Four Years with a madman for Jesus...
Before I even start, I would like to explain that this is a personal blog post for a reason... it's personal! =P
It's to organize my thoughts and to reflect on my past four years and to put my personal spin on what's been going on since my four years of being involved with one of the few extracurriculars I was personally affected by: Paramus Catholic Campus Ministry, and the man behind it all, Mr. Justin Fatica...
I worked with him directly for 4 years, including his up-start ministry, Hard as Nails. As I looked through the Hard as Nails website (http://www.hanm.org), I see the dates for his documentary are drawing near. I went to the Tribeca Film Festival website, and this is what I read:
* Hard as Nails, a documentary directed by David Holbrooke. (U.S.A) - World Premiere. This fascinating documentary follows unordained evangelical minister Justin Fatica on his quest to save America's soul. Fatica uses his Hard As Nails Ministry to promote the gospel to all Christian faiths and reach out to the MTV generation. His gruff style and unusual methods bring salvation to some, but seem horrifyingly troublesome to others.
Who can explain his gruff style and unusual methods better than someone who worked with him directly for four years? That's what I'm attempting to do now =)
If I tagged you, it's either someone who worked with me that I'd love for you to read this... or if I want to show you just a small glimpse into my life before Fordham...
I thank you all for reading some or all of the blog post, and thank you for your time =)!
Brent
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"Yeah, I'll give, give, give until there's nothing else
Give my all until it all runs out
Give, give and I'll have no regrets
I'll give until there's nothing left..." -- Relient K - Give Until There's Nothing Left
That's all I did for four years: give over and over and over again. I gave for 4 years from when I stepped into ministry until my last Wednesday Night Prayer (WNP) the summer before Fordham. I started from the FCA Overnight retreat April of 2002 where I not only rededicated my life to Jesus Christ, but also unknowingly recruited myself into Mr. Fatica's mission of making Paramus Catholic "the most Christian school in all of the United States."
I was recruited to be a "soldier" in a battle I never thought nor really wanted to be a part of at the time. Sure, I hung out with Fatica my freshman year, when I played Intramural Basketball. I was on T.J.'s team, and Fatica was both the creator and ref of all the games. Even though my basketball skills have been decreasing ever since I was cut from the freshman basketball team, I still enjoyed myself in the few minutes I played on the team. Unbeknown to me at the time, Fatica used that Intramural Basketball program to recruit another confused, lonely, and bewildered kid into his "army" of converts.
My home church, Crossroads Free Methodist Church
What Fatica indirectly promised were things I wanted so much. I have been actively participating in my home church, Crossroads Free Methodist Church, ever since I was 6 years old. I loved doing the things I did at the church: starting my old ministry at age 12, being the youngest active greeter at age 13, and being one of the smart and knowledgeable kids in all my Sunday School classes. However, Paramus Catholic isn't exactly a church. Fatica promised experiences that will strengthen my knowledge of Christ and the Bible and also connect me with a community of people who feel the same way I did. He promised to bring me back to Christ and give me people to handle my loneliness.
Of course, being a freshman who wanted people to love him by using my big mouth helped too. The retreat and the first few Wednesday Night Prayers I attended were events where people actually cared to say hey, where people cared to pray over me, and where people clapped over me and any small thing I said about myself or Christ. Being 14 years old, things like this was the closest thing I had to pure acclamation over everything I did or said. It was the closest thing I had to feeling "cool", even in spite of all the things my big mouth handcuffed me to that freshman year.
Fatica was also someone who I thought was a "rebel". From the beginning to the end, Fatica constantly talked about his "religious battles" with our current President of PC, Mr. Vail, and our principal, Mr. Agostino. He talked the halls of Paramus Catholic with a swagger I never saw displayed in another human being before. He sported strong arm muscles while doing his classic "hand-stand push-ups" almost every Wednesday Night Prayer. In order to relate to the kids at PC, he performed feats of strength with those hand-stand push-ups to get people's attention, while showing off his brand new LeBron James jersey. He talked strong, he walked strong, he acted strong, and to me, he was strong.
