Don Ohm

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Donald Dewayne "Don" Ohm
Pastor Don Ohm IMG 8750.JPG

Born August 8, 1947
Latimer, Morris County
Kansas

Resident of San Antonio, Texas since 1999

Spouse Deborah Dee Ohm (married 1969)

Three sons:
Nathan, Peter, and Philip Ryan Ohm

Religion Independent Baptist clergyman

Donald Dewayne Ohm, known as Don Ohm (born August 8, 1947), is an Independent Baptist clergyman who was the senior pastor at Lighthouse Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas, from May 1999 until June 2019. The church is located at 10400 Broadway Avenue west of Interstate Loop 410 and northwest of the San Antonio International Airport.

Background

Ohm was reared in poverty in rural Latimer in Morris County northeast of Wichita in east central Kansas. He attended a one-room school until the eighth grade. He then graduated in 1965 from White City High School in White City in Morris County.[1] As a child, he attended the Lutheran Church but voiced his personal faith in Jesus Christ after reading a gospel tract in 1966, while he was serving in the United States Navy at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.[2] Ohm has been a clergyman for some fifty years in the United States and Canada, having held previous pastorates in St. Paul, Minnesota (Temple Baptist Church); Redwood City and San Mateo, California, and Longmont, Colorado.[3] From 1968 to 1970, he studied at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas; from 1972 to 1974, at Hyles-Anderson College,[4] which is operated by the First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, a large Independent Baptist congregation. He also did pastoral studies at Louisiana Baptist University in Shreveport, Louisiana, dates of attendance missing.[3]

Career

Despite his educational credentials, Ohm told his congregation that he was really a graduate of "the school of hard knocks," and he criticized the state of education at many theological seminaries. Such institutions, he said, have fallen under the influence of Calvinism, which discourages the biblical call for missionary work.[5] Indeed, Ohm himself undertook spring mission trips in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 to the Philippines[6] and a week-long trip in the summer to Honduras from 2016 to 2018. Lighthouse Church financially supports more than thirty foreign missionaries with $150 monthly contributions , including ones in Mexico City, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, and Albania.

Church pianist Deborah Ohm, wife of former pastor Don Ohm

Ohm and his wife, Deborah Dee Ohm (born 1949), formerly a Lighthouse church pianist, married in November 1969. They have three sons, Nathan Ohm (born 1973) of Denver, Colorado; Peter J. Ohm (born 1975) of San Francisco, California, and Philip Ryan Ohm (born 1980) of Roanoke in Denton County, Texas, and formerly from Newton Center, Massachusetts.[7][8]

Lighthouse Baptist Church, which uses the King James Version of the Bible, was launched in July 1991 by several families meeting in homes. On May 31, 1992, the church was formally organized with thirty-eight charter members under founding pastor Gary Vernon Craft (born 1950), who worked in several military ministries before moving to San Diego County, California. Lighthouse congregants are of diverse race, ethnicity, ages, and backgrounds.[9] Lighthouse Church men hold visitation on Monday evenings at the San Antonio Rescue Mission. The church hosts an annual picnic and maintains a circulating library.[10] The church reaches out to military personnel at Lackland and Randolph Air Force bases, Fort Sam Houston, and Brook Army Medical Center.[11] The current building has been reconstructed over the past decade as funds became available. The church is debt-free and earmarks some 20 percent of its receipts to missions.

Lighthouse maintains access on its website to Pastor Ohm's sermons, which he delived twice on Sundays at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m., and Wednesdays at 7 p.m. Most are just over a half hour in length. Selected sermons from the fall of 2015 included "The Dividends of Excellent Choices", "When God Judges a Nation" (series), "Remembering Mercy", "Righteousness and Loving Your Neighbor" (series), "Sharing My Faith", "The Blessings of Persecution", and "Being Like Jesus". Nearly seven hundred sermons are accessible.[12] A former parishioner describes Ohm as one who "digs deep into what the Word says and telling how it can be applied to our own lives."[13] Lighthouse sends its youngsters to the Southland Christian Ministries camp in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. Camp director Mike Herbster spoke at Lighthouse in both 2017 and 2018.

