How I came to Christ

I was raised in an average blue collar suburban family of the 1950’s and ’60’s. The family included Dad who worked, Mom who stayed home, three sons, and various dogs and cats through the years. We were the typical post WW2 family chasing the American dream. During my elementary school years we lived in a new sub-division in a new split level home. Though my father was a factory worker and didn’t wear suits and ties we looked much like the “Ozzie and Harriet” or “Father Knows Best” families that we saw on TV. Chasing the American dream and catching it would not be my family’s reality.  There was never enough  to make everyone happy. A heritage of alcoholism and a broken first marriage hung like a pall over my mother’s second marriage to my father.

My parents were not religious. There was a very large family Bible on a bookshelf which was, I believe, a gift to them from my paternal grand-parents for their wedding. In all my years living with my parents I never saw either of them pick it up and read it, and we never attended church.

In spite of the lack of spiritual influence in my life I was God conscious at an early age. I don’t remember ever questioning the existence of God. As a first grader I remember being invited to go to church with a neighboring family.  It turned out to not be a good experience and I didn’t go again. I have some memories of talking or praying to God at an early age. I was a reader and read anything and everything I could. Through books, at about age 10, I began to seek some knowledge of anything supernatural. I read several books about supernatural phenomena but was frustrated by no real experience. I read stories of flying saucers and hoped to see one, but never did. I occasionally flipped through my parent’s Bible, mostly looking at the pictures of Biblical events.

As I entered my teen years our family began to crash and burn. Anger and alcoholism took their toll and paid off with despair and destruction. When I graduated 6^th grade everyone in our graduating class received a Gideon’s New Testament I put it with other books on my bookshelf. Fifth through seventh grade was a nightmare, as my parents struggled with their marriage. We moved and I did not fit into the new school. I was lonely and depressed. We moved again the next year to another home and a new school in a small community. During that time, I began to try and read my New Testament but could not make sense of it. I continued to look toward the supernatural and reincarnation to help understand my desire for something more than I was experiencing in life. During the next several years I went to church twice, but I couldn’t see any reason why people would waste a Sunday morning do so.

When I was 14 a local Masonic lodge offered a scholarship every year for one young teen in our little town to attend summer camp. I was invited and my Dad encouraged me to go primarily because he was interested keeping those who invited me happy. The camp was a typical summer camp, offering swimming, fishing and other camp related activities. Looking back, I understand now that it was a Christian camp. Every night there was a campfire and the leader spoke about Christ and had a devotional talk. Near the end of the week, I spoke with this man and he led me in a prayer to receive Christ. I did so, but I was not really sure what I had done. There was no follow up to help me either. Around this same time period I again tried to read my New Testament, but it was unfathomable. The only thing that I thought I understood was that divorce would probably send my mom to hell. I discovered a sinner’s prayer printed in the back of the book. I remember filling it out and dating it but there was still no real change that happened in my life. I was sincere in doing so. There was no one in my life to teach me or mentor me.

Probably a year later, I was invited by some church going people in our little community, to attend a free film at the local theater. Unknown to me, it was a Billy Graham evangelistic movie. I attended that night and responded to an “invitation” to speak to someone about “receiving Christ.” I don’t remember much more than that. I assume that I prayed what I later came to know as the “sinner’s prayer.” The leaders did follow up, enrolling me in a 6 lesson Bible study. Every lesson completed was followed up by receiving a new lesson each week. A church couple visited me at my father’s store, where I worked in the evening. They talked to me briefly and gave me the next lesson.  I completed all the lessons, received a completion certificate and don’ think that I ever heard from them again. Once again, there was no real change in me.

Life continued on. It was now the tumultuous late 1960s Our country was in turmoil political assassinations, the Viet Nam war, rock and roll and the hippie movement. I was attracted to the hippie movement, grew my hair out and loved listening to hard rock. I could see, however, that the idealism of the Hippie sub-culture was impossible for people to actually live out. Instead of love and peace the reality seemed to be more about revolution, drugs and sexual exploitation. In 1970 there were rumors of a “Jesus Movement” and hippies who followed Jesus. Time and Look magazine both had articles about what was happening in California and other places. It sounded interesting, but I was still in high school and going to California was not an option for me.

My senior year in high school was both good and not so good. I enjoyed being in school, but my family life was basically destroyed. My mother had finally moved out and continued her deep slide into alcoholism. My father, never a happy man, continued his own destructive journey.  Drugs came late to central Indiana farm and factory communities but by 1970-71 marijuana and other drugs were making headway. Drugs were never appealing to me, though I did smoke marijuana several times and experimented with harder drugs twice. I thought drugs were a waste of time and the deaths of several of my music idols seemed to confirm it.

