Featured Calling an Associate Pastor

The problem with the scenario I posted was it was THE ONLY Bible preaching church within I'd say at least 50 or 60 miles from where I was located at that time & since I worked a 24/7/365-366 job that was scheduled to have me off only for 1 or 2 hours, to me (I was only some 4-5 YO in God's family back then--in the late 1960s - early 1970s.). The ONLY other churches were just like the one I had attended in my nearly 20 yrs. All they ever taught was a "Man IS inherently GOOD, but if one desired to remain in God's family, try not to kill TOO many people or try not to rob too many banks, etc., and U just might make it to "heaven," IF there REALLY IS one. WE ENLIGHTED HUMANS KNOW that what we refer to heaven is in reality only a cleverly disguised fairy tale mainly designed by those mean & nasty multi-mega-billionaires whose aim has always been to inhibit man's inheritable goodness. .... Even as lost a person as I was, I didn't think the Bible would actually teach THAT! (Of course, I didn't know what the Bible DID teach because in that so-called "church," we were told not to read the Bible for ourselves because ONLY your pastor (Who was a graduate of Harvard Divinity School in Boston--not exactly a bastion of conservative evangelical teachings!!) can be the one who can "Rightly (??) divide the Bible" for you ignorant & unknowable deplorable lay people!! Thankfully God in His mercy saved me from that mess, but at that very young age (Only 4-5 YO), I still didn't know much about the Bible. Moreover GOD in HIS mercy DID lead me to a local church near my home that was pastored by a genuine Greek & Hebrew scholar. The few years I sat under his ministry were a great help to me then & still is today. I still don't know every minor nuance of every Bible teaching, but Pastor David C. Auckland proved to me that even a young 'en as I was then could learn SOME things about the Bible (&, BTW, I didn't read Faith Baptist Church's Constitution at first either!!

 

Salty, I was in Germany from March 1967 - April 1968, which was some 52 years ago. I've not been back since then, so what may or may not have happened since then I don't know. Pastor Briggs only communicated with me only a couple of months since my release from AD in April 1969. What may have happened since then, I don't know. I was told via the AWANA ministry that now there is an active Bible-teaching ministry, but the person with whom I talked had only been in Germany for a couple of months, & the one whom he replaced had already left Germany prior to the current AWANA person(s) arriving there. Sorry that neither I nor this new AWANA person can't give me any additional info. Pastor Briggs only wrote to me a few months afterward & that was it. I was told that Pastor Briggs had left Germany a few years later, and was now serving as a kind of Chaplain for incarcerated men somewhere in the western US (Colorado I think.) I emailed the Colorado Prison System but never got a response from them. Pastor Briggs DID come from the Buffalo NY area of the US, but the couple of calls to any Bible-believing ministries in that area that I had any knowledge of never even heard of him (I probably wouldn't remember things like this that happened 55 years ago either!!). Sorry that I can't give you any other info on the situation in Germany other than what I've already given you.