By Misty Cryer
The service at Word of Life was special on Sunday, September 8, with the announcement that the role of lead pastor was transitioning from father to son as the church celebrates 33 years of serving Carlsbad. With a strong belief in generational ministry, the transition from Daniel Shirley to Jason Shirley was planned to be seamless, with the founding pastors changing roles while still participating on the leadership team.
“My wife and I, we love Carlsbad, we love our church, we love our people, we love what we do. We want to see the Kingdom of God advance in our city and around the world. We believe heavily in generational ministry. My father was a minister, then me, and now my son,” said Daniel. He said he believes every generation has a choice of which direction to go. “If you go away from the things of God, the next generation will probably go further, but if you move towards the things of God, the next generation will embrace that even more. We believe this is a step forward and not a step backward,” he said.
“Tiffany and I have prepared for this for a long time,” Jason said. “We feel like it is not only the logical step, but it is also the divine step for us to step into this role at this time. Certainly, we are honored at the opportunity. Carlsbad is our home. Even though I’ve been here since the beginning as a kid, in our adult lives, we’ve made Word of Life our home, and stepping into this role with a community and the people that we already call family is a tremendous honor for us,” he said.
Jason said as Lead Pastor, he and Tiffany plan to be more involved in the community. “We have taken a lot of different avenues already to bring that into the vision of the church,” he said.
While the vision of the church will not change, the couple intends to focus highly on biblical literacy and living that in a practical way, including offering resources online so people can have practical ways to apply biblical principles to their lives, Jason said. “We are very modern in our style—we’re modern in our worship, we’re modern in our delivery, and very contemporary in that respect. It is very important to us,” he said.
Daniel said he was raised in Carlsbad. When serving as Associate Pastor for Word of Life Fellowship in Oklahoma, he felt the call to return to Carlsbad and plant a church here. With his wife and ministry partner, Susan, he founded the Word of Life Church in Carlsbad, having the first service at Rodeway Inn on September 8, 1991. “There were 10 people in attendance that day,” he said.
When the church was founded, Jason and his sister, Courtney, were children. After going away for college, Jason returned to Carlsbad with his wife, Tiffany, in 2003 to serve as Youth Pastors for the church. “They served in that capacity for a number of years before transitioning to the Associate position,” said Daniel. Daniel’s role is changing to the role of Associate Pastor, he said.
Jason said that in the associate role, Daniel will focus on writing, with a major role in helping with the nine churches that the church supports in the Philippines, a church in Guatemala, and other missions in Pakistan, along with other opportunities as they present themselves.
“I don’t like to see pastors spend a lot of years gaining experience and then retire and become irrelevant,” said Daniel. “I’ve always known that, in my latter years, my focus would be more of pouring into the next generation the experience and wisdom that I’ve gained over a lot of years. I don’t want to see what I’ve invested my life in die,” he said.
Daniel is a published author and has other projects in the works. His first book, ‘I Choose Jesus’ was published as an eBook. “It was written for the purpose of giving away to anyone who accepts Christ as their savior to help them to know how to begin to follow the Lord,” said Daniel. This book is available online at the church’s website (https://www.wolcarlsbad.com). Other books he has published include ‘Holy Spirit—Your Partnership with Him’ and ‘Grace—The Maturing of the Saints.’ These books are available through Amazon.
Word of Life is located at 1102 W. Mermod St. Sunday services are at 10 a.m., with services accessible online through the church’s website or Facebook page. “We have a family night on Wednesday,” Jason said, including elementary classes, Restored Youth (the youth group), and Bible study for adults. “That starts at 6:30 p.m.,” he said.
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