Jim Fichera’s Testimony

My name is Jim Fishera, my wife's over here, Maureen, we,

we've been attending here for about 3 months.

We sit in the back. So you probably haven't seen

this much, but pastor had asked me to share a little bit about

the, the Jesus movement back in the early 70s.

And I was fortunate enough to be a part of that and, and then

share my testimony how I became a Christian.

And in the, in the picture here, you see, you see this big tent

and you may have seen it on TV or watching the video.

It's, it's the first, it's the beginning of Calvary Chapel back

in Costa Mesa. And I was lucky enough to go

there very shortly after the tent.

But before I go any further, let me just have a word of prayer.

Father God, thank you so much for opportunities.

Thank you for your word that you've just shared with us today

that we do have a responsibility and that's to use those gifts as

as you've given us bless this time.

Now, Lord, open our hearts, open our ears and we'll give you all

the glory even though they're testimony what I did, but it's

all for you, God, it's all for you and we praise you for that

in Jesus name, Amen. So like I mentioned, my wife and

I started coming here. We we've been married 50 years

this year. We have 3, two children, we have

5 grandchildren. Our children are grown, we have

5 grandchildren and we're going to have a great grandchild in

the spring. So we're we're really excited

about that. And again, before I get into my

kiss and this is not going to be a preaching thing.

I'm not a preacher, I'm not a teacher.

I'm just an ordinary churchgoer that has had a lot of

experiences over the last 50 years.

Then my brother went to church a couple months ago and he said

those priest, he says, I don't know why I'm here.

And the priest said to him, if you don't know why you're here,

you probably shouldn't be here. And it kind of, it kind of was a

strange thought. So when you think about this,

why are you here? Why am I here?

Well, physically I'm here because friends invited us to

come here. And that's how church grows.

You invite people to come. You invite people to, to, to, to

know Christ or to know your church.

And that's what's neat. The Margie and, and Gary Blair

invited us. We've we've known for about 6

years and they just kept inviting us to come to church

with them. And we did a couple months ago.

And that's another whole story about the different churches

that I've gone to. But we are here to learn about

God, the Bible study today, learn about what what we're

supposed to do with the gifts that we have and we're expected

to grow and serve. And if I can just share

something real quick here in Ephesians, Paul says it was

given some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be

evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers.

And we know what what they're required to do, but they're

there to prepare God's people for the works of service so that

the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach the unity

and faith in the knowledge of the Son of God and become

mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of

Christ. So Paul's telling us that we got

to keep doing things until we become mature.

How long is that going to take? Well, in God's time, we don't

know because we don't know how long it's going to take.

We can't. Yeah.

The apostles thought they were going to see God soon, but soon

the goddess who knows? So, but we are expected to grow

and serve. My wife and I were high school

sweethearts. We we went to high school

together and when I graduated, I was a year older than her.

So when I graduated, I moved to California.

I went to visit my sister for a while and then and then I

actually moved there. Maureen stayed back to finish

high school and then nursing school.

But when I was out there, I met this guy, his name was George,

and he liked basketball. I like basketball.

He liked, he came from New Jersey, I came from

Pennsylvania. So we kind of hung around.

So we had many questions about different things.

Being Catholic, I had a lot of different questions about that.

And George questioned my Christianity, which was very

strange to me because I've never had anybody do that.

And I said, well, I'm a Catholic, so I'm a Christian.

And he proceeded to tell me the difference between a Catholic

and a Christian. And that was pretty neat because

I always thought if you were, if you believe God, that you were

going to go to heaven. That's it, need to believe God.

But there was much more to it, as I find out later on.

He invited me to a church. Now, this church wasn't a church

like this. It wasn't a building.

It was a park. It's called Church in the Park.

And they had a park in Covina, CA and the trees were all around

and that's where the church was. The people were the church and

they just happened to meet in the park.

They were a bunch of young people, I mean hippies.

We were we were all young high school and college age kids.

And the church was called agape. And you probably know what agape

means. It's God's love.

And how it all started was there was this crazy Gray haired

bearded guy that would preach after a a rocks band called

Agape would play in Hollywood, CA and they were playing before

a group called Love song. I don't know if you've ever

heard of love song but pretty popular group from Calvary

Chapel. And Agape was a iron rock.

I can't remember the Hard Rock band.

It was very it was very loud. The following where they, they

were hippie guys, hippie girls and, and Rahm would give a

message after that. And sooner or later they all

ended up at Calvary at Agape Church in California, in, in

Covina, CA at this park. And we're talking 200 and 5300

young kids at this park. And our pews weren't like

chairs. We brought sand chairs.

