Charlie's Testimony

I grew up in a Christian family that were members of a Southern Baptist Church. Some of my earliest memories that I have are of my father reading me Bible stories out of a children's illustrated Bible. I came to know and love those stories and I can still picture Joseph's coat of many colors. Because of this up-bringing, I came to accept Christ at the tender age of 7. I sought out my parents and told them my desire and they took me to the pastor to examine if I knew what I was doing. I was baptized a few months after.

When I got to high school, after a few years of just living my life for myself, around my junior year, I developed an urge to study the Bible on my own and really pursue knowing God. I became active in my youth group as well as Young Life. Young Life had a profound impact on my life. My Young Life leaders were a real influence on me and modeled to me what a Christian man was like. At this time the thought of full-time ministry was bouncing around in my head.

In the fall of 1997, I entered college at the University of South Carolina. I immediately got involved with FCA, my church's college ministry, as well as the local Presbyterian church's college ministry. I really enjoyed all of those ministries and made great and wonderful friends through them. I also was involved in a fraternity, however, and some of my fraternity brothers were also believers. We assumed that we would hold each other accountable during this time and we did mostly until our junior years when we became the legal drinking age of 21. A beer here and there is not bad, and we experimented. A year and a half later, I had pretty much developed a drinking habit. I drank most every day and night. As a result, I was convicted and stayed out of church-related activities. I still felt the call of Christ to come back to more of a relationship with Him, but I subtly pushed that call to the back of my mind.

However, God never gave up on me and got my attention. In 2000, God allowed me to get mononucleousis, which left me completely drained and my immune system is still recovering. Shortly after my stint with mono, I came down with pneumonia. I remember laying in my bed one day, sick, as I finally cried out to God: "'I give up!" I decided to quit my habits and pursue God with all of my heart. This took some time. It took me a few months to dwindle my drinking habits down. Eventually, the desire to drink went away. Drinking was a huge stumbling block for me serving God, so it had to go. Fortunately, throughout this time God had blessed me with a wonderful girlfriend (who now is my wife) who had a strong faith in Christ and prayed for me every day that I would become the Christian man that she would marry. She did this for about 2 years.

During my last semester of college, I got back involved with my church's college ministry and the call to ministry kept creeping back into my head. I talked to my pastor (the same one that baptized me) and I graduated college and went to Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. I stayed there for one semester and then my wife and I both decided to attend Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

I had no idea what going into full-time ministry was about. I was very green and felt like a new Christian. It's now been almost 3 1/2 years since I entered seminary and both my wife adn I will graduate this May. I know realize that being called into ministry is a both a privilege and a responsibility. I thank God for pursuing me and calling me into this life-changing work. I know that there is nothing else I could do in life except teach and preach the Word of God, as well as love His church. I look forward to where God's will takes me next as I continue the journey of serving Him.