Vision
It was summer 1978. I was a student at Fuller Theological Seminary and I had elected to take my Hebrew requirement during summer school. I was not doing well in the course, having found that the Hebrew vowel points were not something that I could understand or master very well.
I was the youth pastor at the Burbank Episcopal Church and earlier in the summer I had taken my youth group into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The kids loved it and the parents gave good feedback when we returned. One father put up pictures of the trip on the bulletin board where they were seen by everyone for quite some time.
I came from a dysfunctional family. Mountaineering and spending time in God’s creation had been my way of escape. I loved the beauty and the truth I found there. After I became a Christian I wanted to share this with others and found that they enjoyed it as much as I did.
Now I was studying to become a pastor. It looked like this love of mine, to take individuals into God’s creation, would be over when I became a full time pastor.. So I slipped down on my knees and asked the Lord for grace to pass my Hebrew examination. As I prayed, I felt a peace come over me and so I asked the question, "Lord, what would you have me to do with my love for outdoor ministry now that I am to become a pastor?"
The next moments were the clearest in my life and I will never forget them. I was no longer alone by my desk. Instead, I was in the Spirit. We were high above everything as if viewing the earth from space. Lights began to glow from various places in the United States and in the world.
The Lord said to me, "Do you see all these places? There will be outdoor schools in each one of them." I was speechless. It certainly was the answer to a question I had not asked him. I think I know how Abraham must have felt when God showed him the stars in the sky.
The first Solid Rock Outdoor Ministries (SROM) course went out in the summer of 1984 and was an instant success. Because I was a full time pastor, for the next 14 years I did the ministry part-time out of the back of our small personal home garage. My church was gracious about being away for some days in the summer. They believed in the ministry and many of them became instructors for the ministry.
I was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis in 1987. I was able to cope with the disease for about 10 years before I knew that my health was failing me. If the vision that God had given me was going to come to pass, I had to act quickly while I still had strength.
The church we pioneered had finally grown to the point where I had a decent salary and benefits. Understandably, my faithful wife, Mary, was reluctant to abandon this security and start over again with nothing. Our youth pastor, Stacey Rhodes, held an Easter sunrise service where she asked each of us to write down on a slip of paper a thing that might be holding us back from the will of God and pin the paper to a cross she had displayed.
I wrote down that I would resign as pastor and begin SROM full time. My wife wrote down that she would let me begin full-time if that is what God wanted for me. We both folded our pieces of paper and used plastic pins to attach the paper to the Cross. What we didn't know was that each of us walked out from that Easter sunrise service in agreement with God's will for our lives.
Respectfully Submitted, Rev. Drew P. Arnold
