JOHN TOOLEY
Chairman of the Deacons · Music · Life Groups
We moved here from southern Illinois when I was newly married. My wife is all about church and family — and so am I. We visited one church early on, then we came to this church, and it just clicked. It just felt like home. So we came one Sunday morning, and we joined that Sunday evening. It was just like: this is it.
What’s really kept us here are the people that we get to worship with — the church family. This November will be 47 years. We joined in November of 1979.
I have many roles. I’m Chairman of the Deacons — and of course a church member, which makes sense. I’m involved with the music program, and I’m a Sunday School teacher — we call them Life Groups now. And then other duties as assigned: this afternoon that was mowing the yard on a zero-turn mower. You get involved in a lot of things when you retire.
I love to tell jokes — dad jokes and other jokes, and jokes out of whatever’s happening at the time. And I do have a spiritual gift: the gift of gab. But I like to talk because I like to encourage people.
He’s given me some pretty cool jobs in my life. I started out as a coal miner. Then I went to work for a finance company, and then for Vincennes University — where I got to teach at Branchville, teaching Toyota production systems to men getting ready to leave prison and start jobs. And now God’s given me a chance to help with the school here at the church. It’s been a crazy life.
I’ve got two daughters — the youngest lives within three miles, the oldest in Brown County, in old Nashville, Indiana — and six grandkids between them. And I sang with a gospel trio for over 15 years. Our signature song was called Excuses — all the reasons people find to stay away from church. You hear them every day.
Ask him about the trio. His wife made sure it got on the record.
“Be ready for change — we are growing, moving, following a new direction God has given us.”