Joel wrote this biographical email to a new acquaintance. With his permission, I share it here.
In the Name of Him to whom we must give account,
Julia
My family has lived in McKinney for 20 years, and my Dad has served as the pastor of a small "independent" Christian church (
www.nwcconline.com) for that entire time. My 5 siblings and I have been home schooled, and we have been active in various ministry opportunities through the course of our "education." For the past 3 and a half years, we have been involved in starting and building up our own
creation science ministry. Check out our website:
www.creationevangelismtools.org. If you want to learn a bit more about my family, you can also visit our family blog:
www.texasskies.blogspot.com, and also my sister's blog:
www.imprimis.wordpress.com.
We are all interested in worldview matters and the Biblical perspective on subjects like world religions, origins (creation vs. evolution), politics, government, education, and media (movies and music). We enjoy discussing these subjects with other people.
I've been in CollegePlus! for about 2 years, and I am within 15 credits of completing my B.A. in
Political Science. (I can't wait to be finished!) I originally had the goal of getting my Poli. Sci. degree and then going for a J.D. so I could get into law (probably Constitutional Law, or perhaps family law), and politics. But, I've kind of had a bit of a change of heart...
For several years, I have had an interest in biblical apologetics, and especially creation apologetics since we first heard Ken Ham from
Answers in Genesis give his “Genesis: the Key to Reclaiming the Culture” presentation five years ago. As I became more acquainted with Biblical creation based apologetics and evangelism, I began to realize that this is exactly what the church needs to hear, and what our country needs. Since then, I have sought to equip myself and develop my worldview more Biblically and more fully through various resources which we as a family have purchased or been given.
However, there have been some "distractions" in my life, namely my interest in and intense involvement in politics and
political campaigning for a couple of different candidates. I had kind of come to the point where I was believing that we could "take back" our country through politics. The Lord used my campaigning experience and the outcome of the 2008 national elections as an epiphany for me to show me that to turn this country back to Him will not happen overnight, nor through a “top-down” political revolution. This battle over whether or not we will serve the Lord as a country will be won on the individual personal level. This is when I began to realize the importance of reaching out to individuals to help them realize they need to look to Jesus Christ for salvation, and not the government. I also came to see more clearly the importance of helping people in the church develop a
biblical worldview.
As a Christian, and an American, I have a concern for our country's degeneration into godlessness and immorality. At the same time I believe that the church at large itself is a mission field because of a widespread rejection of the authoritative sufficiency of the Bible by many Christians. So while I believe it is important to try to “stem the tide,” of godlessness in our culture, I believe one of the most foundational ways to do that is to first evangelize the church so that there will be a multiplicative effect in our efforts to reach the unbelieving society. I want to be able to help call the church back to the scriptures, much like the Reformers. Then, according to the Lord's will and timing, as the church returns to the scriptures, that will help to turn the country back to God and His Word.
Down the road, as the Lord leads, I may pursue a degree in law, but for now, my focus is on building up my own faith and helping other Christians get on track Biblically speaking.
