Late in my teenage years, I sought a change in my life, moving from the Philadelphia suburbs to the Mile High City. I had been a nominal Christian for five years, with one foot planted half-heartedly in the church but feeling powerless and condemned by my behaviors. Completely alone and two thousand miles removed from familiar friends and family, I became fully convicted of my own sinfulness and poor choices. Recognizing how my principal passions had been for entertainment, for my own poetry, and for alcohol, and not for pursuing godliness, I decided to document not only all that I might have to abandon if I were to become genuinely converted to Christ, but also all the things I might have to begin proactively doing in response to such a transformation.
After reviewing my list for two soul-searching weeks, I at last chose to engage God’s mandate for my life. I became persuaded of the sufficiency of His grace to help me in areas where my willpower and resolve could never suffice. I asked for forgiveness of my sins and told Jesus that I believed in him fully, and that I now intended to live consistently, but only with his assistance. Immediately after receiving forgiveness for my sinful life, I began adopting habits consistent with my faith, ridding my apartment of compromising influences. I felt love surging in my heart for people I had either resented or ignored in the past. I felt a great passion to pray, so I established a prayer hour and daily scripture-reading habits. I quickly joined the first church I visited, was baptized, and began sharing my faith with nearly everybody I met.
Enthusiastic Evangelist
But the church I had joined was part of a heterodox sect of Christianity, and within just a few months, I had become every bit as legalistic as their most fanatical members. The church’s habits were to dance and whoop it up during services, racing around the aisles, while praying loudly and trembling during the long altar services. While I found this to be strange and distracting, what persuaded me to cast my lot with them was their activism. Not only were they unafraid to demonstrate their obvious enthusiasm for Jesus in these manifestations, but they were also active on the city streets in the evenings, passing out salvation tracts and proclaiming their faith. In a nutshell, they appeared to possess the zeal for their faith I had lacked.
I found myself travelling not only to stadiums outside rock concerts to proclaim my faith, but also to rallies held by Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth Copeland, and by Christian rock bands. My purpose was to coax the attendees over to The Truth, assuring them of the superiority of our particular sect. For us, this meant persuading them of a four-stage view of salvation, requiring them to repent—which was a solid beginning– then to be baptized by immersion in a particular formula, solely in the name of Jesus without mention of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit— then to receive the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, and lastly to persevere in holiness. That final stage morphed into a catch-all category, requiring adherents to abandon televisions and other mediums of entertainment; for women to always wear dresses and skirts, disallowing the scissors to ever touch their hair, forsaking all cosmetics and jewelry; and for men to maintain short hair and clean-shaven faces, along with a laundry list of other stipulations. Many of these mandates, such as refraining from smoking and substance abuse, were good things. The problematic element was that if anyone transgressed in any area, they were considered to be outside the boundaries of God’s grace, fodder for the Lake of Fire. Above all else, the doctrine of the trinity was repudiated, and those who believed in this Constantinian error would certainly not reside in God’s Kingdom.
God’s Spy
The most prominent church in town at that time was sponsoring a Bible study in a large home not far from where I lived, and my pastor had sent me to infiltrate it. I had found few opportunities to promote our doctrines there, but the people seemed gracious and sincere, so I had faithfully attended for about a year, seeking opportunities to challenge their half-baked views of the Gospel. Towards the end of that era, I was involved in a collision. I had been fasting fastidiously to get closer to God, over one hundred total days that year, in fact. As a consequence, I had been driving home from my job in an inattentive and weakened condition, and I rear-ended a Mustang convertible. My wrecked car sat in my driveway, and I fell into a funk.
An older Latino brother, Reuben, sometimes visited our church and I had become friendly with him. He was the father of two teenage girls who attended regularly, the older of whom had married my close friend Russell when she turned seventeen. I was told Reuben hosted a house church with just a few families attending because he had been too critical of other churches to join forces with them. Russell had warned me that his father-in-law was sneaky and divisive, so I needed to be on my guard with him. I was indeed suspicious, but I continued to drop by his house on occasion due to his congeniality. When Reuben heard I had wrecked my car, he stopped by my apartment in Capitol Heights to survey the damage. He brought a man about my age with him named Augie, who was part of Reuben’s house church.
I was hoping they would refer me to someone who might give me a couple of hundred dollars to haul the car away for parts. When they saw my lemon-yellow Ford in the driveway, they surveyed it quickly. “This car isn’t totaled,” Reuben declared. “It can be easily fixed.”
“It can?” I asked in amazement. It had looked like a lost cause to me.
“Sure,” he said, and Augie concurred. They had me grab a notepad, and we walked around the car, writing down all the sections that would need to be replaced. Augie offered to fix it for me once I purchased the parts.
“I have no money, though,” I lamented. “Sadly, I am having to pay for the repairs to the rear end of the car I destroyed, since I didn’t have insurance. I’m making monthly payments to the owner, and I have nothing left over after I pay my rent, groceries, utilities, and tithes. It will take me months to save up, either for parts or repairs.”
