I was the fifth, and last, child in my family, with 4 older sisters. I was the pride of my father, who was a rebel. He often drove the fire truck past churches on Sunday morning with the siren blaring, a bit drunk, just to raise a little hell. I believe he did it to celebrate my birth as well. Soon after my birth, dad took the family to Pennsylvania to show them the farming lifestyle similar to his boyhood days in Germany. A Mennonite man invited him to eat the noon meal with his entire family, and this began my introduction to the Mennonite Church. I grew up in church, took naps in church, preached to my cousin Paul, and once while preaching, jumped off the hassock and landed on a metal Indian. I was an exciting preacher.

            I attended a Mennonite high school to escape the drugs of my public junior high school, and found the same drugs at the private school. By grade 12, I was sick of the Mennonite religion and opted for Charismatic stuff instead. I moved to Ohio to escape my friends, because I couldn’t get away from the party scene when I was with them.  I got involved in bible studies and church meetings almost every night of the week. I went to a charismatic school of ministry in Florida at age 19, then came back to Ohio, and got involved in Living Word Fellowship, a new charismatic church. I totally gave myself to church stuff. I got up for 6 am prayer, and kept going until midnight.  I was in involved with elder meetings, board meetings, worship leading, band practice, youth ministry, assistant pastoring, Christian school administrating, and cable TV producing.

            Over time, I grew distant from my wife and young kids, due to my church involvement. I left the full-time ministry I was involved with to pursue God, and I found both him and my family again. My wife became ill with asthma, and our ‘word of faith’ mentality caused her to repeatedly go off her medicine to prove that she believed God had healed her. My theology changed when we moved to Wyoming for the sake of my wife’s health. We found life again, and discovered a new love for the world.

            My wife Tammy’s health changed for the better, but our financial situation grew worse. In 1994, we came back to Ohio, to pastor a charismatic church, for financial reasons, and because we felt that was where God was leading us. However, we didn’t realize how much we had changed, and how much we were still changing.  We didn’t fit with the organized church any longer. The building and the programs were the gods of the church.  When we confronted that, trouble ensued.

             The new stuff at the Airport Vineyard Church in Toronto, Ontario, began to affect my relationship with God and with the church. Roger Davenport, a good friend and fellow pastor who was praying for and leading the local pastors in a pursuit of this new move of God, committed suicide when the problems between him and his church became too great.  Soon after that, we left our church, started a new one, and then closed that new one down four years later. Since October of 2000, we have been out of any type of publicly recognized ministry for the first time in 20 years.  

             I am much closer to God, my wife, and my three children. Emil, my father, still does not understand the choices I have made, although there are some other individuals in my life who have understood.  I am now working in real estate. My wife is a psychiatric nurse. Without really planning it, we’ve traded places, and I spend most of the time at home, working out of the home office and keeping things moving along with the kids and the house.  My wife is the one working full time away from home. This has been a real bonus, as I missed out on so much of the kids’ early years, due to being over-involved with organized religion. We long to move to San Diego, both for my wife’s health and because we love its climate and culture. We plan a family vacation there in June of this year

            Just call me Jimmy.