My fiance Dru had a younger brother named Dee. We were always friendly with each other but never did anything together, but one day I came over to Dru's house while her brother and 2 of his friends were smoking pot through a face mask connected to a breathing apparatus. When I saw Dee and his friends I felt a deep burden for them, so I poured out my heart, "Why do you do this when Jesus cared so much for you that He died for you. He hung on that cross so you could be freed from this!"
While his two friends stayed to listen, Dee walked into his room. Later Dru told me that Dee had talked with her saying that had been witnessed to a lot from others and never paid it any mind until he heard me. He was so moved that he had to leave the room.
As long as I knew him, he never gave his life to Christ.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
Breaking Up with Dru & The Shepherding Movement
LATE 1974
I was driving to Jacksonville from Opa Locka (7 hour drive) to visit my fiance Dru and I was just thinking over and over how our relationship was going nowhere and I was pretty sure that Dru felt the same way. So when I got to her house I rang the doorbell, she answered and without going in I said, "I think we need to break up." She agreed, we hugged and ended our relationship.
There was however, one other unsolved issue between us that may have added to the break up. Dru had recently wanted to join the Shepherding Movement, in particular, she wanted Bob to be her shephard, not that she wanted to date him, but she only wanted to join his shepherding group.
The Shepherding Movement was started in Ft. Lauderdale by five Charismatic leaders that submitted to each other for accountability and Christian growth. In time the submission grew to more and more people and while it grew, it became hierarchal... people submitted and tithed to a shepherd who in turn submitted and tithed to another shepherd higher than he, and that shepherd submitted to another and on and on.
In its hayday the Shepherding Movement was very popular, especially in Florida. People were asking each other, "who's your shepherd?" and you had better have had an answer. Submission to a shepherd was absolute...even to the point of asking your shepherd if you could get a car, or if you could or who to date.
Within a few years the five leaders broke up, most of them repenting and confessing to the church that it was a huge mistake. But when it was going strong many of my friends joined or wanted to join. Dru (my fiance) wanted to; I did not want her to, because if she did, somebody else would be telling her what to do or not to do with our relationship. In the 1 1/2 years I dated her, this was the only disagreement we had.
When Dru and I broke up she went to Bob's for fellowship, but I think she lost interest shortly thereafter.
The attraction of intense discipleship:
1. The feeling that others will help me live more like I should
2. The feeling that I need hard core discipline because I am spiritually careless
3. The need for fellowship with like minded people
Why it didn't work and still doesn't:
1. Although others can help, you still have to face your own issues
2. We can only handle so much hard core discipline before we burn out
3. Intense fellowship (which this becomes) with like minded people quickly turns cultish (ex: feeling that God favors our group over others)
There are so many other reasons, but I don't have the time in this blog to get into it. Let me just say, I have seen the rise and fall of the Shepherding Movement and I have seen the rise and fall of the International Church of Christ which was based on the Shepherding Movement. In both of them the leaders gave up and repented when they realized how much damage they did to others.
EPILOGUE
I met with Dru several years later and we talked for a few minutes. No longer under a shepherd, she talked to me about her boyfriend and I told her about my new girlfriend - the one I married.
Later Ray told me Dru married a TV reporter from a Jacksonville TV station.
I was driving to Jacksonville from Opa Locka (7 hour drive) to visit my fiance Dru and I was just thinking over and over how our relationship was going nowhere and I was pretty sure that Dru felt the same way. So when I got to her house I rang the doorbell, she answered and without going in I said, "I think we need to break up." She agreed, we hugged and ended our relationship.
There was however, one other unsolved issue between us that may have added to the break up. Dru had recently wanted to join the Shepherding Movement, in particular, she wanted Bob to be her shephard, not that she wanted to date him, but she only wanted to join his shepherding group.
The Shepherding Movement was started in Ft. Lauderdale by five Charismatic leaders that submitted to each other for accountability and Christian growth. In time the submission grew to more and more people and while it grew, it became hierarchal... people submitted and tithed to a shepherd who in turn submitted and tithed to another shepherd higher than he, and that shepherd submitted to another and on and on.
