October 5, 2026
BLUE RIDGE, Ga. — After six years serving churches and pastors across Fannin and Gilmer counties, Stacy Dyer is returning to local-church ministry.
Dyer’s last day as associational missionary for the Morganton Mountaintown Association was Sept. 14. He has accepted the associate pastor and family pastor position at Chattahoochee Baptist Church in Cleveland, Georgia, where he will begin Oct. 1.
“I thought God might be up to something, but I didn't know what. I didn’t go looking for it. It sort of came looking for me,” Dyer said of the new chapter in his life.
Chattahoochee Lead Pastor Chris Anderson asked Dyer to preach at the church this past Mother’s Day, which also was the day Dyer’s granddaughter McKinley was dedicated. Dyer was called shortly thereafter.
The move also brings Dyer closer to family. A native of Blairsville, he currently lives in Cleveland with his wife, Diane. Their daughter, Lindsey Runkle, son-in-law, Derrick, and two children, Mason and six-month-old McKinley, also live in Cleveland and attend Chattahoochee Baptist Church.
“You just can't imagine the thrill this old granddaddy has to get to watch and to be alongside my grandson and granddaughter, watching them grow up in church,” he said.
At Chattahoochee, Dyer will help with missions opportunities, food ministry, hospital visitation, community outreach, and occasionally fill in for Anderson.
“This is just an opportunity that fits me real good as their family pastor,” Dyer said. “I love people and intermingling with them and ministering in their daily lives, and that's what I'm going to get to do.”
Dyer enters the new role with decades of ministerial experience and said his familiarity with the Cleveland area will help him hit the ground running.
“I'm pretty good at being relationally connected with people, and so that helps,” he said. “I'm excited because I know a lot of people in Cleveland, Georgia, and look forward to engaging those folks. There are a lot of good friends in this church. It's a very vibrant, spiritually healthy church.”
Leaving Morganton Mountaintown, however, is bittersweet, Dyer said. “I've been here six years and had some great ministry. This thing is poised for a wonderful future. Whoever comes in here is going to inherit a healthy, strong organization that's strong spiritually and that's strong physically, with all the properties in good shape. The finances and the generosity of the churches are just amazing. The volunteer spirit is great too.”
Dyer successfully led the merger of Morganton and Mountain Town associations into one association, led the association through facilities and infrastructure upgrades, and launched the Pastor Encouragement Network, which provides support and services for 34 local pastors. He also was able to secure a $100,000 annual grant from Georgia Baptist Healthcare Ministry for medical and dental ministry.
One of the greatest lessons Dyer said he learned during the past six years was to trust and depend on others to help.
“Since I've been here, we have strengthened the volunteer base,” he said. “The people that have stepped up and volunteered are just amazing. The quality of the volunteer base of this ministry is just astounding.”
“It’s a God thing,” he added. “There's no other way that's possible.”
More than the accomplishments, Dyer said he hopes to be remembered as a missionary whom pastors could talk to because he had been where they were and understood their challenges.
“That relationship with those men is something that I'll never forget, and I hope they don’t,” he said.
Dyer said one of the men who helped shape that approach to ministry was state missionary George Barnett, who served as a local pastor at Mountaintown Baptist Church in Gilmer County in the final days of his life. Barnett taught him many life lessons, including that God puts leaders in roles where they can be “kingmakers.”
“That's to make the pastors better,” Dyer said.
His advice for the next associational missionary is to walk in model prayer, show pastors and church members how much they are loved and cared for, and simply be themselves.
“I've tried to just be me,” Dyer said. “They've let me be me.”
Dyer’s own path to ministry began in Blairsville. He grew up with godly parents. His mother was a Methodist, and his dad was a Baptist. He was saved at 12 years old at Pine Top Baptist Church during a summer revival.
“I thought for sure Mom or somebody had told that man everything I'd ever done,” Dyer said. “I was under deep condition. The Lord saved me.”
He was called to ministry in 1996, but said the call had come several years earlier.
“I was supposed to preach in 1990, and I ran for six years,” he said. “I was a miserable human being in that time running from God. I wish everybody could hear me say this, but you can't outrun God. If He’s after you, you better just let Him have it because He wins.”
Dyer went on to pastor Harmony Grove Baptist Church in Blairsville from 1997 to 2013. During his time there, the church grew from 30 to more than 300 regular attendees on Sunday morning.
From March 2013 to May 2016, he served the Georgia Baptist Mission Board as a consultant for church revitalization and evangelism. He then served as pastor of Shoal Creek Baptist in Cleveland from May 2016 to November 2019 before moving into associational ministry.
Prior to Harmony Grove, Dyer worked 15 years for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources as a senior park ranger at Vogel State Park in Union County. He was the youngest senior ranger in department history and credits that time as a training ground for ministry because his daily job involved working with people, finances, and property management.
Now, Dyer said he believes those years of experience — particularly what he learned serving pastors through the association — will carry into his new role at Chattahoochee.
“I feel like this is the direction I'm supposed to go in my life, and I'm trying the best I know how to follow the Lord,” he said.
He said he looks forward to serving beside Anderson and applying the lesson Barnett taught him years ago.
“Pastor Chris Anderson is one of the finest preachers in the Georgia Baptist Convention churches,” Dyer said. “I hope that I can take that ability today and go over there to Chattahoochee and make my pastor, who I think is one of the greatest pastors in the state, an even better pastor by helping him and encouraging him and pushing him on and being his greatest cheerleader.”
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