Through his appearance and sermons, he made me believe in his mission, and though I didn't know what the heck I was getting myself into, I never completely left the ministry. Even when I started to participate in other activities at PC that took more of my time and attention (the plays and the Ambassadors are two examples), I was never able to remove myself completely from PC ministry. Trust me, I wanted to quit and move on a couple of times. Talk to my best friends about the AIM conversations or the car rides home from WNP those four years, and half the time, I talked about quitting ministry, how much the people in PC ministry frustrated me, and how much I "hated" Fatica.
The reality is that I never really hated Fatica. Even as I check and keep/delete teachers comments on RateMyTeacher.com (I'm the administrator for PC =P), I delete comments when people state that Fatica is a "fake", "a terrible person", and that Hard as Nails ministry is a "scam". It is obviously to me that these people have little idea who Fatica really is.
Who is Mr. Justin Fatica to me?
* A man who has a big heart for people, though he is quite a flawed and failed man.
* A man who truly wants to follow Christ and to get others to follow Christ like him.
* A brash man whose methods of evangelism work for some and turn off many others.
* A bold man with a brazen sound.
* A man who can be very tactless and who broke me down and hurt me at times.
* A man who may seem like he has all the answers, but knows that he doesn't. A man who can be quite impulsive with things he say.
Most of all though... he is man who is genuinely mad for Jesus, even though he doesn't know how to express that at times.
I gave for him, his ministry, PC ministry, and for Christ and I have no regrets for all that I did. He was a big part of my life, though many people now may not know that. He's a good but misunderstood man, and many of those misunderstandings were of his doing. Those misunderstandings put a stamp on Paramus Catholic and on me for years to come. However, the same can be said for the great things he did with PC ministry as well.
Here is my personal account of my four years with a madman for Jesus Christ. Trust me, it won't be a pretty ride.
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The rest of the post will be separated into 4 sections:
* Wedding
* Young Apostles 4 and 5
* Hard as Nails/Cross and Crown retreats
* End of the line and where I'm at now
I will go a bit out of time order because Young Apostles happened from the summer after my freshman year of high school to the middle of Junior year. The wedding happened the summer after my Sophomore year. The retreats happened throughout my time there up to the beginning of Senior year with my last Cross and Crown retreat. The end of the line will take place after graduation.
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"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." -- 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7
There's nothing like a wedding in order to see how beautiful two people's hearts really are. I was able to experience that when I got on a bus with a couple of fellow PC students to see Mr. Fatica get married to his sweetheart.
Ah, wow! Us after the wedding
It was a strange moment to say the least. It was the summer after my Sophomore year, and it was the first summer since my "Summer of Hell" where, even though I went to a FCA Camp and Promise Keepers, I almost took my own life. However, I was finally growing into my own skin. A few months before, I won a personal victory, getting elected as the Treasurer for Student Counsel. I was getting my feet wet in PC Ministry as a Young Apostles. Things were on the up and up.
The ride up was pretty awesome, especially going through Scranton and getting up to Syracuse. Thinking about Syracuse has another meaning to it, but that's for another post =P.
Fast-forward from the ride up to the chapel ceremony. There were a good amount of people here. Though the ceremony was held in Mary's church, the priest that worked with Fatica all his life was on hand to marry them. I was sitting in the chapel, watching all this unfold. Mind you, I was 15 and I didn't really understand the aspect of eternal, everlasting love within the context of human love. I was looking around most of the time, and truthfully, I was bored at times.
I never knew that a Catholic wedding had some structures to the Catholic Mass. Growing from PC ministry, I started to love the Catholic Mass and the truth that is in the Eucharist. However, at that point, in a church I have never been in and that I will never be in again, I didn't care too much for the service.
