“While the leader was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
— John Wesley, May 24, 1738
God calls us to tell our story so that others may come to know Jesus Christ. “Hearts Strangely Warmed” was created to share these stories about transformational encounters with the Living God.
Pastor Joshua Wargo
Joshua was invited to share his testimony as part of the altar call at the end of the Service of Commissioning and Ordination at the 2017 Susquehanna Annual Conference, in which he was commissioned as a provisional elder.
I’d like to begin by saying that I didn’t grow up in the type of family where we went to church together. I didn’t grow up in the type of family where we sat down and prayed together, and we most certainly did not love and serve God together, but I always believed in Jesus Christ. However, I was not a disciple of Jesus Christ and I truly believe there is a difference.
I went through a period in my life where I was living in rebellion and rejection to God’s holiness. I was hanging out with the wrong crowd, making poor decisions, and I even dropped out of high school. But even in the midst of all of that brokenness, even among all of that mess, God called me.
My call is very similar to Samuel’s story, because God called me multiple times, but I just kept on saying ‘no.’ I kept on making excuses. I thought that I knew better than God and I tried to run away from him.
1 Samuel 3:7 says, “Samuel did not yet know the Lord and the Word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him.”
You see, when God first called me I did not yet know God. So when I was 19 I went through this powerful born-again experience. I asked Jesus into my heart and I became a follower of him. I got involved in my local church, Dorranceton United Methodist Church in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, and started to get involved there. I got involved in prison ministry through Exodus Prison Ministry in Scranton, with the late Rev. Charles Otto. I also began working in a homeless shelter because I felt called to serve the least and the lost, the people who felt rejected by churches and society, and the people who thought that their sins were just too great to be forgiven.
My home church had a retreat in 2010 up at Sky Lake, in the former Wyoming Conference, and I got this crazy idea. My crazy idea was to go and take a walk in the woods, and pray and meditate and talk to God. It was on that walk where I heard that same soft and subtle voice calling me into ordained ministry.
But I thought that I was too young. I thought I didn’t know the Bible well enough. I thought I didn’t come from the right type of family — yet I had this life-changing experience on this retreat.
I went back to my friends and said, “Hey, I’m gonna go and be a pastor!” and people laughed in my face. People said, “Wait, wait, you? You’re going to be a pastor? The person who did this and that …” Some people didn’t want to be my friend any more.
But if you’re [reading this] and maybe you have those same fears or doubts or insecurities, my suggestion to you is, don’t listen to them. We all have those fears, but we need to not look at our fears, we need to look at the promises of God’s Word. We need to look at God’s promise of faithfulness and forgiveness, and the life, death, and resurrection of his son Jesus. Nobody said following Jesus was going to be easy. And nobody said responding to God’s call to ministry was going to be easy. But it’s worth it. It wasn’t easy walking away from my home town, or walking away from my family or my job, or stepping out of my comfort zone, but God’s Holy Spirit was there every step of the way.
If I, someone with so much brokenness and someone with a past, could respond to God’s call, I hope that is a sign that anybody can respond to God’s call. I didn’t grow up going to Sunday school. I wasn’t confirmed in the United Methodist Church. I am simply a sinner who was saved by God’s grace, who has a desire and a willingness to be obedient and serve the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
