17 minute read
Three Spiritual Journeys
How the gospel transforms lives
Jim Showers
Jim Showers is the executive director of The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.
Iwas born into a Christian home and grew up learning about God and His Word. As an 8-year-old in summer Bible school, I understood for the first time that having Christian parents or attending church did not make me a Christian. Nor did obeying my parents and treating others well.
I knew I sometimes did things I shouldn’t; that my sin made me unacceptable to God; and that the Good News was that God’s Son, Jesus Christ, paid the price to redeem me from my sin. All I had to do was admit to God I was a sinner, ask Him to forgive me, and trust in Jesus Christ.
The gospel is simple enough that I could understand it even as a child. I prayed that evening and have followed Jesus ever since. From that day on, I knew the gospel had changed my life forever.
My father was a pastor, but I had no desire to follow in his footsteps. I had too many things I wanted to experience, so I went to college, earned a degree in accounting, and began a career in business.
God graciously gave me many of the desires of my heart, but I soon learned the things of this world do not satisfy. In my 30s, I struggled with contentment; and God began changing the trajectory of my life. Proverbs says, “A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps” (16:9). As God showed me the temporary things of life don’t compare with the eternal treasure of serving Him, I sensed a clear call to full-time ministry.
I quit my job and moved my wife and two young children 600 miles east, away from family and friends, to enter seminary. It was a challenge, but a rewarding one. After graduating, I served for a few years at the school before God led me to The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry 20 years ago.
Were it not for the gospel, I would still be serving myself, rather than others. Over the years, I have come to appreciate Proverbs 3:5–6: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.” Looking back, I can see how God used each step I took to prepare me for the ministry I hold dear today.
The gospel can change the course of our lives. God directed me on a path I never could have imagined or engineered on my own, and I can never do enough to thank Him for giving His one and only Son for me.
John Wilcox
John Wilcox is vice president of Finance and chief financial officer for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.
My life has been a long journey with music and the Lord. I grew up in a Roman Catholic home and started singing in church even before I got my first guitar. I played in bands, wrote songs, and began to realize in college that God was the source of my musical gift. That’s when I found myself wanting to know more about Him and His plans for me.
After graduating from Rutgers University with a degree in accounting, I went to Nashville, Tennessee, the country music capital of the world. But as I shopped my songs, I saw a lot of things in Nashville that told me it was not the place for me. All the musical experiences that meant something to me had involved church.
So I came home to New Jersey and returned to college for a degree in music. Some of my music professors had toured with famous bands, and the stories they told only reinforced what I had seen for myself. There were no happy endings, and I didn’t want a life like that.
In time, I married and had children. In August 1994, someone invited us to family week at Word of Life in Schroon Lake, New York. Harry Bollback, cofounder of Word of Life (and a musician and songwriter), was the speaker. “Have you been searching for what the Lord would have you do with your life?” he asked. I felt like he was speaking directly to me. I gave my life to Jesus right then and there. When he asked people to come forward to receive Christ as Savior or rededicate their lives to Him, I was nervous until I heard the chair next to me push back and saw my wife, Lynn, get up to rededicate her life. We walked forward together, and nothing has been the same since. God has truly changed my life for the better.
I earned a master’s degree in finance and was working for a nonprofit when I started praying about going into full-time ministry. I told the Lord it would be awesome if He would find me a position in both accounting and music.
In 2012, I joined The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry (FOI) as chief financial officer. Two years later, FOI’s Executive Director Jim Showers asked me if I would take over the music ministry as well. What an answer to prayer!
Over the years the Lord has shown me nothing is impossible with Him. He doesn’t give us gifts expecting them to lie dormant. He wants us to use them, and there’s nothing more satisfying than using those gifts for Jesus.
Tom Geoghan
Tom Geoghan is vice president of Advancement for The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry.
Igrew up in a Roman Catholic family. From 1962 when I entered kindergarten until 1974 when I graduated from high school, I attended Catholic schools. My parents enrolled me as an altar boy when I was in 5th grade, and when it was my week on, I had to be at the church adjacent to my grammar school by 7 a.m. every weekday to help the priest as he conducted the Mass.
In those days, the Mass was in Latin, which left me clueless about what was going on. In addition, the God I learned about was distant, unapproachable, and austere. To make matters worse, the school administered harsh corporal punishment, which pushed me farther from that faith.
I remember telling my mother when I was 13, “I’ll continue to go to church with you because if I don’t, I know you’ll take things away from me, like spending time with my friends and playing sports. But when I turn 18, I promise you I will never darken the doorway of a church again.” And I made good on that promise.