What I do remember were the little things. I remember 1 Corinthians 13 being read. I remember Genesis 2:23-24 being read. I remember 1 Peter 3:7 being read. I remember the glint in Mary and Justin's eyes when I saw them hearing the verses, hearing the Homily, and staring lovingly into each other's eyes. Mind you, this is the first non-family wedding I have been to, but it was one of the first times where I could see love.
On that day, and from that time on, I saw love and it was Justin and Mary. As much as they may be different, there is no shadow of doubt in my mind that Fatica loved Mary and Mary loved him back. Outside of all the drama the ministry was causing, outside of all the people Fatica tried to get on the retreats, outside of the people who thought he was "fake", and outside of PC ministry all together, I saw Fatica in his most genuine moment: the moment where love came into his heart and never left.
Justin and his lovely wife, Mary, as they walk out of the church
If there was ever a moment that gave Fatica even more motivation, it was his wedding for he was able to see what love can do and what love can complete. He was now married to the love of his life, and from that moment on, one of his best examples of what love is and what love can do will be embedded in the heart and soul of his wonderful wife.
"Now I know you may have made mistakes
But there's forgiveness and a second chance
So wait for me darling, wait for me... -- Rebecca St. James - Wait For Me
They waited, and now, two finally became one. God saw them, and said that it was good. =)
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To be frank, my experience with Young Apostles was a scarring one. Yes, I loved the thought of being able to help put together the Wednesday Night Prayers that I loved to go to. Yes, I loved the thought of being able to connect with other people that had the same goal in mind. And yes, I loved the thought of being the "elite" people out of PC Ministry.
The way that Fatica did Young Apostles felt a bit like boot camp. You have to be at the meetings on time, or else. Young Apostles has to be your #1 priority or else. You have to do what he says or else. The "else" was usually either him "gently" reminding you of your responsibilities or threats of kicking you out of YA. Needless to say, it wasn't the love-fest-for-God I thought it would be. It was more about discipline than anything else.
Young Apostles 4
When I got into the Young Apostles as YA4, I thought it was going to be extremely awesome. The people were cool, the retreat brought us closer, and things could have not gotten off to a better start. However, things did get worse, and quickly too. School started up again. People started to miss meetings. We weren't able to hang out as much as we wanted to. And, for the first time, WNP was becoming a burden. Every Wednesday, I would wait around, hang out with Mark or other people who would hang around, and cringe when 4 pm came around for our YA meeting.
There's no doubt I learned a lot in my first session as a YA. Fatica conducts the meetings like a mini-WNP, just for us. I felt kinda special with that. However, in the meetings, I saw parts of Fatica's ugliness that I never hope I would ever see. There is no other moment that explains that as I would like to call it, the "Infamous Rosary Incident".
I'm Free Methodist, admittedly. It's an evangelistic Protestant denomination. However, I have thought many times to convert. In fact, one of the conversations I will always keep in my heart is a conversation I had with Fatica about the Eucharist and how he "can't believe" a faithful kid like me can't receive the Eucharist because of my denomination, but a Catholic who doesn't understand Catholicism nor the power of the Eucharist can. He understood that I'm a Christian, but a couple of times, he just couldn't understand that I was not Catholic.
People ask me all the time "why don't you convert?", "you respect Catholicism so much, why not become Catholic?", and "you're so much like a Catholic, why aren't you?" Admittedly, I confuse people by going to the Catholic Underground here and doing Catholic retreats while in high school. I love the Catholic Mass and I love many of the Catholics I meet. There are a small number of Catholics and former Catholics who have changed my life forever. From Sar to Mark to Kel to Col to so many others, Catholics (whether practicing or very non-practicing) have impacted me so much.
The reason why I haven't converted though is because I still have questions and doubts about the Church. I rather go to the Source to talk about my sins and ask for forgiveness. I try but I can't truly understand the intersession of the saints. And the Rosary, oh boy. When you talk about the Rosary with me (as Daria did last night), there is one story I don't usually explain why I just can't pray the Rosary.
