An Inescapable Call to Make Disciples

Patrick came to Southeastern Seminary the year before, set on pursuing student ministry after one of his pastors in college identified his giftings and encouraged him to pursue theological education.

“A call to ministry is a call to prepare,” his pastor told him, and Patrick took that advice to heart.

“You put your ‘yes’ on the table, right? And you say, ‘I’ll go and do what you’ve called me to do — which is go serve,’” Patrick recalled. At that time, he was convinced this meant pursuing student ministry.

However, not long into his Master of Divinity (MDiv) program, Patrick began to rethink what exactly it meant to “go.”

This reorientation began when Patrick first heard President Danny Akin’s question: “Not why should I go, but rather, why should I stay?’”

In that moment, Patrick realized, “Okay, God, I said ‘yes’ to ministry. But now I’ve got to say ‘yes’ to letting you tell me where that happens.”

Easier said than done.

Servants in Hard Places

Growing up, Patrick came from a family with a longstanding military history. Both his father and his uncle served in the U.S. military, as well as his grandfather who was a World War II veteran.

“When I was in high school,” Patrick said, “my desire was to go to the Air Force Academy and fly jets. That was going to be my life. However, at the time I was not a believer, and I lived a life that eroded that opportunity through poor grades and a rebellious spirit.”

In the face of hopes and dreams that seemed permanently dashed, young Patrick determined that a military career was no longer in his future.

Years later, however, God began to indicate otherwise — which brings Patrick’s story back to that day in the middle of spring in 2007.

“One of my friends and neighbors was walking across campus in his uniform, which was odd to me,” Patrick said, “because I’d never seen him in uniform before. So, I asked him, ‘What are you doing?’ And he said, ‘It’s Military Appreciation Day, and I’m a chaplain candidate in the Army.’”

Despite Patrick’s family background and former aspirations, this was the first time he had heard of military chaplaincy. Later in chapel, he listened to a sermon from active-duty Army chaplain Jeff Struecker, now assistant professor of Christian leadership at Southeastern.

It was during that chapel service, Patrick explained, that Struecker spoke “about God looking for faithful servants to go into the hard places.”

Following the service, Patrick met an Air Force chaplain recruiter in the student center, and as Patrick recounted, “From that moment until 2018, I ran hard and fast away from what God had called me to do: He placed a burden on my heart for military members and families.”

On the Ship to Tarshish

Where Patrick saw only one path — which for him led to ministry in the local church — God had greater plans. Over the coming years, God faithfully equipped and sustained Patrick in his pursuit of pastoral ministry. But he never removed the burden of chaplaincy from Patrick’s heart.

Following his graduation from Southeastern in 2009, Patrick served as a student pastor at a church in South Carolina. There his love for disciple making continued to grow as he watched students who had attended church their whole lives finally grasp and believe the gospel for the first time.

It was during this time that God also reminded Patrick of his Ninevah.

“While living in South Carolina, my neighbor’s son was killed in combat,” Patrick recalled, “And I got home from church right after the notification team had left my neighbor’s house. So, I sat with him, as a pastor does, and just listened to him grieve his son.”

Later he attended the young man’s funeral and felt God nudging him, once again, in the direction of chaplaincy. But, Patrick decided, now wasn’t the right time.

During that same season, a professor from Southeastern encouraged Patrick to consider pursuing further education through doctoral studies. Several years passed before Patrick decided he was ready, but in 2014 he began his Doctor of Ministry (DMin) at Southeastern.

“I did the doctorate in rebellion, honestly,” Patrick expressed. “I knew I needed to join the military when I was at school for my MDiv.”

“In my mind, the call to go serve was always only going to be student ministry,” he said. “That’s where I think Southeastern was huge in my life. It helped me wade through calling and the specific areas where that calling can go.”

That’s where I think Southeastern was huge in my life. It helped me wade through calling and the specific areas where that calling can go.

During that season of theological education, God in his grace and mercy used Patrick’s choices to further equip him for the work he was calling him to, growing in Patrick’s heart a dual passion for the local church and for the military community, knit together by one pursuit: Jesus’s Great Commission to make disciples and to teach them all that he had commanded.

