Testimonium

I am one of those privileged fellows, able to begin my testimony with, “I was raised in a Christian home.” In fact, my family tree displays a great, long, line of individuals who can share in that testimony. My father, Bill, was raised in the “Church of Christ” (of the Campbellite variety), and my mother, Janice was raised in the “General-Baptist” church. Naturally, upon their nuptials, my mother and father both identified themselves as “Baptist.” Before my first birthday, for varying reasons, my parents decided to move across the mighty Ohio to live in Southern Indiana – this would be the place I’d call home for the next seventeen years, until I left for college. I myself was raised in the “Southern-Baptist” church tradition.
Having been raised in church, I cannot recall a time when I did not believe in the Lordship and bodily resurrection of Christ. When I was six years old, I found myself extremely curious about the practiced ordinance of baptism, which I observed frequently on Sunday mornings at Church. After petitioning my mother on several occasions for my own baptism, she became concerned, not knowing if a six-year-old child was actually capable of regenerate faith (1). I recall one warm November afternoon, when my childhood pastor came to my home to join us for lunch (upon my mother’s request). After lunch, having asking me a series of questions regarding scripture and salvation, he happily announced, “Todd understands!” He proceeded to lead me through a childlike version of the sinner’s prayer (little did he know, I had already done so, on my own, months prior), and ended the afternoon with a game of Frisbee in the yard. I was baptized a month later.

The Church does not always live up to Christ’s ideal for His Bride – long before I received any serious theological training, or knew about the nature of the visible/invisible Church, this was the lesson I learned. I discovered, fairly quickly in my Christian life, that the very simple directive given in the Great Commission is very frequently ignored. While my church accepted its instruction to baptize disciples (2), it seems that she completely ignored verse twenty of Matthew’s twenty-eighth chapter; teach them to obey everything I have commanded you – for I (and not just myself, but everyone I observed) was terribly neglected in this second aspect of discipleship (3). While I understood the need for daily, personal Bible study, I had no clue how to read and interpret my copy of Scripture. And, although I loved to sing and to play instruments in Church, no one ever taught me that worship is for God’s glory and not for mine.

I did not understand my church’s failure to disciple, and my failure as a disciple until I was about to enter the eighth grade. One year earlier, my mother had made tremendous sacrifices in order to send me to a private Christian school – one of the greatest blessings in my life. Having daily Bible classes in school tremendously boosted my Biblical literacy and helped me to better develop personal spiritual disciplines (4). During this time, I became more sensitive to spiritual matters, particularly to the fact that God’s Word had direct and intended implications for my life. In August, just weeks before I would return to classes and begin my last year of middle school, I was able to attend the Youth Evangelism Conference (held annually by the State Convention of Baptists in Indiana) in Anderson, Indiana.

I do not recall who spoke or who led the worship, I am uncertain which passage of Scripture was preached, and I cannot even remember where I was sitting, but I know that I encountered God in a powerful and life altering way during the 1997 Youth Evangelism Conference. Like the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, I stood in the holy presence of God and He ruined me. Never before in my life can I recall such a feeling, such conviction of sin – both personal and collective – leading me to repentance. Up to this point, I had never so much as raised a hand in worship (5), and now I found myself face to the ground in contrition – I felt as though I could not possibly get low enough before the Sovereign of the Universe – and I wept. In that moment, I found grace in a profound new way. So many things were communicated to me as I lay on the cold concrete floor of that auditorium, not verbally, but clearly. I left that place knowing that God was calling me to ministry, both future and immediate.

Right away, I began to find new ways to serve in the church, and I did so, quite passionately, however, I remained silent about my experience in Anderson. It would be another year before I told another living soul that I knew without a doubt that God had ordained that I should follow Him in vocational ministry. In the meantime, I began to use my musical talents to lead worship for my youth group before Sunday school and on Wednesday youth meetings. I soon became convicted about the lack of discipleship taking place within the youth group (6), which spent most of its time playing games, rather than studying the Word. Over the next few months, I frequently encouraged my youth leader to start weekly discipleship cell groups – he had no interest.

Following my conviction, I eventually rebuked my youth leader for his lack of concern for the spiritual health of the students under his care, and again, I was ignored. This was a serious problem, which the church as a whole had no interest in correcting. At the time, my church was currently enveloped in a battle over its leadership. Several of the deacons falsely accused our pastor of having an extramarital affair in order to “run him off,” and no one had any interest in dealing with the problems in the youth group. Ultimately, the pastor, who I call “Pastor David”, a good friend and mentor to me, left that church, leaving the youth leader as the only officer to the congregation. The combination of righteous indignation alongside youthful immaturity is never a good thing, and in my case this was especially so. Not being slowed down in the least by my youth leader’s irresponsibility, I personally developed a discipleship ministry for the youth group, and it was quite successful, despite my disregard for the authority of the youth leader, however irresponsible. Six months later, that particular youth leader was forced to resign, after the congregation discovered that he had been involved in trafficking illegal drugs to minors. Several individuals in the church apologized for ignoring me, and this further led to problems, as I now possessed righteous indignation, youthful immaturity and pride.

With my newfound pride I fell into a great sin – not loving people. I now knew a considerable amount about Scripture, and within its pages I found an ideal for the church – one, which was not found in the church herself, and this led me to righteous indignation. I had heard the stories about the great revivals in church history, and how many of them had been started by the youth of those generations. Now, in my youthful immaturity and immense arrogance, I began to believe that I myself fit into Christ’s ideal for His Church, and that, somehow, it was my job to make the rest of the church conform to it, beginning with the youth group. My desire, purity within the church, was righteous, but my means were completely incorrect; I loved God, but not His people. This was a heavy lesson for a high school student to learn – one, which I still struggle with today.

