Spiritual Autobiography
2 Timothy 1:14
Statement of Faith
In addition to the tenets of the historic creeds of the church, e.g., the Apostolic and Nicene Creeds, I believe that all people are made in God’s image but that we are fallen creatures and hence under the sentence of condemnation. I further believe that in his infinite mercy, God sent his Only Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for our sins on the Cross, and that without Christ’s atoning work, I am a dead man, both here and hereafter. I believe that God’s gracious love is available to all sinners but that God’s grace is not cheap; it requires a personal and costly response on the part of each individual, and it requires our repentance. I also believe that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.It is out of a profound sense of thanksgiving that I give my life to Christ. In so giving, I count on his presence to help me grow to his full stature. Both our Lord and the NT writers promised this Presence and based on my experience, it is real. As you read the following, I invite you to remember that I write it as one who has been saved by the tender mercies of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Thanks be to God!
My Walk With Christ
The story of my walk with Christ has been one in which he has constantly put people in my life who were important to that walk. While certainly not the only way Christ has interacted with me, it is one of the most important because these people have helped shaped who I am. Whether it was by example or through resources they made available to me, I thank God that he has loved me enough to nourish me in both Spirit and through the kindly intercourse of loving Christian souls. The following story is my reflection on how God has worked in me, both directly and through the blessings of others. I was born in July 1953. My parents, both Methodists, had me baptized on April 11, 1954 at the First Methodist Church in Van Wert, Ohio, the town where I was born and raised. My parents attended church faithfully and in so doing, showed me the importance of regular worship in a Christian’s life. In addition to regular weekly worship, both my parents were actively involved in leadership positions in the life of the congregation. For example, my mother was the first woman ever to be appointed Lay Leader and my dad was a regular member of the Trustees and Administrative Board, the body of highest authority at the congregational level. I mention this because their participation at this level of the church’s life also taught me the importance of being actively involved in one’s church and I have always tried to follow suit. I attended Sunday school regularly and in the summer usually attended Bible School. Together with regular Sunday worship, I began to learn the stories of the Bible, about our denomination, and about its leader, John Wesley. In addition, my mother is a wonderfully gifted musician and pianist. Consequently, for as long as I can remember, I was exposed to the great hymns of the protestant church because she always had a Methodist hymnbook and regularly played songs from it. As a result, I have come to love the hymns we sing and appreciate increasingly the theology in them.
When I turned twelve I went through catechism (yes, folks actually called it that back in 1965) and there I learned about the major beliefs and Creeds of the Church, its liturgy and sacraments, how to live a good Christian life, what it meant to be an active participant in the Methodist Church (to support it with our prayers, our presence, our gifts, and our service), and about the Methodist Church’s history. It was here that God blessed me with the first of several ministers who would affect my life, The Rev. Dr. Paul Chiles. Dr. Chiles was a godly man who was deeply committed to the Christian faith. He knew his stuff and set high standards for his catechumens. In doing so he helped instill the importance of learning our Faith Story. As with most twelve-year olds, I suspect my understanding of what I was being taught was limited. However, God used my childhood experiences with the church along with my parents’ modeling to form in me the foundation that I claim even today. Understanding would follow. What is important is that I was exposed to faithful Christian life, both at home and in the church.
As a teenager, I was actively involved in the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF). That group met every Sunday night for study and discussion as well as fellowship. I loved my time with this group and God blessed us with many dedicated parents—mine included—who devoted hours of their time and energy to make MYF fun, faithful, and relevant to the lives of teenagers growing up in the 60s. I also ushered each Sunday morning and was given multiple opportunities to serve as liturgist. From these experiences I developed a love for being in church on Sundays—perhaps not always for the right reasons—but God used my teenage years to build a solid foundation of worship and church participation as an adult. Thanks be to God!
