I spent my early years going to church regularly and I asked Jesus into my heart many times. But I never felt like anything happened. School was difficult for me. It was hard for me to understand anything I read. No matter what I read, I couldn’t understand. A teacher gave me a passing grade once, just because I tried. My high school counselor told me I should find a job working with my hands because I wouldn’t be successful in college.
Later when I was 28 years old, I was raising cattle. It was a difficult process and I was a very frustrated man. But I had a Living Bible. One day, I opened it up to John 14:1, where Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled, you’ve been trusting in God, now trust in Me.” And it was like a veil was removed from my mind and I knew God did something miraculous. I’ve been able to read with understanding since that day.
In my late 30s I was asked to teach a Sunday School class of older adults, 40-60 years of age. I had no idea I had the spiritual gift of teaching, but the church leaders must have seen something in me. Several years later, I met my wife, Mary, when I attended a group of singles that she started in another church. We led a divorce recovery ministry together there for 9 years. We averaged as many as ninety participants each week in DivorceCare and other studies that we offered for single and single-again adults. At the 50th anniversary of that church, they said our ministry – Restoration House Ministries – was the most successful ministry their church ever had.
More recently, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in many men’s groups each week. I currently attend 10 men’s meetings Monday through Saturday. Most of them are Bible studies, one is a prayer breakfast, two are book studies. But the ones that are Bible studies is what prompted me to start Kingdom of Man. All of them have focused on sin.
Kingdom of Man is a unique ministry that helps born-again believing men to get out from under the lid of sin and death, which the first Adam brought into the world, (1 Corin. 15:45), and to live in what Jesus – The Second Adam – has accomplished for us to live in! We currently have two KOM meetings per week on Zoom with men joining in regularly from various places.
My wife and I are Kansas natives, but we also have a home in Florida where we live in the winter months. The men’s Bible study groups I mention are not unique to either state. All of them have had sin as their focus. It is very disheartening to think Jesus came to save us from our sin, and Christians continue to think it is still their problem.
