March 20, 2025, marked my 20th year being a minister. As I prepare for my final interview for ordination at the end of this month, I thought I’d take some time to reflect and perhaps even opine on what I’ve learned; the highs, and the lows, and some maybe offer some practical insights.
One of the questions I have gotten often, and had to answer several times in the process of becoming a licensed and ordained minister in my denomination, is “How did you know you were supposed to become a pastor?” As often as I have been asked that, you’d think I’d have a memorized, simple answer. But I don’t.
Some people who felt “called” to serve God vocationally have had some sort of dramatic experience. Think Moses and the burning bush, or Samuel hearing God’s voice in the night. My pastor in my childhood, Robert Sanders, had somewhat of an experience. I remember him telling me that he was in the office of the College President at Ashland College (now Ashland University), when the President said something to the effect of “Bob, I think you’re called” and immediately he felt a sense that he must serve God in the ministry.
For me, nothing quite so exciting happened. I heard no voice, saw no bushes ablaze, and had no one speak over me such a thing. But, growing up in the Church, I always had a passion, albeit at times misplaced, for God and the Church. For much of my childhood and early adolescence, this came out as a persnickety little punk who thought he was better than most people because he knew the right answers and liked to dress up for church services.
Crisis, Renewal, Repeat
In my junior year of high school, I began to have a crisis of faith. I knew the Bible… well, to be more precise, I thought I did. I knew that if I was going to be accepted by God, I had to have my life perfectly put together. I had to have more knowledge. I had to know more. I had to live better. I had to prove to God that I was worthy. This sent me down some rabbit trails of looking into the different beliefs of cults and Christian denominations, seeking some sort of spiritual knowledge that would unlock a higher level of perfection in my life.
Thankfully, I had a Christian teacher that year, Chris Stewart, who saw in me some passion for God and helped me understand that God wasn’t expecting me to be perfect because He sent Jesus to be my perfection. Chris challenged my thinking and helped me to focus my passions more toward understanding what Jesus really did for me and others.
Later that summer, before my senior year in high school, I was finally baptized, and I began to have a deeper passion for knowing God personally, not just facts about Him. I realized that what God desired wasn’t a performance in front of others, but a person authentically living out their faith in Christ Jesus. With this renewal came a desire for others to understand God and follow Him.
I was leading a Bible study that met after school and I began to focus less on learning facts from the Bible or interesting bits of trivia. We began to look at what it really meant to love Jesus and live for Him. Oh my goodness, I made so many mistakes in those days. I shudder to think about some of what I said. I was immature and young in my zeal, often lacking wisdom. But despite that, I can look back and see that God was shaping me, confirming in me a call to serve him.
My intended career path changed. You see, up to this point, I had wanted to either be a lawyer or a teacher, preferably a professor of history. I liked to learn and I liked to argue. During my crisis of faith in high school, I switched to wanting to be a Biblical Archaeologist. That way I could prove to everyone that the Bible was right. But as I finished up my high school journey, I felt compelled that even if I could prove the Bible to be accurate, it wouldn’t change anything. People needed to know and follow Jesus, or else they would be just like I was… Converted in the head, but not the heart. Thus in the fall of 2004, I enrolled at Ohio Valley College (later Ohio Valley University but now closed) to major in Bible.
OVC was not my first choice for higher education. But it was close to home and less expensive than my preferred school. I moved into the dorms with my Bibles and Strong’s Concordance ready to take on the world! But I wasn’t nearly as ready as I thought I was. Unfortunately, most of my fellow Bible majors, and some of the professors, were from a fundamentalist background that held if I didn’t believe exactly like them or was baptized in one of their churches, that I was not a real Christian. That along with some needed maturing on my part led to another crisis of faith. I began to get really discouraged and stopped attending class, which, as it turns out, is really important if you want to pass.
It was around late February 2005 when I decided I had been through enough. I was emotionally exhausted. I had few friends. And I was struggling with some sinful strongholds in my life. In desperation, I reached out to a good friend and through some pastoral counseling, I began to see some light again. I felt like God was chiseling away the stony parts of my heart that had remained. It was a painful process but one that was needed. Around this same time, my then-pastor, Peter Martindale, came to me and said that he was recommending me to become the pastor of a small church in Reedsville, OH.