Lighthouse assistant pastor Jordan Potter, who leads the music ministry

Jordan Michael Potter (born 1980)[14] is the current Lighthouse assistant pastor and the church song director. Formerly from Rockwall in suburban Dallas, Potter plays several musical instruments.[7] He formerly lived in Pensacola, Florida. He and his wife, Jennifer Margaret Potter, have six children and reside in Converse in Bexar County, Texas.[7][14] In February 2016, Timothy Donald "Tim" Schoenrock (born c. 1990), a former youth camp counselor who grew up in Lighthouse Church, was named youth pastor.[15][16]

Ohm is also a sales representative for Life Vantage of Salt Lake City, Utah, the marketer of the dietary supplement protandim, which claims to slow the aging process. Formerly, he was a founding distributor for HealthyChoice Marketing, a brand of ConAgra Foods, Inc.[4]

In 2017, Ohm self-published Cool Waters to Thirsty Souls: Letters to Missionaries from Pastor Don Ohm, a short anthology of letters of encouragement that he has penned over the years to missionaries worldwide.[17]

On June 10, 2018, Ohm announced to the congregation his retirement as the Lighthouse senior pastor at some point near the end of May 2019, by which time he would have led the church for twenty years. On January 20, 2019, in a 95 percent vote of the membership, Lighthouse church called Gregory Robert "Greg" Kern (born September 20, 1965) as Ohm's successor pastor. An Ohio native reared in Florida, Kern was formerly the pastor of Faithway Baptist Church, an independent congregation in Elk Grove in Sacramento County, California.[18] Kern preached his first sermon at Lighthouse on April 28, 2019. An installation service followed on June 9.

In August 2020, Don and Deborah Ohm relocated to Bel Air in Sedgwick County, Kansas, near her hometown of Wichita.

References

  1. Don Ohm (Class of 1965). classmates.com. Retrieved on November 8, 2015.
  2. Donald Ohm sermon, "Has Righteousness Changed", August 16, 2015.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Donald D. Ohm. intelius.com. Retrieved on October 24, 2015.
  4. 4.0 4.1 Don Ohm. linkedin.com. Retrieved on October 24, 2015.
  5. Don Ohm, "The Wake of Awakening", April 17, 2016.
  6. Don Ohm, "The Wind of Awakening", April 10, 2016.
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 Staff. Lighthouse Baptist San Antonio. Retrieved on October 24, 2015.
  8. Nathan Ohm. mylife.com. Retrieved on November 8, 2015.
  9. Featured Church: Lighthouse Baptist. KSLR Radio. Retrieved on October 24, 2015.
  10. Ministries. Lighthouse Baptist San Antonio. Retrieved on October 24, 2015.
  11. Independent Baptist Church Locator for Texas: Pastor Don Ohm. militarygetsaved.tripod.com (October 1, 2015). Retrieved on October 24, 2015.
  12. Sermons. Lighthouse Baptist San Antonio. Retrieved on October 24, 2015.
  13. The Zowie Family searches for a church, Part I. richardstwoshekels.wordpress.com (May 6, 2010). Retrieved on October 24, 2015.
  14. 14.0 14.1 Jordan Michael Potter. intelius.com. Retrieved on October 24, 2015.
  15. Tim Schoenrock. Lighthouse Baptist San Antonio. Retrieved on March 7, 2016.
  16. Lighthouse has five active deacons, Dale Lee Barish, Michael Delano Davis, Gregory Michael "Greg" Fowl, Bradley Joe "Brad" James, and Jeffrey Paul "Jeff" Schoenrock.
  17. Don Ohm, Cool Waters to Thirsty Souls: Letters to Missionaries from Pastor Don Ohm, Lulu Publishing Services, 2017, pp. vii-86, ISBN 978-1-4834-6795-5.
  18. Gregory Kern. Mylife.com. Retrieved on January 28, 2019.