Sharing my spiritual journey with the son and biographer of Young Life’s founder

 

This is an interesting email correspondence I had  recently with the son of Jim Rayburn, founder of the ministry Young Life, which has affected millions of lives. It involves the grandeur of Jim’s character, but also a lot of detail of my own spiritual journey to Orthodox Christianity, and how they tie together with my Young Life experience. (Jim III responded as well, which I didn’t include. Below is a combining of a couple of my emails to him.)

 

Hi Jim III.

I just finished my third reading of Dance, Children Dance, the great biography you wrote about your father, Jim Rayburn II, founder of Young Life. It’s on my top three of all time favorite books. I am a writer and historian by trade. Not only is Jim II’s incredible and complex life great subject matter for your book, I also love the way you crafted it. Great insights, honest, full of the greatness of contradiction, and captured with such great minimalism.

I am the son of a PCA minister who attended Dallas Seminary, but I came to know Christ personally through Young Life in Roanoke, Virginia in 1981.

I attended Covenant College, and so was also shaped by another Rayburn, Jim’s brother Bob. I wonder what their relationship was like.

I also wonder how Jim did with his pop, the staunch Presbyterian, later in life. Your book doesn’t say much past the early years. 

My journey has included the Baptists, non-denoms, the charismatic movement, and house churches. For 20 years I have been Eastern Orthodox, which historically emphasizes a direct personal relationship and encounter with God (as opposed to Western rationalism) but also, obviously, still puts a premium on liturgical forms and the institution of the church. 

Orthodoxy almost seems like a fusion of Jim and Bob Rayburn. Anyway, that’s the line of my questions that I would love to explore with you, either by email or phone. 

The first marking I have in your book is page 58, an except from Jim’s journal: 

“I have a deep and abiding feeling of his presence, a sense of real yieldedness to him, dating from a special experience of surrender and dedication to the Eternal Light, which I experienced Saturday night in my room. Oh for words to express!”

And this is appropriate. This is clearly where the story begins. 

Something happened to your Father that night. He had an encounter with the Living God. Apparently, it only takes one, because his life after that was nothing but a whirlwind of craziness, of both unimaginable blessing and very deep pain.

This is why I am drawn to the book. Because it’s not just another great biography. It’s a story of a man that was actually touched by God. I think it’s what we all yearn for, what we were created for, but, as you know, the path for this road is very narrow.

On the positive side, there are the all night prayer meetings, the churning within him to share Christ with everyone, the large crowds of young people turning to Christ, the ridiculous visions for great properties and over-the-top-excellence for teenagers. And, finally, the part that always intrigues me: his prayers at the end of his life for those behind the iron curtain—and I believe a picture of him walking and praying along the wall. He was so near to God’s heart he was 20 years ahead of everyone in geopolitics regarding world history.

On the pain side: regular migraines, tragedies, an unsympathetic wife, being struck by lightning, near death from stomach problems that plagued him throughout, addiction to pain meds, and the inability in his later years to perform physically and speak publicly. 

The fruit of his amazing faith in my life—and the trials and pain he must endure to pull it off—did not blossom until 20 years after he died. 

Much of my life the past 35 years has been an attempt to experience that same Eternal Light Jim speaks about. I’ve had glimpses. A couple of college friends and I encountered the presence of the Holy Spirit as we attempted to intentionally love each other and dedicate ourselves completely to Christ. Upon graduating, we moved on and did what everyone else does: find a job, look for a woman to settle down with, pursue happiness with God’s endorsement. 

But a couple years in we weren’t able to continue with that plan. My two buds had an experience in St. Louis with a friend who was exhibiting demonic tendencies. They took him to a guy who exorcised the demon. Our group had encountered something beyond the normal dimension. A few weeks later I left my excellent opportunities in Orlando, Florida, and moved to be with my two friends. We determined to pursue “revival” and “the Kingdom of God.” We weren’t sure exactly what that meant (and I’m not sure I still do, completely), but we took every step we knew how in order to get there. 

