Chapel Talk, September 21, 2022, by Network Administrator Greg Wynne

For most of my life, I attended one church or another. I searched for something greater…but I got lost a few times.

I was born and raised Catholic in Philadelphia. When I started high school, I moved to Middletown to get away from the violence in the city. That's where I met Mindy, even though we didn’t start dating until after graduation.

For one reason or another God stopped being important to me. Reflecting back now, those were some dark years for me.

A little over two years after I married Mindy, our first daughter was born. She was two months premature and needed a lot of extra care. Mindy was also sick. The doctor told me that one of them may not come home.

While I don’t remember a lot about that day, I am sure I looked toward the sky and asked for a miracle. I was just hoping someone heard and would answer me.

A miracle did happen—they both came home.

Later, I chalked it up to some good doctoring.

However, that experience did eventually get us to go back to church. In the church’s Bible Study group, I received my first Bible. I kept the ribbon in the table of contents.

They asked if I wanted to give my heart to the Lord. I didn’t know what that meant, so I said no. I wasn’t ready.

In 2005, our second daughter, Lacy, was born.

Life moves on. Kids, family, job—it keeps us busy.

Fast forward to 2010, Mindy and I were going through a rough patch in our marriage. She reached out to a woman she knew who had an amazing faith.

The woman and her husband drove an hour-and-a-half just to speak to us about our marriage. They spoke about Jesus in a way I had never heard.

The husband, Wayne, invited me to an event that August in 2011. I encountered Jesus Christ like I never had before and my life was never the same.

The following Sunday I drove an hour-and-a-half to go to church. I met the pastor after the service and he asked me to read the Bible.

I had no idea what was happening in my heart.

I read in Joshua 24:15b: “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

This is how I practice faith. Every decision I make is weighed against this verse and I ask myself, does this serve the Lord?

I continued to practice and the years go by. I volunteered at a local Thanksgiving dinner where I met a homeless man. While serving him dinner, we really hit it off.

I worked with him for awhile and eventually helped get him back on his feet. He now has a job and apartment and is doing OK. 

In 2017, my daughter, Lacy, got a concussion in gymnastics. Three weeks later, she got another concussion. And then, one week later, another concussion.

This was a dark season in our lives. I had to hold her up some days because she had no strength and was so depressed. I had to take her for walks even though all she wanted to do was stay in her bedroom with the lights off. She had a headache every day for two years.

We went to one doctor’s appointment after another. We met with neurologists and specialists. Nothing helped.

We traveled to a youth conference in South Africa where a pastor prayed over her in the name of Jesus. Instantly, her headaches were gone.

I can’t explain it other than to say it was the power of Jesus.

We did an outreach event in Capitol Green, a government-supported housing center in Dover. Here we formed relationships with some kids who started to come to our church.

There was a young man, Nyicere, who came to church. He started causing problems because he liked to fight. I kept thinking that I had to do something because this kid kept beating other kids up. I am running a good place here, I can’t have fighting.

I decided I would talk to him and give him two options—stop fighting or don’t come back.

I drove to his aunt's house where he was living with this ultimatum in mind. However, on the way there, I started to wonder if this was what it meant to practice faith. Here I was telling a young man not to come to church. I felt a sudden conviction to change my approach.

This kid was hurting and I could not shut him out. I needed to approach him with love. Instead of telling him to change, I changed. I started to love him in the way I’m called to love—through my faith.

As time went on, we started feeding more families and working with them to understand their needs.

Before the pandemic, I brought a few kids here to take a tour of St. Andrew’s. They had never seen a gym so big—they didn’t know what to do in there. 

We started an adopt-a-family program to provide Christmas gifts to several families. For one family, we purchased six bikes. However, it turned out that they needed seven bikes. We looked around and found a bike in stock at Target, so we bought it and delivered it within 30 minutes so that each member of the family could have a new bike.

So, how do I practice faith? I get involved.

I taught three kids how to drive. I taught several people how to swim.

It’s not always pretty. I don’t always do the “right” thing. But, I love people the way Jesus Christ taught us to love. That’s how I practice faith.