At home, I do not recall having many conversations about God or our faith. We did not pray together as a family, except at the dinner table, nor do I recall seeing my parents read the Bible, although I always knew where to find one in the house. I suspect, although I never asked them, that like many of their protestant peers at the time, they saw their faith as being a private matter and their behaviors reflected that belief. I am also quite confident that they believed it was up to the church to teach us how to practice these aspects of the Christian life and fortunately it did. What I do know for a fact, however, is that both my parents believed in the power of role modeling and I was fortunate to be blessed to have them model important components of the Christian life. Actions always speak louder than words and from the time I can remember, being part of the church community was always an active expectation. I simply had to learn some of the disciplines of Christian living, e.g., daily prayer, daily Bible reading, etc., from the church. Thankfully God provided ministers who helped show me the way. Before that happened, however, I had to walk through my first Valley of the Shadow.
During my high school years, and as was fashionable during the 60s, I began to question my faith, the biblical witness, and the existence of God. In retrospect, I understand that I did this more out of a desire to be like my best friend, who (amazingly enough) also had the same set of doubts and questions, i.e., my questions were more for the benefit of peers rather than a reflection of my true beliefs. Regardless, I continued to go to church every week, continued to be active in worship as an usher and in MYF, but I merely went through the motions. Yet as I reflect on this time, I now understand that God used my being part of the Body of Christ, being part of the worshiping community, as a means to help me remain rooted in the faith and to eventually rediscover it. So even though I had my youthful doubts, the important thing was that I did not drop out of the life of the church. For that I have my parents to thank as well.
When I graduated from high school in 1971, I went to the University of Toledo (UT). As usual God went with me and continued to guide me, even when I remained unaware of it. A powerful example of this fact was that my beloved pastor and future mentor, Dr. Wheaton Phillips Webb—who was my minister in Van Wert during my high school years—was also transferred that same summer to First United Methodist Church in Perrysburg, Ohio, a suburb of Toledo. This was certainly no coincidence but that fact eluded me at the time.
The event that destroyed my pseudo-agnosticism came early during my freshman year at UT. The young woman whom I had dated during my senior year in high school, and whom I hoped to marry, sent me a “Dear John” letter the day of my first semester exam. I was devastated and her rejection plunged me into a personal crisis I almost did not survive. Yet it also drove me back to God as I desperately sought a Foundation on which I could stand. As is not uncommon when personal calamity strikes, I decided being agnostic was not all that cool. It was during this time that I first felt the call to ordained ministry. God reminded me that Dr. Webb was now serving in Perrysburg and I started going to church there on a weekly basis.
Dr. Webb and his wife, Alice, immediately took me under their wings. Alice fed me regularly on Sundays after church and they both opened their home to me as if I were a long-lost son. Dr. Webb spent hours with me talking about my hurts, fears, hopes, and dreams. He patiently answered my youthful questions about the faith. In addition, I spoke at length with him about my perceived calling to the ordained ministry. He was very supportive and asked if I would like him to initiate the discernment process for me. I agreed.
We also talked about some questions and doubts I had about the Faith and in the course of these conversations Dr. Webb gave me one of the seminal books in my life—J. B. Phillips’ Your God is Too Small. I cannot overemphasize how important that little book was in my faith journey because it helped remind me of the Truth I had learned in church growing up; it was the final nail in my agnostic coffin, so to speak, and I have not been plagued by those kinds of doubts since. Phillips’ section on “inadequate gods” also helped liberate me from some misconceptions I had harbored about God and faith, most notably the ideas of salvation via merit, i.e., “works righteousness,” and a god who expects mistake-free perfection from his creatures. I have read that book four times over the years, given copies of it to a couple of my students, and continue to draw on its lessons even today.
In addition to Phillips’ book, Dr. Webb also exposed me to several other authors whom I found tremendously helpful in my faith journey. Of particular importance was W. E. Sangster’s, God Does Guide Us, Leslie Weatherhead’s classic, The Will of God, and Harry Emerson Fosdick’s classic, The Meaning of Prayer. Weatherhead was tremendously helpful in answering some of my questions about pain and suffering in this world and how a loving God could permit such things. Sangster and Fosdick, along with John Wesley, provided the foundation for my later devotional practices. They also shaped significantly my beliefs about the necessity and efficacy of a daily, disciplined prayer life for anyone who wants to walk intimately with Christ; and like Your God, I have read these books multiple times. In sum, I could not have been more grateful to have the Webbs as human anchors in my life—along with my parents—and I thank God to this day for putting them there for me. God truly does guide us!
