I looked up St. Paul Lutheran Church to research and remember this morning.

I didn’t expect to break down crying.

I am a grandson of Jim and Wilma Stout. I was baptized as a baby at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Maryvale, a west valley suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, by Pastor “Art” Irmer in 1980. Mrs. Corky Hecker was my teacher. I left halfway through Pastor Blau’s confirmation classes in 1992 or 1993 — and I didn’t look back for a long time.

Watching this video, I kept seeing faces I hadn’t seen since my grandmother passed in 1994 and my grandfather in 2009, one month before I began my enlistment into the United States Army. I kept watching — familiar faces I could no longer name. Their names were lost somewhere in my childhood memories and were now flooding back.

Over halfway through the video, I was stopped in my seat. A memory from Lindalee Martinez:

Knowing I had left St. Paul by 1993, I knew Lindalee’s memory was off by a few years. I recognized the names she shared instantly, my cousin Mike Stout being the most obvious. His family had moved to New Mexico around the same time, confirming the 1997 mistake.

My best friends, Josh, Mike Adams, and Jim’s names jumped off the screen. I remembered still carrying pictures of Cassey, Mary, Laurie, Nanette, Jennifer, Tammie, Jesse, and Bucky from the trip to Disneyland, too. So I dug out an old photo album, thinking it might have the date imprinted on it. Unfortunately the date wasn’t there, but the image showed many more people not mentioned, albeit a blurry picture.

I remember the early morning earthquake, preparing for the day in a college locker room. It was the first earthquake I can recall experiencing, though not in fear. I later found out that it was also felt in west Phoenix, or at least tremors. It was the last memory of innocence, joy, fun, Christ-filled community I have from St. Paul Lutheran Church.

Seeing John Wayne “Jack” Nase’s name angered me. Seems he died in 2018. My mother had allowed him to talk to me over the phone. He wanted me to testify against my friend whom he had hurt. A 13-year-old myself, I listened to his alleged lies, stood shaking, declined and hung up. My mother consoled me. I reached out to my friend to lend him my support, but a short conversation with his dad was the end of the friendship.

I am now 46 years old, and I have a difficult time walking into a church. I have a difficult time trusting people inside one. I was told that my parents had been excommunicated from St. Paul for their divorce when I was three. I attended with my grandparents as a child on purpose, as a choice. Away from home. Closer to Jesus.

The church I attended from 13 years old through 18 didn’t fare much better. A senior pastor and worship leader having an affair. A church in my twenties falling to the same, senior pastor commits adultery with secretary. An Army chaplain in Iraq who didn’t show up. There are years of damage I am still sorting through.

And yet.

The foundation I received from St. Paul — from my grandparents, from aunts and uncles, from cousins, from the people in this video — held. It held through all of it. My faith in the Lord has never left me. I have always prayed. I have always sought God. Not because the institutions were safe. Not because everyone in them was good. But because specific people planted something real in me before I was old enough to know what it was worth.

Pastor Irmer. Pastor Blau. Mrs. Hecker. My grandparents. My aunts and uncles. So many more faces in the video, disconnected from names, allowed my spirit to respond with a release of a childhood long buried. Their smiles. Their love. Their care. The Holy Spirit and love of Jesus Christ came pouring out of them in my memory.

Thank you to the remaining family of believers at St. Paul Lutheran Church. While the video is a few years old, it means more to me this morning than you could ever realize.

I want it on the record that I am grateful. What they put in me survived what came after. That is not nothing. That is, in fact, everything.

I published my first book last month — What Was Meant for Harm — and if you’ve read it, you’ll understand why I ended up back here, in this video, looking at these faces, crying at my desk before sunrise.

“May the Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

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