South Side Assembly of God

November 1971



South Side AG was obviously Pentecostal. Church services lasted about 2 hours with music for the first hour, and an hour long message afterward.

The Service:

The Pastor's son P.D. Zink led the worship with a 30 to 40 voice choir. The choir sang Southern Gospel music (Oak Ridge Boys, Dottie Rambo, Nancy Harmon and the Victory Voices, Andre Crouch and others). The choir rocked.

I grew up in a church where people quietly sang or didn't sing at all. Everybody sang at South Side AG. The choir belted out the songs and the congregation clapped and sang along. Worship was filled with loud Southern Gospel music.

Prayer seemed almost chaotic. When P.D. prayed, everybody prayed along, out loud. Some would pray in tongues and others would pray in regular English. The church was always noisy.

Occasionally as the prayer time began to quiet down one person (usually on lady) would pray out loud in tongues. That meant that God was going to give us a message / an interpretation of the tongues. Seconds later somebody else would give a message in English that was suppose to be a message straight from God. Typically the message had to do with how close the return of Christ was and how prepared we should be.

The Message:

Dale Zink gave the message, he was the pastor. In the 1970s we titled each other Brother or Sister - so I was Brother Ted. Pastor Zink was Brother Zink. Brother Zink preached a lot about the end times. We lived minutes away from the return of Jesus. I believed that Jesus was so close that within the year the Church would be raptured away to meet Him in the air. Although Brother Zink talked about the end times every sermon I remember, occasionally the choir was so good, and P.D. did such a good job with the choir that the church service got wrapped up in prayer. Brother Zink would step up in front of the congregation with tears in his eyes and tell us that he wouldn't preach because God was already doing such a great work, and that the congregation should continue in prayer seeking after God. He opened up the altar (the front of the church) for prayer.

Throughout the congregation people wept, people got right with God, people went forward to the front of the church for prayer and for starting their lives of faith in Christ.

The 17 months I stayed in Jacksonville the church doubled in size becoming well over 500 attenders.

Today Bishop Paul Zink is the pastor of New Life Church in Jacksonville.

Witnessing with Ray

December 1971

I met Ray at Wednesday Bible Study. He was a rather large fun loving guy who lived and breathed Jesus. I met him talking after my second week Bible Study. He discovered that I was hitchhiking everywhere so he offered me a ride on the back of an Indian motorcycle he was borrowing from some Christian Navy guy. I told him the Coast Guard station was next to the Navy station so we drove 30 miles in pouring rain on freeways before we realized that we were going to the wrong Navy station and had to turn back the complete opposite way.

I was a guy, Ray was a guy, the motorcycle had no back bars, so rather than be safe with my life and holding on to Ray (Ray liked to drive really fast), I grasped on to the back of the seat for dear life in the middle of a torrential downpour for 75 plus miles. It took about an hour and a half before I got to the ship. I was cold and wet, but I lived.

Ray borrowed the motorcycle from a Navy man as I mentioned, so that he could work on it, tuning it up and helping it to work better, but within 2 weeks, Ray had driven it to the ground. It was ruined. The Navy guy was not too happy with Ray when he found out.

Ray and I became immediate best friends doing just about everything together including witnessing. Now for those of you who do not know what witnessing is, I was told that Christians should tell others about Jesus so that they too can have opportunity to become Christian.

Ray and I had been out doing stuff one day when we decided to stop at a Jack-in-the-Box fast food restaurant. Ray and I ordered hamburgers, fries and shakes and then sat down at a bench to wait for our order. Ray began a conversation with a young man holding a beer in his hand. As Ray talked about Christ, the man with the beer was interested in everything Ray said.

I, however, was thinking that Ray should get to the point and tell this guy that his beer was evil. So when our order came up and Ray got up to get it, I told the man with the beer, "The Bible says that you shouldn't drink beer." His whole face changed. Instant conviction of God did not come over him as I thought it would. Instead, he turned to me with a scowl, "Where does it say that?"