Despite all this, I continued to harbor grave misgivings about my qualifications to be an ordained minister. I could not entirely shake the misconception of works righteousness and believed that my strong sexual urges, my desire to drink with my friends, and my rather bad habit of swearing—a habit I unfortunately acquired at a very early age and found formidable in breaking—were indicative of my unfitness. In short, I was just too earthy and earthly (and spiritually immature), i.e., I was not perfect and therefore considered myself unworthy of the ministry. Consequently at the end of my freshman year at UT I decided to abandon that career path and continued to pursue my goal of becoming a high school social studies teacher. Dr. Webb was gracious about my decision and continued to mentor me until his death in 1983. In retrospect, my thinking betrayed an immaturity and misplaced confidence in works righteousness that would have been disastrous had I pursued ordained ministry after I graduated from college. Thankfully, in his wisdom and time, God tabled this desire and prepared me to become a teacher, waiting until I had grown sufficiently in Christ to understand that ministry is not about me but rather my reliance on his grace to do his will and work to bring him honor and glory.
I graduated from UT in 1975 with a Bachelor of Education in secondary social studies but could not find a job. I therefore decided to pursue my Master’s degree until I could find work as a teacher. I chose to major in medieval history and it was there that I first gained exposure to the great church fathers of the West. From Augustine to Aquinas to Gregory the Great, I became steeped in church history and thought that provided me additional Christian role models and a solid theology to build on the foundation God had already provided.
I finally found work in November 1976 and spent the next 18 years as a high school social studies teacher in a suburban Toledo school district. I was (and am) an excellent teacher and teaching is clearly one of my God-given gifts. I saw my work as vocational and pursued it with great dedication, passion, vigor, and enthusiasm. I learned to deal with all kinds of people and how to share my faith in appropriate contexts. For example, since I taught psychology, I had many students seek my counsel on some of the same issues that had troubled me when I was their age. In these contexts, and if the situation was right, I would give a copy of Phillips’ book to students and encouraged them to read it carefully and prayerfully. I gladly used the Reformation to talk about issues of faith in the historical context they occurred. I drew on the lessons I had learned from my youth and always saw myself as one who tried to plant seeds for God to grow later. As I reflect on this time, I understand the importance of teaching and see how God can use good teachers to help build his kingdom, even in secular contexts.
I continued to teach and got married the first time in 1979. It was a disaster. I was 26 years old and feeling self-imposed pressure to marry. I met a woman my age, fell in love with her, but we rushed into marriage without really getting to know each other. Literally from the first day our marriage was in trouble and it lasted only 13 months. I was absolutely devastated and vowed never to make the mistake of marrying prematurely again. While I avoided that mistake, unfortunately I did not listen to God’s warning about my feelings toward the woman I married in 1987. The net result was that we starved our marriage to death and I was divorced a second time in 2000. This was even more devastating because we have two children from that marriage. No one need convince me of the evils of divorce. I have lived it and it is to my great shame that I am now a two-time adulterer by virtue of being twice divorced (see Matthew 19:3-9 for an explanation of this). Yet there is the hope of redemption even in my sin. God has blessed me with a woman whom I love more dearly than life and we are happily married. As I reflect on my second marriage I realize the greater sin was the actual process of starving the marriage to death in the first place; the divorce was simply the fruits of our mutual labor. Consequently, since I have been given a third chance, I am resolved to do nothing—I repeat, nothing—that will ever endanger this marriage. I have fully repented of my sin and live in the grace of being a forgiven adulterer. Thankfully God has done this for me and shown me what I must do to demonstrate my sincere repentance. With his daily help and our mutual commitment to each other, my wife, Dondra, and I are resolved to grow in grace and in love for each other and for God.
