by Patrick Klever

I am a Civil Engineer with a lifetime of doing contract administration and construction management for the Government. During one assignment, I was told that a bona fide emergency took 14 months to get from recognition of the emergency to award of a contract. I even saw the project planning policy spelled out in official planning documents. But the headquarters’ policies laid out that the “normal” timeline indicated a more reasonable time to be 36-60 months!

I have heard it said that it takes the Mormons three days to build a Kingdom Hall on a prepared foundation. It’s something that I’d love to see. And the show Extreme Home Makeover has torn down and rebuilt marvelous new homes in just one week. What they don’t tell you is about all the planning, logistics, and permits and crews of hundreds working together with dozens of heavy lifting equipment. That alone takes months of planning and vetting and developing construction plans.

Well, Nehemiah didn’t have computers, didn’t have heavy construction equipment, and didn’t have any documentation to start with. And his efforts were derided by their unfriendly neighbors. But what he had was prayer, praise, and supplication based on faith in God. As the Israelites started returning to Jerusalem, Nehemiah apportioned the work on the wall to families that lived next to the torn down wall to be the ones to build back to the glory of God. And that was enough. Nehemiah started out as an individual man of faith and ended up shepherding over 50,000 people who joined him. The wall was rebuilt in just 52 days, including a Sabbath each week! The length of the wall was 4.5 miles with an average height of 39 feet and thickness of 8 feet. The walls contained 34 watchtowers and seven main gates open for traffic, with two minor gates reopened by archaeologists. And it was built with bricks and stone weighing tons.

Nehemiah started out as an individual man of faith and vision and ended up shepherding over 50,000 people who joined him in obedience to God.

Much, much later, Jesus performed miracles of the same magnitude (water to wine, loaves and fishes, etc.) — all because he was practicing obedience to God.

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Why Patrick is a MemberPartner

I am a “recovering Catholic.” It’s something that you never quite get over. I have been a believer for most of my life, but mainly since college. My wife and I got married in 1982 with a priest and a Lutheran minister co-officiating. In our first 20 years, we were regular attendees at whatever mass or services were available, and in a military career, we moved often. We’ve attended Lutheran, Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Southern Baptist, Vineyards, Church of God, Church of Christ, and who knows what other services. We’ve been to churches where we were warmly welcomed and at least two churches where we were invisible. At one point, my goal was to have, “Here lies a man who loved God,” as my epitaph. We’ve been unchurched since 2008, but we’ve at least tried to live by faith. I looked at daily devotionals from various entities but settled on a Purpose Driven Life’s daily messages.

Sometime in 2007, I was reading a substitute teacher named John Fischer. He was working for a Purpose-Driven Life at the time. John’s little logo at the bottom of those messages was a fishing pole leaning against a bucket with a caption (as I remember) of The Catch at Fischtank. At some point, John became a central figure in the devotionals I read. He got “it!” He celebrated “it!” He could find God in everyday life, whether giving roses to his wife every Wednesday, attending spring training with the Angels baseball team, or writing about the wonder of adopting a son when most people would think about their golden years. And John made no bones about it: he was a sinner like me, and God loves us anyway.

I was hooked!

Finally, there came a time when John asked for donations to build an internet cyber church; I gladly sent in $10. Eventually, when The Catch Ministry was born in 2012, I donated monthly. As a MemberPartner, I wanted to see John and Marti make it. Such lofty goals, but Marti and John had no qualms about moving forward, bringing the Gospel of Welcome to everyone everywhere. I increased my donations and increased the frequency. John probably has the best take of anyone I know on what it means to be a Christian, and embraces everyone with Grace Turned Outward.

At a time in history where rabid politics threaten the very fabric of our lives and where meanness, pettiness, and hatred have become normalized, John and Marti continue to welcome sinners everywhere with a constant message: God loves you just the way you are. And that has softened my rigid upbringing. You are welcome in our presence just as we are welcomed in yours. Ultimately, all of these labels, divisions, and hatred are pushed back because it doesn’t matter about all of that. It only matters that God loves you! And that is why I am a MemberPartner today. It changes everything. Even me.

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