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Biographical sketch
Paul was born Don Paul Jones to Don and Gloria Jones on July 10, 1959 in Portales, New Mexico. The first of three children, Paul has two sisters. Lori is married to Paul Husted and they live in Great Falls Montana with their three children, Erin, Anna, and Jordan. Cari is married to Tom Roush and they have four children, Leah, Holly, Elena, and Tyler. The Roush’s reside in Billings and are very active here at Emmanuel.
Paul moved often with his parents. They were (and still are) gifted spiritual leaders who were very capable of moving into small, struggling churches and building them into strong numbers. They also helped build several church buildings for the churches they led. Upon completion of one church, Paul’s parents would frequently move and reproduce that model in a new church. Don and Gloria eventually found themselves serving at Emmanuel, where Don served as the fifth pastor in Emmanuel’s history from 1979 to 1992. Don and Gloria remain active at Emmanuel with Don serving as one of our four elders.
Paul found himself highly involved in these same churches while growing up. He gave his life to the Lord at the early age of five while at the First Southern Baptist Church of Canon City, Colorado. While serving and growing in the Lord, Paul had not yet been called to the ministry, but he found opportunities to serve in just about every position within church life. He did not know that God was using his willingness to serve to lay a strong foundation for his future as a missionary and pastor. During these same formative years, Paul was also very athletically minded and pursued several sports endeavors finally experiencing his greatest success in football.
After his 1977 graduation from East High School in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Paul chose to “walk on” to the Liberty Baptist College football team (now Liberty University, Lynchburg, Virginia) where he would later earn a full scholarship. While in college Paul played defensive back (both safety and corner) for the Flames and graduated in four years with a B.S. in Political Science. Still the Lord had not extended the ministry call yet, so Paul planned to attend law school.
At this juncture in his pilgrimage, Paul became aware of a program sponsored by the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention called the Journeyman Missionary. This is a two year commitment to the mission field available to college graduates who are willing to serve abroad. Paul was commissioned in the summer of 1981 and served for the next two years in South Africa. Because of Paul’s missionary influence Emmanuel has produced several Journeyman Missionaries over the years: Michael Laird (Canary Islands), Jeff Cooper (Guatemala), Quinton Bridges (Germany), Cathleen Brown (London), and Melinda Haub Melindez (Guatemala).
During Paul’s missionary experience he was involved in mass evangelism, began a Bible correspondence school, helped start churches and led denominational age level programming. This included working with university students and special ministry for missionary kids.
It was while Paul was serving in South Africa that the Lord called him to the ministry. Since Emmanuel was his home church at the time he made his decision public with them and they licensed and ordained him to the Gospel Ministry in 1983 upon his return. Also upon his return Paul served as the youth pastor for Emmanuel from 1983 to 1985. Believing that he still needed some additional preparation Paul left Billings for Mid America Baptist Theological Seminary of Memphis Tennessee in 1985. After squeezing a three year degree into four, Paul graduated from MABTS in 1989 with an Master’s in Divinity.
During those years in seminary Paul was more than a student. He served as associate pastor for the First Baptist Church of Millington, Tennessee for a time. His primary duties included working with children in a bus ministry, children’s church, and recreation ministries. At the conclusion of his seminary work Emmanuel called Paul back to assist his father as co-pastor.
Don and Paul Jones began co-pastoring together in 1989 and worked together to refashion and restructure Emmanuel for the next three years. Those first three years included restructuring the budget and securing an interest free loan on the remainder of the building indebtedness that allowed the debt to be retired in five years. In 1992 Paul suffered a divorce. After an extensive leave for the purpose of possible reconciliation and personal healing, Emmanuel determined that the divorce was not caused by Paul’s immoral or unbiblical behavior and voted to ask him to continue as pastor. Paul has one child by that marriage, a son, Matthew. In January of 1994 Paul met Tami at an Evangelism conference in Missoula. They were married on July 31st of that year. Paul and Tami have two children from Tami’s previous marriage, Jessica, born in 1982 and Joshua, born in 1984.
With Paul and Tami working as a team and with the arrival of Ronnie and Brenda Ward, Emmanual Baptist Church began growing in a dynamic way by the end of the 90s. This required the addition of other staff, the creation of other services and eventually the plan to develop the rest of the Emmanuel campus, which began in March 2007. Paul continues to lead the church in preaching and teaching ministries and overseeing all the ministries of Emmanuel. When he needs to get away he continues to enjoy sports and the outdoors and of course his new grandson, Calin Paul Schoening, born September 29, 2006.
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