A U.S. senator who was in ministry before he was elected to office says he’s still serving God in Congress – only in a different way.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) served as program director from 1996 to 2009 at the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma’s Falls Creek summer camp and was in youth ministry for 22 years. The Oklahoma convention is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
He was elected to the U.S. House in 2010 and 2012 before winning a special election in 2014 to succeed Sen. Tom Coburn, who was retiring.
“My wife still calls this ‘life’s greatest interruption’ for us. We didn’t see ourselves serving in Congress,” Lankford said Thursday during the virtual Values Voter Summit. “I saw myself serving in ministry for the rest of my life. But God completely interrupted our life in 2009-10 and called us to be able to run for Congress.
“This is my calling,” Lankford said, referencing his service in Congress. “This is my task to be able to have ways to be able to serve my fellow man, and to still be able to serve God in the process. … People will catch me and say, ‘Well you were in ministry and now you’ve left the ministry.’ And I laugh and I say, ‘No, this is still my ministry,’ … and I feel like He has led me to it.”
To those who say Washington, D.C. is similar to Sodom and Gomorrah, Lankford says, “God was pulling people out of…
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