Introducing Elder Candidate Steven Mercer

Church family, we are grateful for your participation in the ministries and mission of Wilkesboro Baptist. Our elders have been making and reviewing nominations and interviewing candidates. We would like to introduce an elder candidate for your consideration. 


Steven Mercer currently serves as the International Security Director for Samaritan’s Purse. He served as a Green Beret with the U.S. Army Special Forces for 13 years before pursuing a calling to full-time ministry. After attending The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Steven and his family moved to Africa to work with Samaritan’s Purse. God called Steven and his family back to the U.S. in 2019 and to Wilkesboro Baptist Church in 2022. Steven currently co-teaches the Roots Sunday School class, helps teach the Middle and High School Sunday School classes, and serves Middle School students on Wednesday nights. He has been married to Caroline for 23 years, and they have six children.


Steven will be sharing during the Wednesday night Bible Study time on September 23 and will lead the confession and prayer time on Sunday, September 27. At either of those times, he will be available for conversation or questions from you as a congregation. We will vote on Steven Mercer as an elder candidate on Sunday morning, October 18. 


Here are a couple of reminders for you as a congregation. First, our current elder body (Chris Hefner, Tad Craig, Steve Melton, Steve Robinson, Tam Hutchinson, Dustin Deal, and Bruce Nisely) take the nomination and vetting of elder candidates seriously. To be presented to you as a congregation, elder candidates must have unanimous support from the elder body. Second, please exercise your responsibility to ask questions of us (at the Member Meeting on September 20) and of Steven (on September 23 or 27). A three fourths (3/4) approval is necessary for elder candidates to be approved. Third, if you would like to nominate a candidate to serve as elder, please see the office staff for a nomination form. 


Grace and Peace, 


Dr. Chris Hefner 

Several Church Updates

By Chris Hefner • September 12, 2026
Church family, God is exceedingly good, and we should praise him. With church family suffering and struggling, God is answering prayers-we should praise him. With sinners believing in Christ and being baptized, we should praise him. With God working in our midst, giving us opportunities to trust him-we should praise him. Mark your calendars for the September 20 Member Meeting at 5:30 PM and Sunday, October 4, as our annual mission offering Sunday. For more on praising God, here is a post about saying or singing praise daily .

Baptisms and Fall Ministries

By Chris Hefner • September 2, 2026
Church family, We celebrated baptism at 9:30 this past Sunday! It is such a joy to see believers declare publicly their allegiance to Christ through baptism. We return to fall programming on Wednesdays this week (September 2) with Awana (children) and Squads (Middle School) at 5:45.  Adult Bible study meets at 6:15pm where we will begin a study through the book of Romans: the Gospel Defined and the Gospel Applied. Sunday, September 6 begins a new sermon series: Word and Witness: Vision of the King from the Book of Revelation. Remember to park as far away as you can and sit in the middle of the sections when you attend each week. Invite a friend to worship with you this Sunday! For more information about following Jesus through discipleship groups, here is an invitation for you.

Return to Summer Programing

By Chris Hefner • August 26, 2026
Church family, we're glad to be returning to fall programming in the coming days. As folks return to worship, we are experiencing consistently high attendance each week. Please park as far away as you are able, and when you arrive for worship at 9:30 or 11:00 move to sit toward the middle of the aisle. Check out the parking map below to see available parking options and help us make space for others. As we conclude our series "More Grace: How God's Interventions Make it Possible to Follow Him," we do need more grace for our daily journey. Grace and peace, Pastor Chris

The Church We Aspire to Be?

By Chris Hefner • July 29, 2026
The Church We Aspire to Be?

God is Sending You!

