My Conversion Journey – Ron Crutcher

My grandfather was one of the early Deacons in the Church of God in Christ. The church was integral to his and his family’s daily lives. My father helped maintain and expand the church’s Christian school for girls in Yazoo County near Lexington, Mississippi. He traveled the length and breadth of this nation, raising money to build a generator for the school’s heating and lighting. Many of his students went on to become great Christian missionaries worldwide.

By the time I was old enough to be aware of church services, my father was working as a State Engineer for many weekends, and was required to be on site on Sundays. My mom began taking us to my uncle’s Pentecostal church, where I witnessed an exorcism in real time. I watched how a skinny middle-aged woman began running around the church, taunting the pastor in a powerful, menacing male voice not her own. It took seven full-grown deacons over an hour to subdue her with Bibles placed on her arms and feet. She finally began to recover, and her original soft, sweet voice returned without any knowledge of the violent behavior she had recently possessed. I never realized that the spiritual world was bigger than the physical world until that moment.

My father enrolled us at St Margaret’s Episcopal Church, where I continued through adulthood.

I moved to Cincinnati and attended a bible study led by a church planter, Levi G. He asked me if I was saved, and I replied, “Yes.” Then he asked me how I knew I was saved. I begin by sharing that I was a good person and helped old ladies across the street. He stopped me and said, “You’re not saved.” I looked at him, shocked and annoyed simultaneously.

He said there is only one way to be saved, and you didn’t say it. Now open your bible to :
Romans 10: 9-10, paraphrased,

Salvation comes through confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead.

At that moment, I confessed with my mouth and believed it in my heart, and I knew from that day that I was saved.

That’s all it takes!