Adam Goes to Eden
Eden Church was a small church along a state route, close to the Ohio River. Although it was only a 15-minute drive home, and the only other church of my denomination in my home county, I had never been there until late August of 2004. It was then that I was asked to preach on a couple of Sunday evenings as their pastor was speaking elsewhere.
I remember walking into church. Compared to the church I grew up in, it was small and slightly musty. But it was beautiful. The red carpet and red upholstery, white walls, and dark woodwork matched perfectly my idea of what an “old country church” would look like. 15 or so people sat in the pews, which could maybe hold 80. I preached a two-part sermon on having a healthy spiritual diet. I remember one young lady slipped me a $20 bill to “invest in [my] ministry”. I still have that somewhere.
Fast forward to February 2005. Eden’s pastor is resigning, sensing a call of his own to a different type of ministry. Eden needs a pastor, and being a small church in an economically depressed area is unlikely to get one. Enter, again, my pastor, Peter Martindale. Peter’s first church was, incidentally, Eden (which has a long history of being the launching pad for ministers). He told the Conference Superintendent (our denomination at that time was organized into districts and conferences) that he had a young man interested in ministry who was attending Bible college. On the spot, I was recommended to become the next Senior Pastor of Eden Church. No interview. No trial sermon (unless you count filling in 6 months prior). That was it. Yikes.
Eden was, and is, a beautiful place with beautiful people. The church started in the 1880s and had a rich history. Unfortunately, it also had a recent history of turmoil. Cycles of growth and splitting had left a small, elderly congregation whose only goal was to keep the doors open. The community around it had a negative opinion, not of the individual members, but of the congregation as a whole. Church splits in a rural area, usually along family lines, will do that.
At 19, I was by far the youngest person in the Church. I was the Senior Pastor who could have still been in the youth group if one existed. I joked that I had a church full of grandmas. Which was mostly true. On my first Sunday, we had 17 people and only 6 were men. Only 2 married couples attended. Three of the men (including yours truly) were single. Half of the women were widows. The others had spouses who just didn’t attend.
I spent nearly 8 years at Eden. Looking back, I have so many mixed feelings. We saw God do some really good things there. People came to faith. People grew in their faith. Eden intentionally reached out to its community for the first time in a long time. We also had some difficult times. Lingering congregational pain over past hurts cast a long shadow. I was a young pastor who too often led with good intentions but bad or even hurtful methods. As one dear, sweet saint told me, “Adam, you’re young and we’re old. We have a lot of wisdom but no energy. You have a lot of energy, but no wisdom.” And boy, if she didn’t hit the nail on the head with that one!
I left Eden after 7 1/2 years, having tried all I knew to do to see that church turn around. I think the leadership was as frustrated with me as I was with them. It wasn’t an angry separation, but one of mutual sorrow and regret. An “I wish this hadn’t happened, but it’s time to part ways” sort of thing. But even in my leaving, they loved me well.
But what I am eternally grateful for is that it was at Eden Church that God confirmed the call in my life. He used them to reassure me on days that I wanted to give up. Eden was my proving ground. And I hope that God blesses those people, many who have since gone on to be with the Lord, for investing in me, believing in me, and helping to launch me to where I am today.
Every “Call” is a little different.
Maybe you’re in “professional” ministry, maybe not. But all of us are “called” into some sort of service. That’s what ministry is, service. Perhaps you work with kids or folks with special needs. You may not be called a “minister” but that’s precisely what you are doing, ministering to others. You might work as a long-haul truck driver, in a manufacturing plant, or in the medical field. How is that a calling? You are making a difference in what you do. You’re getting the product to the people who need it, or working at creating it. You’re contributing to the care of people in need.
But beyond the ministry of our vocations, we’re all called by God to make a difference in the lives of people we interact with. Maybe you’re able to encourage a co-worker on a lunch break. Perhaps you use your phone to send Bible verses to people in your Sunday school class or small group. It could be that you send cards to those in care facilities. Or maybe you’re fighting the spiritual fight in your prayer closet, praying for people you don’t even know, that God will work out situations for His glory and our good.
My life is different than yours. My calling is different than yours. But if you follow Jesus, we have the same Call-er, who is calling us to follow Him no matter what our title or occupation may be. And He’s calling you and me to make a difference in this world. So, are you listening? It’s time to answer the call. Maybe today is your beginning.
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Adam Will 