Ron Yost
Pastor
My name is Ron. I am a native of Cumberland who returned in 2002, after 20 years in Missouri and New Mexico. I was involved in church planting for 2 1/2 decades. CCC is my 4th church planting endeavor. God blessed us with the opportunity to help start a new congregation in suburban St. Louis, to restart an aging dying church in North Central Missouri, and start a new church in New Mexico. We started CCC in the fall of 2003. We also are currently blessed with a student ministry at the local four-year college, Frostburg State University, where we share the Good News weekly.
We believe God brought us to Cumberland to stay. Our ongoing ministry is to help people who are seeking answers to their spiritual questions. Our experience has been focused on unchurched people, those who went as kids but dropped out, those who never have been to church, and those who have left the church due to being hurt by religious people.
On a more personal note, I am locally grown. I graduated from Fort Hill High School in 1981. Later, in 1983, I moved to Missouri where I met my wife Terri. We have been married for 38 years and have 2 grown children, Michael and Rachael. While living in Missouri, I sensed God’s call to the ministry. At the age of 28, I began to pursue and complete the education I felt I needed to accomplish the task for which God was preparing me. I have always been what I consider a working class, blue collar kind of a guy with a little redneck stirred in, so I struggled with whether God could really use me.
God has placed in me an intense desire and hunger to see people come to a radically life changing relationship with Jesus Christ. That drives me to say true to his Word, without compromise. I know that God’s grace and mercy, coupled with an understanding of scripture is what set me free from 10 years of drug and alcohol addiction and restored my marriage. If he could do such a thing for me, he can surely fix others who are in unhealthy or overwhelming life situations too. Because we accept people where they are in life, God has allowed us the privilege of working with divorced folks, single moms, wayward teens, and teenage mothers.
As you can see from worshipping with us on Sunday, I am not a person who looks like, or fits the typical “pastor” stereotype. In fact, there is not a traditional church bone in my body. I don’t rely on “the way we’ve always done it”, or what makes people feel good about themselves, but seek new ways to be actively involved in helping others as we journey together in search of God’s will for us on earth. I see potential in people and seek to help that potential be realized in the life of everyday ordinary people just like me.
