Perhaps caution and prudence would have counseled going slow and waiting, but those of us who left the church to begin another did so out of a sense of obedience – although who knows the true motivation of one’s own heart? Regardless, none of us was willing to stay even one week longer: we – others far more than me – had invested heavily in the previous church only to be, well, what felt like, betrayed. But for whatever reasons, we left.

One of the first unofficial acts of the new church (called “A Church” for long time due to lack of a name) was to appoint five of us to be a formation committee. We were charged with doing whatever was necessary to establish the church on a solid, biblical foundation: Christ Himself and the teachings of the apostles being that foundation.

We followed Malphurs’ instruction, structure, and forms closely. As recommended, we began by identifying the core values of the people: what was it about our group that was essential, if not unique, to us. These were the core values of the church; these would serve as the guides for us now and in the future.

In the end, we identified eight core values:

The Authority of Scripture
The Supremacy and Centrality of Christ
Discipleship
Loving God and Loving Others
Ministry Excellence
Prayer
Stewardship
Family Affirmation

As Malphurs says, the core values are the DNA of the local church: they determine what the church will and will not be, will and will not do. The five of us polled the congregation – with forms provided by Malphurs – and did the best we could in coming up with values that were true to and reflective of the group. Even so, we were the ones who chose the core values: we knew and admitted to one another that the group was likely to go along with whatever we put before them. To a man, each of us in the group were committed to establishing a biblical church.

It was about this time that we (the formation committee) began to feel a great sense of responsibility and humility. Perhaps without realizing it, the congregation had put the future of and nature of their new church in our hands: they had entrusted us with an authority and power much greater than they realized – or than we had initially realized. We went back to them more than once to explain this to them but, truthfully, I don’t think they understood what we were doing. This was new territory for them – as it was for us – and their focus was on the constitution, which they believed to be the critical document.

The next step was the mission statement, which was supposed to be memorable as well as able to fit on a T-shirt. The five of us brainstormed and finally settled on an eight-word sentence that encapsulated what we were about:

“Presenting Christ as Savior; Pursuing Him as Lord“.

The vision statement came quickly and relatively easy: we described what our church would look like if we were faithful to the core values and the mission statement. Seven characteristics were incorporated into our vision:

We envision a body of believers rooted in Scripture and knowledgeable of the truths and principles of the Bible. We see believers in whom the word of God dwells richly and to which they are submitted.

We envision a church filled with people committed to seeking the LORD and desiring to know Him more intimately every day. We see each believer loving Jesus Christ with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.

We envision Christians living their lives from an eternal perspective, always seeking to glorify God and to approach life with His priorities in mind.

We envision every believer involved in discipleship, desiring to grow in the knowledge of God and to live a life worthy of their calling. We see men and women of all ages walking in the Spirit and pleasing God in their lives.

We envision a loving, committed, and intimate fellowship and communion of Christians. We see a body of believers striving for unity, seeking the good of one another, and dedicating themselves to the spiritual growth of the body which is Faith Bible Church.

We envision a church filled with believers who preach the gospel to the world through the lives they live. We see people committed to doing good to all people, and especially those of the household of faith.

We envision a church that will reproduce itself by establishing like-minded churches in towns and communities throughout the county, state, nation, and even the world. We see a body committed to reaching out to all people through church planting.

The fourth step, according to Malphurs, is to develop a strategy for building on the core values, accomplishing the mission, and achieving the vision. Realizing that we were but an ad hoc committee, we chose to leave such strategizing to the future elders, whoever they might be.

We spent hundreds of hours on the work. We were a committee that none of us would have put together but, we quickly realized, God had pulled together for this single purpose. We grew together not just as a team responsible for a task, but as a group of men committed to Christ but only loosely committed to one another. By the end of our work, our commitment to one another grew to a genuine love in Christ.

Nothing in my previous 33 years of ministry compares with the work I was involved in with Faith Bible Church (the congregation chose a name after two months or so of being “A Church”). The result is an infant church that will need to be shepherded into maturity over the coming years. There are many who are individually mature, but as a body we are quite immature: we don’t know how we fit together and are still in the “exploring my body” stage of neonatal development.

The work has only begun, as many of you know. As our work began drawing to a close, I said to one of the other men that I felt like we had just arrived at Rivendell: an important accomplishment, to be sure, but only the beginning of an adventure that will hopefully continue for years and decades to come.

Thanks for letting me share a little of this journey with you.

There are basically two things that have occupied my time and energy during this time; I’ll tell you about the more temporal and frivolous first before moving on to the (ahem) spiritual and godly thing I’ve been about.

