One of the first convictions that settled upon me during those early months was that the Christian life was never intended to be lived in isolation. For a time I had been content to consume whatever teaching I happened to find online. Even before my conversion I had watched countless sermons and religious videos without any real accountability or connection to Christ’s people. After the Lord saved me, I remained deeply thankful for the men whose preaching He had used to instruct me. Their sermons became daily companions as I drove to work, sat at home, or spent early mornings and late evenings studying the Scriptures. Yet the more I read the New Testament, the more obvious something became. The apostles never envisioned Christians existing apart from a local church.

Again and again I encountered passages that assumed believers were gathered together under faithful shepherds, worshiping, praying, observing the ordinances, serving one another, submitting to one another, bearing one another’s burdens, and growing together in Christ. The church described in Scripture was not an event attended for an hour on Sunday. It was a family purchased by the blood of Christ. That realization began producing another longing within me. I wanted to find a church that would simply preach the Bible. Not a church built upon personalities. Neither one driven by emotional experiences. Nor one promising earthly success.

After years of listening to messages that revolved around man’s happiness and potential, my soul had grown weary of hearing about man. I wanted to hear about God. Sabrina shared that same desire. The Lord had been slowly working in her life alongside my own. Although my conversion had been dramatic and unmistakable, His work in her heart unfolded differently. She, too, had become dissatisfied with the teaching we had once accepted so eagerly. We found ourselves talking often about what we were reading in Scripture, comparing everything we heard against God’s Word rather than simply assuming a preacher was trustworthy because he was popular. Those conversations became one of the Lord’s earliest kindnesses to our marriage.

For years we had centered much of our relationship around ourselves; our plans, our struggles, our entertainment, and our circumstances. Now our conversations increasingly revolved around Christ. We spoke about sermons while eating dinner. We wrestled through difficult passages together. Questions that once would have seemed boring suddenly became deeply important. We wanted to know what God had actually said rather than what either of us preferred Him to have said.

The more we searched, the more we found ourselves drawn toward churches that took Scripture seriously. Voddie Baucham’s sermons that were so instrumental in my life; “Brokenness”, “Forgiveness”, “The World, the Flesh, and the Devil”, they were the sermons listened to the morning after October 31st. I researched what denomination he was affiliated with, as I knew I wanted to sit under the preaching that firmly believed and held to the sufficiency of Scripture. And though I did not know the terminology at the time, I desired it to be expositional and exegetical preaching. Through a Google search, I found Voddie was what was called a Reformed Baptist.

Until then I had scarcely known what the term meant. The labels themselves mattered little to me at first. I was not searching for a tradition. I was searching for truth. Yet nearly every preacher whose ministry had been nourishing my soul seemed to hold convictions that pointed in the same general direction. Rather than dismissing that fact, I decided to investigate it for myself.

An online search eventually led me to a small congregation not far from our home; Cornerstone Church of Myrtle Beach. At first glance there was something unusual about it. The congregation met in a building shared with a Seventh-day Adventist church. That immediately raised questions in my mind. Having only recently come out of serious theological confusion, I wanted to proceed carefully. I was not interested in joining a church merely because it happened to be nearby. I wanted to know what they believed. I wanted to know whether they truly held fast to the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

So I sent an email. It was filled with questions. Some were theological, some were practical, and some probably revealed just how little I understood. Among them was my concern about sharing a building with another congregation whose doctrine differed significantly from their own.

I half expected either no response at all or a brief reply directing me to a statement of faith. Instead, I received something altogether different. Pastor James “Rusty” Fulp personally answered my questions. Not hurriedly, nor defensively. Rather he did so patiently, carefully, and scripturally.

His reply was unlike any correspondence I had received before. There was no hint of irritation at the number of questions I had asked. He did not brush aside my concerns with brief answers or simply tell me to come visit and see for myself. Instead, he genuinely cared, he was kind, understanding, and incredibly patient with me. Point by point he answered my questions with patience, explaining not only what Cornerstone believed, but why they believed it. The Word of God clearly had been the foundation for his life, made evident through his answers. That alone left an impression upon me.

I had grown accustomed to hearing people defend their opinions. Here was a man who seemed unconcerned with persuading me to adopt his own preferences. His desire appeared to be simply to let the Scriptures speak. There was a humility in that which immediately stood out to me. The authority rested not in his personality, nor in the church itself, but in the Word of God.

