Rev. Dr. Mark R. Martin

Approximately a year later, Mark was still on track for his pre-med degree and preparing for a genetics test when he began to ask the Lord what he wanted him to do with his life. He was no longer feeling pulled toward medicine, and studying genetics wasn’t making it any more enticing. As he was praying, according to Mark, “It was as if Jesus walked into the room. I mean, there was a sense of his presence that just filled the room at that time… and I heard in my mind again and again, ‘I have something important for you to do.’ So I interpreted that to be [that] he’s calling me into the ministry.”

Preparing for Ministry at Asbury Theological Seminary

Because of the impact Kent had on his life, Mark knew his next step: enroll at Asbury Seminary. After graduating with an undergraduate degree in biology, he moved to Wilmore, Kentucky in 1975 and started his Master of Divinity (M.Div.) program. He describes his seminary experience as incredibly influential for both his theological education and spiritual formation. He lists professors as well as fellow students with whom he is still in contact today who had a “huge impact” on him. “It wasn’t just the educational side of things that was preparing me for ministry,” Mark says. “It was the spiritual side of Asbury Seminary, and that’s what I love so much.”

Mark graduated in 1978 and entered pastoral ministry. He served in a few churches over several years, one of the first being Blackwater United Methodist Church where he met his wife, Rhonda. Eventually, they ended up at a new church start called St. Charles near New Orleans. During his tenure there, Mark turned 40 and faced a natural consequence of the milestone age. “Now, some call that the time for a midlife crisis, but for me, it was a midlife transition,” Mark says. “I learned this from Dr. [Donald] Joy… It can either be a crisis or it can be a transition. So for me, it was a transition. It was not a crisis. And I found ways that the Lord was calling me to find renewal.”

Navigating a Midlife Ministry Transition: Pursuing a D.Min.

One of those ways of finding renewal was by pursuing a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) at Asbury Seminary. Mark felt there were things that he wanted and needed to learn, but lacked the discipline to do so. Thus, he returned to studying as a means of renewing his heart and mind for ministry. Returning to school after many years was difficult. Having done most of his studies with a pencil and paper in the 1970s, Mark quickly discovered that he would need to purchase a personal computer to keep up with his education in the late 1990s.

Despite the challenge of readjusting to academics, receiving his D.Min. in 2000 was a significant occasion in Mark’s life in more than one way. “I achieved an educational goal that I always felt I wanted, but I found that that wasn’t all there was,” Mark says. “It wasn’t just achieving this goal, it was what it did in me and the transition that the Lord was making in my own life.”

Mission Work in Cuba: A Call Within the Call

Mark’s further theological education may have been part of divine preparation for ministry opportunities he would have never expected. Around the same time that he began his D.Min. program, Mark was invited by a fellow pastor and friend named Tom Howe to join a mission trip to Cuba. Tom had worked with the board of global ministries of the UMC to take an exploratory trip to Cuba in 1992, shortly after the fall of communism in Russia. The fall took a toll on Cuba in many ways, especially economically. “Hearing from Tom about the things that were going on in Cuba, I was thinking, alright, we’re going to go and we’re going to convert these communists to Jesus,” Mark says.

Instead, Mark found a spiritually vibrant Cuban Methodist church with a bold witness, despite their challenges. He and a team traveled to seven different churches, helping train them to offer vacation bible schools and supporting their ministries in general. “My eyes were opened and I saw a lot of material need there, but what I saw was a richness of spiritual life that humbled me,” Mark says. “I saw the faithful pastors that were there… I would see people who would go out in twos with their Bibles after the service and go down the street knowing that at that time they could have gotten in a lot of trouble.”

When Mark returned home and tried to relay the experience to Rhonda, he broke down sobbing. The experience marked him. “And I said, God is doing a work there, and I want to join the Holy Spirit in whatever he’s doing there,” Mark says. “How can we help the pastors that are there? How can we support the churches that are reaching people for Christ?”

Mark now has 30 years of continual investment in the church in Cuba through repeated short-term trips. He has seen the second and third generation of leaders since he began visiting Cuba step into leadership. One of the current pastors of a church he visited in 1994 is the son of one of the first laypersons he met in Cuba. Mark describes the start of this missional and relational endeavor in Cuba as “a call within the call.” Though his initial calling was to pastor the people of God in the local church, he had found an additional purpose to which the Lord was leading him to work. These callings were not mutually exclusive or consecutive. The one supported the other, and vice versa.

