Course 10 Week 1 First Day!

Good morning, everyone,

This first week, as always, serves several purposes. We are to introduce ourselves to each other. I like it because I spend more time interjecting myself into your discussion than I do later in the course. You get to practice making posts, and a lot of purely social posts will be counted toward your goal of making nine quality posts. I remind everyone that, during a regular week, you will need an initial post in each forum by Thursday.

My wife and I both grew up in Southern Illinois. (If you are from southern Illinois, you capitalize the "S" :) !) I accepted the Lord as my Savior when I was eleven years old. During my senior year at Southern Illinois University, I recognized God's call to preach. Two years later, I married my wife Rhonda.

We have lived in Kansa City, MO (seminary), Fort Worth, TX, (seminary) and Memphis, TN (seminary), Chester, GA (pastoring, first child, Rachelle), Eatonton Georgia (associate pastor, Christian school principal, next three children, Ralanna, Rusty, and Rita Beth), Thompsonville, IL (Pastoral staff, principal), Lewisville, TX (pastoral staff, writer/editor for Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E.), professor of Christian college) and back to Thompsonville, IL, where we have been for the last 22 years (a couple of pastorates and a church plant.)

Since all our names begin with "R" we were affectionately dubbed "the RC six-pack" at one of our churches.

The Lord has sent all of our children wonderful mates, and they all are involved in church. My son, Rusty, his wife, Brenda, and their two-year-old daughter, Grace, are Career Missionaries to Japan. You can check out their ministry here.

I resigned from my church last April and am currently involved in a speaking/writing/missions ministry. My most recent trip was to Acun(with a "tilde" over the "n")a, Mexico. My wife and I plan to make trips to Hokkaido, Japan, and to Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia. I addition to that, I plan to make several more trips to Mexico, another one to Japan, and one to South Korea.

If you are interested in our speaking/writing ministry, please check out the website, The LOVING Way to a Successful Marriage. If you refer a church to that website, make sure they also see the "special arrangements" page.

I have been in ministry for 39 years. I look forward to sharing with you during the next few weeks of this course.

Tyler and Roger, I think it will be the three of us again for a while.