Lisa McNeely - BPC member

God is so amazing (of course we all know that)!  Back when I was feeling God’s tug on my heart after many faithless years, I was contemplating “church shopping”.  I was living in Lakewood and figured that’s where I would start – you know, close to home, roll out of bed and I’m there.  Well, once I figured out how many churches there were in Lakewood and the different denominations - Methodist, Episcopalian, Lutheran, etc, I became overwhelmed and a bit confused (prayer was not a part of my life at this time so I didn’t even know to ask the Lord for help).  So I did what I do best – I procrastinated.  But, unbeknownst to me, the Lord was still pursuing me (thank goodness)!   One day, a short time later, I was in Ashtabula with one of my customers who is a Christian and she felt the Lord leading her to talk to me about her faith.  (Again through the Lord’s working a fellow employee had just returned a Beth Moore book to her while I was sitting there and I, being a book lover, inquired about the book).  I sat in her office and wept as she told me how His mercies are new every day and His grace is all I need.  I then opened up about my fledgling “church search”.  She asked me where I lived and I told her.  She then told me about a friend she had met at a Joni and Friends conference and that this person loved her church and couldn’t stop talking about it.  Also, it was on the west side of Cleveland.  She gave me her friend’s phone number and I called her.  We set up a time and a place to meet the next Sunday (the narthex – what the heck is a narthex, I was thinking).  When I got there that Sunday there were lots of people and I was a little overwhelmed.  I didn’t actually meet her that Sunday but went into the sanctuary by myself since I was already there, and am sure glad I did.  That was 3 ½ years ago and I have been coming to BPC ever since.  Growing up in a small rural Catholic church, this was definitely a new experience for me.  I checked the “How to begin a relationship with Christ” (a relationship with Christ – what is this??) box on the We’re Glad You’re Here card and the next week someone called me to get together and talk.  I gave my life to Christ shortly thereafter.  I really began to start understanding the purpose the Lord had for me.  Keep in mind, it was just the beginning of understanding, but I started praying, bringing my son to PowerZone, and eventually found a small group (answered prayer) that has come to be my second family.  It’s been a wonderful 3 ½ years of living my life dedicated to the Lord.  Of course, I’m still in the toddler years of my faith, so I have much growing to do, but am looking forward to all the things the Lord has in store for me in the future.  Looking back I see the Lord’s hand at work so much in my life, even before I knew who He was.  He has a plan for me and He has a plan for all of us and I am eternally grateful.

John Heberle - BPC member

It was inevitable that I would end up a Christian.  Both my parents had grown up in the church, and I had spent all of my weekends as a child in Sunday school.  But it never really took hold of me.  It was always something I did, rather than who I was.  That is until a few summers ago.  I needed to make my college applications look more rounded and full, because not having enough extra-curriculars could keep me out the college that I wanted to attend.  My mother, who was working at the church at the time, told me about a mission trip to Boston the Youth Group was going to take.  I decided to go, even though I did not know anybody that I would be spending that week with.

From the moment I met everyone, I could sense something was different.  I never felt awkward, meeting all these people for the first time and then driving eight hours with them. I felt accepted right away.  That was a lot different than my entire high school experience.  That was a place were you had to do something for acceptance, but here it was just a given.

God revealed himself to me in new ways everyday the entire week.  Everything I had been hearing in church for the last 17 years was starting to make sense.  I had always believed in God, and I had always believed that Jesus had come and died for my sins, but it was never something that I could see or feel.  That week it was all made real for me.  I could see God at work through everyone around me, through their loving attitude.  Their willingness to serve really resonated with me.

That mission trip that I took to beef up my college application, changed my life for good.  I ended up not going to any of the colleges I applied to that year, which caused me to become more involved in youth ministry.  It has given me relationships which have been more rewarding than any other I have had, and it has put me in a place were I can truly say I have a personal relationship with Christ.

