John Paul, Ministry Coordinator

 I met my Lord, Jesus Christ, in the summer of 1965 in an Oral Roberts tent crusade in Kokomo, Indiana.  Shortly thereafter I was befriended by the pastor of the church where my wife, Carol, had been attending.   I became immediately involved in the church and was soon passing out tracts from a tent erected on Main Street in my hometown.  I was a police officer at the time and received some unfavorable notice from the police chief and the town council.  Shortly after I was saved I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  I was on  

While serving in Berlin, Germany, in 1969, I was awakened one night by the Lord and received His call to minister to children.  Having no previous desire to identify with children, this was quite a change in my life.  I accepted that call, and now I was in step with my wife, Carol, who had been called to minister to children many years previous.  We immediately began training in Berlin with the Child Evangelism Fellowship missionaries stationed there.  Berlin is where we met Phil and Fran Mortensen.  We were part of the same chapel in Berlin. I received an early release from the service to attend Fort Wayne Bible College (Now Taylor University) with emphasis on pastoral studies. About six months later Phil and Fran came to Fort Wayne to attend Fort Wayne Bible College.  They stayed with Carol and me for a short time while seeking a place to live.

I was actively involved in several Bible Study release program in the public schools and Bible Clubs in the Fort Wayne area while attending college and working in our church.  My wife and I started the children’s evangelistic services on Sunday morning for our home church.  This was not to be a “junior church” but a children’s evangelist meeting each Sunday.  The Lord helped us put together a dynamic and quick-moving service that reached many souls for the Lord. The Lord blessed “Ranger John” and “Calico Carol” and the ministry of “The Christian Cowboy Crusades” and we saw a record breaking 200 children blessed through our ministry on Easter Sunday in 1970. 

In the summer of 1970 our church had “Captain Hook” in for a children’s crusade.  Von Saum was instrumental in launching our traveling, evangelistic ministry to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and the east coast.  Selling as much as we could, we moved into the travel trailer that the Lord provided for us and pulled by a new truck He also provided and went on the road.  Soon our children’s evangelistic ministry was booking ahead over two years and from 1971 through 1974 our ministry was seeing thousands of boys and girls come to know the Lord.  

 In 1974, due to complications in pregnancy with our daughter, we temporarily left the traveling ministry.  After our daughter’s birth we moved to Michigan where I worked in the Yorkwood Hall of the Ypsilanti State Hospital and ninety days later brought four young men home to live in our newly established home for mentally disturbed children.  We operated these homes and a sheltered workshop for the disabled from 1975 thru 1977. 

In 1977 we were invited to be the Minister of Christian Education for the Assembly of God Tabernacle in Atlanta, Georgia.  At that time the church had approximately 1200 in attendance and another 300-400 in sidewalk ministries in the apartment complexes.   In that position my duties were to recruit and train a staff of over 125 volunteer teachers and workers in the Sunday school department.  Team teaching in the Sunday school classroom and learning centers in the lower grades were introduced, workers trained, and were very successful in reaching children for the Lord.  I wrote much of the curriculum for the team teaching and several classes. Carol and I were there from 1977 through 1979. 

During this time we also performed the duties of Ministers of Communications, installing the equipment, recruiting and training a television production staff for the weekly television program.  I produced and directed both the television and radio programs.  I also was the ghost writer for the pastor’s column in the 5,000 weekly bulletins that were mailed each week.  We also answered all the mail from the radio and television programs.  

In 1979 I was asked to assume the General Manager position of a Christian television production facility in Smyrna, Ga.  My duties were to manage the daily operations of a busy Christian production facility.  Producing and directing Christian programming and commercial ventures were a part of my duties.  Also during this time we developed, produced, acted in, and distributed the children’s television program entitled “The Gooseberry Gang”.  

In 1982 the Lord led us back into the traveling ministry.  From 1982 through 1984 we were blessed to see hundreds of boys and girls pray at an altar of salvation and then stand at that altar and proclaim for all to hear that they had “decided to follow Jesus.” 

1985 through 1990 saw “The Gooseberry Gang” leading teaching seminars for church workers, teaching innovative ways to reach and teach children.  We taught both theory and practicality.  Teaching one-on-one, we were able to help the worker with the methodology to actually perform the various venues, i.e. ventriloquism, object lessons, etc.  This was a part-time ministry as I served as associate pastor of Calvary Bible Church in Toledo, Ohio during this time also. 

In 1990 we were asked to be associate pastors and resource pastors for the Cathedral of Praise, in Sturgis, Michigan.  In 1991 we were elected pastors of this church.  We served in this capacity until 1995. During this time we were instrumental in starting Royal Rangers for boys, Missionettes for girls, and a bus ministry, park ministry and a sidewalk ministry with a school bus.   

In 1993, as pastor of the Cathedral of Praise,  I also served as the Sectional Christian Education Coordinator for the southwestern section of the Assemblies of God for Michigan.  In this position I worked with church workers throughout the section to assess their needs and design and implement a training program to help them. 

For over 35 years Carol and I have ministered in various ministries.  Now God has given us the privilege or working with Pastor Mortensen and a great ministry team at Love Church.  May He get all the glory!

duty one night as a police officer and came home for a cup of coffee and found a praying wife.  As I walked into the room, the Lord spoke to me and I received the baptism that night. Soon the Lord chose me to serve my country in the U.S. Army Signal Corp.  This opened the eyes of a small town cop to the magnificent creation of God’s world.