“Looking back to where I came from to where I am today, every day is an awesome opportunity for ministry,” says Jason Jacques, a U.S. Missions candidate missionary with U.S. Specialized.
Jason has felt called to ministry since he was 14 years old. Both his father and grandfather were heavily involved in men’s ministry, with his grandfather being one of the founders of Light for the Lost.
His ministerial call was reignited at a men’s conference in 2019 when the speaker stopped, pointed toward him, and said, “You’ve been called. Now, it’s time to walk in that call.”
Instantly, Jason recalled the ministerial call he felt as a teenager. Though he was working in a local church at the time of the 2019 encounter, he knew it was time for more.
“Up until that point I was perfectly content with my involvement in ministry. But then, God flipped the script,” he says.
He decided to stop working for his father’s real estate company and fully commit to ministry, not knowing what that meant for his life.
Jason knew that God was calling him to minister to men, so he got in touch with Rick Allen, the National Men’s Ministries and Light for the Lost director to discuss next steps. It became clear that the way to best follow God’s calling was to become a U.S. missionary with U.S. Specialized.
Founded in 2020, one aspect of U.S. Specialized is district advancement. In this field of work, designated district advancement missionaries work within Assemblies of God districts/networks to advance various missions initiatives of the district. These initiatives can include anything that Assemblies of God districts/networks need that the missionary feels called and equipped to do, including women’s or men’s ministry advancement, clerical skills, and children’s ministry training.
“Men’s ministry has been around a long time,” Jason explains. “With the missionary position, I can fully commit to men’s ministry and pioneer it as something completely different from what it currently is.”
He plans to come alongside rural churches in the Southern Missouri Ministry Network to help establish leadership teams through a core group of men in each church saying, “Most churches recognize that they lack discipleship and evangelism. We’re hoping to create evangelistic momentum through the men of the church.”
Jason believes there is a distinction between “men’s ministry” and “ministry to men.”
“When we talk about men’s ministries, that refers to men who are already attending our churches,” he says. “Ministry to men gives purpose to minister to men outside of the church.”
With less than one-third of churchgoers being men, Jason believes that bringing more men into the Church will greatly affect the future of Christianity. “If every church in Southern Missouri has a healthy ministry to men, our churches will begin to change and grow,” he says. “I believe that if we make a very intentional effort, we will see a generational shift.”
In 2021, Don Miller, Southern Missouri Ministry Network superintendent, felt the Lord tell him to prepare for an accelerated spiritual harvest in the Southern Missouri area. With 3.4 million people in the district not connected with a church, Don knew that there was a great amount of work to be done. He explains that having Jason as a network advancement missionary has been a blessing from God. “This is a way that we can move the ministry of this network forward with an individual who is fully dedicated to their ministry,” he says. Don hopes that, through Jason’s work, God’s promise for spiritual harvest will continue to be fulfilled.
“For us, it was not feasible to look at bringing on another person to solely focus on men’s ministry,” Don says.
Jason’s missionary presence can help fill that need — allowing him not only to bring support to network administration, but also allowing him and the network to directly minister to churches, helping them revamp their men’s ministries.
“None of this would be possible without Jason working with us as a missionary,” says Don.
