I am in the process of applying for an adjunct teaching position at a Christian college. That college wants me to include a statement of my Christian testimony. If you have read my resume, then you know that I have a Master of Divinity Degree in Languages from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. I used to have a bi-vocational resume for churches that are looking for part-time pastors. I happened upon this resume recently, and so I decided to retype the personal testimony portion for the college, and for you if you are interested in how I became a Christian.

One thing I find iconic is the line about waiting for the Lord’s timing. Didn’t He say something about a day being like a 1000 years?

I have removed some items out of identity theft concerns, but the rest is mostly verbatim from my 1981 bivocational  resume.

For you trivia buffs out there, the church I was a youth director at is the church that was mentioned in the movie “Norma Rae.” I was there during the time the movie was filmed (although the set used by the movie did not look like the real church at all).

Personal Testimony and Call to the Ministry:

     I was born on [date removed] in [place removed], but was raised in the San Jose, California area. I grew up thinking I was a Christian because I went to Sunday School (unvoluntarily) until about the second grade. However, I did not have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. God, as far as I was concerned, was dead.

     Yet my early church training had some effect on my youth. I learned to abhor violence in all forms and never learned how to fight. This was fine when I lived in a nice neighborhood, but not when we moved to a rough one. My high school years were spent separated from others in fear of getting beat up, and I ended up very lonely. I spent most of my time studying.

     When I entered California Polytechnic in 1973 I decided to change but I didn’t know how. I soon became attracted to a woman in my Freshman Composition class. I thought a good “opening line” was to offer to look for errors in her term paper and have her correct mine. Her paper was on “How to Have a Personal Relationship with the Living God.” I didn’t understand what those two foreign phrases “personal relationships” and “living God” meant, but I did start thinking about Christianity. I picked up a free Gideon’s Bible and started reading it. Soon I found myself taking with God (and to my surprise, Him talking back!), and on January 19, 1974 (at 1:30pm) I invited Jesus Christ into my heart to be my Lord and Savior. I had found that “personal relationship with the Living God” which we all desperately need.

     At first my Christian growth was slow, but to learn more about God (and for obviously other reasons) I spent the summer of 1976 at Campus Crusade’s Institute of Biblical Studies in Hilo, Hawaii. In Hawaii I developed the desire and then conviction that the Lord wanted me to go into full-time Christian service. This calling first came on the evening of July 4, 1976 while at a service led by Dallas Theological Seminary professor Howard Hendricks.

     In my Senior year I felt God calling me to seminary, but I refused thinking it was just my pride, so I made plans to enter the Air Force to be a self-supporting missionary in some foreign country upon my graduation. I was not accepted due to defense cutbacks and I graduated from college without a job. I became a volunteer high school worker at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California.

     In October, after finding a job as a computer analyst, I felt a strong calling from God to go east toward Connecticut. On faith, I left California in November. While driving across the country I again felt a call to go to seminary. I visited Dallas Seminary but God said to go on, so I did.

     On December 24, 1977, after passing through Wake Forest, North Carolina, my car was hit broadside totaling my car and giving me three broken ribs. While stuck in nearby Raleigh I began to feel God wanted me to stay there. During this time I went to a church that contained no one my age. A deacon suggested I try Forest Hills Baptist Church – the first Baptist church I had ever been in. I read of copy of the Baptist Faith and Message and found it agreed with my own theology more than the church I had been a member of. So I became a Southern Baptist. Two months later God directed me to go to Southeastern Seminary and this time I listened, entering in June, 1978. In July I got my first church job as a summer youth director for two months in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina.

     The next year the Lord confirmed my earlier plans on becoming a missionary, but it was to be on His timing and not mine. To learn more about the Southern Baptist missions programs I spent the summer of 1979 church planting in Oregon. I didn’t see a church started, but I did see a love grow between me and Teresa Sue Bayes, a Southern Seminary student who was with the New Work program in another part of greater Portland. We became engaged at the end of the summer and were married on December 21, 1979 in her home town of Louisville, Kentucky where we now live.

     We finished our seminary education in August, 1980 and have been waiting since that time for the Lord to lead us where he wants us. We humbly ask you to pray for us in this matter.

I am in the process of applying for an adjunct teaching position at a Christian college. That college wants me to include a statement of my theological beliefs. If you have read my resume, then you know that I have a Master of Divinity Degree in Languages from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. I used to have a bi-vocational resume for churches that are looking for part-time pastors. I happened upon this resume recently, and so I decided to retype the theological beliefs portion for them, and for you if you are interested in what I believe.

