Path led to Seventh-day Adventist Church

Editor’s Note: Leaders in Faith is a seven-part series that provides personal looks at some of the pastors who devote their time ministering to the many small congregations in south central Oklahoma. This is the fifth part in the series.

Background

When he was 19, Pastor Da­vid Resendes and his younger brother were “going down the tubes.”

“The people in our area were just not into healthy Christian type of stuff,” he said.

His mother saw it, and de­cided to move the family from their home in Lowell, Mass., to Lincoln, Calif. The move ended up setting Resendes on a path to become the pastor of the Sev­enth- day Adventist Church in Ardmore.

Resendes said the move helped because his new community had far more youth in the Seventh-Day Adventist youth groups.

“It was a blessing,” he said.

Resendes went on to college, graduating from California State University in 1999 with a degree in sociology. He went to work as a clinical research analyst at Ad­ventist Health, but soon learned he wasn’t cut out for office work. “I was behind a computer, and some people like that, but I didn’t feel it was for me,” he said.

He knew he wanted to find a way to serve spiritually, so he en­tered the seminary at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich. He graduated from there in 2006, and eventually found his way to the church in Ard­more in 2008.

The call

Resendes never wanted to be a pastor. He said during his time in the seminary God started con­verting him not during a single revelation, but slowly over time. “It was like he was pulling blinders off my eyes,” he said. “I was starting to see things in a different per­spective.”

He said he entered the seminary not to become a pas­tor, but simply to “learn more about God” for himself. As he neared the end of his time at the seminary, he said he sat down in prayer to decide his next course of action.

“I started writing down what I did with my life,” he said. “I said to myself, ‘as much as I hate to admit it, I’m already a pastor’.”

After graduating the semi­nary he went with a friend to in­terview at two churches, one in Texas and the one in Ardmore. The church in Ardmore made him an offer, and he accepted.

Favorite “calling” anecdote

Although his conversion was gradual, Resendes doesn’t down­play the importance of having a singular transformational expe­rience with God. “We have to have an experi­ence with Christ, because he didn’t just die, he was resurrect­ed,” he said.

His came after a weekend of spiritual revival in seminary.

He said while praying he heard a voice in his head, telling him to sell his beloved guitar.

“That guitar wasn’t an expensive guitar, but when I was frustrated or down and needed stress relief, I’d go and play that gui­tar,” he said.

In spite of that, he put For Sale signs up through­out the university offering his guitar. The night after a prospective buyer bor­rowed the guitar, Resendes said he wept.

“As I was thinking about that, God spoke to me and said ‘David, it’s so hard for you to give up a piece of wood and a few lousy strings. Imagine how hard it was for me to give up my son’.”

Resendes kept the gui­tar, but gained a new un­derstanding of sacrifice and obedience to God.

“God asks us to do things sometimes that challenges our faith,” he said.

What recharges the pastor’s batteries?

Resendes said that his wife, whom he married this past November, helps him relax and prepare to tend to the emotional and spiritual well-being of his congregation.

He also continues to play his guitar and write music, some of which he brings to the church for performance. He said he tries to go to the gym and exercise, but recent illness sidelined him.

The most important thing that keeps him go­ing, he said, is his personal devotional life.

Phil Banker 221-6542