FREMONT, Ohio — More than a year after state Rep. Gary Click stepped down from the Fremont Baptist Temple pulpit he held for 19 years, a basic question surrounding the transition remains unanswered as his reelection campaign enters the fall stretch:

Why did Gary Click leave so quietly?

Click says he stopped serving as lead pastor at the end of March 2025 and became pastor emeritus, an honorary position that freed him from the church’s day-to-day responsibilities.

But there was no publicly identified announcement of the change at the time. Click’s constituents were not told through his legislative office or campaign that the pastor-turned-lawmaker had left the position that had been central to his public identity for nearly two decades.

And Fremont Baptist Temple’s own website continued presenting Click as its pastor for nearly 11 months after he says he stepped down.

When TiffinOhio.net first reported the departure in February, Click disputed the characterization that he had left quietly.

“Actually, it was very public. You just missed it,” Click wrote on X after the story was shared by Ohio political blog Plunderbund.

But when Plunderbund asked Click to identify the public announcement, no response pointing to one was identified.

Seven months later, no contemporaneous public announcement from March 2025 has surfaced.

A 19-year tenure ended with little public notice

Click became pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple in 2006 and remained there while launching his political career.

His ministry was not a peripheral part of the biography he presented to voters.

When Click entered the Ohio House in January 2021, his official legislative announcement highlighted his position as pastor of Fremont Baptist Temple, his more than 30 years in ministry and his work lobbying Congress on behalf of churches and Christian schools.

Click also delivered the opening prayer during the House session on the day he was sworn in.

His current Ohio House biography now says he served Fremont Baptist Temple “through 2025” before stepping down and assuming the honorary title of pastor emeritus.

But when that transition actually occurred in March 2025, there was little outward indication that Click’s 19-year tenure running the church had ended.

TiffinOhio.net discovered the change nearly a year later after Click’s Ohio House biography had been revised. At that point, Fremont Baptist Temple’s website was still listing Click in active pastoral leadership.

Church members knew. The broader public apparently did not.

Click later discussed the transition in an interview with the Advertiser-Tribune after TiffinOhio.net’s report.

Rick Ash, who succeeded Click as pastor, told the newspaper that the change had been discussed with the church’s deacons and advisory council before being presented to the congregation, which overwhelmingly approved the transition.

That establishes that the change was known and handled internally at Fremont Baptist Temple.

It does not explain Click’s assertion that the transition had been “very public.”

No public announcement from Click, his campaign or his legislative office has been identified from the time of the transition. No contemporaneous church announcement circulated outside the congregation has surfaced either.

And even the church’s website did not reflect the change for months.

Fremont Baptist Temple updated its public leadership page only after TiffinOhio.net reported the discrepancy in February, changing the site to identify Ash as pastor and Click as pastor emeritus.

Click says the change gave him freedom to travel

Click has explained what the new arrangement allowed him to do.

In his February interview, Click said relinquishing day-to-day responsibility for Fremont Baptist Temple gave him greater freedom to travel and preach elsewhere.

He said he had spoken in California, Colorado and Alabama, as well as communities throughout Ohio, on what he described as the “justice and biblical role of Christians in civil government.”

Click also said he had filed paperwork to create a nonprofit ministry called “We the Church.”

His travel and involvement with Christian political organizations have since become a more visible part of his public profile. TiffinOhio.net reported in August that Click had been building an increasingly national political and religious network while retaining the honorary pastor emeritus title at Fremont Baptist Temple.

That provides an explanation for what Click wanted to do once he was no longer responsible for running the church.

It leaves a different question unresolved: why a major change in the life of a politician who had repeatedly presented himself to voters as a working pastor received so little public notice when it happened.

The question follows Click into the fall campaign

The issue is resurfacing at a politically consequential moment for Click.

The three-term Republican represents all of Seneca and Sandusky counties in Ohio House District 88 and is seeking a fourth term this November.

Click narrowly survived a Republican primary challenge from Eric Watson in May, winning 6,859 votes to Watson’s 6,260 — a margin of 599 votes. Watson carried Seneca County while Click’s advantage in Sandusky County supplied his districtwide victory.

Click now faces Democrat Aaron Jones of Tiffin in the Nov. 3 general election.

As campaigning intensifies across the district, Click’s departure from Fremont Baptist Temple stands apart from an ordinary career change because of how closely he has tied his religious identity to his political career.

His official biographies emphasized his ministry. He has chaired the Ohio Christian Legislators Caucus. Religion has figured prominently in his legislative work on education, abortion, gender and the role of Christianity in government.

Click himself continues to use the honorific “Pastor” and remains pastor emeritus at Fremont Baptist Temple.

There is no public evidence that Click was removed by the church or forced to resign, and the available record does not establish misconduct as the reason for his departure.

But the public record does establish an unusual sequence.

Click says he stepped down at the end of March 2025 after 19 years as pastor. No contemporaneous public announcement has been identified. The church’s website continued presenting him as pastor for nearly another year. When the departure was reported, Click insisted it had been “very public.” He did not identify the announcement when challenged to do so. The church website was then updated.

Click has since explained why his new pastor emeritus role benefits his broader ministry.

What remains unclear is why the end of his 19-year tenure leading Fremont Baptist Temple was handled so quietly in the first place.