By Bryant Thigpen
Riverbend News
Josh Wynn serves as the pastor of a growing church in North Carolina, but his roots in pastoral ministry were planted deep while living in Suwannee County. Wynn was born in Jacksonville to Terry and Wendy Wynn in 1985, and the family lived in Orange Park, Yulee and Madison before ultimately making Live Oak their home in 1999.
Wynn comes from a Christian home and was basically raised on a church pew. His father was saved at an early age and had served as a youth and music pastor since he was 19 years old, so Wynn had heard about Jesus all of his life. In fact, Wynn was about seven years old when he realized that he needed to be saved.
“I was a little kid, but my parents instilled Jesus in me,” he said. “One day I walked the aisle, wanting to be saved. The pastor told me to go home and talk with my parents, and make sure I knew what I was doing. The next week, I walked the aisle again.”
Wynn would also follow in his father’s footsteps by surrendering to the call of ministry at an early age. “Just prior to my senior year at Suwannee High School, I had no idea what I wanted to do in my life. Through some encouragement from good friends, they said I was good at giving advice and should consider counseling. That got my mind going. As I pondered counseling, I slowly came to the idea that what better way to counsel someone than from the Word of God,” he said. “So, I got into the Word and started praying. I realized I’d actually been a worldly believer for a long time in spite of being raised in a home with a dad who was a youth pastor and a mom who taught Sunday school and played piano at the church. I rededicated my life to the Lord in July of 2003 and I grew closer to Him.”
While exploring his options of beginning a career in counseling at the Baptist College of Florida (BCF) in Graceville, Wynn realized God had something greater for his life.
“I felt God was calling me to pastor,” he said. “I was sure that was what God wanted me to do. I preached my first sermon in May 2004 at a youth day church service. It was on Spiritual Warfare in Ephesians 6 and was one of the worst sermons anyone could put together and preach (according to me). I remember halfway through the sermon, just thinking, ‘Okay Josh, this is terrible, just get through this and rethink what you are going to do with your life.’ At the end of the sermon I was thinking, ‘Well, that phase is over. What do I do now with my career?’”
However, it was actually at the end of that message that God confirmed his calling. “A few minutes after the service, a lady - a first-time visitor - approached me and told me that I preached exactly what she needed to hear that day and thanked me for preaching God’s Word. That’s when I knew this was bigger than me,” Wynn recalled. “I realized it’s not about what I think or feel, it’s about being obedient to God and listening to Him. He used that bad message from a 17-year-old to speak to others. That confirmed His calling on my life to be a preacher.”
Wynn enrolled at BCF in 2003 and while he was still attending classes, he accepted the position as pastor of Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in Ponce De Leon in 2005. As Wynn was in his second year of college and beginning his first year of ministry as a pastor, he also met and started dating the love of his life, Berkelee.
“As my girlfriend through my first church as pastor, she was basically a pastor’s wife before she was my wife,” he laughed. “They treated her as such. I know that was hard on her, but she was great.” Wynn graduated from BCF in May of 2008, he proposed to her two weeks later, and the couple was married at Westwood Baptist Church in Live Oak on Dec. 20, 2008.
In January of 2008 as Wynn was nearing the end of his collegiate career, he decided it was time to move back closer to home and became the pastor of Pine Grove Baptist Church in Madison. In 2011, he transitioned back to Live Oak when he accepted the same position at Philadelphia Baptist Church. He served as the pastor at Philadelphia Baptist until 2019, and he currently serves as the pastor at Emma’s Grove Baptist Church in Fletcher, North Carolina.
“Live Oak was good to me and my family. From a young high school kid to the eight years of ministry as a pastor, I’ve come across some really good people. People who I believe God put in my life at just the right time,” Wynn said. “He’s always led me to people and the places He wants to. Today, that’s up here in North Carolina. But for so much of my life, He did that for me in Live Oak. I cherish the small-town life and the people there. I always will.”