Front-porch gospel

Welcome to our first “front porch” visit – at least, our first such visit in the last decade or more. Back when I still roamed the halls and the gym at Red Oak High School – teaching and coaching – many of us spent time together here in the newspaper. We are glad to be back.

In 2012, I laid down my chalk and whistle and began to preach and evangelize full time. We walked away a bit wistfully, carrying a good portion of the classroom and gymnasium with us as we went. While my good friend and fellow-coach Preston Foster was still at Red Oak, we still made many guest appearances even after ending that career. Some things never exactly end.

Now that you and I are back together, our hope is that perhaps we can help encourage and inspire just one – one former student, player, peer teacher, or one of you we have not yet met. We are honored to write to you on behalf of the Church of Christ of Red Oak that meets at the corner of Uhl Road and Ovilla. My wife Marilyn – known as the “amazin’ blonde” – have long been associated with the good people there. We are not able to worship with them all the time because of my monthly travels to Houston, Little Rock, and Lexington, Oklahoma, but we are able to work with them when we are home and study with some of the young boys who, somehow, have slipped into their 30s and have their own families now.

A dozen years ago when we started working a couple of weekends a month in Lexington, Oklahoma, the first thing we did was to start writing for a newspaper up there, The Purcell Register. It was a little unusual having a Texan writing for Oklahomans, but it worked nicely. Soon after starting those writings, I felt that it was almost as if we were sitting out on the front porch talking, visiting. Thus, we began each weekly visit with, “Welcome to the front porch.” It stuck, and it soon became the “Front-Porch Gospel.”

So, I want to say to you all – Welcome to the first-ever front-porch gospel visit here with so many of our old friends and now some new ones in the Red Oak, Waxahachie area and beyond.

I am sure we will converse over a hundred things from the Lord’s gospel and from life from now until our front-porch rocker falls apart. Where all our words will take us, I can’t say. I can only tell you what the Lord tells some of his early curious disciples who wanted to know who He was: “Come and see” (John 1:30).

Thank you ahead of timing for “coming and seeing” and for sitting out here with us on the “front porch” now and – if the Lord’s willing – for years to come. God bless!

Steven – or Coach – Bowen was a long-time Red Oak teacher, coach, and now as a writer and preacher of the gospel. In addition to his travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email Steven at coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text 972-824-5197.