Personal Testimony

My interest in caring for people started early. When I was a young boy, I mowed lawns for a lot of widows in Wilmore, Kentucky where I was raised. After I had finished, most of them invited me into their home for a glass of water. Little did I know at the time, a few of them were being comforted by my mere presence. Another thing I remember was delivering papers across the tracks during the Civil Rights Movement, a route no one else wanted at that time. When I traveled to India a year later, the poverty I witnessed there was beyond description, but the needs of the poor were firmly planted there in my heart. Another important component in my overall development was working at a local laundromat, interacting with those who couldn’t afford a washer and dryer.

During these years, I also intentionally deepened my relationship with the black community, a community despised and rejected by men whom I still cherish to this day. Coupled with this, I placed myself on the margins of society during my tumultuous adolescence and young adulthood and experienced the gamut of those emotions, but also started to assist those who were broken like myself. And all of this took place before I became a Christian. What a wonderful grace that precedes one’s conversion.

If it were not for a few people like my pastor and two lay pastors, one of whom owned the local service station with his son and the other one who owned the local grocery store, I most likely wouldn’t be alive today and would have never been able to use the gifts and graces in ministry that the Lord had given to me. When my pastor returned from the mission field, he was appointed to the church where my father served as his Minister of Music for almost fifteen years and my mother directed the children and youth choirs.

David took a special interest in the youth and young adults, including myself and my best friend, Ron, who had just returned from Vietnam after the First Tet Offensive. To be candid, I was a product and casualty of the 60's of my own self choosing and everything it represented. Accumulatively, Ron and I got into so much trouble that we were banned from most places in the town. Most thought we were a "bad influence" on people. To say we felt just a bit singled out and marginalized by this decision would be an understatement.

When the church began to grow, they built a new sanctuary. One late night or early morning with no transportation and no place to go, Ron and I invited ourselves into Clark Chapel, the old sanctuary, and began to play music. Apparently, my pastor was alerted by the authorities and entered to investigate. We talked with him for a while and told him what had happened and how we felt unwanted to say the least. Instead of asking us to leave, however, I’ll never forget what he said: “Although you feel like most people in this town have rejected you, I want you to remember you are always welcome here, because God loves you.” He also pointed to his old office right behind the upright piano I had been banging on that night and said we could "hang out" in there any time we wanted which we did, by the way, for years. In a real way–even during this rebellious time in my life –his old office and Clark Chapel became our sanctuary, a haven of rest, a place where we were consistently reminded about God’s love.

As I applied this experience, I thought most everyone had rejected me, but the unconditional love David tenderly shared with me that early morning, in addition that very same love Bob, John, Mama Jane, Mary Jo, and a few others demonstrated, I realized that God really did care about me, regardless of what I did. Further, here's something else this small group of people taught me: Although they didn't condone my behavior, it didn't mean they loved me any less, and this would become the primary thing I remembered on the day I became a Christian. I knew they didn't inherently possess the love they showed to me over those years, but they had to possess a "greater love," a love and a grace that not only gave them them this ability, but a love that could save a wretch like me. However, that’s just part of the story. During these years, the way these individuals treated me is the way I treat everybody to this day. In a way, it reminds me of that great movie Pay it Forward.

And there is one last thing this special group of people taught me as I consider the numerous people the Lord has led my way now these last thirty years. Regardless of the sin we have committed, or the damage and brokenness we've experienced, the Lord can use all of those things redemptively, not only within our own lives, but in the lives of those to whom He has now entrusted to us.

Within six months after my conversion, I returned to college for a third time, but for the first time to Asbury College. Although I felt led to major in Bible to study under Owen Dickens, Victor Hamilton and Gerald Miller, all proteges of Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, a member the Board of Advisors of Country Road Ministries, I used a number of my electives to take Introduction to Counseling, Abnormal Psychology, including the requirements in psychology. I also remember I never initiated any counseling on my own during this time. Others continued to contact me like they had done before I was a Christian, but they began doing it more frequently. Perhaps, they sensed that "greater love" I had experienced in Christ and the gifts in counseling that were beginning to be spiritually and academically formed.

Without the experience at a Christian Marriage Enrichment event in 1980 I attended with my wife, Lynn, however, none of those gifts would have emerged to any more of a degree until I addressed a couple of developmental deficiencies in my own life. Although this was a difficult time for me, the Lord and my wife were very gentle to me. The things brought to my attention that weekend– and the years that followed as I allowed God to assist me in addressing these deficiencies -- provided me, in part, with the very foundation of the person and work I do today. Not only did I begin to learn how to get in touch with my emotions and to articulate how I felt, but I also began to listen, neither of which I previously had done. These aspects in my emotional and interpersonal development would obviously become an integral part of my life and ministry in the future.