It was about the 3rd month out of the 6 month commitment. Fatica had us all around. We had our full team at this point, though I don't remember Valdo in this story at all. He had us all get a carpet and kneel up-right. Now, if you have ever seen me at a Catholic Mass, I never kneel the full way. I usually sit on my legs while kneeling because my knees start to hurt really bad when I'm up-right kneeling on them. When he asked us to do this, all of me inside recoiled at the thought, but I did it anyway. Fatica told us that, as a metaphor, real hard-core Christians have rug burns on their knees or something like that. Just hearing that made me even more concerned about what's going to happen next.
We started to do the rosary on our knees up-right. He wanted us to do the entire rosary in this position. A rosary is five decades, and trust me, it felt like I was on my knees for five true decades! Usually, a full rosary can be done in about 15 minutes. However, Fatica put a twist on it, having us reflect after every decade and (I believe) having one of us say a prayer outloud after every decade, which dragged the thing out even longer.
By the first decade, I was ok, not in pain yet. By the second decade, my body weight started to suppress my body down harder and harder on the carpet below my knees. By the third decade, my face was starting to show signs of the excruciating pain and anguish my entire body was feeling. I tried my hardest not to show it, but whoever saw me, at that moment, knew I wanted to sit down.
Donnie, one of the guys on the team and a Junior, saw me in pain, and he didn't want me to keep going on. He interrupted Fatica's rosary to ask if I can sit down. I looked at Fatica with a pathetic glance with pure anguish in my eyes. He never looked back, and said to Donnie that we're going to continue, ignoring my non-verbal exclamations of mercy and pity. Donnie and Fatica went back and forth on the subject. While Donnie got more angry, Fatica got more stern. Finally, Donnie said that he had enough of this, stood up, and walked out of the room. It was the last time I ever saw him in our meeting room.
After his departure, Fatica yelled back about him running away from his responsibility as a Young Apostle. He looked back at me and said that if I wanted to sit down, I could. I smiled, stretched my legs out, and put my legs in an Indian fashion. As my legs were getting back the feeling of blood pumping through them at a normal rate, I continued the rosary with the other guys, feeling extreme gratitude to Donnie for stepping up for me.
After the meeting, I was able to find Donnie to thank him for standing up for me. It was one of the major ways where one of Fatica's disciples actually practiced what Jesus preached and Fatica didn't. What would Jesus have done? I believe He would have told me to relax and sit down. Christ knew that it was extremely hard for me to focus on the Rosary and on Him while I was in extreme pain. Donnie did what Jesus did that day, but the Young Apostles and my experiences with it will never be the same.
Fatica carved the most painful experience of my time as a Young Apostle and associated it with the practice of praying the Rosary. I understand the meaning behind the Rosary and how Catholics don't really pray to Mary when they do it. But my experiences with the Rosary from that point on were non-fruitful and fake. It didn't feel genuine. However, it brought about one of the most vivid examples of Jesus Christ to me. Though I can't pray the Rosary without remembering that incident or feeling empty and hallow, I connect the Rosary to that incident. I still remember the pain.
Young Apostles 5
I stuck with Young Apostles for one more session as Young Apostles 5. Why? I don't have a clear answer for that one. I know that I thought God wanted me to stay with it. I also thought that my dedication to PC Ministry was directly connected with my participation in the WNPs and Young Apostles. Whatever was my reason to stay, I stayed.
The feeling from the beginning of Young Apostles 4 never came with the new team. I had one of my best friends in the group, and yet, it didn't feel the same. We never had an overnight retreat with our group. It felt more disorganized than the last team. Most of all, Young Apostles and WNP completely became a burden and just a "thing to do" that got me out of play practice for "You Can't Take It With You" earlier.
