Chad Allen, our second son, was on his way into the world. I had driven all night from Beaumont to Waco in the longest U-Haul truck available, arriving at 4 AM. At 7 AM, the call came that Dixie was on the way to Women and Children's Hospital in Beaumont. She had worked hard the day before, helping to pack and box our belongings, and that had apparently induced labor. She was ready to be delivered.
Dewey Shannon was a leading homebuilder in Waco, and he attended the Spirit of Love Church. He also had a twin-engine Beechcraft airplane. He offered to fly me to Beaumont immediately. So without any delay, I hopped a flight to Jefferson County Airport, and arrived at the hospital just minutes before Chad was born. At least I was on time for this one. Precious Dixie. She was a brave soul. And Chad Allen (meaning "protector-defender-warrior" and "precious") was the new light in our lives. Dixie would have to stay with her sister for a few weeks while she recovered from a Caesarean-section surgery. I returned to Waco to set up housekeeping and start tending to my new ministry responsibilities.
Starting A Television And Radio Ministry
I spent the remainder of that year strategizing and organizing a national television project. I flew to Louisville, Kentucky to spend several days with Waymon and Bob Rogers, the Father-and-Son pastors of the 2000-member Evangel Temple A/G. They ran an extensive local television ministry, as well as a huge K-12 school, and a multi-million dollar building project was underway. I picked their brains for the best counsel for a start-up television ministry, and while I was there, was invited to preach at their annual Camp Meeting.
Then I flew to Ninth and O Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee, to research their successful television ministry. Next, I flew to Florida to take a close-up look at the ministries of Karl Strader, Quinton Edwards and Roy Harthern (Benny Hinn's father-in-law), and investigate the Christian radio and TV stations and ministries in Lakeland, Tampa and Orlando.
We were also interested in starting our own Christian radio station. I drove to Central Texas to visit the headquarters of a Christian organization that operated both radio and cable TV networks. They helped me prepare the proper applications to the Federal Communications Commission for a license to own and operate our own station in Waco.
As soon as I returned to Waco, we purchased a television production bus that was formerly owned by ABC SPORTS. We began to remodel the church gymnasium to make it a teleproduction facility. We created an in-house advertising agency called "Spirit of Love Media" and began to produce radio and television content, spots, commercials, and all kinds of print and audio content. I developed a set of branding logos and began packaging everything we did in print and audio products. We took our best singers and musicians into a local recording studio and produced a catchy jingle for our radio and TV applications. Our slogan was, "Come Catch The Spirit Of Love!" and we spread it all over town via radio, television, billboards, newspaper and other venues. We went to Channel 39 TV in Dallas and produced a pilot TV program. Then I met with executives of the local cable television company and negotiated for permission to obtain full programming rights for our own channel to reach the tri-cities of Waco, Temple and Killeen. They granted me access to an unused channel and gave me permission to program it 24 hours a day with my own choice of programming -- FREE! That meant that I would have to come up with enough Christian video programming to fill 168 hours a week.
Along with all the media projects, I was an Associate Minister, providing some of the teaching and preaching, and was involved heavily in the music ministry. Dixie and I recruited a third voice and formed a trio which sang regularly in services. I still owned my Hammond Porta-B Organ with Leslie, and played that in every service.
Hungry Preachers Clinic
We invited Waymon Rogers to come from Louisville to participate in a three-day intensive workshop for Pastors. We called it the "Hungry Preachers Clinic." About 100 ministers from every direction came to hear the new ministry concepts that were being implemented in the fastest-growing churches around the country. Of course, The Spirit of Love Church was a glowing example of how things should be done. In a nutshell, it included many of the very concepts that I had been hearing from the Pastor and from Ward in the previous 6-8 months.
The Brazos River Jesus Festival
The City of Waco put on a major annual event called "The Brazos River Festival," in the park along the river. Concerts, carnivals and entertainment drew tens of thousands of people from around the region. A few months later, we decided that we would stage "The Brazos River JESUS Festival," in the same location. It would be an all-day Christian Concert-Crusade with music, preaching and teaching from morning until night. Our featured speaker was Larry Lea, the Youth Pastor at Howard Conatser's Beverly Hills Baptist Church in Dallas. He had over 1000 kids in his youth group and was known around the country. We also booked a Contemporary Christian band called "Amplified Version." Gary Paxton, the rock-and-roll star from the 1950s and author of the hit song "Alley Oop," had been converted to Christianity and was a frequent guest on the PTL Club. (Paxton later became involved with Tammy Faye Bakker, resulting in a near-break-up of her marriage to Jim.) Before that time, however, Paxton formed the group "Amplified Version" with about four guys and three girls. Simply put, they were Christian hippies. Paxton wrote and produced many of their songs, several of which became hits. "Jesus Keeps Taking Me Higher And Higher," "Jesus Is My Lawyer In Heaven," and Paxton's biggest hit, "He Was There All The Time."
The Brazos River Jesus Festival drew about 2500-3000 people. We set up two flat-bed trailers for stages and pitched huge tent-canopies over them. You cannot imagine how hip we were. Many of the men at Spirit of Love had full beards, including myself. Most of the younger guys had long hair, some down to their shoulders. Some of them wore enormous Afro-style hair. The dress code was... well, there was no dress code. When Amplified Version came out to sing, the girls wore tight blue jeans and braless halter-tops. The music was indistinguishable from popular rock-and-roll music. Larry Lea's presentation that day was geared directly for the young audience.
