Noted Preacher John Loor Sr. is Dead at 87
By AT News Team, Jan. 23, 2015: The well known and widely beloved Adventist preacher, Pastor John R. Loor, Sr. passed to his rest last week. Loor stirred the hearts of crowds as large as 16,000 from the 1960s into the 1990s and was widely respected as a very spiritual leader.
Serving as pastor of a number of the largest Adventist congregations in the United States, Loor stated his ministry in 1954 and soon became pastor of the congregation in the Hyattsville, Maryland, suburb of Washington DC where his mother and grandparents were baptized as Adventists when he was a baby. In 1960 he became senior pastor at the Dallas (Texas) Central Adventist Church and over the next dozen years went on to be senior pastor at the Riverside (California) congregation and the Collegedale (Tennessee) congregation, both near Adventist colleges.
“He preached with power, cogency and appeal,” wrote Pastor F. D. Nichol, the legendary editor of the Adventist Review. “I wish I had five dollars for everyone who has come to me and said, ‘I remember the week of prayer your dad held at my academy or college,'” his son, Pastor John R. Loor, Jr., told the Adventist Review yesterday. “I don’t believe we will really know until heaven how many lives my dad touched for Jesus.”
Loor had a tangible authenticity sensed by large numbers of Adventists who heard him preach, a simple faith in God infused with a rich and sustaining spirituality. He was often invited to speak at camp meetings and convocations, many times as a stand-by for the famous Adventist evangelist Pastor H. M. S. Richards. He wrote a small paperback on the subject of personal devotions entitled Pack Your Life With Power, now out of print.
Like many in his generation of Adventists in America, Loor was born into a Blue Collar home of limited means during the Great Depression. His mother and grandparents were converted to the Adventist faith through public evangelism and baptized into a new church plant. His pastor encouraged church members to raise the money necessary to see that Loor attended all eight grades of church school and he was helped to get a college education at Washington Adventist University in Takoma Park, Maryland.
In 1973, Loor became ministerial director for the denomination’s Michigan Conference and went on to a career as a church administrator. He was elected president of the Indiana Conference in 1986 and later served as president of the Northern New England Conference which includes the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont.
“Loor died surrounded by family in his home in Hendersonville, North Carolina, on Jan. 13,” the Adventist Review reported yesterday. He “is survived by his wife, June; his son, John Jr. [executive secretary of the denomination’s North Pacific Union Conference], and wife, Susan; his daughter, Jane, and her husband, Jim; five grandchildren, Cindy, Jimmy, Ryan, Rob and Jeremy; and two great grandchildren, Iris and Ellison. A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. on Jan. 31 at the Fletcher Seventh-day Adventist Church.”
I had the priviledge of being his secretary at Collegedale church and will never forget his wisdom, his wit, and how he ended every letter with “Keep the colors flying high, Yours in Christ, John R Loor, Sr. He knew that despite a hectic church schedule his family deserved his time too. He took Thursdays off and I honored him for that. He loved his God and lived it. I am saddened by his death.
I too appreciated Pastor Loor’s preaching. But wasn’t just his knowledge and delivery that made each sermon great. It was the obvious sense that he actually knew the Author of the Book that he was preaching from. His passing is a great loss. I look forward to seeing him again in the New Jerusalem.
John was a substitute Pastor in a church I attended after his retirement and I appreciated very much his sermons.
I came to know him personally and in spite of all his talent was, in my view, a humble person.
Maranatha
Pastor Loor was a mentor to me while I was studying ministry at Loma Linda and I loved his preaching and his fantastic children’s stories.
While serving as a pastor in the Mich Conf. in 1971, I recall that John Loor, as the Ministerial Director of the Conference, would often volunteer to accompany pastors doing evangelistic and pastoral visitation. He was one of the few administrators I have know who did not just occupy a position in an office, but engaged in a ministry of mentoring and encouraging his pastors. The credibility of his sermons was enhanced by his practical ministry and friendship with pastors from the front passenger seat in my automobile.
I first met Elder John Loor Sr. at a Youth Congress in Portland, Oregon in 1969. He was the main Sabbath speaker for the event. I was a senior Theology student at Walla Walla that year!
Pastor loor became a close friend during our bible studies times we had decided to find him and go see him while searching I found this information so sorry i waited to long pastor loor was truly a gifted servant of the lord