Remembering the basics

February 12, 2007

By John W. Kennedy

In this country, where more than 80 percent of the people claim to be Christian but less than 40 percent attend church regularly, we need to make sure we understand the basics of the faith.

I grew up the son of a mainline Protestant minister. From infancy I was in church and Sunday School every week. But during my childhood and youth I never had a deep relationship with the Lord. During the first quarter century of my life I knew all about Jesus in my head, but He didn’t rule my heart. I hadn’t asked Him to be the center of my life.

After I graduated from the University of Missouri, my wife, Patty, and I moved back to my hometown in Iowa where I became a reporter for the newspaper. We starting going to my dad’s little country church, where most everyone was 50 and older.

Soon we had our first son and there wasn’t a nursery in the church because nobody was of childbearing age. So we decided to look around in the town of 10,000 where we lived for a church where there were people our age as well as little babies.

We settled on a Baptist church, and this is where I truly learned about the Lord. At age 25 I committed my life to Jesus and was baptized as a believer. Following that I enrolled in a two-year discipleship course at the church based on Colossians 2:6,7, which says, “So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (NIV).

For two hours every Thursday night for two years, Patty and I met with 10 other new believers and learned the basics of Christianity: that we should read our Bible daily, pray every day, memorize Scripture, learn how to evangelize. These habits have stuck with me. For the past 23 years I’ve been journaling every day what I read in the Bible. This is all part of being a Christian.

John W. Kennedy is news editor of Today’s Pentecostal Evangel.