Kandi didn’t hesitate to vote me down. She’s the most supportive wife and ministry partner imaginable, but she won’t hesitate to give me her honest take. “Robby, this is a trip God planned,” she said. “He knew the hurricane would come, but he called you to that mission. So I don’t think you should back out of it.”
I prayed about the trip and came to the conclusion that she was right, especially since she assured me she would be fine in Spartanburg. I had to believe God opened the door for the mission trip, and he would close it if he had other plans for me. David, Rob, and I traveled on to Indonesia, and to this day, I’m so grateful we made that trip and I didn’t miss an important spiritual marker in my life.
Crisis times tend to focus us inward. We become absorbed in our own problems and changing plans. It’s healthy to break out of all that and get involved and visit the front lines of kingdom work. This whole episode of my life was about learning to depend upon God and his providence—this was a perspective-changing moment.
Our task was to teach in a Christian seminary. Indonesia is a fascinating place. It holds the fourth largest population group in the world, the largest Muslim population in the world, and it’s made up of 17,000 islands that stretch across an area wider than the United States. With all of that, the gospel is on the move in that country. As you visit God’s people there, you can sense the intensity that’s in the air when God’s Spirit is moving.
But it wasn’t exactly the calmest place to visit after our storm. Muslims were on the move as much as the gospel was. There was violence in the air. Indonesia has 267 million people, 88 percent of them Muslim.3
That’s a lot of radicalized people, and a Christian seminary is an obvious target.
Huge, eager crowds showed up to listen to us speak. The local people were thrilled to hear from their American visitors. They came by bus, by motorcycle, and by foot, many walking great distances. They came through danger and strife, and as we spoke, every eye was on us. Every ear was tuned in to our words. Everyone who teaches or preaches loves to have an audience that is one hundred percent attentive. This was what it looked like when people were famished for sound teaching and the solid meat of God’s Word.
As we finished our teaching segment, I turned to Rob and said, “They’ve heard what we have to say—now, if it’s okay, I’d like to hear what they have to say.”
We explained that it would be our deep privilege to hear their personal stories, and we turned the microphone over to our hosts. We listened just as attentively as they described death threats to those who wanted to follow Christ. We heard a woman speak of being beaten by her father with a chair, almost to death, because she had left her Islamic faith.
Everything the early Christians experienced in Rome and Jerusalem, these people were now living through in Indonesia.
People in our audience had lost their homes not to hurricanes, but to hatred. They had built churches and seen them bombed to rubble. They had been deserted by friends and family. And the more suffering they endured, the deeper their love for Christ grew. Like the apostle Paul, they found it a privilege to share in the sufferings of Christ.
There was a graduation ceremony, and David Platt was the guest speaker. We found out that things worked a little differently than at an American seminary graduation. To receive a diploma, these people had to plant a church in a Muslim community, then bear witness as five new believers were baptized.
Needless to say, we forgot all about Louisiana and our own challenges. We had a new set of heroes. The ceremony recognized two planters who hadn’t made it—they were martyrs to the cause of the kingdom of God, and while they didn’t receive a seminary diploma, they were now receiving a crown of glory. It was incredibly moving.
Was there a message in all this for me? I felt certain there was, at this crucial point in my life. I had faced a little bit of adversity, and Jesus wanted to know if I was really ready to take up my cross and follow him—out of my range. The three of us felt inadequate and humbled.
We flew home, and I was delighted to be back with Kandi in Spartanburg; I had so much to tell her. But there was also a lot of work to be done. Dr. Wilton had a plan for Rob and me in the church.
I was glad to help, but I didn’t look at it as valuable experience for me personally. After all, I wasn’t going to work in local churches; I wasn’t the type. My spiritual gifts and talents, along with my unique story, seemed to suggest I needed to be an itinerant preacher, somebody who traveled and spoke. I’d now done that in Southeast Asia, as well as any number of places in my own country. Life on the road as a revival preacher seemed like my destiny.
Now Dr. Wilton told me what he had in mind. “Robby,” he said, “I’m going to give you a crash course in everyday church ministry. You’ve learned a lot of information in seminary, but you’re about to learn by doing.”
The plan was that I’d work in a different area of ministry every week, shadowing the staff member who handled that part of things. The church had a senior adult pastor, and I took a week to work with him. I’d never thought about the specific needs of an aging congregation. I really enjoyed that week.
Then came outreach visitation. I visited the homes of membership prospects, people who had expressed an interest in our church. Making those connections was enjoyable, and I could see the skills required in making a good impression on a church visit.
The associate pastor took me with him to visit the hospitals one week. The music minister showed me how much was involved in preparing to lead worship through song—more than I had ever imagined. The week for college and student ministry was a great week.
I began to realize that I enjoyed all of these things. And what came across clearly was that the connections I made, for example, with the teenagers and college students, were connections I really wanted to build on. The word for that is relationship.
