Friends: I call Sept. 2 my “Awake Date,” and here’s why … 25 years ago this week. Blessings, Bob

--- --- ---

Spirituality Column #1033

September 1, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Flash in the Pan   

By Bob Walters

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.” – Ephesians 1:3 NIV

This fall is a season of personal milestones, marking 25 years of a life in Christ I never expected and for 47 previous years I never imagined.

That takes us back to 2001 – September 2, to be exact – then a personal season of significant turmoil none of which, consciously, was leading me to Christ nor looking for answers from Jesus. Crisis was real, but, stubborn me, I never tried to solve it in church.

My very fun career in sports writing, media relations in college and professional sports, and 15-ish seasons in auto racing PR had foundered. Debt was high, the house was in jeopardy, my marriage was in trouble, and bankruptcy loomed on the very near horizon.

Oh, and the 9/11 Islamic terrorist attacks on the nation were nine days away.

It all sounds like a perfect precursor to “Let’s find Jesus!” It was nothing like that.

Prayer was the one thing I hadn’t really tried.  Through most of my life in times of turmoil I’d say the Lord’s Prayer because it was the only prayer I knew, left over from my youth in the Episcopal Church. I knew the prayer, but didn’t know Jesus. I watched a fair amount of Christian TV on cable those intervening years, but none of it really stuck.

Maybe it was the cable TV preachers that softened me up for the day I woke up to Christ, September 2, 2001. I found myself sitting at East 91^st Street Christian Church in Indianapolis and – almost inexplicably – feeling very happy about being there.

I’ve written this many times, but two weeks earlier my then-8^th grade son Eric, at the dinner table, asked, “How come we don’t go to church?” On the school bus, kids around him talked about what churches they attended. He simply asked his mom and me why we didn’t.

This was a school bus in Carmel, Indiana, a thriving community of money, education, families, achievement, and as it turns out, faith.  Six of Indiana’s largest churches, along with three huge Catholic parishes, are either in Carmel or in communities adjacent to it.

These are the kinds of communities that attend church. I thought it was only the mono-syllabic country folk who actually believed this stuff. My whole life I’ve been blessed with really smart friends. Now, smart friends with deep faith would raise the intellectual bar.

Anyway, Eric and his younger brother John bought into the idea of church. Their mother Jean (my wife until 2006) had a sister who was looking for a new church, and they settled on trying E91 because it was almost exactly between our two homes.

We dropped the boys off in their respective Sunday school areas, which were lively, welcoming, and fun. We adults headed to the sanctuary; it was my first exposure to contemporary worship, extemporaneous prayer, and communion without all the priestly robes and ceremony of the Episcopal “high church” liturgy and eucharist.

Culture shock aside, E91’s wonderful longtime pastor Russ Blowers, who had retired in 1996 but was still a rock of the congregation, happened to be celebrating his exact, 50-years-to-the-day anniversary – since September 2, 1951 – of serving the church.

Russ, sharing the pulpit with E91’s senior minister Dave Faust, preached on 1 Corinthians 13, the “Love” chapter, a Bible verse I’d heard many times at weddings. Never thought much about it. This was different: Faith is past, hope is future, and love is now.

Russ’s delivery, Dave’s follow-up, and the congregation’s expressed love for both of them, not to mention the church’s obvious corporate and personal understanding of Jesus, turned this from a mere visit into a new life direction. It was the day I awoke to God’s truth.

During the sermon, my eyes welled up and my throat clutched. Over time I’ve realized my career years amount to a flash in the pan. Faith in Jesus, happily, is not.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) apologizes if this is repetitive, but it is his favorite story, and Ephesians 1:3 is the first Bible verse he memorized. Russ, by the way, baptized John in 2004 and Eric in 2005. A dear friend, Russ died in 2007.