Godless Read Free Page B

Dad did some lay preaching over the years, so a life of ministry was not an unusual choice. Both of my younger brothers were heavily involved in Christian ministries, though neither of them became ordained or worked as full-time ministers.
     
    For a couple of years, starting when I was 13, my family formed a musical group that would perform in various churches in southern California. My Dad played trombone and preached. My mother was a beautiful singer and always brought the congregation to tears with her rendition of “His Eye Is On the Sparrow.” My brother Tom played trombone and my brother Darrell played trumpet, while I played piano. We sang those simple yet powerful gospel harmonies that “stir the soul.” I suppose it was no surprise that I felt the “call” to continue a life of ministry.
     
    I remember thinking that night in Anaheim, when I was called to be a preacher, that I didn’t need to wait to graduate from a seminary or became ordained. I was “born again” and “filled with the spirit.” I had the bible, the word of God, to speak for itself. What else did I need? Since God is powerful, there was no reason he couldn’t start using a 15-year-old preacher right away. “Out of the mouth of babes” and all that. Besides, Jesus was coming soon! I didn’t think the world would last long enough for me to go to college or get married or raise a family.
     
    I started carrying my bible to school and talking to friends about Jesus. I joined up with evangelistic youth teams that took weekend missionary trips to poor villages in Mexico, just below the California border, where I preached my first sermon at the age of 15 alongside the dusty bank of an irrigation canal in the tiny village of Ejido Morelia. During the summer, I went on week-long and month-long trips into Mexico and the Southwest, with such groups as YUGO (which means “yoke” in Spanish but stands for Youth Unlimited Gospel Outreach) and the Frank Gonzales Evangelistic Association. Anticipating that I might become a missionary to Mexico, I devoted myself to mastering Spanish.
     
    I’ll never forget my first soul-winning experience. One Friday evening in June, near my 16th birthday, while I was wondering how I was going to spend the summer vacation of 1965, I received a phone call from someone at YUGO asking if I would fill a vacated leadership spot on a traveling gospel team. My parents said, “Go for it!”
     
    Early the next morning, traveling from Los Angeles to Texas with 10 other young people in an eight-door stretch car that kept breaking down, I discovered that I had been appointed captain of one of the outreach groups. My responsibilities were to include supervising a team of three girls (all older than me), two weeks of preaching in two San Antonio Hispanic churches, and directing a Vacation Bible School for children. I was also told that I would be training local teenagers in the techniques of soul winning. I had never done any of these things before, but it was assumed I was capable since they had heard I was an “on fire” young Christian. My faith was so strong that I was willing to do anything for Jesus, trusting that he would give me the strength and the words.
     
    I’m sure my nightly sermons were not great, but no one complained. I let the girls handle the day activities for children while I prepared for the soul-winning workshop on Saturday—which worried me considerably, since I had never before won anyone to Christ.
     
    When the day arrived, we “California evangelists” gathered the inexperienced local teenagers from the churches for some preliminary training. I taught them how to share the basic plan of salvation and how to get a person to the point of conversion. When it was time to go out into a park and put it into practice, the kids expressed some hesitation, but I assured them that nothing was too hard for God. And besides, they were going to learn some lessons about faith and obedience. They didn’t