Thread by @jaredcwilson

Heard this morning that Steven has gone on into glory. Prayers for his wife and the church at Middletown Springs, VT are appreciated, I'm sure. Can I tell you about Steven's remarkable journey to Jesus? . . .

https://twitter.com/jaredcwilson/status/1481096989815287809

I remember his 1st Sunday in 2011. He stood out b/c he was by himself. 62 yrs old, I think. Long gray beard, flannel shirt, "work jeans." He was dressed liked a lot of 20-something hipsters except he came by it honestly. He looked like he'd just come in out of the woods

I went to meet him after service and he said, "You know, this is my first time in a church building in 44 years." I said, "No weddings, no funerals?" He said, "No. I grew up Catholic. Left home and religion when I was 18. Didn't want to have anything more to do with it."

I said, "44 years is a long time. How in the world did you decide to come here?" And then he told me something that still blows my mind. You see, Steven was a journeyman carpenter-type guy - as a lot of guys in our area were - and he had been doing some work for a guy named Bruce

Now, I gotta tell you about Bruce real quick. Bruce was an ex-Jehovah's Witness. He'd been excommunicated for disagreeing with the leaders in his kingdom hall on how to handle something sensitive that came up. He thought outside authorities should be brought in. They didn't.

So Bruce was kicked out. Estranged from his family, etc. He wasn't a believer, but he'd been attending our church for a while. Every evangelistic conversation I had with him, he had the hangups you'd imagine -- Trinity, Incarnation, just. by faith, etc.

But he liked the teaching and our people were friendly, so he kept coming, and we kept praying he'd come to Christ. Well, anyway, one day Steven is doing work on Bruce's property and they get into a religious conversation.

Steven says, "My brother is a born again Christian and keeps telling me I should go to to church. But I don't want to have anything to do with it. And even if I did, I wouldn't know the first place to begin."

And Bruce says, "Well, I've been going to the church down in Middletown. You could come with me sometime, if you want." So Steven came to our evangelical church on the invitation of an unbelieving ex-JW. Like, if we were trying to plan that, we couldn't!

So it was an amazing orchestration of the Spirit that he came at all. Steven had been listening to R.C. Sproul on the radio (or on tape, I can't remember which). He didn't do Internet. (A fair number of our folks didn't, actually.) But he started coming to our church

Eventually he made a profession of faith. I baptized him in Lake St. Catherine the summer of 2012. Steven never missed a Sunday, never missed Sunday School, never missed a men's discipleship group, small group, nothing. And he popped in the office a lot to talk theology

He was overflowing with Bible questions, a lot of minutiae-type stuff sometimes, and a lot of the time I'd have to say, "I don't know, Steven. I'll have to look that up and get back with you." He never seemed frustrated with that. He was just eager and growing.

He always sat on the front or second pew, was the first to raise his hand *every single Sunday* during our "prayer and share time" to ask that we all remember to pray for our lost loved ones who need to know Jesus. Steven's wife was not a believer and he wanted her to get saved.

Praise God, Steven's wife came to Christ a few years later (I was already in Kansas City). After I moved, he'd email me every now and again. He was a regular @KeyLifeNetwork listener and always messaged me after I'd be on Steve Brown's show to tell me I did good.

Every now and again he'd email me an out of the box theological question. I think the last one was whether I thought Tom Brady's success was due to Gisele being a witch, lol. He'd heard that somewhere.

I remember Steven as a quiet but inquisitive and reliably helpful guy. It didn't take him long after his embrace at our church to begin doing diaconal type work without being a deacon -- helping with building stuff, pitching in at outreach events, offering rides to people, etc.

And I'll always love his story of coming to Jesus. It is proof that the Holy Spirit is unpredictable and surprising, that the gospel is indeed powerful. And now I suppose Steven is happy that all his weird questions can be answered for real by the One who never says I don't know.