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Rick Howard is one of those rare individuals who can do well at anything he would care to do. As a teacher and a speaker, he is in demand around the world. As an administrator, he has established vital programs in both the Christian and secular world. He has tackled academic workloads from Memphis State in Tennessee to Oxford University in England. He is a writer, a musician, a scholar and a leader. Yet with all of that potential, he remains in a medium-size church in a blue-collar city in California, because he believes that, through the person of Jesus Christ, God is reconciling men to Himself and others on the local level. Reverend Howard, as a young man, balked at the urging to enter the ministry. He desired a career as a history teacher or politics. He knew his true calling, however, even as a child and finally succumbed to the will of God one night, receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit as well. He began his ministry in 1954 as an evangelist in the Pentecostal Holiness movement finding the time to attend Grove City College in Pennsylvania and earn a Bachelor's degree in history and political science. Shortly after graduation, he moved to Memphis, Tenn. and took the directorate of Youth For Christ in that city. While in Memphis, he met his wife, the former Anita L. Lowrie. (Anita Howard is an integral part of Pastor Howard's ministry serving as one of his primary advisors. She is a successful businesswoman in her own right with an MBA from Pepperdine University in California.) He received ordination in the Assemblies of God in 1961 and left Memphis for an associate pastorate in North Hollywood, California. He and Anita married the following year. In 1964, the Howard's returned to Memphis briefly, where they set up a Christian Serviceman's Center (Pastor Howard has always harbored a desire to serve in the military chaplaincy), and in August of 1965 he was named student life director and assistant professor of history at Evangel College, Springfield, Mo. The Assemblies of God recognized Rev. Howard's unique gifts for ministry to young adults by appointing him the college youth representative in 1965. During his three years in office he edited the monthly publication CAM, which won awards from the Evangelical Press Association every year he served as editor. The Howard family, their two-year-old daughter, Cheri, and new-born son, Chip, took the pastorate at a small Assemblies church in Dublin, California in 1968. He changed the name of the church to Valley Christian Center, opening the local body to people from all ethnic, professional and denominational backgrounds, and founded the Valley Christian Schools, kindergarten to sixth grade. He took over the field activities of the college ministries for the denomination's Northern California-Nevada district and began working with the World Literature Crusade in Los Angeles. Rev. Howard authored the booklet, The Koinonia Principle during that work and spoke on the WLC's broadcasts. The Redwood City Assembly put forth a call to Rev. Howard in 1971. He left the security of an established pastorate in a growing community with extensive outside ministries to take a church in deep need of healing. However, this new church did have a heart for the injured in a community rich with history but with a stagnant economy. During his time in Redwood City, Pastor Howard has served as academic dean of Omega School of Discipleship training in San Jose, training lay people for practical ministry. He has taught a variety of courses - most notably on the book of Hebrews - at Bethany Bible College in Santa Cruz and has authored several books. His leadership has made Peninsula Christian Center known world-wide for its commitment to missions, not only because of its financial commitment, but by sending up to a dozen members at a time to various missionary works. (PCC members have served in Singapore, Germany, the Soviet Union, Guatemala, Fiji and the Philippines.) The church has increased financing 150 percent and established another Christian school (preschool to eighth grade) with two campuses and the only Christ-based programs specifically designed for dyslexic children. Rick continues to minister here and abroad, having now taught in more than 74 different nations, and is presently preparing more manuscripts for publication. |
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