Don Ohm

Donald Dewayne "Don" Ohm
Born	August 8, 1947 Latimer, Morris County Kansas
Spouse	Deborah Dee Ohm (married 1969) Three sons: Nathan, Peter, and Philip Ryan Ohm
Religion	Independent Baptist

Donald Dewayne Ohm, known as Don Ohm (born August 8, 1947), is an Independent Baptist pastor in San Antonio, Texas, who since May 1999 has led the Lighthouse Baptist Church, located at 10400 Broadway Avenue west of Interstate Loop 410 and northwest of the San Antonio International Airport.

Biography

Ohm was reared in rural Latimer in Morris County northeast of Wichita in east central Kansas. He graduated in 1965 from White City High School in White City in Morris County. 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. Ohm has been a clergyman for more than four decades in the United States and Canada, having held previous pastorates in St. Paul, Minnesota; Redwood City and San Mateo, California, and Longmont, Colorado. From 1968 to 1970, he studied at Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas; from 1972 to 1974, at Hyles-Anderson College, 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. 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. Indeed, Ohm himself completed in both 2016 and 2017 three-week spring mission trips to the Philippines and a week-long trip in the summer to Honduras. Lighthouse Church financially supports more than thirty foreign missionaries, including those in Mexico City, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, and Albania.

Church pianist Deborah Ohm

Ohm and his wife, Deborah Dee Ohm (born 1949), a Lighthouse church pianist, married in November 1969. They have three sons, Nathan (born 1973) of Denver, Colorado; Peter (born 1975) of San Francisco, California, and Philip Ryan Ohm (born 1980) of Newton Center, Massachusetts.

Lighthouse Baptist Church, which uses only 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. 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. The church reaches out to military personnel at Lackland and Randolph Air Force bases, Fort Sam Houston, and Brook Army Medical Center. 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. It supports nearly thirty-five missionaries with $150 monthly contributions.

Lighthouse maintains access on its website to Pastor Ohm's sermons, which he delivers 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. 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."

Lighthouse assistant pastor Jordan Potter

Jordan Michael Potter (born 1980) is the current Lighthouse assistant pastor and the church song director. Formerly from Rockwall in suburban Dallas, Potter plays several musical instruments. He formerly lived in Pensacola, Florida. He and his wife, Jennifer Margaret Potter, have six children and reside in Converse in Bexar County, Texas. 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.

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.

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.