Mission work in Cuba would not be the last of Mark’s callings within the call. In 1999, Mark returned to Blackwater United Methodist Church as the senior pastor. This time, his role required much more administration and supervision of multiple aspects within the church. After a few years, he began to feel burned out. “I was going, gosh, is this it? Is this what the rest of my ministry is going to look like? So I needed a break,” Mark says. “So, I was able to take a three-month sabbatical.”

Pioneering Contemporary Worship in the Local Church

Throughout his life and ministry, he continued his love and practice of playing and writing music. While on a sabbatical, Mark was able to attend seminars and workshops on contemporary Christian music, which was arising as an alternative form of worship in local churches at the time. From his sabbatical, he felt the Lord leading him on a different path to work primarily with contemporary worship music. “For the United Methodist Church, we were a little slow at getting some of this done,” Mark says. “But then I was feeling like I need something more. And so during that sabbatical time, the Lord sent me on a new path and that was to just mainly work with contemporary worship.”

To do so, he stepped down as senior pastor and moved to an associate pastor position that would give him the freedom to explore this new worship medium. He helped start a contemporary worship service called The River at a church in Shreveport, Louisiana. Additionally, as a former senior pastor in his 50s, he was able to be a bridge between the predominantly older church members who preferred traditional worship and the mostly younger cohort who engaged in contemporary worship. In this new, experimental role, Mark not only reached new people with the gospel but discovered a renewed love of ministry. “I saw more people come into Christ because of [the contemporary worship service]. I saw people who would never go into the sanctuary who would come into this other worship area that we had,” Mark says. “I even had some, when I said, ‘Hey, we’re going to go to the sanctuary…’ They said, well, where’s the sanctuary? That says something [about who] we were reaching.”

Mark’s experience with contemporary media in worship continued throughout the rest of his pastoral ministry. He was well prepared for his final year of ministry, years later at a new church start, when the COVID-19 pandemic struck. When suddenly all churches had to adjust, many taking services online, he had some preparation for the challenge. “I’ve learned from my multimedia experience, a little bit about digital worship, but never expected that that was going to be at the end of the service you got up and turned the computer off and went, ‘Um, bye everybody,’” Mark says. When he retired, everyone was wearing masks and keeping six feet apart from each other. 

Fighting Cancer and Continuing in the Calling

Mark’s decision to retire was largely influenced by a general need for rest after a long life of ministry. Not only so, but he had two different experiences with cancer in his late 50s and early 60s. The first bout was discovered during a routine checkup at which the doctor happened to detect high numbers indicating prostate cancer. Thankfully, through radiation treatment, Mark was able to treat the cancer and get his numbers to a healthy level.

A few years later, after returning from a trip to Cuba, Mark suddenly experienced extreme pain in his abdomen. Rhonda rushed him to the hospital where he was quickly diagnosed with appendicitis and had his appendix removed. Surprisingly, a doctor informed Mark after the procedure that they found a rare, aggressive type of cancer in his appendix. Thankfully, the cancer was contained within the appendix and therefore presented no further threat to Mark after its removal. It was a shock to Mark to learn, however, that the cancer and the appendicitis were in no related to each other. “It was one of those God things where you realize… He made me have appendicitis so that my appendix was taken out and I would be healed of this cancer before it had a chance to get out of the appendix,” Mark says. “The Lord healed me and I’ve just been so thankful for every day of life since. And anything that I can do to continue in service and ministry, you know, you do it.”

Even though he decided to make a transition away from full-time ministry, Mark has remained open to whatever the Lord may call him to in this stage of life. He and Rhonda spent a few months in the Bahamas while he acted as interim pastor for a church. He has continued to lead trips to Cuba, including one with his granddaughter which had a significant impact on her life. For Mark, the calling hasn’t stopped, and it is imperative to be open to the small callings with which the Lord may prompt him. “I’ve got years to go—just to remain open and to be connected with Jesus through the Holy Spirit,” Mark says. “Just to be ready, if something opens up, to start talking to Him about it and see: Is this from you? And to go.”