"GOD, Are You Fan Or A Follower?"

This 235 page book is not starting out claiming that I am a perfect man who has arrived at being holy. I am writing it as a man who spent years calling himself a Christian while he built a shrine to a football team in his garage. If that sentence already offends you, stay with me. The garage is not the point. The garage is the mirror.

God has plenty of fans. He has people who like the idea of Him, people who grew up in church, people whose grandmother was saved, people who will stand for a hymn and sit for a sermon and go home unchanged. He has people who treat Jesus like fire insurance — a policy you keep in a drawer so you do not go to hell, while you live like hell is already the plan. What He is still looking for is followers.

A follower is not a mascot. A follower walks. A follower pays. A follower opens the Book instead of outsourcing his soul to a preacher’s highlight reel. A follower discovers that Jesus is more interested in relationship than in how you present to the public. This book is my walk put into pages. It is the story of a boy who went to Calvary Baptist in Charlotte every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night, who played church basketball in a church gym, whose whole childhood orbited the building — and who still chose his own path the minute a car and a little freedom showed up. I started drinking at sixteen.

I kept Jesus in my back pocket as a ticket out of the fire. Jesus was only my fire insurance policy for my life, I was the master of my own life, not Jesus so for many years I said I was follower. I wanted to control the rest, so was but I was really just far weathered fan. Maybe you see yourself today as a simple Jesus fan today, but it is not to late to become a follower now.