Lengthy path leads Marc Riley to Southwestern to prepare for missions

Marc Riley is nearing the completion of a Doctor of Philosophy in Missions and Evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, standing on the brink of a life-long dream of taking the Gospel to the unreached people of the world.

His journey has been anything but straightforward, from overcoming struggles, to pursuing biochemistry, and even a stint at clown college, leading him to serve in a clown ministry for 15 years. Yet through every twist, Riley has followed an unwavering call toward missions and ministry.

In the backwoods of Clarksville, Ark., at just five years old, Riley sat in the front seat of his father’s truck and began to cry. When his dad asked what was wrong, the boy answered with a heart far more mature than his age.

“There are people who are dying and don’t know Jesus,” Riley recalled saying as a child. “I need to find them.”

That sense of urgency stayed with him as he was saved at a young age and felt the conviction that he could bring the Good News of Jesus to the lost. Riley’s path initially pointed toward medicine, and the goal of participating in medical missions.

He was accepted into medical school, but life pivoted abruptly when his father passed away during finals week of his senior year in college. In the fog of grief and uncertainty, Riley pressed pause on his plans to go straight into missions and instead focused on his family first.

“It was a weird, weird time for me,” Riley said.

For the next three years, he worked for Gerber, eventually becoming head chemist for North American baby food and dry cereal production. By this point, he had a house, a car, and no debt—what many would consider the American dream. But the call to ministry remained.

“I knew God was calling me into ministry, so I sold everything and went to seminary,” Riley said. “It’s amazing. So here I am.”

Riley’s seminary education began at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he finished his Master of Theology. But after meeting his wife through a mutual missionary friend, he moved to Texas and entered Southwestern’s PhD program.

Now 35, Riley is preparing to submit his dissertation prospectus. His research combines his background in biochemical research with his evangelistic aspirations, focusing on how global missions and unreached people groups are measured using the two percent evangelical benchmark. Through his work, Riley hopes to help create a more nuanced balance between numerical and qualitative assessments, through further categorizing and defining the unreached.

For Riley, missions are about more than just spreading the Word to the unreached, but it’s also about church health. He wants to see local churches that are self-sustaining, theologically rich, and equipped for long-term growth. That includes training indigenous pastors in biblical interpretation, systematic theology, and contextualized apologetics. Riley would like to find ways to help missionary organizations measure that goal.

“Health, discipleship, evangelism, leadership, development—how do we know that they’re being theologically trained and that when we leave, that we’re not leaving so soon that the church dies or becomes a cult?” Riley asked. “… Nor staying so long that we never let the church stand on its own two feet. And so those are things that we’re still trying to find the balance on in mission circles.”

His analytical approach to defining church and mission success is deeply rooted in his biochemistry background.

“It’s just one area of interest that I have,” Riley said. “It scratches an itch for me, as well as bringing in some ability to use some analytical and scientific thinking that I used when I was a biochemist.”

Currently serving as the missions pastor at First Baptist Church in Covington, Texas, Riley is helping the church build a sustainable missions program. Until now, his role has been part-time, but the church recently hired him full-time, a move that Riley feels will allow him deeper community engagement and ministry development.

He sees his role as an identifier and mobilizer, helping church members recognize their unique gifts and how those gifts can be used for outreach, discipleship, and missions. Whether it’s a stay-at-home parent, a high school student, or a retiree, Riley believes every believer has a role to play. His pastoral approach is about more than doing evangelism himself—it’s about equipping others.

His wife shares that vision. She was on track to serve with the International Mission Board (IMB) when COVID derailed her plans. Since marrying Marc, she’s begun the process of being reintegrated into the IMB pipeline with him. With expertise in administration and databases, she’s a behind-the-scenes operations expert who can translate raw data into actionable insights, a rare and vital skill in global missions.

“There’s not that many people doing missionary service with their PhDs or with the skills that my wife has in administration, database information, and stuff,” Riley said.

Together, with his academic and field experience and her precision and structure, they form a compelling team.

After completing his PhD, Riley hopes to join efforts like Project 3000, a global initiative aimed at reaching the 3,000 remaining unreached and unengaged people groups. These are not just numbers on a page, they represent communities in war zones, remote mountains, and spiritually dark regions of the world. Riley explained this is not work for the faint-hearted.

“There’s a reason why that 3,000 number has remained the way it is for so long,” Riley said. “It’s not that we don’t have a passion or desire or the resources to reach them, it’s just very hard to reach. You have to find them.”

He is also passionate about helping Western theologians understand and integrate global perspectives, pointing to Christianity in Africa as an example of an area that often sees every ailment or struggle as a spiritual attack, while in the West the impact of spiritual warfare on the natural world is sometimes disregarded altogether. By bringing the cultures together under theological training, Riley envisions a future where African, Asian, and Latin American theologians are contributors to global Christian theology.

Riley said he considers his time at Southwestern to be “invaluable.” More than the academic side and educational resources, Riley said he appreciates the personal connections made with professors, field experts, and fellow students. He is optimistic that these connections will open doors to ministry in the future as well as provide opportunities for support and mentorship in the years to come. Riley said he believes the time he has spent at Southwestern is more than adequately preparing him for a lifetime of service in the mission field.

“I feel very overwhelmed at the prospect of missionary service, since going into the missionary field feels like going into battle against forces far more powerful than myself,” Riley said. “Yet, I know that the training that I have received is equipping me to meet the challenges, and the people that are helping me get into the field can also be trusted to help me overcome whatever challenges I may not foresee.”

Riley admitted he does not have it all figured out, but he knows and trusts in the Lord’s guidance.

“I’m just on the ride,” Riley said of the lengthy journey that brought him to Southwestern. “I mean, God tells me where to go. I made my 10-year plans many times and God’s redirected it every time, so I’ve given up on 10-year plans. ‘Where do you see yourself in the next five years?’ Wherever God puts me. That’s where I’ll be as I’ve given up trying to predict what that looks like.”