Chapter Seven--To Kansas and back in two years
Neodesha, Kansas is a nice place. The population in 1965 was about 4,000 as I recall. Located in the southeast corner of the state, bordering with Oklahoma and Missouri and set at the convergence of two rivers on U. S. Highway 75, the town could be described as quaint. It was also fairly quiet. Some of the closest larger towns are Independence and Coffeyville and just to the south, Bartlesville, Oklahoma. There were quiet tree-lined streets and neatly kept older homes. There was some industry that provided jobs for the residents and there were nice schools, churches and parks—a good place to raise kids.
Three families made up the Church of Christ. As far as we knew, these were the only members of the Church of Christ in all of Wilson County, population about 14,000 in those days. They had met in a small native rock building for many years. The building was narrow and the part back of the pulpit area, probably intended for future Sunday school rooms, had never been completed, you stepped down to the dirt. The little building could not have held more than 30 persons, if that many. Our family of seven immediately doubled the attendance. The Bartlesville church offered us support, if I would get a new building built. We did, and it stands there today, on the north end of 8th St. We drove by it one time while going or coming from Topeka.
Before we went to Kansas, I had preached for a small congregation on the north shore of Lake Lavon in Collin County, Texas which, ironically, had more folks attending each Sunday morning than the Neodesha church. They had Sunday school all together and made a point to start the morning service a bit early, so that they could be out and home before noon. There was a woman in the congregation, who presented quite a formidable presence, who would fold her arms and clear her throat rather loudly as the clock neared the noon hour as the sermon labored on. I always took this, and wisely I think, as a subtle signal to bring it to a close. If I gained nothing else from that experience, the ability to be able to quickly wind it down and quit almost on cue has proven to be a useful homiletic tool at times. We were back in that area several years ago and drove by the old church building. It was falling down and was covered with high weeds and vines.
Thinking back on it, I wonder how they stood to listen to me. My thinking is that a lot of the rural churches, of any kind, get very used to providing the training ground for the younger minister. Its probably not that they are any less spiritual or less godly people, they just learn to overlook inexperience and youth and sometimes just turn off their switches when an especially bad sermon comes toward them. A caution to the young preacher: watch it when a parishioner tells you at the church door how much they “enjoyed” the message. But I digress.
One incident that occurred in our Kansas sojourn was truly a life-changing event. Carolyn got real sick. She was taken to Wichita in an ambulance and I followed in the car. She was admitted to St. Francis hospital, basically in a coma. The doctors in Neodesha did not know what her trouble was and sent her to a bigger hospital. The doctors at St. Francis did not have a clue either. One doctor told me as we walked down the hall, away from her room that she might die. That was a real comforting thought, knowing that back at home there were five children who would be in need of some kind of mothering if that occurred. This was, to me, an unacceptable prospect so I spent the next couple of days praying over her comatose body. I made a deal with God: raise her up and I would always be his minister. My point was that I loved her and I knew that God loved her, so since we both loved her, she needed to be awake to know it. Well, she came out of it and was discharged. She was weak for several months. My mother had come up to stay with the children and I guess was glad for the way it all turned out.
I signed a bill for about $1,800.00 and told the sisters there that I would pay when I could, as we did not have any insurance. I was grateful to God for having healed her. I would guess it was God, for it was not anything the hospital or the doctors did that brought her back.
So, God did his part. Now it was up to me to do mine. A few days later a couple showed up at the door and said that they had sold some land and wanted to tithe a portion of it and gave me a check for about $1,800.00 (which took care of the hospital bill). Talk about faith!
Being a new minister in town, I had met the Baptist preacher, the Assembly of God pastor, a delightful fellow with the Independent Christian church and the Disciples minister among others. Thus I became friends with and would get to visit with them from time to time as I became involved in the community. Something finally dawned upon me. All these men seemed to genuinely believe in God, in Jesus and the cross and held the scriptures in high esteem. They seemed to be very spiritual and very much at ease in their respective positions.
