SARVER — John Kuert, 69, gave his last sermon as lead pastor at Evangel Heights Church, 120 Beale Road, this month, but that doesn’t mean his ministerial career has come to an end.

Kuert, who oversaw the church’s move from High Street in Freeport to its present location, as well as its growth from 100 to 500 parishioners during his 35 years as pastor, said he isn’t one for retirement.

“It’s our transition; we’re too young to use the ‘r’ word,” said his wife of 46 years, Sandy.

“We’re going back to school and get our counseling degrees and start a counseling ministry” said John Kuert. “There is definitely a need here for counseling.”

“We’re not going to be sitting on the porch rocking or working in the garden, although we do like to do that,” said his wife.

In the pastor’s estimation he’s presided at more than 200 weddings, given somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 sermons and been a part of countless mission trips. Evangel Heights is affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

“We felt it was the time to step down. We had completed six building projects. The Christian school was established. The day care was started. We had done some good things. We just felt it was time to go on to another chapter,” Kuert said.

“I retired on Aug. 9, 35 years to the day. We came in Aug. 10, 1980,” he said.

Then the church was known as Freeport Gospel Tabernacle.

In the decades that followed, the church built a family center/gym on a 21-acre former cow pasture in 1983, a classroom wing in 1986 when the church moved out of Freeport, a sanctuary in 1989, followed by a connecting wing and more classrooms and, finally, the millennial ministry center.

Kuert said the church started Evangel Heights Christian Academy in 1988 with 25 students and now has 230 students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

While the creation of the Evangel Heights’ campus was important, Kuert said, the church was more about its congregants than its site.

“I think, first and foremost, it’s the spiritual impact you can have on people’s lives. I feel we touched a lot of people,” Kuert said.

He pointed to the mission trips to South America, Europe and Israel that Evangel Heights members took, beginning in 1990.

“God blesses a mission-minded church,” he said.

“It was never really a job for us. It was a labor of love to be there,” said Sandy Kuert. “People were supportive and embraced the vision God gave us.”

Kuert said his wife has been a “full-time pastor’s wife” running various women’s groups while teaching in the Freeport School District and raising their children, Lisa and Jonathan.

Their daughter is married to the Rev. Jeff Bogaczyk, the associate pastor/school director at Evangel Heights. They and their three children live in Sarver.

Their son and his wife, Elissa, spent six years as missionaries in China and returned to Minneapolis where he is an associate pastor.

Sandy Kuert said of her husband, “He’s been a great, compassionate, caring pastor. There are a lot of guys who lead churches but they don’t all have a pastor’s heart, but he’s known for that.”

Kuert said the congregation hasn’t yet chosen a successor.

If one isn’t chosen soon, Kuert won’t hear about it firsthand, because he’s going to Vietnam in September for a pastors’ conference.

“It will be the sixth time I’ve been there,” he said.