After doing this five days a week for seven years, he amassed a nice catalog of devotions, and one day, a member of one of his congregations threw the challenge back at him.
“I’m going to challenge you to turn these into a book,” she said.
“It took me almost two years to do it,” Emerson said in a phone interview last week. “But I did it.”
Being a Methodist pastor is the result of a “later-in-life” career change for Emerson.
He grew up in Hamilton, went to Taylor Elementary School and George Washington Junior High before his family moved to Mt. Healthy for his high school years.
He had long wanted to be a teacher, so he took a degree in English at Miami University, got a teaching certificate and spent six years at Wilson Middle School before being laid off, he said.
“After that, I spent half a year at a horrible middle school in a rough Over the Rhine neighborhood,” he said. “That pretty much killed teaching for me.”
He worked as a copy editor for the Journal News for a time, then was part of the Department of Energy Superfund clean-up at Fernald, then took a job as a corporate trainer and IT consultant.
It was at that time he felt God calling him into ministry. He’d always been involved in church, but had never considered it a career, he said. But when he was working with other Hamilton area church members to create a special section for the JournalNews called “Soul of the City,” “God gave me the signs I asked for,” he said.
The turning point came while he and Peggy were at a service at St. Joseph’s Church while researching the section.
“I heard a voice saying, ‘Lead my people,’” he said. “So I walked away from everything else.”
In 2000, at the age of 42, he served as the Minister of Missions and Outreach at Lindenwald United Methodist Church. Although it had “minister” in the title, it was a lay position, he said. During that time, he was a regular contributor to the “From the Pulpit” series in the Journal News for two years
He was appointed to the Harrod and Maysville churches in Northern Ohio in 2003, where he has been the pastor for the past 10 years.
Although the book of devotions is his first book, Emerson will also be publishing “The Garden Decision,” a book about developing and strengthening faith.
He is also completing an eight-session Bible study based on “Hard Sayings of Jesus” by F.F. Bruce, and plans to produce a second book of daily devotions by next summer.
“10 to Grow: 365 Daily Devotions” is available on amazon.com.
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