April 24, 2025
FORT VALLEY, Ga. — Dr. Dennis Rivera is a very busy man these days. He currently commutes 25 minutes from Warner Robins to his office at First Baptist Church Fort Valley to pastor two churches full time.
“It’s a lot of preparation,” said Rivera. “It’s a joy to serve the Lord in these two capacities.”
Rivera pulls double pastoral duty, including hospital visits and community outreach, at FBC Fort Valley and Rehoboth Baptist Association’s mission church Mar de Galilea (Sea of Galilee). Rivera has the rare job of preparing for two different services each week, both of which are located at FBC Fort Valley. He preaches an English sermon at 11 am for members of FBC Fort Valley and a Spanish sermon at 4 pm for Mar de Galilea.
FBC Fort Valley, organized in 1852 with seven members who met twice a month in a downtown warehouse and later in its current location on South Miller Street, utilizes all forms of worship music, including hymns, modern hymns, modern songs, contemporary songs, and Southern gospel. Mar de Galilea is more contemporary.
Rivera also teaches Wednesday night Bible studies for both churches. FBC Fort Valley studies at 6 pm, and Mar de Galilea follows at 7:15 pm.
Both churches operate separately. Every quarter, FBC Fort Valley and Mar de Galilea gather for a joint worship service. “We sing Spanish and English, and then we have fellowship together too. Everybody brings food,” Rivera explained.
At FBC Fort Valley, Rivera says they are developing a pathway. “We are praying for revival. We are praying for lost people by name. We just try to have an emphasis on our Jerusalem (local missions). Sometimes, churches go gung-ho for the uttermost, for the state, and sometimes, they will neglect their Jerusalem. This is not a choice. It is what the Lord said to do. You will receive power, and you will be my witness in Jerusalem. Just trying to create a healthy balance not just in giving but also in doing. That is just where we are.”
At Mar de Galilea, there are many cross-cultural elements. “Even though people speak the same language, every country has a unique culture,” Rivera said. “So, within the Spanish group, we have Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans and Salvadorans. We have one lady with two children from Venezuela. We are dealing with seven or eight nationalities. Each country has their own unique thing, so what unites us is the language.”
He said the key to pastoring two churches is to be willing to serve God and be thankful for the opportunity to do it and “just throw yourself in the water and you’ll swim. The key is prayer. You have to spend time in prayer and the Word. You go to feed your soul. You have to be ready to participate and be in the vine.”
When asked if he had planned to pastor two churches at one time, he said, “Never. Especially an American church.” But he is happy to serve God no matter what he’s asked to do. “There’s no questions when God opens doors like this because I didn’t look for any of this. If God opens the door, he will equip me.”
Rivera became pastor of FBC Fort Valley in June 2024, but his journey there began in 2022 when the Rehoboth Baptist Association hired him as a Hispanic church planter. The association partners together churches from Houston, Peach, Crawford, Taylor, Southern Bibb, and Northern Macon counties.
The association’s area has a strong Hispanic presence, so Mar de Galilea was planted. It began meeting at Harmony Community Church in Byron, Georgia. Mar de Galilea moved to Fort Valley after Rivera was elected pastor of FBC Fort Valley. The name Mar de Galilea is in honor of Rivera’s late father-in-law, who was a world-traveling sailor and who planted a church of the same name as a lay leader in Honduras. Rivera’s brother-in-law currently pastors the church.
God’s plan for him took shape at the Rehoboth Association’s annual meeting at First Baptist Church Centerville in October 2023. He visited the Woman’s Missionary Union booth while there and introduced himself to the lady working the booth. She said she was from FBC Fort Valley. He told her he wanted to find a place to pray in the area. She went to church and shared his desire, and he was approved to come pray at FBC Fort Valley. In late 2023, they began promoting the prayer time and invited others to pray on the third floor of the church educational building on Wednesdays. “I said I need to start praying in the street, so I started doing prayer walking,” said Rivera. He started prayer walking in January 2024 with church members, deacons, and the interim pastor.
“While this was going on, I had no idea what was going on in the church. What I didn’t know was they were looking for a pastor,” he said.
In May 2024, they had a person called, but he pulled out. “One of the deacons at the time who was coming to pray with us asked, ‘Why in the world are we looking for a pastor if we have one here already?’ And that was me,” said Rivera.
Without him knowing it, they went to the association and asked for an interview, then asked for his resume. He submitted his resume, and on June 30, 2024, he was elected pastor of FBC Fort Valley. After this, FBC Fort Valley became the new home to Mar de Galilea.
Mar de Galilea is only the third Hispanic church in the association. Maybe 10 to 15 percent of the population is Hispanic in Fort Valley, he said. “You have a predominantly African-American community. Within a five-mile radius, there are 14,000 people.”
Rivera has worked with Georgia Baptists for 24 years. Born in El Plan, Honduras, his family moved to New Orleans when he was 10 years old. He was saved at a night club in New Orleans after hearing the word at a local Baptist church where the Word was planted. He first did Hispanic ministry in Blackshear and Baxley, Georgia, in the summer of 1991. He attended Brewton Parker College, where he received his undergraduate degree in Business Management. He started a Hispanic church in Vidalia, Ga., while still a college student in the summer of 1992. Then, after college, he joined the staff of First Baptist Church Vidalia. He returned to New Orleans and received his Master of Divinity degree from the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He also holds a doctorate degree from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He returned to Georgia in 1997 and has done multiple state ministries through the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. “From El Plan to God’s Plan,” said Rivera.
Dennis and his wife, Rossy, have been married since 1997 and have three grown sons, Dennis, Joshua, and Jacob. Dennis loves to spend time with God, serve, preach, fish, watch soccer, football, and basketball, travel, and spend time with his family.
Currently, the Hispanic mission is part of the Rehoboth Baptist Association and is not part of FBC Fort Valley. Rivera doesn’t know if God is going to merge the two of them, but whatever God wants him to do, he will do it. “He is sovereign. He can do whatever He wants. I’m just here for the ride.”
