The Dan Scott Show Podcast

Dan Scott Show, Radio Episode 84 - Bill Oudemolen (8-11-24)

Bill Oudemolen pastored a church five minutes away from Columbine High School 25 years ago, and found himself on site ministering to students and families as the shooting was happening. He recalls the horror of the moment, the aftermath, how the church became a beacon of hope in the community, and even some good that came out of the tragedy. Check it out!

Duration:: 54m
Broadcast on:: 11 Aug 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

The following program is a presentation of Grand Slam Ministries. Hi again everybody and welcome to Episode 84 of The Dan Scott Show. I am Dan and as you know by now, I hope everything that we do, this entire program is presented by our 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization Grand Slam Ministries. As always, I hope that you've had a great week. We will try not to mess it up if you have. We are continuing our summer replay series. We probably are going to do this for another couple of weeks. In fact, the first new episode that will air in a couple of weeks, if all goes according to plan, I'm actually going to be recording it this week. And if that comes to fruition, it is going to be an incredible way to kick off a new year of brand new shows. But for some of you, what you're going to hear today is new, either because you have just recently discovered us on one of our many affiliates, or you're listening on a brand new affiliate that was not with us when we originally aired this show back in April. But our guest today is a gentleman named Bill Odomolin. And when we recorded this show, it was the 25th anniversary of the school shooting in Columbine in Colorado. And Bill was a pastor of a church there at the time, and he ended up being unseen while it was still active, beginning to offer comfort and doing ministry there to students, to families. It's just an amazing story. And inside of a tragedy of unspeakable proportions almost, you're going to hear some Romans 828 come out of it. So Bill Odomolin will be our guest on this week's show, and we'll get to that interview after you hear this from Grand Slam Ministries. Teenage boys and young men today are in crisis. Statistics show that a home without a father or male role model present is the single biggest indicator of poverty, behavior issues, drug and alcohol abuse, criminal activity, and yes, imprisonment. At Grand Slam Ministries, one of our core missions is developing a mentorship program to teach boys how to become strong Christian men and then teach those men to be the biblical husband's fathers and church and community leaders the Bible calls us to be. We need your prayers, we need your ideas, and we need your support. Visit our website Grand Slam Ministries.org to find out more about our mentorship mission and prayerfully consider how you may be able to assist us. Again, that website is Grand Slam Ministries.org. Episode 84 of the Dan Scott Show is so grateful and thankful to have you with us. Hey, coming up in the final segment of the show, I am going to do something I think for the first time that I hope is going to become a regular feature of the program. And in fact, I want to get to the point where we can actually do a full show of testimonials, but I got a couple of emails from listeners this week in various places and one of them in particular, I want to read this week at the end of the program in the final segment. So stay tuned for that. I'll just remind you quickly that you can find out more about what we do. Archives of previous shows all at DanScottShow.org and the affiliates and archives pages where you can find out where the show airs live. Listen to previous shows, some bonus sound cloud material. And we would love to hear from you as well, Dan@danscoutshow.org. As I mentioned though, our summer replay series continues. Bill Odomolan was a pastor in Columbine, Colorado when the school shooting happened 25 years ago. So we're going to talk about his onsite response to that and in the midst of that tragedy, finding some good that actually came out of it. We start though, as we always do, by Bill telling us a bit about his life right now. We've been here in Michigan, which is hometown for me, and my wife met in college actually over at Cornerstone University, and she's from Jackson, Michigan. So we move back here to care for family. The Ten Commandments make it very clear that you're to honor your father and your mother and as a part of our fulfillment of that, we decided to move back here for my wife's mother, very devout Christian lady. And we also knew, I said to my wife, we'd go back to Michigan. I want to be near the water. So we've got a nice little condo here in Holland, Michigan near the water. And I'm in a retired capacity now, although from time to time, it kind of works out really well. From time to time, I have opportunities to preach. And guess, preach, we've tested ourselves to a little church plant here in Zeeland, Michigan, which is right next door to us, and love the pastor. And I told him, you're not going to have a better support group than my wife and myself. We did this for 40 years. So we're here for you, and if I can do anything to help you out. So I've been able to preach there a few times, and we're serving in the best way that we can at this stage of our lives. It's one thing about it when God calls you to preach. There's really no retirement date. You may retire from pastorship, but there's nothing in the Bible that says you can retire from sharing God's word. Exactly. Yeah. I always said to our people, I'm not ever going to retire. I'm going to read a line. And so this is our realignment. And to be truthful, I don't miss a lot of the dynamics of church life that