Since this blog is subtitled ‘chronicling my life with Christ’ I thought it would be a good idea to actually walk through my experience with Christ.

I grew up in a house that didn’t go to church; we went to the mall or in most cases Sunday was the day for my dad and I to go ‘over the mountain’ to Hills, an extinct department store or to the Cannery which was a grocery store where everything was in boxes on the shelf, like the stockers were just lazy that day.

I can still remember being taken to Marci’s house for the first time, and she may have been one of the first active Christians I can remember meeting. She was my sitter from my first day of school until I was probably in 6^th grade, when my dad retired and I could stay home with him. I remember learning bible stories as she also taught them to her grand son Gabe, and to the other children she cared for. It was at her house that I first remember hearing that the reason for Christmas was the birth of Christ, it may not have been the first time I heard it, but it is the first time I really remember hearing it.

Marci bought me a book that is still on my shelf “The book of Proverbs for kids” and I remember reading it and actually looking up the proverbs in our family’s fifty pound bible. I knew that proverbs came after the big book, psalms, but I wasn’t sure what that was, it wasn’t until a few years later I realized that the book of proverbs was actually printed in the back of the book, but I learned that I could read the Bible although I didn’t understand it as much as I understood the book that she had given me with its cute little characters resembling the veggie tales. Of course she also introduced me to what was perhaps my first negative experience with Christians; I had recently been introduced to Dungeons and Dragons and I was warned that some people may tell me that it was evil, Marci did. I just rolled my eyes because I couldn’t understand how a game of make believe could be inherently evil, and I still don’t.

Of course being as young as I was God wasn’t on the forefront of my brain and so I only thought about him when I needed something or when our group of novice philosophers would settle down in the evening to talk about things we knew little about. I know that the seeds of my faith were planted in this time and I am thankful for it.

It was somewhere around this same time that I was first told that I needed to ask Jesus to live in my heart if I wanted to go to Heaven. It was by Bob, six years my senior, the only other kid on the block where I grew up and a guy I modeled myself after growing up, albeit subconsciously. I asked Jesus to come into my heart that night and told my cousin, Jim, the same gospel the following week. As Bob, Jim and I sat that evening in the Doctors office parking lot and Jim also asked Jesus to come into his heart we saw something very strange, it looked like a bump on the moon. To this day I am still not sure what it was but that night I swore Jesus was looking down at us from the moon as if to say he was proud, maybe he was.

My life continued without much change, there were a few times when I would go to church with friends and I always found it intriguing, but often it was more of a turn off than anything else. I was told the smurfs were evil, and that most of the things I enjoyed were also evil. Jesus seemed like much more of a burden than not. Although I did make some great friends at Fellowship Baptist and I distinctly remember playing volleyball every week with those loving people, as well as going to a state youth conference where I first learned Easter meant more than bunnies and chocolate. I can still see they guy doing a living chalk drawing that when the lights went out became animated as it told the story of Jesus’ resurrection, it was there in Camp Hill Pennsylvania that I believe I really began to give serious thought to what role Christ would play in my life, at least until I left that conference room and forgot all about it. It was unfortunately at this point I really began to see the hypocrisy in the church. The students that all the adults saw as the good kids, I knew better. Although they professed Christ in public their lives were no different from mine and I at least considered myself honest for not pretending to be something I wasn’t.

Around my freshman year I became involved in Campus life/Youth for Christ, invited by many of the same people I had met at Fellowship Baptist, not the ‘good kids’ but my ‘heathen’ friends. Campus life was a evangelical para-church so I was able to learn more about Christianity in an environment that wasn’t so…’churchy’

It was here that I met Lavern Yutzy; you can read a little more about how he affected my life in my other post. We met in a different home every week for what I would now call a house church meeting, although I didn’t know anything about those types of categories at the time. We played games, did a bible study, and became friends. I still look back at Lavern as one of the most patient, loving, and Godly men I have ever met, I can’t believe how much he put up with. Thanks again, oh Bearded Wonder.