Despite living in a second unhappy marriage, I continued to attend church regularly but did not practice the daily disciplines of prayer and reading the Bible as I knew how. For reasons I no longer remember, I reread Sangster’s book in the late 80s and then resolved to seek out and read the great spiritual masters to learn how to foster a deeper and more satisfying devotional life. Toward that end I read, among others, Thomas-a-Kempis’ Imitation of Christ, Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence of God, St. Ignatius’ Spiritual Disciplines, Bonhoffer’s Cost of Discipleship, and various writings of Athanasius, Luther, Calvin, and John Wesley. The latter especially resonated with me and I became a voracious reader of both his commentators and his actual works. I even bought Wesley’s entire Works and have read a good portion of that multivolume collection. Wesley resonated with me because he was keenly interested in helping his people live the Christian life and spent his entire life providing them with practical tools to do so. Wesleyan commentators also helped me better understand the idea of the means of grace, thus deepening my love for the church. From Wesley I finally understood that there really is no such thing as an isolate Christian, that our faith must be practiced inside the Body of Christ, and that we are called to hold each other accountable in love. I learned again that doctrine does matter. I also love the “Wesleyan synthesis” of tying together acts of piety and acts of mercy, the latter stemming from the former. In sum, Wesleyan theology made a difference in people’s lives and in mine.
Out of my readings two things happened. First, I began to develop a more disciplined devotional life, something I practice to this day. I developed a devotional journal and used different forms of prayer to help me cultivate my prayer life. I realized that if I were to have a daily devotional pattern, I must start and end each day in prayer—focused, concentrated prayer (the reader should not assume I do not pray elsewhere or otherwise because I do). Consequently, I try to spend at least an hour each morning in prayer and Bible reading. Following Wesley’ model, I close each day with Scripture and reflecting on how (un)faithfully I’ve lived the day and what lessons I have learned from it. I keep a daily journal and a prayer diary to record any promptings or insights I glean. I try to review those journals regularly to see if I am making progress. What I have realized is that I am like most pilgrims. My path is not always straight and is fraught with backsliding and deviations. This has only served to remind me how utterly dependent I am on the grace of Christ to lead me in my journey and how far I still need to go. I also continue to be a voracious reader of Christian masters and scholars. Most recently I have read a good deal of N.T. Wright’s work and especially John R. W. Stott’s series, The Bible Speaks Today, which I have found tremendously helpful. Stott is an exemplary scholar who has provided wonderful insights to the texts and its meaning for the living of our days.
Second, I became increasingly aware that I was being starved in the Methodist Church. It was subtle and gradual but it was real. For example, we rarely said the creeds or followed the liturgy in the hymnbook. We increasingly abandoned the old hymns and their rich, wonderful theology. The Good News as handed down to us was rarely preached. We only took Communion once a month, something I never understood since Wesley saw it as an institutional means of grace and urged his followers to take it as often as they could. Consequently, over the last 10 years or so I developed an uneasy feeling that I was a man out of place but I could not pinpoint the cause of that feeling. God provided me the answer in two ways. After taking two Disciple classes at my church I decided to take the Christian Believer course. About the same time I also bought Tom Oden’s, Rebirth of Orthodoxy. Both helped me understand that I was not an oddball, that there were others who were being starved and doing something about it. God used both these resources to remind me of my roots, to remind me from whence I came. This prompted me to seek a different church and God guided me to St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Westerville, OH. Why did I seek an Episcopal church? Because I did not want to stray too far from the Wesleyan tradition. Even though I was dissatisfied with the UMC, I did not want to abandon the roots I had grown to love. Knowing that Wesley was an Anglican priest, I sought the Episcopal Church and God rewarded me richly. Since worshiping at St. Matthew’s I have come to love and appreciate the liturgy and the Book of Common Prayer (which is very similar to the old Methodist Hymnal we used during worship when I was a boy growing up). I love that we take Communion weekly (and often twice a week). I hear the Gospel preached every Sunday. It is clear that Fr. Ron Baird is serious about growing disciples, and there is a Spirit at St. Matthew’s that I had not experienced before. In short, I consider that God has finally led me home.
