From Corporate Success to Emptiness

“When you reach the top at age 29 where do you go from there?”

As a child Al Goracke possessed few material things. Food was sometimes scarce in his family, causing the youngest of ten to grow up thinking, if I’m rich someday, I’ll be okay.

A senior analyst for Target Corporation, he began to enjoy the perks of the corporate world. But before long, that world got old, and Goracke went to work at his father-in-law’s dry cleaning business.

“I went from working in the corporate world to pressing pants,” he jokes.

One year later he purchased the dry cleaning business and added two more outlets. By the age of 29, Al reached his goal–he was a millionaire.

A few Christian women who worked at Goracke’s business often tuned an office radio to Christian music. Goracke regularly heard the songs but wasn’t interested in Christianity. After all, he thought he knew Jesus since he grew up going to Catholic mass each week.

But his life still felt “really empty.”

“When you reach the top at age 29 where do you go from there?” says Goracke.

One day he was driving his dry cleaning truck on interstate 35 near the Twin Cities and thought he’d turn on some Christian music, just to check it out. He heard a well-known evangelist speaking, pulled his truck off the road, and accepted Christ into his life. A year later he led his wife Pamela to Christ.

While searching for a church to attend, they were led to Kingswood (Wesleyan) Church in Blaine, Minnesota. Continuing to grow in his faith and in service to the Lord, by age 35, Goracke became an assistant pastor at the church while still running his dry-cleaning business.

In 2000, the senior pastor resigned, and Goracke was asked to consider stepping into the role. July marked the first month of senior pastor leadership for the ordained Wesleyan minister.

Ten years later, 810 people have prayed to receive Christ and 361 have been baptized since Pastor Goracke accepted the pastoral call. Kingswood averages 270 in morning worship, has planted a church, and is looking to plant another in 2011. 

Pastor Goracke finds great joy in leading the people at his church and no longer feels empty like he did years ago. He’s learned one simple, yet profound, truth that still resonates with him today:

“The only advantage the rich have over the poor is that they already know money can’t buy happiness,” he states.

Now that he’s not running his life ragged in corporate America and living fully, even with a lesser salary, Pastor Goracke still finds that concept to be true.