- Mar 17, 2005
- 16,491
- 1,369
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
I was born in El Dorado KS outside of Wichita but my family eventually moved to SW Missouri near Springfield. I still consider it my home though I live in PA now. Mom was raised Baptist and her father was a Baptist minister though he died before I was born. Father was raised Catholic. I have two brothers. In spite of all this religion was not a big thing in our house. We were sent to VBS when younger and there was a spell where a church bus from a Baptist church in town would pick us boys up and take us to church, but the bus driver was-I'll just say he wasn't a good guy.
I was generally in the top 10% of my class in school-honor rolls and that sort of thing. But I eventually decided that I was smarter than anyone else and dropped out of school (with my parents blessings as long as I had a GED) after 11th grade and joined the Marine Corps.
While stationed in Camp LeJeune (2d Bn, 10th Mar, 2d MarDiv) I met up with a guy that God would eventually use to change my life. He was a Christian guy that would often catch me before I was headed out to the club or someplace and we'd talk about things. He always told me to come see him sometime in Pennsylvania.
After I got out I spent a year in Wyoming and eventually found myself back in MO. I fell in with a drug dealer and helped him in his business of buying and selling pot, coke, and meth. Mostly meth. I carried a gun and thankfully never used it on anyone. I became partial to meth-unless experienced I can hardly explain the sensation. Unlike other drugs you have complete control of your senses. It's just that there is this HUGE energy that's been dumped into you and you can just go for days. The crash is big and it creates a nasty cycle + there is all the other dope that's always around.
Anyhow, after about a year of that I found myself searching again. We were sitting on a bunch of pot with Fed/DEA cops in the area (the locals were never an issue, at least back then). I had had enough of the "feast or famine" lifestyle and decided to run away. I sold my car for $80 and bought a bus ticket to see my Marine friend in PA.
So Halloween of '87 I climbed onto a bus for the long ride to PA. I eventually showed up on his family's doorstep and they welcomed me in. I thought it strange they didn't have a TV but whatever. I had a job within 3 hours with the construction company he worked for. He was still living with his parents at the time-always socking away the $ and working toward his dream. He wanted a wife and family and a place in the mountains (and eventually got all we was seeking and now spends much of his time doing mission work in Appalachia-one of the very few people I know that set a plan and diligently followed it). His family went to church, prayed at meals, and generally were very different from what I was used to.
My friend led me to the Lord in the backseat of an old Dodge Dart. I'm not saying he "forced" me, but he did essentially confront me-one of those "Now you know, now what are you going to do with it" sort of things. So I repented and received Christ Nov 19, 1987.
I eventually went to work for his brother's in-laws. They had a tiny little shop that made bathroom sinks. It's a product called "cultured marble". The owner was a retired Mennonite preacher. 'Course I had no clue what that was but it was work. The owner and son were the only full time employees, and there were three part timers there. I became a full time. It was an interesting environment, and a time in my life I will treasure forever. You could not have found a richer place for a new Christian to be than in that incubator. When I first learned of the non-resistant doctrine they taught I knew they were wrong-afterall I was a Marine. But as time went on I began to learn more about the whole picture.
At this time I was going to my friend's church and began dating his cousin. She would eventuallly agree to marry me and be my wife. She grew up in that church-in fact she was carried into in after she was born on a pillow (she was born premie-30 oz at birth. That was a record at the hospital in 1960).
While we were courting my interest in the anabaptists grew and not long after we married we began going to a Mennonite church. That lasted for a few years. This was not a very conservative church-a few plain older people. Problem was (and is) that the denom is in a huge state of flux. It is as though the younger was ashamed of the older and wanted to be more relevant and modern and as a result of throwing off the older ways have embraced some modernism. Anyhow shortly after our first son was born we moved on.
