I was born to a 15 year old girl in 1964. As she was too young to take care of me I lived with my grandmother until I was 4 years old when she was hospitalized for the long term effects of diabetes and eventually died. I went to live with one of my biological mother’s sisters along with her husband and two children (both older). I was never adopted officially because my dad didn’t feel like my mom let him be a father to me – she was probably protecting me because of my rough past. Subsequently, I grew up rather independent and didn’t open myself up – though I was often loud and disruptive. I guess I was afraid to get too close to people – fearing they might hurt me like I was hurt by my grandmother leaving me.

While I was in high school my mom was saved and began praying for me and sharing the gospel with me. As a typical teenager, I resisted and went about my way. Our school had chapel once a week and I enjoyed it, but didn’t fully understand why, I mean, I believed in God, that was all that mattered – right? I worked full time through most of my high school years, played sports and spent a lot of time with my sweetheart – not really paying much attention to my family. Still, I felt the tug, like a knot in my stomach whenever my mom would speak to me about salvation. I couldn’t trust anyone, I even feared that Jesus would let me down, hurt me. I remember my mom telling my girlfriend (now my wife) that I wouldn’t let anyone get close to me, and thinking that she was crazy. Truth be known, she was right. Still she (my girlfriend) stood by me.

College; I continued to work almost full time, played on the soccer team and was active in my fraternity. Through all of the partying, hard work and sports I actually managed to make my way through college, never really reaching my potential, just getting by. My senior year I even got involved a bit with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. I didn’t go to church in college, or afterwards for that matter.

Right out of college we were married and settled down to middle class life. We attended church from time to time with friends or family, but never really hooked up anywhere. It wasn’t until after our daughter was born that the knot in my stomach came back again. It was while she was in preschool at a local Baptist church that we went to church a couple of times on Sundays. On more than one occasion I was burning up inside to answer the “alter call”, only to look at my wife and wonder what she would think, would she reject me, would she leave me like my grandmother did. So, I sat there and did nothing. You see, we didn’t communicate very well, I wouldn’t let anyone get close enough to me to really open up to them – even my wife.

Fast forward a number of years, our daughter was in fifth grade and we were invited by one of our daughter’s friends mother to come to this “new church” that her husband was part of founding (Wendi and Dwight Irvin). It was Mother’s Day that weekend and my wife said she would like to check it out – so we did. Inside I was feeling different, excited, and anxious, like this was something good. We went (a little overdressed I guess – I mean, the pastor was wearing flip flops!) and enjoyed ourselves. The next Sunday, I was up early, making breakfast and getting cleaned up when my wife asked me what I was doing, I told her “getting ready for church”. She gave me a perplexed look and started to get ready as well.

Over the next year we attended church regularly, I joined a small group and dug deeper into the Word and felt a change coming over me. About a year to the date that we had begun attending Bridgepoint I gave my life to Christ. The knot was gone, now I just had to tell my wife. I let her know by telling her I was meeting with Dwight to talk about baptism. She was a bit shocked, asked why I hadn’t talked to her about it, I just told her “it was a personal decision”, which she understood. My life was beginning to change, I was becoming more open about my inner feelings, and I was feeling like I might be finally able to trust people.

Two things happened at my baptism that will forever be burned into my memory. First off, my mother, who sat at the edge of the pool in her wheelchair while I was baptized – gave me a pewter dangle of a cross for my keychain. She said she had bought three of them when she first was saved, one for each of her children – this was the last one she had been holding on to. As I write this I just picked up my keys and looked at it again. Sorry it took so long, Mom. The second thing was totally unexpected. I was standing there, dripping wet, looking out over the bay when my wife, out of the blue, came up from behind me and gave me a rib cracking bear hug. No words, she just grabbed me and held on. For the first time in my life with her I think she sensed that things really were going to get better, I was really going to be the man she deserved.

Long story, short – in the months following my salvation both my wife and daughter followed me in accepting Christ. They were baptized together – first time in my entire life that I was at a loss for words. I continue to grow in Christ every day, still exercising demons from my past and battling the knucklehead that I am. But I’m walking with Christ, hand in hand with my spouse and child and with the family of believers that we share our lives with.