Using the reasons of the plays I wanted to do and my other activities, I finished my session with Young Apostles 5 and I never looked back. There were moments of joy. I still have pictures of some of our YA hangouts. Those pictures made me smile, especially the hangouts at Nate's house. However, the year I was a Young Apostle was a hard year. My Wednesdays from 4 to 10 pm would never be the same. I started to question more about Fatica's intentions at PC. Nothing made me question him more than the sidebars of PC Ministry: Hard as Nails Ministry and the Cross and Crown retreats.
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"It was a beautiful let down when You found me here
Yeah for once in a rare blue moon I see everything clear
I'll be a beautiful let down, that's what I'll forever be
And though it may cost my soul, I'll sing for free..." -- Switchfoot - The Beautiful Letdown
"The Beautiful Letdown" was the song I used as my theme song for my last talk ever during my Senior year on the Cross and Crown retreat. I would have to put the Cross and Crown retreats down as one of the best experiences I had at PC. The sign posters in my room signify the importance of those retreats to me. I went on three retreats and lead three at PC. I went to the FCA Overnight retreat, Cross and Crown retreat and the Journey retreat, while leading the last ever FCA Overnight and two Cross and Crown retreats. At those retreats, I met and got to know some of my closest friends at PC like Perriwinkle and Priscilla =P.
With the Cross and Crown retreats, I found I had a great ability of making rosaries out of anything that was stringy from actual string to rope to twine. Sure, I couldn't pray the Rosary, but I could make some mean rosaries in my day. I made about a good 20 to 25 rosaries per week. I made some just for fun. Yes, I was crazy, but let's move on from that. =P
When it comes to retreats, those were Fatica at his highest moments of excitement. He never let the kid in him die. During worship on retreats, he was just that much more hyper. He jumped higher, screamed louder, and preached more stern. He was in the zone when it came to the retreats.
With retreat meetings, he was not as crazy as he was in the meetings with the Young Apostles. He expected much more from the Young Apostles when it came to prayer, attendance of meetings, and things they needed to do for him or for WNP. With the Cross and Crown retreat, even though he was the head speaker and he was the head of the retreat, I don't remember his appearance that much in the meetings.
We had two separate teams for those retreats: the Cross and the Crown teams. The Crown team was out there with the kids and doing the talks, while the Cross team fasted, prayed, and worked behind the scenes for the retreat. Though he usually leaded up the Crown team, I remember my experiences in the Cross team much more. With his wife Mary as the head of the Cross teams (when I was there) and Mark's dad, Ray Sunshine (as we called him), assisted, I learned the importance of fasting. With her, I actually grew in my faith, even if it was just that little more. I felt challenged while working on the Cross team, but unlike my Young Apostles experience, the challenge wasn't a burden. It was a struggle, but I grew in my understanding of Jesus Christ.
My main frustration with Fatica and Wednesday Night Prayer in the last 2 years was that the message seemed to be the same things I heard over and over again. The messages dealt with, as Fatica used to describe some girls, "fluff" subjects that didn't challenge me. At this point, I was learning more at my church, while committing to praying and reading the Bible every day (which I still do now). The messages dealt with new or baby Christians. However, I didn't want the baby food anymore. I wanted the meat, the steak, and the juicy center of a well-cooked hamburger in my message. God gave me that through an unlikely source: his wife, and the work she and Ray Sunshine and all the other adults put into everything. Ray's dedication and Mary's devotion to the retreat and to the Cross team gave me that meat. And believe me, I was fed... very well. =)
When it comes to Fatica's messages on any retreat or WNP at Paramus Catholic, he always sprinkled his ministry, Hard as Nails (HaN), into his message or the program of the night. My participation with HaN started when I was in YA4. We were required to do a HaN retreat with him. The first retreat I did was the only one I truly remember: the lock-in overnight retreat at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Washington Township.