One day at school I was hanging out in the library where I spent most of my free time. I was browsing through some books and noticed a new paperback book called “The Cross and the Switchblade.” Without properly checking the book out of the library I slipped it into my back pocket and took the book home to read. That night as I read I was fascinated by the story of a young hick preacher going to the slums of New York City and seeing heroin addicts and others become Christians and set free from their addiction. As I finished the book I was crying and asked God to help me find some real Christians like the ones I was reading about. 

Several weeks later, while helping clean out a house where my Grandmother had lived, I came across another book. It was titled “God’s Smuggler.” The title was intriguing, so rather than toss it into the trash I took it home. The book was about a Dutch man who was hard and bitter from war, but who finds Christ. He enrolled in a Bible College and then decides to dedicate his life to smuggling Bibles into the Soviet Union. I found the book to be fascinating and inspiring. Upon completing the book, I felt the Spirt of the God whom I barely knew tell me that sometime in the future I would serve Him in Russia. Yet, still I was not following Christ openly and really had no idea how to do so.

Soon after reading this book, I had a visit from my oldest half-brother. He and his wife had recently started attending church and they asked me if I would visit with them to see a special young person’s program. I really had no desire for church, but I agreed to go. My brother told me, “maybe you will see some pretty girls!” What 18-year-old male is not interested in pretty girls? On Wednesday evening that week they picked me up and took me to church. It was late February 1971.

I was not a church goer, and I certainly was not going to dress up for church.  I was 5’10” and weighed 129 lbs. I had a full blond afro haircut and in our conservative farming community it was not uncommon to have strangers come up to me and tell me that I needed to cut my hair. I wore ragged bell-bottomed jeans, combat boots, a pullover shirt with peace symbols in the design and suspenders embroidered with peace symbols. Looking back in time, it is a wonder that my brother agreed to take me.  To say I clashed with the conservative church culture would be an understatement.

I expected the church people to reject me. Instead, I was warmly welcomed to the service, I actually received a few hugs, which surprised me. There was a buzz of excitement as we found our seats, smack in the middle, just a few rows from the front of the church. Soon a group of Bible college students came to the platform. They had a guitar or two and perhaps some other instruments. The students were just a year or two older than me, which made me feel comfortable, and some of the girls were indeed cute! Soon they began to sing along with the church pianist and the crowd. The songs were new to me, but mostly easy to sing Gospel choruses. I had always enjoyed singing and tried to sing along. I was a little surprised to see some people raising their hands while singing. I supposed it was some sort of religious thing people did. There were a couple of Scriptures read, nothing that I knew, and then the Bible School students took over for the evening.

The students interspersed personal stories with songs, telling the crowd about Christ and what He meant to them. I remember one young guy talking about how powerful and great God was.  He said that his dog had been run over as he watched. He was horrified but ran into the street and began to pray for his now dead dog, commanding it to “be healed in the name of Jesus!”  According to his story the dog got right up and ran home.  I was skeptical but the story resonated with the church people.

After songs and stories, the meeting began to reach a climax as the student leader preached a short message. To this day I have no memory of what he preached but it touched me in a way that I needed to be touched. I know he spoke about being saved and going to heaven. I was not sure about heaven, but I knew I had a sin problem and for several years I had been trying to deal with it. With another song the meeting came to an end with the leader inviting anyone who wanted to receive Christ to come forward for prayer.

Much to the surprise of my brother Chuck and his wife, I pushed my way out of the pews and made my way to the front. The Bible school team was there praying for individuals. As I approached a male team member, he asked me, “why have you come forward?” My first thought was to say, “Because you told us to, stupid!” Instead, I spilled out the words, “I think I need to be saved.”  He led me through what I later learned was a pretty standard evangelical, “come to Jesus” prayer.” After praying he declared me “saved”, and told me to not let the Devil tell me otherwise. I thought to myself, “Devil, these guys believe in a Devil?”

Soon my beaming family found me and introduced me to some church friends.  I felt good, knowing that something had happened, but not sure what. Church ended, we filed out and my brother drove me home. He also encouraged me to not let the devil confuse me and encouraged me to start coming to church.

The evening had been exhilarating, emotional and somewhat confusing as I tried to negotiate my way through the evangelical language and sub-cultural experience. As I went to bed that night, I remember breathing a small prayer, asking God to show me what had happened if indeed anything at all had happened. When I awoke the next morning the first thought that came to my mind was, “I don’t know what happened last night, but something has changed.” I felt clean inside. While my personal circumstances had not changed yet I knew for the first time that the creator of the universes cared for me as an individual. I knew I was loved, accepted and had value to God.

It was from that day that I began to earnestly try to follow after Christ. The first year was not easy. I had many ups and downs, but I knew who I was, what I had been created for and that I would serve the Lord for the rest of my days.