By Lindsey Carraway
Writing Specialist
PONTOTOC, Miss. — What do you get when a pharmaceutical rep, an assistant superintendent of education, and a banker walk into a church? For Green Valley Baptist Church in Pontotoc, it’s a 13 member staff of entirely bivocational ministers with no formal training or education. Every staff member, except for Pastor Brian Sansing, started as a layman who sensed God’s call to pour into a ministry at Green Valley. Then that work turned into a staff position.
Twelve years ago, the former church plant had around 60 members. Today, Green Valley averages around 900 people per worship service. The secret? It’s no program or empty promise that draws people in; it’s only by the grace of God.
Back to What Matters
Sansing was grateful to serve the Bride of Christ after years of disobedience. In high school, he received a call to ministry but “ran a different direction” until surrendering to ministry at 35 years old. With a forestry degree from Mississippi State University and a career selling medicine, Sansing was satisfied supplying pulpits after “being on the bench” so many years.
In 2014, however, Green Valley offered him the pastoral position. At 40 years old, he and his family moved to the first and only church Sansing has ever pastored.
In the beginning, the staff included Sansing, a worship leader, and a youth minister, as well as an unofficial associate pastor.
They prayerfully concluded that the church needed, in a simplified way, to focus on what truly matters: prayer, personal Bible study, fellowship, discipleship, and making disciples.
A partnering missionary connected Green Valley to a church outside of Birmingham which was growing exponentially from one-on-one discipleship. That church graciously gave the staff direction and shipped a box full of the material they used, “A Call to Joy,” to Green Valley. The material covers all the basic theology necessary for being a Christian within two months of study.
The leadership at Green Valley decided they needed to know the material themselves, which caused a chain reaction of deacons discipling one another, followed by the deacons’ wives discipling each other, and then more and more members of the church began taking on discipleship themselves.
“We stripped off all the extra stuff and boiled it down to what Acts 2 says about the believers making disciples, prayer, worship, and fellowship; we focused in on what was important,” said Sansing. “We made sure everything we did drew people to Christ, then into a growing relationship with Jesus through discipleship. People began to buy in to being discipled, and with that they also bought in to making disciples themselves, and into the family of faith and fellowship.”
In recent years, the ministry of “door-to-door” evangelism seems less and less effective as people are busier than ever. The leadership, however, encouraged members to make disciples wherever they went, to talk to people about what God is doing in their lives, and to talk about the Church, the Bride of Christ, positively. “God sent His Son to save the world,” said Sansing. “Talk about it.”
“The church just really started to grow. Along the way, we hit obstacles, but we were willing to change course. We took a group in the church and put everything on the table, from how we did Sunday school to Vacation Bible School to everything we did. Some things we kept doing, some things we stopped doing, and some things we started.
“That 60 people membership turned into 100, into 200, and around 2019 going into 2020, the church had grown to an average attendance of 350-400, more than what our sanctuary would hold,” Sansing shared.
When COVID-19 closed church doors, thankfully Green Valley had already established an online platform, making the transition easier. A few months into the pandemic, the doors were opened for those who felt comfortable to worship at a distance from others. Even then, they continued to disciple and focus on what matters.
After COVID, it was clear to Green Valley’s leadership that the church needed to focus on prayer together.
Believing God Hears
On annual mission trips to New York, Sansing took time to visit the Brooklyn Tabernacle and admired the function of their prayer meetings. When he called the office to ask for advice, pastor Jim Cymbala called back directly and offered helpful instruction.
One thing Cymbala said still sticks with Sansing today: “People don’t pray because they don’t believe God hears and answers them. Because if people believe that there really was a God of creation, One Who willingly sent His Son into the world to take on the penalty of our sins, Who died on the cross and through His power raised Him from the grave and He sits on the throne outside of time, presiding over all of creation, and knows our yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and if you really believed in Who He is and that when we pray we walk into His presence and He hears us, then you pray.”
Green Valley began dedicating the first Sunday night of every month to prayer time.
“We were inconsistent in our prayer times before,” said Sansing. “But we sent everything else out of the way. We generally have a fellowship meal, nursery, and activities for youth and kids on Sunday night, but we don’t do those on prayer night.
“People wonder why we bring kids and babies into the prayer time. How is a young person going to learn how to pray if they don’t watch us? If they’re loud, it doesn’t matter. Our church family needs to come together and pray together. We call that the engine room of the church.”
During that time, prayer requests are not taken so as to not disrupt the focus.
“It’s a time where the leadership seeks out what we as a church need to be putting before the Lord. We’ve had some incredible times of prayer and seeing God move and answer those things. He’s been faithful every time.”
Answered Prayers
The church is grateful to be partnering with an ongoing ministry in Uganda, building a campus for a Christian school that started under the shade of a tree and now has over 700 students who are learning the Bible and coming to know Christ. Right now, Green Valley is praying for an opportunity in South America to start a similar ministry, and a group will visit a potential missions partner within the year.
While on a mission trip to New York, a group from Green Valley served in a food ministry and began praying about starting their own back home. An organization who saw their evident love from Christ gave them a check for $100,000 to buy a food truck for the community, followed by a $1,000 check every month to purchase food. Now, Green Valley serves about 300 to 400 meals a month to the community out of that truck.
In 2023, Green Valley broke ground on a new facility. The 1200-seat sanctuary was completed the day before their enormous 2024 Christmas service. Staff members and volunteers busily worked until 2:00 A.M. the night before to set out all the chairs and prepare the new sanctuary for the next day.
The new facility includes a fellowship hall and kitchen to provide a place and an opportunity for church members to gather together for family meals, at no charge, every week. Sansing assures, “We’ve never built up a whole bunch of money and we’ve never been without. God has always provided.”
“I’ve been around church my whole life,” said Sansing, whose father and grandfather both served as pastors. “I don’t know anything but church. I’ve just never seen an outpouring of the Lord like this in my lifetime. I’m not worthy, but I’m thankful to be a part of what God’s doing. Our greatest goal is to get out of the way and to not mess this up. It’s been good.”
Today, the staff remains completely bivocational, including Sansing, a pastor and a pharmaceutical rep running a business with his son. He looks forward to the next few months as both daughters will be getting married to godly men and as he turns the business completely over to his son.
“I love the verse in Acts 4 that says they were untrained, ordinary men who had been with Jesus,” said Sansing. “That’s where we have been. You can’t quantify it any other way; it’s all been about Jesus and just following Him. If you follow me, you’ll be disappointed. If we follow anything else outside of the head of the church Who is Jesus Christ, you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re following Jesus, you’ll never be disappointed by Him.”
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