Jim Craig: All right.

My name is Jim Craig, and I’m a member of Falls Baptist Church.

I was born and raised in Menominee Falls, actually a large village just outside of Milwaukee.

Pretty much a typical middle income kind of upbringing.

Raised in a home.

I knew my mom and dad loved me.

But when I got into the later years of my life, the high school years, I started looking for relationships outside the home, and in particular some guys that were into the party scene.

And I recall being in English class, and a friend of mine recruited me to come to lunch with him.

There we imbibed in beer and smoked some pot.

That was sort of a start of a period of my life where I smoked pot every day for 16 years.

I can remember lighting up a joint.

I could calculate being five minutes away from high school, walking into the school, finishing it.

That was sort of what my life was about, drinking and doing drugs.

That proceeded after high school.

I got into the printing industry, which was very lucrative, and I became what we like to call in RU a functioning addict.

That is, I could hold down a job, I could pay my bills, but yet the weekends were just full of drinking and drugs, and that continued for quite a while.

It wasn’t until I was 32 years old where, through a search of my wife, she was looking for spiritual answers.

She came to the realization there’s more to life than what she was taught by one of the mainstream religions in our area, Wisconsin.

Was sent on a rabbit trail.

She had a Christian coworker who knew the truth, and she knew there was something different. and she kept exploring it.

Finally, in our living room with her Bible open, she came to the realization that she needed to be saved, and right there, with no help, she called on the Lord and was saved.

It was six months later that the Lord orchestrated for my timing to be saved, which, in a way, I wasn’t looking for the Lord, but he was looking for me.

As my wife was growing, it would surface in my life that, Was I okay?

Is there enough good in my life to outweigh the bad?

That sort of thinking was going on.

Finally, it was in March of 1990 that I had been out drinking.

I had too much to drink, fell asleep, hit a utility pole, smashed up my brand-new blazer that I had factory ordered.

It was something I really cherished.

Ended up having a drunk driving charge.

Well, exactly a month later, I was brought to Falls Baptist Church.

I couldn’t go out drinking with the guys because I had an occupational license.

There was no more football games, no real events for me.

So my wife’s getting baptized, and I’d never seen someone get dunked in a tank.

So I thought, well, I guess I’ll go.

So I went to church.

I came to the church, Falls Baptist Church.

And the thing that struck me first was that everyone was singing, and they all had Bibles.

And I thought, wow, this is either right or really wrong.

I didn’t know what to think.

The music was exceptional.

I wasn’t used to any of this.

The pastor got up.

He wasn’t wearing any robes.

There was no traditional ceremonial-type things going on.

And he preached from the Bible, and he really preached.

I mean, he was giving us the terrain.

You go up to Jerusalem.

He was telling us the political climate, all these things.

I’ve never heard someone preach like that. after the service, my wife got baptized.

I was wearing a visitor tag.

At the time, you affixed it to your garment on the outside, and as I was walking out, it must have been like a neon light.

People were coming up to me asking me, Jim, if you were to die, are you sure you’d go to heaven?

And I wasn’t really sure about that.

That’s a deep theological question that I wasn’t ready for and I would blow him off as I got to the back there was a another gentleman waiting for me his name was John Suring and he asked me the same question and I tried to blow him off and I said listen I’m waiting for my wife she just got baptized and you know then we’re gonna go and he’s like well can I wait with you and I’m like sure go ahead so we talked about other things, weather, sports, things I could converse on.

About 10 minutes went by, and my wife comes up to the group where we’re at, and she gets maybe 10 feet away, and John says, Julie, is it okay if I show Jim some verses out of the Bible?

Well, you can only guess what her answer was, yeah, sure.

So I’m thinking, well, I’m roped into this.

I’m never getting out of here unless I see these verses, so let’s go see the verses.

We go to the back of the church, actually the stairs leading to the baptistry and he starts showing me what we know now as the romans road i’ve never seen before now i i grew up i went to parochial school i was an altar boy i knew i had religious classes but i’ve never seen the romans road i never had to explain and i started thinking wait a minute if what i’m understanding here is true that means that the people i love my mom my dad my grandma, my grandpa, aunts and uncles, all these people believe wrong.

And it’s as if they were stacked up like dominoes, all leading the wrong way when they fell.

And I realized, listen, it’s here in black and white.

I’ve got two choices, close this book up and go on the way I was going.

Or I have to respond to what I’m reading and seeing.

And I did the latter.

I prayed, I asked Jesus to come into my heart and save me.

As we were leaving the church, my wife’s arm and mine, we were walking to the car, and I can’t explain it, and we don’t really push feelings, but there was a sense that God was shining down on me.

I can’t understand it.

It was as if I had a right relationship finally.

The next couple of weeks, I was growing marijuana in the basement.

I had a three-foot bong.

I would smoke frequently.

I took all that stuff and I threw it away and as I’m carrying it out of the basement into the garage my wife’s like yeah I think Jim really got saved here and we had evangelistic meetings I hit the ground running right from the get-go and I just thank the Lord for the church and the way they can come alongside and nurture someone like me As the years went on, I’ve become involved in the Sunday school program, Sunday school teacher, a director.

I’ve been part of RU for five years.

Recently, the Lord has led me into the jail ministry, and I head up probably about 10, 12 men and women.

We go into Milwaukee County Jail, preach the gospel.

We see thousands of people saved.

We touch thousands of lives every year.

And I’m so grateful that God had reached out and got a hold of my heart one day that now I can give back and share the good news with others.