The summer before my senior year in high school (1971), the Lord began to get my attention. In June the Holy Spirit graciously regenerated me. The Spirit used leaders at the Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center to help me see my sin more clearly. I understood in more detail my great need for salvation. Thankfully the Spirit enabled me to put my faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
That summer I worked in the basement of Custom Craft Furniture packing up baby beds. I was by myself most of the time and had lots of time to think while listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; James Taylor; Carole King–you know, the good stuff–on the radio. West Hickory Baptist Church, where I had attended all of my life, had a person who worked with the youth for a while. But this particular summer there was no one to take the lead. God used that reality to begin to incline my heart toward ministry with youth. I talked with my parents and they helped me choose Mars Hill College, a Southern Baptist College near Asheville, NC. I majored in Religion.
I made some really good friends at Mars Hill. We had lots of fun together (I really should have studied more that first year😏). I also had the opportunity to get involved in many different ministries mostly through the Christian Student Movement on campus. What a blessing this was. The Lord used these things in many ways to confirm a calling into ministry and help prepare me.
But there was a big part of Mars Hill that led me to be disappointed and discouraged with Southern Baptists. My professors in the Religion Department were all nice men. I liked them. They were really smart. Maybe I misunderstood what they were trying to say, but their teaching proved to confuse and disorient me more than help prepare me for ministry. I heard basic doctrines of the faith regularly challenged–“Was Jesus really born of a virgin?”; “Is there really such a person as the devil?”; “Did Jesus’ resurrection really happen?”; “Jesus and Paul say different things, who should we believe?”; “Can we really believe that ALL Scripture is inspired by God?” It’s that last one that troubled me the most. It was at the foundation of all the others. Could I trust the Bible to be what it claimed to be? I was given the impression that some parts of it were more trustworthy than others. This issue came to a head for me when I was having my quiet time in Myers Dorm. I was reading a verse that I wanted to memorize. Then the questions came. How do I know this is really the Word of God? I decided at that point that even though I did not have answers for all the questions my professors were raising, I could not go with what I perceived their view of the Scriptures to be. I could not see how that would result in a God-honoring ministry. Because of my faith in the Lord, I renewed my faith in His Word–all of it.
I graduated in 1976 and decided that I would not go to seminary at that time. My impression was that what I would receive at the Baptist seminaries would just be more of the same. The denomination was in trouble. For example, at this point the SBC had actually gone on record as being pro-abortion. That is hard for me to fathom. It was a dark time.
But, it wasn’t all dark. I applied to the Home Mission Board, as it was then called, to serve an internship in their youth ministry program known as Reach Out. I was assigned to Park Avenue Baptist Church in Titusville, FL. It was in Florida that I learned for the first time that not everyone puts cole slaw on their hot dogs and hamburgers! I couldn’t believe it. And there was no Cheerwine! But more importantly, at Park Avenue I was discipled and greatly influenced by the ministers and other members of the church. I learned to witness. I learned to lead Bible Studies. I learned to disciple others. I learned much about how to pray. I grew in my worship both individually and corporately. I grew in the spiritual disciplines. Altogether I grew more in my faith in this Baptist Church than at any other time in my life. And the cherry on top was that I met a beautiful, godly young lady named Robin Glass who has now been Robin Williams for the last 45 years. All of these great blessings came into my life through a Southern Baptist Church.
In spite of the discouraging stuff, as you can see, I continue to have so many reasons to be grateful to be a Southern Baptist.