we're pretty stressful from time to time, you know, the board meetings. And I haven't been to a board meeting in a long time. It feels really good. Well, I was going to say you look, you look remarkably relaxed. I'm very relaxed. The lifestyle here agrees with me. How about that? There you go. And living on the water in Michigan, I have a son-in-law who's from Michigan. So that's enjoyable for what about four months out of the year? Starting right about now. Coming up in May, June, July and August. Yeah. And then although the turning of the trees, the color and the fall is pretty nice too. But once winter sets in, it's time to bat down the hatches and hibernate. That's why so many people have a second home in the south, where I live, where our only home is. Bill is here to talk about the anniversary of the Columbine school shooting, which was just a couple of weeks back as this is airing in April of 1999. And it has become, I even hate to use this term, but I think it's accurate. It's become the benchmark for all of the other similar incidents that we've seen in the past quarter of a century. But Bill was a pastor of a church, a foothills Bible church in Littleton, Colorado, which if I remember reading correctly, was about five minutes from Columbine High School. So you were thrust into the middle of a whole bunch of hurting people and doing a ton of ministry there that you weren't expecting. Yes. Yeah. Dan, it was something you can't plan for for sure. You can't prepare for. It was another pastor myself. I guess I can just kind of give you an overview of another pastor myself for having a kind of a planning meeting that day at a restaurant off site. And we were getting done. And as we're on the highway coming back to the church, I had never seen so many emergency vehicles in my life. They just kept racing past us. And when they got off at the exit where our church is located, I said to my pastor, I said, we've got to follow them and see what they're doing. Well, they're right on the street that our church was located and five miles down the road. There were, again, there was just gridlock of emergency vehicles and SWAT teams. And we parked our car at a apartment complex nearby and got out of the car and we saw students running out of the high school. And back then, it's kind of interesting, back then students didn't have cell phones. So they're obviously rare. And the kids were screaming and I'll never forget hearing one kid scream, there's shooters in there and there's dead people. And they were hunkering down behind kind of a berm. And so I got my phone on and said, call your parents and tell them you're okay. And for the next two hours, that's what we did. We comforted students and teachers actually as well who were racing out of the building. It was chaos. You knew what was happening, there was no active shooter protocol back then. Sadly, the SWAT team, and you may have heard this, but Columbine became the story of what not to do in an active shooting situation because the SWAT team stayed out and waited for instructions instead of just racing right in. And we guessed that the shooting had already occurred by then. But yeah, we were there right on the site that day. And we were there, in fact, we spent the rest of the day. And then that night families were all gathering at a local elementary school. And do you want me to get into a little bit more detail on that or not? Well, yeah, I want to tell the whole story, but I want to pause there for just a moment because I think it's worth pointing out that we never know when these things are going to happen. I mean, you were just going about what you would call a routine day before hell on earth broke loose. Yes. Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And you know, we can I can replay the scenes without notes, obviously like it was yesterday. But there we are on the on the corner at that site of the Columbine High School with, you know, helicopter flying overhead and SWAT teams and emergency vehicles and news reporters were coming and setting up satellite feeds. And you're right. I mean, it was a blur. We did what we knew what to do, which was to pray with people and every once in a while, we'd hear somebody shout everybody down, everybody down. So we'd all kind of get down on the ground and they didn't know if the shooters were coming out at that point. It was just chaos. So you're right. It went from a normal Tuesday planning meeting with my executive pastor to hell on earth. You're right. And in the moment as you arrive and you described everything that was going on, growing up with a father who is a pastor and a preacher, I can say, thankfully, he's never had to go with anything like this. But there is, there is that mechanism that kicks in and for lack of a better term, you go into pastor and counselor mode. And to me, that can only be an example of the Holy Spirit's guidance because he sent you there and directed you what to do, even if you didn't realize you were doing it. Yeah, that's an excellent point. And I couldn't agree more with you. We felt I felt totally empowered by the Holy Spirit to do things I'd never obviously I'd never done before, see things I'd never seen before and let the Lord lead in a situation where nobody knew what to do. Everybody was in chaos and you'd hear people screaming and crying and shouting and we were one of the places they went was another library, just a public library. And it was a gathering point. And I still remember a girl and they're screaming. I saw dead bodies and her mother screaming back at her and said, no, you didn't, honey, no, you didn't. You're just imagining it. And she said, no, yes, I did. So I went over and put my hands on both shoulders and I looked at the mother and I said, I think