It all started with this one. One of my good friends – also a colleague – has a Harley- Davidson Fat Boy and has been after me to get one so we could ride. Early February of this year I found this ‘96 Vulcan 800 Classic for $3150 (4400 miles) and decided to go for it. I hadn’t ridden in 35+ years so I took a basic motorcycle safety class that was worth every penny I paid for it. I was licensed shortly after that and took off. That, happily, led to this:

My wife absolutely loves to ride with me on the motorcycle. It’s nothing for us to put three or four hundred miles on the bike during a good weekend (weather permitting, of course). We’ve discovered a lot of excellent country roads here in south central Texas – or wherever we are – and my wife, who is a very good photographer, has me stop whenever there’s a picture to be taken. In our 28 years of marriage there has never been anything we’ve so thoroughly enjoyed doing together – well, you know what I mean. We’ve also discovered some great places to eat, like:

Being Yankees ourselves, we love the idea of going to a biker bar in the heart of Texas named “Yankees Tavern.” Now, I’m no longer stupid enough* to drink, let alone drink and hop on a motorcycle. But the food at these kind of places is usually remarkably good, although it may just be that after swallowing bugs for the last 100 miles anything taste better. It was a little daunting, I must confess, to roll into one of these places with so many bikers: I’ve seen the shows documenting all the violence associated with biker gangs. After awhile, though, I came to realize that most of the riders there were just like me: fathers and professionals. There are no “gangs” at the places we frequent: if there were, we wouldn’t be there!

Inevitably (I suppose), the Vulcan 800 gave way to this:

I got this last Friday. It’s a 2006 Vulcan 1600 Classic; I was able to buy it (with just 1680 miles) for $7K. I didn’t feel completely safe when my wife and I were on the 800 and had to accelerate rapidly at higher speeds, so I knew I had to get a bigger bike. I never anticipated anything like this, though, and am still getting use to it. It’s all the bike I’ll ever need and is far safer than the other. Plus, it’s black. All motorcycles should be solid colors and dark. Pretty motorcycles are an oxymoron. I’m surprised at how differently it handles – especially at slow speeds – than the 800 and am also surprised at how much heavier it feels, although it’s only 150 pounds more. It weighs in at about 700 without passengers; with passengers it’s . . . more.

Here’s a couple of other views:

That’s another of my good friends – a local physician and former tennis adversary – on the back. I took him and his wife for rides – not at the same time! – last Sunday. Not being totally adjusted to the bike, I’m sure I scared the crap out of them, which was OK in his case but completely unintentional in hers. I’ll take them again in a few weeks when I’m better on the 1600.

This photo was taken in Montgomery, TX, last weekend. This time of year is great for riding.

I’m going to Ruidoso, NM, at the end of May: four of us are going to make the 650-mile trip and stay at one of the guys’ summer home in the mountains nearby. We’re planning on taking two days each way and then taking some day trips while we’re there. Sadly, my wife won’t be able to go; happily, I will! But I’d rather have her go, too.

Oh, the other thing? I’ll post about it very soon.

*I drank enough before I was a believer to last me until the age 78 years, 7 months, and 18 days.

My problems began before I was born. My codependent mother and borderline father had a couple of children before me – two girls. My misogynous father told my mother that, if the next child was not a boy, he was leaving her. In retrospect, I don’t think he was kidding.

My father had been a good athlete. He was a Golden Gloves boxer and was on a course that might have landed him in major league baseball one day. Then a little thing called World War Two came along, he caught shrapnel in his left leg, and the dream turned into a nightmare.

So my father wanted a son and, after two “misfires,” I came along. But there was one problem: I was born crippled. Bilateral club feet, which means that my feet were curled up so that the bottom of my feet were up and the outsides were down.

My parents didn’t have much money – neither had finished high school because of the Great Depression – and there probably wasn’t any corrective surgery for my condition anyway. So I spent the first year of my life in and out of casts from the tips of my toes to my hips, having them changed every month or so.

All my father saw was a son that, according to the doctors, would have trouble walking; running and sports were out of the question. So my father took no interest in me and crawled inside a bottle for the next decade or so.

I didn’t grow up in a Christian home and didn’t spend much time in church. I do recall going to church once in a while, but I don’t remember anything that stuck with me. When my older sister was baptized (I was probably around eight or nine years old), I remember being confused and wondering why she was wearing a white sheet and why they were dunking her in the water. I didn’t like it much and nobody told me what was going on.

When I say that mine was a dysfunctional home, I mean that in a clinical sense. Most families fall into the mid-range coping style, with some actually achieving health. Health means that there is intimacy and individuality; mid-range is some of each; dysfunctional families are significantly screwed up in one or both areas. Communication is troubled and boundaries are blurred. Bad stuff happens.

