Alford Heights Baptist Church in Many has called Pastor Bob Fleener to serve the church as its new pastor. “Pastor Bob” was already familiar to the church, having served previously as their interim pastor for six months in 2021. The new position is permanent part-time.
Following his retirement, he has served as an interim pastor at several churches and preached at many others. “They say you can never ‘retire’ from the ministry, and I think that’s pretty accurate”, says Pastor Fleener. “I’ve always believed that being a pastor is not so much what you do, as it is who you are.” He and his wife, Chris, who has family in the area, recently moved to the area from Sacramento, CA, and reside in the Mt. Carmel community. Pastor Bob grew up in Greenville, SC, and graduated from Furman University with a BA in sociology. He furthered his education at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, KY, earning the Master of Divinity degree with a concentration in Pastoral Care and Counseling. He met his wife, a native of Baton Rouge, in New Orleans while he was on staff with Young Life and she was working as a nurse at Charity Hospital. She is a graduate (BSN) of LSU in Baton Rouge. They recently celebrated their 44th wedding anniversary and they have two grown daughters residing in the Sacramento, CA, area.
In addition to pastoring churches, Pastor Fleener has served for decades as a police Chaplain. He served as Chaplain for the Sacramento Sheriff’s Department for seventeen years and then, when the Lord led him to pastor a church in Kansas, he served as Chaplain for the Pratt County Sheriff’s department and helped out with the local police department and other law enforcement agencies. He has achieved the rank of Master Chaplain with the International Conference of Police Chaplains (ICPC). “When some people hear the phrase ‘police’ chaplain’, they automatically think that it refers to a jail chaplain who ministers to inmates”, he said. While the ministry of a jail chaplain is certainly important, in his role as a police chaplain, his ministry focused on officers and their families. “I stopped counting after 4000 hours of ride-alongs”, he says. In his role as a police chaplain he has responded to many suicide and homicide scenes, made death notifications, counseled with officers and their families, and performed weddings and funerals for officers. He says, “The role of a police chaplain is basically to be a first responder to the first responders.” He has advanced training in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) and suicide prevention. Pastor Fleener says he is excited to serve as pastor at Alford Heights and looks forward to his new ministry there. Alford Heights Baptist Church is located at 235 Byles Street in Many. Sunday morning worship services are at 11:00 AM and all are welcome.