SPRINGDALE — Doug Sarver’s Twitter handle is @missionman2818. It’s an apt description for a man who logged 123,000 air miles last year on mission journeys around the world.
As minister of global missions for Cross Church, one of the state’s largest churches with four campuses in Northwest Arkansas, Sarver is often on the go. Visitors to his office might assume the frequent aroma of freshly brewed coffee accounts for his seemingly perpetual energy. But it’s not caffeine that fuels him — the coffee is decaf — it’s his enthusiasm for sharing the Gospel.
At 54, Sarver has spent almost half his life in the missions ministry. But it certainly wasn’t the path he was on as a young man. A native of Beaumont, Texas, he didn’t have much experience with church growing up. His grandmother would take the grandkids to church after Saturday night sleepovers, but other than that, visits to church were few.
“I grew up and I believed in God and Jesus but it just never made a difference in my life,” Sarver said. “Because of that I wasn’t a very good leader. I was a good follower and I ended up doing things I didn’t need to do.”
Those things included drugs and alcohol at an early age.
“But one thing my parents did teach me was how to work hard and I did,” he said.
At 19, Sarver bought a Sonic Drive-In franchise. He also managed two others in southeast Texas. His success meant he had money to burn. He spent it on shiny new Pontiac Firebirds for him and his wife, Karen — gold like James Garner’s in The Rockford Files for him and red for her.
He also spent it on drugs.
“Those good jobs only afforded me the income to do more drugs,” he said. “By age 25, I was a $3,000 a month cocaine addict.”
Despite his success in business, Sarver said he began to think there must be something more to life.
“That was just my moment,” he said. “I don’t know why, but for some reason I told Karen, ‘Let’s try church.’ I don’t know where it came from. We had to call around and ask some people, ‘Do you know of a church we can attend?’”
Karen’s sister invited them to Calvary Baptist Church in Beaumont. It was Palm Sunday 1984.
“The next day two guys came to my house and they shared Christ with me and it was on that evening that I trusted Him as my Savior,” Sarver said.
From that day on, life for the Sarvers would never be the same.
“God began to take all the addictions away and redirected my life,” he said. “I was reading the Bible for the first time in my life and I wanted to get involved in it.”
And he did. He became active in the church and established a shelter for homeless families in Beaumont called Calvary House. It’s still in operation and Sarver stopped by for a visit over Thanksgiving. His first mission trip — to Brazil — came in 1989.
“It was a huge eye-opener. It totally redirected my life,” he said. “That’s when I knew God wanted me to work in missions.”
He worked at Calvary Baptist as minister of missions for three years before receiving a call from Pastor Ronnie Floyd at what was then First Baptist Church of Springdale. Floyd was looking for someone to start a missions ministry at his growing church. Sarver accepted the challenge.
His first day was Jan. 2, 1992.
“I tell people all the time I wasn’t wise enough to ask the questions you’re supposed to when you take a new job, such as how much do I get paid, do I have an office, is there a budget, do I have a secretary,” Sarver said. “I didn’t even ask do I have a telephone. ... The answer to all of that was no.”
What he did have was an assignment — to take the church into the community. The ministry began rolling and Sarver started visiting apartment complexes, offering workplace Bible studies, establishing a benevolence ministry to help the needy and reaching out to the growing Hispanic community. The mission ministry was a success, reaching about 1,000 people a week and baptizing a few hundred every year.
STRETCHING REACH
In 1998, Floyd asked Sarver to take the ministry even farther — to North America and the world. They began by starting a church on every continent except Antarctica.
“From that we really began to launch the emphasis of everything while keeping our focus locally, believing that we earned the right to go abroad by being effective in our own backyard,” Sarver said. “We’ve got to be missionaries to our own people before we can go off and be missionaries to someone else. I really, really do believe that.”
During his 20 years at Cross Church, Sarver has inspired hundreds of church members to get involved in mission work, locally and around the world. Last year, 731 people participated in 57 journeys, accumulating 5 million miles.
“That equals 10.7 round trips to the moon,” Sarver said. “It’s pretty cool stuff.”
He also forged a partnership with the church’s school, Shiloh Christian, to provide each graduating student with an international mission experience at the expense of the school.
“We have brought hundreds upon hundreds of students to Brazil, China, Mexico, Haiti, Malawi ... it’s been a great part of God allowing me to lead in missions,” Sarver said.
Karen Sarver said her husband is always on the go, giving 100 percent to his work and ministry.
“When he comes home he crashes and burns,” she said. “But he gets jazzed when he can talk to other people about God and missions. He knows the joy that comes from serving and he just wants that for other people.”
Floyd said he admires the passion Sarver has for God and his commitment to reach out to others.
‘HE LIVES IT’
“I think what sets him apart from most leaders is that he operates his life, family and ministry from his personal convictions he has based from God’s word,” Floyd said. “The conviction God has given him that every person should be making disciples of all people groups in the world, regionally, nationally and globally. He does not just talk it. He lives it.”
Sarver travels so much that his two passports are stuffed with extra pages just to accommodate the visas needed for his many overseas trips. He carries two passports because travel between some countries is a delicate matter and some don’t look kindly on travelers entering from what is perceived to be an enemy.
He has traveled to six continents and lost track of how many countries he has visited. But he remembers the people and the work he sees God doing, he said.
“I’ve seen God do amazing things,” Sarver said.
He has been on the ground, working to help, after some of the world’s worst natural disasters — in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Haiti after the devastating earthquake and Indonesia and Thailand in 2004 after a tsunami struck, killing hundreds of thousands. He has helped feed widows and orphans in Africa, watching as malnourished children with swollen stomachs return to health.
Why does he do it? To share the love of Christ with others.
“I truly believe this world we live in is not as good as it gets,” Sarver said. “I believe the Bible is our road map to abundant life on Earth and eternal life in heaven. Because of this belief, I am compelled to share the Good News with people throughout the world.”
PHOTO MEMORIES
The walls of Sarver’s office are lined with collections of photos. They serve as reminders of his mission journeys and the people he has met. Each one has a story. The one of the soles of his shoes?
“Too long to tell,” he says.
He points out others — the military officer in the Dominican Republic who helped the church team get back and forth across the border into Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, the Great Wall of China and Esther’s House orphanage in Malawi. There are local pictures, too, of the work to help others in Northwest Arkansas.
As he looks back on his life, Sarver sees “a simple guy with a high school education who simply heard the Gospel. It changed his life and he’s been obedient to listen to God’s direction over the years and say, ‘Yes, God, I will.’”
For those who think they aren’t qualified for mission work, Sarver uses his own story as motivation.
“I think we overcomplicate it sometimes,” he said. “That’s why the average Christian sitting in the pew feels like I can’t do this. I’m not educated. I’m not experienced and the answer is yes, you can.
“I’m here to tell you ... God has allowed me to do more than I could ever think or imagine.”
Religion, Pages 12 on 01/19/2013