Last night, I went to a party honoring a great leader and friend of mine, Dr. J. K. Minton. For the last 10 years, J.K. has served in ministry as a sort of pastor to many of the pastors in our area. The highlight of the night was seeing a video of J. K. dressed and performing as James Brown singing “I Feel Good.”
As many nice things were being said about him, I thought of his impact on my life personally and thought this would be the best place to share them.
I remember when I was serving as a youth pastor in Wimberley, I was looking for the place that God would lead me to pastor. After many months of searching, I got a call from J.K. one day. He asked me if I would let him send my resume to Central Baptist Church in Luling. Now, I had a good friend who had been the youth pastor there, so I knew about some of the trouble that church had been through. They actually had to fire their previous pastor. And I knew that Luling had that funny smell of sulfur that I couldn’t imagine getting used to. So, my first response was, “OH NO!” but because J. K. thought it was a good idea, I told him to go ahead and send it. Once they got my resume and we had our first meeting, there was no doubt that Luling was exactly where I needed to be.
Then after four great years in Luling, I had a strong sense of calling from God to move to Kyle. Because J. K. has pioneered a strategic church planting system for our area, I gave him a call, told him how I was feeling, and asked if I would be considered as a church planter candidate for Kyle. I assumed his response would probably be, “No, we’re actually looking for a church planter, not a pastor of an existing church.” Instead, he told me to complete a self-assessment. And, after meeting with a team of planters and pastors, my family was planning a move to Kyle. J. K. has visited us at TCC twice. The first time was about a month from our launch. We were having a big celebration lunch and there was a lot of excitement that day. I’ll never forget what J. K. said to me, “Well, I was pretty worried about all this, but it looks like this church may make it after all.” I’ll always be grateful for his vote of confidence. 🙂
Along the way, J. K. has been a mentor that I can always call on if I’m going through a hard time or have a question about leadership and ministry. His investment in my life and our church can’t be overstated. I want to publicly thank him for his faithfulness to God and his many years of serving those who are serving our churches. I wish him many more years of effectiveness in building churches and pastors to reach people for Jesus!