I sensed a definite call to the pastoral ministry after I graduated from Asbury College and began my work at Asbury Theological Seminary. My pastor had recently retired and became Professor of Pastoral Counseling, all of which I found interesting not to mention providential. Not only did he become my counseling professor, but we met for lunch many times throughout those four years. Through this special relationship with a man who I had known at that point for over twenty years, he not only became my counselor, assisting me through the “damaged emotions” in my own life, but he also became my mentor as he began to nurture one of same gifts he possessed. Most of all, however, he became my colleague and friend, a relationship that blossomed over the following twenty years until I asked him to be a member of The Board of Advisors of CRM a couple of years before he died. What a journey of almost forty years together from that early morning in Clark Chapel to asking him to be a part of this ministry. As Lynn Smith, one of my father’s accompanists would always say in similar circumstances, “Isn’t that just like God?”

A couple of years before I graduated from Seminary both my wife and I felt that the Lord wanted us to serve in the Northeast. After finishing my studies and preparation there, I began serving a five point charge as a local pastor and was ordained an Elder in the United Methodist Church. Sensing God’s call to fan into flame the gift that God had given me in counseling, I attended the First International Congress on Christian Counseling in 1987. After submitting a paper for consideration, I was asked to be one of the many presenters which was an honor for me. At that conference, I was introduced to Rich Buhler, who wrote Pain and Pretending which deals with sexual abuse and Paul Meier of the Minirth-Meier Clinic, whose facilities I still use to refer those who need psychotherapeutic and psychiatric care. I was also introduced to H. Norman Wright, the author of Communication: Key to your Marriage, and names like Andre Bustonoby, author of Just Talk To Me and Milliard J. Bienvenu, Sr. whose Communication Inventories are just as valuable and relevant today. These introductions, coupled with David’s mentoring coalesced in Atlanta as I was entering my early years of counseling as a full-time pastor.

As this part of my ministry grew over time, I began to feel sense that the Lord wanted me to leave the local Church to begin working with those on the fringes of society, where I had placed myself for so many years. Another issue which eventually precipitated this decision was that I had become increasingly concerned about how United Methodism was drifting from its theological and ethical moorings. As I’ve indicated, I was raised in Kentucky and I have always said to people, “you either believe all of the Bible or none of it at all. You can’t go pickin' and choosin' what you like and what you don’t like. It’s not a salad bar.” Consequently, after much prayer and deliberation, I left the local Church, returning to live and work in the community for whom, in retrospect, I've always had a special affinity.

While retaining my credentials as an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church before I transferred to The Evangelical Methodist Church, I've have worked various places. I have driven the Vo-Tech bus for Derry Township, the public school in this area, worked for The Milton Hershey School, a private K-12 institution originally started for orphans,and continued to care for those in medical crisis as an itinerant Chaplain. Click the Ministries page which describes some of the other work to which I’ve been called, a ministry initiated by a few others–unknown to me at the time–who had been observing my work locally for close to a decade.

In my work as a bus driver at Derry Township, I was able to connect with some of my students. It took me several years, however, to gain their trust. Slowly, some began to tell me about their problems. Many of them came from broken homes. A number were already parents; children having children. And the brokenness continues. Eventually, they discovered I was a pastor and began to talk with me. They knew it was not my intent to try and convert them on the spot. I told them I had been on the short end of that stick. All they wanted me to do was to listen and asked me to pray, which I did privately when they got off the bus, since Derry Township is a public school.

I also developed a close relationship with the bus drivers at Derry Township. During these years, I’ve counseled well over twenty-five percent of them and their families. Further, I’ve married their children and buried their loved ones and friends. In fact, in a four year period, five active drivers died, four of whom were young and had families. Through these difficult times, they asked me to assist them, but have also asked for my help at other times. A good number have yet to darken the door of a church, but it doesn't matter where God places me in the process of one’s conversion. As much as I rejoice in seeing people converted at an altar of prayer during revivals, I equally rejoice that a number of these drivers–and the others for whom I’ve cared over the last fifteen years are just a little closer to the Kingdom of God. You may be interested in reading the link about this in A Letter from our President on the "About" page.

I was employed as a driving instructor at the Milton Hershey School, a K-12 private institution which has served the needs of socially and economically challenged children for almost one hundred years. This gave me one on one contact with many students. When they discovered I was a minister, invariably, they began to share the conflicts they were having, for example, with their peers and house parents. Through this part of my work--while. obviously, staying focused primarily on the driving task at hand--I was able to assist them in developing the necessary life skills and strategies to address the various interpersonal conflict in their lives. Much of this conflict is a result of the parents and families who were absent in their developmental years and the pain associated with this unconscious sense of abandonment. This sad reality is not just limited to them. In fact, a large percentage of adults I’ve counseled have struggled with this issue and this is how I’ve been led to address this.

