David Potts had started coming to BBC in February of 2023, and had preached a couple of times for Pastor Grady Sanders during his time as an attendee, so when Pastor Sanders told him that he was leaving to pastor a church in Channelview and asked if he would consider helping Bible Baptist out at least as an Interim Pastor, his reply was - "Whatever God and the church here want, I'm glad to help." So he became the Interim Pastor right after Mother's Day in 2024, and at the church 76th anniversary celebration on August 18th 2024 the church voted him to be the Pastor of our congregation. Pastor Potts serves as a bi-vocational pastor, also operating Freedom Pool Service Company, and when he can squeeze it into his schedule he likes to teach sailing for Bay Area Sailing School, AKA Sackett's Sailing School.
My Salvation Testimony:
I didn’t grow up in church, but I always believed in a Creator and knew the King James Bible is the Word of God. I just had difficulty with the idea of a personal God, which made it easier to ignore my lost condition throughout my childhood and into my first year of college. I had met Connie at the mall, and we started dating the summer of 1980. Everything was going along as I might have expected it to, when she said to me that she was worried about dying- her boyfriend four years earlier had died at band camp. We solved the angst by going to a church that November that she had attended a little as a child. We went one time, couldn’t tell you a thing about the service, but that soothed our consciences for the time. I had a coworker who witnessed to me at work, but I would try to ignore his testimony.
Connie’s mother had become burdened about her children’s salvation but didn’t know how to lead them to Christ, so she started going to a church where she knew some people. Shortly after the turn of the year, the Pastor announced they were to have a young evangelist in for a week-long meeting, and she asked all three of her children to attend. Connie told me about it and said her mother would like me to come to the meeting with her if I could. In my mind, going to church for someone was a huge favor; the kind of thing that would have you in the advantage for a very long time, and I knew that I wanted to marry Connie, so I told her “ Yeah, we’ll go one night.” Thinking that my future mother-in-law was going to be in my debt for some time to come, we pulled into the little country church about 7 o’clock the evening of January 20th 1981. The evangelist was young, but he opened the Bible to Matthew 11, and began to preach Christ. By the time he was finished I was looking for the door, but we had to stand and sing the invitation hymn; my hands were wringing the back of the pew in front of me, when Rachel (Connie’s mother) reached around her and tapped the back of my hand whispering, “Would you like to go up there?” I never answered her. I grabbed Connie’s hand and we went forward, her two brothers following, and at the altar, all four of us were lead to the Lord by altar workers. We were the first of 12 young people to get saved that night. When I returned to my seat, relieved of the burden of sin, but forever indebted to the lady who I thought would be in my obligation, for her willingness to speak when she did; I realized that I knew nothing of the new life I now possessed. The Lord dealt with me about whether or not I would live for Him or for myself. I vowed that I would continue to live for Him if He would help me, and He has. I immediately began reading the Bible, so that I would know who was telling me the truth and who wasn’t. I told the Lord that I’d lay everything next to the scriptures to measure its veracity, and that has proved to be a valuable method. The church we were saved in wasn’t a Baptist church, by the time we got married that June (we were married for 35 years), the Bible had made us Baptists, not by creed but by conviction of scripture alone. And God had dealt with me about pastoring as well as living for Him.
That September we dropped out of PJC and enrolled in Pensacola Bible Institute to study for the ministry, and further learn the Bible. At the end of my first year we left to help a man plant a Baptist church in Saraland, AL. We returned the next year to continue our studies and graduated in 1986. When not working full-time in the ministry, I have been self-employed as a carpenter/builder, started a pool service company, and have strong IT skills.
We moved to Idaho in 1992, where I built Log Homes and served as a deacon, in addition to anything else I could help with (including teaching in the Bible Institute, Greek among many other classes) in the church there. I was asked to serve as an Assistant Pastor in 2006 doing so until moving to Texas in 2013.
My Statement of Faith:
(this paragraph condenses about 3 to 4 pages of bullet points)
I believe in the one true God, manifested in three persons in the Godhead: the Father (whose name is JEHOVAH, the Maker and Supreme Ruler of heaven and earth), the Son (the pre-incarnate Word, true God and true man, our virgin born Redeemer), and the Holy Spirit (our Comforter who convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment); revealed to mankind through the Holy Scriptures, which were given by inspiration and preserved to us in the King James Bible, without error; which show unto us the free way of salvation through Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, necessary for all men in their lost sinful estate to be justified before God enjoying God’s blessings in Heaven and to avoid eternal damnation in hell. I further believe that our sanctification (a progressive work begun in regeneration and continued through walking daily in the Spirit) is the will of God which will lead to our personal and ecclesiastical separation as we join with fellow believers in a local church (which keeps the two ordinances: adult [not infant] baptism by immersion and communion) on the Lord’s Day (Sunday) and as often as occasion will allow to: give cheerfully to the support of the Gospel ministry, at home and abroad, to study the scriptures dispensationally, and to be in subjection to the civil authorities ordained by God that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty; as we wait for the pre-millennial, pre-tribulation return of our Lord Jesus Christ for his church.
This Statement of Faith does not exhaust the extent of my faith. The Bible itself is the sole and final source of all that I believe. I do believe, however, that the foregoing Statement of Faith accurately represents the teaching of the Bible.