By Chris Hefner • July 22, 2026
Church family, Thank you for your prayers and support for our student mission trip to El Salvador! At worship yesterday, our students shared their experiences about how God worked in and through them. Josh challenged us to adopt Paul's mindset of embracing our identity in Christ, our responsibility to lead others to Christ, and the people to whom God has sent us. Do you realize God is sending you? Wherever you are (work, home, leisure, hobby), there are people who need to know the love of God and the goodness of his gospel. Will you look around you? Who is someone you can pause to pray for right now? Who do you need to set an appointment with to share the gospel? We should be deeply thankful that God sent someone to us with his gospel so we could experience his grace and redemption. Grace and peace, Pastor Chris God alone is worthy of our worship and adoration. For more, check out The Cure for an Idolatrous Heart

Student Mission Trip Update

By Chris Hefner • July 15, 2026
Church family, We hope you can join us Sunday, July 19, as we hear from our students and El Salvador mission team. We will also have our Member Meeting on July 19 at 5:30 pm. This past Sunday, as we looked at Numbers 21, we reflected that the course we're on is tainted by grief and sadness, littered with difficulties and battles, and often jaded by the lengthy journey. Some of us are going through situations right now. Others have been through them recently. All of us will face difficulties and trials in the coming days. I've tried to write regularly to encourage others and for the benefit of my own soul. The following post comes from the Bible study on Wednesday July 8 and the condition of my own soul. I pray it helps and encourages you through situations and circumstances. https://chrishefner.org/2026/07/10/medicine-for-a-deserted-heart/

Taking Time to Pray

By Chris Hefner • July 8, 2026
Church family, As God's people, we should be amazed by God's grace and goodness in making us his own. That we belong to the Lord, we should pray for our nation. One of the most effective things we can do for others and for our country is to pray. This week, would you make time to pray for our church, for those who don't know Jesus, and for God to send a revival to our nation? Also, pray for our church mission team heading out to El Salvador early Thursday morning. Follow my blog for a post later this week on prayers you can pray for our mission team. Grace and peace, Pastor Chris Eight Prayers You Can Pray for Our Mission Teams

Sovereignty and Freedom

By Chris Hefner • July 1, 2026
Church family, This week our nation will celebrate 250 years of freedom. We ought to rejoice in the freedoms we have as we lament the amoral condition of our country. As you go about your week, look around you for evidence of God's sovereign interventions. Be assured of his sovereignty. This coming week, I will share two additional posts to my blog. Monday's meditation is about courage and following God even out of our comfort zones.  On Wednesday, I'll share a Christian perspective on our nation's 250-year celebration. I would encourage you to follow the link below for a post about God's sovereignty. At the bottom of the post, subscribe, and you'll get each of my posts sent to you. Grace and peace, Pastor Chris

VBS Recognition

By Chris Hefner • June 26, 2026
Church family, what a great week at VBS! Our children traveled to Rome to see Paul in prison for the gospel. A great shoutout to our Minister of Children and Families, Danielle Hicks, our VBS Director, Rachel Rogers, and the nearly 100 volunteers and leaders who made this year's VBS possible. We had several children make decisions to follow Jesus and many more continue conversations with leaders and parents about Christ. Parents and grandparents who are reading this, let me offer this advice to you: "Lead your children to follow Jesus one conversation at a time." Ask them what they learned at VBS or in Sunday school or in Awana. Ask them what it means to be a Christian. Ask them if they would like to hear how you became a follower of Jesus. Those kinds of questions keep the conversation going about following Jesus. Whatever we do for the gospel, we do "for the sake of his Name." https://chrishefner.org/2026/06/19/for-the-sake-of-his-name/

Camp and the SBC

By Chris Hefner • June 17, 2026
Thank you church family for your prayers last week. Our students had a great time at camp, and we will be planning a baptism soon! The Lord answered our prayers. Thank you for praying for the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting. I will be giving a report on Wednesday evening, June 24, at 6:15pm. There will be time for questions as well. You can read some of my initial observations below. For this week, keep all the VBS workers and children in your prayers.  Pray for energy, strength, patience, and clarity for the workers. Pray that the children who don't yet know Christ will hear the gospel clearly and respond by following Jesus.