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New pastor returns home after 26 years of ministry
By Michael Pommier
The Fort Scott Tribune
Growing up, Don Flanner was always told he would become a minister one day. Now after a lifetime of experiences, including 26 years as a full-time minister, he is returning home to Fort Scott.
Flanner took over as pastor of Mapleton United Methodist Church and Devon United Methodist Church on July 1 as his first assignment following his retirement from full-time clergy work. As a young boy, Flanner grew up attending West Liberty United Methodist Church.
"It feels like coming home and I like that feeling," he said.
Ministry is not new to Flanner's family. Several siblings have gone into the profession and others are very active in their own community churches.
"Church was the center of our lives. We never missed church," he said. "That was just central to our community and our family life.
"Growing up I always thought I would be a minister," he added. "My mom said to dad, 'Ray, you don't have to be a minister to be in ministry for God. You can raise ministers and maybe Don will be your minister.'"
In February 1967, Flanner quit attending college in Pittsburg to join the Navy. Away from home, Flanner attended church on base in California as often as he could, however, he was missing something. He got involved with a chaplain and helped with Saturday and Sunday evening services. He later was introduced to The Navigators, a group of a about 25-30 sailors and Marines that met on Friday nights just outside of San Diego, Calif., to sing, pray and enjoy fellowship.
"We sat around and sang and had prayers, and man it felt good," he said. "I was missing some of that fellowship."
In the early part of his training, he fell quite ill. While home on leave during the Christmas holiday, he went to see a local doctor who prescribed a lot of bed rest.
Less than a week after returning to his Navy base in California, he was sent to the hospital where he was diagnosed as having no white blood cells or platelets in his bone marrow and lost 80 pounds.
While in the hospital for nearly five months, he had his spleen removed and died twice on the operating table during the eight-hour procedure.
Flanner said God was with him during the ordeal and he received many visitors, as well as cards and letters from home. During the surgery, Flanner's father hosted a 48-hour prayer vigil back home.
"I believe in answered prayer, in healing prayer," he said. "That was a turning point in my life as far as realizing that you're never alone."
After recovering from the surgery, Flanner was released from the Navy with 100 percent disability, shortly after receiving word he had been accepted for officer training. After his release, he was tested by the Veterans Administration to determine what career best suited for him. Flanner said he was told the best fit would be a teacher, which was what he was studying prior to enlisting, a farmer, or a minister. Although he always had a spot in his heart for ministry, he chose to be a middle school math teacher.
"In my heart, and even in the Navy ... I leaned that way, but I wasn't going to just go into ministry. I believed that you had to be called," he said.
Once the call came to Flanner in a dream, he joined the seminary and took some time off shortly after beginning to focus on his family. After 11 years of bouncing around from teaching to selling insurance and repairing copy machines for Xerox, Flanner returned to seminary in 1985.
"I couldn't stop thinking about it in my heart," he said.
Flanner has been serving as a full-time minister for 26 years prior to his retirement earlier this month. He served all over Kansas, including Columbus, Humboldt, and most recently in Kingman. Flanner said that ministers never really retire and although he is enjoying retirement, he was happy to take the quarter-time position back near his home.