Pastoral path runs through nursing homes, jails

By Dan Nienaber, The Mankato Free Press

Mankato, Minn. (AP) - Callings from a higher power don't come in the form of a well-written letter or a carefully worded voice mail, so Jerry David understands why the ministerial path he's on has taken some detours.

When he left his job as a pastor at First Baptist Church in Lake Crystal in 2004, after 20 years, David thought his calling was clear. He was going to travel to rural areas and start churches through American Missionary Fellowship, a nationwide non-denominational mission society established in 1812.

"Then I began to have some doubts, and my wife had more doubts," he said. "So I went from being a pastor to being a car salesman."

During his time selling Fords, David didn't give up the ministry completely. He worked as an associate chaplain at Immanuel St. Joseph's Hospital and as a part-time pastor at Pathstone Living, a Mankato assisted-living center.

It was his work at Pathstone that kept him thinking about that higher calling.

Some of the people he was talking to were frail and facing the unknowns behind death's door. Others weren't sick but felt like they'd been "put on a shelf" for the last years of their lives.

"God really gave me a burden for these people," David said. "I could help them with their spiritual needs. I was letting them know that God still wants to use them until he takes them home."

"So I called American Missionary Fellowship again," David said. "I told them, 'I know what God wants this time. I'm not going to be planting churches; I'm going to be planting ministries at senior care facilities,'" David said.

The calling became even clearer later, when a nurse he knew in Watonwan County called David and told him about a man in jail there. Things weren't going well for the man, who was despondent and needed someone to talk to, she told him.

He thought it was going to be a one-time visit.

"I think he was very anxious, very nervous about going to prison," David said. "I talked to him and, after I left, I thought that was going to be the end of the experience."

The man left the jail and went to prison, but not before passing David's name on to another inmate. That inmate wanted to start a biweekly Bible study.

Around the same time, David crossed paths with Steven Hultengren, a former pastor who had fallen away from the church. David asked Hultengren to help him with his work in Watonwan County.

"That was his very first reach-out for Gentle Shepherd Ministry," Hultengren said.

Now David has about 70 volunteers working under his Gentle Shepherd Ministry umbrella, working with people in about 25 nursing homes and jails. And plans are moving forward to keep the Mankato-based ministry growing.

"I hadn't planned for the jail part of this," David said. "But I realized both groups are often confined. Both are often forgotten in life and ministry. There's a spiritual, emotional and social need for these people."

David has set up a board of directors and built a base of 350 regular supporters, who provide both financial assistance and advice. Area churches have allowed him to give presentations that build that base. A Web site is being designed and will be launched early next year.

David estimated about 20 percent of his financial support comes from churches. The rest comes from individual donors. His annual Gentle Shepherd Ministries Banquet is another major source of support.

"As a ministry, he has been able to put people in places where it just wasn't possible before," said Greg White, another jail ministry volunteer. "There's a need."

"In the jail, when inmates are first brought in, their emotions are really, really high and out on their sleeves. The lessons are geared specifically toward people with raw emotions. They've been brought to jail and their life is changing."

The message from Gentle Shepherd Ministries is different for people in jail and people in nursing homes, David said. And he admits he's still working on ways to give inmates opportunities to stay on positive paths once they're released from jail. He wants to have volunteers who steer them toward a church, preferably of a denomination with which they've had experience.

"Those who get involved in church are the ones who seem to have been more successful," David said.

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Information from: The Free Press, http://www.mankatofreepress.com

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