| I am starting with my biography hopefully not due to
egomania but that many people prefer to know something about a person
before deciding to spend time listening to what he has to say. This is the
point where I should impress people with my CV, many degrees and
publications, as well as prestigious positions I have held. Sadly, I am a
nobody. I dropped out of high school and went into the Army in 1968.
I joined Mensa in 1980 by taking a test and thought with that high a
score, I should actually be much smarter than I am. Around the same time I
started to volunteer on a crisis hotline and read a note from another
volunteer who had left saying that he always started each shift by praying
to God and asking for wisdom. I thought this was good advice and followed
his example. It proved to be a very good decision because I have found
wisdom to be much more valuable than intellect.
I was raised in the Lutheran church and while having gone through
confirmation, left church involvement and was propelled into the world as
was common for the time. Only when I was thirty did I start to read the
bible and as I advanced in this, the next step I saw was watching TV preachers.
I came to the end of the progress I could make in that venue and started
to search the phone book for a church to visit. Thankfully the one I
selected (because it had the words "independent",
"fundamental", and "bible" in the name) was where I
was fortunate to learn how to use bible tools.
I led a bible study special interest group (SIG) for a local Mensa
chapter for several years as well as a biweekly bible study for boys in a
juvenile detention facility. Leading while learning is an interesting
approach and one I suspect is more helpful than the construct of learning
then leading which seems to imply that one reaches a point where he is
finished learning. There is a degree of humility that has to be retained
while one sees oneself as continuing in learning. For example, one of the
detention boys asked why I presented a pretrib position. I took him to 1
Thess 4 and then chapter five a few verses later where it says that we are
not appointed unto wrath. I then told him that if he had a different view
to make his case and I might be persuaded to change my view.
When my wife and I got married we attended various Baptist churches,
Plymouth Brethren, Reformed, and ended up doing house church that was
usually just our family. We encountered people over the years that wanted
to go in the direction of social activism, charisma, and KJV only and as a
result, were never acceptable to those with a specific direction they
wanted to pursue.
We moved to a rural area and homeschooled our children. While we are
pleased with the character of our children and the wisdom of protecting
them from some of the worst influences of the world, it is difficult to
meet like-minded Christians with whom they might find opportunity to meet
other young people. With this in mind, we would welcome the opportunity to
correspond with other families with a view towards building Christian
relationships. |
