About Us

We met on a college campus in southern Michigan.  She was a junior and I was a sophomore.  We got engaged the following summer and then married the next summer after Stephanie graduated with a biology degree and I had one more year to complete my degree in philosophy and religion.  These were some of the best of times but lets back up and get a running start at how these two lives met and how we met our Savior.

I was raised in a Christian home, out in the country near a small town in northeast Michigan.  The town had a population of 180 and my high school graduating class was 40 in number and boasting of 5 of us going onto college.  My mother and father were very active in the little white sided church.  They traded off being Sunday School superintendent.  My father taught the adult Sunday School class and filled in for the pastor when he was away.  My mother was the Sunday School treasurer and hosted many ministers and missionaries around our kitchen table.  We attended Sunday School, Sunday morning worship, Sunday evening worship, and Wednesday prayer meeting every week.  Our church hosted revival services every spring and fall that would run two or three weeks and we were at every night service for the duration and twice on Sundays.  I almost had all the numbers of the songs in the hymnal memorized.

In the midst of this upbringing, at the age of 11, I was at the fall revival meeting on a Thursday night with my family.  The visiting evangelist was a tall lanky blond energetic preacher named Lane Loman.  I was considered a good kid but this good kid knew that God was calling me to follow Him because I would never be good enough.  I needed a Savior and so I released my hands on chorus of the third verse of "I Surrender All."  I knelt at the old oak altar with my parents standing behind me and I gave God all that an 11 year old could.

This tender heart kept coming back to that altar in other churches and camp meetings over the years.  I found it a place to pour out my heart to this One I had committed to follow and also repented of variances from His path.  Even though my heart was tender and I was discipled and used through the church I latched onto the thought that I should do as anyone else would do and leave for college to get a degree to make a lot of money.  I headed off to a state school to get a degree in accounting and economics even though my church trained me to teach Sunday School classes; offered me a youth group that had great depth in Scriptural knowledge and action; provided for me to be apart of a para-church music group; and sent me on a short-term summer mission trip to France.  

My Christian education kept me attending church while at the state school.  I even when to Sunday evening services when all of my friends were getting their last bits of fun in before the weekend was over.  It was at one of those Sunday night services that as I entered the church and I knew I needed to visit the altar of this large church.  If the pastor would open the altar for prayer, I would go forward feeling pulled there by God.  The service was ending and the pastor was to give the closing prayer when he stopped and said, "I feel like we should open up the altar for a time of prayer for anyone compelled to come."  I was halfway up the aisle before he could get the offer out of his mouth.  It was that night at yet another altar that I accepted the call to go into full time pastoral ministry.  I didn't know what that would all entail but I was going to take the first steps to make it happen.  

I returned to my dorm room and called my parents.  I told them the news and they couldn't respond back because they were crying.  Though not pressured to pursue the ministry, they were praying for my heart to be open to His call if that was His will.  I transferred the next semester to a Christian liberal arts college associated with the denomination of my home church and started the process with the goal to be an ordained minister.  This is where Stephanie comes into the picture.

Stephanie was also raised in a Christian home in southern Michigan and came to faith through a Billy Graham crusade watched on their little black and white television they took on their vacation.  She came out of the camper to find her mom and dad to tell them that she had prayed the prayer with Rev. Graham.  Her journey also included being very involved in her home church and finding herself at the same Christian college waiting for me to arrive!

After college was completed we were appointed to a small church in north central Michigan.  I was at the ripe old age of 21 and Stephanie was 22.  This was the start of being apart of an appointment system that took us to another church in 3 years and then another after another 3 years.  We stayed 5 years at a church in northeast Michigan and this is where another call came from God to be used to start a church in a neighboring town 70 miles away.  With 2 other couples, Gaylord Family Fellowship was born that gave us some stability with a first time home of our own and 18 years of being its founding pastor.  

We raised our 4 children in the church plant environment.  Our oldest, Anna, is married to Phil and they have two our grandchildren, Joshua and Evelyn.  Anna leads worship and Phil is part of the worship team of the church they attend; host a weekly Bible study in their home; and Anna is part of an area MOPS ministry.  Next is Abraham who is married to Laura and they have four more of our grandchildren:  Evan, Andy, Adeline and Connor.  Abe also is part of the worship team at the church they attend and Laura is active with a young mom's ministry.  Benjamin is next in line.  He moved with us to our present location in north central Illinois and secured a job through a contracting agency with Caterpillar.  Ben leads the young adult ministry here and also leads and is part of the worship team.  Our last is Jason who is married to Samantha.  They have two more of our grandchildren, Libby and Taylor.  Jason attended Moody Bible Institute and serves as a youth minister in southeast Michigan.  Samantha is also a part of an area MOPS ministry.  We are so thankful that our children are following after the Lord and serving Him with the gifts He has given them.

After 18 years of being the founding pastor of the church plant that became a full fledge fellowship, I sensed the call of God to step out again to see where He would take us.  The desire to be called by a church was important to us for this move.  We applied and were called to our present church, Oglesby Union Church in August of 2014 and started ministry here in October of that year.  Much has happened here personally as I have been afforded the time to study and teach God's Word through many outlets.  I have been walking through books of the Bible for about 4 years prior to this call but now I was covering a book of the Bible Sunday morning, a different one Sunday night, another on Wednesday evening, and another through the daily e-mail devotionals.  A 5 minute radio program opened to me to proclaim God's grace each Sunday morning on a local radio broadcast and an airing of our Sunday sermons on a local Christian radio station.  

This transition, we believe, has prepared us for interim pastoral ministry and the empty nest part of our lives.  We long to see the next generation of ministers walk into churches such as Oglesby Union Church and lead those who are committed to God's Word and following after it.  Those transition times are tough and changes and losses are experienced that need to be walked through so that progress can go forward.  This is what we feel God has called us to do with the help of Interim Pastoral Ministry.  

It means that we will minimize again to be down to the contents of a 1968 single wide trailer that will be our home base when not in a local church.  We will be learning to live light while walking in the Light as this blog is named.  We are excited about how God will use all these experiences He has taken us through to assist churches to remain on a path of spiritual growth and planning for a future of Great Commission work.  Will you pray for us and with us?  We will also be setting up in the near future a way to support us and the ministry we are embarking on for those months when we might not be on assignment.  

Adam and Stephanie Wolfgang