Summer 1988
Jesus Changed My Life at Pinecrest
Kapryan Kennedy
Pinecrest Graduate

Like so many teenagers of my generation (and perhaps every other generation), I decided at age thirteen that I was mature, a man capable of making his own decisions with no need of guidance, parental or otherwise. Recognition and respect for my self-bestowed position of authority over my life were demanded of all who would be my friends. Little did I know that instead of completing my maturity, I had actually postponed it. Instead of becoming an individual, I had conformed to the stylish values of the day that I might win the phony title of "Nonconformist." I entered a "Never-Never-Land" of self delusion, self indulgence, and the pursuits of uninhibited ego.

By the end of three years I began to reap the reward of going my own way, of running my own life. My fantasy world began to crash down around me. Drugs had become the ruling influence in my life. I was flunking school, I was under police surveillance (with good reason), and worst of all I began to see that the only friends I had were those who respected my stash of drugs. I was coming to the end of the line with no where to go, once I got there. There was no way out, there was no hope. There was only one escape from my failure yet within my power to perform ... suicide.

Then Jesus stepped into my life. I could write pages on how it happened. I was about to get up and get the shotgun that my father had hidden in the back of his closet, when Jesus walked into the room where I was sitting. I could not see Him with my eyes, but I did not need to. I knew exactly where He was standing. Then He spoke these words to me "I love you, I have been waiting for you. Give up drugs and follow me."

There was life changing power in those words. I never got high on drugs again. I never needed them again. I was free. Free to follow Jesus. But where was He leading me?

My salvation experience is, I suppose, unusual in that I was not saved in a church service, or in some kind of evangelical out-reach program. There is a prophesy in Scripture that describes how I was saved. "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh," Joel 2:28. What I experienced was not an isolated event.

Within a period of about six months before and after my experience, many ofmy friends met the Lord Jesus in very similar ways. Before long, we began to meet in a rented, one bedroom duplex apartment which we called the 715 North Columbia Street Fellowship. Sometimes there were over sixty saints jammed into that tiny living room, bedroom, and kitchen, sometimes spilling out onto the porch and into the front yard. We shared a burning love for Jesus, a commitment to one another, and a very limited understanding of the Word of God and of His ways. I call that period "The Wild and Woolly Days" because there were some pretty woolly sheep, and some pretty wild wolves. We had no pastor, no leadership, no elders, we lost many lambs.

Towards the end of my first year as a Christian I began to get a little shaky, I wasn't growing. My family was unsaved and continued to attack my faith as best they knew how. Since my parents were college professors, they had plenty of ammunition. Many in the Fellowship were struggling with sin, as was I, or had fallen away completely. Doctrinal arguments and power struggles were tearing the fabric of the unity we once knew, into shreds. There had tobe answers to these problems, but I was not finding them.

Then the first "Banner" from Pinecrest arrived. Looking it over with a critical eye, I said to myself, "I will never go to that place." Then a still small voice said, "Oh yeah?" A catalogue from the Bible Training Center found its way into my hands. It spoke of a place where "the Lord could have His way," where academics were important but always secondary to developing a personal relationship with Jesus and producing the fruit and qualities of Christian character, a place to equip and prepare lives to serve the Lord. These words spoke to my need, but there was one problem. My hair was down to my shoulders, I wore blue jeans and sandals, my Bible was covered in leather and tied to my belt. The pictures in the catalogue were of clean cut young men wearing slacks and "ties!". There were rules and dress codes. Then the Holy Spirit asked me a question, would I obey the rules if it was His will for me to go? How could I say no?

When I arrived at Pinecrest for the first of what would be four years, I had very little to stand on other than the Word of the Lord to my heart. My parents had provided me with one way air fare. They told me that I was on my own financially, and to let them know when I gave up and wanted to come home. I had a little money saved to pay for my first few weeks of room and board. Beyond that the Lord would have to provide, and He did.

First of all, He provided through the ministry of Pinecrest, tuition would be on a free will offering basis. Because they believed in what the Lord was doing in my life, I was allowed to pay for room and board through a work duty and they encouraged me to believe the Lord for the rest. Then they went to work on restoring my life by requiring that I finish high school before I entered the Bible College.

