COLUMBUS, Ind. — His title actually has been senior lead pastor. But Jerry Day Jr. could very well be Lead Laugher at The Ridge, and that mostly at himself. One example surfaced in a recent, comic video clip shown at church.
In scene spoofing a leadership meeting, a Ridge staff discussion focused on what future ministry will look like. But a straw-hatted, sunglass-sporting Day, at the time a month away from the sudden splash of retirement, was oblivious, fishing a few feet away from everyone in a children’s wading pool.
“Jerry? Uh, Jerry?” they said, trying to get his day-dreaming attention.
Make no mistake, Day has been so serious about laughter in 31 years of local ministry that it is actually a part of The Ridge’s written, guiding principles. But he also has deftly used humor amid videos and more especially in the past few years to reach with God’s love people largely unaccustomed to church — or those who say they were soured by a years-ago childhood experience of a Sunday service too harshly judgmental amid an already tough personal time.
“Who would want to go to a place like that?” Day asked, sitting in a comfortable lounge room at The Ridge on Bonnell Road in Columbus. “Who would want to leave church feeling worse than when they came?”
The 61-year-old Columbus native, a preacher’s kid who assumed the pastorate of then-Berean Bible Church from his namesake father in 1997, marks his last day Sunday in a taped interview to be shown at a streamed service at theridge.org. He and his leadership team have championed a mission to spread the gospel the past few years under a banner proclaiming doing “whatever it takes” to lead others to a relationship with God.
“I just felt like God seared that vision onto my heart,” he said. “And I never sensed that he moved me from that.”
For the complete story, see Friday’s Republic.
