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And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:11a, NASB).
The first few days of January of every new year, I reminisce, as it’s my spiritual birthday (having become a believer on New Year’s Eve 1971/1072). This year, my thoughts considered the four major turning points of my life. I share these in the hope that you will be encouraged to faithfully follow Jesus in 2026.
Accepting Jesus as My Lord and Savior
After praying to receive Jesus and being baptized in the Atlantic Ocean at midnight on New Year’s Eve (1971/1972), I woke up the next morning to a blackness of paranoia that had been increasing because of my drug usage.
I asked God to take this affliction away, and it was gone immediately.
Thankful for my salvation and deliverance, I felt compelled to return to my hometown of Springfield, Ohio, to share my faith with my friends. While hitchhiking from Daytona to Springfield, I was arrested for sleeping alongside the interstate. Thrown into a large cell with a bunch of drunks and drug addicts, the Spirit of the Lord came upon me, and I began witnessing to them.
I didn’t know I had the gift of evangelism, but it first manifested in that jail. A few days later, I prayed with 16 of my friends to become believers.
Traveling to Russia
In the early 1990s, as a part of an association of pastors, I met Rick and Heather Ives, who were preparing to travel to Russia (communism had fallen and doors for church planting were open). After they had left, I felt that I should go to Russia to see how they were doing and encourage them.
My wife agreed to go with me, but a $6,000 cost for both of us to go was beyond my $20k-per-year salary, while also paying tuition for two of our children at a Christian school. A few days after our decision, someone showed up at our front door with a check for $6,000.
That led to about 75 trips to Russia over the next 30 years. Today I received a note from a pastor whom we helped start a church in St. Petersburg, Russia, that read: the church in St. Petersburg is doing very well. I’m also leading Zoom® discipleship training with 30 pastors in Siberia.
A New Building
In the early 2000s, our building in downtown Springfield was overcrowded on Sundays with little parking. There was an old commercial retail building available across the street from our local mall. One evening, a few of the pastors and elders drove to the parking lot and claimed the building for our new church location.
A month later, we received a call on a Monday that we could purchase the building, but we had to have a $100,000 deposit on Friday when we signed the papers. We had $100,000 in the bank, and the elders (in a huge step of faith) decided to pay the deposit and believe in God’s provision.
At a location in Cincinnati, after signing papers and handing over $100,000, we returned to our old church building in Springfield with no money left to pay salaries or any other bills. As one of our pastors walked into the building, someone got out of a car and handed him a check for $100,000!!!
Be a Good Steward of the Content
Walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee in 2020, with my 49 years of being a pastor at Fellowship Church ending, I asked the Lord, “What shall I do now?” He replied, “Be a good steward of the content that I have given to you.”
Soon after returning from Israel, I began writing this blog, Interruptions. After writing 1749 of them for a total of about 800,000 words (think 16 books), you have just read #1750.
Thank you for reading this blog.
In all things, let’s give God the Glory!