So the meeting came and went much like I thought it would, except with more grace and mercy than I had ever imagined possible. I gathered with brothers in Christ around the table of business and introduced myself. We were all consecrated servants of the LORD and we looked forward to what the Holy Spirit would reveal to us as we spoke the truth to one another in Jesus' name. Our heavenly Father blessed us together. We responded openly to His love and to each other.
The meeting was called by the Church Service Team of the Oklahoma Assembly of the Church of God (OKCHOG). After only five months since returning to the Church of God (Anderson, IN), I was being considered for the reinstatement of my ministerial credentials. I was a little nervous, but certain of my calling to the ordained ministry. The team was anxious to hear me relate my story.
I began by telling of my roots in the Church of God. In 1975 I affiliated with the The Church of God movement at South Agnew Church of God in Oklahoma City. It was a very loving and accepting fellowship of God's people that I met there. The Holy Spirit was moving among us in life-changing ways as our Pastor preached full salvation through faith in Christ and the infilling of the Holy Spirit. We stood together on the authority of God's Word, holy and unified in Christ. I received there a solid grounding in the faith and a fresh start to my life as a disciple of Jesus.
In 1977 I moved to Anderson, IN to begin seminary training for the ministry. During my time there, I met many leaders of the Church of God movement and became convinced of my calling to the ministry and particularly to missions. I wanted to go to the foreign field, but decided to stay in the U.S. as a Home Missionary.
In 1980 I moved to Wounded Knee, SD to reestablish the Church of God mission there to the Sioux Indians on the Pine Ridge Reservation. As a wide-eyed young minister, I wasn't ready for the stress and strain that mission work would bring on my family. My wife soon left and returned to her home in Florida. I tried to stay on at the mission, but could not give myself to the work there anymore.
When I returned to Anderson with my "tail between my legs," I was certain that my life as a minister was over. I expected the worse but received the best. After much counseling and readjustment, I took the opportunity to join the Army National Guard. After a short time, I was ordained to the ministry and got my first assignment as a unit chaplain. (It turned out to be a ministry that I truly enjoyed and that I would retire from some twenty-four years later.)
Shortly thereafter, I moved to Oklahoma City to be closer to "home." While there I did an internship at Baptist Medical Center in Clinical Pastoral Education. At the end of the training, I met my wife at a Church of God singles group meeting. We settled into married life and waited on God's will for our lives.
We then moved to Colorado, where I would become the Pastor of two churches over a ten year period. Balancing reserve military and full-time church responsibilities was very difficult at times. But I had the energy and the work was fulfilling. It was in the Colorado Conference of the Church of God that I first experienced true comradere with my fellow ministers.
In 2001 my wife and I moved back to Oklahoma City to be closer to our families, especially the grandchildren. The congregation we had been attending was going through a split. While waiting on God's will for our lives, we decided to attend a United Methodist Church (UMC) and felt the LORD calling us to work there. When the OKCHOG asked about my decision, and pressed for me to resume my work in the Church of God, I decided to relinquish my credentials. I became a licensed minister and Local Pastor of two UMC congregations in the Oklahoma City metro during the next ten years.
It was during a particularly soul-searching and call-revisiting time in my life that I came to sense God directing me to leave the UMC and return to the Church of God. (2 Corinthians 6:14-18 kept coming to my mind.) As in the parable of the Prodigal Son, I "came to myself" and returned to my home in the Church of God. My Pastor was used by the LORD to forgive me for my waywardness and accept me back into the family of God. It was one of the happiest times of my life. When asked by the Credentials Team why I had left the Church of God, I confessed that it was a renegade spirit and a sense of going-it-on-my-own that caused me to forsake my Church of God roots.
So the meeting around the business table turned into a reinstatement service of my credentials at the altar of the LORD. My brothers, and fellow ministers, gathered around me and laid their hands on me. They prayed for the restoration of my ordination and for God's leading in my future ministerial endeavors. It was more grace and mercy than I had ever received before - a particularly wonderful second work of God's grace.
In 2001 my wife and I moved back to Oklahoma City to be closer to our families, especially the grandchildren. The congregation we had been attending was going through a split. While waiting on God's will for our lives, we decided to attend a United Methodist Church (UMC) and felt the LORD calling us to work there. When the OKCHOG asked about my decision, and pressed for me to resume my work in the Church of God, I decided to relinquish my credentials. I became a licensed minister and Local Pastor of two UMC congregations in the Oklahoma City metro during the next ten years.
It was during a particularly soul-searching and call-revisiting time in my life that I came to sense God directing me to leave the UMC and return to the Church of God. (2 Corinthians 6:14-18 kept coming to my mind.) As in the parable of the Prodigal Son, I "came to myself" and returned to my home in the Church of God. My Pastor was used by the LORD to forgive me for my waywardness and accept me back into the family of God. It was one of the happiest times of my life. When asked by the Credentials Team why I had left the Church of God, I confessed that it was a renegade spirit and a sense of going-it-on-my-own that caused me to forsake my Church of God roots.
So the meeting around the business table turned into a reinstatement service of my credentials at the altar of the LORD. My brothers, and fellow ministers, gathered around me and laid their hands on me. They prayed for the restoration of my ordination and for God's leading in my future ministerial endeavors. It was more grace and mercy than I had ever received before - a particularly wonderful second work of God's grace.
