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Pastor Joe Overly

Pastor Joe Overly is honored and humbled to serve as the pastor of Central Baptist Church in Southbridge, Massachusetts. He is grateful for the opportunity to grow in ministry alongside this church family and to serve the greater Southbridge community.

Pastor Joe came to faith in Jesus Christ in 1979 and soon sensed God’s call to ministry. He attended Zion Bible Institute in East Providence, Rhode Island, where he met his wife, Coleen. They were married in 1984 and later completed their bachelor’s degrees at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington. Joe earned a degree in Pastoral Ministries, while Coleen earned a degree in Behavioral Sciences.

Joe and Coleen are blessed with three adult children—Kayla, Jeremy, and Kristin—who all live and work in the Worcester area.

Throughout his ministry, Pastor Joe has served in a variety of leadership roles. He was the youth pastor at Calvary Temple in Holden, Massachusetts, for five years and later served as lead pastor of New Life Fellowship Assembly of God in Charlton, Massachusetts. In 1995, he was ordained through the Assemblies of God USA.

As pastor of Central Baptist Church, Joe is passionate about faithfully teaching God’s Word, helping believers grow in their relationship with Christ, and sharing the hope of the Gospel with those who have not yet come to know Him. His desire is to see lives transformed through a deeper understanding of God’s love, grace, and truth.

Pastor Joe and the congregation of Central Baptist Church warmly welcome visitors and newcomers. Whether you are searching for a church home, exploring questions of faith, or looking to grow spiritually, you will find a caring community of people seeking to know and follow Jesus Christ.

If you would like to learn more about Central Baptist Church or any of its ministries, Pastor Joe would be glad to connect with you.

God Bless,
Pastor Joe Overly

Administration and Deacon Committees

Leadership at Central Baptist Church is shared by our pastor, the Deacon Board, and the Administration (Admin) Board. Meeting together each month, these leaders prayerfully seek God’s direction as they make decisions that help our church grow, serve, and fulfill its mission.

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-aknjv-c87869

James 5:7-11

James believed Jesus was coming back. He knew that people waited for centuries for Jesus to show up the first time. Jesus’ return is a certain thing, but what is also certain is that no one knew then, and no one knows now, exactly when it will be. And the other certain thing is that waiting for Jesus to return and finally set everything right and fulfill completely the Kingdom He set in motion through His people, the Church, requires patience. And the patience that’s required as we wait for our King to come and rule in person, is the same patience that we need to have with ourselves and each other as we wait for the King to have more complete rule over our own individual lives.

Rev Jennifer A G Layte

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-swqrd-c762ee

James 3:13-18

“Basically, when you boil it all down, we have communication problems. Which lead to all the other problems. Forget about first-world problems. These are just plain world-problems. And they happen, James says, when we get our “wisdoms” mixed up—trying to bring kingdom-of-the-world wisdom into the Kingdom of God. You can tell the difference, James says, by humility.”

Rev Jennifer A G Layte

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-6n38j-c41343

James 2:14-26

“our message is that God came to earth, lived with us, died for us, and came back to life, in order to reconcile all things. Jesus died to save us from our sins, and our sins (and everybody else’s sins) have caused conflict and outright separation—between us and God, between us and each other, between us and creation, and even within our own selves. Jesus came to take care of the debt we owed. That debt was a splintering of His good creation, so the salvation, the rescue, that comes from His bearing the brunt of it all and forgiving us, is not just heaven or some other reward sometime later. Salvation isthat eventually all things will be reconciled, mended, brought back together in unity in Jesus Christ the way God always intended. And so of course our faith and our deeds must be reconciled, too! Because the Christian message is reconciliation, Christian faith and Christian action can’t be two separate things.”

Rev Jennifer A G Layte

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ixp3w-c3286d

James 2:1-13

The Kingdom of God looks upside-down to the kingdom outside it. In the Kingdom of God, it’s the poor who are the ones cherished by God, who are courted by Him, who are to be the leaders, who are to receive special honor, because when we don’t have money, we don’t have this other wannabe king getting in our way, trying to distract us from the real one. When we find ourselves lacking in material possessions, we become rich in faith because we can’t rely on anything or anyone but God to help us do what we need to do. And when we learn to live like that, then when money comes our way, it’s easier to resist its lordship and just treat it as the tool or resource from God that it is, not something that gives us our meaning and purpose, not something that dictates how we communicate or who we honor, not something that drives us or a goal that we run to.”

Rev Jennifer A G Layte

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https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-mrryt-bcea7c

Acts 3:1-21

Rev Jennifer A G Layte

“A truly ‘saved soul’ will look different—not only by telling people they’re sinners who need Jesus to escape Hell, but by reflecting a different way of viewing and responding to the world—a restorative, reconciling, life-giving way. The gospel is not summed up by the Four Spiritual Laws, helpful as those may sometimes be, but was summed up by Jesus Himself to the crowds: ‘Repent [turn from your old life and trust in Jesus], for the Kingdom of God is at hand [live like you have a different King]!'”