You remember the old sand chairs.

They would sit real close to the ground and everybody had their

little chalice and we broke bread and drank grape juice for

a communion. And it was just different than

anything else. But I wasn't a Christian.

I didn't. I just remember I just had met

this guy George, and he took me there and I was amazed.

And he said, hey, Jim, let's go down to this Christian band.

So we drove down to Costa Mesa and shortly after the tent, they

had the brand new building built and believe it or not, they were

already outgrown that building. The Jesus movement in Southern

California around that time was growing so fast I couldn't keep

up with it. And it was exciting.

It was, it was big. It was more than more than you

can imagine. It was is Martin and I went to a

we went to a a church just this past Christmas and our

sister-in-law said, you want to go to church?

We said sure. And so we go to church with them

and they were having 13 services for Christmas.

Sounds like a lot, right? The better part is the church

held 2000 people. So is there still a Christmas?

Is there still a movement going on?

Yeah, it's going on throughout the whole United States.

The Jesus movement is alive and well.

Now some of these churches are different.

We walked in there and I said to Maureen, I says, something's

wrong. I don't see anybody carrying the

Bible. So again, you have to discern

what's going on. I'm getting off track here.

Do it. I'm sorry about that.

But so anyway, we go into church in a park and Georgia invites me

to this Calvary Chapel, and I'm listening to this music and it's

wonderful. It's just a neat country

Christian music. And there's this guy after the

music's on. Chuck Smith was the pastor of

Calvary Chapel and he had this way of talking.

His, his voice was so calm and so nice and he had this smile on

his face. And after the music was on,

he'd, he'd do a little message and then he'd do an altar call

and, and I could just, I can hear his words now, you know,

all right, if you believe and you know, you want Jesus to be

in your heart and go on and on. And he said, just slip up your

hand. And then he'd say I see you,

then I see you and I see you and I see you.

And at the end of this day, I, I at the end of the service, a guy

would look at me and all these people would look at me like,

did he make a decision? Did he make a decision?

Then? No, I didn't I, I said the band

was good, the drummer was awesome.

But that's, that's, that was as far as it went.

So we went there quite a few times, probably 6 or 7 different

times and it was always the same.

I enjoyed music, it was fun. I got to see an afterglow.

They had a afterglow meeting after one of the services

checked it an agree and it was too much.

But while this all happened, I was working in a Body Shop and I

hurt my back and my boss said to me can you ride this late?

Can you ride this lady home? I said sure and I'm crawling out

from this car and I'm really in pain.

And she looked at me and she says can I pray for you?

Now that was really strange coming from a Catholic bracron.

No one ever prayed for you. She put her hands on me and she

prayed for me and I felt really strange.

I mean, just it was just it felt funny to me again, I haven't

accepted Christ yet. And so I drove her home and in

turn, she had this really nice car and she said I'll never

drive it over 25 mile an hour. And I thought, no, I'm going to

it was a 390 Ford Galaxy 504 speed and going on the going on

the freeway. I went through the gears.

I got on the Turnpike or on the freeway and suddenly blew the

motor up. So you learn, you learn lessons

when you're a kid. So after all this, you know, I

got to, I got to see some really neat songs.

If you, if you know any of the Marinatha groups back, back in

Calvary Chapel, love song was very popular and the other one

was called the way and they'd have one song.

And if you ever get a chance, look up the song called Can it

be? By the way, a friend of ours

from Agape actually wrote that song and his his group had

disbanded. But it's a really, really neat

song and it gives you an idea of the music back then.

So now we get into the good part here where where the Bible study

one day and I have a Bible, but I I read it, but I don't

understand a word. I have absolutely no idea what

it says. And we're Bible study one night

and Ron Turner at Agape and Ron Turner's doing a message on the

gospel of Mark. And when he gets to the asking

the apostles to come and follow him and he talked to Andrew and

he talks to James and John Simon and he says come, follow me.

And it was interesting to me that they would just stop what

they were doing, pick up and follow him.

And I guess God was working on me at that point.

When Ron did his altar call, his was a little different than

Chuck Smith. He, he made you stand up, not

just raise your hand, you know, he says, if you make this

decision and during his prayer, my words were ahead of his

words. That's the only way I can

explain it. And, and then he said, if you

made the decision to follow Jesus, I'd like you to stand up

and, and show the rest of the church and, and, you know,

confessed in front of everybody. And I couldn't stop myself from

standing. And that was a, that was a

neatest thing. And it, it changed my life

forever. And that was 1974.

