Dave Peterson

Dave Peterson told us his story of many experiences as he believed in faith and lived a pursuit of God's calling for his life. His ministry is chaplaincy to the old and dying, a place where there can be a great amount of grief and sorrow. He has served in a few places of employment and has been able to directly and indirectly minister to hundreds of elderly as they get even older and their lives come to an end. Nursing homes are in great need of pastors to be their full time serving the elderly and providing a consistent word of biblical truth and love into the lives of all the patients that are there.

Dave secured a job as a chaplain in a nursing home and was given the opportunity to write his own job description and chaplaincy program for the nursing home that he was working at. The flexibility that was given to him by the nursing home allowed him to go and minister to the patients very well, so much so that the owners of the nursing home that he worked at made a decision that the program he wrote would be implemented in all of their nursing home locations across not only the local area but the entire United States. Because of that decision he had over 40 separate nursing homes and 45 chaplains that worked under him being disciple and trained to minister to all the patients of those clinics.

After the government changed its financial support to nursing homes and no longer provided reimbursement for pastoral care he found himself without a job and was on the search for another job. That search led him to work for a Lutheran establishment and was given strict guidelines that he had to follow and was not permitted to leave any earlier than the official closing time. This new workplace was very difficult for him to transfer to because he went from an establishment where he made the rules to one that he had to follow them exactly, a very unpleasant situation.

It was while he was working there, though, that he was asked to fill in for a chaplain in hospice care that was absent from work for an extended period of time. Long story short he ended up with the job in place of the other and now works there making a good amount of money to support his family and live well. He also pastors two Lutheran churches in the area of congregations between 30 and 80 people. The stories that he has seen and that he testified of from working in hospice has been amazing. There was one man who seemed to be a vegetable in every sense of the word until Dave asked the gentleman if he would like to take the communion and the man popped his head up and was fully responsive.

What Dave shared was strong and expressed a side of ministry that isn't talked about too much in modern day religious venues, especially the Pentecostal church. He has a special calling a and one that’s importance will never go away or diminish as long as there are people getting older.