A picture of some of the kids from the 2nd Lock-in Retreat I went to
The importance of that retreat can be found in two instances. I'll briefly touch the second instance in the end of this section. The first instance was that it was the first retreat I did outside the halls of Paramus Catholic. I had so much fun on the retreat. I remember faintly that I actually talked in front of a good 100 kids, which was something I never did before. That gave me the strength to do what I do now at Church: do the announcements in front of 130+ people every other Sunday as well as co-lead a Sunday School class.
Fatica lead the retreat, and I remember it as a great night-into-day event. It was during December of my Sophomore year in a weekend before the craziness of the rest of that year. To be brief, I got in-school suspended the week after that event. The next month, I was literally locked up in the Vice Principal's office for 7 periods, crying my eyes out because I was being blamed for something I didn't do.
Ironically though, I cried about a couple of things. I worried about my scholarship to PC. I worried about how my family would react. Most of all, though, I worried about how Fatica would react. The strange thing is that Fatica eased up his pressure on me as a Young Apostle after the incident. Whether the Vice Principal had something to do with that, I have no idea. All I knew was I was growing as a child of God and as a man outside the watchful eyes and stunning sermons of Fatica.
As the HaN ministry continued to grow, more PC people were participating in the retreats. As they grew with Fatica, I grew away from the HaN ministry. As the HaN ministry grew, I saw the impact of the ministry throughout WNP at PC. He sold some of his HaN shirts before some WNPs, and heck, I saw a couple of the kids wearing those shirts religiously. At times, it was hard to separate the two ministries, and Fatica didn't make that job easier by mentioning past HaN retreats in his message and in the program. The more publicity Hard as Nails got, the more churches hired the ministry for a retreat or two. The more people knew about the ministry, the easier it was for him to get gigs all over the East Coast (which is the situation now).
To this day, I have no idea if Fatica used PC ministry as a way to springboard into his own ministry. I saw him put quite a lot of time into PC Ministry as well as HaN ministry. What I can say is that the two ministries were blended and molded together at times during my four years in ministry. If PC was used for HaN, you can make a lot of points for both sides. Whether PC was for him to prep himself for future HaN ministry work or get the ball rolling and the word out about HaN, Hard as Nails is as big as I have ever seen it before. There is no doubt in my mind that if there wasn't PC Ministry, Hard as Nails would not be as strong as it is today, period.
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A week or so ago, I was sitting in my room. This was during my Spring Break, so I can stay up longer than usual. It was around 3:30ish in the morning, and I was curious about how Fatica was doing and the like. I went to his website (http://www.hanm.org) and I went to the Message section. In it, I decided to start a tradition: I would listen to one of the 7 clips on the site every night before I went to sleep. The truth is I haven't seen the man in two years and I wanted to see how he was going with his message.
I go into the message titled "Beautiful Dating", and I started listening to it. Fatica started to do his funny intros, getting the crowd excited as only he can. Though I didn't see the people who he preached to, from the sound of them, it seemed that the kids were pretty young. Let's go with the ages of 14 to 17. By the one minute mark of the file I was listening to, he asked all the gentlemen to stand up.
He got all the guys up. He wanted them to repeat what he said, so he goes "I'm attracted... to WOMEN!" The guys respond back, and Fatica goes "So who's attracted to women in here?" Some of the girls in the crowd laugh. In a joking matter, Fatica states, "Please seek a counselor if you're not, please..." Some of the kids kept laughing. Fatica keeps going, saying "Rob, if you're here, please send them somewhere if they're not".
Apparently, Fatica knew that he just put his foot in his mouth because he stuttered next, "I hope that... well, yes, we are all attracted in different ways, but hopefully you're attracted to... GIVE IT UP FOR WOMEN NOW!" The crowd applauds, Fatica gets out of a sticky situation, and the rest of the message goes off without a hitch.