you're the mom, right? She said, yeah. And I said, you got to believe your daughter. I think she saw what she did. I mean, just pray with you guys. So yeah, you're right. We are visiting with Bill Odom Olin, who was during the time of the Columbine school shooting 25 years ago was a pastor, foothills Bible Church in Littleton, Colorado, just five minutes away from the, from Columbine high school. As all of the chaos is going on and you and the other pastor are there trying to offer what aid and comfort you can, are you able to, in any way, begin to process what's going on? Or did that come much later? I think, I think I know what you're asking and I have to say that came much later to be honest with you. In the moment, we were trying to direct the minister and we were in phone contact with the main church, just on the road and asking, are there any, have we heard from any families about their students? Do we know if any one of our kids has been shot and we're kind of interacting about what are we going to do? And that was the, okay, we're here, but what are we going to do? And I didn't even know how it came to my mind, but I called back at the church and I said, I think we need to have prayer services at the church tomorrow. I don't know if anybody will come, but let's sit up times in prayer, let's do one at one o'clock in the afternoon, let's do one at seven p.m. And let's make sure logistics wise, we're ready to go with those and we can just get the word out, put it on the email blast and let people spread the word that we're going to get together and pray. Because whatever we're going to do, I know we're going to need, this community is going to need prayer. So, you know, I think what you're asking and I'm kind of ruminating about it in my mind, but you're right. The Spirit of God just empowers you in that moment is what I felt. And to do things that you don't have any training to do, you just do it because the Spirit of God is leading you to do it. And so we did it and we did what we were called to do in the moment. And it's almost as if you can't stop and think, because if you think about what you're doing, you begin to question, why am I doing this? And so I guess where I was going with that is after everything was said and done, did you have a moment where you sat back and said, what in the world was I thinking? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It was, well, there's a normal adrenaline rush, right, and you're just got to, adrenaline is pumping and you're doing it. You're going and you're praying and you're meeting with people and stuff. And then you get home and you're laying in bed, not sleeping, of course. And I hadn't cried to that point. I'd been with a lot of people that were crying that day, but I just, I can remember starting laying there in bed at night, just heaving and sobbing over what we had learned was one of our kids was still not identified, was still not found, which led all of us to believe that, that he was probably not going to be found or was going to be found dead. And just the waves of emotion, once I was able to get home and release that. Yeah. Yeah. It's just like, what, where are we? What are we doing? What is going on? What in God's name did I just witnessed today? Definitely. What was your conversation with God like that night? Um, help, we're going to have to shepherd these sheep and this is going to be a long term deal and I don't have what it takes to do this. Nothing in seminary trained me for this. So God help us, help our people, help the, the people that, you know, there are people that have physical wounds, but the trauma of the, of the emotional wounds, and I know you know this, but those things don't heal up as fast as the physical wounds do. And to this day, I mean, I can guarantee you that last week on April 20, there were, there were families all across the country now, because many of them have spread different places. We're once again, feeling that with those waves of grief, those waves of emotion and stuff like that. So yeah, my prayer, my prayer was basically Lord, help us and guide us and give us strength because this is going to be a week unlike any other week we've ever had. It was reading one of your recaps about the aftermath and you mentioned that you had two prayer services that you scheduled the next day and not surprisingly, they were both standing room only. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they were and we were getting calls and it was all word of mouth. I mean, we didn't have time to do any advertising or anything. So we got a call from the governor's office and asked if the governor and his family could attend and the former governor, the governor at that time was Bill Owens, very, very conservative and wonderful man. And we said, of course, so we set up some protocols for safety and security, you know, because we were having some VIPs coming. I mean, we just didn't know. At one point, Janet Reno was the attorney general and we got a call that Janet Reno was going to be attending a service to and that one kind of sent us into a little overdrive on that knowing a, you know, a national figure, but that fell through at the last moment. But the governors were there as were many other local leaders and stuff like that. And you're right. The one at one, I thought, well, maybe people will come during the evening one, not so much at one o'clock, but yeah, standing room only people in tears, people hugging and bracing in the hallways and in the lobby and it was, you know, it, and I said this in other, in other times that I've talked about what happened during Columbine, but it was like people wanted to be a church. It was like people wanted a place to go. They needed a place to go. And we had some, we had a