When Jordan Stone went into ministry at 20 years old, he had already retired from his first career. By the time most high school graduates are leaving home for the first time, Stone had been living on his own for several years, playing on a Major League Soccer team with men twice his age. But even as the young athlete prepared and dreamed of life as a professional athlete, the early foundations of another calling were taking root in his heart. 

Today, Stone is the senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in McKinney, Texas, professor of pastoral theology at Reformed Theological Seminary Dallas, and the author of several books on theologian Robert Murray M’Cheyne, whose spiritual biography was also the focus of Stone’s doctoral dissertation. 

“My life is almost bifurcated between the first 20 years being soccer and the last 20 years being in the church world.” Stone said. 

Stone is from north Texas, and grew up in a family that was both devoutly Christian and athletically gifted. At the age of 13, he decided to narrow his athletic focus to soccer.

“I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t trusting in the Lord, but for the first 20 years of my life, soccer was kind of everything that shaped my ordinary year,” Stone said.  

At 15 years old, he moved to Bradenton, Florida, to train for the FIFA Under 17 (U-17) World Cup in the national team’s residency program. Athletes attended a special private school for half a day and trained in the afternoon, traveling both domestically and internationally to prepare for the World Cup. He would go on to play on the U.S. National Team in both the U-17 and U-20 World Cups. 

At 17, he received a contract from MLS and was drafted to the Dallas Burn, which has since rebranded into FC Dallas.  

While his club soccer teammates were about his age, once drafted to Dallas, he found himself playing with men considerably older than him. But after dreaming, aspiring, and planning to play professional soccer, the age gap didn’t seem as unusual as it might in hindsight. 

“Guys were always very kind to me,” Stone said. “You always would hear stories of young players having a hard go of it … but the Lord really was kind to protect me in those environments. I think some of it is that my personality of putting my head down and working hard is something that older players value. I never was one to assume that I deserved the place to play.”

Early Retirement

Three years into his life as a professional athlete, he made the decision to retire at just 20 years old. 

The decision to retire was something that even at the time was hard for him to explain. Prior to getting an MLS contract he says it was an aspiration and ambition, but never the all-consuming reality that it would be for most. He felt even then that the Lord had called him to it for a season. 

He knew that the longer he played, the more likely his post soccer-career would end up as youth soccer coach or working in the MLS organization, neither of which interested him. The decision came through a combination of internal and external factors, along with wisdom and counsel from family. 

“I think the Lord was unseating what had been lifelong expectations that soccer was going to be my life,” Stone said. “When I retired, I wasn’t sure where the Lord was sending me. I look back on it now with the clarity of hindsight and seeing the Lord’s providences. He was calling me into ministry.”

Within three months of retirement, he sensed a clear call to vocational ministry, and just two months after that, he began to serve as a student pastor at First Baptist Church, in Prosper, Texas. 

Meanwhile, his MLS contract stipulated that the league would pay for his undergraduate education for up to ten years after his signing date. He resumed his education, getting his bachelors degree in general studies, then enrolled in RTS Global Campus for a masters of arts in religion degree before continuing on to Southern Seminary for his masters of theology and doctoral degrees.  

The focus of his doctoral studies was Scottish theologian Robert Murray M’Cheyne, who died in 1843 at the age of 29 after a truncated, but potent, ministry. 

Stone had learned of the theologian at his first ministry job just after retiring. A mentor suggested he read Martin Lloyd-Jones’ “Preaching and Preachers,” in which Jones encouraged preachers to use M’Cheyne’s Bible Reading Plan. 

After seeing M’Cheyne’s face on a bookmark every day as he opened the scriptures, curiosity prompted Stone to read Andrew Bonar’s biography of the theologian, launching a career-shaping academic journey. 

Early on, Stone was struck by M’Cheyne’s sincere holiness, and his dissertation examined why M’Cheyne pursued holiness the way that he did.

“I was trying to unfold why he was spiritually the way that he was, and it was a blessing to be able to do that for a number of years because it has shaped a lot of my own personal ministry,” Stone said. 

Central to the answer to that question was the love of Christ. 

“M’Cheyne is famous for using the means of grace to pursue holiness with such sincerity and fervency. The reason he does that is because of how he thinks about Christ’s love for him, and then how our life is meant to be a return of love to him,” Stone said. “God reveals his love for us in Christ, and so the most natural thing that we do in response is love him in return.”

The Song of Solomon influenced the language of M’Cheyne’s spiritual life. Stone says M’Cheyne talks about relationship to Christ in almost romantic overtones, referring to Sunday as a “trysting” day and the Lord’s Supper as a trysting table. 

“M’Cheyne’s basic logic is that the Lord promises to meet with his people in a special sense on Sundays. So, why wouldn’t we want to meet with him for extra hours on the Lord’s day?” Stone said. 

Stone is the author of three books relating to M’Cheyne: “A Communion of Love: The Christ-Centered Spirituality of Robert Murray M’Cheyne,” in 2019, “A Holy Minister” in 2022, and “Love to Christ: The Piety of Robert Murray M’Cheyne,” a collection of M’Cheyne’s writing which he edited and introduced in 2020. Several other forthcoming books are underway as well. 

On a Sunday at Redeemer, it’s not uncommon for a M’Cheyne quote to make an appearance in a sermon, along with C.H. Spurgeon, another of Stone’s favorite preachers. 

Stone has been senior pastor at Redeemer since 2017. The church has a membership of around 500 and has planted two daughter churches in the last six years. A 1996 plant of Park City Church, the church is currently in the middle of a multi-year large capital expansion. 

“The Lord’s been very kind to the church,” Stone said. 

The sport that once defined his career path is still very much a presence in the Stone household. He and his wife Emily have six children, all of whom play soccer and are avid fans of the sport. As both a father and a pastor, Stone brings a balanced perspective to athletics that is shaped by lived experience. 

“We don’t want them to go through their life at home in a way that we’re communicating the most important thing in your life is your athletic ambition.” Stone said. “We want you to be able to follow that dream, yet pursue it underneath what the Lord requires of you. There are times when my athletic experience is helpful in shepherding families struggling through how interest in youth sports cannot consume devotion to the Lord.”