DORA, Alabama – Every Monday at 7 a.m., Mike Ward, a former pastor himself, sends out a devotional email with a note of encouragement to hundreds of pastors across the United States, Guatemala, the Philippines and Africa. The email is provided as a free service, and new pastors are added to the list on a weekly basis.
For Ward, the time when the email gets sent out each week is intentional and important.
“There is an old saying that almost every pastor either quits or considers resigning on Monday morning, because of something that went wrong or didn’t go right on Sunday,” Ward said. “Many pastors will respond back to me throughout the day on Monday about how the message helped them.”
Instead of entering retirement, Ward embarked on a new journey focusing on “an intentional ministry of hope to every pastor, preacher and man.”
Desiring to encourage pastors to stay the course and to build them up, Ward created Hope Road Ministry.
“In contemporary ministry contexts, marked by increasing cultural complexity, congregational pressures, and widespread pastoral fatigue, the necessity of intentional pastoral encouragement cannot be overstated,” said Spencer Bell, who serves as an associate in the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions’ office of evangelism and church revitalization.
“Like Aaron and Hur in the Old Testament, who upheld the weary arms of Moses to ensure victory, Mike Ward and Hope Road Ministries seek to offer steady, faithful support to those on the front lines of ministry. Their work embodies the exhortation of 1 Thessalonians 5:11 to encourage one another and build one another up. …
“During a season of transition in my own ministry, Mike proved to be a trusted confidant, a faithful partner in prayer, and a genuine source of encouragement. …”
Ward, a member of First Baptist Church in Dora, Ala., said the goal of Hope Road Ministry is two-fold.
“First, to encourage the pastor or preacher to stay the course and help build them up,” Ward explained, “and secondly, for those who have made a wrong turn in their Christian life or ministry, to let them know that we are here to help them get back on the right road, the road filled with hope to witness victory and restoration in Jesus.”
Ward was saved at age 18 and called to preach soon after, preaching his first sermon a few months later.
After his first sermon, “a young lady was saved, people came to Jesus and the altars were full,” Ward remembered. “I knew God was allowing me to know that He would use me if I would let Him. I stayed busy preaching every Sunday somewhere, as well as preaching in several revivals. When I was 22 years old, I began to pastor.”
Over the next 16 years he served churches in Mississippi, Tennessee and Alabama.
“I went through a struggle in my last pastorate,” Ward acknowledged. “God had blessed our church … but I was spiritually spent.”
He and his wife had a new baby, and he began to dabble in the business world to help financially. He also preached 15-20 revivals a year, but “learned the hard way that just because you’re busy, doesn’t mean you’re in the center of God’s will. … I found myself, as too many preachers do, studying my Bible for ‘something to preach to my congregation’ instead of studying my Bible so that Jesus and the Holy Spirit could preach to me, and that is dangerous.”
Ward admitted his mistakes in his desire to prevent other pastors from making the same ones.
“You cannot live a spiritual life without spiritual disciplines – never,” Ward declared. “Much prayer, fasting and time in the Word is the source of every preacher’s anointing. Trying to do spiritual things in the flesh will never work.
“I had made a promise that I would never become a reproach to a church or a community, so instead of staying where I was and with the people I loved at my church, and fighting the battle against temptation, I just quit. I left my church and lost my marriage.
“The Bible says in Matthew 16:26 that when a man will try to gain the world, he will lose his soul, and it is so true. I never lost my soul, but I lost everything else. I would still attend churches, but I was not doing what God had called me to do, which was preach the Gospel.”
He noted, “Guilt and shame that’s not dealt with will wreck a man’s life and the lives of those around him. I thought God could never use me again.”
Ward said he experienced hardship, “but God would never leave me alone, and my mother kept on praying.”
Then God changed his path and perspective.
“I remember the night God got my attention like it was yesterday,” Ward said. “[I was] so broken. I got down on my knees … and I said, ‘God, I’m tired of running, tired of living life this way. I need a word from you, and I don’t know where to start.’”
In that desperate moment, Ward said he voiced a prayer of hope and restoration not only for his own life, but for the lives of other men in pastoral ministry.
“I sensed the Holy Spirit speak to me: ‘If you will say yes, then I will bless the latter end of your life more than I ever did your beginning,’ Ward said.
God placed a burden on his heart for pastors who were struggling like he’d been.
“I want to be able to say, ‘Don’t go this way, the bridge is out at the bottom of the road you are on. Be careful with what you are dealing with.’ I have a compelling desire to encourage the man of God, so he doesn’t have to experience life on the broken road I traveled.” Ward left the business world a year and a half ago and says, “God made it clear that I was supposed to … totally commit my life 24 hours a day, seven days a week to this ministry of encouragement to pastors and churches.”
For pastors like Kevin Hamm, who serves as pastor of First Baptist Church in Gardendale, Ala., Ward’s ministry has provided an important outlet and investment of faithful support and encouragement.
“God has raised up Hope Road Ministries and Mike Ward for such a time as this,” Hamm said. “Loneliness and discouragement are overwhelming issues for every pastor and church leader. There has never been a ministry more needed to speak life and encouragement into the men of God who are struggling with so many challenging issues.”
At the beginning of this ministry, Ward found a senior living facility in Decatur, Ala., that allowed him to preach. “Over the next five months God would fill my calendar with over 34 preaching engagements and revival services in churches throughout Alabama and Mississippi,” he said.
Today, Hope Road Ministry offers a variety of resources and programs.
“However, there is no manual on this ministry of encouragement to pastors; it is ever-evolving as the Holy Spirit leads,” Ward acknowledged.
“I have seen pastors encouraged over a cup of coffee and a prayer,” he said. “I’ve also seen fallen pastors escape thoughts of suicide. Most don’t know that the statistic show that 40 percent struggle with low self-esteem, and 1 out of 10 pastors have had thoughts of suicide.”
Zac Bozeman, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dora, where Ward attends, said he is grateful for the ministry.
“Mike Ward with Hope Road Ministries has been one of the biggest encouragers to me during my ministry,” Bozeman said. “Whether it has been a Monday email, a phone call, or a face-to-face meeting, God has used Mike to give me the right word at the right time. The church needs people who prod the fire and who keep the embers burning, and God is using Mike to do just that.”
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