“See God’s character,” Patrick expressed. “He brings great leaders and mentors and peers, even in the midst of our own sin, to encourage us, to point us in the direction of being faithful to him. And then he gives us peers that are lifelong friends. I still talk to some of the guys in my cohort, and we’ve been finished for five-plus years.”

Patrick’s DMin honed his understanding of discipleship in the local church, especially within youth ministry. His final project equipped him to better lead and teach the volunteers in his church as they sought to come alongside parents discipling their children.

Surrender at the Evening Service

In 2017, as Patrick entered the final stretch of his doctorate, God confronted him — not on a stormy sea, charted for Tarshish, but in the pew of his church.

Several months before that fateful night, Patrick had the opportunity to lead prayer at a military promotion ceremony for one of his church members.

“At the end of the ceremony, the commanding officer that promoted him asked me why I had never been in uniform,” Patrick recalled. “He was a general, and he said, ‘I’ll write the letter for you if you want. You just tell me what you need.’”

In Patrick’s heart, however, the desire to stay still outweighed God’s call to go — until later that year, at an evening prayer service, his pastor declared, “Somebody here is not doing what God’s called them to do.”

In that moment, Patrick acknowledged in his heart, “That’s me.”

In the surrender that followed, Patrick told his wife of the conviction he felt, and together they sought prayer and counsel from their church elders. In September of that year, Patrick submitted his official application to serve as an Air Force chaplain, and half a year later, he was officially sworn in.

This meant that, in the middle of writing and completing his dissertation, Patrick was also starting his military career.

“When I did my defense,” Patrick recalled with amusement, “my review panel said, ‘We read your resume — you joined the military while doing a doctorate?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ They said, ‘Are you crazy?’”

Yet God in his kindness carried Patrick through.

“There is nothing you can do that can outrun God’s mission for you,” Patrick expressed, “and that mission is to make disciples.”

There is nothing you can do that can outrun God’s mission for you, and that mission is to make disciples.

He described the process of becoming a chaplain, saying, “When I began the journey, God began to affirm these steps. I drove onto base for my first day of duty, and I was home. I was right where God wanted me to be.”

On Mission to Make Disciples

In December 2019, Patrick graduated from Southeastern with his DMin. Today, he serves as the executive pastor at First Baptist Church of Kettering in Dayton, Ohio, while also serving as the individual mobilization augmentee to the senior chaplain for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

In September 2023, he returned to Southeastern to preach on Military Appreciation Day — issuing a challenge to go, just like the one he had heard all those years ago.

Because of the two callings God has placed on his life, Patrick explained, “My ministry as a Christ follower is enhanced and the bride of Christ is built up — the local body that I serve — is encouraged and built up for evangelism when I as a pastor am not in the church house all the time.”

He went on to explain, “It is extremely important for ministry leaders and pastors to recognize that it is our job to lead the way in going and making disciples, reaching into the community.”

That community, for Patrick, is the military and its families who have served this country in so many ways.

“I truly believe the statement that ‘time is too short and the lostness is too great,’” Patrick expressed. “I want to have maximum impact with my life, whatever that looks like, whether it’s on a staff in a church, helping a team get better and reach more people in our community, or if it’s overseas, sleeping in a tent somewhere.”

“The legacy of faith God is looking for from us is that of a disciple maker who leaves behind a disciple-making community.”

The legacy of faith God is looking for from us is that of a disciple maker who leaves behind a disciple-making community.

As Patrick goes to make disciples, he is participating in the Great Commission legacy of those who came before him, those who equipped him, and those who go with him. It is not a legacy of being known, but of making Christ known and leaving a gospel impact in the lives of others.

As part of this Great Commission legacy, Patrick and his wife are also members of the Southeastern Legacy Society, a planned giving ministry that allows for lasting gifts to be designated towards equipping students to serve the church and fulfill the Great Commission.

Today, Patrick not only gives to support students but also counsels his church with the same advice that his pastor told him many years ago: “A call to ministry is a call to prepare.”

For Patrick, it was this preparation that ultimately solidified his heart for the Great Commission and helped him discern what really matters.

“I’m on mission with the gospel wherever my feet hit the ground,” Patrick said. “It doesn’t matter where I am, and I owe that to Southeastern.”