As fathers to three boys (two with life-altering conditions – Cystic Fibrosis and Cerebral Palsy) and ministers in local churches (with more than 20 years of experience between the two of them), Drs. Clay Anthony and Andy Gowins are uniquely qualified to address the challenges of rearing boys in today’s culture in such a manner that produces men of character and integrity.
Clay Anthony
Pastor, Richmond Baptist Church (Tupelo, MS)
Clay is from Cotton Plant, MS, which is about 80 miles southeast of Memphis, TN. In 1994 he graduated from Mississippi College in Clinton, MS, with a degree in English. He holds a Master of Divinity in Theology and a Doctor of Education from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
During college Clay served as a youth and children's minister at a church in central Mississippi. He also spent a summer living on a Native American reservation in Wyoming ministering to young people. After college, Clay coached high school football and golf in northern Mississippi. Then as Clay puts it, "God put an end to all of that." Clay began classes at Southern Seminary in Louisville, KY, and soon joined the staff at the Seminary as an Admissions Officer. While in Seminary, Clay served on the staff of Hunsinger Lane Baptist Church as the Education Minister. The church family had such an impact on his life that his family still considers it their home church and the pastor, Charles Davis, their pastor.
After leaving Louisville in 2000, Clay spent another year coaching football before being called to pastor Richmond Baptist Church in Tupelo, where he presently lives with his wife LaNell, two sons Aslan and Haddon, and a golden retriever named Packer. During his time at Richmond, Clay has served as Discipleship Training Director for his local association and was named the Associational Discipleship Director of the Year for the state of Mississippi in 2005. He served as Vice-President and President of the North Mississippi Pastors' Conference and was elected to serve as Moderator of his local association for three consecutive terms. He is a regular guest professor in the Bible Department at Blue Mountain College. He has led small group training in the areas of Sunday School growth, Personal Evangelism and Men's Ministry at the state and local level.
Raised by a school teaching mother, Clay was hooked on reading at a very early age. Today he has an insatiable love for reading. If he is not in the corner of his favorite bookstore, you can find him in Starkville, MS, cheering on his beloved Mississippi State Bulldogs. The relationship between fathers and sons resonates with Clay so deeply because of the great relationship he had with his own father. Clay's dad, Harold Anthony, passed away in June 2007, after a long battle with Alzheimer's. Clay's mother lives close enough to spoil her grandchildren as often as needed.
Andy Gowins
Minister of Education & Administration Inglewood Baptist Church (Nashville, TN)
Andy is from the little town of Possum Trot, Kentucky (approximately 15 miles southeast of Paducah). He is a 1991 graduate of Western Kentucky University (WKU) with a B.A. (History and Government) and a Masters of Public Administration (WKU 1992). He graduated from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) in 2002 with a Masters of Divinity and again in 2006 with a Doctorate of Education.
Andy has been involved in the ministry most of his professional life and has served in a number of church positions - children's pastor, youth pastor, administrative pastor, interim pastor, senior pastor, and now as the Minister of Education for Inglewood Baptist Church. While serving at Inglewood, he has had the opportunity to serve in a number of convention (state and national) and association positions. He is actively involved in a number of professional organizations and leads a number of church educational conferences each year. In October of 2006, he shared his original research, "The Purpose of the Modern Sunday School" at the annual meeting of North American Professors of Christian Education. Andy was also a contributing author in Mounce's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words.
Andy enjoys a broad range of literary genres and writers including Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Dante, J.R.R. Tolkien, Timothy Zahn, R.A. Salvatore, Stephen R. Donaldson, Brian Lumley, Stephen King, Katherine Kurtz, Tom Clancy, and Eric Van Lustbader. An avid reader with a larger than life imagination, Andy loves to share his thoughts with paper and pen.
Currently, Andy is working on two new projects. The first is a new book on small church Sunday schools that are experiencing dynamic growth (this from original research he has conducted). The second is a collection of essays, writings, and teachings on the Second Coming of Christ, the End Times, and the Old Testament concept of the Day of the Lord. Neither project has been titled, yet.
Born in 1969, Andy is a native of Western Kentucky. He now resides in Goodlettsville, TN with his wife Debbie (an elementary school teacher), his daughter Dakota, his son Duncan, and their chow mix dog - Begger. When Andy is not writing, preaching, teaching, researching, or serving the church he can be found playing with his children and family, golfing with Dakota, hunting with Duncan, reading, camping, playing the guitar, or sitting in the cheap seats with his son - either cheering on the Nashville Sounds or lamenting at a Vanderbilt football game.
Visit Andy's webpage at
www.andygowins.com
Dr. Clay Anthony
Dr. Andy Gowins
