Faith Story and Call into Ministry
by Jim Bass

I was not raised in the church.  My parents had me baptized as an infant, but that was the extent of my exposure to God. Like most people, I believed in God, but God was an idea at best. He wasn't real to me. He wasn’t relevant to my life.

Until I was fifteen years old and a sophomore high school, I never gave God much thought, I began to be aware of a void in my life, and I didn't know who or what could fill it. St. Augustine, a bishop and Church Father, once said, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”  My heart was restless and empty. I wanted something, but I was not sure exactly what that something was.

I noticed Christian youth at school and thought they were different somehow. They had purpose and meaning in their lives.  They were full of joy. At the time, I didn’t know exactly what it was about them that was different, but I knew that I wanted what they had.

Over the next year, I began to read the New Testament. Over and over again, I read the stories of Jesus. More importantly, I read the claims Jesus made about Himself. However, one claim spoke to the void in my life. Jesus said in John 10.10, “I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full.”  That was what I was searching for, I thought, life in all its fullness with meaning and purpose — life that mattered!

Shortly afterwards, I found a Gideon’s New Testament that had been given to my father when he was in the Air Force during World War II. In it was an explanation of God’s desire to be in relationship with me and how I could know and experience God's abundant life — all I had to do was receive God's love and ask Christ into my heart.

One night I knelt beside my bed and prayed to God for the first time. I asked Christ to come into my life and be my Savior and Lord. I asked God to show me His love. I asked God to fill the void in my life. I asked Jesus to give meaning and purpose to my life. I asked Christ to give me abundant life. I immediately felt a peace and presence come over me. That night, I felt God's love fill my heart.

After my commitment to Christ, I continued to read the Bible as I began to understand what faith in Christ involved. However, not having been raised in a local church, I did not know what to do next. 

Months passed before getting involved in a church, so I began to pray that God would lead me to a church fellowship. Shortly after that two college students from St. Philip’s United Methodist Church knocked on my door. They were conducting a door-to-door canvas of my neighborhood and invited me to attend church. Believing this encounter was a direct answer to my prayers and God was showing me the church to attend, I went the following Sunday.

I started attending the church and after several months of worship and involvement in the youth program, attending Sunday School and Bible studies, I made a public profession of my faith and joined the church on May 25, 1980. I was sixteen years old.

As I continued to grow in my Christian faith I began to sense that God was calling me into the ministry.  As I talked to my pastor over the following year, I began to understand God’s leading me in my life.  By my senior year in high school, I was certain of God’s calling to full-time Christian ministry and offered myself to His service.

I attended Southwestern University in Georgetown, majoring in history, with a special emphasis in church history. As I studied the history and theology of the Church, I came to appreciate the rich spiritual life and thought of John Wesley and the Methodism movement, confirming a providential bond in God’s leading me into the United Methodist Church and full-time pastoral ministry.