TOMMIE: I grew up in a nominal Christian home with parents that loved one another. They tried
to teach us truth from the Bible, but were never grounded in the local church. My parents
moved around a lot. I was in 12 schools. That was kind of unsettling as a child.
Probably when I was a teenager, I kind of just rebelled and pushed all truth aside.
I didn't want to know God. I didn't want to know my family even. I wrote them off,
and I kind of just went into the world. I got involved in drugs. I got involved in all
kinds of bad lifestyles and bad friends that led me down a further dark tunnel.
But some of my friends, we got together one evening. And I can still remember it was the first
night that we didn't get drunk. It was pouring down. And we were driving in two different cars,
two of my friends in front of us. And we turned a corner, and they went through a concrete wall.
When we got to the scene, we thought the one friend died. He was outside of the car just
bleeding. They rushed him to the hospital. I really felt guilty about the accident,
and I would go visit them every day after work. And the friend that we thought died,
he broke his neck. But he was saved, and he ministered to me.
And he would ask me, because he was just lying straight on his back, Tommy,
could you read the Bible to me? I would feel sorry for my friend, and I would
read the Bible to him. He would confront me with a gospel. I would get mad at him,
slam the Bible down, and leave him. Little did I know, my other friend got saved as
well. And I would go to his room, and then he would confront me about my sin.
And after that week, the Lord really grabbed my heart.
I realized that I was a sinner, and I needed a Savior. I phoned my parents, and I told them
that I had to reconnect with them. And my parents connected to a church, then grew as Christians.
And they were able to share the wonderful good news of the Lord Jesus Christ with me.
It was a rocky road after I got saved. I was still attached to the world, and I did not know how to
grow as a Christian. I didn't know the Bible. I was not familiar with reform theology. I wanted
to know more. Ligonier and R.C. Sproul played a big role in my life. Books like Essential
Truths of the Christian Faith, Everyone's A Theologian, those played major parts in my life.
I didn't grow up with a reading culture. So those short snippets in those books,
the shorter chapters, played a huge role in my life that I could remember things. And then,
obviously, sermons online, the wonderful videos of R.C. Sproul. And as I watch these videos, I grew
in reformed theology, appreciated the big truths of this. My parents also grew as Christians,
and just discovering truths with them was a wonderful tool in the Lord's hands in my life.
I'm heading up a ministry called Imprint. We translate and publish good theological
resources to help pastors that do not have a library themselves. So we are
proudly one of the distributors and printers of Everyone's A Theologian,
and we're busy translating that into Afrikaans and into Zulu. It helps
equip the ministry that I'm a part of to equip other pastors as well.
I know where I was, in ditches, in dog kennels, waking up mornings just feeling hopeless and
depressed. I just felt the freedom and the love and the joy and the hope that the gospel brings,
and I would love for other people to find that wonderful hope. So that is my passion. I want
more people to understand who Jesus is. I want them to get connected to healthy churches to
give them hope and then transform their lives and other people's lives to glorify our great creator.