So it's been quite a few years since then.

And then the fun starts. What are you going to do with

what God has given you to do? We all have gifts.

Unfortunately, you know, I haven't used all mine because

it's full potential. I know that.

And I, I, I, I asked for getting this a lot, but I've had some

great times different churches. We didn't we finally left agape.

Maureen and I actually got married in a in a small church

in California. Our parents, neither one of our

parents have ever seen a wedding outside of a Catholic Church.

And we decided we're going to give it all.

We're going to share our testimony going going church.

Well, one of us did, Maureen, I was a blubbering idiot.

I'm a very emotional person and I, I really couldn't say a whole

lot other than and, but it was, it was important to us to share

with them what it was to be a Christian and not just going to

a Catholic Church because that's what you always did on Sunday.

So we got married there. I got to get into the, a little

bit about the, the, the progression after accepting

Christ They had with in agape, they had what they call a new

Christian Bible study. And it was the, the book of

first John and it was taught by different groups.

Now there was again, I don't know, maybe 5 or 6 different

groups of five or six different people all going at the same

time, because that's how many people are coming to Christ

constantly and, and during this movement.

And so the FMS were doing this and the FMS were the future

ministers. And I think of that when I, when

I see some of these folks here that are really into moving on.

Now, the future ministers were part of the of the church that

they were either felt called to be a missionary or a minister or

a teacher or a leader. And funny, there was 12 of them.

And I guess Ron had figured it out that way.

But I got a call from Ron after doing my Bible study, after my

first John Bible study, I got a call from Ron to say, hey,

there's this guy that likes cars and he's kind of a loner.

His name's Tom Lockwood. You, you think you could, you

know, just talk to him and see what he's doing?

I thought, yeah, I could do that.

So talk to Tom. And we paint very good friends.

He was in our wedding along with George.

And George had taught me that you need to have a paw and a

Timothy in your life. You have to have someone you can

look up to and and talk to. That would be George for me was

my Paul and then I was going to be Paul, not knowing it, but I

was going to be the Paul at the pawn.

And and I think that's important where you have somebody that you

can turn to to ask questions to and then someone else can come

and ask questions to you. And that's how we grow.

The next important thing was the evangelism after after you did

the, the, the lessons in first John, we had evangelism cast

glasses. And the reason I am so excited

about that is smiling about that is I actually got to talk to a

girl that never knew who Jesus was.

Didn't you know? You think about that with the

way things are now, everybody has had to heard about Jesus.

Well, this girl knew that there was a Christmas, but they had no

idea what it was about. And I got to share with her and

I invited her to church. I never saw her again, but we

would go to different parks. We would play ping pong at

different places. I'm going to get a hold of head

of myself here. And then there was this one girl

at church that asked for prayer for her husband.

She had just had twins and her husband wasn't a Christian and

his name was Doug. I prayed every day and every day

and every day and every day until Doug had made a decision.

And Doug and I and Tom became very, very good friends.

We became ping pong friends. Like I said, we would go to

different community centers and play ping pong with different

kids and share. And it worked out pretty good

that way. And Doug was, was a great kid.

Again, we're talking and I'm having this flashback now.

Doug, you can picture the Beach Boy, long blonde hair, good

looking guy, built perfect. You know, it was, it was pretty

cool. Now I'm praying before I read my

Bible and things are coming very clear to me and I'm able to

understand it and I give glory to God for that because I don't

read much. This is this is about the only

thing I ever read is, is my Bible and I don't read it

enough. And I know that and I, you know,

I, I fully understand that. The next thing is you heard a

verification Bible study it for your kids or vacation Bible

school. We had what they called ACR.

It was all church retreat. Everybody from the whole church

went to A to a retreat and was our, our Covina church, this the

Salt Lake City church. And then there was another one

in Saugus, CA And we would all get together.

And I think we have a picture of that of the of the the might

have been the bottom one. I'm sorry, but it's a you get a

good kick out of the the good looking guys there and good

looking guys and girls there. But we would go to this place

called Forrest Home Christian Conference Center.

And I'm trying to be quick here, but Forrest home Christian

concert Center was was made by lady, her name was Henrietta

Mears. She was from amazingly Hollywood

Presbyterian Church, Ohio. No.

And she started this place. People like Billy Graham went

there. Bill Bright, if you, if, if you

I'm no, I'm dropping names, but you might not know who they are.

But Billy Graham, he kind of reached out to church people and

spread the word. Bill Brights reached out to

college people and like this guy that had just done this now.

