SEVIERVILLE, Tenn. — First Baptist Church of Sevierville carries on the vision of Pastor Dan Spencer’s great-great uncle, M.E. Dodd.
In addition to a long list of international and national missions partnerships, and a long list of local ministries under its “Ministry Village” umbrella, First Sevierville continues its strong commitment to missions giving through the Cooperative Program (CP), the way Southern Baptists work together in obedience to Jesus’ Matthew 28:19-20 command known as the “Great Commission.”
M.E. Dodd chaired the committee that launched the Cooperative Program in 1925.
“When the Southern Baptist Convention needed money for missions, it could always count on M.E. Dodd to champion the cause,” according to a 2010 Baptist Press article.
“He would say, ‘Keep up the Cooperative Program. Do not let it break off and do missions out of part of it,’” [Virginia] Joyner said of her grandfather M.E. Dodd, according to the article. “He would say, ‘Keep it all together. Do the missions. Do all of the work. Do the relief and everything out of the Cooperative Program.’”
That’s how First Sevierville rolls.
At least 4,000 people attend Sunday services either online or in person. In 2024, members gave 9.3% to missions through the Cooperative Program, plus even more dollar-wise to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, a hefty amount to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, and still a nice total — about $400,000 — to local missions and ministries.
“What we really believe we do; everything else is just talk,” Pastor Dan Spencer told Baptist Press. “I don’t know we believe it if we don’t put action to our words.
“I really believe back in 1925 the committee my great-great uncle chaired, God gave them just a genius idea and one He has blessed for 100 years now: Together we can do so much more than we can do individually,” Spencer continued. “This week I taught an evangelism class at Gateway Seminary, shared the gospel in Central Asia and launched a new church plant in Texas. Because our church gives through the Cooperative Program, I can say the Cooperative Program did all that work this week.”
First Sevierville helps people move from their point of need to hope in Christ, according to the church’s mission statement. The church has a four-part strategy: gathering in worship, growing in Life groups, serving in ministry and going out, in and from their world.
Missions is “a real love of our church family,” the pastor said. Members have plans this year to go on mission to Panama, India, Kenya, Philippines, Brazil, Central Asia, “and domestically, we sent a team to Alaska earlier this year; our students are going to a church plant in Denver this summer.; we’ve been working with a Chinese church plant in Cleveland, and a church plant in Manhattan, Montana.”
First Sevierville tries to establish partnerships “where we can go back again and again and have an impact that way,” the pastor said. “Another way we serve is that so many of our members have been involved in Disaster Relief. We’re able to step in and be the hands and feet of Jesus on the worst day of someone’s life. That’s pretty powerful.”
First Sevierville serves locally through its “Ministry Village,” which partners where possible with ministries already doing a work the church would like to be involved in, so the church doesn’t duplicate ministries. This includes a medical clinic and a pregnancy resource center, both just blocks from the church.
Outreaches like a food pantry, hot meals, ESL classes and Upward sports programs bring hundreds of people to the campus each week.
“A lot of our neighbors are working poor,” Serve Pastor Steve Brewer told Baptist Press. The church also offers biblical counseling and benevolence. “We started our hot meals ministry to teach our youth to be servant-minded.”
Pastor Spencer’s family line before and after M.E. Dodd carries evidence of Christian commitment.
“Neither of my grandfathers were pastors, but they were ‘pastors’ in their families in their generation, if that makes sense,” Spencer said. “M.E. Dodd’s father-in-law, my great-great-Grandpa Savage, was a Baptist college president and a pastor. He claimed that there has been a Baptist preacher in the Savage family since before the Revolutionary War. I can’t verify that, but it’s the story he told, and one that Dodd would have heard for sure.
“I was born in 1967, and he [M.E. Dodd] was talked about all the time,” the pastor continued. “My mother was his great-niece. She spent time with the Dodds in their home in Shreveport, [La.]. He was a spiritual hero in her family, along with his father-in-law, George Martin Savage, who was the president at Union University in Jackson and a longtime professor of French, philosophy and religion. He was president two times at Union. My mom remembered her uncle — whom she called ‘Uncle Elmon’ [M.E. Dodd] — to be a fun-loving person. He always had funny stories to entertain with.”
Spencer’s father, Jerry Spencer, now 85, retired recently, after nearly 70 years preaching, pastoring and serving as an evangelist.
“I grew up knowing what he was doing was very important,” Dan Spencer said. “He was president of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists, and I was raised among all those people, gospel-minded soul-winning people. Pastors and evangelists have always been my heroes, so I guess I always wanted to live up to a standard like that.”
The First Sevierville pastor started in local church ministry in 1990 as a Home Mission Board (now NAMB) US-2 missionary in Missouri. He and his wife Tresa have two sons, both of whom are pastors in Georgia: Jacob is student pastor at Woodstock Church in Jasper; Jeremiah is pastor of worship and administration at First Baptist Church in Thomasville.
As for First Sevierville, it was planted in an election year — George Washington’s, in 1789, and was already a “very strong, healthy church” when Spencer became pastor in 2011. He followed Randy Davis, who today is executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Convention.
(EDITOR’S NOTE —Karen L. Willoughby is a national correspondent for Baptist Press.)
