Born Benjamin Allen Potter in Marshall, Texas, Benjie grew up throughout northeast Texas, claiming Mesquite as his hometown. Part of the Mighty Maroon Band from Skeeterland, he has a love for music that includes listening, singing, and playing various instruments (with varying degrees of ineptitude).Benjie said Yes to Jesus the very first time as a six-year-old preacher’s kid in Cason, Texas. He has had opportunity to say yes in several different ways since that time. He has been a Youth Minister, an Associate Pastor (with responsibilities in education and youth), a music minister, a missions minister, a bi-vocational pastor, an international missionary, and currently serves as the Senior Pastor of a Southern Baptist Church in Illinois. During these ministry years, he’s served churches in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois. He has had the privilege of preaching in pulpits from Wyoming to Tennessee as well as in the states mentioned previously.
A graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Benjie has studied at Howard Payne University where he earned his Texas Teacher Certification. He has taught English and Reading in Texas schools in a 7th grade classroom as well as on the 9th and 10th grade levels. His teaching experience also includes teaching Seminary Extension classes in the US and English as a Second (Foreign) Language (ESL/EFL) classes in Ukraine.
Benjie is the author of two books self-published through Loom & Wheel Publishing. Something Special at Leonard’s Inn is a fictional account of what might have happened the night Christ was born, and Just a Simple Carpenter asks the question, “What was going through Joseph’s mind when he was chosen to be the earthly guardian of God’s son?” The two novellas have been collected into one volume, Two for Christmas, which is available in hardcover or paperback from Loom & Wheel Publishing at Lulu.com.
Benjie met his wife, Hannah, while they were both experiencing missionary orientation outside of Richmond, VA. They were married eight months later and served together to plant churches among a Muslim people group in the former Soviet Union. They have been blessed with three children.
