In my earlier careers, I was licensed and certified to lifeguard and to teach swimming
and lifeguarding, to pilot airplanes and to control air traffic, to sell insurance products
and securities, and to teach others to do these things. And these increased my
capacity to minister and teach the good news of Jesus Christ. They were part of my
early preparation.
However, true credentials to minister and teach the good news of Jesus Christ
come directly from God, whether or not they are substantiated by the testimony of
other human beings, and regardless of the standing those human beings have in the
eyes of other human beings! For, "Your faith should not be in the wisdom of men
but in the power of God. ...Now we (true ministers and teachers of the gospel) have
received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know
the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in
words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned." (1st Corinthians 2: 5 and 12 - 14)
"...We (true ministers and teachers of the gospel) have such trust through
Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything
as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us
sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for
the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." This passage has become my primary
credential. I no longer maintain a license with any denomination. God doesn't say I am
made competent; He says I have been made sufficient! It's in the New Testament, 2nd
Corinthians 3: 4, 5 & 6 so that even I can remember it!
Life experiences, studying scripture and practice sharing the news of Christ are three
methods God has used to make me sufficient as His minister. My 1964 high school
graduation gift from my mother was Josh McDowell's book: Evidence Which Demands
A Verdict, a defense and explanation of the biblical Christian faith. I studied it closely
and revisited it often in my conversations. Some time after I was medically retired from
professional aviation in 1978, I began using the swimming pool at a Christian summer
camp to speed my recovery from injuries. Many of the teenage campers wrongly
assumed I was a counselor there and often asked me questions I couldn't adequately
answer. So I purchased a New International Version Study Bible with topical index and
concordance, and discovered from then on that teenagers and I could find God's
answers together, directly from God's Word. Plenty more practice teaching how to find
God's answer to every question came with my first, post- retirement job in a juvenile hall,
a jail for teenagers in trouble. Then later, working as a traveling insurance agent, I
heard the Bible Answer Man, Dr. Walter Martin, on the radio. I bought his book, The
Kingdom of the Cults, and studied it along with my Bible because many of my insurance
prospects were Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. So, I learned about genuine
Christianity and counterfeit Christianity, and about getting a Bible college education at
home, directly from textbooks. And for several years I sold and taught others how to sell
both life insurance and eternal life insurance or rapture insurance, face-to-face.
Then He called me into full time vocational ministries, which are community service jobs
with great opportunities for helping people directly and for sharing Christ with them, but
which offer comparatively low rates of pay. (The property manager of that Christian
camp I mentioned earlier had said to me if I became a minister for the money I was too
stupid for the job!) But by this time God had provided two retirement incomes to meet
my financial needs. I became a Military Community Payroll Manager, a Lifeguard &
Swimming Pool Manager, a church's Janitor and its Secretary, a Dorm Counselor or
House Parent at two group homes for abused teenagers, then a Therapeutic Foster
Parent and a Special Education Teaching Assistant.
Notice this: He healed me of injuries which ended my aviation career and strengthened
me enough to re-qualify as a lifeguard at age 45. I was certified in Therapeutic Crisis
Intervention by Cornell University and continued Bible College courses through
correspondence with the Evangelical Church Alliance and the Moody Bible Institute.
But with a limited budget, I was receiving greater and deeper wisdom faster by just
studying additional Bible College textbooks on my own, particularly in the emerging
field of Biblical or Christian Psychology and Counseling. By this time I was already
experiencing conflict with the secular humanist world's self-serving ways of looking after
the needy and wounded. And I still longed and prayed for the normally- accepted Bible
College education, degrees and credentials from "God's very best Bible Colleges."
His answer shocked me and tested my faith deeply! I found myself in jail, charged with
disgusting and outrageous crimes against a child! And worse, I was financially helpless
to defend myself against these false charges! However, while praying in the Parke
County Jail, I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Until then I had been "continuously
being filled with the Holy Spirit;" I had God's own Spirit living within me. But that night in
jail I received power which can be felt and recognized when God's Spirit came upon
me, just exactly as the Risen Jesus promised in Acts 1:8. And, as a sign to myself, I
began to speak in languages unknown to me as the people of Cornelius' household did
in Acts 10: 44-46 and as the disciples of Ephesus did in Acts 19: 6. Thus I began to
experience the manifestations or gifts of the Spirit listed in 1st Corinthians 12. I
became spiritually empowered to witness boldly, even in jail and in prison for more than
three years, and also since my return to my community. And, because of the virtually
endless supply of textbooks provided free to prisoners by several wonderful ministries, I
realized I was in the Alma Mater of Peter and John and Paul, the great Apostles.
Westville Correctional Center became for me Westville Theological Seminary! My
present Christian educational level is Master of Theology in Christian Counseling. And
I'm still studying.
Thanks to Moody Bible Institute, Christian Bible College & Seminary, Evangelical
Church Alliance, Emmaus Correspondence School, American Bible Academy, (Faith
Library, Kenneth Hagin Ministries) RHEMA Bible Training Center, Kenneth Copeland
Ministries, Joyce Meyer Ministries, Oral Roberts Ministries, (Keith Moore) Moore Life
Ministries, Christian Book Distributors, Inc., Westville Correctional Center Librarians,
Westville Correctional Center Chapel Librarians and Chaplain's Assistants, and the
Westville Correctional Center Correction Officers.
and lifeguarding, to pilot airplanes and to control air traffic, to sell insurance products
and securities, and to teach others to do these things. And these increased my
capacity to minister and teach the good news of Jesus Christ. They were part of my
early preparation.