Shirley Mellon – BPC member

I came to a ‘crossroad’ in my life when I was 27. I was married, with two boys ages 4 & 2, a house in the suburbs and no real financial problems. I thought I was at the ‘Happily ever after’ stage of life until one day I asked myself “Is this all there is”? I felt like something was missing in my life. I believed in God. He was taking care of the universe while I had my family to take care of.

One day an offer to buy a Family Bible came in the mail. We didn’t have a Bible, so I ordered one. When it arrived, I quickly leafed through it and put it away in my cedar chest. But that’s not where God wanted it.  Through a series of events, I found myself in a ‘sad state of mind’. So one day I knelt at my bedside and said “God, I know you can fix my sadness just give me some time to know that you are real; I’ll turn my life over to you and you can fix me.”  (What a deal for God!)  It seemed like immediately, I went to my cedar chest and pulled out my Bible. I had an urge to start reading it.  I didn’t know where to start, so I started at the introduction.

It said that the Bible wasn’t just an ordinary book written thousands of years ago for the people of that time. The Bible is God’s love letters to them and to us today.

We are to pray before we read the Bible so the Holy Spirit can teach us what God is saying.  There was a suggested prayer “Come Holy Spirit, enlighten my heart and my understanding. Help me to recognize the eternal truth as I read it, to love God more fervently, to serve Him more loyally, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

With that prayer I started reading the Bible. God provided me six hours per day to hear his Word; three while the boys napped and three in the evening.  The Holy Spirit guided me to the ‘heart of the Father’. I fell in love with God. I didn’t know you could do that, but I did. The God of the Bible is the most loving, compassionate, tender being I had ever experienced. I would hear Him speak to me. He told me He loved me and that He would be with me everyday of my life, and I would be with Him forever in eternity. WOW! My sadness was gone! I found what my life was missing!  A real, true, relationship with the One who created me and died for my sins.  He is everything to me.

Deborah Mills-Scofield – BPC member

I have believed in Yeshua (Jesus is the Roman name for Joshua which is Yeshua in Hebrew) ever since I could believe in anything. My parents, both Jews, came to faith as children – daddy here in America and Mommy in Eastern Europe before fleeing the Nazis to come to America.  Their background is Chasidic/Orthodox Judaism – my great grandfather was a rabbi.  The L-rd, with His wonderful sense of humor, called Daddy, a nice Jewish boy, to become a Presbyterian pastor!  So my home, a Messianic Jewish home, was quite normal to me!  The Old and New Testaments logically follow each other (Yeshua never quoted the New Testament you know).  My “home” church seemed quite normal too, until I grew up, left home, and had to find my own church. There aren’t too many Hebrew Presbyterian churches around!

All my life, being a Jew has made rejecting G-d impossible. The only reason I am a Jew is because G-d made a decision millennia ago I would be; the very basis of who and why I am is tied integrally to G-d.  However, the Hellenism of modern Christianity has always seemed strange.  During the 9th grade, I went through an existential phase of my life, reading a lot of Camus, Sartre, Ionesco etc.  Intellectually, existentialism seemed more appealing than the “theology” of the “church” (e.g., youth groups, other Christians, etc.).  I told my parents I wanted to become an existentialist and they said fine as long as I’d studied/analyzed all my options to make a fully informed decision.  So they helped me learn about Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Zen, etc. Given my definition of “self”, I could not, nor even knew how to, reject Yeshua, but how to “integrate” that with my intellectual quests?  My parents’ support, encouragement, and intellectual discussions led me to confirm that the parts of existentialism I found attractive (personal responsibility, accountability, choice, impact) were clearly biblical. Their effort to help my faith mature at the same level as my body and mind is one of the greatest gifts they gave me. Combining this with another gift from them and G-d, clearly separating G-d and the “institution” of church (i.e., G-d vs. Man’s implementation of “G-d”), have enabled and empowered me (ok, Him) to retain and grow through the seasons of my faith: an intimate, loving, argumentative, trusting, wonderfully rebellious, fun, humorous relationship with My Messiah.