I fumbled in my bible (the King James one I carried with me everywhere I went) and prayed and hoped that God would direct me miraculously to the verse that says, "You shall not drink beer. You shall not sip beer, for if you do the Lord will smite you with hot irons." Actually I was hoping to get anything simple like, "Thou shalt not drink beer." I fumbled and searched and was embarrassed. I couldn't find it because it wasn't there. There is no place in the bible that even mentions beer and the only place it speaks against drinking is when the bible warns about drinking too much wine. But I was new to this whole thing and thought I'd help the bible along by filling in with what I thought was needed.

Ray came back with the food and by quoting a few verses of scripture and keeping things simple the man with the beer once again focused on everything Ray said, asking good questions and then praying to receive Christ.

I learned 2 big lessons that day. First, God doesn't need extra help. The bible is enough. Stay with the bible and God will do the rest. Second, Ray told me afterward, "If you want a dog to drop his bone, don't try to take it out of his mouth, give him steak."

The Healing

December 1971

As Christmas was approaching, I began dating a young lady from church (we only dated a couple of weeks). While we were dating we went with a church group to sing Christmas carols at a local Convelescent Home.

While we were singing a carol to a few older ladies, I had a feeling inside of me... like what it must be like from one of the old lady's view, listening to the singing but unable to hear very well. I felt deep sorrow for my imagined person and inwardly prayed for hearing healing. We finished the song and a lady in the group with tears in her eyes told us, "While you were singing God healed my hearing. I am so happy, now my son will take me back home."

I didn't tell anybody what I experienced, but I somehow knew that the lady would not go home even if she could hear. She was old.

2018 UPDATE

I also remember that while we sang, the burden I felt was for someone to be able to hear long enough for us to sing. I didn't know it then, but temporary healing was and is common in Christian circles, but poorly understood and wrongly explained.

Jimmy Swaggart

December 1971

After I gave up Rock and Roll music there was a big void in my life. I needed music, but had nowhere to go, until Brian asked me and some of the other guys if we wanted to go to a concert in town. We went to hear Jimmy Swaggart and I was downright bored at the concert. I thought he sang like a dog in heat - so slow and so sappy.

Jimmy as some of you know is the cousin of Jerry Lee Lewis who is a legend in early Rock and Roll. Jerry Lee and Jimmy Swaggart hung out together growing up and both learned the piano. But Jerry Lee played the devil's music until England discovered he married his 13 year old cousin - his career came to an abrupt end. On the other hand cousin Jimmy Swaggart played the Lord's music, hymns and spiritual songs. Both played with a heavy left hand. Both played a mean piano.

Jimmy built a church and eventually became the most popular t.v. preacher in the world until in 1985 the world would discover that Jimmy Swaggart was visiting prostitutes in his spare time. But in 1971 that wasn't known.

Jimmy played all kinds of songs that bored me until he played one very lively one called "When We All Get to Heaven." I loved it and bought a tape on the way out of the concert.

When I got back to the ship I discovered that my favorite song wasn't on the tape, nevertheless, I listened to it over and over until I began to like it. In fact, I began to like it a lot, so I bought more and more Jimmy Swaggart tapes.

It took me about a few years to outgrow that phase of my life.

Going Home for the First Time as a Christian

December 1971

I went home to Milwaukee, WI for Christmas 1971 with a suitcase full of witnessing material. I had grown accustomed to handing out pamphlets called "tracts" to people. Many of them were dire warnings of hell, fire and brimstone, others promised great rewards, but all of them were about Jesus. When I got home I put the tracts on the dining room table for all to see.

I found out that during the last few weeks my younger brother David (4 years younger than me) joined up with Cindy in going to church, bible studies and all. David was the artist in the family. Indeed, we were all very gifted in art, my mother taught art, and every one of us kids had a crud load of creativity, but David's cartooning abilities stood out. In art class David blew the teachers away. While other kids faithfully followed the teacher's instructions, David took those instructions to new levels with humor and talent and a taste of rebellion in his work. Years later, during art college he teamed up with two good friends, one of which designed the Porsche Boxter (Grant Larson). David now designs figures for McDonald's, Burger King, Warner Bros and so on.