In its hayday the Shepherding Movement was very popular, especially in Florida. People were asking each other, "who's your shepherd?" and you had better have had an answer. Submission to a shepherd was absolute...even to the point of asking your shepherd if you could get a car, or if you could or who to date.
Within a few years the five leaders broke up, most of them repenting and confessing to the church that it was a huge mistake. But when it was going strong many of my friends joined or wanted to join. Dru (my fiance) wanted to; I did not want her to, because if she did, somebody else would be telling her what to do or not to do with our relationship. In the 1 1/2 years I dated her, this was the only disagreement we had.
When Dru and I broke up she went to Bob's for fellowship, but I think she lost interest shortly thereafter.
The attraction of intense discipleship:
1. The feeling that others will help me live more like I should
2. The feeling that I need hard core discipline because I am spiritually careless
3. The need for fellowship with like minded people
Why it didn't work and still doesn't:
1. Although others can help, you still have to face your own issues
2. We can only handle so much hard core discipline before we burn out
3. Intense fellowship (which this becomes) with like minded people quickly turns cultish (ex: feeling that God favors our group over others)
There are so many other reasons, but I don't have the time in this blog to get into it. Let me just say, I have seen the rise and fall of the Shepherding Movement and I have seen the rise and fall of the International Church of Christ which was based on the Shepherding Movement. In both of them the leaders gave up and repented when they realized how much damage they did to others.
EPILOGUE
I met with Dru several years later and we talked for a few minutes. No longer under a shepherd, she talked to me about her boyfriend and I told her about my new girlfriend - the one I married.
Later Ray told me Dru married a TV reporter from a Jacksonville TV station.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Called to Missions
DECEMBER 31, 1974
At a New Year's Eve service I was feeling like something had been missing for some time in my life. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, so I prayed about it hoping that God would reveal it to me. I knew this feeling because every time I felt it, I knew there was something that I was missing, something that I needed to discover about myself. So I prayed and over and over my thoughts went back to the day I thought God was calling me to missions.
I had been joking around with a friend one day and he kidded about me being a missionary. The second he said it, I said, "That's it!" As I read the Bible that night the verses all directed me to follow up on it and prepare for being a missionary. But I was engaged to Dru at the time and I didn't think she was the mesions type, so I eventually dropped the idea of missions. During that watchnight service I realized God was serious about missions, so that same night I rededicated my life to missions.
At a New Year's Eve service I was feeling like something had been missing for some time in my life. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, so I prayed about it hoping that God would reveal it to me. I knew this feeling because every time I felt it, I knew there was something that I was missing, something that I needed to discover about myself. So I prayed and over and over my thoughts went back to the day I thought God was calling me to missions.
I had been joking around with a friend one day and he kidded about me being a missionary. The second he said it, I said, "That's it!" As I read the Bible that night the verses all directed me to follow up on it and prepare for being a missionary. But I was engaged to Dru at the time and I didn't think she was the mesions type, so I eventually dropped the idea of missions. During that watchnight service I realized God was serious about missions, so that same night I rededicated my life to missions.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The Car Accident
FEBRUARY 1975
I was called to be a missionary on December 31, 1973, so a month and a half later I went to Lakeland, FL to check out the closest Assemblies of God Bible College. I went to its open house during the second weekend in February with 2 High Schoolers from the church I attended - the church where I was the sole 20+ year older. Manny and Danny were both Hispanic kids who loved to have fun and who had little interest in taking life seriously.
We took turns driving my VW up to Lakeland even though it was only 4 hours away, spending a good part of our journey traveling 88 miles per hour, because that's as fast my car went.
We arrived at South Eastern Bible College on Friday night and stayed until Sunday afternoon.
For our weekend we went to a South Eastern basketball game and a prayer service. Manny, Danny and I had a lot of fun together and even though there was 5 years difference between me and Manny and Danny, they grew on me and I began to enjoy their company and their sense of humor.
On Saturday night I had a strong conviction that I never had before. I felt very strongly that we shouldn't be speeding. I never felt that before or after. I learn the hard way, through tickets, not conviction. But that night I felt it very strongly, so I told Manny and Danny that we were going to go the speed limit on our way home.
I drove the first hour and stopped at a gas station where I made friends with the attendent joking with her and telling her that if the newspapers reported a car accident the next day, it would be us... who would have known?