Overdosing On "Liberty"
I had never been in this kind of environment. There were virtually no rules or regulations. This church freely did so many things I had never believed churches should do. No dress code whatsoever. Shorts, tank-tops, halter-tops, bikinis, etc. on church-sponsored events. Practically everyone regularly attended the movie theaters, listened to rock-and-roll, and regularly attended sports and entertainment events. On one occasion, a group of more than a hundred young adults went white-water rafting in New Braunfels. ALL of these activities were quite contrary to the long-standing published beliefs of not only the Assemblies of God, but also just about every Fundamental Evangelical Church in existence during the first half of the twentieth century. The A/G ministers' manual stated that the Assemblies of God disapproved of mixed-bathing (guys and girls swimming together), immodest apparel, attending movie theaters, organized sporting events, etc. But those rules meant absolutely nothing anymore. "GOD LOVES YOU! HE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT ALL THOSE THINGS!" they said. I should have known better.
AMAZINGLY, every service seemed to be intensely spiritual. The music was phenomenal. The worship was lavish. The teaching was mesmerizing. The crowds continued to grow.
All around the country, this was the trend. Christianity was becoming POPULAR! Churches were exploding with growth! But although the crowds were growing, a troubling phenomenon was occurring. The saints appeared indistinguishable from the sinners. No wonder it was popular. You could have your cake and eat it too. You could have the world and the Church. You no longer had to make a radical change in your lifestyle to be a Christian. You could continue to entertain yourself with all the things you enjoyed in the world. Just add Jesus to the equation.
I had already seen that in the F.G.B.M.F.I. and in Women's Aglow circles, the same thing was true. Again and again, I met people who were professing great spiritual experiences, but they continued to smoke, and drink, and curse, and attend Churches which taught unbiblical teachings. And that was really only the tip of the iceberg.
It all brought one single verse to my mind again and again and again.
"This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth,
and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me."
Matthew 15:8
At the first, it was exhilarating to be free of so many of the old inhibitions and restrictions. It felt good to "dress down," and be casual all the time. It seemed very liberating to freely go to the theaters. I had rarely ever listened to popular, secular music, especially rock-and-roll, and certainly no heavy metal. I had never dressed in sync with cultural fads. But now all those things were OK. No problem. I finally began to feel like I was one with the world.
But THAT was the problem. I wasn't SUPPOSED to be one with the world!
Unlike so many of the newcomers in that Church, I knew the Bible. I knew how many things were happening that just did not measure up to Biblical standards. I did not know what to do. I knew that I had already let down on many convictions that I had held so strongly. I was unhappy about my own personal backsliding. Dixie was too.
After a few months of all our new-found freedoms, Dixie and I realized that all these freedoms had not brought us closer to God, but closer to the world. I realized that I was lying to myself. I wanted to believe that God was really OK with all the carnal, worldly activities, but in my heart of hearts, I just knew better. When a thing feels so much like sin, it probably IS sin. And you can believe that there is an enormous amount of sin in the midst of such an environment.
I wondered out loud, "What is the big difference between a Christian lifestyle and that of a sinner?" There are only two directions a person can go - closer toward God, or farther away from God. We were moving away from God, and I knew that I had to do something about it.
Facing The Facts, Dealing With The Dilemma
In the seventh month of that tenure, I decided to give myself to prayer and fasting. I took three days off and told Dixie that I was going to lock myself in our spare bedroom for three days - no food, no interruptions - just prayer, Bible study, and fasting. I needed to hear from God. I needed a personal spiritual renewal. I was troubled about the condition of my own soul. I did not know if I could tolerate this new religion very much longer without melting down.
I laid out five things before the Lord that I desperately needed answers to. I wrote them down. I prayed over them. I asked God to clearly answer me on those five issues.
At the end of the third day of fasting, I came out of the room and broke my fast. Within one hour, I received a phone call from someone I hardly knew. Before I hung the phone up, all five of the requests I had put before the Lord had been answered explicitly. I was blown away.
As a result, I explained to Dixie that I felt we needed to be looking for a different direction.
No sooner had I expressed that to her than another phone call came. It was an invitation to consider the pastorate of a church in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. I immediately accepted the invitation. The church there purchased plane tickets for my entire family to fly to Atlanta for an upcoming weekend about two weeks before Christmas. They put us up in a nice hotel. We met with the people, Dixie and I ministered in music in both Sunday services, and I preached twice that day.
The people said, "We want you!"
It looked like a dream-come-true. There were more than 300 members in their congregation. The building was brand-new and very beautiful. It was located on a major highway in the community. The pastor's office was plush and had massive bookshelves for my library. The church had the distinction of having the #2 Church-Softball Team in the state of Georgia. They had a forty-voice choir directed by no less than James Goss of the famous Goss Brothers - the same musicians who had produced the record album for Dixie and me seven years earlier. And the parsonage was a magnificent, huge new brick home in a very nice neighborhood.
We flew back home and waited for them to conduct an election the following week. The phone call came. "We have elected you with 100% of the votes!" We were ecstatic.
They ordered professional movers to haul all our belongings to Georgia. We moved in immediately - over the Christmas holidays. Suddenly, we were Georgians!
But there were some big surprises around the corner.
Continue to:
Long Winding Road - Chapter 11
"Holy Ghost Or Nothing"
Return to:
Long Winding Road - Chapter 9
"Which Way From Here?"
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Ken Raggio
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From Ken Raggio's Book