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The Alaska District is a Unique Fit for NBC

The Alaska District is an unusual place.

Pastor Hunter Mizar began serving as district superintendent on June 1, 2025. Since then, he has traveled roughly 45,000 miles by air and 20,000 miles by car to visit pastors and churches throughout his district.

Ministry in Alaska is uniquely challenging; some congregations are located in places he calls “off-road churches,” reachable only by ferry or airplane. Because relocating a pastoral family can cost $20,000, the district works to place pastors who will remain long-term. As a result, the average pastor is 56 years old with 12.5 years of tenure.

“The thing I’m discovering,” Pastor Mizar explains, “especially when I go to these smaller communities, is they’re not just the pastor of their church, but they’re the pastor of the community.” He recalled attending a basketball game in Sitka: “I go to a basketball game because the pastor’s grandson was playing, and I felt like I was walking in with the Pope. Everybody knew him!”

“I didn’t want to be a ‘Joe Average Christian’ that just went to church on Sundays.”

That was the one thing Bob Sugden knew when he got saved. He was called to be a pastor at the age of 16, but he did not feel that confirmed until age 19. Then, he spent the next 20 years trying to go into the pastorate. He hadn’t been part of a supportive congregation when he first turned his life over to Christ, and by the time he first came in contact with a Nazarene church and a chance to learn about the ministry, he was already serving in the U.S. Air Force. At the end of his first enlistment, Bob decided to leave the Air Force to start his ministry education. Almost immediately, “God clearly told me to get back on active duty.”

“Literally every time it came time for me to get out of the military, for the full 20 years, God said, ‘No, you stay.’ So I stayed.” He even tried to get assigned to Peterson Air Force base in the Colorado Springs area, thinking this would be the perfect opportunity to go to NBC in his off hours. He was assigned elsewhere. God made him wait the full 20 years of his Air Force career before finally clearing the way to come to NBC for ministry training.

Did all that waiting time mean the journey through training and into the pastorate was easier than the wait? Not at all! The whole family faced challenges throughout their years in Colorado Springs.

When Bob was approaching graduation, the family decided to take a year off to rest and recuperate, but God was apparently finished with having the Sugden family wait to get into ministry.

A friend passed Bob’s contact information to the DS of the Alaska District. Could you move your family 3,000 miles for your first pastorate?

Marshall Mayfield was called to the ministry at a lay retreat on the San Antonio District (now the South Texas District) where Dr. Stephen Manley was speaking. When Marshall approached Dr. Manley to tell him he felt called, “he almost did a cartwheel, because he knew somebody was going to get called at that meeting. He sent me right that afternoon to call NBC…. I got saved in ’90, and by ’95, I was at NBC.”  

By the time the Mayfield family arrived at NBC in the summer of ’95, Marshall’s call had been confirmed, and he had been granted a local license through his home church. (Sandy, his wife, wound up at NBC, too – as a valued employee in the IT Department!)

He completed the Associates degree and was moving toward ordination when Dr. Terry Lambright approached him about joining the counseling cohort. It became “the most difficult year I had, but God had prepared me for it with my employment and lots of other circumstances.”

Another professor, Dr. Joe Warrington, also recruited Marshall and Sandy during their time at NBC! He was starting Grace Church of the Nazarene in Colorado Springs and brought this young couple in as mentees and partners. Dr. Warrington continues to lead Grace Church today.

As graduation approached, the Mayfields explored ministry options, but none seemed right. One day the couple came home to a message on their answering machine from the DS of Alaska, Larry White, inviting them to interview. “I looked at Sandy and said, ‘I’m not interested in going to Alaska at all’ and I punched the erase button.” She immediately let him know that was not the way to do this. The next day – somehow – the same message was back on the machine.

By August, Marshall had graduated and wrapped up his internship, and the family loaded their possessions into a moving truck. They will have been in Fairbanks twenty-six years this summer.

Today, the Alaska District has six licensed ministers in training – all six are taking their courses through NBC. The distance is no longer a problem, thanks to the any place, any time nature of NBC’s coursework. Beyond the convenience, NBC is well built for older students with great life experiences that enrich their preparation for ministry.

When the DS approached Marshall Mayfield about pastoring two local congregations, he wanted to know how his professional background in management would influence his decision.

“Well,” Marshall responded, “it’s like restaurants or shoe stores – you don’t need but one! I’d merge them together.”

The DS was enthusiastic! “You have to have a ministry plan, you’ve got to convince two boards, you have to do a presentation, and then you have to work with a double board for a while.” Seems simple, right?

No, it wasn’t simple, but it was clearly the right decision, and both congregations worked hard to make the combination into a family. Now, it has been more than twenty years, and Fairbanks First Church is still ministering well in their community!

Ministers who answer a call to ministry later in life have often been prepared in unexpected ways!

“When people have really sensed a call from God later in life, and they’ve already raised families and are established in life, I feel like they have a better focus of what God is calling them to do. With NBC giving them the tools of education and preparation, I feel like Alaska has been a good fit just because it requires a different kind of mentality and a different kind of pastor.” – Alaska DS Pastor Hunter Mizar