Meet our Director
Hal Linhardt
"Fear God, Love Jesus, Live Right, Make it to Heaven!"
Hal Linhardt
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My passion is to see evangelists working within their God-given calling and for all believers to hear "Well done" on Judgment Day.
Testimony
Although I grew up in church, I never heard the clear Gospel message or an invitation to surrender my life to Jesus Christ. After high school, I went off to University of Missouri at Columbia where I wandered academically until I settled in with an American History major. Truth be told, school was very secondary in my life compared to the pursuit of pleasure via partying, alcohol, and drugs. This lifestyle increasingly caused problems until finally, during the last semester of my senior year, I quit school with the full intention of doing drugs the rest of my life. Sounds really smart, so far, eh?
There Must be a God!
Some of the 'Jesus Freaks' on campus had spoken to me for years about faith, but I had no interest, thank you! In fact, as an atheist, I spent time trying to convince those Christians that there is no God.
Things changed dramatically in March of 1972 when I awakened to the reality of God. The pivotal moment came when I was hitchhiking through Colorado. I stopped at Winter Park Ski Resort and was awestruck by the beauty of the mountains and the sky. In that moment I realized that believing all the mountain majesty was an accidental fluke of nature, appeared ridiculous. I concluded, there must be a God! Once I admitted there was a God, I wanted to learn more about Him. I reasoned that I couldn't do this while also using drugs so I quit almost effortlessly. I committed to learn about all the major religions while firmly believing that all paths lead to the same God, sincerity being the only requirement.
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Jesus is the Way!
Through a series of what I thought at the time were coincidences (but I now know were God-orchestrated events), I found myself walking one day to my apartment and talking to God. I told Him that all the Christians around me were trying to convince me that the only way to God was through Jesus Christ, His Son. I said, "If that is true, God, You are going to have to show me." Just one second later, I opened my eyes to see a bumper sticker on a car that said, "Jesus is the Way." God had answered my prayer immediately and convincingly. I chose that day to put my trust in Jesus Christ. As a side note, I have had an evangelistic bumper sticker on my car ever since! Also, I did go back and finish that BA in History at Univ. of Missouri in Kansas City, which made my parents and God happy.
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Family
Not long after this, I met my wife Diane when she attended a small discipleship group I was leading. At the time she was unsaved but through that group she put her trust in Jesus Christ as well. In 1973, we said, "I do" and have now been married for over half a century! We have five grown children, two sons & three daughters, four of whom are married. They have given us twelve grandchildren.
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Ministry
From early on, I knew I was called by God to ministry. On 7-7-1977, I began my 23-year career as a pastor, with my first pastorate in Coffeyville, KS and later two churches in the Kansas City area. I had a measure of success as a pastor, but was not fulfilled. One of the indicators that my primary calling was that of an evangelist: almost every year someone would say, "Hal, I think you are more of an evangelist than a pastor." At the age of 50, I embraced my calling as an evangelist and since 2001 have worked in evangelism, caring for and equipping other evangelists in their calling as well as calling the church to share the Gospel.
"And He gave some as...evangelists"
Ephesians 4:11