Our emails continued back and forth for some time. As one question was answered, another would arise. I wanted to understand everything I could. Some of my questions reflected genuine theological curiosity. Others revealed how much of my thinking still needed to be reshaped by Scripture. Never once did he make me feel foolish for asking. Looking back, I realize how patient he must have been with a man who had only recently come to Christ and who carried with him great confusion, half-understood doctrines, and countless assumptions that still needed to be corrected.

The Lord often teaches His people through ordinary means. At the time I was simply corresponding with a pastor. Now I see that Christ, the Chief Shepherd, was already caring for one of His sheep. After several exchanges, Pastor Rusty extended an invitation that neither Sabrina nor I expected. He invited us to dinner with himself and his wife, Vanessa.

It was such a simple gesture that, at first, I hardly knew what to make of it. I had never experienced anything like that before. My understanding of church had always been largely confined to attending a service, listening to a sermon, and leaving again. The idea that a pastor would invite complete strangers out for a meal together simply to know them was foreign to me.

Yet that is exactly what he and his wife, Vanessa, did. We accepted the invitation. I still remember driving there with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. We had never met them in person. We knew only what had been exchanged through emails. I wondered whether the conversation would feel awkward. I wondered whether they would quickly discover how little I actually knew. I wondered whether I truly belonged among Christians whose lives appeared so different from my own. Those fears quickly disappeared.

From the moment we walked through the door, we were welcomed with a warmth that neither of us had experienced before. It was not artificial friendliness or forced hospitality. It was the genuine kindness that seems to flow naturally from people whose lives are governed by Christ. Before the meal, we prayed together. That simple act affected me more than I expected.

I had prayed before meals throughout my childhood, a simple prayer that our mother taught us, “God is good. God is great. Let us thank Him for our food, by His hands we all are fed, thank you Lord for daily bread. Amen.”, but this felt altogether different. It was not a hurried religious custom performed from memory. There was reverence, gratitude, and an obvious awareness that the Lord Himself was the One who had provided every good gift set before us.

The conversation flowed easily. We spoke about the Lord, about the gospel, somewhat spoke about our testimonies, and we spoke about the Scriptures. There was laughter, questions, and a genuine interest in who we were rather than merely whether we might become members of the church. Looking back, I realize that evening quietly dismantled many of my misconceptions about Christianity.

Until then I had largely viewed the Christian life as an individual pursuit. My attention had been fixed almost entirely upon reading, studying, and listening to sermons. Those things were good and necessary, but they were never intended to replace life among God’s people. That evening gave me a glimpse of something I had never truly known. Christian fellowship. Not some sort of superficial conversation, nor some gathering around shared hobbies or politics. It was truly believers delighting together in Christ. It felt almost surreal.

For nearly thirty years I had surrounded myself with friendships built upon shared sin. Whether through drugs, drinking, crude humor, or worldly pursuits, almost every relationship I had known had been held together by something that ultimately dishonored God. Now I found myself sitting around a dinner table where the greatest joy was speaking about the Lord Himself.

I remember leaving that evening and looking over at Sabrina as we drove home. At first it was quiet as we left in shock at how wonderful the evening and conversation was.  Finally one of us quietly remarked that we had never experienced anything like that before. Neither had to explain what we meant. We both knew. It was as though we had discovered a family we never knew existed.

The following Wednesday we attended Cornerstone for the first time. I walked through the doors carrying both anticipation and uncertainty. Everything was new to us. We did not know the people, neither did we know the rhythm of the service, nor did we know what to expect beyond what we had already come to appreciate through Pastor Rusty’s kindness.

Yet from the very beginning there was a simplicity that immediately put me at ease. There were no theatrical lights, no smoke machines, no carefully orchestrated attempts to manufacture emotion, no effort to entertain. The attention was directed toward the Scriptures.

As the Bible study began, I noticed something that has remained with me ever since. Every question, every explanation, every application, returned again and again to the biblical text. The authority did not lie in clever illustrations or emotional stories. It lay in the words God had spoken.

For a man who had spent years hearing sermons where Scripture often served merely as a launching point for someone’s ideas, this was almost shocking. I found myself listening with an intensity I had rarely known. Not because Rusty was particularly dramatic. But because the Bible itself was finally being allowed to speak. I remember thinking to myself, “This is what I have been searching for”. Not perfection, and neither eloquence. Truth. And truth has a way of feeding hungry souls.