Our Pastors
Pastor Wendell and Betty Mullen have ministered to our church family since 1984 (24 years).
While serving in the United States Army at the end of World War II, Wendell felt God's call to the ministries of evangelism and church planting. In the fall of 1945 he began his undergraduate work at Bob Jones University. He later (1968) received a Masters of Science Degree in Counseling at the University of Hartford. In 1972 he received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bob Jones University.
Pastor Mullen has served at five churches, founding two of them:
1949-1951 - Second Baptist church
Cherryville, NC1951-1958 - New Testament Baptist Church
(Now Southgate Baptist Church) Augusta, GA
1959-1981 - Farmington Avenue Baptist Church
West Hartford, CT1981-1984 - Burnsville Baptist Church
Burnsville, MN[During this time, Pastor Mullen was the Chair- man of the Pastorology Department and the Director of Extension at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College in Owatonna, Minnesota.]
1984-........ - First Baptist Church of Groton
Groton, MA
Pastor Wendell and Betty have four children, fourteen grandchildren and ten great-grand-
children.
Pastor Paul and Tammy Mullen have ministered to our church family since 1989 (19 years).
Having been raised in a pastor's home, Paul felt, early in his life, a desire for the pastoral ministry. After high school he had the opportunity for two years, to minister on the Ranch Team at the Life Action Ranch in Buchanan, Michigan, where he was able to travel throughout the mid-west and New England. During his freshman year at Bob Jones University, God confirmed his desire for ministry by calling him to the pastorate. After his senior year he served in the United Sates Marine Corps where he had the opportunity to serves as a lay Chaplin. Later, while pastoring in Minneso- ta, he attended Central Baptist Theological Sem- inary in Minneapolis.
Pastor Mullen has served at three churches, helping to found one of them:
1978-1980 - Fayetteville Baptist Church
Fayetteville, GA
1980-1981 - Church Internship Program (BJU)
Southside Baptist Church Greenville, SC
1981-1989 - Burnsville Baptist Church
Burnsville, MN1989-......... - First Baptist Church of Groton
Groton, MAPastor Paul and Tammy have three children.
This Is My Story
by Pastor Wendell Mullen
Blessed assurance, Jesus is min!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour, all the day long.
Fanny J. Crosby
It was February 5, 1945, when I and a truckload of other GI's fresh from home, were dumped out into a combat zone just inside Germany. We had just finished infantry basic training, so we were somewhat leery of our first real combat experience. The next morning we were assigned to K Company, a unit of the Second Infantry Division, First Army.
After chow, that first evening, two GI's and I crawled into a large foxhole for the night. The other two had just come through the intense fighting of the Battle of the Bulge, so they were busy talking to each other about their combat experiences. We could hear the German artillery shells flying over our heads in one direction and the American shells whizzing by in the other direction.
I crawled away from the other two and began to pray, "Dear God, I am no better than anyone else over here. I ask for no special favors, but if you have any purpose for my live I am yielded to your holy purpose and will."
Then I quoted a stanza of a hymn I had learned from memory in our small country church in Perham, Maine, where my father was a pastor.
Have Thine own way Lord, have Thine own way.
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still.
Adelaide A. Pollard
Immediately, God gave me three assurances:
1. I would go safely home...
2. It was God's will for me to be a preacher...
3. I would be home in time for college in the fall...
From then on I had a sweet peace in my heart!
I spent the next three months in combat with the Second Division, all the way across Germany and into Czechoslovakia. Certainly those three months were very difficult and often very stressful and frightful. But during all of that time I had a quiet peace in my heart that God would fulfill the promise He had made me.
During the last few days of the war we were up in the hills of Czechoslovakia flushing out any Nazi troops that were either still on the run or fighting. What a contrast - in Germany we were conquerors, but in Czechoslovakia we were liberators!
While in Czechoslovakia, due to severe weather conditions, I developed a chest infections with a high fever. When we arrived in Pilsen, I went on sick call and the army doctor sent me back to a field hospital in Germany. The next day they flew me all the way to a large army hospital in Paris. Amazingly, by the time I arrived in Paris my fever was gone and I was completely well!
Without saying one word about being called to preach or about going to college in September, an army doctor interceded for me recommending that I be sent back to the States - and I was not the least bit sick!
I was sent to another army hospital in West Virginia. There another army doctor interceded for me and I received a medical discharge, went home to Maine and was in college early in September!
Because I had received a medical discharge, the Veterans Administration paid, in full, my four years of college!
Dear reader, God fulfilled each of those three promises! He protected me during three months of combat and I was home in time for college in September of 1945. And I have been preaching ever since! I praise God from Whom all blessings flow!
My Personal Testimony
When I was twelve years old, my father and I were attending an evangelistic service in Canada that summer. At the close of one of the evening services a kind and gracious older pastor came to me and asked me this question:
"Wendell, are you a Christian?"
His question really sobered me: I was a pastor's son; I had gone to church nearly every Sunday since I was born; I wanted to obey and please my parents; I had great respect for God and for the teachings of the Bible; and yes, I had memorized many verses in the Bible.
However, when that pastor friend asked me if I were a Christian It disturbed me and I answered with a trembling, "No." He encouraged me to come with him and to kneel in prayer; immediately I accepted his kind invitation and soon found myself on my knees weeping and praying: "Dear God, please forgive me of my sins and give to me everlasting life. I now repent of my sins and receive Jesus as my Saviour and Lord."
That evening as I went to bed I had the wonderful assurance that God had forgiven all my sins and had given to me the gift of everlasting life. That is why I was not afraid of death during the war. Through Jesus and His sacrifice for me on the cross, I knew that I was saved from judgment and hell, and that I was ready for heaven!
During the past 60 years (1945-2005) these verses have helped me to see many men, women, teenagers and children come to know Jesus as their personal Saviour and Lord.
"For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23
"God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
Romans 5:8
"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
John 3:16
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Romans 10:13
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Acts 16:31
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us."
Titus 3:5
If you would like to know forgiveness and salvation from sin, please pray this prayer:
"Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and need your forgiveness. I believe that you died, in my place on the cross, for my sins. I now repent of my sin before you and ask you to forgive me. Please come into my heart and life to be my Saviour and Lord. Please help me now to love You as my Saviour and obey You as my Lord. Thank You for giving me eternal life through Your sacrifice of love on the cross. Amen."
Remember that salvation is only by grace (God's enablement) through faith. It is God's free gift of love made possible because Jesus paid our sin debt on the cross.
Water baptism does not save anyone. The new birth experienced by every repentant believer is the work of the Holy Spirit. The minute we trust Jesus as our Saviour we are born again, born into God's family. Everyone who has received Jesus as Saviour should be baptized as a testimony of faith in the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
It is the will of God that every believer become an actice member in a church that is faithful in preaching the gospel and has a Bible teaching ministry.