Note: If you know of a bivocational church looking for a minister, feel free to tell them about this blog as God directs. If it matters to you, I was licensed to the ministry on November 14, 1979 by Forest Hills Baptist Church, Raleigh, North Carolina.

My Theological Beliefs:

Baptist Faith and Message: I believe the Baptist Faith and Message is the creed closest to Biblical truth that man has developed (it certainly has the most scriptural references). I believe it entirely, including the statement that the Bible, both Old and New Testament, “has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter.” In fact, the only sentence I disagree with is the one stating that baptism is a prerequisite to the Lord’s Supper. While this may be a good rule, it is not backed up by any scripture and should not be forced upon people who are not baptized due to circumstances beyond their control (for example, some churches can’t baptize during winter months).

In matters not mentioned in (or different than) the Baptist Faith and Message, I hold the following viewpoints:

Baptism: The primary misunderstanding in some Baptist churches (and many churches as well) today is that baptism is just an initiating ceremony for joining a particular denomination. Nothing, I believe, is further from the truth. Instead, baptism is a celebration of the death and new life in Jesus Christ (not in the church, which is the purpose of church membership) that a new believer has. It is an outward confession of that person before other people that he is willing to follow God. I know of no scripture that requires a believer to be re-baptized if he has already been so. The proper order is that a person be saved first, then be baptized. Thus if a person wasn’t saved when he or she was baptized the first time (even if it was done in a Baptist church), only then should he or she be required to be reimmersed.

The Lord’s Supper: The Greek word eucharist also means thanksgiving, to give thanks for the “Lord’s death until he comes.” (I Cor. 11:26)  Since all people should give thanks for the Lord’s death (and his payment for our sins), I believe communion should be “open” and not “closed.” According to I Cor. 22:27-31, the only people who should not participate in the thanksgiving of communion are those who, after self-examination, do not have a proper relationship with God – a relationship worth giving thanks for. The church in most cases cannot and should not make this judgment about people.

Stewardship: Since we have become slaves (servants) of Christ (Rom. 6:22), all that we have, including our time and our money, belongs to God and not to us. We should go beyond just tithing our money and have the attitude stated in Acts 2:44-45, calling nothing that we have as our own. Even the very schedules of what we do should be completely by our Lord (James 4:15).

Gifts of the Spirit:  I believe the Holy Spirit still gives out spiritual gifts to help build up the body of Christ. I believe I have the gifts of teaching and administration, while others might have the gifts of mercy, service, etc., even tongues. No one person has all the gifts nor is any one gift possessed by all people. This is one reason why Christians are not to be independent, but to be interdependent upon one another. Again, the purpose of the gifts is to help build up the body of Christ, and if someone is not using his “gift” to help fellow Christians become closer to God or to help non-Christians to know Christ, then his gift is not a Spirit-given gift. This is especially true of some tongue-speakers who use their “gift” to break up churches, instead of building them up. I advocate silence in tongue-speaking unless it is to be done in a scriptural manner (see I Cor. 14:26-33) for edification.

Style of Teaching and Preaching: I teach/preach almost exclusively expository sermons, exegeting on what the Greek actually says. I preach mostly from the New King James Version, but occasionally use the New International Version, the King James Version, and the New American Standard Bible. I try to avoid preaching that merely “tickles the ears” (2 Tim. 4:3), which means I don’t preach just “salvation sermons,” but sermons which challenge the congregation to walk closer to God seven days of week and not just on Sundays. I believe in “how-to” (application-oriented) teaching. (Note: I haven’t actually preached a sermon in a church since the early 1980’s.)

Ministry of the Deacons: “Deacon” in the Greek means servant, not administrator. I wholeheartedly support the “deacon-flock” ministry plan, for in many respects a church is as strong as its deacons are. I believe that pastors should have a weekly in-depth Bible study with the deacons, who in turn would be Bible study leaders themselves (see 2 Tim. 2:2). Thus it is extremely important that only those people who are really interested in following God become deacons (I Tim. 3:8-9), not just those interested in the glory of the position. This is especially true in bi-vocational churches, in which the pastor has other duties to perform outside the church.

Church Extension: I believe in church growth and in starting new churches from home Bible fellowships (assuming the area is not “overchurched,”) as well as active witnessing and outreaches to the unchurched,  for a church cannot grow on “biological growth” alone, although ministry to the children of members is also important.

Prayer: Jesus once said “My house should be called a house of prayer.” (Luke 19:44) I believe in the power of prayer and I would like the church I pastor to be considered a house of prayer. Dialogue with God is important if a church is to follow Him. I would put an emphasis on this subject as I want the people God has given me to shepherd to be close to Him.