I am a former Southern Baptist pastor.

In my ministry there were scores of outside pressures and influences that were terrible. Yet the one single overriding factor for my ministerial demise was this: I became so emeshed in church work that I neglected my own personal time with God.

After I left the ministry I was depressed, despondent, felt a failure, felt a castaway and was close to suicide. I fell into sin, lost my secular job, my home and my family. Through a seven year slide I was accused of theft, sexual misconduct, dishonesty and a variety of other monsterous deeds. I hated God, the church and all who called themselves Christian. Then in 1998 I did, in fact, attempt to end it all and that didn’t even work out properly.

I met an Australian widow in 1999 while chatting on the internet. We eventually met and were married. She harboured an intense dislike for God and we both felt we were perfect for each other. Then some good friends invited us to a church function.

The church was Religious Science. Cheryl and I thought “GREAT”, we can fulfill our spiritual desires without a God meddling with us. Little did either of us know this was in fact a new beginning.

We enrolled in their 16 week introductory course. I found the teachings to be offensive to something inside of me. For the first time in years I allowed the Spirit to work in my heart. During a latter session I was asked, because of my background in ministry, to explain what Christianity was all about. I spent 20 minutes explaining the simple plan of salvation.

Dr. Croucher, I do not know what happened that night. Six people never returned to the class again, and I felt in my heart that God still wanted me.

Cheryl and I began reading the Word and praying daily. We dropped the Religious Science bunch and have begun worshipping our true God again. It has been a revival.

We both feel we are being let to relocate to Australia. In January we will be moving to Victoria. I will take my business with me for income, but we will be opening a small cafe/gift shop. We are preparing for a ministry among university students. We learned to seperate religion from spiritual, church from God. We want to meet people and show them that being truly spiritual, and having a right relationship with God comes thru faith in Jesus Christ.

December 2002