Mt. Moriah pastor has job, calling
CLARKSBURG—Even though Roy Barnard knows that he is called a bi-vocational pastor, the pastor of Mt. Moriah Baptist Church in Clarksburg who works as a manager for Cargill Industries would rather shy away from that term.
“I have a job and I have a calling and they are separate,” Barnard said. “I get to take my calling into my job and I am always a pastor and a servant of God. When out at work it is great when you have an employee that pulls you to the side and asks if you will pray for them and I can do that, so it is great. I do not look at pastoring a church as a job. When I am at church I do not need to take care of work business; instead I take care of God’s business. Though my secular job pays the bills, it is a job that has time limits and my calling with God is 24 hours a day everyday.”
Barnard has worked for Cargill for 26 years. Four years ago he fulfilled his calling to ministry by becoming the pastor of Mt. Moriah. It was actually in high school when Barnard was a senior that he first felt God call him to ministry. Barnard talks about God calling him into ministry and his response.
“Actually I have got to say that when I was a senior in high school that God had called me to the ministry really hard and I refuted the call,” he said. “In fact I ran away from it and it was not what I thought I wanted to do. I went to college and after that I did remain faithful, going to church, but at that time I no longer felt the call.
“It was after several moves in my life and raising my family that I saw my son who was a junior in high school and it seemed God was calling him to the ministry. I saw him fighting some of the same situations that I had fought but differently. He accepted the call into the ministry following God and continues to this day to do that. It was during that time that I realized that God had not taken that call away from me.
“My wife and I were in the car and I had made the decision to be obedient to God and I told myself that I better let my wife know this first. On the ride back from the annual Judgment House in Otterville I said, ‘Honey, I have got to tell you something.’ She said, ‘What’s that?’ And I said, ‘God’s been calling me into the ministry and I have been saying no and I have got to change that.’ The sweetest words I have ever heard came from her when she said, ‘Honey, you know you cannot tell God no,’ so from that point there was not any transition for us. There has been no doubt that this is where he wanted me to be.”
Jeremy Barnard is the pastor at Pisgah Baptist Church in Longline. His father talked about how that was his inspiration.
“There is no doubt.” Barnard said. “It is interesting because usually you think of the parents teaching their children but I can tell you in my son’s case he was the one that was obedient and was an inspiration to me. We had been teaching him to be obedient and he was listening but I had not listened and there is no doubt that he is an inspiration.”
Barnard said that his being able to pastor has nothing to do with him and everything to do with God. And with that same humility Barnard said that he is amazed to see what God did with him when he was simply obedient.
Barnard was very passionate when offering some advice for those who feel God calling them into a bi-vocational service.
“Don’t try to rationalize time,” he said. “It is not a decision that a person makes saying, ‘That if I had more time that I would go into the pastorate and work another job.’ It is a matter of being obedient. My advice would be to take it from somebody that was not in the will of God for a long time: Don’t miss the blessings that God has in store for you. And He will take care of your time.
“Absolutely there will be personal sacrifices. The change has probably been tougher on my wife. There are times that I need to do ministry when normally we would be doing some family things, but be obedient. Do not rationalize it through the eyes of man. Rationalize it with what God wants you to do. God will take care of the rest.”