We are blessed with two pastors – Ray Patchett and Steve Messer
Ray Patchett is the Pastor of Warragul Presbyterian Church.
Ray loves teaching the Bible and teaching others how to read, interpret, and understand God’s Word faithfully. Apart from being a pastor, Ray is also a licensed plumber.
He is married to Pip and they have five children.
Ray can be contacted at 0407 741 966 or via email
“I grew up in a farming family in Gippsland, which basically had a Judeo-Christian ethic but the Gospel was not taught. Thankfully, my parents sent me to a Christ-honouring youth group where I was able to hear the Bible taught and was exposed to the need for repentance.
My conversion in my early teens was characterized by a strong sense of the burden of sin. As I grew in Christ, it started shaping my vocational decisions towards development work in the ‘third world’.
After training as an Engineer and working in irrigation for a few years I completed one year of water projects for refugees in northern Kenya. This highlighted how under-equipped I was theologically. This experience of development projects was also the context in which I met my wife, who was looking at using her nursing in ‘medical mission.’ Together we sought theological training, partially at PTC, where we were attracted to Presbyterian ministry because of the strong emphasis on expository preaching and sound theology.
However, due to our plans to return overseas, we did not consider ordination at this stage. Subsequently, because various issues arose preventing a return to East Africa, we ministered in a Baptist Church in East Gippsland for ten years while raising three children. Our whole family then went to Ethiopia to take on some Word-based ministries before returning to Warragul with two more children via adoption. During this time circumstances developed under God’s sovereign hand whereby we became more involved in the Warragul Presbyterian Church plant to the point of completing the requirements for ordination. We are now praying towards seeking to build up that ministry and partnering with Word ministries in various places.” – Ray
Steve Messer shares his time pastoring between Warragul Presbyterian Church and Maffra Community Church. He is a Bible teacher and loves seeing people come to faith in Jesus. Apart from teaching God’s word/pastoring, Steve also plays in a band called “Steve Messer’s Stranger Country”.
He is married to Jenny and they have four children and four grandchildren.
Steve can be contacted at 0419 103 665 or via email
“I was brought up by Christian parents in a home where hospitality was normal and guests frequent. Church attendance and participation in Christian ministry activities were normal parts of life as were Bible reading and prayer as a family. My grandparents were also devout, so I was surrounded by godly examples from my earliest days and these made a positive impression of an admirable way of life that I wanted to embrace.
While attending a Scripture Union beach mission meeting at Tidal River in early 1968 the gospel was explained in a way that helped me to see that I could not rely on the faith of anyone else for my own salvation and that I needed to receive Christ myself. I responded to this challenge and prayed for forgiveness of my sin and to receive Christ as Saviour and Lord. I date my Christian conversion to that time.
Since then I have grown in my understanding of the Christian life. As a teenager and young adult, it became very important to me that what I believed was true, so I began reading about the historicity of Christ’s resurrection and also the evidence that establishes the Bible as God’s word faithfully recorded, transmitted, and translated. My convictions formed then, that Jesus really was raised from the dead and that the Bible really is God’s true word continue to be of great significance to me.
After years of opportunities to teach the Bible in a variety of settings, I became convinced that I should receive training to equip me to serve the Lord Jesus in church-based Bible teaching. I left my career as a secondary school teacher and studied for a Master of Divinity degree at Ridley College in Melbourne and trust, by God’s grace, that teaching His word so that people come to saving faith and maturity in Christ and are equipped to serve Him, will be my occupation for as long as He permits.” – Steve