I finally let someone get close to me…Thank you, Jesus for getting close to me.

By the way, we haven’t missed a Sunday at Church when were in town since that first one, it’s the least we can do to show our thanks for all He has done for us!

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I’m not sure where to start my story. Growing up we went to church occasionally. I do remember a few days at Sunday school, but not many. As a family, we did a lot of things on the weekends and church was set aside. At school we had chapel service, but it seemed to be a ritual that never meant a lot to me.

I wasn’t until years later, when my husband and I had a daughter that thoughts of God came back to mind. We both knew we wanted to find a church where we could feel comfortable and our daughter could grow up knowing about God. At that point I didn’t realize how much I was looking for God also.

When our daughter was in second grade they were talking about Sunday school and church and she asked her teacher, “Am I a bad person if I don’t go to church?” Her teacher assured her that, no, she wasn’t a bad person. It wasn’t a decision that she had to make; it was for her parents to decide. Wow! That really hit us.

After having tried out one church and talking to people around us we found Bridgepoint and have made our home there. Since then all three of us have been baptized and have begun a wonderful journey.

Part of that journey was a trip to the Dominican Republic with members of the church. It was during that trip where I really saw God at work. The theme for the week seemed to be that it all happens in His time. This was evident from the very beginning of our trip. We were supposed to travel from Tampa to Miami to the DR. Due to bad weather in Miami, our new path was Tampa to Miami to New York (yes, New York!) to the DR. By the time we were in the DR, our group had bonded through this experience together and was better prepared for the week ahead of us.

Part of our task for the week was to paint murals on the walls of Casa de Luz, a home for orphaned and disabled children. One of the gifts that I felt I had was to paint. I was looking forward to helping with this project. On the day we were starting to paint, I found myself watching. You see, a young boy, one of the residents, was with me. I could not communicate with him, as I don’t speak much Spanish, and I don’t think he speaks due to his disability. Even with this limitation, we were communicating. After holding my hands and swaying back and forth very happily, we sat on the sofa to watch. He enjoyed the soft touch of my hands on his and was comforted. It was then when I could hear God loud and clear. This was what He wanted me to be doing at that time. Instead of being frustrated, I was amazingly calmed. Before going to the DR I would never have imagined that this was something that I could do. Later on during the week, I was finally able to work on the mural, but what I will always remember is what God showed me through that one little boy.

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I was raised Catholic and really thought I understood the whole God and Jesus thing. I followed my Dad to church every Sunday and Holy day of obligation. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I met my wife in my sophomore year of high school and things began to change. I would visit her church and youth group from time to time and began to notice it was quite a bit different than what I was used to experiencing on Sunday morning. Once married, we had to decide what to do about Sunday mornings and thought we had come up with the most practical decision possible, we would go to the Catholic church one week and the Baptist church the next week. I felt like we had come up with the best solution to the Sunday morning dilemma. That is where God started to work on me. At the end of every Baptist service the pastor would have an altar call, and every week at this time I would get butterflies in my stomach and this feeling that I needed to give in and go forward. I never did because I would come up with all of the reasons why I couldn’t, mostly around embarrassment or how my Dad would feel. We did start a change; however, we started getting more involved in the Baptist church with a Sunday school class and other weekly activities. We then moved to a small town north of Chicago and began looking for a Catholic and a Baptist church we could attend. Needless to say, it was rather easy to find a Catholic church but we could not find what we expected in a Baptist church. God then introduced us to a phenomenal person through my wife’s work. She invited us to church one week and through many hours of debating we gave in and visited. What we found was a welcoming group of people who took us in and really began to be a family to us. That became our church home, and we were now a one church family. The butterflies and feelings only got stronger. We really got involved with Sunday school, a small group, and I was in two men’s groups. I felt I was doing all the right things, but I could not get rid of those feelings that there was something else. When people would ask if I had given my life to Christ, I would say of course because I grew up in a church environment and have always gone to church. I battled with that question every time it was asked because I doubted my answer, but I could not change the picture everyone had of me. It was the issue of embarrassment again. One Sunday evening I realized that I had left my Bible at the church and planned to go pick it up during the week after work one day. On Monday morning as I was taking my son to child care, which was near the church, I decided to pick up my Bible then. As I pulled into the parking lot I made one of those promises we make with God; it went something like this. “God I will go talk to the pastor if he is there when I get my Bible.” I thought I was pretty safe because it was before 8am and he normally did not come in until 9am. I found my Bible and was about to head out of the church when I remembered the promise, so I went to the office and found he was the only person there. I had to keep my promise, so I went in and started to relay this story to him and found myself praying for my salvation. The butterflies were replaced with an appetite to learn and know Him more. This chapter of my story ended with God crushing another belief I had from my childhood about baptism. The Sunday before my family moved to Colorado I found myself being baptized in front of this family where God turned my religion into a relationship.