During our time with the Mennonites I was studying the writings of RC Sproul and such and that led me into calvinism. I embraced it whole-heartedly. I eventually found myself in an Evangelical Free church with a rather calvinist but terrific pastor. It was a very small church-almost a street mission sort of thing. But shortly after the birth of my second son the church closed and we found ourselves wandering again. We eventually found ourselved in a Reformed Baptist congregation in town.
During this my workplace went through some changes. The owner died, and the son sold the company to a corporation in Lancaster County. They began growing the company. Whereas it began with 3 full time people, it was continuing to grow, and since I was the senior guy, more responsibility fell to me.
The Reformed Baptist congregation was polite if not overly friendly. It was the most intellectual group of people I had ever been around. The SS classes should count toward college credit. But it was calvinist and it seemed very withdrawn into itself. And there was a sense that if you didn't fit in then move along. We went there for 2-3 years and the pastor NEVER called me or sent a note asking how things were going or if I though I'd want to be a member or anything like that. It was a congregation of maybe 60-80. I attended men's book study (wasn't a bible study-rather it was christian book study) and it was interesting at times. But it still wasn't home. And during this dry spell I returned to the anabaptist writings and was soured on calvinism.
I began going to Wednesday night bible study at a church up the road. Some friends of ours went there and my oldest son was going to their Wed meetings. It was an American Baptist church. There was a time I would not darken the door of such a liberal denom as the ABC. I knew they were affiliated with the NCC and that they ordained women-things I didn't agree with. But I was just so tired and hungry that I went anyhow. The pastor was from Sri Lanka and was soon to retire, and was a very apt teacher. Eventually (there's that word again) we ended up going there and are still there today. It really is something of a trainwreck-pastor has retired, very little leadership, the lady lay pastor and one of the lady deacons let their daughters dress in a manner that would make Britney Spears look like a nun. Once again I am in a place that doesn't fit.
In the mean time our company has 100 employees and I am the Operations Manager. I answer to a VP and a President, but also in many ways to all my production workers and supervisors I have on the floor. So on top of working through spiritual issues I have responsibility to these people to keep this factory running efficiently and profitably so they all will have work in the future and will continue to provide for their families.
My wife's brother died last November (lung cancer at 42) and left me this computer. So in Feb I began checking out the Christian forums and ended up at CF. It was a fascinating thing to discover.
Love and Peace to all...
Jim
I was generally in the top 10% of my class in school-honor rolls and that sort of thing. But I eventually decided that I was smarter than anyone else and dropped out of school (with my parents blessings as long as I had a GED) after 11th grade and joined the Marine Corps.
While stationed in Camp LeJeune (2d Bn, 10th Mar, 2d MarDiv) I met up with a guy that God would eventually use to change my life. He was a Christian guy that would often catch me before I was headed out to the club or someplace and we'd talk about things. He always told me to come see him sometime in Pennsylvania.
After I got out I spent a year in Wyoming and eventually found myself back in MO. I fell in with a drug dealer and helped him in his business of buying and selling pot, coke, and meth. Mostly meth. I carried a gun and thankfully never used it on anyone. I became partial to meth-unless experienced I can hardly explain the sensation. Unlike other drugs you have complete control of your senses. It's just that there is this HUGE energy that's been dumped into you and you can just go for days. The crash is big and it creates a nasty cycle + there is all the other dope that's always around.
Anyhow, after about a year of that I found myself searching again. We were sitting on a bunch of pot with Fed/DEA cops in the area (the locals were never an issue, at least back then). I had had enough of the "feast or famine" lifestyle and decided to run away. I sold my car for $80 and bought a bus ticket to see my Marine friend in PA.
So Halloween of '87 I climbed onto a bus for the long ride to PA. I eventually showed up on his family's doorstep and they welcomed me in. I thought it strange they didn't have a TV but whatever. I had a job within 3 hours with the construction company he worked for. He was still living with his parents at the time-always socking away the $ and working toward his dream. He wanted a wife and family and a place in the mountains (and eventually got all we was seeking and now spends much of his time doing mission work in Appalachia-one of the very few people I know that set a plan and diligently followed it). His family went to church, prayed at meals, and generally were very different from what I was used to.
