God Retired Me From Atheism

Bill Gates: God Retired Me From Atheism

Transcript has been lightly edited for readability.

"God Retired Me From Atheism"

Bill Gates: Probably the lead here would be that God retired me from atheism after twenty years and gave me a new career as a Christian. That's what I've been doing for the last twenty-eight.

My name is Bill Gates. My wife and I are here from Port Saint Lucie, Florida, and we're here to get more involved in Living Free ministries.

A Catholic Altar Boy Walks Away

I was raised in Boston, as you can tell from the gear. I was raised in a Catholic church with a mom who was Catholic and a dad who was Protestant. Back in those days, that was horribly, horribly radical. But in order to get married in the Catholic Church, everybody had to convert, and you had to promise to raise the kids that way. That's what Mom and Dad did.

At one point I was the head altar boy in my church. Then came family problems. Life problems. I just started to have a lack of understanding of what was going on, what God was doing. The first question became, well, it doesn't look like the guy they're teaching me about on Sunday mornings here. Then it became, I just don't see it anywhere.

I spent twenty years convinced there was no God.

The Breakdown That Opened the Door

And then, like a lot of people, God got my attention. I went through some personal problems. One of my deals was I didn't like to be alone. I was married, and then I got divorced. Not something I wanted, but it was thrust upon me. Like a lot of young guys, I made a mistake and got hooked up with another girl right away who broke my heart. I was in a very, very despondent place.

Some friends of mine kept asking me to go to church for weeks and weeks and weeks, and I kept telling them, "I don't know what the answer is, but that's not it. I don't know how I'm getting by this, but that certainly isn't it."

One Sunday night, because there were no ball games on TV and nothing was happening, I decided I was going to go to church with them. Just to not be alone.

The Sermon That Was Aimed at Him

That night, the youth pastor at the church got to preach. He was the one who got to fill in one Sunday night a month while the senior pastor practiced his preaching chops, the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's Eve. Young youth pastor by the name of Joe Keefe.

He preached a message about putting Christ into your life and Christ putting the right mate in your life.

I thought, what are the odds that I'm here tonight, and that's the message? I'm here in my exact struggle. I looked through the pamphlets, I looked through the folders, I looked through the program to see if my friends had set me up somehow. If they knew this kid was going to be speaking that night and that was going to be the message.

By the time I was done, I couldn't calculate out that there was any way that could have happened. There had to be something else going on. I quickly came to the conclusion that God was trying to get my attention.

So the next Sunday, I went back to church. And I was ready. Get done with the hugging. Get done with the singing and clapping. Get done with the preaching. Just get to the part where "is anybody want to accept Jesus," and get out of my way.

Meeting Sunseri and Finding Family

Justin Franich: Tell me about the path from getting saved twenty-eight years ago to now. You guys are involved in ministry now. What did that look like?

Bill: My wife and I actually met at church. We got saved about the same month in that church, and that's how we met to begin with. I didn't know a whole heck of a lot about things, but I figured the least I could do, because it's obvious you should serve. That was one of the first things I recognized.

I got involved with children's and youth ministry because I figured, they may know more about Jesus than I do, but they don't know any more about life than I do. So at least I've got something to offer them.

I spent the first four or five years of that church doing that. Then I was given an opportunity with no experience whatsoever to lead a children's ministry at another church when I moved. I spent sixteen years as the director of our children's ministry in that church.

Then I got involved in men's groups. I was one of the original members when we started the men's group in our church, and eventually I led that.

Why He Moved Toward Targeted Discipleship

We've just reached, I personally have reached, a season where I really see the need in communities for targeted discipleship. It's wonderful on a Sunday morning, but a pastor has to preach a message to everybody sitting there.

What I've seen over the years is people come to me over and over again with very specific issues, very specific needs, very specific places they're looking for God to do something in their life. I was hungry to be able to do something with that.

My wife, who has a long background in Living Free ministry, said, "Why don't you look at this and see where this might fit? See where you think God is bringing you here."

As soon as we got introduced and spent our time in our first online experience with Living Free, I just thought, this is it. This is where it's supposed to be.

My original target was men. Moving away from children's ministry and into being an older guy with wisdom to share. Wisdom God has given me. Men were my target. But I realized the need was greater than that. Living Free allowed us to do coed groups, women's groups, men's groups. Be able to touch all of it.

What Makes a Culture of Servanthood

Justin: You said when you gave your life to Christ, it was obvious that you should serve. I've pastored before. It's not so obvious to everybody. What was it that got you? Was it the culture of the church, or something specific in you?

Bill: Having been a Christian for twenty-nine years now and sitting in a lot of different churches, I think all the churches are doing a great job of expressing the need for people to follow Christ and serve.

A lot of it probably has to do with whether you recognize how much Jesus has helped you and the willingness to give back. In my case, twenty years of being an atheist. I could have died at any time in that process and spent an eternity in hell. When I realized how much Jesus had done for me, serving just seemed like the appropriate response.

For me, without great family backgrounds and things like that, the church very quickly became part of my family. I recognize Paul's teachings on how important they are and the roles that they fill. You should help your family.

For me, it was easy. But I can see where a lot of people, it isn't. They're too busy. They have too much going on. Maybe they haven't recognized the depth from which they've been saved.

Unresolved Discipleship and the Pew Problem

Justin: Do you think some of this has to do with unresolved discipleship issues? People sitting in the pew feeling unworthy, sitting on their hands?

Bill: Yeah, I think that's part of it. Going back to my case, I was asked to lead a ministry with seventy volunteers. I had no experience doing anything like that. The people that asked me to do it were sure. I said, "Are you sure God's talking? This is what God is telling you?" And they were absolutely sure of it.

So I had great people resourcing me and helping me, making me feel like it was possible to help out. I think there's a level of that, in which people aren't being discipled or don't make that step from "I don't know a whole heck of a lot" to "yes, you can do this, God is going to empower you."

Especially for new Christians, they don't understand the power God has in their life, and the doors of hell open, and the resources He'll give them.

The other part is, as Jeff talked about, we don't leave a lot of room in the margins for things. We're always so busy filling every spot and taking one more thing on, it seems like it would be impossible to take on more. When you can't get your kids up on time to come to church, how do you get up a half hour earlier to go in and lead a Sunday school class?

The Men's Breakfast Blessing Club

Justin: Tell us about your ministry now. What are you and your wife doing today?

Bill: We're just beginning the Living Free situation. I still currently facilitate a men's group. I also have an organization called the Men's Breakfast Blessing Club, where the guys get together once a month. Part of our deal is we want to bless someone financially in a big, unexpected way. So the guys dig into their pockets to help a server out on a Saturday. We do a devotion and just try to be an invisible showing of Christ in the restaurant that day. Get some bystanders' attention.

Why Community Ministry Belongs Outside the Walls

And then we're beginning this Living Free ministry. What we're trying to figure out is how to do this kind of grassroots, if that's the right word. We see the need in our community to do something outside of a formal church setting and actually be a resource for the local churches.

Part of what we're doing this week is learning more, getting more formalized training, and then figuring out how we're going to make that work in our community.

The long-term goal is a large Living Free ministry in our area. Training facilitators. Being able to be responsive to the needs of our community. Someone calls up and says, "I've got ten people suffering from depression in my church. You have someone who can lead a depression group starting next month?" Yeah, we can jump all over that.

Learn more about Living Free at livingfree.org. If you or someone you love needs help, visit svtc.info/get-help.