The Rev. John Clark, who pastored Madison’s Evangel Life Center for 25 years, has passed away in Fort Collins, Colorado, where he retired with his wife Julie in 2016. The church, now known as Life Center Madison, is located on Femrite Drive just east of Stoughton Road.
An announcement posted on pastor Clark’s Facebook account stated, “John F. Clark went to be with Jesus, his Savior of 53 years, on April 4th after suddenly being overcome with metastatic melanoma. He was 70 years old.
Clark was Principal Bassist of the Utah Symphony for 12 years after graduating from the University of Nebraska Lincoln with a degree in music. But then he was called into full-time ministry, first at Salt Lake Christian Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, then in Madison.
When Clark arrived in Madison to become pastor at Evangel Life Center, then a small congregation on Diamond Drive, church attendance was only 29 people. As attendance grew through the 1990s, the church built and moved into the Femrite Drive location and continued to grow.
In a MadisonChristian.com news report back in 2007, the church is described with “a stunning variety of activities that belies the relatively small size of the Assembly of God congregation.” Then, as today, it’s one of the only places in Madison where one of the Sunday services is in the French language. One of the most characteristic features of the busy church was the enthusiasm of pastor John Clark.
A service for pastor Clark is scheduled at 10am MST, Saturday April 13th, at SouthGate Church in Fort Collins. There will be a livestream of the service at the church website.