But something was wrong. All my life, from my youth up, it had been drilled into me as I sat and listened to sermon after sermon in rural southern churches decrying the various errors of the Baptists, the Methodists, the this and the that. It appeared to me and I was convinced that I was definitely in the right church believing the right message and worshiping God in the right way. I do not ever remember, and my memory may be faulty at my present age, but I can not recall ever hearing any preacher referring to the statement attributed to Alexander Campbell (a Scotch Presbyterian preacher who, with another Presbyterian, Barton Stone and others in the early 1800s began a movement to restore what they termed New Testament Christianity) that we were Christians only, but not the only Christians. Somehow that fact had either escaped me or I was never exposed to it.
As I said earlier, I do not now see how they stood me, but I am glad that I was tolerated. When we got to Kansas, I begin to understand that I was really ill-prepared for the job at hand, but Jesus said that we should not look back when our hand is put to the plow. I had to study a lot, because I had not done much of it in the past. I had to pray a lot, because I felt I really needed help from above. I remember working on the book of Romans and trying to see what Paul was trying to get across.
Well, trouble began to raise its head. I saw the other church folk from the “denominations” to be sincere and dedicated believers. I saw in Paul’s message to the Romans that the thing that really makes the difference is faith, or belief, or trust, in Jesus and not in ourselves or a in a group for that matter. It began to dawn on me that Jesus died on the cross and was raised on the third day and in that act, because he was without sin, was made sin for everyone who will accept that he arose victorious over sin and death and is right now at the right hand of the Father, being an advocate for any one who falls short. Salvation, then, is not an act, a ritual or a set of steps that one takes. Salvation is a free gift to anyone who can let go and let God, who can trust in what Jesus did, who can allow God to dwell in his or her spirit (the new birth). So, as I began to realize these things, that these people, these other church people were not necessarily wrong and that I, may in fact, have some ideas about religion, about church and about what its all about that may not be altogether right.
By now, I had begun to experience a genuine joy, able to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was my Father and that I actually had salvation and possessed eternal life here and now because of what Jesus had done for me. And that there were many more brethren out there than I had ever imagined!
I guess I got overly excited and misjudged my audience as I shared these things with them. They demanded my resignation. Later, in a called meeting in Coffeyville where there were representatives of several congregations from all over the area, I was formally forbidden to ever preach or teach or lead a prayer or lead a song in a Church of Christ because of my heresy.
I was unsuccessful as a recruit for National Life Insurance. I lasted just a couple of months. We wound up back in Dallas as I was able to be rehired at Collins Radio. At least we now had some income again. The year was 1967, and our furniture was in a friend’s barn out at Lake Lavon and we were homeless.
Three families made up the Church of Christ. As far as we knew, these were the only members of the Church of Christ in all of Wilson County, population about 14,000 in those days. They had met in a small native rock building for many years. The building was narrow and the part back of the pulpit area, probably intended for future Sunday school rooms, had never been completed, you stepped down to the dirt. The little building could not have held more than 30 persons, if that many. Our family of seven immediately doubled the attendance. The Bartlesville church offered us support, if I would get a new building built. We did, and it stands there today, on the north end of 8th St. We drove by it one time while going or coming from Topeka.
Before we went to Kansas, I had preached for a small congregation on the north shore of Lake Lavon in Collin County, Texas which, ironically, had more folks attending each Sunday morning than the Neodesha church. They had Sunday school all together and made a point to start the morning service a bit early, so that they could be out and home before noon. There was a woman in the congregation, who presented quite a formidable presence, who would fold her arms and clear her throat rather loudly as the clock neared the noon hour as the sermon labored on. I always took this, and wisely I think, as a subtle signal to bring it to a close. If I gained nothing else from that experience, the ability to be able to quickly wind it down and quit almost on cue has proven to be a useful homiletic tool at times. We were back in that area several years ago and drove by the old church building. It was falling down and was covered with high weeds and vines.
Thinking back on it, I wonder how they stood to listen to me. My thinking is that a lot of the rural churches, of any kind, get very used to providing the training ground for the younger minister. Its probably not that they are any less spiritual or less godly people, they just learn to overlook inexperience and youth and sometimes just turn off their switches when an especially bad sermon comes toward them. A caution to the young preacher: watch it when a parishioner tells you at the church door how much they “enjoyed” the message. But I digress.
