The following article was published in the October 10, 2007, AG-NEWS Issue #1456. This article provides an overview of the testimonies of Assistant General Superintendent Alton Garrison and General Secretary John Palmer. Related blog posts include “Meet New AG Leadership Online October 9-12,” “New Assemblies of God Leaders Accept ‘Charge of Office’,” “Meet the New A/G Leadership,” and “52nd General Council Updates.”
The following article can also be found online at the A/G web site.
In the first two of four special chapel services held at the Assemblies of God national headquarters in Springfield, Missouri, Assistant General Superintendent Alton Garrison and General Secretary John Palmer shared their personal testimonies.
General Superintendent George O. Wood, who is taking special care to allow for “fluidity” in the services, emceed both services. He stated that although order of service and liturgy were good, he didn’t want it to interfere with what the Holy Spirit might have planned.
In support of this fluidity, each day Wood has asked for three people who felt led by God, to come forward and pray for a core value selected for the day (Skillfully resource our Fellowship on Tuesday; Strategically invest in the next generation today). Also, those who felt they had a word from the Lord were invited to the microphone to share. Finally, prayer was held for the speaker for the day and his family as well as for several prayer requests from the National Prayer Center.
On Tuesday, Garrison began by sharing the fantastic testimony of how his wife’s parents - Jan, a Buddhist, and Hank, a bitter lone-survivor from a bombed city - despite all odds, turned to God.
Garrison explained that Jan had never heard the gospel message. Hank, on the other hand, had fallen for Satan’s lie - “If God really loved you, why would he let this happen?” - when as a 17-year-old, only he survived when his home and entire village in Holland was mistakenly bombed in World War II.
However, everything changed when years later, a neighbor invited Jan to a one-day crusade in Amsterdam. A young man was speaking. His name? Billy Graham. The end result? The entire family eventually came to Christ.
Garrison’s downplayed his own testimony, saying he was raised in a Christian home in Sour Lake, Texas. However, just months prior to his birth (despite doctors saying the couple couldn’t have children), God transformed his alcoholic father, saving him, healing him and delivering him from alcohol instantly.
He also told of how years later, after serving in the ministry for years, his father slowly died of Alzheimer’s. Garrison and his mother then encountered the lie of Satan themselves.
“I just began to pray,” Garrison recalls. “. . . but my mother . . ., at first I thought she lost her faith, but then I realized she had just lost her hope.”
But God intervened, allowing her husband, despite, according to doctors, not having brain function or speaking for more than three months, to speak to her, saying, “You know what, honey, God still answers prayers.”
Garrison said that throughout his life, God has moved him from one position to the next, none of which he felt qualified for. Yet, at each step, God has placed His blessing on Garrison’s ministry - as an evangelist, as a senior pastor, as a district superintendent, as the executive director of AG U.S. Missions and now, as assistant general superintendent.
This morning, Wednesday, General Secretary John Palmer told of how his small-church pastoring parents didn’t so much verbalize how to live the Christian life, instead they repeatedly demonstrated it.
Drawing from a number of examples of integrity and godliness, Palmer revealed how his parents’ lives molded him. Perhaps this never being more evident then when as the top student in his high school class a teacher told him he had “way too much potential to waste on becoming a pastor.” He confidently replied that he knew God had called him into the ministry, and went on to pursue that calling.
After graduating from Central Bible College, Palmer founded a church in Athens, Ohio, with a friend. The church struggled, beginning with one member. Its growth was slow, but in retrospect, Palmer is able to show the hand of God involved, even in what he considered failures at the time. Those “failures” would become cornerstones of the church.
After serving 11 years in Athens, with the church healthy and strong, he was chosen to lead First AG in Des Moines, Iowa. He served there for more than 20 years, leading the church to becoming one of the top missions giving churches in the AG (more than $1 million a year).
But at 2 a.m. on May 12, 2006, Palmer recalls, with a massive building project just about to get underway and excited about the church’s future, God spoke to him and told him it was time to resign. These were hard, disappointing words to take, but he followed God’s leading and stepped down.
He began traveling the United States, training pastors, and had planned to meet with a small church in Iowa following the 2007 General Council to discuss becoming its pastor.
“I’ve learned through all of this,” Palmer said, “There are big churches and little churches, but no big preachers or little preachers - we are all on the same team.”
However, at this year’s General Council, Palmer’s plans were suddenly changed again when he was shocked to be elected as General Secretary.
To watch the complete testimonies of Garrison and Palmer, visit the AG home page at http://ag.org/.