As was my pattern in the Methodist Church, I resolved to become actively involved in the life of the parish and attempt to leave it a little better place than when I found it. As I did so, and after many conversations with Fr. Ron about the topic, I once again felt the call of Christ to the ordained ministry. As I reflected on this call, God helped me realize that he has been preparing me for this time. As I have tried to articulate above, God has used my life experiences to help prepare me for the work and I believe my call is based on my gifts. In other words, I now understand that God never did revoke his call to ministry; he simply delayed it until it was his time. Let me be clear about this. I have no desire to be a rector. Nor do I have any desire to enter a second career path trajectory in the church. Instead I want to work in a church and focus on building disciples for Christ. I see this call putting my studies of Wesley to practical use. I would love to eventually start and lead a church-sponsored school—hopefully with my wife—that offers students a truly integrative educational/spiritual experience and uses all the modern tools for learning available to them. I see this call using my teaching gifts and educational background to build disciples. In these contexts I can use my gifts of teaching and preaching to build Christ’s Body and can administer the sacraments as part of that truly integrative experience. This desire incites and invites me. It stirs a passion that I once felt when I was called to the vocation of teaching. It has all the markings of an authentic call.
Despite this, I remained reluctant. I was still not sure why God would call one like me to his service. I tended to forget all the wonderful stories in the OT and NT that would suggest it isn’t about us 
. Moreover, since I moved away from Oxford, OH (where I had been a professor at Miami University) to take work in Columbus, I felt an increasingly intense guilt over my divorce and being away from my daughter. This despite the fact that my move to Columbus was to find work, not escape. Then came Sunday, February 22, 2004. On that day I experienced the most remarkable thing that has ever happened in my life and it changed me forever.
I was riding my stationary bike and feeling particularly guilty for “abandoning” my daughter, Bridget. I lamented over the shambles that this part of my life appeared to be in and what a mess I had made of things. So I began to pray to Jesus for forgiveness. It was then that I had a personal encounter with the Risen Lord! I quote the following from my blog that describes the encounter:
I had a fascinating experience yesterday while praying during exercise. Jesus came to me. Literally. It is quite impossible to adequately describe because there was this light but from it emerged his pierced wrists. I tried to apologize for all that I had done to him but he stopped me and showed me his wrists. He told me it was all right. He didn’t stay long, perhaps because he knew his presence was overwhelming me or because I started to blather on. Yet when he left, I was left with a peace that is indescribable. It was the peace that passes all understanding and it lingered with me for a good long while. I realized that if I were able to hold onto that Presence all the time, my life would be quite serene even in the midst of chaos. It left me with a sense of sin forgiven, a REAL sense. It made me want to desperately share this with others and weep over those who reject him like I have so many times before. I now know exactly what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20 when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” I had that happen to me yesterday. I don’t know if I will be fortunate enough to have another such experience, although this is the second intimation I’ve had in 3 years. Even if I never have another one, it left me a changed man in ways I do not yet fully understand. I only know this. I can now say this prayer, “Lord Jesus, Son of the Living God, thank you for your mercy and presence” instead of feeling like I must always say, “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me.”
May you too be blessed with the grace of meeting Jesus. Grace and peace.
It was this experience that finally got the monkey off my back. The crushing guilt was lifted at once and has never returned. It was then I realized that I live by faith, that I am utterly dependent on Christ, and that he does not demand perfection from those he calls to ministry. Reading Stott’s works has further reinforced what I learned from my encounter to the point where I am now convinced that Christ is calling me to share the Good News with his broken and hurting world. As stated above, I desire to use my gifts to teach, preach (another form of teaching), and to administer the sacraments to build up Christ’s body. Of course, I understand God’s call to me may change. But right now this is what I hear him telling me to do and I desire to use my God-given gifts to bring glory and honor to him who loves us and gave himself for us. Whatever the mode of service, I am resolved to continue to uphold the church by my prayers, my presence, my gifts, and my service.In closing, God has been actively involved in my life and has led me, sometimes unawares, to where I am currently. He has directly spoken to me. He has also used people and experiences to help me grow in grace, understanding, and spiritual maturity. I have certainly not grown to the full stature of Christ but I live in the hope and by faith that God will continue to walk with me, even when I am in the Valley of the Shadow. Christ’s call to me is surely a product of that sanctification and I have tried to articulate both how he has manifested himself in my life and what my relationship is with him. My call is to serve as an ordained priest in the Anglican Tradition, a tradition that God has used to help mold and shape me into the man I am today. I count on God’s continuing presence to lead me in his service. Thanks be to God in Christ Jesus our Lord!