Without much of a father to raise me (he was present in my life but not a presence in my life), I was left to figure out a lot on my own. And I did, indeed, figure out a lot but – not surprisingly – most of what I figured out was wrong. Like most kids, I was a great observer and a lousy interpreter.

Since I was just a kid, I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to be able to run and play like the other kids. So I began to run and play. It soon became obvious that I was a pretty good athlete. Actually, I was a very good athlete at just about anything I took up. Baseball, football, basketball, tennis, skiing, swimming, boxing, wrestling – everything but long-distance running. I could have done that, too, but I never understood why I should run for a long time just to wind up where I began.

Of course, this caused my father to suddenly notice me and lay claim to my life. He was determined that I would be the star that he always wanted to be. He shut down all my sports except baseball because that was what he played. So I did the all-star and all-conference stuff until . . . I noticed girls. Suddenly sports weren’t the greatest thing in the world.

My father disapproved of this and showed his disapproval with the back of his hand and an occasional fist in my face. At the age of eleven, I had promised an uncle that I would never hit my father; at the time, it was a no-brainer: I was 5-6 and maybe 115 pounds and my father was 6-1 and 210. Sure, I’ll restrain myself. Even when I got bigger, though, I kept my promise.

So my father retreated back into his bottle and I discovered the opposite sex. I was looking for love, as Johnny Paycheck sang, in all the wrong places.

School was always easy for me and I got a lot of attention. I got a double-promotion in elementary school, which seemed swell at the time but not-so swell later: I was a year younger than everyone else and didn’t get my driver’s license until the last semester of my junior year of high school. I finished my first semester of college while still 17. Academically, I was fine; socially, I was light years behind.

Without a sense of direction and virtually no guidance, I went to college without any idea of what I wanted to do if and when I graduated. I tried majoring in history, then English, then speech. Finally, I found something I enjoyed: flunking out. I’d go to class once or twice a semester before giving up and playing cards or shooting pool. I was too busy to officially withdraw so I piled up a lot of 0.00 credits.

But I didn’t care. I had landed a part-time job as a sports reporter at the local newspaper and began picking up more hours. I started by doing obits, then going through vital stats at the county courthouse, and finally worked my way to police beat. I saw a lot of bad things: rapes, robberies, murders, autopsies, traffic fatalities. A lot of dead people. Some young children, some old ladies. Trains crushing cars. Shotguns at point-blank range. People burning to death in fires. It does something to you.

The Vietnam War was going on at the time and some of my friends were going to the other side of the world. I was 19 when the draft was instituted, out of school, and without a deferment. My lottery number was 16. But the military didn’t take cripples, so I stayed home while my friends went away. Some never came back, and some that did come back came back different. I felt guilty.

As usual, I tried to “medicate” my emotions through relationships. Overall I had two long-term girlfriends (three and four years, respectively) and was OK as long as I had them. But after the breakup of the second, I was inconsolable. I was barely 21, out of school, and working part-time still at the newspaper. A former semi-pro football player named Doug took me under his wing and introduced me to marijuana. It was the beginning of a love affair that lasted for the next five-plus years of my life. I was stoned all day, every day from that point on. My primary relationship and the love of my life came in one-ounce bags. I quit the newspaper and began driving heavy equipment for the city – stoned the whole time, of course. I spent my nights in bars playing pool and picking up the occasional girl who wanted to get high.

I had a lot of friends, but still no girlfriend. I was 24 years old and going nowhere: I was back at the newspaper and doing well there – I won a state Associated Press award – but still hadn’t found anything worth living for. Marijuana, I knew, was just a way to pass time. As lost and purposeless as I had ever been, I did what everyone back then did who didn’t have anything else to do: I went back to college.

It was different this time. I knew I needed a degree if I was ever going to get out of the rut I was in, so I applied myself. I had re-entered college with a sterling 1.12 GPA (all those 0.00s caught up with me) and about 75 credit hours; when I finished, I had pulled it up to a two-point-something or other.

In one of my first classes back in school, while still doing the drugs, sex, and rock’n’roll thing, I met a strikingly attractive young lady named Karen. She was the second-ranked student in the class (do I need to say who was #1?) and liked me. But she wouldn’t date me. I was baffled; she was a Christian. Hmmm.

We studied together, had coffee together, talked on the phone a lot. But no dates: she wouldn’t date non-Christians, she said.

She explained the gospel to me. Since she was in Campus Crusade for Christ, she used the Four Spiritual Laws. I had been around long enough to know the first three laws – God loves me, I’m sinful, Jesus died for my sins – but the fourth law was new. I had personal responsibility to make a decision about whether I’d accept the offer or not.