It wasn’t until I turned 23 that I first heard the gospel. In the gospel, I met a Jesus unknown to me—not one still hanging on a cross but one who was victorious over the grave, anxious to gather people to Himself in love. He was personal, approachable, near, full of grace, and able to save me from my sin and from myself. He was a God who loved me. I gave my life to Him and was born again. (See John 3:3, 7.)
In 1986 the Lord introduced me to The Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry (FOI) when I moved to South Jersey for work. I attended FOI’s Thursday night Bible study and absorbed the teaching like a sponge. In fact, the experience was so meaningful I quit my job and, with my wife’s encouragement, enrolled in FOI’s one-year Institute of Biblical Studies.
Soon after I was asked to consider working for FOI. My first reaction was, “You mean you’ll pay me to work here? I’m in!” That was 28 years ago, and my life has never been the same. The Lord is good; and the gospel is the powerful, life-changing message of His love.
Getting the ‘Package Deal’
by Sarah Fern
“W hat do you mean you became a Christian at 21? Aren’t you a pastor’s daughter?” an older gentleman asked me, a shocked look on his face. The idea of a Baptist minister’s daughter not being a believer until adulthood seemed impossible to him.
I was raised in a Christian home with parents who were committed believers in Jesus. Being a pastor’s family, we weren’t simply at church every time the doors were open; we unlocked the doors. I memorized hundreds of Bible verses and could easily recite the stories of the New and Old Testaments.
To a casual observer, it appeared
I was a Christian. I was born into a Christian home, and Christianity and my local church were all I knew.
But no one is born a Christian. Not even a pastor’s daughter. Christianity requires a conversion initiated and completed by God.
Sure, my identity was wrapped up in Christianity and the things of God, but my heart was in need of a Savior. I just didn’t realize it. If asked, I would have said I was a Christian; but as I grew into my teen years, I could see something different in many of my friends. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
When I was 17, a youth leader asked us at an event, “Why should God let you into heaven?” I looked around the room at my classmates. Knowing many of their flaws, I whispered proudly to my friend, “Because we’re better than most of the people in this room.”
I’ll never forget what that leader said: “Any answer other than ‘because of what Jesus did for me on the cross’ is the wrong answer.”
Though I dismissed his reply, that night became a major turning point in my life. I decided I would stop trying to be good. I would stop trying to be someone I was not. I decided being a believer was too difficult, and I started to walk away from the teachings of my childhood. For the next four years, I lived the way I wanted, concluding Christianity was for my parents, not for me.
By the time I was 21, I had hit bottom. After years of living for momentary pleasures, I was exhausted. I remember thinking, Is this all there is? That was when I decided to return to church. I started attending Sunday school and teaching children’s church and became involved with our college group. The people in the college group accepted me with open arms; but again, there was something different about many of them that I couldn’t put my finger on. I decided I wasn’t like them because of the years I had walked away from Christianity.
My parents bought me a study Bible, and I started reading the familiar words of my childhood. I was diligent in reading because I wanted to be able to participate in conversations with my new church friends. Someone suggested we all sign up for a new class being offered on the basics of Christianity. It was in that class that God started showing me what I was missing.
We learned that God is a pursuer of men. He made a way to have a relationship with us:
Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18–19).
I thought, Could I have missed it all these years? God didn’t want my list of church accomplishments. He wanted me.
As I sat in this class week after week with a lump in my throat, a spiritual battle was taking place. I was fully aware of the sin in my life that separated me from God, and I was having a hard time with the reality that God had humbled Himself to make a way for me to have a relationship with Him by sending His Son, Jesus, to die for my sins. I was also struggling with the fact that I was the pastor’s daughter, but I was not a Christian. I wondered, What will people think? I’m teaching their children in children’s church. They will call me a fraud!
One night in class, a friend shared she had been struggling with doubt about her salvation. She thought she was a Christian, but God had shown her she lacked a true relationship with Him. She said she struggled for months and finally surrendered her life to Christ in her room one night and was being baptized that evening in the service. I looked around, expecting to see shocked faces. After all, she was a youth leader! Instead, everyone burst into applause, cheering and hugging her. I sat there in shock and cried. My fears of being found out were fading away.
That night in the Sunday evening service, my dad taught on the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5:22–23. As he explained each fruit, I made a checklist, thinking I had mastered many of them: love, joy, kindness, gentleness, goodness. The ones I didn’t feel I had mastered I figured I could work on. Then he made the statement God used to pierce my heart: “The fruit of the Spirit are not pieces you pick and choose. They’re a package deal that you receive at salvation.” That was all the confirmation I needed. I gave my life to God that night.
I have heard it said, “God does not have grandchildren, only children.” Each person is accountable for his or her own actions before the Lord. My parents’ faith did not automatically give me the same faith. The biggest benefit I had growing up was all those years of Bible lessons and Scripture memorization. They were the kindle on a fire that burned fast and bright after a spark from the Holy Spirit.