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My version of what Tim Whipple said in front of us all the other day is this: I only have one story, it just depends which part you want to hear. I would like to share part of it with you, and I’ll try my very best to use the short version, which I’m not very good at.

I was brought up in a southern Baptist home from birth, and also as an Air Force brat. I was born on “The Yellow Brick Road”. You guessed it, Kansas. So that already throws a wrinkle in it. I grew up learning bible verses and going to Summer Bible School. Because of being an AF brat we weren’t always able to go to church together, as it sometimes affords a challenging lifestyle, so I would a lot of the time be finding my own way down to the church. And we moved a lot. We were in Springfield, Illinois staying with my grandparents on Moms’ side while Dad was in England looking for housing for us. I was attending a local Methodist church and the Sunday school teacher would even come by the house and give me bible study. Mom says my salvation is as a result of this lady’s faithfulness. I don’t remember exactly knowing up to this time that I needed to make a personal decision. I was around 9 or 10 and the year was say 1957/1958. Grandma & Grandpa sometimes liked to go and eat at the Salvation Army on Wednesday evenings, so one Sunday, Mom,Grandma and I attended Sunday morning service. That morning I heard the message, don’t delay, this may be your last chance to make the decision to spent eternity with Jesus. It was loud and clear, and I was terrified because I had to cross in front of Mom and Grandma to get to the isle, but I made it. It felt like walking to the Kings throne with everyone standing for you.

Fast forward a few years in the throws of life, good bad and ugly. I was fresh out of my own tour of duty in the Air Force and living in Hickory,NC. I was 25 and going through that stressfull thing “finding your manhood”. To top that off I was working at Shuford Mills Tape Plant, so the chemicals in that place were doing surgery on my brain. To say the least I was very fragile emotionally. Many nights I was able to get only a couple of hours of sleep while iI buried my face in my bible just to maintain sanity. That’s where I received my first really great foundational bible knowledge. Its taken all this to reach the punch line here. I prayed and told the Lord I had no idea where I was headed, good or bad, “but please don’t ever let go of me”. I’m still here and He has Never let me down. Amen and amen.
Thank you for your patience in hanging out with me to the end of this part of the story. God Bless.

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I am almost 50 years old and grew up Catholic. I went to catholic school, made all the sacraments, got married in the catholic church, had three children, had them baptized as infants, sent them to catholic school and never once read the Bible. I didn’t even own a Bible. I was never taught that I should. Fast forward many years later, my 29 year old son some years back joined a non-denominational church and when I would go to visit him he would have me go with him to his church. I liked his church so much and the message that was preached on those particular Sundays I went with him, that I told my son if he could find me a church like his I would probably go back to church. He did just that. From Ft. Rucker, Alabama my son found me Bridgepoint church in St. Petersburg, Fl, where I now go and have been going since January 2009. I wish I knew years ago what I know now. I walked into Bridgepoint not knowing that the pastor, Tim Whipple would have such an effect on my life and bring me so much closer to God then I thought was possible. I now read the Bible everyday, I now look forward to going to church every Sunday. I don’t think I have missed since the first Sunday I walked into Bridgepoint Church. My only regret is that I didn’t know sooner that I could have a relationship with God and that I should of and could of years ago if only someone had told me. A question as simple as what does God want from me I got answered just by reading the Bible and attending Bridgepoint Church. Reading the Bible and attending church has changed how I think and who I am and who I want to become. I love my new church and even better I love God and am so glad I found Bridgepoint and God. They have changed my life and my spirit. Now my only questions is how I survived so long without both in my life.

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