Going into college, I knew, without a doubt, the calling God had upon my life, and it seemed entirely futile to pursue an education in anything other than Christian Studies. Furthermore, I felt that I would not be trusting God to provide for my life and ministry, if I earned a degree in anything else. With this in mind, I began my studies at Ouachita Baptist University, a small, private liberal arts school, located in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. During my time at Ouachita, I found several opportunities to minister within the church, as well as with para-church ministries. I served the music, youth and collegiate ministries at Park Hill Baptist Church for the four years I lived in Arkadelphia. I also supplied Park Hill’s pulpit once or twice, when the pastor was out of town. I was able to form a worship band on campus, which would travel throughout the state, performing at revivals, conferences and other gatherings. This was a wonderful opportunity to build a close-knit group of friends, who would frequently minister to one-another’s needs. During my third year at Ouachita, I discovered a fantastic prison ministry called Kairos, and quickly got involved. Every Tuesday evening, I would join a very diverse group of individuals in the Kairos-Torch ministry at Alexander Juvenile Detention Center, in the maximum-security unit. Here I was able to lead worship, teach bible studies, personally disciple inmates and preach the gospel.

I was especially privileged to have the opportunity to minister in Fairbanks, Alaska, during the summer after my sophomore year in college. From May through August, I served primarily as the youth minister, but my job description grew considerably over those four months. Three days after my arrival in Fairbanks, the only pastor/elder in this congregational Baptist church departed to the “lower 48” for vacation, leaving me as the only minister present. Shortly after departing, the pastor’s mother had a stroke, which extended his vacation through the middle of July. I was alone, and I was responsible. Aside from the task of being youth minister, I also became director of missions (receiving & hosting more than 40 missionaries in two months, and directing back-yard bible clubs for three weeks), worship leader, pulpit supply, church secretary and business moderator. It was during this time that God truly gave me insight into the missionary-pastor’s heart (7).

My studies at Ouachita were also profitable, but perhaps not in the most likely ways. I came to Ouachita a moderate Baptist with extreme Arminian theology and many doctrines that should have been condemned as heretical, but were not. I could be justified in redefining my B.A. in Christian Studies as a B.A. in neo-orthodoxy, with an emphasis in the writings of Greg Boyd. Despite my theological errors, I was not impressed with the search for the “historical” Jesus or with the fallacies of “Open-Theism.” By the end of my junior year at OBU, I was convinced that openness theology must be the logical conclusion of my soteriology. Since I knew, without a doubt, that the god of Open-Theism was not the God of revealed Scripture, I concluded that my soteriology needed to change. And so, much to the chagrin of many of my peers and professors, I became a Calvinist, and in response, I changed considerably as a person. Trusting in the Sovereignty of God, and laying aside any merit, which I might have credited to myself was not simply a change in doctrine; it changed the way I read Scripture, the way I pray, they way I preach, evangelize and lead worship – and it has been a change for the better.

Ultimately, my newfound reformed convictions have brought about a denominational change. Two major events led to my departure from the Southern-Baptist Convention into the Presbyterian Church in America; first, the June 2006 SBC annual meeting, and second, my previous post, serving in a “reformed” SBC church. The SBC annual meeting in North Carolina, brought about the realization that my theology put me at odds with the overwhelming majority of Southern-Baptists. Although I was beginning to see the case for the Presbyterian view of Sacraments, I hadn’t yet fully embraced paedo-baptism – unbelievably, it was the doctrines of grace that distinguished me from most in my denomination. I was dumbfounded to hear the order of business, which set aside an ad-hoc committee to “research the mal-effects of Calvinism on our churches, and to report back to the convention in 2007.” It was then, when I realized that I did not have much of a future as a Southern-Baptist pastor. During this same time, I began to have problems in the Church where I was on staff. Reasons for these problems and the specifics thereof shall remain untold, as some of my readers are still associated with that church, and I have no desire to cause problems. Nonetheless, by August, I realized that my present status, and not only my future with the SBC was an issue for debate. In September, I resigned from my post – the culmination of personal, theological and eventually practical distinctions between myself, and the Baptist church as a whole. In October, after much prayer and study, I found that I was able to affirm the Westminster Standards as a whole and decided to pursue life and ministry in the Presbyterian Church in America.

Every course of action I take, is taken to further my ability to follow and live out God’s calling, or as Westminster so beautifully states, “to glorify and enjoy God.” Seminary training is the next, most obvious step in my pilgrimage. God has called me to preach the Gospel, to teach His Word; so, as I see it, the more I learn, the better I can serve. Ultimately, I would like to pastor, and I feel especially burdened to plant churches in the Ohio Valley region. With this ministry in mind, and being the pragmatist that I am, I am pursuing my MDiv in “Church Growth, Planting and Renewal.” So, at the first of August, I will be moving to St. Louis to begin my studies at Covenant Theological Seminary. I appreciate your support and I covet your prayers. Soli Deo Gloria.


Footnotes:

(1) Being Southern Baptist, my mother believed it necessary that I proved my regenerate status before undertaking baptism.
(2) Although, I have come to interpret this aspect of the Great commission differently than the Baptists, I will grant that they do interpret it (rather than ignore it).
(3) Years later, I discussed this with my childhood pastor (who has been a wonderful mentor in recent years, and with whom I am still very good friends). He responded in telling me that he expected my parents to disciple me. The problem was that no one ever discipled my parents, or their parents before them. This great failure has led me to my current conviction for indiscriminate, thorough discipleship within the Church.
(4) Or “piety.”
(5) The church where I grew up was extremely traditional.
(6) Which, at the time was treated as a separate church, within the church – (among Congregationalists, this is a frequent mindset, which I have come to detest).
(7) And multi-tasking skills.