Suddenly a new truth was driven home for me: a traveling preacher doesn’t have relationships with that kind of durability—he moves along like the wind, from place to place, never lingering. And we need people who do that—people good at scattering seeds, while others water and tend. I was looking at a ministry in which I’d never see the full harvest.
Wow. This was one of those times when I felt my whole understanding of myself changing and rearranging, much like when Tim LaFleur had explained to me that faith was not about my strength, but God’s.
A local church is an outpost of the kingdom of God, and it’s all about the fields and their ripeness. The church sows, it reaps, it nurtures. I realized how much I wanted to see that in others, even as I was seeing that growth in myself. I wanted to be a disciple who makes disciples.
Spending those weeks in local church ministry helped me understand the power of what is done through personal relationships that endure over time. The body of Christ finds and uses its gifts to build up one another. My particular part in that might be to proclaim God’s Word, but I would be proclaiming it to listeners I knew personally and cared about. I could preach to their needs. I could minister to them, face-to-face.
There was something else. I saw firsthand how powerful the love of a church fellowship can be. For three months I learned about these ministries and made new friends. The people at First Baptist were receptive and incredibly loving to us at such a fragile time in our young marriage. We’d lost everything. What were we going to do?
We were going to learn dependence upon our heavenly Father and the power of his forever family, the church. We needed to trust him to provide for us. Kandi no longer had a seminary job. We had school loans and other financial responsibilities, and just a few hundred dollars in the bank. I had a few preaching invitations here and there, but we had no other source of income. I remember the two of us getting down on our knees in the trailer, committing ourselves to trust God for our finances. Lord, we prayed, we put all our faith in you, and we won’t worry about our finances. No matter
what our checkbook says, we’re going to give you 10 percent off the top of everything that comes in.
My parents were staying in Houston, the home of Exxon, where Mom had worked. They worried more about us than we did. I’d patiently explain, “Mom, Dad, God will provide. He has led us this far, and he won’t desert us now.”
“I just don’t know, Robby,” Mom or Dad would say. “How can you be sure? Why don’t you guys move to Houston to be by us?”
“Mom,” I assured her, “we’ll be fine.”
There was an old-fashioned tent revival in Union, South Carolina, a working-class town. Dr. Wilton preached it, and Rob and I attended. On the first night, Dr. Wilton leaned over to his son and said, “Rob, you’re up, brother.” Rob got up to speak to the crowd, and he talked a bit about Katrina. He said, “The truth is, I didn’t lose as much as others—but my friend here lost it all,” and he pointed to me. “We’re committed to trusting the Lord.”
The next day, Kandi and Annabeth came along with us, and this time I got the “you’re up, brother” assignment. I stood and told my life story, how I was saved from drugs and alcohol, and what we’d been through with the hurricane. I said, “I have lost everything I own twice, but Kandi and I know God will provide. We’re completely trusting in him.”
After I spoke, one of the local pastors stood up and said, “I’d like to say a word about the offering tonight. I didn’t tell them this, so they know nothing about it, but everything you give tonight will go to the Gallatys and Wiltons as they put their lives back together. God is going to take care of them, but one of the ways he’s going to do that is right now, through your generosity.”
Kandi and I looked at each other, stunned. We fought tears. After the services that night, Dr. Wilton arrived home with a cardboard box filled with money. When he turned over the box, a mound of money filled the living room. With tears streaming down our faces, we counted seven thousand dollars. It seemed like a million to us. It was a joy to talk to my parents again and say, “Remember when I told you God would provide?”
In addition to the love offering that night, money also came in from the wonderful people of Spartanburg. Those three months built our faith on the assurance that, no matter what happens in life, God is greater, and he will use it for his purposes. We lived in a trailer during that autumn feeling like millionaires. We’d never felt so confident of God’s care for us.
“Kandi,” I said one evening, “I have something to talk about with you.”
“What now?”
“I think God is calling me to pastoral ministry. In a local church. Don’t faint.”
“Oh, I won’t,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I came to that conclusion when I met you. I was just wondering if you would ever figure it out.”
“What? How could you have known that?”
“I know you, Robby. I know who you are, and that tells me how God is likely to use you. And I’ve watched you fall in love with serving a church.”
This was one of those times when I wished God had let me in on what was going on, at least before he told my wife. Then again, she has a gift for discernment, and I don’t know what I’d do without her by my side to keep me from making mistake after mistake.
I told her, “Let’s pray about this. I know how I feel about what God wants me to do, but I really want to be sure I’m right. I need to make sure I’m not operating on emotion, but hearing what he’s really saying to me.”
“I agree,” she smiled. “We’ll keep praying.”
“So I’m not going to put my résumé out or anything like that, or go out seeking a position. I’m going to wait on the Lord, continue praying, and if he opens that door, and a church extends a call, then I’ll follow what he wants me to do from there.”
There’s an incredible freedom in trusting the providence of God. How much anxiety do we carry on our shoulders everywhere we go, because we think everything in life depends upon us? We talk a good game when it comes to faith, but when it comes to dependence, most of us have room to grow.
