New Pastor Starts at First Baptist Church
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By Emily McAfee
Pastor Cameron Neace, age 30, has been selected to serve as the new pastor at the First Baptist Church in Kahoka. He has served in churches in the states of Missouri, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.
Cameron was born in Cape Girardeau, MO. His parents, Rick and Kristi Neace, lived in Jackson, MO at the time and when Cameron was four years old, his father got a job in Union, MO. This is where Cameron grew up and attended school.
After high school, Cameron attended a local community college in Union for one semester where he studied Graphic Design.
“The Lord ended up leading me to Bible college in January of 2012. I went to the New Tribes Bible Institute in Waukesha, WI. That is where I met my wife, Caitlin,” Cameron stated.
Caitlin and Cameron were in the same class in college. After two years, they both graduated with an Associate Degree in Biblical Studies.
“Somewhere along the line the Lord grabbed a hold of my heart and gave me the desire to want to be in ministry. I thought it might be cool to be a pastor, might be cool to be a missionary, or I always told Caitlin if I could sing well, I would be an entertainer. When we went to Bible college that was really where I said I wanted to be a missionary,” Pastor Cameron said.
The couple then attended a New Tribes missionary training center for two years in Roach, MO.
“Originally, we were planning on going overseas with New Tribes Mission. We had our sights on Papua New Guinea or Papua Indonesia or somewhere in that area of the world. The Lord ended up leading us elsewhere, so we went to Florida for a year,” Cameron said.
“At that time, I wanted to be involved in ministry, but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do or what that would look like. As I was applying for different places and interviewing, I found out that it would be very helpful to have a Master’s of Divinity Degree from a seminary.”
Cameron started looking into seminary schools and ended up at the Grace Theological Seminary where he received his Master of Divinity in Pastoral Studies.
While he was in school, he started as an assistant pastor at a small church. After he graduated, he was hired at a church in Pennsylvania and after two years he and his wife moved back to Missouri.
Pastor Cameron started applying to churches to continue his ministry.
“I was talking to three churches, but only one was progressing and that was Virginia. So, Caitlin and I sat down and prayed ‘God, if you want us to go to Virginia, we pray that you would speed that up, but if not, we pray that you would slow them down and speed up the other two churches,’” Pastor Cameron said.
“The very next day there was a big ice storm in Virginia, so they canceled their services and another church I was talking to got back to me and wanted a zoom interview. Kahoka also asked me for my references.”
On February 6th, 2022, First Baptist Church of Kahoka selected Cameron as their new pastor. Pastor Cameron is excited to get to know everyone at First Baptist and he wants to learn more about the town of Kahoka.
“I just want Jesus to be made even more famous in Kahoka and all of the world,” Pastor Cameron said.
One of his main focuses for Fall of 2022 is to help people study the Bible.
“To the best of my ability, my job in Ephesians 4 is to equip people for this work and I want to make sure everyone has the tools they need,” he said.
First Baptist Church services are held on Sundays from 10:45 to noon. They also have Sunday School classes at 9:30. For more information, you can check out their website fbckahoka.org or their Facebook page. You can also call (660) 727-3545 with any questions.