Closed Doors and God’s Calling

By Nancy Huffine

Sometimes God closes doors to redirect our path. When Dr. John Koessler first applied to Moody Bible Institute, he received a “very nice” rejection letter. Little did he know then that he would later return to Moody as a college professor and Today in the Word devotional author.

Growing up in Detroit, John headed to Wayne State University in 1972 intending to major in journalism. He had become a believer the summer before his freshman year at Wayne State. During those first semesters as a college student, he began to feel a strong desire to leave the university and attend a Bible college. He became involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, but doors to the biblical education he longed for just didn’t seem to open.

He says, “I wanted to do something for the Lord. Someone told me about Moody Bible Institute, and I thought—okay—I'm going to enroll at Moody, and I'm going to go into ministry. So I sent an application with great anticipation, and a few weeks later I got back a very nice rejection letter that said, ‘Thank you for your application. Here are some other schools you might want to apply to.’”

With encouragement from his pastor and from renowned missionary Helen Roseveare, John finished his bachelor’s degree at Wayne State. He recalls, “I met Helen at InterVarsity’s Urbana missions conference, and she said, ‘You should stay in the program and finish it. It may not seem like it's of any value, but you're learning things. You're learning skills that God will use. You're learning how to study and to complete your work. God will use that. You don't know how He will, but He will.’”

A Clear Call to Ministry

Four years after graduating from WSU, the clear call to ministry that John sensed years ago was still pulling at his heart. He enrolled at what was then Biblical Theological Seminary outside of Philadelphia. After receiving his MA in Biblical Studies and a Master of Divinity in 1985, he became the pastor of Valley Chapel in Green Valley, Illinois.

It was soon apparent to John that his brief experience living down the street from cows wasn’t exactly the same thing as understanding the needs and culture of a small, rural church. “It was kind of a rude awakening to realize that rural communities act differently than metropolitan communities. I really had no idea about the way churches functioned.

“The first church committee meeting I ever attended as a pastor was with the board of elders. I was supposed to be chairing the meeting, and all of the sudden it dawned on me: I've never even been in one of these meetings before!” he says.

John pastored at Valley Chapel for nine years and has many fond memories of that time. “That really was a formative experience in the way that I thought about pastoral ministry. We started our family there, and we still have ties to some of those dear people.”

Mentoring Future Pastors

In 1994, John completed his Doctor of Ministry from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and was offered a teaching position in Moody Bible Institute’s Pastoral Studies department. His experience as a pastor in a small farming community formed a foundation for his focus on the sometimes unexpected challenges of pastoring. John says, “In terms of my teaching experience, (Green Valley) was, in a sense, the seedbed for everything I had to say to my students.”

John says, “Most of the courses I taught were related to pastoral ministry and pastoral theology. I taught a course about congregational culture and started a course about spiritual formation for pastors.

“I loved teaching Pastoral Theology, which was basically exploring what it means to be a pastor. We’d talk about the nature of the church and about basic pastoral tasks. I also really loved teaching Cultural Dynamics for Congregational Ministry. It was a course in congregational culture—taking ideas on the nature of culture and applying them to people who are serving in church ministry.”

John’s observation is that theological issues aren’t the main reasons why pastors sometimes fail in church ministry. He says, “They fail for cultural reasons. They don't understand the way churches work. They don't understand their own context. And when I looked at my own pastoral ministry, that was my primary struggle.”

Writing for Today in the Word

During his 25 years at Moody, John served as the chair of the Pastoral Studies department, developed several courses for pastoral students, authored 15 books, and began writing for Today in the Word. Though he retired in 2019, he continues to writes for the daily devotional Bible study. He currently serves as Today in the Word's theological editor and authors a monthly column, “Practical Theology.”

John is the writer for the December 2024 study, “Hope is Born: Living Between Two Advents.” “I love Christmas,” John says. “I have since I was a child. Some of it was because of the presents, but a lot of it was this sense of mystery that surrounded that amazing story, that wonderful story of Christ coming into the world. Even before I was a Christian, I was gripped by that story. I was fascinated by it. 

“One thing that struck me when I was reflecting on the series is that the way we talk about hope is completely different than the way Scripture talks about hope. When we use the term, what we essentially mean is a wish. We say, ‘Oh, I hope it doesn't rain today.’ Hope is a word we reserve for the things that are uncertain, the things we desire but aren’t sure are going to take place.

“But that’s completely different from the hope of Scripture because the hope of Scripture is certainty. It's grounded. Hope is a reality that anchors our faith and motivates our actions. The writer of Hebrews describes hope as an anchor to the soul.”

Celebrating Two Advents

As John researched Advent in preparation for writing the “Hope is Born” series of devotionals, he discovered something. “Advent is a relatively late celebration in the life of the church. It really doesn't occur until around the fourth century. The early church did not celebrate Advent. . . they lived through it.

“When you see the New Testament talking about the hope of Christ and the picture it gives you of the life of the church, it’s not a picture of the church focusing on Advent in the Christmas sense like we might observe it. It's the church recognizing that they are currently in a state of advent. They are waiting. They are looking forward to the return of Christ.”

“For the December devotional, I want to start with the ancient promise, the events of the first Advent, and then move to a reflection on the fact that we are currently in a season of advent as we're looking forward to that certain hope. Not ‘Oh, I hope He comes,’ but the certainty of Christ coming again.

“And that is the great hope that’s intimately connected with the incarnation and the cross and the empty tomb. Now we're in that state. We're looking forward to that! That's the direction for the “Hope is Born” Christmas devotional.”