One incident that occurred in our Kansas sojourn was truly a life-changing event. Carolyn got real sick. She was taken to Wichita in an ambulance and I followed in the car. She was admitted to St. Francis hospital, basically in a coma. The doctors in Neodesha did not know what her trouble was and sent her to a bigger hospital. The doctors at St. Francis did not have a clue either. One doctor told me as we walked down the hall, away from her room that she might die. That was a real comforting thought, knowing that back at home there were five children who would be in need of some kind of mothering if that occurred. This was, to me, an unacceptable prospect so I spent the next couple of days praying over her comatose body. I made a deal with God: raise her up and I would always be his minister. My point was that I loved her and I knew that God loved her, so since we both loved her, she needed to be awake to know it. Well, she came out of it and was discharged. She was weak for several months. My mother had come up to stay with the children and I guess was glad for the way it all turned out.
I signed a bill for about $1,800.00 and told the sisters there that I would pay when I could, as we did not have any insurance. I was grateful to God for having healed her. I would guess it was God, for it was not anything the hospital or the doctors did that brought her back.
So, God did his part. Now it was up to me to do mine. A few days later a couple showed up at the door and said that they had sold some land and wanted to tithe a portion of it and gave me a check for about $1,800.00 (which took care of the hospital bill). Talk about faith!
Being a new minister in town, I had met the Baptist preacher, the Assembly of God pastor, a delightful fellow with the Independent Christian church and the Disciples minister among others. Thus I became friends with and would get to visit with them from time to time as I became involved in the community. Something finally dawned upon me. All these men seemed to genuinely believe in God, in Jesus and the cross and held the scriptures in high esteem. They seemed to be very spiritual and very much at ease in their respective positions.
But something was wrong. All my life, from my youth up, it had been drilled into me as I sat and listened to sermon after sermon in rural southern churches decrying the various errors of the Baptists, the Methodists, the this and the that. It appeared to me and I was convinced that I was definitely in the right church believing the right message and worshiping God in the right way. I do not ever remember, and my memory may be faulty at my present age, but I can not recall ever hearing any preacher referring to the statement attributed to Alexander Campbell (a Scotch Presbyterian preacher who, with another Presbyterian, Barton Stone and others in the early 1800s began a movement to restore what they termed New Testament Christianity) that we were Christians only, but not the only Christians. Somehow that fact had either escaped me or I was never exposed to it.
As I said earlier, I do not now see how they stood me, but I am glad that I was tolerated. When we got to Kansas, I begin to understand that I was really ill-prepared for the job at hand, but Jesus said that we should not look back when our hand is put to the plow. I had to study a lot, because I had not done much of it in the past. I had to pray a lot, because I felt I really needed help from above. I remember working on the book of Romans and trying to see what Paul was trying to get across.
Well, trouble began to raise its head. I saw the other church folk from the “denominations” to be sincere and dedicated believers. I saw in Paul’s message to the Romans that the thing that really makes the difference is faith, or belief, or trust, in Jesus and not in ourselves or a in a group for that matter. It began to dawn on me that Jesus died on the cross and was raised on the third day and in that act, because he was without sin, was made sin for everyone who will accept that he arose victorious over sin and death and is right now at the right hand of the Father, being an advocate for any one who falls short. Salvation, then, is not an act, a ritual or a set of steps that one takes. Salvation is a free gift to anyone who can let go and let God, who can trust in what Jesus did, who can allow God to dwell in his or her spirit (the new birth). So, as I began to realize these things, that these people, these other church people were not necessarily wrong and that I, may in fact, have some ideas about religion, about church and about what its all about that may not be altogether right.
By now, I had begun to experience a genuine joy, able to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was my Father and that I actually had salvation and possessed eternal life here and now because of what Jesus had done for me. And that there were many more brethren out there than I had ever imagined!
I guess I got overly excited and misjudged my audience as I shared these things with them. They demanded my resignation. Later, in a called meeting in Coffeyville where there were representatives of several congregations from all over the area, I was formally forbidden to ever preach or teach or lead a prayer or lead a song in a Church of Christ because of my heresy.
I was unsuccessful as a recruit for National Life Insurance. I lasted just a couple of months. We wound up back in Dallas as I was able to be rehired at Collins Radio. At least we now had some income again. The year was 1967, and our furniture was in a friend’s barn out at Lake Lavon and we were homeless.
posted by David R. Snow at 9:32 PM
27 Comments:
Gotta watch out for those sessions of reading the scriptures and praying, all kinds of bizarre ideas pop up.
