Pastor Tom Ferguson went forward during the altar call a lot as a kid. Every. Sunday. Night. That is, until Aug. 8, 1966. He was eight years old.
"I realized God had done something," he says. "I was the middle child. I was good. But God said, 'You need to be saved too.'"
Trusting the Lord
In his 67 years, Tom has had 29 employers. His first job out of college was as a groundskeeper. "It was very hot," he says. He has been a high school teacher, a software engineer, a professor at Southwestern University and a math professor at The University of Texas at Arlington, where he also received his PhD. He has even served as part of the electoral college. "The Lord's called me to different things,” he explains.
He retired from the university and decided to return to teaching high school for fun. Tom and his wife, Cindy, moved from Dallas to Golden, the rural town where his dad grew up, and began attending the church where his dad was saved as a kid in 1935. Six years ago, at the age of 61, the Lord told Tom to pursue his credentials. One morning as he prayed, Tom had a thought about returning to school for ministry training. "I was a good layperson," he says. "I was a good treasurer. I taught Sunday School. I helped where I could. But being a pastor was never one of my ambitions."
Yet, here we are. Tom was ordained in 2023, and now he’s the pastor of a rural church in Grand Saline, Texas, where about 30 people attend weekly.
Being God's somebody
“Meth, drugs are a real problem here,” he says. “Many 20-year-old women end up with two or three kids and no dad in the picture. I had one student who said his dad was dead, but it was good. Said he just wanted drugs all the time. Just brokenness everywhere.”
Though his resume might look as though Tom has commitment issues, he has sought the Lord with every jot and tittle. In return, God has been patient, teaching and molding Tom for this moment, instilling within him what love really means.
Lily*, a former student of math-teacher-Tom, acknowledged how unconditional love can change the trajectory of a life as she completed a scholarship application while pursuing a bachelor’s degree. She wrote, “Mr. Ferguson showed me what was possible.”
“So that was love,” he says. “To give my students a vision of what they could be, to tell them God created them to be somebody, and they could be that somebody.”
Learn more about how Rural Compassion loves rural communities at ruralcompassion.org.
*Though her name was changed for this article, the story is true. AND we are pleased to say Lily is now an RN.
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