1974-1979
Shortly after I completed college in January, 1974, Sharon and I moved to my home town in suburban Chicago, 110 miles north of my college. I intended to apply to a law school in Chicago. My Uncle Marsh (brother of my father) thought his political connections in Chicago could get me a job during law school, working in the office of the State Attorney of Illinois, or driving a Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Bus. Within two weeks of our return to Chicago, however, Sharon’s parents arrived from Colorado to attend an Evangelical Free Church pastors’ conference. Sharon had already started working as a receptionist near our apartment. I was not yet employed, so I accompanied her parents to the pastors’ conference. I had a Eureka! moment at the end of the first day, when the keynote speaker, Stuart Briscoe, was teaching from John 21. In this passage, Jesus was restoring Peter to leadership, after Peter had denied Jesus three times when Jesus was arrested. In John 21, Jesus asked Peter three times (paralleling Peter’s three denials of Christ) “Do you love me?” When Peter said yes each time, Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” (John 21:15), “Take care of my sheep,” (John 21:16), “Feed my sheep.” (John 21:17) I had a Eureka! moment at this point in the talk, and sensed God speak to me that he wanted me to become a pastor. I told Sharon about it that evening, and she was supportive of changing my direction from law school to seminary.
When I told Sharon’s parents about this change in direction, her father said, “There’s a pastor from Denver at this conference, who also teaches preaching at the Baptist seminary in Denver. He’s looking for a youth pastor and a church secretary.” Sharon had previously worked as a church secretary at Christ Church in Oak Brook, Illinois, where I met her. Sharon’s father set up an interview that week for both of us with this pastor, Dr. James Means. He interviewed us, and hired Sharon on the spot. We moved to Denver two weeks later. Sharon started working full-time at Southern Gables Evangelical Free Church in suburban Denver, and I enrolled at the Conservative Baptist seminary, 15 miles away. Dr. Means hired a seminary graduate to become the church’s youth pastor, so Sharon and I volunteered in the youth ministry during my first two years of seminary, during which I earned a living through painting houses, as I had done during high school and college. In June of 1976, halfway through seminary, I was invited by Dr. Means to join the church’s staff as an Associate Pastor, with a focus on home Bible studies and single adults. Early in 1978, four months before I graduated from seminary, our church’s Youth Pastor announced he would be moving to Ohio that summer in order to start a church. I accepted the church’s request that I replace him as Youth Pastor when he left.
The summer of 1978 began with the yearly Evangelical Free Church of America’s national youth conference in June. That year’s weeklong event was held 60 miles north of Denver at Colorado State University. Our church sent two busloads of junior and senior high students. An Evangelical Free denomination youth ministry activity that was well rooted in our church was Bible Quizzing. It worked like the television game show called Jeopardy: An emcee would ask questions to ten students (5 on each of two teams) from the Bible book that Bible quiz team students at Evangelical Free churches around the country had been studying during the school year. The first student to hit their response pad would get to give the answer—getting team points for correctly naming the verse and its content, or losing team points for wrong answers. During that 1978 youth conference at Colorado State University, our church’s Bible Quiz team lost its first two tournament quiz contests, ending its participation in that double-elimination tournament. That team’s whole year had been a disappointment, due to conflicted dynamics among the team members. As that National Youth Conference came to a close during the final general session, I was sitting alone on one of the buses that would take us home within the hour. Soon to become the new youth pastor later that summer, I was struggling within myself about being responsible for that church’s youth Bible Quiz team whose next year would start up again in September. The youth pastor I was about to replace had coached that year’s team. Sitting on that bus, I was feeling that I didn’t want to become the next coach, because of the conflicted dynamics of that year’s team, and because I was new to Bible quizzing and felt unprepared to lead it. Put simply, I was struggling with a fear of failure. So I sat there pondering how I could avoid being that church’s next youth Bible Quiz team coach.
Suddenly, on that empty bus, I had another Eureka! moment. This thought crossed my mind: “I want you to lead the Quiz team.” I was shocked. The thought was accompanied by a sense of empowerment and confidence. It immediately changed my attitude. I responded, “OK!” Several times over the next two months, unexpectively I found myself receiving innovative thoughts on things to do that would have a positive impact on the teenage Bible quizzers for the upcoming school year. My confidence that this was God’s idea, and that he would bless us, increased as September approached because innovative coaching ideas kept coming to my mind. When the teens and their parents met at church to begin the new season in early September, I welcomed them and said, “I’d like to introduce you to the 1979 National Bible Quiz champions!” They laughed derisively at me, still smarting from the previous season’s disappointment. But my confidence never wavered. I coached them with what I thought were God-given new approaches for learning the book of John during that school year. For spring vacation in 1979, I took the team to Minnesota to compete against the denomination’s repeatedly best Bible quiz teams that were having an open round-robin tournament with each other. I received permission from the host team to bring our team from Colorado, so I did. During that round robin tournament, our team defeated everybody in Minnesota, and a month later went undefeated through the Colorado qualifying rounds for the National Conference that June at San Diego State University. A few weeks later, our team won the double-elimination tournament in San Diego without a loss, completing an undefeated season. A month after our team won that Bible Quiz championship, I was surprised when I got the mail one day: The cover of our denomination’s monthly magazine. “The Beacon,” consisted of a photograph of our Bible Quiz team, taken immediately after they won the denomination’s championship. God’s grace had come to me a year ealier on that empty bus in a Eureka! moment, had overcome my fear-based resistance, had guided me as the team’s coach, and had empowered the team to become the denomination’s 1979 champions. That year-long experience deepened my conviction that God is real! And it brought me great personal fulfillment.