Graduate Profile: Donald Rhymer (MDiv)

I am Don Rhymer, married to Dawn with five children, and we are a family growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am the son of a career military officer and of two Vietnam Veterans. I graduated HS in Parkersburg, WV and went to the Air Force Academy.

There I met both my future wife and the Lord. We were both converted through a Bible Study group, bolstered through Puritan writings. I graduated in 1995 as a Mechanical Engineer, knowing I wanted to return to the Academy to teach but also further my walk with the Lord. By 1998, I knew I was a Reformed Baptist and had the teaching assignment secured. For half of my 24-year Air Force career I was able to teach engineering to hundreds of cadets.

That assignment journey included graduate degrees at Georgia Tech where I also worshiped at Heritage Reformed Baptist Church, in Fayetteville, GA, as well as time at then-Kemp Road Baptist Church in Dayton, OH. But by the end of that military journey through helping RUF ministry at the Academy, the engineering textbooks were growing cold and the Bible was growing hot.

We were both convinced full-time ministry needed exploring, and I enrolled in RBS part-time in 2018. I had just over a year left in the AF, while serving as an elder at a Calvinistic Baptist church in Palmer Lake, CO. My first class was “Calling and Cultivation” to help understand a call. I can still hear Pastor Briggs spurring us to, “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching, men!”

After retiring from the AF, we moved back to Georgia, where I began a 4-year pastoral internship with Heritage RBC under Hank Rast. Heritage put their support behind me, helping me go full-time through the MDiv, allowing me to preach over 50 sermons, teach youth Sunday School, and include me in elder ministry. The church has loved on us and has helped reveal who I am as a husband, father, preacher and potential minister.

I am very thankful to Hank Rast, Mike Pollard, Bryan Preston, and Johnny Babb for their faithful feedback and ministry to me at Heritage. I’d also like to thank Steve Woodman and Ryan Stern of Arbor Church in Dayton, who have ministered to me throughout these journeys with refreshing perspectives.

I owe much to Mark Chanski and the many other Pastors in RBNet, who have always welcomed me as one of their own. Likewise, I am thankful for Little Log Church in Colorado, where I first preached and learned to lead with Bill Story and Rick Fiser. I thank Jimmy and Vicki Covey, who had 4 decades of faithful Christian ministry to Air Force Academy cadets, under whom my transition from military to ministry. And to Bob Gonzales for the biannual zoom calls, leadership, and advice, many thanks!

While not mentioning every RBS teacher, I will thank: Greg Nichols’ “Reverence and Joy” characterizing Christian corporate worship, the faithful email replies of Michael Emadi, Brian Borgman’s doxological teaching, Bob Selph’s winsome Pastoral Theology, and John Reuther on the Holy Spirit in the power of the resurrected Christ.

I owe so much accountability to my brothers in the Lord from my Academy days: Doug Vander Kooi, Luke Cropsey, and Mark Burns.

Lastly, thanks to my kids, never hesitating to tell me what the Lord is showing them, to my wife Dawn who loves me and sticks with me through it all, and my Lord and Savior…holding me fast and conforming me to his image--SDG!