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Coming to the Faith

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Who are the Seventh Day Baptists?

Coming to the Faith (Part 1)

I am often asked if my parents where Seventh Day Baptists. I can almost hear them thinking, "How else would he have become a member of such a different church". But I was not born into a Seventh Day Baptist family, my parents were nominal members of The Methodist Church. They attended church about once a month and on Christmas and Easter. I attended more often, I didn't want to but my mother would take me, drop me off and come pick me up.

In 1969 when The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged to form the United Methodist Church my parents became nominal United Methodists. Even then, at the age of fourteen, I could see that the United Methodist Church didn't stand for much of anything and increasingly I rejected the idea of a church that did not stand for anything more than pious rhetoric.

My family eventually moved to Colorado near the town of Conifer in rural Jefferson county and joined the local community church. Within a year of moving to this new community friends shared their faith with me and I learned for the first time that we were all sinners and that none of us was good enough to get to heaven. Only by repenting (turning away from) our sinful past and accepting Christ's sacrificial death for us could we get a clean slate before God. I had never heard this in church before but now I was both told it and shown it in my own Bible. In prayer before God I asked Christ to be my Lord and Savior. Within a few weeks I was baptized in the branch of the South Platte river that runs near the town of Bailey as my friends and fellow Christians watched from the riverside.

Although I was now born again into this new life with Christ this was not the end of my search for truth, it was merely a beginning. In addition I had a great deal of growing to do, both in the word of God and just plain growing up. At the time the Conifer Community Church was the only main stream protestant church in the area and the pastor felt a need to maintain a church where all the community could feel at home. This is a worthy goal but I possessed neither the spiritual or mental maturity to work within that framework. I was now saved and knew the truth and, by God, everyone was going to hear it and know it! In reality I knew only a small part of the little bit of truth that most Christians know, but that was one of the many things that I had not yet learned.

Conifer Community Church and I soon parted company by something of a mutual agreement. Without the company of fellow Christians I was soon floundering, not because of a lack of faith or desire but because of a lack of spiritual maturity and the encouragement that Christians give one another. By the time I was in college I had become, in many ways, what I had rejected earlier in my life. I did not stand for much of anything, I was a lukewarm, still immature, Christian.

By late in my sophomore year I knew there was not enough money for me to continue in college the next fall. My school, Mesa State College, in Grand Junction Colorado, was in the process of converting to a four year school but, because of my lack of funds, I took the option of graduating with an Associates Degree in June of 1975. In order to get money to return to school I enlisted in the navy. My intention was to enlist, save money for college, get out after four years and return to college. I never asked God what He wanted, and He never told me, but I know now that He had other plans.

In September of 1975 I went to boot camp in Orlando, Florida, and then to a navy technical school in Pensacola, Florida. Because I was interested in genealogy, my ancestral history and history in general, I asked to be assigned to duty in Britain. There were two bases a person with my job skills could be assigned to, one in London and the other just outside of the village of Edzell in Scotland. I didn't care which assignment I received. In June of 1976 I flew to Scotland for duty.

While stationed in Scotland I had the privilege of meeting, and having fellowship with, several fine Christians. During my second year in Scotland our little fellowship group became aware of a trip to Israel being organized by a church group in England. I decided to go on the trip along with several others in our little fellowship, including my room mate, Craig Bowen.

I had expected the trip to Israel to be inspirational but it was more than that--it changed my life. While in Israel I met a young lady, Susan Lorraine, Best, from Plymouth England, whom I fell in love with. Two days after we met, while in Tiberias on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, I asked her to marry me.

Click here to go to Coming to the Faith (Part 2)