In this bonus episode of the Daily Article podcast, you're going to hear an episode of the Baptist Standard's new podcast On the Way.

In this episode, titled Our Father's Answers to My Father's Questions, the Baptist Standards executive director Eric Black interviews Dr. Jim Denison about his coming to faith, his work as a pastor, and his writing and leadership of the

Denison Forum.

Welcome to On the Way, a podcast about life, but not just any life, it's about life with Jesus.

Why do people follow Jesus and how do they get started? And what difference does following Jesus make in their lives? Before Christians

had a name, they were known as people of the way, people who follow Jesus' teachings. People have

been on the way for nearly 2,000 years now. During the podcast,

we explore the ways that people become followers of Jesus, and why, and what difference

following Jesus makes in their lives. On the Way is produced by the Baptist Standard, a donor-supported

provider of news, opinion, and resources for living like Jesus.

I'm Eric Black, editor of the Baptist Standard. I'm glad you're with us today.

We're very glad to have with us today, Jim Denison, with Denison Forum. Some of you may know him

from his daily article that comes out

Monday through Friday. And so, Jim, we're glad to have you with us. Thank you for joining us.

I'm very glad to be here today. Appreciate the opportunity. Thanks for the privilege.

You bet. Well, Jim, as we've talked about, the On the Way podcast focuses on two questions,

how you became a follower of Christ and what difference

following Christ makes in your life. So just starting off with the first question, how did you

become a follower of Christ? Well, thank you for that. I became a Christian at the age of 15 out of a

bus ministry in Houston, Texas. But there's kind of a backstory to that. I need to tell you just a bit.

In many ways, my father's story is my story. So dad grew up in a small town in Kansas, planned to go into a medical profession of some kind. When World War II started, he enlisted in the army. He was placed on an island in the South Pacific with 300 men. Only 17 survived. My father never went to church again after that experience. And so I grew up in a loving home, a wonderful home, and no spiritual life in all my dad's questions. If there's a God while there's war, science and faith, evil and suffering, dad had his first heart attack when I was two and died when I was in college. And so I grew up in this wonderful home, but absolutely almost an antipathy to religion, specifically to Christianity, no interest in the faith at all.

15 years old, a Baptist church in southwest Houston started a bus ministry.

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