The Beginnings of Eagle House Ministries

​1. In 1968, a 17-year-old, Junior in High School who wasn’t brought up in church, gave his heart to Jesus Christ in a three-day youth revival. Six months, later Alan Milligan sensed the Lord in prayer call him to become an evangelist.

2. After receiving a high school diploma, a bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, Il; and a Master of Divinity Degree from Asbury Seminary in Wilmore KY; He began serving as a United Methodist Pastor.

3. At the end of June 2020, Alan will have served 45 years in the United Methodist pastorate.

4. After 11 years serving as a local church pastor, Alan felt it was time to fulfill the calling he received as a young Christian to serve as an evangelist. Alan applied and fulfilled the requirements to be appointed as a General Evangelist with the United Methodist Church in 1986, where he served full time for 20 years. He finished out his 45-year service in the church by serving as an evangelist and local Methodist churches, and presently is completing a 15-year appointment to the Karnak United Methodist Church.

5. As we look closer at how Eagle House Ministries was founded; we must go back to 1985. Rev. Milligan was into his 4th year appointed to Goreville UMC. He was beginning to feel the stirrings of God’s Call to full time Evangelist work and was prayerfully moving through his daily work as a pastor and praying about what God would have him do. As is typical of someone who is struggling with sensing big changes in his life, he was looking to God and speaking and praying with family, friends and the higher ups in the church.

6. At that time, Goreville was growing, and Alan’s ministry plate was full. During the fall of 1985, Alan was counseling with a young couple whom he had married month’s before, praying and visiting with a lady in the latter stages of Lupus; and working with a talented Christian lady who felt the call to minister but was personally unstable.

7. After a day of being with the lady with Lupus who died in a few weeks, and being called out to the home of  the young married couple at 1am; he found himself in the Sanctuary with the troubled Christian Lady who felt called to preach. On this day, the lady was battling with a temptation to commit suicide. She blurted out at one point “why doesn’t God just let me die!” Rev. Milligan explained “that’s not how God works with us. He wants to help her get stable and then use her for his glory.” While in the middle of this conversation, Alan’s secretary called up from the basement office and said he had a phone call.

8. When Alan went to the phone, it was his wife calling him to come home for dinner. Exhausted, and a little frustrated he prayed with the lady and got in his car to drive the one block home to the parsonage. While in the car, Alan was praying to God. As a young pastor he felt overwhelmed with the responsibility of dealing with such heavy issues. “What do I say to the young couple struggling in their first year of marriage? How do I minister to a woman whose old enough to be my mother, and is dying? And the frustration of working with a young talented Christian lady who had already shown she had potential for ministry and yet so unstable!!”

9. And just like that, God pointed Rev. Milligan’s thought’s to Isaiah 40:31 “ But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” The Lord intuitively said,” Just tell them to wait on me.” “You can’t do any of it for them, but you can point them to me and help them to wait on me for direction.”

10. In May of 1986, Alan was approved by the United Methodist Church to serve as a General Evangelist and was appointed to begin service in July of 1986.
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11. The Milligan’s along with their advisory board, bought an old motel, tavern and lounge in Jan of 1987. Soon they began renovations and moved into the facility to live in 1988. We’ve been doing ministry in and through Eagle House Ministries located 6miles south of Goreville on Rt 37 until this day.