To my dear Pastor Pamela, Daphne, Jasmine, DJ, siblings, grandchildren and the entire family of Pastor Johnny Drumgole Sr., to our church family, to the community he loved so deeply, and to all who are reading this — I am writing with a heart that is both heavy with grief (not like those who have no hope) and overflowing with gratitude. Gratitude for the gift that was Pastor Johnny. Gratitude that God saw fit to place such a mighty man of God in my life.
I have had the profound privilege of sitting under the ministry of Pastor Johnny Drumgole Sr. for 40 years. 40 years-think about that. Generations have come and gone. Children have been born and grown. Seasons have changed more times than I can count and through every single one of them, Pastor Johnny was there. Faithful. Present. Pouring.
It is said that a pastor is a shepherd, but Pastor Johnny was more than that to me. He was a father. Not just a spiritual father, though he was certainly that in the fullest sense. He was the example of what a natural father looks like. He modeled it. He lived it. When I needed wisdom, he offered it without condemnation. When I needed correction, he gave it with grace. When I needed encouragement, he spoke life into me as though it was the most natural thing in the world because for him, it was.
He poured into me. Not occasionally, not when it was convenient but consistently, intentionally, sacrificially. He saw something in me that I sometimes could not see in myself, and he refused to stop watering it. That is the kind of investment that changes the entire course of a person's life. Pastor Johnny changed mine.
I want you to know something about Pastor Johnny: he was kind. Not the surface-level kindness we can put on for a Sunday morning but genuinely, consistently, privately kind. He was gentle in a way that made you feel safe. You could come to Pastor Johnny broken, confused, or ashamed, and you would leave feeling seen and loved. He never made you feel small.
And his patience, Lord, his patience. In forty years, I watched people test it. I watched circumstances press against it. And time and again, Pastor Johnny demonstrated a patience that could only come from a deep and settled walk with God. He was not perfect, he would be the first to tell you that, but he was patient with his own imperfections just as he was patient with ours.
God birthed a ministry through Pastor Johnny Drumgole Sr., and what a ministry it has been. But what set Pastor Johnny apart was that he did not simply administrate a ministry or oversee a church, he lived his ministry. Every day. In every interaction. At home, on the street, in the community. His pulpit was not just the one inside the church walls; it was wherever he was standing.
He loved his congregation the way you love family because to him, we were. He loved his community as if every person in it was one of his own children. He gave everything he had. Not some of it. Not what was left over after he tended to himself. Everything. He poured himself out again and again, trusting God to fill him back up, and God was faithful to do just that.
History will record Pastor Johnny Drumgole Sr. as an exemplary man of God. And he was. But he was also an exemplary husband. A man who honored his wife and modeled what love, commitment, and covenant truly look like. He was an exemplary father: present, engaged, devoted to his children, grandchildren & great-grandchildren not just as a pastor might counsel others to be, but as a man who took that calling seriously in his own home.
He was an exemplary friend. The kind of friend you call when everything falls apart and you know they will answer. The kind of friend who tells you the truth and somehow makes it feel like love. That was Pastor Johnny. He wore every hat with the same dignity, the same integrity, the same grace.
Pastor Johnny, you ran your race. You finished your course. You kept the faith. And now the One you spent your whole life serving has welcomed you home with those words every servant of God longs to hear: “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
You are not simply gone. You are woven into every life you have touched. You are in the words I speak, the way I love, and the woman I have become. Forty years is not enough time with someone like you, but it was a gift, and I will spend the rest of my life cherishing and honoring it.
To the family, thank you for sharing him with us. Thank you for allowing him to be our shepherd, our father, our friend. He belonged to you first, and you gave him generously. We are all better because of it.
Until We Meet Again
“Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.” — Revelation 14:13