Jesus tells us the hairs on our head are numbered; God has this. Once we actually believe that and live in accordance with it, life is totally different. All that space in our heads, once devoted to full-time worrying, is freed up for so many things. We can live creatively and enjoy the ride, and we’re able to hear from God so much more clearly.
That’s not the same as living carelessly without thinking and planning. When I was a brand-new Christian, I thought I didn’t need to put together sermon plans for a ski retreat. I would walk out and trust the Holy Spirit to give me the words. It was like giving him the wheel, but going to sleep in the backseat.
That’s not how it works, of course. Life is a cooperative venture between God and you. That’s the beauty of being his servant—he guides, but he gives us a mind and the gifts to be obedient and participate in the process.
Toward the end of 2005—the year of the great flood—I was finally beginning to learn how to do that. My identity as a child of God was finally crystallizing. I had a conviction forming within me that God wanted me to be a local church pastor. I’d bonded with that idea through my experiences in Spartanburg. Just the same, I continued to wait on the Lord to confirm what I was feeling through the offer of a real opportunity to follow that calling.
I didn’t have to wait for long.
Chapter 20
New Home, New Family
God used our three months in Spartanburg for more than healing. Kandi and I had tremendous opportunities for spiritual growth. We faced our first financial crisis and learned what it meant to trust God through it. I bonded with the idea of pastoral ministry—a complete change of thinking for me. I even went on a faith-expanding mission trip.
Now it was late November, and we were headed back westward for Thanksgiving in Houston with my folks. I’d also received an invitation to stop in Morgan City, Louisiana, to preach a sermon on Sunday.
On the way home, I thought about the opportunity to spend time with my parents. Throughout all my struggles, they’d been there for me. They could have walked away forever after I stole from them. Other parents might have given up on someone like me. Instead, they were models of unconditional love when I needed mercy and tough love when I needed correction.
My parents had given me their all. The greatest and only gift I could give in return, other than my love and respect, was to continue to share the gospel with them.
They’d watched the progress of my faith with surprise and a growing respect, but it was also puzzling to them. My passion and commitment to Christ weren’t much like the faith they had practiced all their lives.
My sister Lori had been more receptive. She’d come to know Jesus in 2005, at Creedmoor Presbyterian, when I preached there once again. It would soon be destroyed by Katrina, but on this day, that church was very much alive, and the Spirit moved there.
When I gave an invitation at the close of my sermon, Lori walked down the aisle. Somehow I managed to pray with her, as my eyes filled with tears. My sister, who had always supported me, would now join me in eternal life.
During my time in Spartanburg, I checked in with my parents over the phone each week. I talked about my relationship with Jesus whenever possible, always in a non-confrontational way, with my dad. He listened patiently, more or less. I wanted so badly for him to see what it meant to have a living faith, to know and walk with Christ day by day. How could I show him the difference it made? Finally I said, “Dad, wouldn’t you agree that you and I study the same Bible?”
“Sure,” he said.
“So doesn’t it make sense that if we’re in the same book, we should both be learning about our faith at church?”
“Makes sense to me. But I was told not to read the Bible growing up.”
“Do you still feel that way?” I asked.
“No.”
“Well,
let’s try something. You go to your church and I’ll go to my church each week. Then, every Sunday, we can compare what we learned.”
He had no objections.
One week later, we talked again. He talked about Houston, where he and Mom were getting settled after having to leave their home. I brought him up-to-date on our experience in Spartanburg and how the church was reaching out to us. Then I said, “So, Dad, we were going to compare what we learned in church. Did you attend this week?”
“Well, yeah, but to tell the truth, I was tired. I guess my mind was elsewhere. I don’t really remember anything that was discussed.”
“Don’t worry about it; I’ll tell you mine. I heard about the time Jesus multiplied a boy’s lunch, and he said, ‘I am the bread of life.’ I learned how the loaves of bread represent our satisfaction in life.” I shared the main points of Dr. Wilton’s teaching.
“I see,” said Dad. “Well, I guess that was a pretty good sermon.”
“It left me a lot to think about this week.”
The next week I raised the topic again and asked Dad about church. He said, “Um, well, we had a visiting priest. I remember the speaker system was lousy, and—well, that’s all I got, to be honest.”
I told him about the sermon I’d heard, which had all kinds of implications for daily life.
The third week, I could tell Dad had tried a little harder to listen. He said, “The priest told a joke about a chicken and an egg.”
“That’s funny. But what did you learn from the Bible, Dad?”
He sighed and responded, “Bible? I don’t remember anything from the Bible.” There was a long pause. He thought a moment and said, “In fact, I’ve gone to Mass my entire life, because it’s what you do, but I haven’t learned anything from the Bible.”
I didn’t know what to say. The honesty from my Dad was raw and authentic. My response was, “We can’t change the past, but we can do something about the future. Let’s work on changing that.”
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