A native of South Africa I came to pastor a Church in New Jersey USA in 1997. I still lead that same congregation. Having carefully and ardently planned my future as an airline pilot, I was still at high school when God interrupted my goals with a call to the full-time ministry. He had to repeat the call three times, because I was a most unwilling candidate. That was four decades ago! The journey has been exciting and challenging.
The first ten years were spent in the ranks of the Salvation Army. There I got to see the changes that the gospel of Jesus Christ can make in the hearts and the homes of the poor. The next three decades have been as a pastor in the Church of the Nazarene. Those three churches were all in the most wealthy of areas. You may say I have seen sinners in various states of economic prosperity. Their need of a Savior is much the same. The real problem of sin is inside the heart.
I married young and am still wedded to the same girl who has shared these many adventures with me. We have two sons, both married and five grandchildren. From each of them, wife, kids and their kids, I, an only child, have learned the disadvantage that having no siblings brings. Family is all about sharing.
I don't feel myself to be very "religious" in that I have little patience with church polity and traditions. It was a life-changing, sin-forgiving, encounter with Jesus in my teens that changed my heart. Nothing less than an on-going furthering of that relationship makes any sense in Christianity. I cannot settle for just "doing church as usual."
I am blessed by music, and play a brass instrument poorly and the guitar even more poorly than that. If I had only one CD on a deserted island it'd be The Messiah by Handel. I draw a bit, but only when very inspired. I used to enjoy motorcycles but that season has ended. I ran 62 marathons and some ultra marathons and still train as though I want to do another one. I only quit because the prices became too rich for my pocket and most races moved to Sundays.
Travel is one of my great loves, but, as the years pass, I am less interested in seeing mountains, rivers or volcanoes, and more keen to see distant friends. Relationships are far more valuable than photos of a canyon or a waterfall. Most of my trips include plenty of time chatting to people I haven't seen for years.
A bumper sticker said "I'd rather be wind-surfing." Mine would say "I'd rather be preaching an Expository Sermon." Nothing quite excites me more than getting to expose people to the power of a few Bible verses, within their setting and context and relative to life these days.
Excuse the photo. It was randomly selected for this page. You can tell I am not vain about how I look!
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