I love fall. I am a New Englander by birth. I was brought up in Western Massachusetts. Some of prettiest fall foliage on this earth can be seen in the Berkshires from late September to early November. The mountains surrounding the Housatonic Valley are truly spectacular as the trees are all decked out in their harvest colors.

There is another reason I love fall. It is the time of year that I became a Jesus freak. I use that term unashamedly because that’s what a few of my acquaintances began to call me after my conversion experience “back in the day”. I think they probably labeled me aptly. I was never really someone who took their faith half-way serious. For me, for whatever reason, it was “all in” from the start.

My family was not perfect. Whose is? My dad died of cancer when I was nine and my mother remarried a wonderful man two years later. She and my step-dad made sure we had more than enough and raised us in a very strong moral home that I will always be grateful for. My mom made me and my younger siblings attend Sunday School every week. We went religiously to Old Parish Church in the center of Sheffield.  I went without a fight because I could go to Silk’s Drugstore right afterwards to buy candy. One of my Sunday school teachers was King Hunt, a basketball star for Mount Everett. I don’t remember if he was a good teacher but I do remember it was easy to divert him from the lesson to talk about basketball.

It was at Old Parish that I encountered Percy Holmes. Mr. Holmes was an old man in his seventies by the time I got to him. Every sixth grade boy and girl had to go through Percy Holmes’ class. He was the first teacher I had that used the Bible… not the little books everyone else had used. He spoke of Christ like he knew him and of a coming judgment like it really would happen. His words and manner of life impacted me. His faith was real, alive, life-changing.

Soon, the dominant thing in my life was sports. Really, from the sixth grade on all that was important to me were the three balls; football, basketball and baseball. It seems silly, but I went to school to play ball. I wish I could say I excelled at any of these but in reality I was only an average athlete. I envied my friend Steve Brown who could throw a football nearly fifty yards in the air (the coaches moved me to running back because it was clear I was never going to beat him out for the quarterbacking  job). I could only dream of being like my friend Peter Gunn who was the same height as me and could nearly dunk a basketball (I struggled to get half-way up the net with my best jumps). I longed to pitch a baseball like my friend Randy Koldys who threw hard with pinpoint control (I did, however, break-up a Koldys’ no-hitter in Little League when he mercifully threw me a knuckleball). Still, sports were a major source of happiness for me.

In the fall of my freshman year of High School my family received Billy Graham’s Decision Magazine in the mail. I don’t to this day know how we got it and who it was addressed to if anyone in my house. I picked it up and read almost the whole magazine. I didn’t understand much of it but was annoyed by what I did understand. Graham, a world-wide famous evangelist, was really down on the world. His message was one of “get ready, Jesus is coming soon”. I thought he was too negative, yet his faith seemed much like Percy Holmes’ faith. It was real, it was alive. It was life-changing. I determined that I was going to find out what was up with Graham and his message.

One of our assistant football coaches at the time was a man named  Robert Duchardt. We called him “Coach”. He was also the team trainer. I had heard through the grapevine that he was “religious”. Almost immediately after receiving the Decision Magazine I started  conversing with him about Graham, the end of the world and his Christian faith. After my annoying questioning he invited me to join him and his family and two senior football players for a trip upstate to visit his brother at a Christian retreat center. The next day, having been defeated by Haldane 36-6 on Saturday, we all got into his VW van and journeyed upstate.

Arriving at our destination on Sunday morning we went to an evangelical worship service. The music was alive. The people were real. It was different from what I had experienced in my religious world. After dinner the three footballers and the coach sat and talked about matters of God, Jesus Christ and faith on a dock overlooking Schroon Lake. Coach Duchardt shared with us the same message that Mr. Holmes had shared, the same message Billy Graham’s Decision Magazine had communicated.

Opening the Scriptures, Coach talked about the fact that all men are sinners and that I was a sinner. I needed no convincing. The depravity of my sailor like mouth and the filthiness of my lustful mind and heart already told me I was a sinner. The Bible verses he shared just confirmed it (Romans 3:23). He also shared that all of our sin in general as well as my sin in particular separated me from God and that ultimately it would lead me to a permanent separation, an eternal damnation (Romans 6:23). I had always thought that whenever the Judgment Day occurred my good works would be weighed against my evil deeds and based on how the scale tipped I would go either to Heaven or to Hell. That day I understood that it is by God’s grace alone (God’s undeserved favor) through faith that a person is made right with God and that my good works we not the basis for having a relationship with Him. (Ephesians 2:8-9).