After I became a Christian, I grew quickly in my faith. The Bible came to life for me, and the Bible stories I learned as a child pointed to the bigger story of God’s love and plan of redemption for mankind.
So, I told the older gentleman, “Yes, I am a pastor’s daughter. But I was not a Christian until I was 21,” even though I was reared by faithful, godly parents and loved by a faithful church family. And today, as the apostle Paul wrote, I am an “ambassador for Christ.” And “[I] implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:20–21).
Sarah Fern
is the executive director of Choices Resource Center in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
HE
LET NEVER
GO
How God brought a straying child back to the fold
by Betsi Calhoun
My story begins with my father, who was enjoying recognition as a successful research chemist despite two big problems: He was a functioning alcoholic and an atheist. Through a Christ-follower at his lab, my father became a Christian and soon left for seminary. There he met and married my mom and became a church planter, pastoring 13 churches all over the southeastern United States. This is the home into which I was born.
At age 7, I understood the gospel under my daddy’s preaching. I trusted Jesus as my Savior, was changed even at that young age, and grew spiritually. When I was 9, my mom let me help teach the neighborhood children in a Good News Club.
When I was 11, everything changed. My father accepted a new pastorate, and our family moved to Delaware. Suddenly, I felt lost and alone. I began to resent my father, who by any standards was unreasonably strict. I no longer wanted to be a preacher’s daughter and started walking away from God, even though I knew I belonged to Him.
I sought acceptance and happiness from ungodly activities, sneaking out at night to be with boys my father had preached to in the local detention center. Soon I was shoplifting. Once I stole an expensive sweater from a department store and eluded the security guards chasing me by running outside and hiding.
At school I didn’t want to be identified as the local pastor’s daughter, so I tried to change my appearance. When I dyed my hair jet black to look Goth, I was severely punished. My parents knew I was going rogue and prayed desperately that God would rescue me before I went too far. Little did they know how far I had already gone. And little did I know that God never let go of
me and that His steadfast love would bring me back to Him.
LIKE A CHAMELEON
Throughout my rebellion, I never once doubted my salvation. Though we forsake Him, He never forsakes us. “The Lord knows those who are His” (2 Tim. 2:19); and He has a way of reaching us. I often hid in my room, locking my door and listening to music. But when I went to bed, I sensed God’s voice in the stark silence of the night.
Even in my rebellion, I felt burdened to share the gospel with my unbelieving grandma; and she trusted Christ as her Savior. Though my bitter lifestyle held me firmly in its grip, I continued to sense God pulling me toward Himself, assuring me I was His.
It wasn’t long before the church elders showed up at our home to confront us. They discussed how I had shamed God’s name and hurt my father’s ministry. They sorrowfully prayed over me, then asked Daddy to resign. Three months later, we were in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where my father had accepted a professorship at a Christian university.
Now I could breathe. No more pastor’s-daughter stigma. I resolved to turn over a new leaf. I made better grades, got involved in extracurricular activities, and attended church. But I already had picked out the girls who were living the chameleonic lifestyle, and they accepted me.
I became involved in vocal groups, sports, drama, writing, and many other activities that brought self-esteem and popularity. Interestingly, God was developing these talents for His use later. However, through all this self-discovery, I still kept Him at arm’s length.
One day, after turning down several invitations to attend a local Word of Life teen club, I decided to go. This group of fun-loving teenagers and young leaders accepted me warmly. After refreshments and a game, the teens began sharing what God was doing in their lives through “quiet time” (personal devotions) and answered prayer. I had attended church all my life, but I had never known kids like these who manifested a vibrant, active relationship with God.
Again, I felt drawn to the Savior who had been trying to get my attention for so long. I returned each week and watched these students live out their faith. But I was not about to jump on board.
RETURNING TO THE FOLD
In my sophomore year of high school, I attended a winter youth retreat in Florida with several school friends. We were determined to guard ourselves from anything that smacked of Bible. We played along until the last night, when the big dedication-campfire service began.
Sitting in the back, we smugly tuned out the speaker. But Paul Bubar had such a charismatic personality and straightforward message that I found myself sitting at attention. Paul, who was then director of Bible Clubs Ministry for Word of Life, was sharing the story of the prodigal son from Luke 15. Suddenly, I realized I was that person. I was the one who had walked away from a Savior who loved me. I was the one who had bought into a self-centered lifestyle.
Sometimes Christians can fall so deeply into sin that we forsake the one to whom we belong. We live for ourselves instead of for God, and we look exactly like unbelievers. We fracture our relationship with God. But like the prodigal son’s loving father, God is still there—waiting for us to come home.
On the 12-hour return bus ride, a youth volunteer who was exuberant about her newfound