My friend led me to the Lord in the backseat of an old Dodge Dart. I'm not saying he "forced" me, but he did essentially confront me-one of those "Now you know, now what are you going to do with it" sort of things. So I repented and received Christ Nov 19, 1987.
I eventually went to work for his brother's in-laws. They had a tiny little shop that made bathroom sinks. It's a product called "cultured marble". The owner was a retired Mennonite preacher. 'Course I had no clue what that was but it was work. The owner and son were the only full time employees, and there were three part timers there. I became a full time. It was an interesting environment, and a time in my life I will treasure forever. You could not have found a richer place for a new Christian to be than in that incubator. When I first learned of the non-resistant doctrine they taught I knew they were wrong-afterall I was a Marine. But as time went on I began to learn more about the whole picture.
At this time I was going to my friend's church and began dating his cousin. She would eventuallly agree to marry me and be my wife. She grew up in that church-in fact she was carried into in after she was born on a pillow (she was born premie-30 oz at birth. That was a record at the hospital in 1960).
While we were courting my interest in the anabaptists grew and not long after we married we began going to a Mennonite church. That lasted for a few years. This was not a very conservative church-a few plain older people. Problem was (and is) that the denom is in a huge state of flux. It is as though the younger was ashamed of the older and wanted to be more relevant and modern and as a result of throwing off the older ways have embraced some modernism. Anyhow shortly after our first son was born we moved on.
During our time with the Mennonites I was studying the writings of RC Sproul and such and that led me into calvinism. I embraced it whole-heartedly. I eventually found myself in an Evangelical Free church with a rather calvinist but terrific pastor. It was a very small church-almost a street mission sort of thing. But shortly after the birth of my second son the church closed and we found ourselves wandering again. We eventually found ourselved in a Reformed Baptist congregation in town.
During this my workplace went through some changes. The owner died, and the son sold the company to a corporation in Lancaster County. They began growing the company. Whereas it began with 3 full time people, it was continuing to grow, and since I was the senior guy, more responsibility fell to me.
The Reformed Baptist congregation was polite if not overly friendly. It was the most intellectual group of people I had ever been around. The SS classes should count toward college credit. But it was calvinist and it seemed very withdrawn into itself. And there was a sense that if you didn't fit in then move along. We went there for 2-3 years and the pastor NEVER called me or sent a note asking how things were going or if I though I'd want to be a member or anything like that. It was a congregation of maybe 60-80. I attended men's book study (wasn't a bible study-rather it was christian book study) and it was interesting at times. But it still wasn't home. And during this dry spell I returned to the anabaptist writings and was soured on calvinism.
I began going to Wednesday night bible study at a church up the road. Some friends of ours went there and my oldest son was going to their Wed meetings. It was an American Baptist church. There was a time I would not darken the door of such a liberal denom as the ABC. I knew they were affiliated with the NCC and that they ordained women-things I didn't agree with. But I was just so tired and hungry that I went anyhow. The pastor was from Sri Lanka and was soon to retire, and was a very apt teacher. Eventually (there's that word again) we ended up going there and are still there today. It really is something of a trainwreck-pastor has retired, very little leadership, the lady lay pastor and one of the lady deacons let their daughters dress in a manner that would make Britney Spears look like a nun. Once again I am in a place that doesn't fit.
In the mean time our company has 100 employees and I am the Operations Manager. I answer to a VP and a President, but also in many ways to all my production workers and supervisors I have on the floor. So on top of working through spiritual issues I have responsibility to these people to keep this factory running efficiently and profitably so they all will have work in the future and will continue to provide for their families.
My wife's brother died last November (lung cancer at 42) and left me this computer. So in Feb I began checking out the Christian forums and ended up at CF. It was a fascinating thing to discover.
Love and Peace to all...
Jim
