Profiles in Religion: John Huber, pastor, Living Hope Church

John Huber wasn’t a Christian until he was 45 years old. He credits his wife, nicknamed Luba, for teaching him. Huber now serves as the volunteer pastor at Living Hope Church when he is not at his secular job as an industrial machinist.

“She has been a Christian her whole life and really taught me through our marriage and her lifestyle and temperament what it is to truly be a good Christian person. We’ve had an outstanding partnership,” Huber said.

Living Hope Church is a member of the Evangelical Friends Church’s Eastern Region, whose mission is to equip its churches to make disciples.

Living Hope Church has a congregation of about 25 people, with about 18 active members, Huber said. The congregation has African American and white members and shares the church building with a Hispanic church. Living Hope Church has services on Sundays at 11 a.m. and Bible study on Wednesday afternoons.

Huber and his wife had a nursing ministry before the church leadership interviewed them. Huber became the pastor in 2002 and began taking courses online through the Nazarene Bible College while serving as pastor. He was ordained about six years ago, he said.

“Someone once said that God doesn’t call the qualified: he qualifies the called. So I felt like God qualified me right from the start, and the two and a half years in our nursing home ministry, I didn’t realize it, but that was the Lord preparing us,” Huber said.

The biggest challenge of being a pastor is the physical demands, Huber said.

He prepares a sermon, the music, the bulletin, and Sunday school and Bible study lessons each week, handles administrative duties and works his day job.

Before the church bought the building in 2009, Huber wrote the lease for it. He learned about construction, plumbing, and electricity from managing the building. To knock down a wall in the building, Huber got a permit and taught himself about bracing, he said. He plans to retire at the end of the year and devote more time to the church and to enjoy more free time.

Living Hope Church is a basic Bible-believing church that is loving and kind, Huber said.

The socio-political circle is polarized and unkind, he said, and the church is not like that. Although Huber does not approve of homosexuality or abortion because of his faith, he separates the behavior from the person and his or her soul, he said. Anybody is welcome to come to the church.

The church donates to Feed More twice a month and opens its clothes closet, run by Luba, twice a month. This July, the church held a lifeline screening in its building, which it last did five years ago.

Huber coordinates with leaders of nearby churches of different denominations for seven Lenten services each year, one at each church. Each pastor speaks at a church that is not his own.

The church provides for people’s emotional, spiritual, and relational needs through fellowship and through learning together about God, Huber said, especially with decreasing face-to-face communication because of technology.

Defining God is not possible because He is beyond our full perception, Huber said, but people can know His characteristics.

“First off, God is good,” Huber said. “God is not controlling, manipulative, but rather kind and patient, loving, and I think God is hopeful of who people can be. Someone once told me a long time ago, ‘You know, it’s not what you do for God; it’s who you are for God.”

God has given people free will, Huber said. He wants to be loved, but humans have the choice to rebel and do harm. God gave us free will because otherwise people would be puppets who do not truly love God, Huber said.

Huber used to journal anti-God things, he said, like asking why God didn’t fix things if He was so good.

After some failures in his life, Huber said he learned he might be wrong. He read an article in a church newspaper one day about the cross of Christ and realized that God had done all He could to fix things so that people could change and make a better world. He calls the cross the “deal of the century” because in exchange for salvation, people need only to believe in God and follow his ways.

Huber said he does not know what the afterlife will be like, but he believes that heaven will not be like the world people live in here.

Hell is spiritually tortuous, which is explained through symbolism in the Bible, Huber said.

“I believe there will be a separation of good and evil, everlasting life and then something less than that,” he said.

Sunday afternoons are Huber’s down time, which he enjoys by watching movies. Huber’s son is home after graduating from Old Dominion University, and he and Luba sometimes play piano and the balalaika, a Russian and Ukrainian folk instrument, in church. Huber might join them to sing.