Have Jeep, Will Preach
Folks have heard of motorcycle chaplains, team chaplains, and probably even those who preacher at rodeos. But Leighton O’Connor has acknowledged another group of spirited individuals to minister to, and only these people are knotted together by the car they use on their backcountry escapades — they’re called Jeepers.
O’Connor, an AG minister who helpers at Calvary Christian Church in Lynnfield, Massachusetts, and mentions to himself as “Jeep Pastor,” has lately set out on a 200-day, 30-city Mission for Hope, Homelessness Awareness ministry tour of the countryside.
The 15,418-mile trip, which started in June, will take him crossways the countryside, through Chicago and completed to Denver, then up into Alaska, back down the West Coast to San Diego, transversely the Southwest to Dallas, then over and down to Miami, and final up with rests sideways the East Coast all the way to Maine before going back home.
Where he can, O’Connor is joining with local Jeep, and off-road clubs in each city he has targeted. He makes the contacts in development so that on Saturdays he and the club can meet and then deliver for the destitute and homeless in the club’s community. If there are no clubs, he does the program on his own.
“We give out, blankets, food, hygiene kits, fruit, water baked good, and other items, including clothing,” O’Connor clarifies. “Volunteers from Calvary Christian ship 60 hygiene kits to each city I’m ending at along the way as I couldn’t carry all those goods with me.”
O’Connor clarifies that part of his road trip task is to meet with the poor and those who work with the homeless to absorb what is helping the poor, and what is not. Then, he’ll take this first-hand study back home and work to create outreach that efficiently lessens pennilessness.
But while the Jeepers unite and O’Connor are working together in groups to provide help to those in lack, O’Connor is also intentionally creating relationships and assembly the spiritual needs of Jeepers.
“I’ve in progress the Christian Jeep Association, modeled after the Christian Motorbike Association,” O’Connor clarifies. “The Jeep clubs assembly and working with are deliberately not Christian. When folks find out I’m a preacher, some people ask for prayer, and I work to part the love of Christ and the gospel with them whenever possible.”
“Part of our missions statement triumphs the lost through tasks and evangelism,” states Jamie Booth, administrative pastor at Calvary Christian Church. “God has named Leighton to live that out, so his journey is in charge with who we are.”
Booth clarifies that the church does a lot of programs, especially in providing food for the poor and needy in their place. He hopes that through O’Connor’s knowledge, they’ll be able to gather insights to cultivating their organization to those in need.
O’Connor’s goal line at each of his 30-city stops is to drop at least 200 lives. So far, having had stops in, Chicago, Indianapolis and Denver, he’s more than his area.
O’Connor’s Jeep does incline to catch the eye of other Jeepers. In adding to the roof rack and mandatory mounted winch on the front, the two-door forest green Farmhand is also decorated out with a 100-watt amplifier, 12-channel sound mixer, Bluetooth microphones, and not to remark two batteries under the hood to power all the electronics.
“The real Jeep organization characteristically take their fun to homes where electricity is not easily reachable,” O’Connor explains. “So, if I were talking or praying over a meeting, the equipment allows me to be heard.” It also comes in handy for inner-city disseminations. And, he complements with a laugh, “sharing his love” for Christian songs with others as he’s headed down the highway or streets.
In the beginning, O’Connor planned to sleep in the middle of nowhere and set up seminars with Jeep clubs from there, but he has adjusted his plans, observing there aren’t a lot of folks in the deep woods.
“Now I’m using campsites so I can meet people and part the gospel,” he says.
At this time, the program efforts are doing well, but O’Connor says he still needs to discover more Jeep clubs in exact cities to help with the Saturday outreaches as well as with any luck partnering with some more churches to share his ministry.
Some of the cities he still needs partners in to contain Anchorage, Las Vegas, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, and Los Angeles.
“I’ve formed a card to give to people that contains the websites, and a website link to where folks can find the nearest AG church,” O’Connor says. “So, even after I’m long gone, the Holy Spirit can use that card to linger His work.”
Booth trusts O’Connor is the right person for this effort due to his desire for the lost and his capacity to follow through, as proved by him putting the entire journey together on his own, plus making all the contacts and raising all the resources he needed.
“Leighton has our full funding,” Booth says. “We love him, and we’re enthusiastic to see how God uses him — the doors He opens for him — on this journey and after it.”
To view the Jeep Pastor’s complete travel schedule, or find contact information, see his Mission for Hope website. To keep reading about his ministry travels, follow his Facebook page.
