Spiritual Biography

This is a paper that I wrote for a class at school. As you read it, please note that it was written in Spring 1999. It's not my whole story, but it'll give you some idea of where I'm coming from.

Please keep in mind that this is directed towards someone who is very familiar with Christianity and the lingo that goes with it. I will try to edit this to make it more understandable. If you have any questions about any of it, email me.

There's also some javascript buttons I put in earlier when I was trying stuff out (don't worry, I'm not impressed either).

I've pretty much grown up knowing who God was and going to church and all that jazz. It took me a long time, however, to find out what a relationship with Him was really about.

When I was in the fourth grade, my family started going to a new church. During their worship service, I went to children's church. I can't remember the name of the service's leader, but I think that it was Moses. I say that because at the time of the altar call, the room would part. Half of us would go to his right and "accept Jesus," and the other would go to his left, and "rededicate our lives"--every week. Although I really had no concept of what it meant, I was pretty confident that I was saved--shoot, I had asked Jesus to save me so many times that He couldn't have refused, right?

My middle school years were a mess. In the two years that it had been since I "got saved" all of those times, I had really forgotten who God was. I was a pretty quiet kid, and ended up getting picked on a lot. I also was in a constant search to climb the social ladder and be "cool" and get a girlfriend. I wasn't climbing very fast.

A few years later, family started going to church again. By now I was in the eighth grade, and this new youth group was made up of mostly high school juniors and seniors. I was worried about how I would be treated at first, but they took me in quickly.

That next summer I went to church camp with these new role models. I became somewhat of a tag along to these guys, but it was a good thing for me. I had never met any youth, before or since, with such personal relationships with Jesus Christ. I thought I had that relationship, but I didn't.

On July 6, 1992, I went to the nightly chapel service. The message that night was directed at people who had already been saved. I remember that the preacher turned the last part of the service to include us that "thought" we were saved, but weren't sure. I had never really thought about it before, but I wasn't sure.

Recently, I heard someone say that if you have no testimony about how your life has changed since you have become a Christian, you might not be one. This makes total sense to me now. Except for a few physiological changes, I was still the same sinner that just knew who God was as I was before.

I truly met Jesus for the first time that night, bawling my eyes out on a picnic table with my youth pastor.

After that, I was different. I knew what the rest of my youth group had been experiencing. Over the next several years, I was at church every time the doors were open. And because of my experience that summer, camps became one of my favorite things.

My church went back to the same camp two years later. At the time, I was starting to grow very complacent with Christianity. Because of this, camp this year wasn't very exciting--until the last day.

I'm not sure if it was coincidence or not, but this day I happened to be sitting on the same picnic table that I had been on two years earlier, waiting to leave camp. I was watching the camp pastor get into his car and drive off, when I suddenly began to think about what it would be like to be a youth minister. I thought it would be fun, but not really something that could be considered a "real job."

I tried to forget about the idea, but I couldn't get it out of my mind. It took me until my senior year in High School to realize that it was God calling me into a full time ministry.

Looking back, I don't know what I would be without God in my life. So many people that I was once friends with are now on drugs, pregnant, or high school dropouts. While I wish that I could have helped them more, I am thankful that God has kept me from falling into the same circumstances. I know that He has a plan for them, too--if they would just accept it.

My newest experiences with God are about learning to worship Him every minute of every day. This isn't like singing worship songs, or bowing down and chanting something. I am learning to give Him credit for what He has done in my life through my actions, attitudes, and speech.