As our conversation continued, Coach Duchardt read the Scripture that powerfully points out,  “But God demonstrated his love towards us in the while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”  Put in the simplest terms, this verse states that God loves me and that Christ died for my sins. I had heard He’d died for the sins of mankind but hadn’t made the connection. It was for Dave Watson’s sins that He died and rose. It was personal.

The last verse we talked about was John 3:16. Perhaps the most famous verse in the world but it was new to me. It states, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Duchardt encouraged me to insert my name in the verse to see how personal it is. “God so loved Dave Watson that He sent His only begotten Son that if Dave Watson would believe in Him Dave Watson would not perish but have everlasting life.“

Having personalized this verse, for the very first time, I believed that Jesus Christ died for me and my sin and that I could have a relationship with God because of Him.  I opened my heart to Christ by praying a very simple prayer. I said something like this:
“God I know I am a sinner, I know I deserve to be separated from you because of my sin. I believe Jesus Christ died for me, taking the penalty for my sin. Thank  you Lord that you rose again showing that God accepted your sacrifice. Jesus, come into my life to be my Lord and Savior, forgive me of my sins and change me from the inside out.”

I very much wish I could adequately convey what happened to me on that dock. I walked off knowing that I was a forgiven person.  I was clean. I rode home that day knowing God’s presence was real in my life. It was more than a feeling. I went to bed that night knowing I was a different person and that I had eternal life not because of what I’d done but because of what Jesus had done for me. I wish I could say I have lived a perfect life from that day until now but I haven’t. I am sure that to my friends, family and classmates I seemed over-zealous, argumentative, judgmental, and arrogant because I probably was. I was also a high schooler whose life was radically impacted and I wanted to share my new-found faith with others.

The day I have described here was October 7, 1973, 41 years ago today. That was the day I became a Jesus Freak.  It was then, and remains until today, the most significant day of my life. I have never been the same. Thank you Lord.
Dave Watson

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Revelation series link – https://nycshepherd.com/2013/08/17/the-book-of-revelation-series-the-beginning-of-the-end-and-the-end-of-the-beginning/

The Book of Revelation – Series – The Beginning of the End and the End of the Beginning   Leave a comment

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This month, we as a church family will celebrate our 30^th Anniversary. We will mark this special event with much fanfare including a cruise and a powerful service on Sept 28^th at 11:15 A.M. Our LORD has been so very good to us we just can’t help but praise Him and dedicate ourselves to His service.

When we say we are celebrating 30 years of doing something for the Lord a very natural question arises: “Just what exactly have we been doing?”  The short answer is… A LOT. The long answer would require a book. For the purpose of this article I want to identify five things we have been and will continue to do for the Lord. We have embraced these things for the last thirty years because we believe they are God’s priorities for His church.

From our very beginning, our church; Calvary Chapel, has been doing something and that something has been proclaiming the life-changing message of salvation through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our efforts have taken many different forms. We’ve gone door to door in our communities, been involved in evangelistic crusades and sponsored all kinds of specialized events for all kinds of people. In addition, we have given people of all ages the opportunity to give their heart to Christ through the work of the various ministries of Calvary. Something that we’ve been doing for thirty years is evangelizing.

In addition to outreach, from day one at Calvary we have been involved in the process of the discipleship of believers. The something we have been doing in this area is training the followers of Jesus Christ on how to be followers of Jesus Christ. This process involves Bible classes for young and old. It has involved systematic teaching from Calvary’s pulpit. In recent years, it has taken a more formal shape in the form of The New York Institute for Biblical Studies, the Bible Institute we founded for the purpose of equipping God’s people for God’s service in the 21^st Century. Something we have been doing for thirty years is equipping believers.

In a city as large as New York it is easy to feel lost and uncared for. Calvary, from its earliest years, has sought to provide the warmth and Christian fellowship that we all greatly need. We’ve tried to be more than an army of workers. We have endeavored to be the family God has called us to be.  We’ve supported one another in our losses and honored one another in our wins. We’ve worked together, we’ve wept together, we’ve rejoiced together and we’ve eaten together, my oh my, have we eaten together. This whole process is called building one another up or edification. Something we have been doing for thirty years is edifying.

What our world needs is Jesus Christ. The people of our world need His salvation. They also need His healing and restoration. God refers to His church as “the body of Christ”. If I understand this correctly, Calvary Chapel is to be the arms, the feet, the ears, the mouth and the heart of Jesus Christ to our city, our borough, our neighborhood, and our world. For thirty years, we have sought to be the embodiment of Jesus locally by feeding the hungry through food distributions, by supporting and counseling the hurting, by honoring neighborhood heroes – firefighters, cops and teachers, and by standing for and with the most vulnerable, the unborn. We have sought to be Jesus to our world by regularly supporting ministry partners in several foreign countries and by sending Calvary teams on ministry trips to Haiti, Mississippi, and New Orleans.  In short, we have sought to embody what it means to be the body of Christ. Calvary has been, for almost every moment of its existence, multi-ethnic, just like the churches in the New Testament were.  This, we believe, has enabled us to embody Christ to all people regardless of their ethnicity or culture. Something we have been doing for thirty years is embodying.