And Bill Bright also wrote the four spiritual laws and he,

these were tracks that we used to pass out the people back in

the day. He also started the thing called

Athletes for action. Now, another quick story is in

our, in our church at Agape, we would also have an athletes in

action, but we went to prison and because we were all sports

guys, we decided we're going to play basketball with them and

that would go good. And we talked to him afterwards

about Christ. And then we play softball with

them. And we talked to him after about

Christ and. And then one day we decided

we're going to play football with them.

And that happened one time. We won and we weren't going to

play ever again. But it was it was an exciting

time to share with people that really.

And this was a what I want to try to say this, the prison was

top notch. Pardon me.

Yeah. Maximum, maximum security

prison. So we had to, you know, take

everything off. And it was quite exciting.

I got baptized at Forrest Home and I also learned to sing a

song called How Great Thou Art. They had a they had a room there

that every time you entered the room, you had to sing How Great

Thou Art. So obviously that's my favorite

song. But this is on the left is Ron

Turner. On the right is another one of

the pastors we had Ernie. And and that was me when I had

to hear a long, long time ago. The next thing that it was

important was we went to Bill Bright's retreat center.

And there after learning a little bit about the word and

the different things that Christians could do, I decided,

I'm going to pray and pray and pray and I'm going to move the

mountain. I thought, you know, that's what

you're supposed to be able to do.

You have to have enough faith to move the mountain.

And they also wanted to speak in tongues because that's what they

did at Calvary and neither happened.

I, I prayed a lot. I spent a long time there

reading. And a couple a couple months

ago, they were doing a thing here about the James where he

talked about and if the Lord wills you will do this and that.

I was studying that chapter. And that's when I decided that

Maureen was the girl I wanted to marry.

And it was very important time for me.

And I remember it vividly on that sitting on that grass on

that mountain. Well, time wise, how we done.

I'll keep going just for a quick couple things about our our

children. We, we moved back from

California to Pennsylvania here and we had to find a new church

and we ended up at a Calvary Baptist Church and it was a very

good time. A lot of good things happened

there. Our children were we, they were

born while we were there and grew up there, took them on

mission trips. Neat things happened there until

neat things didn't happen there. I had AI was a Deacon at that

time and we just started a, a boys brigade and we got a new

leader for the education committee.

And this lady decided that we weren't going to have any boys

brigade anymore because they didn't have anything for the

girls. So she quit the boys brigade.

And my infinite wisdom, I said, OK, well, if you're going to do

that, I'm just leaving. So we left that church for very

poor reasons. We went to another church that

our girls were going to at this time and in Mckeesport and it

was a good church. Nice church is good preaching.

We got to meet some good people there and comes Easter time

who's sitting in front of us, but the lady that quit the boys

brigade from the old church. And I was very upset.

And then before I said something I shouldn't, I said we're just

not going to go there anymore. Then the girls start playing

basketball and softball and baseball on Wednesday nights and

Sundays afternoons and we kind of didn't go anywhere for a

while. My buddy said, well, you going

to meet this guy? He's really good.

He's at a Methodist Church and I said a Methodist Church.

He says, yeah, you got to meet him.

So we met him. We ended up staying there for a

long time and got, got involved there.

I was singing in the band and in the praise group and leading

prayer and just having a good time and praying for the pastor

daily. And and then they moved them

just, you know, just the way things happen with the Methodist

Church. So we went with them.

And then the, the, the stuff happened with the Methodist

Church. Then he decided he needed to

leave there and we decided we need to leave there.

And now we have no church again. And it was.

So the reasons we left were my own reasons.

And I, and I apologize and I, I pray to God for forgiveness,

that too many times we just walk away from God.

But the neat thing is he never walks away from us.

He always says it's OK, just do what?

Just do what I ask you to do. And the only way we can do what

he asks us to do is to know what he wants us to do and then

follow through with what he wants us to do.

But more importantly, just give him the glory for everything we

do Do. So with that, I'm going to stop

and thank you for this opportunity.

Hopefully we'll be here for a long time.

We love this church. The I have two two things to say

real quick about church, please. We walked in and I said, how

does a church this size support 2 pastors?

And again I'm thinking, OK, there I am.

I'm finding excuses again. But when I saw somebody come up

and ask for prayer and, and pastor say, OK, I need to call

the deacons up to pray for them, that was it.

That's church, that's church. You don't have a guy that's

leading you. I mean, you have a guy that's

leading you, but you don't have a guy that's taking control of

the whole situation. And that's a neat to see.

That's really neat to see. So continue doing good and I

thank you for your time.