Pastor Joe

Hi My Name is Joe…

…I’ve got a wife and one kid and work as a graphic designer. One day, the boss came to me and said, “Joe, I want you to be a youth pastor.” So I said Ok.

Well my call to youth ministry wasn’t quite that simple. In fact God spent a number of years working plans behind the scenes and redeeming my own decisions to bring to this place, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. You see when I was a junior in high school my youth group (from Salem Church of God in Clayton, Ohio) went on a missions trip to Tijuana, Mexico to build houses. As we were wrapping up I looked out over the landscape and felt in that moment that God was calling me to something. Now at the time, I would have told you it was missions work — that is foreign missions — and I set about looking for a school where I could do that. The looking took me to Mount Vernon Nazarene College (now University). I spent a year there, met all my closest friends to this day and the promptly transferred to The Ohio State University.

The reasons I transferred aren’t important, but once I got there I switched my major to Art Education and set about learning how to be an art teacher. However, in the middle of my program God tugged at my heart and for the first time put together the call in Tijuana with my desire to work with Junior High and High School students in Art Education and I felt called to youth ministry. I set about looking into Seminary with plans to finish my Art Education degree but by the time I graduated in December of 2001 I felt I needed to stay in Columbus, Ohio and work for a bit before returning to school. While I was there I became part of a Southern Baptist church plant north of Columbus called North Metro Church and God began to work on his plan from there. Eventually I met the woman who would be my wife, Gwynne Powell, and worked as a Graphic Designer for a multifamily banking company.

Life was good. And one day, all of that seemed to meet in the middle of a worship service at North Metro and I felt God say to me, “It’s time.” So Gwynne and I started a youth group at North Metro and began planning our wedding for April 2005 and to move to Anderson, Indiana to begin my seminary career at Anderson University in August of 2005. I spent the next four years working on my Master of Divinity degree from Anderson’s School of Theology and during that time began attending New Life. We first volunteered with {2:42} as counselors and then as time went on, felt God had called us to this community. In 2008, I became the youth pastor at New Life and the rest is history, and present, and future.

In December 2009, we celebrated the arrival of our son Micah, and it seems as if God has brought about a whole new chapter not only in our lives, but in the ministry of {2:42} as well. I am energized by what I believe God is doing in the life and heart of this group and truly expect him to work over the course of 2010. I hope that you will keep the group in your prayers, and you will help out in this ministry or another one when you feel God’s call. It’s a blessing beyond measure.

Serving Him Alone,

Joe Watkins