A product of the late 60’s and early 70’s rebellion movements a family was birthed…my dad graduated in 1970 married in 72 and I came along in 77 and my little brother in 79. We lived down a little gravel drive soaked with motor oil in a white single-wide trailer. Boxwoods in the front with dog beds dug underneath. We were hippies in the fullest sense…dad had long flowing red hair rolled up on his shoulders and mom’s way down her back with two little boys. Dad drove a truck for a living with cuss words on his lips and beer in the frig we did not go to church, we did not know God…we were a lost family on our way to hell. But then one day…
…my dad’s baby brother Larry (who had got saved) ask my dad if he could take me and my little brother to his church’s VBS. At the age of 4, I can’t remember one thing about that VBS…I don’t know if it was the cookies…the crafts…the other kids..the lessons or what but I liked it!!! According to my dad’s testimony, sometime later, while cleaning out the old spring box down on the creek, I ask my dad if he would take me back to church. God used that week of VBS to touch a little 4-year-old’s heart so he would ask his lost daddy to take him to God’s house!!! God began to draw my dad…letting him know he was lost and on his way to hell.
I do remember the day my dad got saved. There were 3 men that walked down our little walkway. My uncle Larry, a man in bibbed overalls and a man in a suit. The man in overalls was Richard Shatley and the man in the suit was the Pastor of the church we had gone to VBS at, Preacher Phil Chapman. I remember sitting on those vinyl black chairs as my dad did something I’d never seen him do…he got down on his knees in our living room and began to pray!!! My dad got saved that day and things changed in our little trailer. Dad cut his hair off…he quit cussing…the beer got gone and we began going to that church that had had the VBS!!! I thank God for my Pastor Phil Chapman who had a heart for little lost kids and their families!!! I thank God for Pleasant Grove Baptist church which loved on us until we got saved!!! I thank God for VBS!!
Pastor Brian Miller
Goshen Baptist Church of Wilkesboro, NC
used by permission