We ended up all moving to Chattanooga, Tennessee (where I still live) and began to experience a few things on a very light level of what you describe in Jim’s life. We gathered many young people together regularly to praise and worship God. Unbelievers gave their lives to Christ. More demonized people got delivered, and some of them exhibited the same sensational stuff you see in the movies, and read about in Scripture. Other gifts of the Spirit were manifested. We experienced the real deal. (Keep in mind we were Reformed Presbyterian Covenant College kids whose parents were leaders in the church—my Dad a card carrying PCA minister with a doctoral from Dallas theological seminary.)

We called our quest “the vision.” We knew what it meant, but we couldn’t always exactly articulate it. Was it simply miraculous activity? No, it was more than that, as you suggest in your previous email. It involved a desire to be in complete relationship with the Living God. To experience union with Him. To have a singular focus on the One we are called to love as our first commandment. In involved not letting money, love, passion, romance, family, careers, or any other “grown up” activities keep us from that goal. 

The purity and fire of those early days lasted a handful of years, depending on how you count it. Various personal problems and career moves caused both of my close friends to move away, right around the same time.

I found myself trying to continue this “vision” on my own. I got involved with Vineyard Christian Fellowship and other Charismatic and spiritually awakened types. I also became a cultural warrior, providing leadership in pro-life and pro-family battles, and the excitement of that arena helped ease the pain of the slow decline of the other. My culture war mode of ten years got a big kick in the gut when I suffered a divorce around 2000. My qualifications for leading a pro-family movement were lessened and I was now technically disqualified from leadership in conservative churches. 

What to do? I founded the city’s first Jazz Association. I wrote a couple of great books. I did whatever I could to stay in relationship with my two children. At that same time, I was meeting with a friend at a local coffee shop who had become Eastern Orthodox. He had been an elder and youth director at a hip Bible-believing church in town, then started Urban Young Life in Chattanooga and did other cool stuff. A guy I truly admired. 

His explanation of Orthodoxy answered certain questions I had been asking for a long time, since I was converted through Young Life as a teenager. Who makes the rules for church? Who gets to run this thing called church? Why? Who says? Do we even have to do it?

I figured out early on that Martin Luther had let the genie out of the bottle. If he could defy church authority, so can his followers. And thus we have 30,000 (or more) Christian sects today in America. I had grown up watching my Dad go through several church splits. I didn’t know who was right. I didn’t really care if he was right or not, I was just frustrated that there didn’t really seem to be a way to know. Every faction always has an argument from Scripture. 

I knew that becoming Catholic could solve the problem. Apostolic succession was a great argument for the conundrum. But I didn’t want to be Catholic. So that was that. 

My coffee shop friend enlightened me that the Orthodox call Catholics “the first protestants.” The Western Church and it’s bishop (the Pope) broke away from the mother church in around 1000 A.D. Why? Ostensibly over the supremacy of the Pope and the “Filioque,” a Latin word in the Creed. (I talk about this in detail in some articles that I’ll link below.)

But Orthodox leaders will say the ultimate divide between East and West is the East’s insistence on mystery and the work of the Holy Spirit and the West’s decline into rationalism, intellectualism, and hierarchy. I was attracted to that proposition, but my becoming Orthodox really centered around being able to embrace Apostolic Succession without becoming Catholic. (I knew something didn’t smell right about those guys.:) )

I wouldn’t have been able to think outside the box like this had I not gone through a divorce. I got more involved, and a funny thing happened, which still intrigues me to this day: for over a decade I would never give any church the first thought if they didn’t pass my first litmus test—do you believe in the gifts of the Spirit? If they didn’t, I just didn’t have time for them. 

