Calvary Chapel Preterist...Day 21

And so it had at this point been about a week since I had come across the fulfilled view of Bible prophecy. And what an emotional week it had been. Especially because of the context in which I had discovered it. Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa was not the place to find an objective point of view on something outside of what they held as one of their distinctives. And so one morning as I was driving home from school something led me to stop by one off my old haunts...Parkcrest Christian Church in Long Beach and see my friend Mike Goldsworthy. At that time, if I remember correctly he was still the pastor of the high school ministry and he had this really cool little office in the back. Well...Come to think, the whole office facility at Parkcrest is pretty cool. You see...As the church was making plans to expand about 10 years ago a mortuary that was on the same piece of property was about to put the property up for sale but first offered it to Parkcrest. Needless to say they snatched it up like a 3rd baseman does a line drive. Not only did it have a ton of office space but it also had a sanctuary/chapel right out on the main thoroughfare compared to the main church building that was set back quite a ways. If you are ever in the Long Beach area I'd recommend stopping by and checking out one of their weekend services. <---Shameless plug. 8)

Anyhow...Back to my visit with Mike Goldsworthy. I'm not sure why I thought to stop in and see him but I would find out very quickly that God must have had his hand in this chance meeting. We snaked our way back through the offices and conference room to an outside courtyard and then back into another door through an office setting to Mike's office. A small office with a small forest's worth books covering one wall and a door to the outside world on the other. Oh...And of course a large chair, or maybe it was a small love seat for guests. After a few minutes of small talk I asked him about where he stands on the issue of eschatology. With a smile on his face and a little bit of trepidation in his voice he answered, "something along the lines of a the partial preterist camp." I was kind of surprised but more relieved than anything.

Knowing me, I probably spent most of the time talking that morning about everything that had happened over the last week or so. I was just so incredibly happy to find someone that was not hostile to my unfortunate, difficult and precarious situation. But...I had been awake all night and early into that morning and what would now soon be afternoon and I really needed some sleep. As I was leaving he recommended a book to me that he said really helped him out with where he was at. It was "The Last Days According to Jesus." by R.C. Sproul.

And so the following day I stopped by Lighthouse Christian Store and picked up a copy. I kept it with me and read a few pages here and there when I had the time. It's not a long book. Something like 250 pages or so. Definitely a worthwhile read especially if the popular views taught on T.V. and in a lot of churches today has left you scratching your head. Sproul does an incredibly good job demonstrating quite reasonably how the olivet discourse, in Matthew 24 was fulfilled just as Jesus had said...Before that generation(40 years) would pass away.

As well at this same time I had concluded that the best thing to do was to go word for word through the New Testament with a fine tooth comb and see what I could dig up now that this paradigm shift had taken place. And so I didn't just open up my Bible and start reading. I took my Bible on mp3 and listened to it while following through line upon line with a set of colored pencils ready to mark things up. This project took about two weeks to tackle. Now my Bible had all of the timing statements related to the end times/last days hi-lighted in green. I'd say that this was a watershed moment...But it was more like sitting under a waterfall for two weeks. There was no turning back.

How would I reconcile this with being a Calvary Chapel pastor? Could I still be a Calvary Chapel pastor and teach a preterist view of eschatology? How would I reconcile this with working for Chuck Smith?

These are just a few of the questions that would make what remained of the last semester of The School of Ministry the most difficult 3 months of my life. 8(

A Spiritual Re-awakening...Kinda! After hitting the snooze button a few times...8)...Day 9

In the fall of 1996 at the suggestion of my parents, I began attending a divorce/single parents fellowship at Parkcrest Christian Church in Long beach, Ca. Over the following year or so I also got involved in other areas of service and fellowship. I also started reading the Bible for the first time in many years. I don't remember if this was at the suggestion of someone else or if I just felt the need to do so. Either way for some time I began reading the Bible every morning before I would even get out of bed. As I started reading through the New Testament I found myself surprised that gospels were all telling the same story. I guess before that I just thought the Bible was like any other book, that it was something of a more sequential story. Either way...I don't think I made it very far outside the gospels before I lost interest.

And so over the next few years my Bible was just something I carried around with me when I went to church. You know...That is the thing to do, right? That and use it as a bulletin holder when you are filling in the blanks with those little yellow golf pencils. I'm just glad no one asked me to look something up in the book of Hezekiah. I would have fallen for it. 8)

As time went on though I did start taking a stronger interest in spiritual things. At the suggestion of a friend I picked up a copy of "The New Evidence That Demands A Verdict," by Josh McDowell. And what an incredible book it was. A great personal testimony by the author and tons of answers to questions that challenge peoples faith. But I still hadn't really spent much time in the Bible.

In early spring 2001, I began attending a Sunday night young adult church service at Knott Avenue Christian Church, in Anaheim Ca. And it would be this group of people/church that would push me to the next level spiritually. Although I still really hadn't spent much time in my Bible, I did feel a need to better understand what was in this book I was carrying around with me. So I started reading through J. Vernon McGee's Thru the Bible commentaries. These were a transcribed version of his Thru the Bible radio broadcast. It was these commentaries that really began peaking my interest to study more. Mainly because of his view of the end times. I had really never even heard anything about the rapture, the anti-christ, the beast, etc. until that time. And man...Was I hooked.

Ok...Back to this new church that I was going to. The one thing that was markedly different about Knott Ave. Christian Church was the people. These people were much more in touch with God than anyone I'd ever seen. I honestly don't even know if I'd ever seen someone raise their hands in praise to God till then. Another thing that was different was the men. Most of these guys knew there Bible's really well. Something that I didn't. But I wasn't discouraged. I pressed on and started reading more commentaries and even a big old thick systematic theology. 8)

But I still hadn't read all of my Bible...