By Mindy Ragan Wood
Staff Writer
The new pastor at First Baptist Church of Piedmont is settling into his new post and looking forward to reaching more souls.
Ryan Taber was chosen as the new pastor July 28 after he preached his first message to the congregation. The church was without a permanent shepherd for a year following the retirement of longtime pastor Gary Caldwell.
Taber brings his wife, Jennifer and five children to a community they are excited to join. Oklahoma born and raised, the couple spent the last 15 years in Lindale, Texas. Taber is from Beaver and Jennifer is from Tulsa. They have been married since 2002.
“We’ve been away from Oklahoma for a number of years,” he said. “For me, even though I was in Texas for 15 years, Oklahoma was always home. A lot of things we love, the people in Oklahoma are down to earth, hard-working, honest people.”
The pastor said the growth Piedmont is experiencing and the quality of the education system for their five school-aged children was appealing.
“More than anything, the potential we believe this church has to reach a part of Oklahoma that is growing is exciting,” he said. “This is not a stagnate community.”
Taber found it was not a stagnate church either. In the absence of a senior pastor the church updated its website, saw staffing changes and oversaw other improvements to the church in the last several months.
“A lot of churches in the absence of a senior pastor kind of go backwards,” Taber said.
“They kind of adopt an attitude of, ‘we don’t want to do anything until we get a new leader.’ One of the really exciting things at First Baptist was the people really mobilized and embraced a Biblical vision that a church is the people. A lot of the changes, aesthetic modernizing of the website, things like that, but the people here embraced an active role.”
Taber plans to challenge them even more to step into the role of individual ministry.
“I want to be about what the scriptures call the pastor be about,” Taber said. “A key aspect of that is preaching, teaching and I’m convinced from the Scripture that the role of the church from Ephesians 12 is to equip the saints to go out and do the work of the ministry. What we’ve been called to do is train up people to be transformed and to share that with other people,” Taber said. “I don’t feel like the weight of reaching this community falls on my shoulders. The weight on my shoulders is to make sure our people are trained.”
Certain aspects of his theology will come as no surprise to the church. In Caldwell’s final sermon he urged his congregants to stay true to historic Biblical teachings as the Christian culture slides away from hard-to-hear messages.
Congregants won’t get a contrary argument from its new leader.
“I think the church for a lot of years has embraced a lot of pragmatism as far as what works,” Taber said. “So, as we see the culture shift, it’s important for pastors not to ‘be tossed to and fro on every wind of doctrine.’ There has to be fidelity to God’s word.”
Listening ears in the pews will hear sermons steeped in Biblical context.
“We’re going to be preaching from the Bible, through the books of the Bible and teach in context what the scriptures actually say,” Taber said. “A commitment to a style of preaching that is expository preaching which is that type of preaching that seeks to explain the scripture and understand the main point of the passage.”
Taber confesses he is still learning his vocation as he completes his master’s degree in divinity from the Baptist Missionary Association Theological Seminary. He was ordained as a minister in 2015 and served for 12 years as an associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Lindale. He previously obtained a degree in secondary education from Oklahoma State University.
There are two open staff positions at the church, including a church administrator, youth pastor and administrative assistant.