counseling staff at that time and we had some counselors available and if anybody wanted to talk, but you know what was interesting to me? Nobody wanted to talk to the counselors. Everybody wanted to talk to each other. Everybody wanted to embrace each other and the people with kids wanted to embrace each other and hug those kids and yeah, those two services really stand out in my memory as times that we met with the Lord, Lord met with us and there was no preaching. It was just a, it was like, at one point I asked if any of you are here and your family member was in the school or you're connected to the school anyway, come to the front. And at one point, the first service I think were about maybe two dozen of the last service there were three dozen and we had them come to the front and we had a kind of a prayer time laying our hands on them and praying for them and stuff like that. So it was, it was a very, I'm glad we did it. It was, it was timely. And then you had the experience of hosting not one, but two different funerals at the church. Correct? Yes. Like I was saying earlier, the day of the shooting, they were, you know, and they do this now in other shootings too, but they have an offsite location to reunite parents and their kids. And so we were over there with one of our families waiting and they would come in and some kids would come off a bus that they'd been bused over and it was in a school gymnasium with a, like a stage up on one end of it and they'd bring the kids in and the kids would just be standing up there on the stage and parents would see their kids and start screaming and they'd run to their families and it was re, it was wonderful to see the families reunited. But our family and that we were, it was called their name was the Tom ones, John, John Tom was their son and no John and now it's nine o'clock at night. And a deputy came over and he said, I know you guys been here all day and we aren't going to do any more reunions today. All I can tell you is the shooting occurred mostly in the library and some in the hallways and the mother of John Tomlin, Doreen was her name, she just sunk in her chair and melted and she said, John always had his lunch in the library and that was the time he would have been having lunch so we knew at that point. But yeah, so then I met with him to plan a few, you know, I'd done that, you know, dozens of times, hundreds of times, actually. But this one was very different because everything we've just described and just a little bit about them to give you insight into this family, they were not resolved, but they were settled and comforted and they said, we want the service to be about Jesus, John had just turned his life around and was walking with the Lord in ways we'd never seen him do it before, he'd been on a short-term mission trip, he carried his bible with him, in fact, his truck was sitting on the property and it kind of became a site where everyone would go, a memorial site and you can see in his truck there was a bible open on his dashboard so he had left that open that morning but anyway, yeah, so we had that service on Friday and they said whatever you do, we know you know how to plan a service but whatever you do, we want you to present the gospel and we want you to give an invitation for people to be saved because John was living for the Lord and he would want that as well so, yeah, that was on Friday and then just as a little aside, you know, media wasn't the same at the cable channels and stuff 25 years ago as it is today, but we had one pool camera in the building and then everybody else we asked to stay outside and after the service, one of the guys that came up and he said, how did it feel to be on TV with 20 million viewers, I said, what? It was a CNN guy and apparently they aired it live, I wasn't aware they were airing it live, they didn't ask permission for that, they just did it, so, yeah, that was on Friday and then we hosted, I didn't lead the service on Monday but we hosted another one on Monday. We are visiting with Bill Odomolan who was the pastor of Foothills Bible Church in Littleton, Colorado, five miles away from Columbine High School, we just passed the 25th anniversary of the mass shooting that took 12 lives and I think injured almost 30 other people. There was a story that circulated not too long after that about one of the shooting victims, a young lady by the name of Cassie Bernal and I know that you know the story well but the story was that she was asked if she believed in God, she said yes and they pulled the trigger, that's an incredible witness for a young lady who was what, 17 years old when that happened. Yeah, you know it's interesting the stories that have come out, in fact there's a memorial there now on the, extended property of the high school and each family was allowed like a stone, like a slab, they were allowed to write a statement about their child and that's part of the memorial and the majority of the kids that were killed were Christian kids and there's been a lot of controversy in the media about where they targeting Christians or weren't they, some thought they were targeting Christians and jocks athletes. Well, it's, there's nothing real definitive about that that we can really know other than the ones who were killed as I already said were primarily Christian kids and even the Cassie Bernal story was investigated and there were some that said well no she didn't say that and others, you know, it's funny Dan, anything of that nature will become controversial and people will look into it and try to undermine it and all that sort of thing. Rachel Scott, another name that may or may not be familiar to but she was, I think they said she was the first one that was shot, undoubtedly a strong Christian girl