'Each day is a gift': Pastor felt call to ministry after life-threatening brain tumor

The Rev. TJ Lynch was 18 when he first felt the full power of God's love.

The pastor of the Springfield church he grew up attending called on the congregation to pray over Lynch, who recently had found out that he had an inoperable cancerous brain tumor.

As people gathered around him, he remembers feeling the weight of their good intentions. That's when the importance of "doing life with people" — or living in community and supporting people through the ups and downs of life, which he believes is an integral part of faith — began to click for him.

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Community was what got him through those hard moments.

"This was just part of life and yet God was there — through people," Lynch said he realized after he got over the shock of his diagnosis and anger at a God he'd always believed in.

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Now 31, Lynch said he is cancer-free thanks to chemotherapy and a shunt used to drain his cerebrospinal fluid, the flow of which was blocked by the tumor. In January, he began leading Gethsemane Lutheran Church on the North Side.

"God put me in the right place," Lynch said.

Re-evaluating his purpose

Though Lynch loves what he does today, the young pastor had a bit of an unconventional path to the ministry, with some bumps along the way.

"If you told me I'd be a pastor I would've laughed," he said.

Growing up, Lynch attended church and his family was active there, but he went to college for business and marketing. It was during break after his first semester that he found out about his brain tumor through an eyesight check at a LensCrafters that sent him to the emergency room.

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"God, the holy spirit, was at work through it all," he said. "You're 18 and you almost die. It kind of changes your perspective on life."

He had a shunt put in and was back to school after missing one semester. But his life perspective was completely changed. He stopped studying marketing and ended up re-evaluating his career and life's mission five times over as many years before he felt a call to pastor.

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He remembers sitting in his uncle's Loveland church on Easter Sunday in 2015 watching his uncle give a sermon when he felt God pat him on the shoulder.

"I just had that call," said Lynch, who is married and has a 3-year-old — with twins on the way.

A big part of it, he said, was thinking of the people in ministry who had played a large role in his life, including his uncle and his childhood pastor. What was most important to him about ministry was the opportunity to build relationships.

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"For me, pastoral ministry is about the people, the relationships," he said.

Although it took him a while to realize what he wanted to do, he said his brain tumor caused him to take time to figure out his passions, instead of what the world tells young people to do: climb the corporate ladder.

"We all go through things in life," he said.

Now, he said, the tumor informs his preaching because he knows "each day is a gift."

'A blessing' to his flock

And Lynch shares his experiences and beliefs easily with others, said the Rev. Steve Wachtman, of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Upper Arlington, who knows Lynch from years ago when Lynch worked at the church as a part of his ministry training.

"He speaks with a common language that is accessible and appreciated by all those that are in his midst as he's preaching," Wachtman said.

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And Lynch's willingness to be vulnerable — including about his own struggles — "frees others to reflect on their own challenges in life and where God has maybe met them in the midst of those as well," Wachtman said.

One congregant he has shared his experiences with is Joy McLemore.

She and Lynch occasionally get together for ice cream at Graeter's in Worthington. They talk about different things, but top of mind for McLemore, a 76-year-old Gethsemane member, is her daughter-in-law's brain cancer.

"I've never been one to seek out pastors for counseling," said McLemore, who's been attending Gethsemane for 11 years. "But I seek him out for ice cream."

To McLemore, Lynch is special for taking the time to speak with her and offering a sense of humor she needs right now.

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"TJ is just a blessing that appeared right when my family needed it," she said. "He's fun and funny."

When she listens to him preach, McLemore said she leaves feeling renewed and hopeful.

"He feeds my faith. He's open-minded, open-hearted," she said. "What he says to us at the end of every sermon is, 'God loves you and so do I,' and you feel it."

dking@dispatch.com

@DanaeKing

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Brain tumor led Gethsemane Lutheran Church pastor to ministry