While watching a Billy Graham Crusade on TV at the insistence of his godly grandmother, 13-year-old John Hare had a vision that God was calling him to spend his life sharing the Good News.
Although God had called him, Hare was admittedly a hypocrite in his late teen years. “Ironically, I still believed I was called to ministry and decided to go to Liberty University,” recalled Hare, “but my heart was a mess and not right with God.”
At Beulah Baptist Church in Lynchburg during his freshman year of college, the Gospel finally clicked, and he surrendered all to the Lord and let Him change his life and clean up the mess.
God opened the door for Hare to be trained through a ministry internship at Beulah, where his spiritual journey had begun. Beulah had received a summer internship grant through SBCV’s Vision Virginia State Missions Offering, which helped the church hire Hare as an intern.
“The internship allowed me to be financially supported for the summer with no financial stress and allowed me to learn about ministry as a student,” said Hare. “It also allowed me to be personally mentored in pastoral ministry by my pastor, Dennis Hollandsworth.”
Through the SBCV internship grant, Hare served at SBCV’s Student Fusion Camp and got to know SBCV staff. Through their influence and that of others, such as the late evangelist Bob Davis, God placed on Hare’s heart a vision to pastor an SBCV church in Central Virginia.
The internship at Beulah Baptist Church opened the door for Hare to serve there for two years as the part-time associate pastor to students. As John Hare watched revitalization occur at Beulah, God put a vision in his heart to pastor and revitalize a local church that would bring about a Gospel movement in a community.
In 2021, God gave Pastor Hare the desire of his heart as he became the senior pastor at Cardinal Baptist Church in Ruther Glen and began the work of revitalization in this normative size church. Hare found a people at Cardinal who, as he described, “had a hunger to grow spiritually and go missionally.”
Over the past two years, the Lord has brought steady growth to Cardinal Baptist. Pastor Hare has cast the vision to center all the church does around “making disciples who make disciples who make disciples.”
“I have watched God continue to produce a discipleship heart in our church, and I have watched Him teach our people how to live on mission,” said Pastor Hare.
He is leading the congregation at Cardinal to give, not only through the Cooperative Program but through the SBCV Vision Virginia State Missions Offering as well. Pastor Hare’s prayer is that God will use Cardinal’s gifts to help raise up young men and women to fulfill their calling and be trained for the work of ministry.
If you would like to see your church help raise up the next generation of spiritual leaders, please consider participating this year in the SBCV Vision Virginia Offering and Week of Prayer. ■
Resource: Consider participating in this year’s Vision Virginia Offering and Week of Prayer at sbcv.org/visionvirginia
