When Reverend Mark Lasater accepted the three-point charge in 1998 to serve the Wesley Foundation at Southern Arkansas University as well as the Lydesdale and Greers Chapel United Methodist Churches, he expected to enjoy the churches but didn't know whether working with college students would bring him the same fulfillment.
Lasater is originally from the small town of Pea Ridge, the site of a Civil War battle which led to Federal control of northern Arkansas and most of Missouri for the rest of the war. "It's not so little anymore--it was when I was growing up, about 380 was the posted population. My ancestors were one of the first families to settle up there. My great-great-grandfather was living on the battlefield when the battle of Pea Ridge took place. I don't know where they hid out," he said. "Their log cabin took a lot of mortar fire. It was in a museum up there for years and years. Eventually I'll retire up there, too, on family property. That's my plan when I get to that stage."
After graduation from Pea Ridge High School and Hendrix College, Lasater went to Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta. "When I came out of seminary as a United Methodist pastor, I took my first appointment as an associate minister at Lakewood UMC in North Little Rock. I stayed there for 12 years. I was a single pastor and it was a good place to live. I loved the community."
While at Lakewood, Lasater met his wife-to-be, Cindy, and they married in 1989. "We immediately moved, and I served two churches in Little Rock--Oak Forest United Methodist for five years and St. Andrew United Methodist for four years. That was the height of the gang wars, in the early '90s. There were several years where there were over 100 homicides annually. There was a lot of unrest in the area. I was in a changing neighborhood with a church that was all white and a neighborhood that was mostly black. It was a trying time for them and challenging for my ministry. However, over time that church has embraced the community and has a significant ministry. I'm real proud of what that church has come to."
While serving the churches in Little Rock, the Lasaters started a family, welcoming son Aaron in 1991 and daughter Abbie in 1994. "We also have someone we claim to be a family member, who came to live with us after we got to Magnolia. He's been with us since he was in the sixth grade. His name is Sam Samful. He and Aaron are the same age and are apartment mates in Fayetteville right now. They both are working up there. Abbie is a senior at the University of Arkansas. Since we're from that part of the state, every time we go up there we get to see them. It's very convenient but it's a long drive."
Methodist churches tend to move pastors on a regular basis except in certain cases. "This is unusual for a United Methodist pastor, but my kids finished all their school years in Magnolia. Aaron started the sixth grade and Abbie started kindergarten. They both graduated here. And, of course, Sam graduated here, too. I think that was good for them," Lasater said.
Cindy Lasater is a special education teacher at Camden Intermediate School. "She taught in her younger years but then got into doing non-profit work for a hospital association. For a period of time when we first moved here she worked for the hospital foundation and had a short stint as their executive director," he said, "and then she got back into teaching. We kinda laugh about it. Every school she goes to gets shut down. She went to Waldo, and they shut down. She went to Stephens, and they shut down." She is involved in Greers Chapel Church as a youth counselor and teacher, as well as other activities.
Now completing his eighteenth year in Columbia County, Lasater reflected on his position. "It's called the Wesley Charge because the Wesley Foundation is the main part of that charge. One of the things I was told by other pastors over the years…several suggested I'd be good at college ministry. I just didn't see myself doing that. I was surprised when I was called to serve this appointment. It wasn't where I expected to go. It wasn't even where I wanted to go. I think others saw something in me that I didn't see in myself. I think God saw something about me that I didn't see," he said.
"It really has fit me well to be here. It's been a great ministry. I love working with students. It's a real joy to be with students, work with students, watch students as they change from very insecure freshmen to senior students who have grown in their confidence and their sense of self-worth. Many of them have a sense of where they're going in life," Lasaster said. "I get to be with them in a lot of the most important decisions they're making about their lives, counseling with them through that. As a pastor, I certainly get to be a part of their faith decisions, too, concerning discipleship and how that will affect their goals. It has been a great joy for me to be a part of that here."
Justice of the Peace Carolyn Terry said, "A number of years ago, Mark was the minister at a Village and Ebenezer revival. I heard him speak each night, and he is an outstanding speaker. I've also been privileged to see him interact with students at the Wesley Foundation. I cook for them once each semester. He interacts so well with these kids and has an excellent rapport with them. They're very comfortable with him. It's a safe, healthy environment."
"She prepares a meal by herself. She always decorates the table and has a theme to it," he said. "With Carolyn, it's not just a meal, it's an event."
Lasater said that the Wesley Foundation averages about 30 in attendance on Wednesday nights, with about 60-70 students involved at different levels. "We have our biggest event here at Wesley on Wednesday night. We have a meal at 6:00 that is brought in by a local church, and then we have a worship service that's called Crossroads at 7:00. We have a band and contemporary music. Myself or someone else gives a message, and we have prayer and communion. Then we have Bible study one night a week. We have lots of fellowship activities, at least once every three weeks. We also take a college mission trip with several Wesley Foundations across the state. First week of January this year we're going to New Orleans."