David used to hang out with another brother, Eric (a year younger than David), and our next door neighbor Paul, but David's going to church began to strain their relationship a bit.

Going home for Leave, I had several goals in mind. I wanted to witness to my family, I wanted to witness to my friends and I wanted to destroy every one of my albums. I began with my albums - all 81 of them. I sat out in the back yard and with a nail I scratched through every one of them. My brothers watched me in horror and disbelief. But they always hated Grand Funk Railroad, so when I pulled out those albums my brothers grabbed the nail from me and went at it with pleasure.

My friends came over the 2nd night and we got into a heated discussion about Jesus and Rock and Roll. By the end of the night one of my friends, Pete bet me I'd be right back into drugs. We sealed the bet with a handshake (a year later he conceded the loss, but reminded me we didn't bet any money).

Elmbrook Church and Wyn Couchman

December 1971

Shortly before Cindy started going to bible study, Wyn Couchman's son began bringing all of his friends home - all the time. So Wyn and her husband Bob began a bible study for them that grew and grew and grew some more. Eventually these bible studies were filling her living room and other rooms in the house with 50 to 100 kids (Senior High and College age). The groups continued for 10 to 15 years.

Cindy started when the study was young so she was close to the kids of the mom who started the whole thing, Wyn. Furthermore, the people of these groups all went to a growing Non-Denominational (Elmbrook Church) church that had just hired a new pastor from England (Stuart Briscoe).

As Cindy started attending Elmbrook she noticed that our cousins were there. They (5kids and both parents) had all recently become born again Christians and were fellowshiping at Elmbrook.

On Leave I attended Elmbrook and loved it. The pastor was incredibly good and the people were wonderful. I fell in love with it.

Elmbrook Church and the Couchman's bible study taught me early on that God worked outside Pentecostal circles just as much as he does inside. It was also at Elmbrook several years later that I ran into the 2 Jesus Freaks who were at my High School (see Mr. Gunderson and the Jesus Freaks below). I told them how I was there listening to them at the auditorium of my High School in 1970 while they witnessed to us. One of the guys told me he was embarrassed by that episode because they were so young and all.

I don't know... Sure they were young and inexperienced and all, but how many people do you know that stand before several hundred people sharing their faith in a public school? And yeah they were over the top and all, as I definately was during my first time home with my family, but despite all my foolishness, overzealousness, weirdness and all... unbelievable things were about to happen with my brothers and sisters in part as a result of my visit.

Oh No! Does God Want Me to Date Her?

December 1972

Ray started dating Linda who had a friend who was a girl who sat in the back of the car with me as I hung out with Ray and his girlfriend. Periodically Ray and Linda used to look in the back seat with me and this girl sitting there by ourselves not talking to each other. From the front they terrified me by saying over and over, "You guys make a good lookin' couple." I was horrified.

I may sound pretty shallow, but Linda's friend was not pretty. I know that beauty is skin deep, but she was not pretty inside or outside. Wherever we went, this cloud hung over her. She could make your happy day a miserably depressing one. She had that effect. She oozed negativity.

So after hearing Ray and Linda several times telling us how great a couple we were, I began thinking God wanted me to date her.

We arrived at her house to drop her off and Ray quietly told me to walk her to her door... and as I walked I thought, "God wants me to go out with her and I have to kiss her."

Now there are probably worse things in life, but I can't think of anything worse off hand.

I got to her door and as she waited for my good bye kiss, I said to myself, "I don't care if God wants me to date her, I am not going to." I turned around to go back to the car, believing that I committed a sin, but as I walked back to the car, I felt profoundly good. It was as if God was saying, "You don't have to date her."

Several months later Brian (the guy who brought me to Christ, who was also the most godly and one of the smartest people I knew) came to me for the only advice he'd ever turn to me for. "God has given you a ministry with women," he said (I never really thought about it like that, but I did date a lot of girls). He continued, "My two married friends have been telling me how good it would be if I dated this particular girl. She's nice and all, but I'm just not interested. Do you think God wants me to marry her?" I knew the answer to that one right away and was glad to help Brian find relief.