Rev. Dr. Thomas Glenn “Jack” Jackson III, a Wesleyan scholar and evangelist, will be the first to tell you that growing up, he was not a Christian. However, after dedicating his life to serving the Lord, he takes motivation from his own ‘come to Jesus’ story and the conversations that brought him to Christ.
“The underlying thread of my ministry is, how do we help people have significant conversations that lead them towards Jesus,” Jackson said. “Having compelling conversations about Christianity was a central component of my coming to faith. [Growing up], I wasn't convinced that being a Christian was good in and of itself… but through those conversations, I came to faith in Christ and repented of my sin for the first time.”
Jackson grew up in Windermere, Florida, a small town outside of Orlando and was introduced to the church early. However, despite attending Sunday school, youth group and church regularly, Jackson never believed the story of Jesus.
“I did not have any kind of true faith,” Jackson said. “I guess I was a true Deist. I believed there might be a divine creator, but not a personal God that was involved in the world. It was only in college when I started to question whether my vision of a deist God could coexist with other faiths and the reality of suffering in the world.”
Jackson attended the University of Virginia where he studied International Relations and Chinese Studies. During his third year, Jackson started attending the campus’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes meetings following an invitation from a close friend, and eventually accepted the Lord as his savior.
“It was with [my FCA chapter] that I had those intense conversations about faith, about Christianity and who God was,” Jackson said. “After about three months of being in that Bible study, I fell on my knees and said to the Lord, ‘I believe in you, Jesus, and I'm willing to be your follower.’”
At the time, Jackson was finishing his undergraduate education and interviewing with the Central Intelligence Agency for a full-time job. Instead, as Jackson experienced his calling to serve the Lord through ministry, he shifted his career focus and started working with the church. Later, he enrolled in Asbury Theological Seminary to pursue a Masters of Divinity and later, a Doctor of Ministry. It was also at Asbury where Jackson met his wife, Rev. Anna Jackson, a now-ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. During his time at Asbury, Jackson was intrigued with evangelism.
“I realized I wanted to do some work on how people come to faith,” Jackson said. “What are their conversations? What are their barriers to Christian commitment? What does that look like
today? That is why I returned to Asbury for their [Doctorate in Ministry] program, which focused on evangelism.”
After graduating from Asbury, Jackson and his wife planted a church in Orlando, Florida. As the head pastor for New Hope United Methodist Church, Jackson still wrestled with the questions surrounding initial faith commitments. He started to study early Methodism in more depth and dived into John Wesley's journals. From those journals, he saw that most Methodists came to faith following a season of discernment which lasted anywhere from 1 day to 40 years, but was typically 2-6 months, an observed reality which Wesley structured his movement around. It was these revelations that motivated Jackson to go back and study how this happened in early Methodism.
Jackson eventually returned to school, this time pursuing a PhD at the University of Manchester. Surrounded by original Methodist archives, he studied how evangelism grew in the early Methodist movement. According to Jackson, his study of early Methodist history and of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, strengthened his understanding of early evangelism.
“As I read church history, I came to see that the normative path to faith is some season of intense conversation about the Christian faith,” Jackson said. “[John] Wesley believed people have to commit to the conversation and to the community, through membership in a society, which will often lead to faith, though not always. He was very clear about that. The early Methodist pattern was that people find Jesus best following conversations about Jesus within a trusted Christian community.”
Jackson graduated from Manchester in 2009 and after serving as a senior pastor for Christ United Methodist Church in Lakeland, Florida for two years, he accepted a position at Claremont School of Theology. At Claremont, Jackson served as Professor of Evangelism, Mission, and World Methodism from 2011-2022. After his tenure at Claremont, Jackson accepted a visiting professor position at United Theological Seminary.
In August of 2024, Jackson became the president of the Foundation for Evangelism. The FFE is a Wesleyan tradition foundation that serves the major Methodist denominations/movements in the United States. Its focus is to facilitate catalytic evangelistic ministries in three areas: church leaders (both clergy and lay pastors), churches, and laity.
“The Foundation's work in these three areas centers on grant making,” Jackson said. “We help fund evangelism faculty at seminaries and other places of training for church leaders. We also provide grants to churches beginning catalytic new evangelism ministries. Finally, we work with laity through providing grants for seminars and other activities that focus on laity developing the
call Peter gives to all Christians, namely to ‘be ready to give the reason for the hope you have’ (1 Peter 3:15.).”
According to Jackson, one of the characteristics of the Foundation that he is most proud of is their emphasis on the Wesleyan tradition.
“What attracts me to the Foundation, is the focus on resourcing and training of the Methodists, both laity and clergy, for their ministries of evangelism,” Jackson said. “We at the foundation believe that a key, if not the key to thriving denominations, movements and local churches, rests on helping people tell Jesus' story as part of God's larger story. Nobody else in the world can do this. Only Christians, in partnership with the Holy Spirit and the Bible can make Him known and invite people into the Christian community. Christian movements that fail to articulate the motivation behind their ethics, worship, social justice, etc have a short time horizon."
Through his education and time with the Foundation, Jackson has seen that though Christians play a particular role in people coming to faith, namely through articulating the gospel story and then inviting people to follow the Spirit's leading, the primary worker is the Holy Spirit.
“I want to help Christians see that ‘success’ in evangelism isn't something we can control,” Jackson said. “Just because we preach well or say the right things does not mean we are going to lead everybody to faith. What we are called to do is articulate what we believe and why, with friends, family, coworkers and neighbors. While there are times for engaging total strangers with the gospel, early Methodism teaches us that most people who come to faith in Christ do so following conversations, sometimes over years, with people they know, love, and trust.”
In addition to his involvement with the Fellowship, Jackson is a Denman fellow with the John Wesley Fellows program. A Denman Fellow is a smaller group of JWF fellows who are committed to teaching evangelism in the Wesleyan faith, which Jackson, as a passionate evangelical, appreciates.
“The John Wesley fellows have been very important to the Wesleyan tradition by providing resources to people who love Christ and are committed to the Church's work in the world,” Jackson said. “They see higher education as a tool of the Spirit to carry out God's work and to prepare church leaders.”
The John Wesley Fellows program is unique in that it brings together people from different backgrounds of Christianity, all united by a central Wesleyan identity. The unity around the Wesleyan faith is something that Jackson sees value in, as a fellow.
“Even though we are all from different backgrounds, we are all Wesleyan,” Jackson said. “[We will] differ in some [opinions], but we have a shared convictions around the divinity of Christ,
the Spirit's work in the world, and the central place of the church in God's mission. I'm proud to be associated with John Wesley Fellows.”
Looking ahead, Jackson looks to continue his involvement and impact with his Foundation. After spending 15 years in pastoral ministry and 15 years in academia, along with authoring numerous books and publications, he looks forward to the next season of his ministry with the Foundation.
"I am so excited about the Foundation, its mission, and the staff and trustees,” Jackson said. “We are a great team. Jane Boatright-Wood did such a wonderful job leading the Foundation the past decade and I'm honored to follow her. I hope to help lead the Foundation for many years to come.