When that happened, I almost died. I could not believe that was God's will but I surrendered. Then the Lord touched my parent's heart as they saw that I was committed. They began to send enough to pay half of my room and board, the rest was met through the work duty I had. For the next four years my bill at Pinecrest was paid. But I never had very much to put into the offering basket. For four years the ministry at Pinecrest taught me, prayed for me, counseled me, and cared for me. In a way they became my spiritual parents. Not once did anyone ask me why I wasn't giving more. I don't think they ever checked.

There was a lot of growing up left for me to do when I came to Pinecrest. Much of it very painful. While I was there the Lord restored my mind from the after effects of drugs. Emotional scars and wounds were healed. I received impartation from anointed men and women of God who poured the hard learned lessons of their lives into my heart. I met with Jesus in a personal and corporate way. I learned the principles of the Word of God. I shared the good fellowship of brothers and sisters who were pressing into the Kingdom and to a life of serving Jesus. I met the woman that the Lord had chosen for my life.

I have had to do a lot of growing up since leaving Pinecrest. Through the growing up process, many of the things that I thought I understood, I have had to live out in my life. Often I return to the notes I took in class and discover the answers to the problems before me.

Not long ago I visited Pinecrest. I was impressed by the quality of commitment and faith that I found in the student body. The ministry continues. I realized that what the Lord had done for me has been done for hundreds perhaps thousands of lives all because of Jesus and His work on the Cross and because there have been those like Wade Taylor and the staff and faculty at Pinecrest who were willing to pick up that Cross and give of themselves a living sacrifice.

The Lord has blessed me financially. I can attribute much of that blessing to knowing the voice of the Lord, something which we were taught to pursue at Pinecrest. The Lord has spoken to me, that I am to send support to the ministry and work at Pinecrest on a regular basis. What a tremendous burden we could lift and share with Brother Taylor if a steady and regular stream of finances, even in small amounts, would begin to flow into the work of the Lord.

The ministry at Pinecrest has given so much of themselves, let us help.

Note I personally do not remember meeting "Cappy" Kennedy but I seem to know his name very well. I find his testimony so touching to my heart and soul. When I arrived in Fall of 1976 Pinecrest was utterly different that what Cappy described in his testimony as the student body became completely splintered and the staff and faculty were very much on their own and about their own business.

The Pinecrest that Cappy has described was how it was in the early days where faculty staff and students were all one team. I have heard these same things testified of from other students that were at Pinecrest prior to 1974.

This the way Pinecrest originally was as ordained by the Lord. It was a school where academics did not rue the day, it was instead a school based on instilling in students a love devotion and a personal relationship with God, while at the same time teaching through demonstration of how each beleiver is precious in the eyes of the Lord and the brethren, so that part of the education included loving and caring for the flock of God, and teaching and demonstration on defending these tender sheep from wolves within, and wolves without. As well as teaching by demonstration, how to pray, how to study the word of God, how to wait on the Lord, how to worship in Spirit and truth. Pinecrest was to have been a Spiritual household where every faculty member and staff member were His servants, filled with the Love of Jesus Christ.

These things should never have been let slip Faculty should have never come to the callous state that they could speak of these things as unneedful, or secondary things that needed to be learned elsewhere. Neither should staff member have ever spoken of such things as being lower realm, as being things needful for only naive christians, and babes.

I am not speaking here of this from a standpoint of "Wouldn't this be just so nice" or from some theoretical standpoint as an Christian utopian idealist. I am speaking of these things prom a personal experiential standpoint where I witnessed, and partook of, I received great spirital impartation, from several meetings and fellowship where the pastor, the elders, and the brethren so walked, and God so manifested himself in these meetings as His presence would come and light upon us.

As there is no higher realm in God that devotion to the Lord, So is their no higher realm than agape and humbling ourselves and serving one another. In the household, and in the fellowship. When the Lord turns the captivity of Pinecrest -- This time Isaac shall truly come forth, and it shall be as in the days of the household of Abraham when all His the servants, all his shepherds and employees, and all of his household can to know the Lord just as Abraham so did, all were circumcised, all became part of the Ekklesia of Abraham, and as demonstrated by the nameless selfless servant of God -- it was in the household of Abraham form the least unto the greatest that all Knew The Lord, and there was no one that needed to say anymore know the Lord for they all knew and walked in personal intimate relationship with God just as Abraham did. -- This is the picture of what the Ekklesia and Pinecrest are to be.

And as the Lord has indicated to Wade and to myself over and over --This shall indeed come to pass. Watch for it.