A Valpo Life in the Spotlight: Josh Reasoner

Calvary Church of Valparaiso’s Lead Teaching Pastor Josh Reasoner grew up in Fort Wayne, attending Concordia Lutheran High School to form the foundations of and expand on his Christian faith. From there, he went on to Purdue University in West Lafayette, where he received a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering. For 10 years after, his sense of spirituality followed him everywhere, but he did also commit himself to his career.

Reasoner landed in Kouts in 2000, a small town just over 10 miles south of Valpo, and for 25 years, he’s been living in the same house. In 2024, he began going to services at Calvary. The deliveries of the gospel he heard shifted both his priorities in life and other general perspectives at that point in time.

“As I began to put weight and energy into serving the church, God began to stir a deeper passion in me for ministry,” he said. “He gave me a burden for people to understand the gospel appropriately, and he began to confirm my giftedness in ministry through the community.”

When Reasoner transitioned to ministry (in 2007), he had three children under the age of 5, making him a busy dad. He completed a master’s in Christian studies in just over six years at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois. He’d take one class a semester while trying to figure out how to manage his job, family life, and staying engaged with Calvary.

At Calvary, Reasoner has served the church family in a variety of roles. He started on the business-administration side of things, managing the church finances, facility, staff, and building expansion project. His background as an engineer assisted him in doing that.

Reasoner has seen the church’s congregation grow over the years from around a steady 600 to 2,000 people today. He took on a leadership role after the church’s lead pastor transitioned out in 2018. His primary focus shifted from leading and teaching the children’s ministry to sharing a leadership role and preaching on Sunday mornings for the adults.

“I’m on a shared leadership team as well as a teaching team, which means my job is to equip people (the church) to do ministry, to be on mission, and I’ll preach 32-36 weeks a year,” he said. “There’s a lot of management and leadership I’m engaged in. I continue to be involved in counseling, and I’m focused on equipping our church family to be able to build one another up in our faith in the person and the work of Jesus Christ.”

Reasoner believes God wired him a certain way – he was given a mind for structure and strategy, which he put to use in an engineering career. He’s grateful for what he’s been able to transfer over to his current post.

Reasoner is aware of the reality that the world is full of countering ideologies. In fact, he remains committed to speaking the truth in love. He’s often challenged, too, in his line of work, but he still works hard, even if reliance and dependence are on God Himself to carry out the work that he’s been called to do.

“The culture says one thing and the gospel says another that’s counter cultural. That always is a challenge,” he said. “Another challenge has to do with how the results of my work aren’t completely dictated by me, but the Holy Spirit. My perpetual hope is that God shows up and does something in people’s hearts to accomplish what we’re hoping for. That can be frustrating because you really want people to experience the joy & the freedom that gospel brings, but it’s also freeing because, ultimately, it’s not on me.”

In the business of supporting others spiritually, Reasoner appreciates people. He realizes he was once tasked with managing projects, but nowadays his vocation is about people. Throughout the past 25 years, they’ve become more like family than numbers in a crowd. He cherishes how God has profoundly transformed his relationships with them, in addition to simply admiring how lives are divinely altered.

“The people at Calvary have become family to me over the past 25 years of being with them – marrying, burying, and being present during the dark moments of their our lives,” he said. “Seeing God work in ways that heal, redeem, and change because of the gospel is the most rewarding and exciting thing about ministry. That’s the joy of being a part of this every day.”

Reasoner also has children of his own. His oldest, Katie, is in graduate school at Indiana Wesleyan University, and she’ll be getting married this summer. Lydia, his second, is pursuing a degree in engineering at her father’s alma mater. His son, Joel, recently graduated from high school and will be headed off to pursue his own undergrad degree this fall. Their father couldn’t be more proud as he enjoys spending time with them and cheering them on. 

Beyond his boundless love for his three kids, Reasoner and his wife like to be active outside. They go biking and hiking, and they take opportunities to travel when they can. As for himself, in his quiet time he relishes reading and finding time for an occasional game of golf.

The Reasoner family is appreciative of the Region’s closeness to one of the Great Lakes, and how one of the nation’s biggest cities—one they can access relatively easily—isn’t too far from home. The neighboring state of Michigan is a place they explore whenever possible. It’s the friends around them, though, who help them take pride in their home in Northwest Indiana.