Well, I was a happy agnostic at that point. I was making good money, had my own car, lived alone in a cabin in the woods 20 miles outside of town, had a lot of friends, and enough girls that found me sufficiently attractive for a night. Jesus didn’t sound too appealing at the time.

Once, in October of 1974, I actually asked Jesus into my heart. My prayer was something like this:

“God, I don’t know if You’re really there or not, but I’m going to open the door to my heart that You’re supposedly knocking on. So I’m going to open it but, just in case You are there, know that I don’t want You to come in! Amen.”

Nothing happened and I announced to Karen that it didn’t work so I was right and she was wrong. She asked me what had happened and I, like a fool, told her the truth. She told me it didn’t count.

For the next two months I was hounded by the Holy Spirit. Christians were everywhere saying horrible things to me like, “I’m praying for you!” Talk about pushy. Karen kept talking to me and I kept trying to break her resolve. And morals.

God, however, got tired of the game and brought it to a swift resolution. He hit me in my one tender, vulnerable spot – relationships – and I broke. Even some of my drug friends told me I needed to get serious. So I prayed again. I was serious and so was God. That was Tuesday, December 10, 1974, at a little after 8 p.m. I was on the phone with Karen when I prayed. I was persuaded. I was saved. I was almost 25.

The class in which Karen and I met? Speech 302: Persuasion. Ironic. God has a dry sense of humor.

God immediately took away my desire for drugs, alcohol, and – sex. (Well, OK, not the desire but the participation therein.) I moved out of my drug-filled cabin in the woods, turned away from all my stoned friends, and began to read the Bible. (I was so ignorant that the first Bible I bought was a Catholic Bible. I didn’t know there was a difference.)

I developed a ravenous appetite for the Bible. I would read for hours and hours, then go to Bible studies, listen to sermons on tape, and do my own Bible studies. I bought books. A lot of books. I read and read. I had a lot of catching up to do.

The first five years of my new life were spent in the Bible and in legalism. I quickly became self-righteous, dogmatic, and judgmental. Karen didn’t want anything to do with me. “I liked you better before,” she told me one day. I was confused but undaunted. And I was still single.

I got married when I was 30; my bride was almost 28. It was the first for both of us, and we married determined never to divorce.

(Good thing we are both bull-headed and take vows seriously: if not for the commitment to God, we wouldn’t be coming up on our 25th anniversary [4.5.05]. We had/have two wonderful daughters, the first now a senior at Texas A&M and the second a sophomore in high school. They are both believers. My firstborn inherited my club feet.)

I continued in my fundamentalist attitude during the early years of my marriage, making life absolutely miserable for my wife. After three years, I packed up the family (only one daughter then) and we moved to Colorado to go to seminary. And to ski.

Seminary changed my life. Not because of what I learned, but because of the relationships and friendships I forged while there with a handful of my professors. Drs. James Beck, Bruce Demarest, Tim Weber, and Vernon Grounds. I studied them more than I studied my coursework. They are godly men. I wanted to be more like them.

More than anyone else, Dr. Demarest broke my fundamentalism. He ripped my theological and exegetical papers apart, shredded my dogmatism like tissue paper, and slaughtered sacred cows with ease. He taught me to hold my convictions firmly but gently, and to respect the theologies of others since – as he demonstrated – theirs could be understood biblically, too. More than anything, he showed me what humility was. He would humbly answer hyper-critical Bible college grads who would read him the riot act for trashing their theology. He never raised his voice or got angry, but I planned to beat them up after class. For some reason, I didn’t.

After graduation and a couple of years of underemployment, we moved to Texas and I began my counseling practice. I went on to earn a D.Min. from Trinity Theological Seminary in Indiana (my home state), concentrating on Christian Education and Discipleship. I am committed to both.

God continued and continues to grow me, using my confrontational, take-no-prisoners wife to do so. Any other wife would not have been able to get through to me. She did and I love her deeply for putting up with me. She deserved better. She’ll be the one with all the gold, silver, and precious stones in heaven. I’ll be there with the haystack.

C.S. Lewis said something to the effect that you don’t know how far a person has come unless you know where they started. I’ve got a good ways to go, but Christ has brought me further than I could ever have hoped for or imagined. My life is a miracle, inexplicable according to human dynamics.

One of the highest compliments I ever got was a back-handed one. One day not too long ago I was telling a good friend, Rob, about my history and about my father in particular. He said to me in disbelief, “It’s amazing that you’re as healthy as you are!”

And he was exactly right.