How an Executive Pastor Does the Colson Fellows Program While Coaching His Sons’ Sports Teams

Welcome to the Pursuit, a series documenting the experiences of a Colson Fellow-in-Training as they seek to walk wisely in this time and place. Each segment will provide an insider’s look at what a prospective participant can actually expect should they choose to embark on the journey themselves.

In this segment, we sat down with Jason Mook, a pastor and father who takes active interest in his sons' sports, and asked him to share his experience with the Colson Fellows Program. The Colson Fellows Program is designed for busy men and women from all walks of life in mind. Here's a glimpse inside. Enjoy!

The Pursuit: Jason Mook

How an Executive Pastor Does the Colson Fellows Program While Coaching His Sons’ Sports Teams

As told to the Colson Center communications staff

Where are you from? I’m originally from central Washington, but my wife and I have lived in southern Oregon for about 11 years. 

What is your occupation? I’m an executive pastor. My daily work includes anything from church finances to staff leadership, HR, admin, and resourcing our pastors and ministry leaders. On top of that, I’m still a pastor on staff, so I hold counseling appointments and officiate weddings and memorials. So, it’s a pretty full schedule. 

What stage of life are you in? I’m in my mid-forties. My wife and I have been married for 19 years, and we have two young boys. One is ten and the other will turn seven this year.  

When did you become a follower of Christ? I became a follower of Christ during my senior year in high school. One of my now-best friends joined my friend group in junior year. He was always sharing Jesus with us. He was really good at asking questions. We wouldn’t always entertain his questions, but sometimes we would. He was faithful to bring Jesus into the moment. He invited me to church, and when I eventually went with him in February of 1996, I got radically saved. God got a hold of me at that moment. 

What led to your interest in the Colson Fellows program? Our lead pastor’s wife, who’s also on staff, had been in a Colson Fellows cohort at a local church. She loved it so much and wanted to bring it to our church. Our church became an Affiliate and ran its first cohort last year (2023), and that’s the cohort I was in. We launched with 19 people. 

How did you approach the workload for the Colson Fellows program? Do you have advice for other participants? It was both wonderful and a stretch. As you might imagine, being an executive pastor makes for a full schedule. Plus, I’ve got two young sons. Flag football started a month into the program last year, and I coached from August through the end of October. Then we ran into Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not long after the new year, baseball started, which I also coached. I had to adjust and figure out a routine that worked for me, and I think I did. 

I wanted an academic stretch, and I got it. Fitting it in with life was difficult, but I was committed. I made sure to get up early to do the devotional, which was my favorite part. It included reading, studying, writing, and prayer. It engaged all the senses for me. There’s nothing out there like it. In the evening after work and practice, I did my reading, watched videos, and read articles. 

The only time I was ahead was at the beginning of the program, while I was still on sabbatical. I think I got a little behind in November. That’s when the church calendar gets busy as we start looking toward Christmas. I typically finished each month’s tasks really close to the end of the month. Sometimes I had to scramble. I got behind between March and May. I think I hit “submit” on everything when it was due on May 10, but I had to scrape and claw and spend a lot of late nights reading.

What was your favorite book or topic to study? I like history a lot, so Glenn Sunshine’s book (Why You Think the Way You Do) was right up my alley. I really liked Dr. Christopher Yuan. I could listen to him all day long. He’s a great presenter, and the content is so important for today. I signed up for his Holy Sexuality Project to check it out for my church. If we could get this material into the hands of our parents, especially parents of teens and pre-teens, that would be amazing.  

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus was the biggest surprise for me. It was one of my favorites. A Practical Guide to Culture was a good one too. It sparked ideas and gave me a lot of inspiration for serving my church and community. 

Most challenging moment? There was never a time that I didn’t enjoy the program, but the fall and spring when I was coaching were the most challenging. I’d work a full day, come home, eat dinner really quick, run around with the kids for two hours, then come home. I would think, “The tank is almost empty, but now I’ve got to sit down and read for two or three hours.” It wasn't every night, but because I wasn’t always caught up, I would need to sit down to get a big chunk of work done. 

Where has the Colson Fellows program most impacted you? What transformation did it bring about in your life? It really solidified some Christian worldview issues that were fuzzy in my mind, especially around abortion and politics. It helped me to be more active in those areas. 

There’s a group of people in my church that wanted to be more active in getting our community to vote. We created a community impact team, and they helped people get registered to vote, helped them understand the candidates, their positions, and the measures on the ballot this year. They attended school board meetings and city council meetings to bring the Christian worldview and advocate for important issues in those spheres. And they went to other churches to encourage other pastors to do the same thing, or at least to speak to their congregations about being active and thinking politically in their sphere. That’s not something I would have gotten behind before, but the Colson Fellows program changed my worldview on Christians being politically active.  

Before the program, I probably would have said, “Go vote.” But that’s probably where it would have ended.  

What did you do for your personal mission plan as a commissioned Colson Fellow? I’ve always felt this pull toward serving and encouraging the local church, which is why I’m a pastor.  

We’ve had a version of a “new believers” class in the past. It was a sort of “fundamentals of the faith” class. Someone would run it for a while but then they would stop. We didn’t have anybody to continue leading it. So, my focus has been to develop a new believers class focused on the Christian worldview and the pillars of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. As soon as I’m done developing it, I will hopefully teach it. I hope to launch it this spring. 

What would you say to someone who’s considering the program? I like to say that when we use the word “Busy,” what we actually communicate is, “This isn’t important.” When we tell a friend, “I’m sorry I haven’t called you to go out to lunch. I’ve just been busy,” what we’re really communicating is, “You’re not a priority right now.” But we don’t want to tell somebody that, so we use this word, “Busy.” If there was anybody who was “busy” in my cohort, it was me. I’m a full-time pastor, a dad of two young boys, and I was head coaching two sports while going through my cohort. It was a question of, “What’s my priority?” I made the Colson Fellows a priority. You can make it a priority, and you can get through this. You just have to commit to it.  

We had a very diverse group in our cohort—anywhere from college graduates to moms who had raised their kids and had a high school education. I often heard them say, “I don’t know if I can do this.” But they kept after it and struggled through, and they are so thankful that they didn’t quit. 

So, you can make the commitment. Yes, we’re all busy. You just have to decide, “This is what I want to do for the next [nine] months. I want to lean into this.” And if you do, it is going to be hard. You’re going to be challenged, and you might think, “This is too much for me. I’m just a single mom whose kids have left the house. I don’t have much education. This is college-level stuff. I don’t know if I can do this.” Yes, you can, cause I’ve seen it. Everyone who was saying that in my cohort, they finished. And they are so glad that they did, because they are so empowered to live differently and make a difference. 

 

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