I see no dichotomy between emotional formation and spiritual formation. In addition to the concern Jesus had about the one’s physical needs, He was as concerned about a person emotionally as He was spiritually. If one is damaged emotionally, it directly affects their ability to allow God either to deepen their spiritual formation, or even to accept Him as their personal Savior for the very first time depending on the level of that damage. To one degree or another, all of us have been broken and damaged. This is a part of the human condition. In fact, it’s been my professional experience that the damage in one’s life most often needs to be initially addressed before any lasting or even initial spiritual formation can occur.

I'm an itinerant chaplain as well. Although visiting those hospitalized is a part of any minister's responsibility and particularly those in the midst of crisis–I have spent many years in this environment. A few significant things occurred which assisted me in developing my skills working in a clinical environment. In 1995-1996, I worked full-time at a Level 1 Trauma center. My clinical area of concentration was Medical Intensive Care, where I rounded with physicians each day. My academic focus was Bioethics and served on the Ethics Review Board. My wife, who has worked in Critical Care and Emergency Medicine for over thirty years, has nurtured this gift in the most significant way. As a result of her experience, I've become more knowledgeable about what is occurring medically in a given crisis and have been able to assist the public as a liaison, while caring for the needs of those around me. As a result, God has given me an ability to counsel patients, families and their friends. In some small way, I hope I am fulfilling those words of Christ: “I was sick and you came and visited me.” Although I’ve been able to communicate in layman’s terms a patient’s medical condition, the potential outcomes and have assisted families in coming to an informed decision about their loved ones in crisis, the majority of time I spend in this work is being there, "practicing the presence" of Christ quietly. Indeed, one’s presence at such times–in and of itself–speaks volumes.

It is difficult, however, to be in such a setting. To be candid, it is exhausting "to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep" a moments notice. And there is also this fact. If we’re honest, all of us are uncomfortable in critical care settings. It reminds us about the tenuousness of life and our own mortality. Billy Graham put it the best: “No Christian is afraid of death, but all of us are afraid of the process of dying.” To fear this process is normal. However, it is also providential and incarnational, for here is yet another place we can identify with a broken and suffering world regardless of where one may be in their spiritual formation. And if we’re asked, it is at that point, in my judgment, we can give the reason for the hope we possess.

This ministry, however, does not end there as I also continue to care for the care giver, the forgotten ones in this area of work at times. Sadly, the doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and even the ancillary staff who care for such patients don't receive enough of the support they need. Consequently, I continue to develop an on-going model of pastoral care to address these needs along with Beth Keller, our Clinical Care Consultant on the Board of Directors of Country Road Ministries–with whom both my wife and I have worked personally in Critical Care–to provide the necessary assistance for those in medicine and other areas who must deal with tragedy and death on a regular basis.

Although there are other areas of counseling within which I am involved, it seems appropriate to conclude with where I started when I was caring for widows as a young boy and didn’t even know it. Those who have lost their spouses have always had a very special place in my heart. What I have found most interesting through the years, however, is that they have taught me as much, if not more about grief, than I have taught and comforted them in coming to grips with it. And there is one other important thing the Lord has consistently brought to my remembrance in this regard. There is a vast difference between being lonely and being alone with God, a primary distinction all of us need to learn and be reminded at times.

After losing a loved one or dear friend, being lonely and feeling isolated are normal emotions. Being alone with God, however, is quite the opposite. This is the place the Lord initially asks one--In His Time--to resign and abandon oneself to Him and, paradoxically, even encourages an individual to start embracing the loneliness, the emptiness, the ambiguities and all the contradictory emotions associated with what one has experienced. For it is through this process, inversely, that one can begin to sense the comfort of being alone with God. No greater comfort can be found. No greater peace can be embraced. No greater joy can be experienced. David did, indeed, put it so well: “Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5) And what is just as remarkable is how this applies to all of us.

Whenever we find ourselves “alone” in a situation in which we are so overwhelmed that we sense that no one could ever understand our pain and loneliness, it is at that precise moment that God wants us to enter the "thick darkness" of that place where His presence also rests. (Exodus 20:21) Although this paradox is absurd from a humanistic standpoint, it is at these very areas of our lives where we can discover and experience “the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places” (Isaiah 45:3), meeting the gentle Comforter, the One who has promised by His very name that He will stand along beside everyone of us, regardless of what's happened in our lives.

Finally, may God be both glorified through who I am in Christ, the center of my identity, and also in what I do for Him “in view of God’s mercy, to offer my body as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–which is my spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1)

Peace among the thorns,

Mark A. Rains