I kinda had the same experience at Tidwell. I don't know how they stood to listen to me. I also have learned to have sympathy for the preacher's wife. I think the whiplash of Sunday morning saint in the pulpit back to Monday evening jerk can be discomfiting.
Great story. Will you be relating it to smoking at some further point?
Wonderful post. I am sure you will remember that I was going through the same metamorphose at the time while a student at ACC. Actually, I had never fully embraced the tenants of the Church of Christ, but I went along not being exposed to anything different.
I remember a book that came out at the time--it was a collection of essays by current or former members of the CofC expressing their doubts and concerns over what had become of the movement started by Campbell and Stone a century or more earlier. If memory serves me correctly, I sent you a copy of it after I read it.
Also, about that time, I was introduced to The Hippopotumus, by T.S. Eliot:
THE BROAD-BACKED hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.
Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.
The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.
The ’potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.
At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.
The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.
I saw the ’potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.
Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.
He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
P.S. Ever notice how former preachers turn to Life Insurance to make a living when out of a church job? (Well, many do. I have known some who did nothing but sit around and feel sorry for themselves, but I digress...)
The late John Osteen tells of a time when he was still a prominent Baptist minister that he became disillusioned and left his pulpit and sold Life Insurance for a year. Actually, he was successful enough to provide for his family, but after a year he was miserable not preaching and returned to his true calling.
P.P.S. When I was in Tulsa in the 90's I was attending a church pastored by a family that had come out of the legalism of the United Pentacostal Church. The Pastor's father-in-law was a kindly old gentleman. He related how he broke free of the stifling legalism of the UPC--he was pastoring a church and innocently embarked on a study of Romans. By the time they got through, he came to an understanding and acceptance of grace, and simultaneously became a heretic to his denomination.
The end of the matter for me is:
RELIGION SUCKS! JESUS ROCKS!
If that offends your religious sensibilities, take the words of Jesus Himself:
You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. John 5:29-30(NKJV)
You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about Me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from Me the life you say you want. --The Message.
Or, as the prophet Amos put it (in contemporary language):
"I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to Me?
Do you know what I want? I want justice--oceans of it. I want fairness--rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want." —Amos 5:21ff The Message.
Well, I would guess from the response that I have inadvertently unleashed a watershed of memories and feelings. Yes, David, I do remember and appreciate your sending books at that time. I do not know exactly what triggered my insights.
However, I still believe that there is good in the churches if we would look for it. Probably, we will never see a perfect church in the physical realm, but I am convinced that it exists wonderfully in the spiritual realm right now with all those from the past who have died "in the Christ" and all those today who are in Him and all those who will be so in the future. Let's not give up on it yet.
Au contraire! I have not given up on the Church Universal, the Bride of Christ, the Royal Priesthood, the Chosen Nation. That is quite a different thing from the traditions of man called religion.
Jesus said He came to give us LIFE, and that more abundant. Religion tries to tell me what I can and can't do, and sets a mediator between me and God. Jesus invites us to meet God face-to-face. Religion tells us to sit down and shut up and do things the way we always have, and above all, be respectable.
Jesus prayed that His followers would all be one, even as He and the Father are one. Religion says "my way or the highway" and will destroy those who refuse to conform.
By your own testimony you saw that happen to you when you deviated from the rules of your denomination, the Church of Christ. It is not by any means limited to a certain denomination. In the middle ages, the Catholic church would put heretics on the rack or burn them at the stake. Islam, even today, beheads those considered infidels.
The far Left has replaced Christianity with secular humanism, a religion that has its rules, doctrines, and speech codes. Look at the major universities and many European countries where they have gained total control. Deviation from the standards and norms of that religion means banishment, verbal attacks, and sometimes even physical attacks. People have been jailed in European countries for so-called "hate speech."
Jesus said, "If the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed." Anything that tries to restrict my freedom is not from God.
I submit to you that it would make no difference if it were Secular Humanism, Communism, Islam, or legalistic Christianity--any of those given total control would do what ever necessary, including execution, to stop deviation from the group or system. This has been historically proven with Christianity in the Middle Ages and later, Islam throughout its history, and Communism.
More people have died over the centuries in relgious wars than all else combined, and we ain't seen nothing yet. The religious wars on the horizon will dwarf anything we have seen in the past.
