Salvation
I thought I would write down my salvation experience from my earliest recollection of my need for salvation to acceptance.
You would think that growing up in a Baptist family that attended church at a minimum of 3 times a week that salvation would be a forgone conclusion. My first recollection of a need to be saved was first felt at 5-6 years old. I remember going forward at Keego Harbor Baptist Church to be saved and being told by the church worker that I was to young to get saved, that I needed to be 12 years old or in there mind the age of accountability. I left that meeting confused. I soon forgot about the need to be saved and spent the next several years going to church with my family but not enjoying being there very much.
During that time we went through many different pastors. Anderson, Kunnert, Garrett, Smith and Hott. During the Dave Hott years I became very disillusioned with the church. As a teen I lost interest. There was a great deal of infighting over the pastors and the vision that they had for the church. It seemed that the pastors that created growth were ran out by the ruling families. I will say here that my mom and subsequently my dad would always back the pastor which always put us at odds with the other church members. You can see why that at that time I focused on being involved in school activities. When I entered the 9th grade I had little interest in church polity. That is not to say that I was not required to go to church, that was not an option in the Thompson family during my formative years. So many things swirled around life during those years that conflicted with my faith. Catholic friends, Jewish friends, apostate friends all had a profound impact on me.
In the 10th grade I became very involved in theater and music with Mr. Smith and Mr. Asplin. I performed in plays and directed the choir as well as doing solos in the school plays and choir performances. I became very involved in school activities even going out for the wrestling team and making many “friends” who I would end up going to many after school parties with. Hanging out at HOJO’s (Howard Johnson’s) on Telegraph and Maple Rd drinking coffee till all hours of the mourning. We did this till my senior year.
The summer of my sophomore year I started working at Kressges in the Pontiac Mall. Eventually I was fired from their for eating candy from the candy bar (orange slices I still love those things). While working at Kressges I met a fellow teen, which was a senior at Waterford High School, his name was Jerry Unger. Jerry was a Christian and attended Sunnyvale Chapel, a fundamental bible believing church. He invited me to church with him and his friends Larry Armstrong and Dave Lawson. We hung around all summer; he sort of took me under his wing. He was so sure of himself and I wanted to be just like him. I read through my bible especially the books of John and Romans looking for answers to my needs and confusion. My high school friends were nowhere to be found during that summer. I decided that I would get saved that summer and went forward to profess Christ. I was baptized that summer and I wanted to be everything I could be in that church. Mom and Dad surprisingly allowed me to attend there and not Keego Baptist.
When school started back, in my 11th grade year, I started to get involved in sports and theater again. I took my bible to school and got the moniker of “bible thumper”. On some levels I was glad and sort of did the martyr thing. In January of that school year I went down to Longview, Texas to visit Jerry Unger with Larry Armstrong. That was interesting because I stayed for 2 weeks because of an automobile accident while traveling through Haiti, Missouri on the way to Longview. When I got back to school the play I was in “Arsenic and Old Lace” was to be performed in a couple of weeks. Mr. Smith was very upset with me for leaving for such a long time just before the play. I slowly slipped back into my old ways of party going and well, whatever I wanted. I lost track of the people from Sunnyvale Chapel and got caught up in the school life for the rest of the year.
My senior year was a whirlwind of events. I worked out with the baseball team. Became friends with Greg Lane and the rest of the ball players. I also performed in several plays that year. That summer we all played Connie Mac baseball in Farmington, MI and went to 20+ Tiger games. Greg’s dad got us in to so many home games (Ray Lane was a sportscaster for the Tigers). It was a fun year and summer.
After the summer Greg Lane and I went to work at Dunham’s sporting goods and I started college at Oakland Community College in the fall. Met several new friends, Sam and Stephen Manolackis and Tom Armor who worked for Dunham’s, we would go out every weekend and drink and spend time together, go on double dates; it was just a lot of fun.
After that year I decided that I wanted to continue in sporting goods and took a management job with Rupp Camp fitters to open ski shops in Lansing and Ann Arbor Michigan. I had not been to church since the summer of my junior year of high school. I was on the road 100’s of miles a day with the ski shops and getting kind of bored with the constant running but it was my job so off I went everyday.
Several times during that summer Donna and Tom Roberts kept asking me to come to a revival at their church Northside Baptist. I put them off time after time but finally they talked me into it. I had turned into quite the hippie looking guy, long beard and coveralls with cable knit sweaters. I do not think I have any pics of that time of my life. I wish I did because it was kind of cool, but I digress.
I went to Northside that first time and fell in love with the people and the church. I joined shortly after that service and became a fixture their for many years. Actually my whole family started going to Northside, Mom, Dad and sisters Julie and Pricilla with her Husband Dick and their kids.
The first year I attended Northside I became very conflicted with whether I had actually been saved or not. I fretted over my experience for months while attending that church and going to college at Midwestern Baptist Collage. Had I repented or not? I was so unsure and beset with so many conflicting thoughts that finally, while at work at West Bloomfield High School, I acknowledged my sin, repented of it and asked Jesus to forgive me and come into my heart. That was August 20, 1973. I was baptized shortly after. I used the pamphlet “Gods Simple Plan of Salvation” to guide me in the biblical path.
So that is the entire story of my salvation, a time and a place to remember. Many things happened around that decision that would take many pages to detail. Many things have happened since then that make for an interesting (to me) journey. Such is the story of many people’s lives. We grow, we change, we test our lives and form our standards based on what we believe. Thank God for the Gift.
