No longer running from God

ST. MARYS - Bill Maki spent years running from God. He heard the call to enter the ministry and hesitated. At the time, he was a security specialist with a degree in criminal justice and several years of job experience under his belt.

"I went to a spiritual retreat," said Maki, 52. "It was a Via de Christo weekend. Via de Christo means the Way of Christ. It was designed to lift up laity. It was a series of talks. It became very emotional. During the course of a talk on a day in the life of Christ - it was interesting that it was the day of his crucifixion - I heard Christ call my name, but I did not know what that meant. I tried everything I could to say it wasn't to become an ordained minister."

Shortly after the retreat, Maki obtained an application to enter Trinity Lutheran Seminary, in Columbus, but kept putting off submitting it.

"I spent two years trying to figure out what happened at the retreat," Maki said. "I would fill out a few lines of the application and then put it away in the closet, and then I'd get it out and fill out a few more lines and then put it back away. In the end, I decided it was a call to be ordained and I entered the seminary in 1995 in the summer. I graduated in June of 1999 and was ordained."

Maki said when he finally decided to fill out the application he could no longer find it and had to recontact the bishop who gave it to him.

"When I went to the bishop's office, he laughed so hard," Maki said. "He then asked his secretary to please get another application for Mr. Maki because he could no longer run from God."

Maki, who is the senior pastor at Zion Lutheran Church, said it was the right decision.

Maki became senior pastor at Zion Lutheran in October of 2004. Before coming to the city, he was an associate pastor at Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Marion.

Maki, who lives in New Bremen, has two grown children, Eric, 25, and Heather, 23, both of whom live in Dublin. He is a member of the St. Marys Rotary Club and the St. Marys Ministerial Association.

For fun, Maki reads, golfs, hangs out with his dog, Lou, and watches the Sci-Fi Channel on Friday nights with the church's youth minister, Adam Poe.