Of course there are true followers of God in all the churches; it's always a matter of the heart. Is my faith in my traditions, and my ritual, or is it in Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God?
Jesus said that the Kingdom of God is within you. I have to assume that if I want to seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, I must look within myself.
Those are tenets, David. Tenants are those folks who call late on Friday afternoon after the plumbers have gone home to tell us that their toilet is overflowing.
On a weightier matter--I hear you about the churches and the rules. Even so, I need the fellowship.
Wow! This may such a big subject that it may require a blog of its own.
Carolyn
I will admit that I intended to use tenets; however, or reflection, I didn't much care for the tenants of the Church of Christ either.
As for fellowship, I agree, we all need fellowship, and if you find it in a church setting that does not drive your life nuts, that is great. I don't care what others do--I am not trying to evangelize or tell anyone else how to relate to God or man. I am simply stating the conclusions I have come to in 60 years on this earth.
Dave--you may be on to something about needing a new Blog. You should know that when you start relating your religious experiences, it will invoke comment, since everyone is affected in some way by relgion, even if it is the lack thereof.
There is a psychosocial paradigm that I can't think of the scientific name for at the moment, that assumes that people tend, in an attempt to make sense or justify an untenable situation or stance, to create a mental scenario to live in. I'm thinking that it might be a situation within a church body, or even outside a church affiliation that could be the trigger mechanism for such mental machinations.
English translation, please. I think I know of what you speak, but some clarification would be nice.
(Translation: Draw me a picture)!
We humans, finding ourselves to have taken a position that is dissonant, have a tendency to make up a good story for our minds to believe that justifies our position. This may well be especially true as we deal with subjectives like religion. One's religion, and we all have some kind of religion, i.e., core beliefs that we live by, can certainly, and most of the time does, cause of quite a bit of dissonance with our surroundings.
Well, if your are suggesting, as it seems you are, that everyone justifies his belief system, you are right of course. I would not hold ideas as a belief system if I did not believe them and have some justification that satisfied my mind.
I do believe there is untimate Truth, encased in the Person of Jesus, and I also believe, like Paul, that I see through a glass darkly, but when I see Him face-to-face (NOT WHEN THE CANON OF SCRIPTURES WAS FINALIZED) that I will see clearly and clearly understand those matters on which I am now lacking full understanding.
This reminds me of when I was a student at ACC, and there was much turmoil going on within the Church of Christ. Someone bought a full page advertisement in the Christian Chronicle that said simply:
From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth;
From the laziness that is content with half-truths;
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth;
O God of Truth, deliver us.
Perhaps the term is rationalization? Growing up in an overwhelmingly Catholic neighborhood (the Cathedral was a short two blocks down the street and around the corner), my experience was quite different. Confusion and conflict went with being 6 years old. My Catholic friends learned that they belonged to The One True Church. Then I went to church on Sunday to learn that I belonged to The One True Church. The Church of Christ was a very small group. Did that mean that all the rest of those people who believed just as devoutly were going to burn in Hell? And never mind all those other people calling themselves Christians (misguided, I learned)....At about the same time, I discovered The World..drove my mother insane with "Does everybody in the world know such-and-such, or just people in the US--or Wichita or my school?" ...So what about all the rest of the world anyway? The Jews? The Muslims (Moslems then)? The Buddhists, the Hindus? Was my really nice friend Zelda Witrogen really going to Hell because her family were Orthodox Jews and she got extra holidays from school? And what about Larry and Melvin who lived in Apartment 3 next door? And Chuzzy, the nice old guy who came around with his horse and cart selling fresh fruit and vegetables? Sometimes, around 4th grade, my best friend in the neighborhood, Clintene, was honored (yep, big honor) with the job of vacumming the Cathedral altar and I went with her. Was this really the house of the Devil? It was pretty spooky with just the two of us kids alone in that huge place. Why did some preacher put a handkerchief on his head and make fun of my friends' beliefs? I knew they knelt and covered their heads out of respect. What was so wrong with that? Nobody made fun of ME. And if the Church of Christ came directly from Jesus, who was this Campbell fellow nobody at church would explain to me? Did the Church of Christ just pop up out of nowhere and land at Maple and Walnut in Wichita, Kansas? That seemed like the magic of The Wizard of Oz to me. How did it get there without first being part of the Catholic church way back in history? Maybe we came from the Russian or Greek Orthodox people? Nope, straight from God...