I had to stop the message. My jaw dropped and didn't get back up for a good 5 minutes. The man just said something that reeks of homophobia. Knowing Fatica, I do think that he isn't homophobic. If he was able to deal with me, especially with the plenty "are you gay?" comments and questions fired about me at my best friends, I believe he wasn't homophobic. However, it is truly irresponsible to speak slander against homosexuals, especially if the man claims to preach about love and focusing on the all-encompassing attributes of that virtue.
The thing is, within my time with Fatica, he says little things like this that makes you question whether or not he is genuine and sincere. I talked about this with my friend Samika, and her question was simply this, "why does he say things like that?" My answer: "I have no idea." And I really have no idea why he has small lapses like that. He's not perfect, but to think that a seemingly homophobic comment can seep into his message to a crowd of hundreds of kids hungry for the Message, it scares me.
In reality, I can't take those small sayings and use it to accurately assess him as a man and the preacher of the Word. I slip up. Others slip up. Priests and pastors do all the time, though usually not in front of a huge crowd. What I can take from this is that Fatica, like all of us, have a lot of room to grow as followers and children of God. Maybe, in the future, his message won't be tainted with lines and words like that. By the mercy of Christ, I pray and hope that no one will be lead astray through small sayings like this.
However, I know people who have strayed away from ministry or even from God because of Fatica and his poor example of Christ at times. I'm sure I have done the same as well as many of you who are reading this. If I have to describe who he is, I look at him not just for the mistakes he has made, but also the fruit his ministry and his message has bore. He's not a perfect man, and yes, he has hurt me at times, but he is like every one of us: a sinner. His failures are just bigger and easier for us to see and judge.
To finish up the last section, I will explain briefly about the second instance of the retreat's importance, because my next post will probably deal with this. I came back to it. I still remember the dates: January 30th-31st, 2005. After a crazy day of Quiz Bowl, I went to the retreat with a few friends: Kathleen, Megan, Diana and Cassie (as I remember it). To fast-forward this entire story, I went someone extremely special there, and she's the reason why my relationship status is set as "It's Complicated" because... it is. =P
Now, more than two years later, I'm still talking with that someone special, Colleen, and as we plan on a weekend for me to come up and visit, I reflect back on why I was there on that retreat. The one answer I think of drives me crazy to even fathom.
*Fatica indirectly was the reason why I was on that retreat.*
January 30th-31st, 2005 are two dates that I will remember for quite a long time. Heck, when you meet someone who means so much to you and has changed your life in ways you can't explain, you remember those dates. =P
It's hard to give you the full extent of what Fatica's example has done in my life. Outside of his watchful eye, I'm growing more every day as a child of God, more than I did when I was in PC Ministry. I pray more than I ever have before, and I consistently read the Bible every day with my devotional. I co-lead a class, and I'm viewed as a leader at my Church. And I want more. I want to grow more. I want to do more. I want to be more like Christ.
I think breaking out of PC Ministry helped me more than I know at this point. I have a pseudo-relationship with someone who helps me grow deeper in love with Christ. I actually have to work on my relationship with Christ. I'm seeing the damage of sins more in my life and in others.
Just like Fatica indirectly helped me, I indirectly thank him for being and not being the example of Christ. Because of him, I'm able to make my own decisions about Christ and my relationship with Christ. Whether I may agree or disagree with him at times, though all the crap I went with and through him, I am now who I am today: an active and passionate follower of Christ.
I'm content and happy with where I'm at, in spite and thanks to Fatica.
The Hard as Nails website tells people to come to see the documentary to "see how HBO and film crew depict Hard as Nails". I will be at the premiere to see if HBO was accurate. If they are, the documentary will show not only the moments where Fatica helps plant another seed for Christ, but also the moments where Fatica throws away another seed. It will show the pros and cons of Fatica and the ministry. If the documentary is able to do that, I will go back to the dorms happy about seeing a good and accurate documentary.
Fatica brought me towards and away from Christ, but through all of that, I can only say one thing... thank you. =)
Brent