A pastor from Virginia testified how his dire need for money as a young father supporting his family led to the fulfillment of his dream of becoming a lead pastor.
Faithwire reported that Vic Carpenter, teaching pastor of Redeeming Bible Church, was decided at a young age to become part of ministry out of growing up in a Christian home. Carpenter told Baptist Press that his calling to ministry came during college.
Carpenter took a similar path to those wanting to be a pastor by working in youth ministry and getting his Ph.D. Thus, he served at Appalachian State University's college ministry and at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary after college. He also served as an associate pastor during this time.
Afterward, Carpenter earned his Ph.D. from Southeastern Seminary alongside his real estate license for three years before he felt called back to pulpit church ministry. That's when he found an opportunity in a 1950s church in Durham to do this. The opportunity let him experience helping revive a church even though he struggled to turn it down since he needed money for his family.
"I started applying all over the U.S. to find a different church to pastor. I applied to different places for almost a year and heard no callbacks. Everything seemed to be dying underneath me," Carpenter recalled.
Carpenter recounted applying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation despite knowing that he would not pass it. But to his surprise, Carpenter got a callback and was part of the bureau in six months. The pastor shared the experience was something he never expected, with his career shifting into law enforcement.
Yet the "radical change of events" helped him financially support his family. Carpenter described it also as exciting though saw it as the "death of a vision," particularly that of ministry. He said he felt he wasted a decade of his life.
Nonetheless, Carpenter joined the FBI Hostage Rescue Team whose members he discovered were mostly Christians. Carpenter eventually realized that the FBI's tight-knit community provided a unique opportunity for him to minister to people that he could not have done so if he was not an employee. That's when he saw God's hand at work.
"In God's providence, three other guys in my class and I started a workplace Bible study. It was the first time I'd ever done a Bible study in that type of environment," Carpenter emphasized.
The Bible study later in 2019 enabled Carpenter to start a church and an affiliated church thereafter. The members of the Bible study continuously brought people to Christ. Coworkers now visit him in Fredericksburg for his preaching, which brings them to Christ. He said he has lost count of the number of people at this point in time who have come to Christ because of his ministry. This included not only colleagues but also those in the community.
In addition, Carpenter now has become a speaker on how Bible studies can be effectively done in the workplace by church leaders. He pointed out in a video recently released on his church's YouTube Channel that conducting Bible studies at the FBI has become the foundation not only of discipleship but also that of his church.