You have certainly voiced thoughts thought at one time or another by all of us.
When I was about six, and we lived in that house across from the Sunshine Children's Home in Oklahoma City, I remember lying on the floor in the living room, reading something in the paper, and asking Mother how out of all the people that were in the world, why were we lucky enough to be born into that One True Church? I think I was a little cynical, also, Betty--we must have some of the same genes there.
I do not remember a clear answer. Don't think there was one.
I guess my experience is 180 degrees from the rest of you. I was raised in the Disciples of Christ. I was baptized at age 7 and I believe it took, but I started getting some bad advice. After about Caddo Mills (1970) I started learning about Edgar Cayce. Rather than wondering if the whole world was going to hell, I assumed that hell didn’t exist, and you kept coming back till you got it right. What happened then was anybody’s guess but it was supposed to be good. Rather than worrying about what was right I was learning from books like “The Age of Aquarius” and “The is a River,” and stuff about Atlantis (not the record company.) My assumption was that everybody was good and just do your own thing, man.
The Disciples was a good (bad) outfit for a heretic. We had pastors which didn’t believe in the resurrection. If you don’t something specific, you will believe anything generally. One thing I did find was a sort of stability. I had a friend from church camp which I knew through several moves. I would return to Athens every summer for several weeks of a very (to me) structured environment. Things were not so structured at home. I’m sure if they were I would’ve sought out less structure.
A lot of the time I thought of myself as an atheist. Then agnostic, then new ager, Buddhist. When I was at college at UT Austin, our College Pastor Faye Lee Decker, was reading to us about For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Therefore those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. If we have placed our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.
I realized that playing at religion didn’t make you spiritual it makes you a fool. I then began trying to believe everything I was supposed to but had a bunch of crap to still purge. Alice Ann helped me the most to get straight but I also credit the prayers of David and Pops who had his own revival before that point.
I now find the most comfort in what is called “Historical Christianity.” Like Mere Christianity I don’t compromise on the very basics. I am quite orthodox. On non critical points I have opinions, but no fire. Theology is a luxury like that.
I do believe that the local church is a non negotiable point. It is required that we be a member of faith community whatever that looks like. The only people who have an excuse are the isolated believers who really face persecution. The church has very many faces but there are no Lone Christians.
It can be frustrating being active in a local church, but very rewarding and think is God’s will we attend.
We all must find our own way but that doesn’t mean our own way is right.
Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
Just because the Church of Christ believed something doesn’t make it wrong.
I see you all going on and on about the events of the church during that time, but the part of this chapter that stood out to me was his love for his wife and family...
Good observation Ashley. But in a way the stuff about the church only matters because it is family as well.
Russell, I offer an apology to you as a father who was in search-mode for a time (probably at your most vulnurable age) so I did not (maybe was not able at the time) provide good solid parential direction on the spiritual front.
Wonder is, and praise be to God, that you turned out just fine in spite of it all.
Somehow, in all that, I found that Jesus died for me and became sin for me and took my place, so I could stand as one considered righteous before the Throne.
I'm glad you acknowledged your baptism. Sometimes as I am praying for my children, I ask the Father to remember that I did, personlly and in fact, baptize each of them in water and count them each and all as His children according to the Word, making them joint heirs.
So, Russell, forgive me for being a part of your grief and remember the advice I gave you at your ordination ceremony. Do not stray far from the idea that God so loved the world that He gave His Son, and as we look upon that cross and its meaning, and know that salvation is available, we have a hope that is real and absolute and unshakable, which is sealed by the Holy Spirit against that Great Day!
Dad
No apology needed. We are a sum of all we are, and God has used everything in my life to help others. I think we just need to take the crap that is us and put it on the alter, let fire from heaven purify it into a precious jewel.
I think the most ironic thing about this comment thread is that I was raised least conservatively and I am the most conservative.
Russell-perhaps your choice in a wife has much to do with your current views.
Ed:
Thank you for your comments, which always tend to be insightful.
When do we get chapter 8?
When it gets finished.
Dave, what a shock it must have been for you have experienced a wonderful epiphany and then to be so heavily castigated for it.
In another direction....haven't we been homeless long enough yet?
Not shock, as I can recall, and not without expectation either.
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