Dennis George

My journey towards a ministry of caring for pastors and church leaders begins 45 years ago in a small town in the snow belt of western New York where Carol and I had our first ministry experience. I was fortunate enough to serve with a much “older and wiser” senior pastor who made it his mission to make sure our first experience was a good one. He wanted us to fall in love with ministry and never leave it. This experience not only kept us in ministry, but was foundational for every ministry after that.

The Lord then led us to my wife’s home church in Ohio where I was privileged to serve on staff with a pastor much closer to my age. Together, we pastored the church for 15 years, raising our kids, learning ministry and sharing equally in the delights and disappointments of life and ministry. There I experienced the encouragement that comes when you have someone to do life and ministry together.

But God wasn’t done yet. He still had more for me to experience in order to create in me a heart of compassion for pastors and ministry leaders. That’s when He called me to serve on staff at a church where everything we did “worked”. Year after year, hundreds of people were saved, baptized and joined the church.

But then it happened, the “train wreck.” One of the pastors on staff and my best friend, “fell into sin.” Obviously, the enemy wasn’t happy with all that was happening for the Kingdom, so he was on the prowl. Other staff started falling as well, some because of poor personal decisions, and others due to discouragement, disillusionment and division.

Discouraged and disillusioned myself, I tried to fix it, but couldn’t. Finally, after four years of trying, I left this ministry more convinced than ever of the importance of not only caring for the sheep of the church, but of caring for the pastors, too. This led me to devote the rest of my ministry to care for the sheep of the church as well as its’ shepherds, which resulted in planting a church in our living room. For the next 14 years, I had the privilege to shepherd a loving community of believers that is still meeting together today but under new leadership following my retirement.

After pastoring in various roles of the church for 45 years, the Lord has given me a fresh calling to focus primarily on caring for the pastors of the church. He affirmed it on a recent trip to the Holy Land where I sat down by the Sea of Galilee and read the words of Jesus when He asked Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter, of course, answered “You know Lord that I love you" to which Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.”

In this next season of life, nothing feels more redeeming to me and my wife of 50 years than to take the wins and losses, along with the celebrations and wounds of life and ministry, and use them to pour courage into other pastors and wives so that they may “. . .finish the course and the ministry that they received from the Lord Jesus, . . .” Acts 20:24