Lasater also has a lot of contact with SAU alumni who were a part of the Wesley Foundation during their college years, some of whom have gone into ministry themselves. But he said he wouldn't enjoy his appointment as much as he does if it weren't for the two churches he serves. "I like pastoring in local churches, too, so the combination of the two things has really been important to me--to have churches to serve in and have a fellowship group to involve myself with outside the student arena, especially when students are gone, to have a community of faith to connect to and be a part of. That's been real important to me, too."
Another aspect of Lasater's ministry that he came to somewhat unexpectedly was mission work. "A little bit like college ministry, it wasn't anything I was interested in when I started. It wasn't on my radar, but God just called me into it over a period of time. I was really focused on the local church and never thought too much about doing mission work, but that is really a big part of my ministry these days."
As an associate pastor at Lakewood Church, Lasater began working with the youth pastor to help young people with mission work. "I was involved in taking the youth out of state for mission experiences. We decided after doing that for a couple of years that it didn't make sense to be doing that out of state when there's so much need in Arkansas."
Lasater and his associates sought out other pastors in central Arkansas who were interested in youth ministry. In 1986 Ozark Mission Project (OMP) was born and continues to grow. "Ever since then we've been bringing youth groups from in state, out of state, different locations. They either stay in churches or church camps, and they do various kinds of ministry to families in the neighborhoods in those locations, either building wheelchair ramps or painting houses--some kind of physical work for those families. But the focus is not just on the work. It's on building relationships, sharing faith, and sharing the love of Christ in those relationships built with those families. It has been a transformative experience for me and for almost all the young people who are part of it. It's been humbling for me to watch God work through that ministry."
About their pastor at Greers Chapel UMC, congregant Kelli Souter said, "Brother Mark has pushed us to be so strongly mission oriented. He just believes you don't keep anything, you give it back. As a church, we have grown tremendously, spiritually and in numbers, because of that." The Souters' children are actively involved in OMP.
"It's an important experience to learn how to serve and be in a service place where you can learn it. It's not just about oneself," Lasater said. While he no longer directs the OMP camps, he's still actively involved with them, as are many youth and adults at the Greers Chapel church. "They had two groups going to camps last week."
Lasater has also been actively involved with the Southern Christian Mission, serving as chairman of the board for the last four years. "My interest in Southern Christian Mission has really been there from the beginning. I remember when John Miller began the ministry 13 years ago and had a vision for ministry to the homeless. My thought was, and I know others had this thought, too, 'Why do we need such a ministry? I don't see homeless people in our community.' When I lived in bigger cities I did. When I started making visits there, I always saw a significant number of people, so obviously there was a need that I didn't know about. Come to find out, a homeless person in Magnolia is not what we tend to think about as homeless. They're not necessarily people who are living on the street or the side of the railroad tracks or camped out in the woods someplace."
What Lasater discovered in Magnolia through his visits to SCM was that many of the clients simply are not able to stay in their home situations. "They have to go someplace else. We do have people who just travel through here and have to have temporary shelter. But I've learned that people become homeless for a lot of reasons. One of the special things about SCM is that, since we are in a small community and we don't have the continuous influx of homeless people, we can spend more time with them. A lot of homeless shelters limit the stay to three days or a week or two weeks. We don't have limits at SCM. You can stay as long as you need to stay to help get yourself back on your feet, as long as you obey the rules that are in place and make a personal contribution to the life of the community."
Lasater attributes the many success stories coming out of SCM to the simple requirements placed on their residents. "Now they're making a contribution to our community, living on their own, working jobs, being self-supportive. I think that's pretty special. Just a few minutes ago I saw a man, who was at the shelter for about three years, drive by on his motorcycle. He worked the whole time he was there. It took him a while to get enough money together to go out on his own, but he's now living in an apartment, has a mode of transportation, and he is working full time in our community. Those are the things that the shelter does that are very important, I think. It has been a privilege for me to be a part of that."
Southern Christian Mission, other non-profit organizations, and many churches in the community have suffered financially since oil prices plummeted, Lasater said. "People in our community don't have the money that they had, so for the last year and a half we've seen our receipts drop by as much as 20 percent. It's a real challenge for us, as it is for others, to find ways to make up those resources. We're going to have a fish-fry at the end of October, kind of a community event to help bring people to the shelter, help people get to know the ministry a little more. By and large the community is very supportive. About half of our evening meals are supplied by churches and other groups. That's pretty good involvement. We're community-funded entirely--we receive absolutely no federal funds."
The newest group that Lasater is involved with is the Magnolia Ministers Network, which has hosted the National Day of Prayer, and most recently hosted the first Together in Prayer (T.I.P.) service in the city council chamber just after the council's monthly meeting. "It's a community event to pray for leaders, first responders, and citizens as well. There are probably about 12 of us involved in the network. We are interdenominational, and I think we're the only group of that sort in the community."
Because of growing concerns over privacy, Lasater said it's more difficult these days to connect with college students who might want to be involved in campus ministry like the Wesley Foundation. He uses Facebook but said that students don't use it much any more. "When Facebook first came out, I had to get a student to get me on it because you had to be a college student. They disguised me as a student. Now it has become an old folks' medium. Students use Instagram and Snapchat more and, of course, they text. That's really how I keep up with students, by texting."