First, A Little About Me

I'll try to keep it short... I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma and moved to Kansas when I was only a few months old. Grew up in Western Kansas in Tribune from age 2 until 18 when I moved to Hutchinson, KS for college in 1992 and I have been here since then. I have a wonderful wife from Hutchinson and three children, two boys and a girl.

I grew up the oldest of 5 children. My brother and I are the book-ends with three sisters in the middle.

We were a Catholic family and mom was really good about getting us to church often when we were growing up. She was my Sunday school teacher every year but one (I wonder if she remembers that). I was an altar boy and served mass before school when we had it available. It was a very small town and we shared a priest with another small town nearby so daily mass was not always available. I was an altar boy on Sundays (as my name came up in the rotation). I was baptized as an infant, confirmed when I was 16....I had gone through all the regular stuff.

I always used to remember that stuff really well, but it's quickly fading I have noticed. A lot of things I used to remember well is really fading fast. Just a few weeks ago I was thinking about church camp at the lake near Scott City. Pretty much every summer we would go there for a week and it was such a fun time. I remember how much I loved to learn about God and how much I enjoyed the teaching. I was thinking of one teacher in particular. Gina White was one of our favorites and also Debbie Schartz. How the heck I remember their names, I have no idea. I remember making clay hearts and learning about the love of the Father. I remember climbing up this wonderful cliff overlooking the lake and having mass. Many of us had our first communion's there. Valuable memories as I now send my son to camp to learn the Savior personally.

My wife and I were not married when our oldest Son was born. One month before he turned two we were married in the Holy Cross Catholic Church in Hutchinson (with difficulty I might add due to our living arrangement). I really loved the church....

Our son began school at the Catholic school at Holy Cross. It was difficult to send him to preschool there, since I made so little then. It was important to us though to teach him about God. By time he was ready to enter kindergarten we had left the Catholic church.

I used to think I was a good Catholic when I was Catholic, I now know I was not a very good Catholic. I often wish the Catholic church taught their catechism to their parishoners better. I was mostly an untaught Catholic I think. I didn't study the catechism like I should until I was in the process of leaving the church. Ok, so that's the number one question I always get from friends...."Why did you leave?" Oh, man I hate bringing this all up again and I honestly don't want to talk about it anymore. Short version is this: I decided to read the Bible. I thought it is probably a requirement of some kind with God to know what His Word says. So in reading it I found many things that conflicted with what I believed as a Catholic. So that threw me into the catechism and the canons and that only made it that much clearer that the Bible and Catholicism are not friends. I don't know how else to say it. I never even knew really what a protestant was and as I studied church history I learned of Martin Luther. This gifted monk who read the book of Romans to be forever changed by the grace of God. It was the same book that changed my life forever. I quickly fell in love for Luther because of his love for God's Word and his love for the Catholic church. He never intended to split off, but to only correct the error that had crept into the church of Rome. But when faced with a decision, recant and honor the erroneous teachings of popes and bishops or cling to the Word of God, what other choice was there? Luther Died of Feb. 18th, that is my birthday so I also enjoy that connection. He nailed the 95 thesis to the castle door of Whittenburg, Germany on October 31st.... I am not crazy about Halloween so I cling to that event on this date. It also reminds me of Hebrews 10:31 "It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God." (There's some Halloween terror for you.)

In the words of Forrest Gump "That's all I have to say about that." Anyway I am no longer Catholic but rather a Christian. I am a Christ-follower. I love to read and study God's Word and apply it to my life. I desire to live a life that is pleasing to God by faith in Christ's death alone for my sins.

I am now struggling with this thought. OK, how honest am I going to be in this blog? The point of it was to let you into my internal thought processes and openly live the Christian life along with the struggles and troubles that come with it. I truly care about family that may read this and I have promised to consider their feelings regarding the subject, so I don't want to go backwards. At the same time I want to be honest about how I feel about the Roman Church. Maybe some other time. Right now let me just say I love Catholics just as the scripture instructs us to love one another. It's error that leads people astray I get angry about. Ok enough on that.

So this new fire was planted in my heart. If a person believes friends and family and enemies and strangers are going to hell, how can I stand by and ignore it? Have you ever driven past a car accident and not stop to see if everyone is ok? I have, once. It has bothered me for all these years. (It seemed to be a minor thing, so I'm pretty sure it wasn't an injury accident.) If you saw a house burning would you stop and go check if anyone was home? I have. I didn't know that person, I didn't care about the mean dog in the back yard (I still stayed away from him though). I thought, what if someone is asleep in there! (Sure enough this guy was sleeping) A cigarette had caught the wooden front porch on fire. Thank God the home was saved by some quick pitchers of water from the kitchen!

My point is this. If I believe people are going to hell to the lake of fire that burns for eternity, how can I let this happen! What kind of person would know the truth of the death of Christ for the sins of the World, yet not tell them, rather let them fall into the pit of hell unwarned. It's true most don't really care what I tell them, but I have warned them. If they fall into the pit, it's because they chose to reject the One who is willing to save them. I also know one day I will stand before the Lord. "Yes, Lord I knew they were perishing, but I didn't want to be embarrassed". Or, "Of course Lord, You know I loved my family member.....but I did not want to offend them." Well if they are in hell, and I knew the grace of God that could freely save them and Christ was willing to die for them and God was ready to accept this payment for them, but a preacher would not bring the Gospel to them, I am a sorry and cowardly person. I want to live my life in service to the Lord and He was willing to die for me because He loved me, will I not be willing to do the same?

Well anyway, I'll probably just pop in and share whatever is on my mind.... Let us live for His glory striving to be the Galatians 2:20 person.