1968-1969 My Life Part 1

1968 was a pivotal year in my life. Oh I didn't know it at the time, as I was just beginning my senior year in high school. Sometimes it fun to play "what if" and look back at your life. What if I had not been assigned to be in Mrs. Hazel Hicks home room? What if I had been put somewhere else? Would things have turned out like they did? You see I ran into a person who would become my best friend, and still is to this day. That person would be Jim Bentley.

Sitting in Alphabetical order in homeroom, Bynum naturally comes behind Bentley. Maybe there was something prophetic in the way we were seated. After all, I have been following Jim lo these many years. He doesn't see it that way, but he truly did bring me along into this place of being a pastor I now occupy today.

If ever there were two people who were opposites, it was Jim and me. But if the old adage that opposites attract is true, then it played out in our lives. Our common bond when we first met was that we both played guitar and we both loved Simon and Garfunkle. In fact one of the first songs we shared was S & G's song OLD FRIENDS. "Old friends............Old Friends.........sat on the park bench like bookends".  Over time we kidded about the words to that song, and yet here today we find ourselves still in touch, still old friends.

I began to visit Jim on the weekends and we would talk music. Jim was going to First Baptist of Rainbow City and was involved with their youth choir. For whatever reason, he invited me to come and bring my guitar and join him for a practice. Tony Traylor, the director, was a man ahead of his time and he liked the idea of having two guitars (along with the standard piano) backing the choir. The rest is history. From that moment on, my world expanded. You see, before I met Jim, my entire world was in the community I had grown up in, Gallant. The only people I really knew lived in my community. My church family was there. I even attended school in Gallant for the first 5 years of my life. So the extent of my interaction with others took place at school and at home. Looking back I was sheltered there in that small community. But now, I was moving into a different circle and it was new and it was exciting to me.

During our senior year of 1968-1969, Jim and I were introduced to Campus Crusade For Christ.  They had established an office in Gadsden and were beginning to hold home meetings for the different high schools. This connection would have a great impact on my life also. Jim and I played for some of the home meetings and got to know the staff pretty well. This connection with Campus Crusade led us to a friendship with one Mr. Winston Kennedy, a young man from South Africa. It was on a rainy night in November that we met Winston for supper at what was then Carnes Restaurant in Attalla.  Too me it was the coolest of cool to meet with someone from another country. I didn't know any foreigners growing up in Gallant. Winston shared with us Scripture and his life story of how he wound up with Campus Crusade. The Scripture he shared stirred both of us. He told us things from the Bible we had never been taught. I remember like it was yesterday the feeling I had sitting there at that table listening to Winston. Part of me was scared to death, thinking that I was being led astray by this guy. Why had I never heard this before? I had grown up in church and yet, these things had never been told to me.Behind the fear of being deceived was a very quiet, yet calming voice that told me...."Listen...I'm am speaking truth to you." I remember the ride back to Jim's house as we talked. It was like God had opened an entire new page in our lives. He was preparing us to leave our home churches and begin a journey that would lead us to places and people we never dreamed of.

Over the next 4 to 5 years, Campus Crusade would become a place where Jim and I learned and grew in God. The staff of Crusade entrusted us with many things, the biggest being a coffee house which we ran during the summer months when staff went home on leave. Jim brought his artistic talents to the Coffee House and we aptly named it THE OTHER DOOR. Why? Because you didn't come in through the front door, you went around to the side to the (you guessed it) Other Door. It was the coolest place I had ever seen. Jim, along with Jim Morgan ( close friend of Jim's) painted everything in day-glo colors. Jim Morgan installed Black Lights so that the room just screamed "C-O-L-O-R!!!!" When it was lit. It became a hang out on Saturday nights and a place where you could bring your guitar and take the stage to play a song you had written or something you just really liked. You have to remember, at that time there wasn't such a thing as "Contemporary Christian Music". It was just music.  I became good friends with people like Tommy Dake, Jimmy Parker, Jenny Finlayson. Like I said, my world changed drastically in 1968-1969.
Little did I know that this was only the beginning.

I'll fill you in the rest at a later time....
God on you......

mb