Moved by a sermon

It was a sermon on the Prodigal Son that led the Rev. Jon Pearce to the call of God.

“My mom said she would come to my graduation on one condition: If I would go to church with her,” Pearce, now 43, said. “I said, ‘Oh, sure Mom.’”

That might sound like a simple request, but it wasn’t. Pearce’s parents were divorced. He moved back and forth between Minnesota and South Carolina during his teenage years in order to please them both. When he lived with his mother and brother, the family was on welfare. He vividly recalls going without food as a child.

“We got government cheese,” Pearce said. “I believe if I had a more structured life, I would not have the empathy I have for people that are on the fringes of society.”

At the time of his graduation, Pearce was living in South Carolina with his father. His mother was living in Minnesota. She made the 1,200-mile trek south to a little church in Greenville, S.C. The place was packed. The only seats open were on the front row. Nobody wants to sit on the front row, but Pearce did. And when he heard the sermon, his life changed forever.

“I went forward,” Pearce said. “I had turned my back on God.”

He went to the altar and became a new man. The congregation laid hands on him and prayed with him.

“I didn’t want to go forward,” Pearce added. “I had no intention of going forward, but the convictions were so strong.”

Sensing a call to be a missionary and feeling changed, Pearce, in 1986, enrolled at World Evangelism Bible College in Baton Rouge, La. He was there for two years before becoming youth pastor at Maples Baptist Church in North Carolina. While there, he met his future wife, Michele.

“She came to one of my Sunday school classes,” Pearce said. “Later, through a mutual friend, we started dating.”

With two years of on-the-job experience, Pearce enrolled at Graceland College in 1991 and married Michele in 1992. He proceeded to Southern Seminary in Louisville, Ky. in 1994 and graduated in 1998 and obtained his Master of Divinity. He received several calls and searched in several places for his first pastorate.

“You do a sermon, they talk to you,” Pearce said of the process. “My wife said, ‘Do we really have to go to these? It’s the same thing all the time.’ I said, ‘Yeah, honey, you have to do it. That’s part of the whole plan.’”

The process, finally, came to a halt when Pearce received a call from First Baptist Church in Crothersville. The chairman of the church’s search committee was excited, telling Pearce how the church wanted to go forward. They wanted to impact the community. They wanted to mature spiritually.

“He had a sense of humor, which you can use,” Pearce said. “We went for the visit. The people were neat. They were visionary. They weren’t content. They wanted to build a brand new sanctuary. They were a younger church that invited positive change. These are the kinds of people I wanted.”

He came to the church in 1999 and has stayed for the past 11 years. Pearce, who will earn a doctorate of ministry this year, said much has changed since he came aboard. The church has a new educational wing in what used to be the Family Life Center. They started a food pantry. They took an old meth house, tore it down and made a thrift shop. Pearce says that he is surrounded by a strong staff and strong participation from members of the church.

“The people here have made a big difference,” Pearce said. “I’ve been blessed.”