Roger Servin

Hey, I’m Roger.  I’m an author and the administrator of this blog, and I just thought I’d take some time and give you, the readers a little background of where I’ve come from.

First of all, I grew up a part of the Roman Catholic Church.  I was baptized in the RCC when I was about ten years of age. (I didn’t know what I was doing btw, just doing what I was told to do…)  Throughout my elementary years, I attended catechism where I earned the right to confess to a priest, partake of communion, and be confirmed.  I always “believed” in Jesus, but during those years I think I learned more about His mother than Him.  I went to church on most Sundays with my family; of whom my father is a Catholic, and my mother claimed to be protestant but her “walk” with Jesus wasn’t really evident.  (She is Christian now, praise Jesus!)  I really hated going to church when I was younger.  That’s something I wish I could change about my earlier years of life, but it was in my nature to hate church and to hate God.  I wanted nothing to do with the church or God, I was just going through the motions.  All I wanted was to do what I wanted to do… to basically fulfill the lusts of the flesh.  According to human standards, I was never really a bad kid, I guess you could say I was a pretty good kid.  I never got into fights, got decent grades in school, was somewhat obedient to my parents…  I truly believe that God’s grace was definitely restraining me from being worse.  

My high school years were not a whole lot different.  I went to school and did what I was supposed to do. (for the most part of course!   )  I was heavily into sports…  I was a part of the cross-country team, the track team, soccer, and wrestling.  Oh yeah, I was also part of the high school marching/concert band all four years.  So I had plenty of extra-curricular activities under my belt.  I’m very thankful, because these activities kept me busy all the time and off the streets.  God’s grace…

One night, during my senior year of high school me and some of my friends were hanging out in the parking lot at the apartment complex where we lived and we got into a pretty lively conversation about God and evolution.  Little did we know that the church next door to where we were was having a family night where everyone came out for a potluck and fellowship.  I guess one of the guys overheard our conversation and he hopped the fence and came right over to join in our conversation.  So he basically answered our questions and shared the Gospel with us that night.  I remember pondering the things that he had said, and I know now that God was doing a work in my heart.  He proceeded to invite us all out for Sunday school at his church.  That Sunday four of us actually got out of bed and went to the small church.  It was the first time I had ever been to a protestant church.  (Assemblies of God)  Turns out he was the Sunday school teacher at the church.  He taught us a lesson and afterward pulled us all aside and shared the Gospel with us again.  I specifically remember the scales being removed from my eyes and deaf ears being healed as I heard it this time!  My heart was changed, I totally understood what God had done for me in sending His only Son Jesus to die on the cross for me where I didn’t understand it at all before.  I immediately wanted to pray and repent of my sins, I wanted to live for Him now… (I could care less about Him before)  and I wanted to immediately go and share this glorious Gospel to my parents and the rest of my friends. This was about January of 1995.  I started attending that church, and I was there for about 8 months before I joined the Marine Corps.  

I joined the Marine Corps in November of 1995 and was in for four years.  I worked as an electronics technician on CH-46E model helicopters.  I went into the military with joy in my heart but sadly I had a period of about 3 years where my relationship with Christ suffered.  I didn’t attend church, and as you can imagine I fell prey to the party scene.  There were many times in those 3 years when God would be convicting me of my sins, tugging on me to come back to my first love.  There were many sleepless nights when I was in the military; God was tugging on my heart to come back to Him.  There were many brief stints where I would forsake that lifestyle and begin reading the word again.  But they were short-lived as I would keep going back.  

Thankfully, my time ended in the military in October of 1999 and I came home.  I met a girl online soon after I came home who was a Christian and many times she tried to get me to go back to church.  I was talking to one of my friends one day about God and he told me that he attended a Calvary Chapel. (this was news to me.  He certainly didn’t act like a Christian, but then again I wasn’t either.)  So he brought me to church one Sunday and I really enjoyed it.  It was much different from the Assemblies of God church I had attended years earlier!  The pastor @ the Calvary Chapel actually taught from the Bible!  There were no “healings” that day!  I went to church with him the following week and the pastor gave a Gospel presentation and it really convicted me.  God got a hold of me that day and broke me…  I surrendered to Him and have been changed ever since.  That was February of 2000.  I immediately joined the College & Career group @ the church and began to serve in ministry.  Months later, God gave me a strong desire to pick up the guitar and learn to play it.  I began playing and singing worship songs about 3 months later, and a couple of months after that I started leading worship for a home bible study that my best bud Eric Lopez was leading.  Ever since then I’ve been leading worship for various home fellowships and ministries. Currently, I lead worship for High School ministry at my church, a ministry that I’ve been leading for about 2 years now.  

In December of 2000, I met my lovely wife Alice, and we got married in February of 2003.  She is such a blessing to me, I don’t know what I’d do without her!  She currently serves with me as a singer on the worship team.  By God grace we had a son in July of 2005, his name is Micah.  He is such a awesome blessing in our lives, we love him so much.  

God has in the last year has really put a burden on my heart to know Him more, and so I have placed much more emphasis on my study of the Word of God in the last year or so.  I’ve always been a student of the Word, just not to the degree that I am now.  It all came about when I was listening to a broadcast of “Way of the Master Radio” about a year and a half ago.  Todd Friel was talking about Reformed Theology on the program and it sparked some interest in me.  After all, I had never really heard of it before.  (I attend Calvary Chapel remember?)  So I did some research on it and realized that I had heard of it before, only termed as Calvinism.  I studied and studied, every chance I could get because it was making a lot of sense to me and I never heard this preached from the pulpit before.  I noticed that my church had sort of skipped over the texts that emphasized God’s sovereignty…  (Or if they did go over it, they skimmed over it so fast that I didn’t even know it.)

Anyway, my theology has changed concerning soteriology.  I don’t like to call myself Calvinist because I do not agree with everything John Calvin taught.  I do align myself with the Doctrines of Grace.  I guess you could call me Reformed, Charismatic, Complementarian, Continuationist.  As of now, I guess I would still call myself a pre-tribulationist concerning eschatology.  But I will be taking another look at that theology also.  I’m at the point where I just want to be as biblical as I possibly can, I want to dump the pre-suppositions that I have been spoon fed all these years and be a whole lot more discerning.  I will let you know how my theological studies come out concerning eschatology.  

Looking forward to the interactions I will have with you, the readers of this blog!  If you have any productive insight or comments, don’t hesitate to comment here!  

 

Lord bless you all,

Roger