urfm You are the church
The church also hosted community meetings to discuss
the corner store at the other end of the church’s block.
“It had become a gang hangout, and a lot of the
shooting had to do with stuff that was going on at
that corner store,” said Olver, who recalled receiving a
mysterious letter addressed to “Lite House” that stated,
“If you don’t leave us alone and leave the corner store
alone, we’re going to firebomb the church.”
Police took the threat seriously because a house three
blocks away had been firebombed the previous week,
but, Olver said, “We did not stop meetings. We kept the
pressure up, and within just a matter of weeks, somebody
firebombed the corner store, and it’s now a community
park.”
After Olver and his wife sensed that Martin should
become Lighthouse’s lead pastor, Greenville University
offered Olver a part-time faculty position, and conference
and denominational leaders also offered him part-time
work. Bishop Gerald Bates also persuaded Olver to
pursue a Doctor of Ministry degree, which he earned in
1999 with a dissertation titled “Resurrection Strategies
for Dying Urban Neighborhood Churches.”
“That period of time was incredible personal growth
and development. I was teaching half-time, working with
churches half-time, and I was working on my doctorate at
the same time, and it was just amazing,” said Olver, who
explained that the simultaneous opportunities allowed
him to make sense of his urban ministry experience.
Canada and Return to U.S.
In 2000 Oliver accepted an offer from the Free
Methodist Church in Canada to become the lead pastor
of the Kingsview Church in Toronto that needed a
leader with urban, cross-cultural, community ministry
experience.
“We were there for 13 years, and we had people from
40 different countries that were part of our church,”
Olver said. “Two-thirds of the adults in the church were
born outside North America.” The ministry of the church
was guided by the statement, “Kingsview Free Methodist
Church is a multi-generational and inter-cultural church
with a vision for ministry that begins in our community
and extends around the world.”
In 2013, Olver moved back to the United States for
a two-year term as the Acts 12:24 Conference’s interim
assistant superintendent, and then he served for three
pg. 28 — lightandlifemagazine.com
years as the conference’s director of ministerial education
and guidance.
“We took in over a hundred ministerial candidates in
the time that I was there,” said Olver, who added Acts
12:24’s growth in new pastors continues with a goal of
planting 1,000 churches. “God is calling so many people
into ministry, which says to me that God has some great
plans for that conference.”
Howard and Linda Olver now reside in a retirement
community in the Rochester, New York, area where their
son and his family live, and Howard has served for the
past two years as the assistant superintendent of African
immigrant ministry for the Genesis Conference where
he continues his legacy of raising up new leaders.
“The leadership development piece is critical in urban
and intercultural ministry, but it’s also critical anywhere,”
he said. “Practically the number one job of every pastor is
leadership development. That’s the work of ministry, and
that’s based on Ephesians 4.”
Olver added, “Proverbs 11:11 sums up God’s call to the
city: Through the presence of the upright a city is exalted,
but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed.”+
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