Calvary Chapel was not founded for the glory of any individual or group. Our Church is God’s Church and it was founded for His glory. Our awesome LORD is what it is all about. In every service, imperfect as we may be, we have sought to point not at ourselves but to the One who has done so much for us. Whatever we have done we have sought to do for the glory of God. It is His name we want exalted above everything else. Something we have been doing for thirty years is exalting.

Evangelizing those without Christ, equipping those with Christ, edifying fellow believers, embodying what it means to be the body of Christ to our world and exalting the living and true God. Linking arms and hands together to accomplish God’s purposes…this is what we have endeavored to do for thirty years. Thanks for celebrating with us. By His grace and strength might we do something for at least for 30 more years.

In His Service,

Pastor Dave

For Just Today

Someday soon and I really wish it were today, we all, and by “all” I mean Americans in general and those living in the New York York metro area in particular, need a day. Let’s call it a day of silence. A moment will not do.

Today is a day of solemn remembrance. For today or one day soon can we put aside the politics?   Can we just for 24 hours not blame Bush or Obama or both? Could we for a few hours stop hating on Cheney or Biden. Can the commentators get the day off with pay if they will be silent?  Today or one day soon can we cease talking from sun up to sunset about what an athlete did in an elevator to a woman who later chose to marry him? Can we just shut up about when the NFL got a video tape for one day? Can we stop for one day our griping and harping and our criticizing for everything from Foreign Policy to who is going to play third base next year for the Yankees. For one day can we stop the second guessing and spin? Oh I wish it was for today.

Thirteen years ago we suffered a national tragedy. We were attacked and we were wounded. That wound runs deep and the scab has been opened many times over the years. Between Washington, New York and Shanksville PA., over three thousand souls lost their lives that day. Obviously not everyone lost someone but we all lost something that day. We lost our innocence, we lost our sense of security, and we lost our peace of mind. We all lost something that day. Since then in Afghanistan and Iraq among other places we’ve lost many other American heroes.  For today, maybe just for today, can we really remember them? Can we honor their memory with a day of quiet reflection not just a few brief seconds of silence?

For today, just for today, I ask us all to layside most everything else and grieve with those who still grieve.  I am tired of trying to multi-task concern and grief. It doesn’t really work. We need to forget ourselves and our agendas and cry with the young lady who was 5 years old when September 11^th first got famous and who entered college this fall driven by her grandparents because her mom died that day.  We need to be silent and remember that young man who can’t watch Derek Jeter’s last game with his dad because his pop didn’t make it out of Tower One. We need to remember the 70 year old retired firefighter who has a lung disease because he wouldn’t leave “the pile” because he was looking for his boy. We need a day.

We need to pray for those who are still scarred with the memory of cries from co-workers or massive oppressive smoke or jumpers or messages left on answering machines from loved ones.  We need to remember the FDNY which lost 343 men in the space of a couple of hours. This holds true for the NYPD (they lost 23 officers) and Port Authority Police (they lost 37 officers) as well. We need to remember the soldiers who lost their lives as well as those whose limps and lives was shattered by an improvised explosive device  in a war fought to make sure 9-11 never happens again.

We need a day of silence for a moment won’t due.  I wish it were today. We need to attend or watch a 9-11 memorial event on TV or the internet. We need to call a friend who had a 9-11 related loss (20 percent of American know someone who died or was hurt in 9-11) and remind them we are there for them and mean it. We need to bring dinner to a firehouse or cookies to the precinct and the only words out of our mouths should be “thank you”. We need to salute a veteran or buy lunch for an enlisted man or woman. We need a day.

We need a day. We need to get before our God and give thanks for those in charge with protecting us every day and we need to pray for them. We need to ask that same God what would He have us to do since we survived on 9-11. We need to have dinner with our family and maybe invite some friends over. We need to say where we were and how we felt on that day. Then we need to hug each other. We need to gather around our dinner tables, hold hands and say grace, thanking our Lord above that we live in the land of the free and the home of the brave and praying that it will ever be so. We need a day.

Tomorrow we can bicker and blame and fill the room with our flawed and biased opinions. On the 12^th we can act like it is business as usual and go on our merry way. We need a day and I really wish it were today.

Blessings

Pastor Dave Watson

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