Ring, Jack

~ Serving churches and making disciples in Nigeria and around the world ~

Born 25 November, 1945, in Salem, Oregon; my father was an evangelist and later a pastor. I was baptized at age nine but did not know Christ. I attended parochial schools through college. I graduated from Walla Walla College in 1967 with a degree in mathematics and subsequently attended medical school in California. During my medical studies I had a crisis of faith and dropped out to search for spiritual reality. For the next several years I roamed the world looking for answers. When all my attempts at “spiritual enlightenment” failed, I turned to the Bible to see if maybe I had missed something in my childhood. After several months of wrestling with God, He brought me to Christ; and I experienced His wonderful, transforming grace. It was July of 1970. From that first day it was clear that I should do nothing better with my life than to follow Jesus wherever He chose to lead me.

In October of 1970, I was married to Jennifer Jorgenson, my lifelong love and partner in service to Christ. God has blessed us with four daughters and six grandchildren (so far).

Some of the “secular jobs” I have had are: farming, computer programming, teaching secondary mathematics, logging, ranching and construction. I have owned a residential construction company for most of the years since 1976. Until October 2014 I did field work in structural engineering. Presently I do some structural engineering consulting on a part-time basis.

Over the years the Lord has allowed me to do some small service to His Kingdom. Early on, we worked in evangelism and discipleship in a rural setting near Colville, Washington. Eventually, the Lord allowed me to have a teaching ministry. We have participated in the establishing of new churches in several cities in the USA. In 1977 I joined the board of Shield of Faith Mission International. In that capacity I collaborated in writing the SFMI Policy Manuals. In 1979, I made my first trip to Nigeria as part of a team from SFMI. In 1982, our family moved to Ibadan, Nigeria with two other families to help establish the Nigeria Christian Leadership Training program (now called Christian Leadership and Missionary Training Institute) where we worked till 1985. From 1985 to 1993, I served as Director of Training and Vice President of SFMI in San Antonio, Texas. During those years, I was actively involved in missionary training, mission awareness seminars and mission mobilization. I also collaborated with Dick York in designing the material for the SFMI Great Commission Seminars. I also developed and taught many three-month courses on discipleship.

My local church service has been in the form of teaching and working as one of a team of elders. I have served in those roles from 1993 till now at Household of Faith Church in Garland, Texas. I also serve on the boards of Shield of Faith Mission and CAPRO USA and remain involved with several church planting missions in Africa. My current ministry involves frequent travel to Africa to co-labor, short term, with those missions. A recent, primary focus of ministry has been conducting Disciple Making Workshops throughout the USA and in Nigeria.