Manny started driving and I took my Bible and opened it up to read it for the next part of the journey, but grew tired right away and slipped into a deep sleep.
It was light out when I woke up. I was confused wondering why I wasn't at work already. I thought it was Monday and I thought I was in my bed in Opa Locka and there was a strange man in the bed next to me. I turned to look at him; he was excited. "You were in a car accident," is all I understood him to say. I fell back to sleep.
I woke up again with a doctor next to me telling me that I had a head concussion, lung contusions, a broken leg and that I lost a third of my blood. When he left I went back to sleep until sometime later when a nurse woke me up to take me by wheelchair into another room to see my friends where she left me. I looked up and saw a man I never met before, who was apologizing, "I'm sorry." His apology was hollow and timid - he was (as I was told later) an alchoholic, who had been in several previous accidents. The nurse brought me to the other driver thinking he was my friend. I found out later that my friends had already been taken to a Miami hospital only 2 hours away.
Minutes later, the nurse came back into the room and took me back to my room, where somebody brought me the bible I had been reading shortly before the accident. It was a Living Bible completely soaked in dried blood. I was amazed anybody would think I would want to keep it. I slept the rest of the day.
On Monday morning half the town of Clewiston, FL showed up as a Coast Guard helicopter landed in the baseball field to carry me by stretcher to a hostpital in Miami. The crew had to wash the entire helicopter from top to bottom after they dropped me off because one of the cuts in my lung looked like Hepetitus on the XRays.
One week after the accident a Baptist lady walked into my hospital room with my Martin 12 string guitar. She told me a girl at the accident had kicked it into a ditch to steal it, and seeing that the lady walked over grabbed the guitar and drove it down to Miami to give it to me in person. I didn't thank her, cause I was still so out of it. In fact, it was a month before I was ready to get out of the hospital and begin working again with a large cast on my leg and crutches.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Kathryn Kuhlman - part 1
APRIL 1975
I went to Kathryn Kuhlman Crusades 3 years in a row. For the first two years I was in a 300 voice choir being blesssed as I watched dozens of people healed. But for the third year I was in the audience wondering if what I was watching was real or some sort of circus show. In other words, I had learned to question and examine everything and I wasn't so sure anymore about Kathryn Kuhlman or about many of her routines. Even though I was in such a mood, the day I went to my last KK Crusade would become one the wildest of all my experiences. But before I get into that event, I need to explain who Kathryn Kuhlman is.
Kathryn started out as a Pentecostal preacher who had a good sized church until she met a radio preacher whom she fell in love with and married. The only problem was, when she met him, he was already married and had children. It ruined both of their ministries. But after 10 years of marriage together they decided that Kathryn's ministry was more important than their marriage, so they broke up.
Kathryn had a hard time getting back into ministry because news of her illegitimate marriage followed her from city to city for several years. Eventually she was able to find peace and gained a good following. That was when the healings began. They weren't planned or expected - they just happened.
As her ministry grew, she began traveling around the country holding healing services and gaining quite a following.
Her services were carefully crafted. People who didn't look like they were true followers were removed from the front chairs and services were held in buildings that couldn't quite hold the mass of people who wanted to get in. Like the Billy Graham Crusades, KK started her meetings with music and hymns, a 300 voice choir singing (she especially loved "It Is Well with My Soul,") and a flamboyant piano player named "Dino" who in time threatened to write a book exposing KK as a fraud. The book was to be called, "The Late Great Kate," but was buried in return for a hefty but unknown amount of money paid to Dino by KK.
After quite a bit of music and hymns, KK preached from the scripture. As I remember, she one of the better preachers I heard... very solid in the Bible - but I don't remember much about her preaching. Oh yea, and she had a very dramatic style of speaking and moving around on the stage. It was like every movement was over stated and filled with drama.
During her preaching people would start getting healed - it just happened. And once it began she would have ushers find those being healed to come forward to testify about their healing. After their testimonies, Kathryn laid her hands on them and said something like, "The power of God is on you." Then the people fell backwards, "slain in the Spirit."
