Faith|Wisdom|Purpose
About the Author
I’m an ordinary man who said “Yes” to an extraordinary God and then spent decades discovering what yes really meant. These are those lessons.
About the Author
More than thirty years of ministry
Gary N. Matney has spent more than thirty years serving in Christian ministry, but his journey began with a simple burden to see young people come to know God.
One Sunday evening after church, Gary went forward to pray for several young people he attended school with—many of whom did not attend church, were unsaved, and had never experienced a personal relationship with God. As he knelt to pray for them, God began placing a call on his heart for youth ministry. That moment became the beginning of a journey that would lead him through more than three decades of ministry.
Gary attended Midwest Bible Institute, a Bible school associated with his fellowship, the Full Gospel Evangelistic Association, in Houston, Texas. His ministry through the years has included bus ministry, teaching both youth and adult Sunday school classes, more than twelve years as a youth pastor, and more than six years as an associate pastor.
His First Sermon
You never know who is listening
His first opportunity to preach came at Silver Moon, a small church in Missouri, under the ministry of Pastor Freddie Franks Sr. Gary arrived with a prepared sermon, but in the middle of that message, he felt God’s direction to stop and give an altar call for salvation.
There was a man in the congregation Gary had never met. He had simply come to church that day with his family. He wasn’t a regular churchgoer and had shown little previous interest in spiritual things.
But that day, he came forward.
He dedicated his life to serving God.
For Gary, it was an early and unforgettable lesson: you never know what God is doing in someone’s heart, and you never know who is listening when you stand behind a pulpit.
Over the years, Gary would go on to step out in faith and start a church, which he has now pastored for more than ten years. Along the way, he has experienced the joys and victories of ministry as well as its disappointments, struggles, unanswered questions, and unexpected turns.
Those experiences taught him something Bible school could not fully teach him:
Ministry is about people.
It is about the young person who needs someone to believe in them. The family that needs encouragement. The person who walks through the church doors for the first time. The one who quietly sits in the back pew carrying a burden nobody knows about.
And sometimes, it is about standing behind a pulpit with a sermon you prepared—only to discover that God has something else in mind.
Gary doesn’t write as someone who has ministry figured out. He writes as someone who has lived it.
Gary N. Matney
What He Is Writing
What Bible School Never Taught Me
Every chapter of this book comes from something I lived, something I lost, something I got wrong, something that broke my heart, or something God did that I still cannot quite explain. This is a field journal of life in the ministry that Bible school did not equip me for. This knowledge came through the refining fire of life.
Connect
Reach out to Gary
Questions about the book, or a word you would like to share? Gary would be glad to hear from you.