You're listening to a special archive presentation of TED Talks Audio.

This talk features entrepreneur and writer Casey Gerald, recorded live at TED-2016.

We're featuring this talk today as part of a special selection themed around journeys.

There we were.

Souls and bodies packed into a Texas church on the last night of our lives.

Packed into a room just like this,

but with creaky wooden pews draped in worn down red fabric,

with an organ to my left and a choir at my back

and a baptism pool built into the wall behind them.

A room like this, nonetheless, with the same great feelings of suspense,

the same deep hopes for salvation,

the same sweat in the palms,

and the same people in the back not paying attention.

This was December 31, 1999, the night of the second coming of Christ and the end of the world

as I knew it.

I turned 12 that year.

It reached the age of accountability.

And once I stopped complaining about how unfair it was

that Jesus would return as soon as I had to be accountable

for all that I had done,

I figured I had better get my house in order very quickly.

So I went to church as often as I could.

...