Inside Story

 

From Pilot to Pastor

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Navigators Help Launch Roc into Ministry

by Dean Ridings

When Roc Bottomly entered the Air Force Academy in the mid-1960s, his aim was to be an astronaut. As he would soon learn, God wanted him to aim much higher.
Aiming higher ultimately led Roc to pastor several congregations and teach some of the nation’s brightest and best Christian young people at the Focus on the Family Institute in Colorado Springs—overlooking the Air Force Academy. And God used Navigators to launch him into such a vibrant life of ministry.

 Born and raised in Detroit, Roc looked to Dad as his mentor. Col. Heath Bottomly was an Air Force fighter pilot, a strong, confident, self-made man. Roc and his dad only disagreed on one thing, God. His father said that man made God. Roc couldn’t wrap his mind around that. You can go from matter to energy, but you can’t get something from nothing, he would ponder. The way he saw it, God was real but no one really knew who He was.

Still, Roc could think of nothing better than to follow in his father’s footsteps. So he set his mind to do whatever it took to become a pilot and an astronaut, and in 1965 he earned an appointment to the Air Force Academy.

That’s where he met Ed Powell, active in the Navigator ministry on base. Roc recalls the night Ed showed him the Bridge Illustration and challenged him to receive Christ. “I knew this would be a life-changing decision,” Roc says, “so I told him I wanted to think about it.”

Turns out God surrounded Roc not only with Navigators but future Navigator leaders. Ed is a Minnesota businessman and past board member of The Navigators—his wife, Wendy, is presently on the board. And as an astronomical engineering major, Roc’s professor Jerry White would go on to serve as the ministry’s international president for 18 years.

But it was the owner of a local car dealership, Will Perkins, who helped Roc see his struggle with sin and need for the Savior. “It was at an ‘Andrew dinner’—named for Andrew who brought his brother Peter to Jesus—that we ate pizza, Will shared his testimony, and I got it!”

Suddenly Roc had an insatiable hunger for God’s Word and took part in every Navigator opportunity before him. He calls the rest of his time at the Air Force Academy “three years of a flurry of Bible studies and one-to-one discipleship.”

During these years Roc focused on his own family. He prayed for them, and when it came time to present the Gospel to them while on leave from the Academy, “all of my family, including Mom and Dad, came to Christ,” he says. “I just took home what The Navigators taught, the Bridge, and they trusted Jesus.”

Now all the more, Navigator ministry captured Roc’s heart. After graduation he went on to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, and took part in the Nav ministry there. “It was a year of evangelism and follow-up, ministry training, and the first time I got involved in leadership.” 

Then came pilot training at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, on the Florida border. As the “unofficial Navigator leader,” Roc led an outreach to nearby college students and student pilots at the air base. In four years the group grew to some 100 people involved in weekly rallies, small group Bible study, and one-to-one discipleship. “It was my first exposure to teaching and preaching,” Roc recalls.

During those years, after a three-year courtship, Roc married Bev. Not long after, he transferred to McCord Air Force Base in Tacoma, Washington, and immediately got involved in Navigator ministry. In their two years at McCord, Roc and Bev aimed at reaching young couples. For Roc, many friendships began with fellow pilots as he flew transports to the Far East. Meanwhile, Bev’s women’s Bible study grew to 25.

After a decade of military service, Roc was honorably discharged. That began a search for God’s next step, which he knew would be vocational ministry. It was LeRoy Eims, a key Navigator leader in the 1970s, who suggested Roc go to seminary and “get a sense of where you fit.”

In the 20 years following graduation from Dallas Theological Seminary, Roc pastored Covenant Community Church in Oklahoma City, Pulpit Rock Church in Colorado Springs, and Bridgeway Church back in Oklahoma City.

Now senior fellow at the Focus on the Family Institute, Roc teaches biblical life skills he learned from The Navigators to young adults. He couldn’t be happier—helping these future Christian leaders aim higher still in their lives and ministries.