Member David Kidd (Attending Since 2006)

My identity was really wrapped up in love and acceptance of my dad – though I never got what I was wanting. He passed away in November of 2005 and we had not spoken in years. I got the phone call from Ali while the band was getting ready for a long drive home from Washington D.C. area saying that he had passed.

Now at this point I called myself a believer, but I wasn’t practicing other than spotty attendance at the church I grew up in. I cried all the way home. The boys in the band lifted me up as best as they could, but I could not get over the overwhelming sense of loss — both in saying goodbye to someone that I should have loved and been loved by in a tangible way, and also in realizing the seething pain of unforgiveness and the effect that it had on me and my family.

During this time we retreated from our few believing friends, doubted and brought into question whether God had ever really called us. This was a tremendous time of upheaval. Through some dear friends encouraging us and calling us to community, we responded to the call to come to Sojourn and hear the gospel week after week.

The gospel penetrated this piece of stone that had masqueraded as a heart for so long. We stepped into relationships that have forever altered the words “community” and “family.” We started attending the Crowe community group and were challenged and encouraged week after week. During this same time I attended counseling with Robert which showed me how much importance I had been making over the acceptance of my earthly dad, while minimizing the love and unconditional acceptance of my Heavenly father. Robert put before me two things that I will always remember – that I had constructed an idol out of my acceptance and that I was the only believer in several relationships as he drew them out on paper. While it can seem obvious now, at that point it truly was lost on me…

Though group life, moving into The 930 and working together, sharing meals and developing relationships with Godly men I was challenged to not be so cynical toward them as I had said on several occasions to my wife “I don’t need more friends…” We continued to grow in numbers and depth as a group, loving on and pouring into one another. I remember Mike listening well and taking whatever time was necessary to insure that we weren’t just hearing the word, but that it was something we could carry with us as we left for the evening. Prayer time was precious and intentional; as we carried one another and reminded one another of our complete inadequacies – but in Christ that we are being made new. We gospeled one another during the time away through emails, text messages phone calls and rides from the airport. We raised money to pay bills for one another when there was a need. We understood our tendencies to shrink back from one another – and preached to one another the only remedy for this – Christ.

We started serving as a couple in SojournKids once Sojourn moved into The 930. This wasn’t something entirely new for us as we had served in the nursery at our old church – but it did seem different. We weren’t just watching these children – we were preaching the gospel to them and to one another. I remember the first time I taught very well. I read from scripture to the elementary children of darkness and how God spoke and Light came forth. I used a simple illustration with the light being off for just a moment and with a flick of a switch Light flooded the classroom. The children’s eyes adjusted and they were aware of the total nothingness that God created from. I don’t read the story the same any longer because of this illustration… It opened my eyes to how the story is told – read from the Bible.