Hunter Gainey: Called to Ministry

“I just felt like a zombie, like I remember walking into our house and, you know, going to bed that night, I just felt like I wasn’t there, like something had just hit me.”

A night of conviction that left him feeling like a zombie and questioning what he’s believed his whole life, took Hunter Gainey off his career path of being a game warden to following the One who carved out the path of righteousness.

Gainey, a Buford graduate of 2024, has grown up in church his whole life, and from eight years old he thought he was saved. Turns out he was living in a worldly way without realizing it until later in life. Running from a genuine relationship with God, Gainey realized that he needed to listen to the conviction and give up his life to The Lord. “I can recall times where, you know, the preacher would preach a sermon, he would give invitation, and I would know that God was speaking to me. I knew that he was tugging on my heart. I knew that he was calling me to go down. But I continued to refuse.”

Tired of running away from his conviction, in January 2023 Gainey turned his life to God. If it weren’t for being invited to a men’s ministry meeting, Gainey wouldn’t have the story he does today. “Until January of 2023, I was tired of running. I was tired of telling myself that everything was okay. I was to the end of myself. I was exhausted. And one day, my buddy Anson Allen invited me to go to a Men’s Ministry meeting.”

Hearing a speaker’s testimony, Gainey realized that his testimony is very similar. He continued to feel convicted until he finally told his youth pastor about what he had been feeling. “I’ve been fighting this all night and all day. I just remember driving home that night and it hit me, I realized that I don’t have a relationship with Jesus, honestly.”

Gainey made a deal with God and that he would tell his youth pastor that he wanted to give his life to Jesus. He didn’t want to talk to his youth pastor– he was scared. But then everything fell into place and started to come together. “I was like, All right, am I going to wait? You know? What should I do? Am I even going to tell him? And I sat there, and I kept going through my mind, like, am I going to do this? Am I actually going to and so I’m sitting there looking at him, and then he gets up. He’s never looked at me. He gets up and he walks, and he comes and sits down right beside me. I’m like, boy, there ain’t no way, how in the world did this just happen?”

After giving his life to Jesus, Gainey’s life and desires changed and turned around. He fully obeyed The Lord and took the next step to baptism. “I completely changed. I stopped living for myself. I stopped living for the world. My desires completely changed, and I completely surrendered my life to the Lord.”

Two men deeply impacted Gainey and are the reason he is the person he is today. His dad has been his role model for as long as he can remember. “There are two people that really stick out to me when it comes to me being the man I am today, who really influenced me to be the person I am today. I would definitely say that that’s my dad. My dad has been such a role model. I have always looked up to my dad.”

Feeling the call to ministry, Gainey reached out to a local pastor, Patrick Blackmon, who helped him realize his call to ministry. “I don’t really know why I asked Patrick, because I never really talked to him, but I talked to him and so from that moment on, we started meeting every Friday, and he started walking me through the gospel. He started walking me through ministry. We started reading the Bible together, and he, no doubt, has influenced me the most spiritually.”

Being amazed by the word of God, Gainey started feeling the calling to ministry. Gainey wanted to share what he had learned with people and let them hear the Gospel. “When I would read the Bible, I just felt like God was just speaking to me, and I was just blown away by His word. When I would read it, all I wanted to do was to tell somebody. All I wanted to do was just to share this with somebody.”

“I would say the biggest one for me, how I knew absolutely that I was caught in ministry is that I could not see myself doing anything else, like I said, being a Game Warden did not appeal to me anymore. All I could see myself doing was to preach. That is probably the biggest way I knew that I was being called into ministry.”

Gainey wanted to be a game warden and nothing else. But after feeling the calling, he became a game changer instead.