In 2009 I was introduced to a pastor from Idaho who could go toe to toe with the infamous Christopher Hitchens and come out completely unscathed having dealt blow after bloody blow to the atheist’s worldview. I am thankful for Darren Doane’s (and co.) faithfulness and vision in creating “Collision.”
I immediately took the Doug Wilson deep dive because thankfully, Canon Press just so happened to be doing one of those $1, $2, $3 deals which enabled me to load up on all kinds of books I didn’t even know I needed.
This all happened at a time in my life when, for the previous two years, God had been prodding me and my wife to simply read His holy word, ditching my assumptions and preconceived notions of what I thought I knew so well (as a pastor’s kid who grew up in a charismatic-word-of-faith-Pentecostal type congregation.
Just prior to encountering Doug Wilson I read a little book on TULIP (by Duane E. Spencer) and even though I had literally never heard of calvinism or reformed theology, that way of reading the scriptures began to untangle and connect many of the loose ends I was wrestling with.
I read those Doug Wilson dollar books: “Easy Chairs, Hard Words,” “Heaven Misplaced,” “Standing on the Promises,” and “To a Thousand Generations,” among others, and in no time I was reformed, paedobaptist, postmil, (and federal vision, even to this very day, but we don’t gotta talk about that).
My first child was born in September of 2010 and we baptized him and have baptized all of our babes who have come after him.
During that time I naturally began reading Pastor Wilson’s work on Christian education, attending The Grace Agenda conferences (even before they were free!), and inhaling all the smoking media coming from the chimney of Idaho I possibly could and it has paid dividends to me and to our community here in central Texas.
Our church is now reformed and still reforming. We baptize babies (not binding the conscience of families who are still baptist). We invite our covenant children to the table with us that we now celebrate at weekly. And while we are nowhere close to a perfect church, we believe we are headed in the right direction. We have lots of growing up to do yet but we are committed to faithfulness to God’s word.
As early as 2016 we knew we needed to start a Christian school. We could sense the Holy Spirit (and the Cross Politic guys) not so subtly shoving us in that direction. We were already committed homeschoolers but as our tribe increased, joining forces and pooling our collective resources and areas of passion made much more sense. We knew what we needed to do. We prayed the prescribed prayer for starting a Christian school, “Geronimo! Amen!”
We petitioned our Church to spend $40k in order to make our dilapidated fellowship hall/nursery/children’s church building (two old rectangular army barracks put together in the shape of a “T”) into 8 little classrooms and a study hall/kitchen.
We began Koinonia Classical Christian School in August 2019 and it has been great.
Thanks for reading this and I hope you are encouraged to praise God with us. Let it be known that we are nobodies from nowhere. We don’t have tons of money or expertise. Nobody swooped in to save us from our bad theology and well-meaning and misguided ways but God didn’t leave us alone. God did this. He can do it and does it all the time in places and situations that seem impossible to us if we will only open our eyes to see Him working.
Have faith, even if ever so small. Be faithful in the face of the impossible. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to fail, or look like a ridiculous fool to the unbelievers (of the critical believers) in your community. Let them feel the heat of a zealous heart after God and let them smell the aroma of the gospel. Don’t wait for somebody to come in and do the dirty work. Don’t wait for someone else to do the day after day, month after month, year after year faithfulness. Be that person now and I promise you won’t regret it in a year.