Barbara Gash – BPC member

No one has a testimony like the Apostle Paul.  Since childhood I have visualized him charging off (on horseback of course) to Damascus to round up the Christians and take them back to Jerusalem to be executed.  I can just see the bright light, the voice from heaven, the horse rearing up, and Paul falling to the ground blind.  I am sure that Paul never forgot the exact day and time when his life was forever changed. 

I have heard many other wow testimonies.  They always start by saying, “When I was 16….”, or “When I finally hit the bottom…”.  They all give a definite time when they asked Jesus into their heart and they too were changed forever.   However I have never been able to do this.  I have a Timothy testimony rather than one like Paul’s.  From Scripture we learn that Timothy had a godly mother and grandmother, and that from infancy Timothy knew the Scriptures, which are able to make us wise for salvation.

For a long time I assumed that knowing and believing that Jesus was the Son of God, that He died and rose again for my sins meant that I was saved.  Looking back that was not saving faith. After all James tells us that even the demons believe the facts.  I looked like all of the other believers in church, but there was no submission, no broken and contrite heart, and no true repentance. I was in control and very satisfied. I wanted Jesus as my Savior, but not my Lord.  But for the grace of God I would have continued as one of those people from Matthew 7 crying “Lord, Lord did I not go to church every Sunday, did I not teach Sunday School in your name?”  And of course He would have said, “I never knew you”.

So the question remains, when did God use the Scripture that I had learned from infancy to change my heart?  I cannot give a specific date or the circumstances.  All I know is that sometime after I got back into the serious study of His Word, He changed my heart.  I am now thanking Him daily for changing my heart, because I know that on my own I would never have turned to Him.

Dick & Helen Cake – BPC members

We are Believers – We believe that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Lord.  Over the years we have grown in our faith and our knowledge of the Bible.  We have been members of BPC since 1970 (37 years) and have served as Elders.

When Helen and I came to Bay we had always been active in the church but we didn’t have a personal relationship with Christ.  Through our “Koinonia” groups, choirs, Session, classes etc., we studied the Bible, prayed, and shared with many dozens of other members at BPC.  Over the years we have gone to church more than 90 percent of the time and have learned more about the Scriptures and the Christian life from our excellent Ministers and dedicated fellow Christians.

We both strongly believe that Christ’s death on the Cross has saved us from eternal death and has given us eternal life (Salvation).  God loves us, and wants to have a good relationship with us; wants us to have peace/purpose and be fulfilled.  Also, we believe in the infallibility of the Bible.  We must continue to base our beliefs and actions on the Scriptures.  We want to be part of a church that is Centered on Christ and Sent into the World.

David Freeman – BPC member

“GOD ALWAYS THERE” – Romans: 1:20 – Looking back to the beginning of my life I can see how God was always showing himself to me through things around me. The church I attended when I was little kept talking about (and I am dating myself) the Viet Nam war and social issues. This did not interest me so I asked if it was OK if I stopped going and my dad concurred.  The next season was fun, but empty and I did not know it.

Then in 1972 Billy Graham came to Cleveland and the word of God he spoke lifted me out of my seat and I responded to God and became new. Being new felt good and because I felt good I again had a season of fun. (I’m going to heaven so nothing can be wrong.) 

Later, God spoke to me directly through what I had observed going on outside my office. On a pristine morning the steel mills in the flats spewed filth into the air until I could no longer see the building on the other side of the street from my window. God said (not audibly, but clearly nonetheless) “This is what sin is doing to all I have created. When are you going to get serious with me?” This shook me to the core of my being.

From that point on, God no longer had to pursue me for it was now me pursuing God. My journey has taken me to places I would never have planned for myself, with people he has directed me to and each season since then has been filled with challenges, ups, downs, growth and yes fun. God always was, is and always will be there for me so I encourage each of you to get in his game this season, you will never be the same and oh yea – God’s team wins – Yeah!!!!