David Earnhart

• Pastor, Calvary Baptist Church, Kalkaska, MI, 1965-1969

• Pastor, 37th Street Baptist Church, Rochester, MN, 1969-1987

• Teacher/Administrator, Trinity Baptist College, 1987-1990

• Pastor, Fundamental Baptist Church, Escondido, CA, 1990-2006

• Born in Spring Valley, Ohio     

• Graduated from Waynesville HS (Ohio) 1958

• Raised in Mt. Holly Methodist Church, Mt. Holly, Ohio

Church was gospel-preaching, lay pastor Truman Merrill Scarf, a carpenter by trade; he built my grandparents house next door to ours

            Baptized Aug 1958 at Emmanuel Baptist Church, Xenia, Ohio with his father, both life-long Methodists; my dad was 58, I was 18

            My Dad served as deacon and children’s church director until his death, 1974

            My Mom lived until age 92, promoted in 1994

Graduated from Cedarville College 1962, BA major music, minor in English, Greek

Graduated from Grand Rapids Baptist Seminary, 1965

            First paid Christian service, Youth and Music Director, Hudsonville Baptist Church, Hudsonville, MI, 1962-64, Pastor Jay DeBoer

            Hudsonville BC is Joan’s home church; they met there while she was practicing the organ for the coming Sunday services, October, 1962 (life has never been the same!)

            Second position while in seminary:  First Baptist Church, Sparta, MI, 64-65, Visitation Director, with Pastor Jay DeBoer again.

            Pastor DeBoer moved to Sparta in 1963.  I was one year at Hudsonville by myself, and Pastor DeBoer asked me repeatedly to come with him and work at Sparta, which we did for the last year of seminary.

Married to Joan Marilyn Keizer November 1, 1963.  Lived in two different trailers, and an apartment during seminary years.

            Joan Keizer was raised on a truck farm near Hudsonville, MI, where the family worked together, raising garden produce for sale in the Farmer’s Markets in Grand Rapids.  James Keizer, Joan’s father, died of congestive heart failure when she was in her first year of nurse’s training.  Her mother sold the farm and moved into town, teaching 50 piano lessons a week to make additional income.  Angeline, her mother, was one of the organists at Hudsonville Baptist Church.  The family had begun in the Forest Grove Reformed Church, but when Joan was about 10, they joined the Baptist church after visiting there on Sunday evenings for many months.

            Joan graduated from Butterworth Hospital School of Nursing in 1963, and worked as an RN until just after we moved to MN in 1969.  She began to work again until Mary started college in 1984, and worked until 2000, ending with many years of work in Intensive Care Units.

Completed Summer Institute of Linguistics course at the University of North Dakota, summer of 1964

Began paperwork with ABWE for overseas missionary service in 1965.  Took our first church with the idea of learning just how a local church operates, before going to the mission field.

Began pasturing churches at Calvary Baptist Church, Kalkaska, MI, the first Monday of June, 1965.

Mary Joan was born May 18, 1966, at Kalkaska Health Center, where her Mom worked.

Jonathan David was born August 1, 1969, at Monson Hospital, Traverse City.

In the summer of 1968, we started Mancelona Baptist Church, Mancelona, MI, the first Baptist church in that town (and they didn’t want that one, some said!)  7 families who were faithful workers in the Kalkaska church went there to begin the work.  In the fall it was turned over to Galilean Baptist Mission, and Pastor Don Christ.

In the summer of 1968, we were supposed to go to Candidate School for ABWE, but Jonathan was scheduled to be born that week, and we could not go.  While Joan was in the hospital, the phone call came inviting us to candidate at Golden Hill Baptist Church in Rochester, MN.  We concluded, after much prayer and thought, that God was leading us into the pastorate (which I had not wanted to do) rather than continue to pursue missionary service.

On October 26, 1969,  we drove into Rochester, MN to begin our ministry there.

On October 28, 1971, Ruth Ann was born at St. Mary’s Hospital, one of the Mayo Clinic hospitals there.  She was born with spina bifida, and her life was in danger for many weeks.  She spent 15 weeks in a little glass isolette, and then came home just before Christmas, 1969.  Her coming changed our entire family for the better, forever!

She now, in her mid 30s, has had over 60 surgeries- we lost count somewhere after 50, and many other times in the hospital for infections, etc.  She gets around well in here wheelchair, and was very active in our churches, teaching children’s classes and singing in the choir.  Now on the road all the time, she misses her weekly Christian service duties!

In the fall of 1974, we moved the church to the north side of Rochester, re-naming it 37th Street Baptist Church.  In 1974, we also started Rochester Christian School, with the high school added in 1977.  We built a new parsonage on the back corner of the new property, and moved there just before Christmas, 1979.

In the summer of 1987, we left for Jacksonville, FL, where I taught at Trinity Baptist College for three school years, and traveled during the summer and many weekends to local churches across the country.  While we were there, Ruth Ann graduated from high school, and Mary and Jonathan attended Trinity Baptist College.

In the summer of 1989, I preached at Fundamental Baptist Church in Escondido, CA, and again the next summer with gospel teams from the college.  During the second visit Pastor Eldon Martens told me he was leaving, and asked if I wanted him to put my name on the list of candidates.  I said yes, and we moved to Escondido in October of 1990 to pastor our third church.

In 1992, Jonathan and Becky Earnhart and baby Sarah came to work at the church and Christian school with us.  Andrew, Abbey, Jacob and Justin were all born there.

We resigned the full-time pastorate in April of  2006 to begin our present traveling ministry.