Rev. John Grover Lovelace

The Reverend John Grover Lovelace (North Central Presbytery), 91, known to some as J.G., died April 30, 2021, in Evansville. Indiana. Born in Ada, Oklahoma, August 26, 1929, to Mr. And Mrs. John G. Lovelace, Sr., John was baptized in 1939 and joined the Latta Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Ada, Oklahoma, in 1941. He also attended Oklahoma Synodic Youth Camp in for the first time in 1941. Called to ministry, John came under the care of Chickasaw Presbytery in 1946.

John played basketball and baseball for Latta High School from which he graduated in 1947. In 1948 he became aware of a call to missions. He graduated from Bethel College (now University) in McKenzie, Tennessee, in 1951, and from the Cumberland Presbyterian Theological Seminary, then also in McKenzie, in 1953. He did graduate studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. While a still student, he was ordained by Chickasaw Presbytery in 1950. The Reverend F.H. LaFollette, then pastor at Latta, preached the ordination sermon. The Reverend Jesse Eugene Bell delivered the charge.

John married Joyce Rogers December 27, 1950. He served the Sacramento-New Cypress parish while a student. In 1953, he was commissioned by the Board of Missions and Evangelism as a missionary to the Choctaw Nation where he served until 1959 when, after a year in language school in Costa Rica, he and Joyce were sent as a denominational missionary couple to Colombia in South America. It is for this ministry he is probably best known. Upon his return to the United states in 1968, John served the Sacramento-Poplar Grove-New Cypress parish.

John later pastored Morningside Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Evansville, Indiana (North Central Presbytery). He worked with the Beth-El farm workers ministry in Ruskin, Florida. He was also called to minister to the incarcerated through Prison Fellowship, Vanderburgh and Warrick County Jails and Kairos retreat weekends in prisons. John was passionate about leading work groups wherever there was a need. Most recently, working with the Lakota Indians on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.