My name is Floyd Lunde, and I am the pastor of the First Baptist Church in Barron, WI. My wife Becky and I have been serving here since October 2014, and have found the people to be a wonderful family of faith and a community of believers committed to honoring the Lord and advancing His work in this world. Our journey has been long and varied.
My wife, Becky, was the daughter of a Pastor and heard the gospel of our Lord from infancy. At the age of 7, she understood that God wanted to forgive and save her personally. She put her faith and trust in Jesus Christ and became a born-again Christian. Her father died a year later of cancer, and her mother, a nurse, moved the family to Jamestown N.Y., where Becky lived until leaving for Bible College. Her mother re-married a widower with 3 children of his own, so Becky and her brother and sister, and the 3 children of her stepfather, made up a home of husband and wife and 6 children. Quite a story in itself. The Lord led Becky to be willing to follow the Lord into ministry service in Missions and after Bible College, began the process of becoming a missionary to first nation people in Canada.
I grew up in Minneapolis, MN, in a growing Christian home, with one older brother. We attended a wonderful church where I heard the gospel from infancy also, but I did not respond to God as early as my wife did. However, in God’s grace and mercy, I began to sense conviction of sin and God’s holiness and my coming judgment and at the age of 17, as a Senior in High School, I came to trust the Lord personally as Savior and Lord. My life changed from that day forward.
I also went to Bible College where I had the opportunity to spend a summer in England in a ministry of helping church planters. That opened my eyes to the world and their need for the gospel. In England, as a 20-year-old college student, I joined Isaiah the prophet in saying “Here am I, send me.”
After college, I was able to attend Central Baptist Seminary in Minneapolis where I graduated in 1983. After a year of helping a pastor rebuild a church work, the Lord directed me to join Baptist Mid-Mission to begin the process of going back to England to minister in Church planting. At a mission conference, I met a young lady named Becky Blackmer who was on her way to work in Canada with indigenous people. We began dating. In January of 1986, Becky and I became husband and wife; a year later we left for England to begin a 20 year ministry of church planting in the Plymouth area of southwest England. God has given us two wonderful daughters, born in England, who now live in the Minneapolis area. God raised up the Ivybridge Evangelical Baptist Church and led a British pastor and family to follow us and become the first pastor of that church.
Then the Lord led us back to Minneapolis where we assumed the leadership of the same church I had been helping in after Seminary. We had a 8 year ministry there and saw many souls converted, people added to the church and the work progress. In 2014, the Lord directed us to pursue another ministry and led us to First Baptist Church of Barron, where we now serve. We are excited for the future here and anticipate God doing wonderful things here by His grace.
With any questions feel free to reach out by email: pastorfloyd@firstbaptistbarron.org
My Name is Drew Wilson, and I am the youth pastor of First Baptist Church in Barron, WI. My family and I have been here serving since February of 2021, we absolutely love serving here at First Baptist. We have been so blessed by our church family who have become like our family.
I grew up in a Christian family; before I was born my parents where members of an independent Baptist Church in southern Idaho. From a young age, I heard the Gospel in many classes in church and church camp and through conversations with my parents. And I regularly went forward and prayed but never made the decision to change my heart and live for Christ. When I was 11 years old, I was attending church camp and during one of the teaching times I was convicted about of my need to call out to God for forgiveness and to ask him to cleanse me of my sins and be the Lord of my life. After the teaching was finished, I walked the aisle and met with a counselor and they asked me why I came forward again. I said I’m here to make a decision to live for Jesus, and then they asked if I knew what to do and I said yes, and I prayed and asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins and told him I wanted to live for him. Then I was baptized when I was 15, when my family was living in Las Vegas.
My wife Kayla grew up in a Christian family, and attended the Christian school, AWANA program, and other church ministries growing up. It was through the AWANA program at our church growing up that I got saved. At 5 years old, I remember coming home from AWANA, and praying with my mom before bed because I knew I was sinner and I couldn’t get to heaven by myself. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I really understood what it meant to live my life for Jesus, I decided when I was 16 to then get baptized.
My wife Kayla And I met and started dating after we finished high school, after the first few months of our relationship I went on a three month mission’s trip were I had the opportunity to preach and teach and experience what it meant to do ministry for the Lord myself. While I was on the trip the Lord called me into ministry as I was experiencing how God could use me for his service.Kayla and I were married in 2014, and in 2015 I became a campus minister in Oshkosh, WI with His House Christian Fellowship. After a few years of ministry there, through conversations with mentors and experiences of serving in my local church I realized that I wanted to be a full time serving in a pastoral ministry, at that point I enrolled in Andersonville Theological Seminary and I am working on a bachelors in pastoral ministry. Kayla and I have three Boys Elliot is our oldest, Cooper is our middle son, and Quinn is our youngest.
With any questions feel free to reach out by email: pastordrew@firstbaptistbarron.org
She put her faith and trust in Jesus Christ and became a born-again Christian. Her father died a year later of cancer, and her mother, a nurse, moved the family to Jamestown N.Y., where Becky lived until leaving for Bible College. Her mother re-married a widower with 3 children of his own, so Becky and her brother and sister, and the 3 children of her stepfather, made up a home of husband and wife and 6 children. Quite a story in itself. The Lord led Becky to be willing to follow the Lord into ministry service in Missions and after Bible College, began the process of becoming a missionary to first nation people in Canada.
before I was born my parents where members of an independent Baptist Church in southern Idaho. From a young age, I heard the Gospel in many classes in church and church camp and through conversations with my parents. And I regularly went forward and prayed but never made the decision to change my heart and live for Christ. When I was 11 years old, I was attending church camp and during one of the teaching times I was convicted about of my need to call out to God for forgiveness and to ask him to cleanse me of my sins and be the Lord of my life. After the teaching was finished, I walked the aisle and met with a counselor and they asked me why I came forward again. I said I’m here to make a decision to live for Jesus, and then they asked if I knew what to do and I said yes, and I prayed and asked Jesus to forgive me of my sins and told him I wanted to live for him. Then I was baptized when I was 15, when my family was living in Las Vegas.
After a few years of ministry there, through conversations with mentors and experiences of serving in my local church I realized that I wanted to be a full time serving in a pastoral ministry, at that point I enrolled in Andersonville Theological Seminary and I am working on a bachelors in pastoral ministry. Kayla and I have three Boys Elliot is our oldest, Cooper is our middle son, and Quinn is our youngest.