My Testimony

I came to Christ mainly due to the intellectual realization that Jesus Christ is truth. That/He has kept me since April, 1995.

I actually suspected that He was truth a year or 2 before I chose to become a born-again Christian. My decision was influenced by my older brother, who was saved 2 years prior. He is now attempting to plant his first church, and is also still working full time as an auto mechanic in Georgia.

Steve's testimony was powerful, and I could no longer deny that Jesus Christ was real, but I was afraid of the level and type of commitment required by his Pentecostal denomination.

I met ~ once a week with a Baptist campus minister for about 2 years, and his patience helped break me down somehow. He could answer my apologetic/intellectual questions that Steve did not. Also, he helped me filter Steve's denominational beliefs from the gospel itself, to some extent.

Another Pentecostal/Charismatic Church in town had another campus outreach (this is at the University of GA). They preached total and continual commitment to Christ like Steve's church, but with more of an individualized "as you are led by individually by the spirit" approach. That I could commit to, since I never quite fit in any one's box, except now I fit in God's. I think I only made it through a few visits to that Church before I stood up to repeat a prayer (well, most of the prayer.. some of it, I did not understand) after the preacher. They had baptismal services um, I think triennially, and I did that about a year later. It was awesome.

Having gone through the cultural car accident of becoming "Christianized", I feel compassion for unbelievers who are shy about their sincere questions, afraid of Christian cultural nuances, afraid of being manipulated, participating in liturgy that they do not understand, signing before they are given a chance to read document (so to speak)... etc.

That is part of the reason I created thisGospel dot com: to help interested people filter through all that, find the gospel, and respond to it. I still have a heart for the intelligent non-Christians who get turned off by the un and extra-biblical requirements and social pressures associated with "Church". The Lord seems to direct them to me or my website, and I appreciate that.

The pastor of that Church started to move us in a House/Cell/Home Church direction, and so I planted and oversaw a few of those (while finishing my Masters) before taking one of my house church leaders to Africa on a Church planting mission to reach the Pygmies with the Gospel for the first time. He and I made many disciples from unbelievers, mostly here but also in Africa, and we are still best friends. He provides the web hosting for thisgospel.com.

In fact, I just heard last month that one of the young men I was witnessing to first in Africa and then via email is now a strong believer. I lost touch with him but the president of the missions agency for whom I am on the board of directors phoned me to say that the man recently volunteered to help out with our missions organization, bread for life dot org.

So there is some past, present and some future about my walk with the Lord. Written ~2007