Tree of Life

As a pastor with the IPHC, your membership always stays with the church you were a member of when you became credentialed. That church is your “home church”. For me, my home church is Tree of Life Ministries. I fell in love with the pastor, the people and the Tree within days of my first visit and I became a member in 1997.

For more information about Tree of Life Ministries check out their website  www.tolm.net

Before you read too much of my blog, check out the page “Obligatory Disclaimer”.

Wanna know how I ended up at Tree of Life? Here is an excerpt from a blog post I wrote describing my feelings about TOL. Enjoy!

Somebody first told me about Tree of Life Ministries back in 1994, but I had no idea what the girl was talking about when she said the name.  It didn’t sound like a church.  It sounded more like…a group of ministries.  Since I was looking for a church, not a group of ministries, I never thought about Tree of Life Ministries again.  Then in 1996, someone invited me to church and I knew from day one that Tree of Life was special.

Special in great ways and special in…special ways.  First of all, the worship time was very different from anything I was used to.  Most people raised their hands (at LU, students raised hands but it was usually only one hand) and jumped (nobody jumped at Liberty back then, at least not for worship).  The pastor’s wife led us in songs while a bluegrass meets country meets sixties festival band played behind her.  The piano player led the band and I thought he was most definitely strung out on something because he bobbed his head and threw his feet around at a wild pace.  His name was Scott and he later told me that he was strung out–strung out on Jesus!  The songs they sang were called choruses and we repeated many of them in order to help us “enter into worship”.  I had never heard that phrase before but I liked it. And I liked the people around me.  They seemed so real and authentic.  “Authentic” wasn’t a trade term back then.  Back then it was just people being themselves. And boy were they.  Nobody seemed to hide their past at Tree of Life and I liked that.  When people talked about what God had done in their lives they laughed and cried and seemed…excited.  Excitement isn’t a big enough word to describe what happened when the pastor started preaching.  The people called him Pastor Mike and Pastor Mike was on fire!  He preached at 200 miles per hour and every word he said soared right into places in my heart and soul that I hadn’t opened up in years.  He preached right to me it felt like and after the sermon everyone said the same thing. “I feel like he reads my mail.”  “He said exactly what I needed to hear.”  “That message was just for me.”  People spoke about the sermon in a flurry of excitement.

Excitement always seemed to be in the air at Tree of Life Ministries and like I said, from day one I knew it was special.  From day one its not a stretch to say that I fell in love with the place.  My friends Jason and Patrick loved the church as well and they jumped right into life at Tree of Life with me.  Before long we were serving in the youth ministry and the excitement was growing and flowing everywhere around us.  Several families just welcomed me right in and loved me like one of their own.   At Tree of Life I thought that everything could fall apart but my church family would always love me and be there.  I thought that was true and five years after first visiting Tree of Life, I would put that thought to the test.

So without going into too much of my personal story at this point (we can meet for coffee sometime for that part), I burned myself out trying to work for the Lord instead of loving Him and worshiping Him and serving Him.  And over time, things fell apart all around me.  I lost contact with most of my college friends and most of my family and for the most part I was on my own (because of my own shame and embarrassment and worries, not theirs).   A dark cloud rested just over my head and I thought my life was over.  But it wasn’t…

I said earlier that I thought my church family would always love me and be there and when that thought was tested…I was right.  When everyone else walked away, my immediate family and my church family walked in and loved me and accepted me and traveled my road with me.

When my cloud lifted and the sun came back out, I came back to Tree of Life with my wife Misty and the people of the church loved her and accepted her in ways that amazed me.   Several families immediately took Misty in and became her home away from home.   They became her mom and dad and her sisters and her brothers and her friends.  When our first child was born, the waiting room was packed with Tree of Life family and I watch the videos of that birth and the births of our other three and smile inside when I see our church family with us.  Sometimes my eyes even sweat.

And as the years have gone by, Tree of Life has been our home and even though my family is the best in the world, my church family has been just as close to me.  Tree of Life and the families that make up Tree of Life are special and like I said,  I knew that from day one.

In May of this year (2011) I felt a call to pastor a church in West Virginia named “Voice of Praise Worship Center”. Leaving Tree of Life was one of the hardest things I have ever done but I know that it was the right move because it was of God and not of me or anyone else. I will always love Tree of Life and her pastor, Mike Dodson. If you are in the Central Virginia area and need a church, I couldn’t recommend a better one than Tree of Life Ministries.