Dr. Walker Marsh
Director of Counseling
GMBC Counseling Ministry
Dr. Marsh is a third generation native of Walker, LA, where he lived until his marriage in December 1976. He graduated from Walker High School in 1972 and then attended Louisiana State University, majoring in Sociology. In December 1976, he married Joan Covington of Walker, LA. They’ve been married for over 45 years and have three grown children.
Walker was saved at the age of six when he made a profession of faith at Walker Baptist Church – where he remained active until 1974, when he met my future wife. During that time, he matured in the faith and it was there that he first felt his calling to special service for the Lord. While in high school and college, he was involved in a jail ministry at the Livingston Parish jail and in music ministries with many of the area churches as well as mission trips to the Northeast. In 1974, he joined Judson Baptist Church and it was there that God called him to pastoral ministry. He remained at Judson Baptist until after he graduated from seminary in 1979.
After seminary, Walker and Joan moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama where he served as Associate Pastor of West End Baptist Church and she taught in the West End Christian School. In 1981 they accepted the call to the Pastorate of Yemassee Baptist Church in South Carolina. They served at Yemassee Baptist until 1984, when he was called into the Navy chaplaincy where they spent twenty-three years serving with the Navy and Marines. After his retirement from the Navy in 2004, Walker and his family settled in Slidell where he established a Christian counseling ministry. After ten years in private practice, he went back to government service, serving with the Department of Veterans Affairs Vet Centers in a counseling ministry to veterans and their families affected by various combat related trauma. He retired from the VA in April 2013 and came on staff part-time at GMBC.
Since his call to ministry, his objective has been threefold. He wanst to be where God wants him, doing what God tells him to do, while being a faithful and dedicated servant and shepherd of the people of God. He desires to display the spirit of Christ in all his dealings with people and to be a godly leader and equipper of churches and Christians; a faithful evangelist and expositor of His Word with the ability to practically apply the message of the Word to the church’s daily walk with Christ; a clear example of God’s love, mercy, and grace to all with whom he comes into contact, and a leader that works closely with the leadership and people of the church to achieve God’s goal of developing Christian leaders, equipping the church for ministry, and reaching the lost for Jesus Christ. He is a believer in “unconventional ministry”, believing that Christian’s need to be thinking outside the box in planning intentional ministry to their local communities, while supporting the greater mission effort of the state and local associations and SBC. Dr. Marsh has a desire to use his experience to train and lead churches in evangelism and has a special heart for evangelism to military personnel and their families.