and same thing about her, they believe that she was, she was identified as a Christian and therefore targeted for this but I don't think some of that stuff will really know with surety other than what I've already told you which is you can, I can tell you for sure over half those kids were devout Christian kids that were living for the Lord. Well, it's a tragedy regardless but I hope and pray that those stories are true because that's just an incredible testimony and it's really humbling and convicting I think for a lot of us, it is at least for me that to think that there's someone that's 17 years old staring down the barrel of a gun and is willing to acknowledge yes I am a Christian knowing that her life was going to be taken. Yeah, you know and I think I'm going back to some of you said earlier about the Holy Spirit and powering my pastor colleague and me in that early moments. I really believe the Holy Spirit empowers empower those kids as well in that moment and we can't fathom what it would be like to go through that but I'd like to think that God those who truly belong to the Lord we know have the Holy Spirit within them and I'd like to think that any one of us would be in that moment. I'm not given that grace in that power right now because I'm not facing it but in the moment I've been confident with my faith that God would give you the empowerment to not deny your faith and to not believe in the perseverance of the saints you know and I believe that we will persevere through the power of the Spirit obviously as you said and through the power of God but it's remarkable that teenage boys and girls were able to have that kind of strength in those moments you're absolutely right. The convicting thing for me I believe beyond anything else is those of us who are Christ followers and in this country even with everything going on now we really don't know what persecution is. It's coming I think but we really don't know what true persecution is and we all like to step up and I've said this that given the situation and I'd like to think that I would react the same way and yet God convicts me and he says okay if that's the case why don't you go across the street and witness to your neighbor. You say you're willing to do the big thing why aren't you willing to do the small thing. Preach it brother. Preach it man. Days and weeks that followed as that community tried to get back to some sense of normalcy knowing that things were never going to be the same again what were those next few days and weeks like. Yeah I'm glad you asked that because I wanted to mention another thing that happened that was incredible during the whole episode we had the service on Friday and then on Sunday you may or may not have read about this and people that know about Columbine know we held a the city held a an outdoor memorial service at a in the parking lot of a multiplex theater and they estimated 75,000 people showed up and Franklin Graham spoke Michael W. Smith Amy Grant were there for music field risk that's kind of an older name but field risk was there and all the families were honored and they had a dove release and stuff like that and in terms of what stands out to me where the presence of the Lord was truly felt I'll tell you what at that service it was just because that was people from the community obviously surrounding areas you get 75,000 people that's a that's that Broncos crowd you know that's a stadium full and they were all just out in a parking lot right across from park where the high school is located and God did amazing work in that service as well but and then another thing I noted during that time and I wrote about this and I was interviewed about this as well but there was a there was a softening of spirits as a result of this and even I one of my quotes was even the hardened media showed sensitivity during this time it didn't you know put microphones at people's faces and all that sort of thing and people were kind to one another and and held doors for each other and and greeted one another and and you know the the community seemed to to really be drawn to each other and as I already said drawn to the Lord in churches as well you ask any of the churches in the area around Columbine during that time they had record attendances and we several of us would talk about it and we'd say I wonder if this is going to last I wonder if this is revival I wonder if God's really turned everything around you know and this will be a turning point for our community and who knows our nation this can be the beginning of revival and I have to say in the early weeks it was it had that feel to it it really did and we as I already said had record attendances and people were reaching out for the Lord and and being kind to one another and all that but sadly the next crisis comes along the next wave of culture comes along and things just kind of settle and and all the rest so what happened after all that initial I say spiritual excitement because it really was is there was a there was kind of a waning of all of that and then people really began to ask the questions because as you well know these kind of circumstances always always trigger that one main question and then you don't even have to say it to you know why would God allow this right if God's a loving God why would he allow this to happen exactly we saw it we got the same thing on a national scale after 9/11 I mean you had you had you had both both houses of congress standing on the Capitol steps arm and arm singing amazing grace and and then you know just a short time later exactly and then we had Billy Graham who George Bush had had asked to come and speak and he gave an eloquent message in his I think early 80s at the time about why God allows things like this to happen