A Transforming and Liberating Encounter through Calvary

By Ron Lohr - July 15, 2007

For 33 years, I served zealously in an active, busy church. I served twenty-eight in full time ministry, most as senior pastor. The problem was that it was a Christian cult. At least it was Christ-centered, but it qualified as a cult by many definitions. Everything was fine, except we kept praying for the leading of the Holy Spirit and our leader kept saying, “Don’t believe me, but believe the Bible!”

Little did we know that every Saturday members of Jack Hayford’s church in Southern California were prayer walking the perimeter of our property in Pasadena. We were so busy keeping the holy Sabbath that only our security department noticed.

Gradually, God softened our leader’s heart to the Person, Jesus, and history was made. As far as I know, no other cult, as a group, has come into authentic Christianity. I will not even mention the name of the church because this is to celebrate the involvement of Steve Meeks and Calvary Community Church.

I would like to say that the movement to grace and Jesus was led by me. However, I had been one of the hard line loyalists to the old ways. Thanks be to God, I caught the vision quickly, began to change, and preach the “New Covenant Changes.” You might think this was a time of joy and euphoria. It was and it was not. Families were split, ministers left (some with most of their congregations), income dwindled, and two colleges were closed.

It was a lonely time in a way in the mid 1990’s for a minister in the “former cult.” It was a time when my congregation was shrinking in numbers; yet, I knew that responding to the changes was right and of Him. In those lonely times, some of the loyal, “new covenant” ministers remaining in the worldwide organization used the phone and email to encourage one another. Some of the messages I received, particularly from two friends in the pastoral ministry, inspired me to compile these positive comments and circulate them to other pastors who could surely use some encouragement. Well, it caught on and the “Good News Grapevine” was born.

I used mailing list capacity on our in-house CCMail Program and sent out volumes of material of a Christ-centered nature that served to inspire the remnant of those dedicated to Jesus only for their salvation, and those who were willing to admit that “we went to bed as an only child, and woke up the next morning shocked that we had millions of brothers and sisters in Jesus.”

With email, the updates and volumes went to Australia, South Africa, the UK, and all over Europe. There were at least 10,000 readers on a weekly basis and all of this was free.

Someone reviewed a book we had never heard of, Relational Christianity by Steve Meeks. I got one from the Houston office of Calvary (I pastored in Tulsa at the time) read it, and gave sermons from it. Personal relationship had been important to us but when you are the one and only true church on the face of the earth” and the “only game in town” it is easy to be spiritually smug.

Many people wanted the book so I arranged a special deal through a kind lady, Marylin. Steve later told me that there were hundreds of books involved and some day we may know how many lives it affected.

In 1997, I resigned from the full time ministry of that brave denomination feeling led by God to do other ministry and fund it myself. Shortly after my transition in the fall of 1997, I traveled to Houston on business and in an attempt to do some reconciling, I decided to stop by Calvary Church on a weekday and thank Steve if I could get to him, for all that he had done for me, though we had never met. I stopped by unannounced and was invited to join Steve in a staff prayer meeting. He knew me instantly, and sensed what I had been and was going through. The staff laid hands on me and prayed. I rarely shed a tear, but I did then.

In addition, for 10 years I did secular work, ran the internet ministry, and worked in sales management traveling with clients in 23 states. In early 2007, God opened the door for me to serve Him and His people at Open Door Mission, where, among other things, I teach a class, titled, “Relational Christianity.” That is where the story gets interesting again.

Developing mentors for our clients at the faith-based mission is one of my joys. Mentoring can be done at an Astros game so I accepted tickets from Michael Acves-Lewis of Mission Houston and went to the game with about 50 of our guys. During the game, I saw my friend, Michael, with his family about 15 rows in front of our group. I noticed there were a couple of empty seats near him so I went down to watch the game and talk with Michael and Cynthia, his wife, who is brilliant but knows little about baseball. I enjoyed talking with her and introduced myself to the person behind her who was also a guest of Mission Houston.

And, who was it? Jeff McGee. Small world? No, big God. About this time, we were beginning the “Relational Christianity” class. (A class title that I ruthlessly stole from Steve.) Our bestseller textbook was selected. However, our source “dried up.” Once again, I asked for help from Calvary Community Church, this time from my new friend, Jeff McGee. In addition, he sent 20 books immediately to the Open Door Mission and the men are intrigued. Some are unsure of their relationship with Jesus. Most in the class are Prodigal Sons, which means they graduated from the DoorWay Recovery program then relapsed and came back to the ODM for help. They are given three months to regroup spiritually. Now, for the first time they are reading Relational Christianity!

That brings us up to date to July 15, 2007.

Thank you Steve, Marylin, and Jeff for your help over the last 12 years. In my remaining time, I want to live and promote relational Christianity and the Person, Jesus. I am through with religion.

In Christian Love,

Ron Lohr

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