John L. Owens was born in North Carolina and raised in the coastal area of Jacksonville, Florida. Graduating from Florida State University, he began his career in business with Procter & Gamble and later joined the U.S. Coast Guard as a ship’s officer, involved in rescues and law enforcement in the North Atlantic. Following his sea duty, John was hired as a writer by an advertising agency on St. Simons Island.
Eventually he started his own creative agency, publishing and editing Challenge in Business magazine for Christian business leaders. The opportunity was taken to attend the Billy Graham School of Evangelism and he became active in the outreach of World Wide Pictures and with Campus Crusade for Christ. He later earned his Masters at Luther Rice Seminary where he was introduced, during a week-long seminar by Dr. Henry Morris (co-author of The Genesis Flood) to the evidences for Biblical Creation. After research of the subject, John designed a mobile museum with which he traveled and shared evidences for the Genesis account and the worldwide flood along with other interesting discoveries in support of the Biblical record.
With the opening of the Soviet Union to Christian missions, John and his wife, Gail, sold their possessions and departed in early 1992 with their two-year-old adopted son to become missionaries to the former USSR, helping to equip nationals for ministry. (It was discovered that the evidences for God were too great to be removed by the teachings of atheism.) As Academic Dean of the first “above-ground” Bible school, John was privileged to meet and to help satisfy the spiritually hungry students who traveled from eleven time zones. After three years, the training had become nationalized and John returned from Moscow with his family to Coastal Georgia.
He has served as a pastor, and also taught high-school biology and science courses. He remains available for ministry, active in missionary work and serves as a volunteer chaplain to truck drivers with Transport for Christ. John has a gift for teaching and enjoys writing. Some of his articles are posted on www.faithwriters.com, under author’s last name. His "novel" discovery website is www.TheNinthGeneration.com.