Rev, Jack's Turn

I grew up bouncing around St Louis Metro until I was around 13 or 14 when my dad and his third wife decided it would be good to give us kids a three day heads up that we were moving to Texas, just for the record it was not a good idea.

To make a long story short I left Texas as a troubled teen who had experienced divorce twice, death, rejection by a step-parent and abandonment. I had been to 16 schools from kindergarten to the tenth grade which I did not complete due to being thrown out.

At 17 with a waiver from my mom I joined the US Navy for all the wrong reasons and couldn't even make it to my first assignment after graduating boot camp with out getting busted twice for pot and doing some time in the brig. Twenty three months after joining I had been found guilty of drug violations on six separate occasions plus a laundry list of delinquent issues ranging from unauthorized absences to failing to obey orders to disrespect of an officer. These resulted in multiple restrictions to duty station, 3 stays in the brig of thirty days or more, and a three days bread and water punishment. This all came to a close at Treasure Island Naval Station upon completing my last tour of the Brig and then being deposited outside the base gate with an Other Than Honorable discharge and a signed promise that I would never step foot on Navy property as long as I lived. From there I deposited myself in the hippy area of northern California and honed my addiction skills.

Y2K was good to me as that is when it all came crashing to an end, A DWI and a lose of what little I had to pay for it had me in deep dark despair which God responded to. After the witness of some close friends, a visit to a little Apostolic church, a bizarre bible study on BOTT radio, I found my self crying to God in the cab of my truck driving home from work. God responded by jumping into the truck with me and cleansing me from my addiction, right then, right there, that was when my life made the transition from darkness and into his marvelous light. I think God liked my pickup as he visited me there often. Peter may have walked on the water but I drove with no hands, praising God while my truck steered true and straight, until I started looking at the road. I know we traveled more than a mile that way.

God called me into ministry early, my first ministry was the church calendar which was a desk calendar in a case on the wall in the foyer. I bought colored pencils and got creative with the announcements, from there it was Foreign Missions Director for the church, and from there leading Wed and Sun night services. Nursing home and jail services soon followed.

I don't know the specific point I can say the call came down, but two instances stick out, one was that I immediately wanted so bad to serve God but I did not know how. In prayer God spoke to me one word, "learn", not long after in a prayer meeting I found a mysterious piece of paper with the simple instruction from Jeremiah 33:3 Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which though knowest not, WOW! God has always been true to that promise.

In 2003 I wanted to become involved in jail ministry and teach ACTS substance abuse, I approached a brother about watching him and others at the St. Louis County Jail, little did I know that I would still be there in 2009 playing apart in Holy Ghost revival services week in and week out, or that I would be the district director of prison and restorative ministries as well as playing an integral part on a national level, indeed great and mighty things.

I have watched as God has provided for the burden of this ministry in so many ways, bringing in workers, interns from UGST, putting me in positions to mentor, and anointing me to take this ministry to a level never seen in our ranks before.

In addition to ever moving this ministry forward personally, locally, and in other churches, I have no doubt that the call to Pastor is on the horizon, the desire to plant a daughter work is something that my Pastor and I have discussed and we believe that in the next one to two years that will be a reality.

My advice to a young minister is to first get the visions of pulpits and sugarplums out of your head. Pulpit preaching is not to be minimized in ministry,but it is not where we start, faithfulness and contentment in knowing your calling and where you are at right now is. Understand all is in Gods hands and timing. Ministry is about being Christ-like, it is about service to Christ by serving others. Ministry titles and positions are nothing more than platforms from which to serve. Feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and the prisoners is how we win souls, and winning souls is the heart of the ministry. If we fail to go there first, we have no business in the pulpit. When we are in the pulpit it should be about saving souls. I have not been called to preach, I have been called to serve, sometimes that requires that I preach. When I do, it had better serve the church, not me. Whether in the church, in the jail or on the street, it should encourage, edify, reproof and perfect, it should engage the mind and the spirit, and in the end it should bring people closer to Christ. If those people then are empowered to reach more people then I preached successfully.