Our vision is to see the Gospel transform everything – ourselves as individuals, our church, our city, and the world.
By 2020, we desire to see that vision expressed in our church as a body of thousands of people, gathering in locations throughout the Louisville area, and planting churches all over the world that draw many more un-churched people into a relationship with God.
He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
—Revelation 21:5
A search for authenticity has driven my life. The first time my daughter and son-in-law took me to Sojourn, I turned to my husband as we walked through the door and said, “Oh Dick, MY PEOPLE!”
I grew up in an East Coast mainline church. Pomp, mystery and a feeling of distance from God were my young impressions. We attended on Sunday but I couldn’t help notice my parent’s parenthesis of hypocritical pew kneeling reverence, and the strife driving to and from service. Church obviously didn’t work to impact the lives of mom and dad, and I was going to have no part of it when I was able to choose for myself.
Meanings quest began in the Haight-Ashbury of San Francisco during the 60’s. The glittering array of choices for sensuality and paths to personal spirituality was endless. I explored them all. Like Solomon, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure.” For the next decade new experiences were my god; “I want to try everything there is before I die”, my mantra. Idol worship always creates a demand and lust for more. My cravings blinded me to the reality that I was poor, divorced, childless, addicted, hopeless, fearful, selfish and terribly alone.
The day I met Jesus was Easter of ’77. I was alone, watching Jesus of Nazareth on television. He seemed “pretty cool,” a strong man that saw through people — people like me. As the story unfolded I found myself hanging on His every Word. He was like no one I had ever known, He was “authentic.” By the time the story was winding to an end I was hoping it would end differently; but it didn’t, it couldn’t. Jesus suffered and died.
My heart was broken to a million bits, and I knelt by my bed and wept. I knew it was “my sins, my sins” that had put Him on the cross. I was so ashamed, broken and hurt, because I had hurt Him. I asked Him to forgive me and then went out under the evening stars, just to be sure He could “see me,” and asked, “Please, please, please, don’t ever let me forget this night, this feeling.”
“I’m going to hell” I told the Pastor who sat at my table the next day in the restaurant I worked at. I laughed out loud at his suggestion that there was means to be forgiven and spend eternity in Heaven. He didn’t know me, or my past, there was “no way.” We met later and he showed me that indeed, there was a way. He took me through the “Roman’s Road” and I made my decision for Christ.
Jesus personal appearance in my life following that weekend and in the years after is a testimony to His authenticity. He has never failed to live up to His Word and my hope. Although I have always been an imperfect disciple, He has — with grace — brought me to a place where I can “comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”
My journey has brought me to Sojourn to journey the rest of the way with you all. The counseling ministry is where I am able to glorify the God of all comfort and redemption.