About a year into Orthodoxy, I realized that not only had I not demanded that litmus test, I wasn’t even asking the question. Now why was that? All I can guess is that the fullness of the Spirit that the Orthodox claim to maintain in their worship, and their emphasis on mystery, was affecting me. I felt God’s presence. It was a different type of experience and sensation. It was more humble, more emphasis on my penitence, more focus on the presence of God in the Holy Trinity and worshipping him, less emphasis on my personal experiences and personal “trip.” But it was real, and it was drawing me in, despite my previous alleged need for sensational and miraculous doings. 

That’s not to say the Orthodox don’t believe in the miraculous. They surely do. We have prayers for healing and exorcism, and stories of their happenings. We honor saints who levitated, we believe that every Easter a fire comes out of the tomb in Jerusalem and lights every candle in the congregation (I’ve seen this on Youtube). We believe some icons weep myrrh. We believe some kids in the 8th century fell asleep in a cave running from persecution and woke up 200 years later. I tell my Pentecostal friends that our miraculous weird is way weirder than their miraculous weird. But it’s not placed on the center stage. Often such activity, or reports of ecstatic visions and encounters with the Divine, are done by monks who earn their stripes praying in caves for 30 years. And they try to keep it quiet.

So this journey of Orthodoxy has become real for me, and it has become fulfilling. I sense a unity with God’s people all across the globe. I feel miles closer to Jesus’s prayer that we all be one. This church is usually persecuted, it comes in many colors and ethnicities, and it is often poor. It follows all the difficult teachings regardless of consequences. It looks and smells like Christ. There are exceptions, but I think the generalities are true. 

My gifted, longtime friend, the first to move away, saw this reality in my life and joined me in 2010, becoming chrismated and taking vows into the Orthodox Church in St. Louis. Three years later, he became an ordained Orthodox Priest. (I cannot go on that path because of my divorce.) We both believe that somehow Orthodoxy is a fulfillment of our original journey, but we cannot completely articulate it yet. We both believe there is likely more experiential stuff ahead of us to help tie our story together.

For years, I have thought that perhaps we are dealing with what Christ told the Samaritan Woman: There is coming a time when my people will worship me in Spirit and in Truth. I have experienced tastes of the Spirit, but without a good foundation. Perhaps the Orthodox Church is this Truth part of the formula. As the Spirit continues to descend, I hope to see God’s Kingdom in a much more full and successful fashion, with the proper foundation having been laid.

Was Jim the victim of being touched by the Spirit, the “Eternal Light,” yet living in a Western Christian culture that has systemically quenched the Spirit and instead chosen Rationalism and a non-mystical institutionalism? I wonder. 

There’s a lot more to say about that. But I’ve given you enough of my story to chew on. 

On the matters of your father and Grandfather, and their relationship—who is still living that can be interviewed on that question? That father/son relationship is so complex and layered. I am intrigued that Jim in some ways rebelled from his Dad, yet at the same time he ended up being the same thing: a Christian Evangelist. But did his Dad even affirm that? 

I chatted once with Bob Rayburn Jr. (or is it the Third—anyway, the son of the Covenant College founder) on this matter, and he told me he was divided on the whole thing. “When I talk to my kids, in some ways I want them to be like Dad,” he said, “and in other ways I want them to be like Uncle Jimmy.” 

Another somewhat sad story: I met at a pool party about a year ago here a young man who is Bob Rayburn (the Covenant Founder’s) great grandson. I told him everything I knew about his amazing great uncle. He had never heard of him. I recommended your book.

You may know another friend of mine. My last Young Life episode was working a few clubs here in Chattanooga in the early 90s. A friend here named Dan Parker rounded up a few of us fired up young guys and got us to help him do Young Life with him. Turns out he was the last group of three kids that your Dad took under his wing, later in life. They called him “Jimmy Ray.” Dan had a few funny stories, and one particular story of how one night Jimmy Ray took them somewhere and instead of all the fun they were used to, he said, “Tonight boys, we’re gonna pray. We’re gonna pray.”

 

Dean W. Arnold