Who Ordained You or Placed You In ministry?

I was ordained by a group of ministers through Harvest Fellowship Church. Before that I was ordained as a Ruling Elder at College Hill Presbyterian Church. Each time it was a humbling and motivating event. However, when Dr. Ed Friedman asked me this question he had another person in mind and I was shocked to learn who it was.

If I asked that of you what would you say? Like me would you mention a church or Christian organization? Or, like Dr. Friedman would you look at your past history to see what man or woman had seemingly "willed" you to take up the cross and follow Jesus?

I have always said that my mothers' mother, we called her Mom Taylor, had a tremendous effect on my spiritual life. My grandparents lived next door and actually owned all the land on which we both lived. It was a five acre truck farm on the outskirts of Ina, Illinois, a tiny village of 200 hardy, hard working souls.

Mom was the brightest, best trained and most spiritual person in our area. Her father, John Thomas Dempsey, had been found by Christ as an adult and then experienced a unique meeting with the Holy Spirit in a 1894 camp meeting. Mom was born that same year. The Dempsey, along with 20 others, also birthed New Hope baptist Church after splitting off from Union Baptist over the need for a Second Blessing.

I never met Rev. J.T. Dempsey for he died in 1928 and I was born in 1938. In fact, Until I learned about the genogram, a way to record past family patterns, I was ignorant about most of my family background. However, now that I have looked into the past, perhaps it was the pastor, evangelist and church planter Tom Dempsey along with Mom Dempsey Taylor who actually set me into the office of Pastor, teacher and church planter.

I have become a true believer in the biblical statements about generational sins and blessings. In 1968-69 I left Dent Baptist Church about the freedom to study scripture in small groups. Over the next couple of years we planted several "home churches" around the campus of the University of Cincinnati. In those churches we experienced a Second Blessing and became deeply involved in the Jesus Movement.

Knowing nothing about my great grandfather J.T. Dempsey's history I never even thought I might be reaping the blessings and patterns of this distant figure. Later, when I began to list some of the things on my genogram that had happened in my life, I heard my elder brother mention that in 1968-69 he too had left a Baptist Church to plant another new and different kind of congregation. VOILA! Is there a pattern here?

On her deathbed, Mom Taylor got me confused with her daddy and would say things like, Oh poppy, don't leave me again. I miss you so much when you travel to preach. And she always insisted that we sing a few revival songs before I left. She remembered every verse although I forgot many of them.

A few years before my mother passed away I was talking with her about our family history. She said, Gary Ray, you do remind me so much of Poppy, my grandfather Dempsey. You look like him, talk like him and sound like him.

Who really ordained me?
Who chose you to fulfill the role you are in?