That was the show. Occasionally, some Pentecostal in the audience would get all excited and start praying in tongues or something else to steal the attention away from KK, but Kathryn responded very wisely to this; she would not allow it. To this day that was one of the two positive things I got from KK. The second was the fact that unlike most healers she admitted she didn't know why some were healed and some weren't - some people who had no faith were healed while others with loads of faith were not. I liked that idea. There are mysteries involved in healing.
After her death Benny Hinn had a vision of Kathryn Kuhlman telling him that he should be a healer. Yeah, sure.
When I saw her in 1975 I had no clue about Kathryn's jaded past. I just knew that I was struggling with the question of what was real and what wasn't. But oh what I was about to experience!
I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.
I went to Kathryn Kuhlman Crusades 3 years in a row. For the first two years I was in a 300 voice choir being blesssed as I watched dozens of people healed. But for the third year I was in the audience wondering if what I was watching was real or some sort of circus show. In other words, I had learned to question and examine everything and I wasn't so sure anymore about Kathryn Kuhlman or about many of her routines. Even though I was in such a mood, the day I went to my last KK Crusade would become one the wildest of all my experiences. But before I get into that event, I need to explain who Kathryn Kuhlman is.
Kathryn started out as a Pentecostal preacher who had a good sized church until she met a radio preacher whom she fell in love with and married. The only problem was, when she met him, he was already married and had children. It ruined both of their ministries. But after 10 years of marriage together they decided that Kathryn's ministry was more important than their marriage, so they broke up.
Kathryn had a hard time getting back into ministry because news of her illegitimate marriage followed her from city to city for several years. Eventually she was able to find peace and gained a good following. That was when the healings began. They weren't planned or expected - they just happened.
As her ministry grew, she began traveling around the country holding healing services and gaining quite a following.
Her services were carefully crafted. People who didn't look like they were true followers were removed from the front chairs and services were held in buildings that couldn't quite hold the mass of people who wanted to get in. Like the Billy Graham Crusades, KK started her meetings with music and hymns, a 300 voice choir singing (she especially loved "It Is Well with My Soul,") and a flamboyant piano player named "Dino" who in time threatened to write a book exposing KK as a fraud. The book was to be called, "The Late Great Kate," but was buried in return for a hefty but unknown amount of money paid to Dino by KK.
After quite a bit of music and hymns, KK preached from the scripture. As I remember, she one of the better preachers I heard... very solid in the Bible - but I don't remember much about her preaching. Oh yea, and she had a very dramatic style of speaking and moving around on the stage. It was like every movement was over stated and filled with drama.
During her preaching people would start getting healed - it just happened. And once it began she would have ushers find those being healed to come forward to testify about their healing. After their testimonies, Kathryn laid her hands on them and said something like, "The power of God is on you." Then the people fell backwards, "slain in the Spirit."
That was the show. Occasionally, some Pentecostal in the audience would get all excited and start praying in tongues or something else to steal the attention away from KK, but Kathryn responded very wisely to this; she would not allow it. To this day that was one of the two positive things I got from KK. The second was the fact that unlike most healers she admitted she didn't know why some were healed and some weren't - some people who had no faith were healed while others with loads of faith were not. I liked that idea. There are mysteries involved in healing.
After her death Benny Hinn had a vision of Kathryn Kuhlman telling him that he should be a healer. Yeah, sure.
When I saw her in 1975 I had no clue about Kathryn's jaded past. I just knew that I was struggling with the question of what was real and what wasn't. But oh what I was about to experience!
I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Kathryn Kuhlman pt 2
APRIL 1975
Manny, Danny and I were toward the back of some huge arena in Miami watching Kathryn Kuhlman. We had a car accident two months before and we looked like it. Danny's arm was in a sling because he had a broken elbow along with a shattered hip with pins and metal bars put in from our accident. I on the other hand had recovered quite well in the last 2 months. My blood level felt like it was back to normal, I was no longer dizzy from my head concussion, I could breath properly after having lung contusions (that's how I lost 1/3 of my blood), and I had become very good at walking around with crutches. My cast, due to come off in June (if everything went well), traveled from the top of my left hip to the bottom of my left toes. Manny had a few bruises and nothing else. But the 3 of us together looked like a mess.
I always felt so blessed during the 2 previous Kathryn Kuhlman services the 2 years previously, but during this service I was filled with doubts and questions.