However, true credentials to minister and teach the good news of Jesus Christ
come directly from God, whether or not they are substantiated by the testimony of
other human beings, and regardless of the standing those human beings have in the
eyes of other human beings! For, "Your faith should not be in the wisdom of men
but in the power of God. ...Now we (true ministers and teachers of the gospel) have
received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know
the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in
words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are
spiritually discerned." (1st Corinthians 2: 5 and 12 - 14)
"...We (true ministers and teachers of the gospel) have such trust through
Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything
as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us
sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit, for
the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." This passage has become my primary
credential. I no longer maintain a license with any denomination. God doesn't say I am
made competent; He says I have been made sufficient! It's in the New Testament, 2nd
Corinthians 3: 4, 5 & 6 so that even I can remember it!
Life experiences, studying scripture and practice sharing the news of Christ are three
methods God has used to make me sufficient as His minister. My 1964 high school
graduation gift from my mother was Josh McDowell's book: Evidence Which Demands
A Verdict, a defense and explanation of the biblical Christian faith. I studied it closely
and revisited it often in my conversations. Some time after I was medically retired from
professional aviation in 1978, I began using the swimming pool at a Christian summer
camp to speed my recovery from injuries. Many of the teenage campers wrongly
assumed I was a counselor there and often asked me questions I couldn't adequately
answer. So I purchased a New International Version Study Bible with topical index and
concordance, and discovered from then on that teenagers and I could find God's
answers together, directly from God's Word. Plenty more practice teaching how to find
God's answer to every question came with my first, post- retirement job in a juvenile hall,
a jail for teenagers in trouble. Then later, working as a traveling insurance agent, I
heard the Bible Answer Man, Dr. Walter Martin, on the radio. I bought his book, The
Kingdom of the Cults, and studied it along with my Bible because many of my insurance
prospects were Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. So, I learned about genuine
Christianity and counterfeit Christianity, and about getting a Bible college education at
home, directly from textbooks. And for several years I sold and taught others how to sell
both life insurance and eternal life insurance or rapture insurance, face-to-face.
Then He called me into full time vocational ministries, which are community service jobs
with great opportunities for helping people directly and for sharing Christ with them, but
which offer comparatively low rates of pay. (The property manager of that Christian
camp I mentioned earlier had said to me if I became a minister for the money I was too
stupid for the job!) But by this time God had provided two retirement incomes to meet
my financial needs. I became a Military Community Payroll Manager, a Lifeguard &
Swimming Pool Manager, a church's Janitor and its Secretary, a Dorm Counselor or
House Parent at two group homes for abused teenagers, then a Therapeutic Foster
Parent and a Special Education Teaching Assistant.
Notice this: He healed me of injuries which ended my aviation career and strengthened
me enough to re-qualify as a lifeguard at age 45. I was certified in Therapeutic Crisis
Intervention by Cornell University and continued Bible College courses through
correspondence with the Evangelical Church Alliance and the Moody Bible Institute.
But with a limited budget, I was receiving greater and deeper wisdom faster by just
studying additional Bible College textbooks on my own, particularly in the emerging
field of Biblical or Christian Psychology and Counseling. By this time I was already
experiencing conflict with the secular humanist world's self-serving ways of looking after
the needy and wounded. And I still longed and prayed for the normally- accepted Bible
College education, degrees and credentials from "God's very best Bible Colleges."
His answer shocked me and tested my faith deeply! I found myself in jail, charged with
disgusting and outrageous crimes against a child! And worse, I was financially helpless
to defend myself against these false charges! However, while praying in the Parke
County Jail, I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Until then I had been "continuously
being filled with the Holy Spirit;" I had God's own Spirit living within me. But that night in
jail I received power which can be felt and recognized when God's Spirit came upon
me, just exactly as the Risen Jesus promised in Acts 1:8. And, as a sign to myself, I
began to speak in languages unknown to me as the people of Cornelius' household did
in Acts 10: 44-46 and as the disciples of Ephesus did in Acts 19: 6. Thus I began to
experience the manifestations or gifts of the Spirit listed in 1st Corinthians 12. I
became spiritually empowered to witness boldly, even in jail and in prison for more than
three years, and also since my return to my community. And, because of the virtually
endless supply of textbooks provided free to prisoners by several wonderful ministries, I
realized I was in the Alma Mater of Peter and John and Paul, the great Apostles.
Westville Correctional Center became for me Westville Theological Seminary! My
present Christian educational level is Master of Theology in Christian Counseling. And
I'm still studying.
Thanks to Moody Bible Institute, Christian Bible College & Seminary, Evangelical
Church Alliance, Emmaus Correspondence School, American Bible Academy, (Faith
Library, Kenneth Hagin Ministries) RHEMA Bible Training Center, Kenneth Copeland
Ministries, Joyce Meyer Ministries, Oral Roberts Ministries, (Keith Moore) Moore Life
Ministries, Christian Book Distributors, Inc., Westville Correctional Center Librarians,
Westville Correctional Center Chapel Librarians and Chaplain's Assistants, and the
Westville Correctional Center Correction Officers.
My Credentials
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