HUMBOLDT — Mike Farran had been singing with the “3” Rusty Nails gospel group for about a year and a half when complications from diabetes lead him down a new path.
Farran, Ricky Yeager, Le Roy, and Lloyd Houk of Moran began singing together in 2004.
Each weekend the group sang at different churches. Between the stresses of singing and work, Farran’s blood sugar began to spike.
He began to consider other, less physically demanding ways to engage in ministry.
“We had finished singing at a church in Pleasanton and I was standing on the steps looking at the wheat as the wind whipped the grain about. It was then that I received the call to the pulpit. I felt in my heart that God was telling me ‘there aren’t enough harvesters to help my people,’” he said.
Farran had earned divinity and biblical counseling degrees in 1995 from Liberty Bible College in Lynchburg, Va.
He resigned from the group and began filling in as an interim pastor in churches throughout southeast Kansas.
For the past year he has served as pastor at Pleasant Hill Community Church in Parsons.
Several months ago, when he heard First Christian Church in Humboldt had lost its pastor, he offered to provide services at 8 a.m. each Sunday before he had to be in Parsons for services.
Starting on Sunday, Farran will serve the Humboldt church full-time.
“I will no longer serve the church in Parsons,” he said.
“HUMBOLDT’S First Christian means a lot to me and my family,” Farran said. After all, it was through First Christian that he met his wife, Mitzi.
In the mid 1990s, Farran was working at Shields Motor Company and KKOY radio station in Chanute. A friend encouraged him to contact Mitzi Rowe, a member of the choir at First Christian, and invite her to sing on the station’s “Sunday Go To Meeting Hour.”
He called her and, “As they say, the rest is history.”
The couple were married in the Humboldt church in 1995; their two children, Elijah, 13, and Camrie, 10, were dedicated there.
Farran also has another daughter, Darcie Farran, who teaches third grade at Humboldt Elementary Charter School.
FARRAN IS taking on the church at a low time.
Finances are down, as is membership. Until the church gets back on its feet, Farran is volunteering his services as pastor.
To support his family he works as an independent insurance agent.
“I have faith our church will rise again,” he said.
Farran plans to reach out to the community by offering Sunday services, couples’ and youth ministries.
“We have to bring the youth back into the church. Without youth, a church can’t survive and grow,” he said.