The same routines took place - the songs, the choir and the preaching. KK told her audience that God had revealed to her that before she would die there would be a service where everybody was healed... I don't think that ever happened and when she said that, I doubted it.
According to her routine, while she preached with over the top drama in her long white gown, people began to be healed and while people were being taken to the stage to testify about their healing. Meanwhile in the audience Danny started to stretch his arm wondering if it was being healed. One of the ushers saw Danny stretching his arm still in the cast and thought for sure he was being healed, so he grabbed Danny and took him up front. Manny followed him up front, because they were best friends.
On stage they told KK about the car accident and she found out that there was another one from the accident in the audience, so I was shuttled up to the main stage as well.
On the main stage KK asked me a few questions and then told me that I was healed and that I should put aside the crutches and walk across the stage. I had a cast up to my hip, and told her that I couldn't walk because of that. She then said, "When you get your cast off you will find that you are healed." With that she reached her hand out to me so that I would be slain in the Spirit (which means I was suppose to fall backwards). I had already decided that I didn't know if this was that scriptural so was not going to let her push me down, and I wasn't going to go down just because I wanted to. I planned to stand my ground, but before her hand even reached me I fell over into the arms of one of the helpers who placed me gently on my back on the floor.
I felt awesome and praised God while trying to lift up my arms to praise him, but my arms would not move.
Fun experience, but it did nothing for my faith either way. It didn't harm it and it didn't help it. On Judgment Day God will not ask us about our spiritual experiences of falling down; He will ask us if we fed the hungry and helped the poor, clothed the naked and visited the sick and those in prison.
The service ended on the highest note - 3 young men (2 still in their teens) healed after a life threatening car accident. The only problem was, I still had a cast on so couldn't tell if I had been healed and Danny wasn't really sure he had been healed. In fact, the next day Danny told me he thought nothing had changed. Nevertheless, on the way out of the auditorium as my mind raced with conflict and more doubt, people clamored to touch us because the power of God rested on us.
I didn't feel like it.
Manny, Danny and I were toward the back of some huge arena in Miami watching Kathryn Kuhlman. We had a car accident two months before and we looked like it. Danny's arm was in a sling because he had a broken elbow along with a shattered hip with pins and metal bars put in from our accident. I on the other hand had recovered quite well in the last 2 months. My blood level felt like it was back to normal, I was no longer dizzy from my head concussion, I could breath properly after having lung contusions (that's how I lost 1/3 of my blood), and I had become very good at walking around with crutches. My cast, due to come off in June (if everything went well), traveled from the top of my left hip to the bottom of my left toes. Manny had a few bruises and nothing else. But the 3 of us together looked like a mess.
I always felt so blessed during the 2 previous Kathryn Kuhlman services the 2 years previously, but during this service I was filled with doubts and questions.
The same routines took place - the songs, the choir and the preaching. KK told her audience that God had revealed to her that before she would die there would be a service where everybody was healed... I don't think that ever happened and when she said that, I doubted it.
According to her routine, while she preached with over the top drama in her long white gown, people began to be healed and while people were being taken to the stage to testify about their healing. Meanwhile in the audience Danny started to stretch his arm wondering if it was being healed. One of the ushers saw Danny stretching his arm still in the cast and thought for sure he was being healed, so he grabbed Danny and took him up front. Manny followed him up front, because they were best friends.
On stage they told KK about the car accident and she found out that there was another one from the accident in the audience, so I was shuttled up to the main stage as well.
On the main stage KK asked me a few questions and then told me that I was healed and that I should put aside the crutches and walk across the stage. I had a cast up to my hip, and told her that I couldn't walk because of that. She then said, "When you get your cast off you will find that you are healed." With that she reached her hand out to me so that I would be slain in the Spirit (which means I was suppose to fall backwards). I had already decided that I didn't know if this was that scriptural so was not going to let her push me down, and I wasn't going to go down just because I wanted to. I planned to stand my ground, but before her hand even reached me I fell over into the arms of one of the helpers who placed me gently on my back on the floor.
I felt awesome and praised God while trying to lift up my arms to praise him, but my arms would not move.
Fun experience, but it did nothing for my faith either way. It didn't harm it and it didn't help it. On Judgment Day God will not ask us about our spiritual experiences of falling down; He will ask us if we fed the hungry and helped the poor, clothed the naked and visited the sick and those in prison.
