Five years. According to a modern rule of thumb, that’s how long the average new pastor lasts in a ministry position before burning out or moving on to another church. That’s barely any time at all, not even long enough to see a baby that this new pastor baptized reach first grade.
But for every rule, there’s an exception, and in this case, that exception is Bob Hayes. Active in ministry for 50 years, and serving the same congregation for half of that time, Hayes is a model of longevity in an increasingly transient field.
Born and raised in Panama City, Florida, Hayes graduated from Reformed Theological Seminary Jackson in 1974. After his ordination he pastored a church in Carrollton, Mississippi, for seven years before returning to Panama City in 1981 to join Covenant Presbyterian Church as an assistant pastor. Not long after he returned home, however, Covenant’s senior pastor was called to a pulpit out of state, leaving Hayes as an interim. After a year-long search the pulpit committee came to Hayes and asked him to step into the role permanently. Aware of the risks involved in making an internal hire, Hayes initially expressed some hesitation—until the congregation’s 100-2 vote in his favor settled the matter.
Hayes would serve at Covenant for the next 25 years: preaching and teaching, marrying and burying, following all the rhythms of pastoral life. Beginning in the 1990s, however, mission work in Uganda with African Christian Training Institute became a growing component of his ministry. Visits once a year became visits every few months (with over 60 visits to date, he is a proud Million-Miler with Delta Airlines).
By the early 2000s Hayes realized he could no longer effectively serve as a full-time senior pastor in Panama City. He stepped down from that role in 2007 to focus on his Ugandan missions; several years later he was asked to fill in at a small but historic congregation in Chattahoochee, just west of Tallahassee. Hayes became part of the regular pulpit supply at Chattahoochee Presbyterian Church in 2014.
Despite its rural setting Chattahoochee was a robust church with several hundred members on the rolls just a generation or two ago. As younger parishioners graduated and moved away to nearby cities, however, the pews went unreplenished. Now a full house today on a Sunday morning might mean a dozen worshippers at most. Neither Hayes nor his flock are deterred, however; most weeks out of the year he still prepares a Sunday School lesson and a sermon, makes the 90-minute drive from his home in Panama City, and frequently has lunch with his parishioners after the service. “Two or three is good enough for me,” Hayes says, chuckling, but knowing full well the verse he cites.
Throughout Scripture, success in God’s eyes is measured less in membership or wealth than it is in obedience and faithfulness. While Chattahoochee actively prays for growth in its pews, its parishioners remain engaged in area ministries, including continuing to support missionaries overseas. The congregation recently celebrated its 100th anniversary of incorporation, but their eyes remain firmly fixed on the future, not just on the past.
Hayes continues to serve in Uganda and hopes to return there this fall to continue his collaboration with the Presbyterian Church of Uganda planting churches, building schools, and training up leaders and disciples in Entebbe and the surrounding areas.
Yet different congregations have different needs, and recognizing those differences is a key concern for Hayes. Reflecting on his 50 years of ministry, he notes that one of the major gifts of serving the same church for an extended period of time is the depth of relationships it brings. “The pastor really gets to know the people, and vice versa,” he said. “This creates a natural inclination both to compensate for each other’s weaknesses and to exploit each other’s strengths.”
Such a foundation of trust and understanding brings solidity and stability to a pastor’s work, yet pastors in churches of any size must be swift to recognize their own blind spots. Hayes encourages those who are entering their first pastoral posts to lean on the expertise of older members who can help identify issues before they arise.
“When I first started out, I had no rubric for families that had needs,” he observes. “I probably missed opportunities to minister because I didn’t know about them. One thing they don’t teach you in seminary is that some people will readily volunteer their needs, but others never do. If I had figured that out more quickly I might have been more impactful.”
Always learning and seeking new ways to serve, Hayes is grateful to those mentors who instilled in him a love of Scripture from an early age, showing him what a life shaped by the Word of God looks like. “Ultimately, how you feel about some issue or another is not what matters,” he observes. “The question is, what do the Scriptures teach?”
Whether in a small town in the Mississippi Delta, an urban setting in Panama City, a rural church in the Chattahoochee countryside, or in the rough-and-tumble of a developing country overseas, that question has guided Hayes his whole life. Humility, faithfulness, and love for his flock – wherever that flock is found – are written on the tablet of his heart (Prov. 7:3).
Benjamin Morris is an M.Div. student at Reformed Theological Seminary and contributing writer for byFaith.