In each Epistle, this column features a single question to which our pastors are asked to reply. It is usually connected to the issue’s theme and crafted to reveal the unique personalities and experiences of our beloved leaders.
What is one moment or event that helped to clarify your identity in Christ?
Pastor June Barrow
When I was ten years old, I pledged to join others, mostly grown-ups, in reading through the entire Bible in one year. I had failed in that endeavor by the end of January; it was too much for a fourth grader. But one summer day that year, I laid across my bed and opened the Bible, just turning pages, skipping from here to there, letting my eyes fall where they would. And then I saw these words: “I have loved you with an everlasting love” in Jeremiah 31:3. On that day long ago, I knew my primary identity was that I belonged to the Lord and that I was loved. This identity that God gave me is my backbone, the strongest place in me. Though I am often forgetful, I have never been able to forget that. I belong to the Lord, and I am loved. I have had many names, titles, and roles, but fundamentally, by the grace of God, I know who and Whose I am.
Pastor Steven Grant
When I was younger, my identity was that of a musician. Even people who did not know my name knew me as “the one who plays the violin.” That shaped my whole outlook on life, ambition, and even personality. But as the Holy Spirit began to lay claim to my life, He made it clear that music did not define me—He did. Oddly enough, the most transformative experiences in my life occurred because of my bad decisions, which led me to reflect on them and others from my past. The Spirit convicted me to ask, “Who am I that I would make such choices?” Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). There arose such a hunger and thirst for His ways that I finally submitted to Him as completely as I could, and I still do daily. As Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).
Pastor Su Kim
One moment that clarified my identity in Christ was the birth of our first child. Through faith in Christ, the Bible tells us we become children of God (John 1:12; Romans 8:14 & 16; Galatians 3:26; 1 John 3:2), and becoming a father gave me a small glimpse into how God the Father feels about His children. My heart exploded with love for my daughter, not because of what she did or could do, for she could do very little, but because she was my child. As someone who often struggled with performance-based grace, this clarified and solidified my identity as a beloved son of God through faith, and faith alone, in Christ!
Pastor Doug Pratt
As a pastor, I have had moments that clarified or reminded me of what my ministry is truly all about. Jesus says in John 15, “I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last.” It is very easy for pastors and church leaders to get caught up in the organizational realities of leading a church (caring about buildings, budgets, programs, staffing, planning, etc.). There were times when I mistakenly felt that my primary task was to keep the church running smoothly as a corporate entity. In 2005, about a year after moving to Bonita Springs, I visited my former church near Pittsburgh, where I had served for 14 years. Speaking with the congregants about my ministry to them, the things that were foremost in their minds were not the organizational issues of running the church but the personal issues that touched individuals’ lives. Hearing this was a clarifying moment: the mechanisms of church government are temporary, but human souls last forever.
Pastor Brad Rogers
My sense of identity in Christ is clarified whenever I read my life circumstances through the lens of Scripture. God has used the Bible to teach me who I am relative to these pivotal moments. When I was in college, I was captivated by Jesus’ disciple Peter; he impetuously followed Jesus out onto the water, but when the wind and waves buffeted him, he took his eyes off Jesus and began to sink. When my wife and I became foster/adoptive parents, the passage of God’s adoption of us in Christ (Ephesians 1:5) began to clarify His great love. When we moved to Bonita Springs, it was the story of Abraham, who was called to leave his family and his hometown to pursue a land that God would show him, that guided me. In each season of life, God’s Word became God’s Word to me, read through the eyes of faith, clarifying my identity in Christ and directing my steps accordingly.
Pastor Allen Walworth
My primary identity in Christ came by accepting Him as my Lord and Savior, which was a conscious confirmation of my faith as a 13-year-old. That is when I knew who I was “in Christ,” as the Apostle Paul would put it. But another decisive movement in my spiritual identity occurred as a college student. I became aware that God actually delights in His creations, especially in His children, and that God chose me and loved me, even before I chose Him.
Another Perspective
Dr. Al Barrow, Director of Spiritual Development
I cannot pinpoint one moment or event that has clarified my identity in Christ, but instead, I can think of a multitude of moments and experiences. For every relational disappointment, vocational failure, or disapproval of a loved one, I am thrust back again to the realization that I am not my own—that my justification for living is not based on what I achieve or the approval I receive. My worth and identity are based upon my Father in heaven, who loves me and always will.
