
“I tried to pray about it and see what else was going on in the service and what else was going on in people's lives and just try to put something together that would encourage people and point them to Jesus,” he said. “That's never an easy thing, but it's a fun thing.”
His style as a worship pastor, he said, was to help people use the gifts God had given them.
“I didn't try to tell our instrumentalists how to play because I don't play instruments like they do,” Bennett said. “They’re the ones that know what they're doing. We put it together and then let people use the gifts that God gave them, whether it’s instrumentalists, soloists, picking choir music, or whatever.”
The moment that brought him the greatest joy as a music minister was seeing people come to Christ.
“At Bible school, I got to lead two young girls to Christ,” Bennett said. “That's better than any Christmas program or any worship service you can lead.”
As a senior adult minister, Bennett said his mission was to help people stay involved, put feet to their faith, and know they were loved unconditionally.
“Just seeing folks excited about serving,” he said. “Sometimes that's been collecting diapers for the local pregnancy center or school supplies, or we took stuff to North Carolina after Hurricane Helene several times.”
For Bennett, retirement is not the end of ministry, only a change in assignment.
“My wife said I need a job,” he said, laughing.
He said he is excited to see where the Lord leads next.
“I love what I did for 36 years, and I hope the Lord's not done with me,” Bennett said. “I don't think he is. I think I still got more to give.”
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