From Kitchen Chair to Pulpit: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry

HIS FIRST SERMONS were preached in 1930 as a five-year-old standing on a kitchen chair after a service in a little church in Estevan, Saskatchewan. And following his conversion as a sixteen-year-old, Donald N. Bastian would go on to become a well-known and much-loved preacher in pulpits both local and international.

Now, as a ninety-five-year-old, he looks back on a life that was a rich blend of: 

FAMILY LIFE — growing up in the home of English immigrants from Lancashire; meeting the love of his life, Kathleen Swallow, while in school in Ontario; and welcoming four children into the world.

FAITH — becoming aware during his teenage years of a call to full-time ministry; ministering as a song evangelist, initially as a hitchhiker across the Canadian prairies; and studying at four church-related schools after dropping out of high school at age sixteen.

AND MINISTRY — pastoring a church in Lexington, Kentucky, while a student at Asbury Theological Seminary; building strong congregations at churches in New Westminster, British Columbia, and Greenville, Illinois; overseeing pastors as a bishop in the United States in Canada; and writing four previous books.

By turns touching, revealing, inspiring, and entertaining, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT is a rare look at just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be.