Jesus Is Just Alright With Me

The “good p.k.” strategy worked well right through high school graduation. The church was popular during the sixties; made all the more so by the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and it definitely didn’t hurt my reputation any that my father was pastor of one of the most dynamic, fastest-growing churches in the Denver area. Three Sunday morning worship services (four on Easter) packed full of congregants in the “new” building completed in 1963, religious education (Sunday school) classes that required registration and had attendance standards, this was the environment I grew up in. I really had no idea how extraordinary this all was when compared to the “average” Methodist church (it became The United Methodist Church when the Evangelical United Brethren and Methodist churches merged in 1968), and I can assure you that it was a rude awakening that awaited me my freshman year at Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln Nebraska (yes, a fine church-related liberal arts college—“the Harvard of the plains”—that was deemed the most sensible place to do my undergraduate work in preparation for seminary). Naïve best describes the me that headed east on I70 with my two best friends that morning in August of 1968, and included in that naiveté was my belief that all my years of being actively involved in the church while growing up were going to count for anything.