“That’s alright, I’ll do it for free,” Augie offered. “It’s all for the kingdom. Find the parts, and I’ll have it fixed within three days.”
“He’s a pretty good mechanic, too,” Reuben added. “But you know, your church shouldn’t have left you in the lurch like this. What is the Body of Christ for? There are plenty of good mechanics at your church. Russell’s one of your best friends, and he’s a mechanic. They know that you’re single and struggling. Why are they not looking out for their own?”
Unexpected Provision
There it is, I thought. The contention and divisiveness I was warned about that would emerge from Reuben.
“Well, you know—they’re all busy,” I stated defensively. “Russell and your daughter just got married, they’re doing ministry. We’re in revival services this month…”
“Yeah, everybody is busy,” Reuben concurred. “That’s the problem. They’re supposed to be the embodiment of Jesus, and they’re all too busy for you. None of them offered to come down and help you assess the situation?”
“Well… no,” I admitted. Contentious or not, he had a point. Until now, I had not let the criticism enter my mind. I had asked Russell for advice, but he had ignored me. I had been disappointed when nobody had seemed to take any interest in my dilemma. I had not been critical, though, as nearly as I was able to determine.
“Well, we’ll get you fixed up,” Augie offered. “Let me know when you’re able to acquire the parts. In fact, I’ll go to the junkyard with you, soon as you get the money. I believe the Lord will provide.”
I had returned to taking the bus most places as I had done during my first eighteen months in the city. I continued to attend my church’s revival services most nights. For a few weeks, I had stopped attending the enemy Bible Study; My pastor seemed to have forgotten that he had sent me on that assignment, as he hadn’t asked any questions about it for several months. But faithfulness was my default mechanism, and the pastor had sent me on a mission which I hadn’t yet seen to its conclusion. That week, I decided to return to the trinitarian gathering. I rode the bus down to the meeting place, and they all seemed pleased to see me.
After the teaching portion had concluded, the group leader, Rex, approached me to get caught up on how I had been doing. I had no choice but to tell him that, no, I hadn’t been doing so well as I had wrecked my car and was now in debt. I hadn’t planned on telling him, but perhaps now that he knew, he would offer to pray for me as some of the parishioners in my own congregation had done.
“You mean you have been riding the bus and your car is repairable… but you simply don’t have parts?” he reiterated. I concurred with the accuracy of his assessment.
A look of grave concern settled over Rex’s face. He raised his hand to quiet the group. “Listen, everybody,” he announced to the gathering, who were still enjoying coffee and refreshments. “Tim, our brother here, has had some difficulties. That’s why he hasn’t been with us for a few weeks. He’s been in a collision, and the situation has left him with no money for repairs. We’re going to take up an offering here. Please ask the Lord how He might have you help our young brother in his hour of need.”
When the basket made its way back to me, four people had written checks. The amounts seemed astronomical to me, exceeding what I earned in a single week. I was immeasurably grateful. Early the next week, Augie and I ventured down to the junkyard and picked out the front-end parts we needed. Unfortunately, the hood and fenders were two shades of blue, so I wasn’t destined to have one of the more impressive-looking rides in town, but that was never going to be the case anyway. I had cashed the checks given to me from the Bible study group. When the cashier at the junkyard rang up the full amount for the parts, taxes included, it was just a few pennies under the exact amount Rex had raised for me with his spontaneous offering. Augie kept his word, and the next week, I was back on the road again.
The following week, I stood up during the testimony portion of my church’s service to glorify God and inform my family of the Lord’s provision. “And the crazy thing is,” I concluded, “…those people weren’t even saved. But the Lord used them anyway to bless me. God is so good!” The congregation nodded, laughed at the absurdity of the situation, and hooted their approval. I sat down, smirking and triumphant, but immediately my conscience slipped into turmoil.
Formation
Here I sat among my church family, including numerous mechanics and do-it-yourselfers, aware that I was living paycheck to paycheck. When I had apprised them of my current circumstances, their attitude had essentially been, “Oh, what a pity. Be thou warmed and filled.” Yet, I was disparaging Christians who had actually stepped forward to rescue me during the hour of my distress, referring to them as unbelievers.
The journey out of legalism would take me nearly two more years, involving a complete shunning by the congregation and the loss of virtually my entire social circle and spiritual growth network. This included the abandonment of my budding marriage plans with a woman I had been devoted to, who was not able to maintain her commitment to me due to congregational gaslighting. Even so, as I continued to meet other people whose doctrines deviated from mine but whose integrity was as clear as Rocky Mountain spring water, I always remembered how an example of kindness had been more compelling than mere dogma.
Over four decades have elapsed since then, incorporating my solid marriage to a like-minded woman, ongoing parenting, Bible College, two seminary stints, ordination, and residencies in six states, as well as travels in southern Asia. Along the way, I have continued to minister to the incarcerated population, to people possessing no permanent homes, and to others wounded by humanity’s fallen nature, including many who were emotionally abused by toxic churches. My faith has grown stronger, and my determination to bring redemption to needy people has become more acute as the journey has unfolded.
Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash
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