The service ended on the highest note - 3 young men (2 still in their teens) healed after a life threatening car accident. The only problem was, I still had a cast on so couldn't tell if I had been healed and Danny wasn't really sure he had been healed. In fact, the next day Danny told me he thought nothing had changed. Nevertheless, on the way out of the auditorium as my mind raced with conflict and more doubt, people clamored to touch us because the power of God rested on us.
I didn't feel like it.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Am I Healed?
APRIL 1975
"When you get your cast off, you will find that your leg is healed," Kathryn Kuhlman told me before an audience of thousands. Those words tormented me for 2 months.
I had just been to the doctor who kept on putting more and more cast goop on my leg cast making it heavier and heavier. My next appointment was in June. I was tormented because I didn't know if I should pry the cast off with a chisel or saw thus letting the whole Coast Guard station know that God heals. But if I did that and the Doctor said I wasn't healed, I would so dishonor Christ and make myself look like a fool. I just didn't know what to do.
Past teachings I thought I had discarded came back to haunt me. I felt like my lack of faith was keeping me from ripping the cast off, showing the world that Jesus is alive! But then again, what if I ripped it off and wasn't healed? The embarrassment would know no end and I would make Christianity look so bad. These thoughts plagued me for the two remaining months I had the cast on.
JUNE 1975
The earliest possible date for complete removal of the cast (according to my Doctor) was at hand. I decided to keep the cast on until the Doctor's appointment after all, but felt like I may have done wrong.
The nurse came in to remove my cast, but it was way too thick from a constant wrapping more and more cast stuff on it, so the Doctor sawed through it and took some xrays.
I prayed that I would not have to have another cast; I had one on for four months and was tired of it.
The Doctor barely knew me (he had no idea I was a Christian) and had no idea I was struggling so much with Kathryn Kuhlman's proclamation that I had been healed, nevertheless when he came in to the room where I was after looking at the xrays he literally shouted out (not really loud), "Rise up and walk, you're healed!"
I didn't think it was funny. It took awhile for me to get my sense of humor back.
UPDATE 2018
As I talked to my daughter about this event today, I realized for the first time since 1975 that it is possible that God was saying something to me back then. All healing, even natural healing and healing with the help of medicine is a gift of God. So, maybe God was speaking through the doctor that day.
"When you get your cast off, you will find that your leg is healed," Kathryn Kuhlman told me before an audience of thousands. Those words tormented me for 2 months.
I had just been to the doctor who kept on putting more and more cast goop on my leg cast making it heavier and heavier. My next appointment was in June. I was tormented because I didn't know if I should pry the cast off with a chisel or saw thus letting the whole Coast Guard station know that God heals. But if I did that and the Doctor said I wasn't healed, I would so dishonor Christ and make myself look like a fool. I just didn't know what to do.
Past teachings I thought I had discarded came back to haunt me. I felt like my lack of faith was keeping me from ripping the cast off, showing the world that Jesus is alive! But then again, what if I ripped it off and wasn't healed? The embarrassment would know no end and I would make Christianity look so bad. These thoughts plagued me for the two remaining months I had the cast on.
JUNE 1975
The earliest possible date for complete removal of the cast (according to my Doctor) was at hand. I decided to keep the cast on until the Doctor's appointment after all, but felt like I may have done wrong.
The nurse came in to remove my cast, but it was way too thick from a constant wrapping more and more cast stuff on it, so the Doctor sawed through it and took some xrays.
I prayed that I would not have to have another cast; I had one on for four months and was tired of it.
The Doctor barely knew me (he had no idea I was a Christian) and had no idea I was struggling so much with Kathryn Kuhlman's proclamation that I had been healed, nevertheless when he came in to the room where I was after looking at the xrays he literally shouted out (not really loud), "Rise up and walk, you're healed!"
I didn't think it was funny. It took awhile for me to get my sense of humor back.
UPDATE 2018
As I talked to my daughter about this event today, I realized for the first time since 1975 that it is possible that God was saying something to me back then. All healing, even natural healing and healing with the help of medicine is a gift of God. So, maybe God was speaking through the doctor that day.
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