and you thought that maybe this is going to be a unifying moment for the country and maybe for a month or two it was but yeah as as we know you know this country is now more divided than it's probably been since the 1860s yeah yeah no I grew to you and you know when when people would and I actually did a lot of as did the rest of our pastoral staff we did a lot of counseling and and praying and supporting the teachers and the the students that were in in the school and that were directly impacted by this and one of the one of the verses that meant the world to me and I know you I'm sure you know it is Genesis 50/20 where Joseph after he's been sold into slavery and and abandoned by his brothers and you know the sibling rivalry went and went wild and he sits in prison for years and when he finally reveals himself to them he says what you intended for evil God net for good and I really believe that a lot of good came out of the out of the whole episode with that that from that day April 20 1999 a lot of good came from that and when I preached that Sunday among the things I said was don't overcome don't overcome evil with evil but overcome evil with good yeah and I called on our people to you know to not try to move to the political issues of gun control and all that stuff that you know all that all too well it happens every time in the school shooting but to really focus on the goodness of God and the fact that God's sovereign he's in control he knows what he's doing and there are purposes that you know we're not gonna get that last puzzle piece until we get to heaven we're not gonna they're we're always going to live our lives with a few pieces of our jigsaw puzzle missing and to expect we're gonna get those filled in it's not realistic but when we get to heaven it'll make sense to us and we will say truly this was for the glory of God and God works through these dark experiences God God's working right now in the US and in Israel and through all of the things that are happening around us God is at work I pray with my wife before we go to bed at night and I always pray Lord we're going to bed but you're not and so work during the night and do for us during the night what only you can do during the night so it's it was a move from from caregiving and comfort to theology where we focused as much as we could on the goodness of God in his province yeah it's one thing to quote Romans 828 it's another thing to try to live it out I mean I mean it really is as we continue visiting with Bill Odomolan who was a pastor who ministered to families and victims and others after the Columbine shooting which happened 25 years ago on April the 20th one thing that I haven't heard much if anything about is you know obviously there's going to be ministering support for the families of the victims what about the families of the two young men who did the shooting what what what kind of what kind of outreach was there to them yeah that's a great question and I know a little bit about this I don't know a ton but in the in the immediate response to this guess what those parents wanted to have the funeral for their boys also right or to them and they say and I wanted I can't I wouldn't be able to tell you which which one of them it was but I was aware that one of the local pastors held a funeral service in private for one of the boys and they had to change vehicles on the way to the to the cemetery I think he said they changed vehicles three or four times because they were being followed by the media and they were kind of on a clandestine effort to make sure these families were given you know an appropriate way to grieve for their children because they they had losses as well but they're you know this happens I'm just thinking of sometimes a shooting or some episode will happen and the people will say I don't want to name the person that did this I don't want that I don't want their name to be on the air I don't want their name to be mentioned I don't want to anybody to know anything about them I'm not going to do them the privilege of having their name mentioned and I'd have to say as I think back to it again in our case we had no idea where they were or what they were doing or or and I think initially they were hiding out to be truthful and so I can't really answer much other than to say I know that the even holding a funeral for them was very difficult but in terms of reach out one of them I do know was connected to that church I mentioned but other than that I wouldn't even be able to say yeah I mean that's that's another sad part to an incredibly sad story already is that two other sets of parents also lost a child there but they have to live with the fact that it's their children even 25 years later it's their children who for whatever reason and reasons we may never fully know decided to to do what they did at Columbine High School what what did you learn about yourself what have you learned about yourself in the years ensuing good question well I think initially I'd say I mean the first thing that came to my mind was I felt a deep sense of calling during all of this and you know when I was 20 years old and trying to decide what I want to do with my life because my dad was a pastor and that's the last thing the world I ever wanted to do you know what I mean yes yeah and my mother still holds out hope that I'm going to turn into a preacher someday and I just turned 57 years old so but so I know exactly what you mean yeah I've heard you preach though bro I have one of your wonder videos and when I was vetting you remember that yes and I've heard you preach you've got you got some real gift in this but um I I you know at that point in my life decided it got it was kind of a one of those uh priceless moments where God called me and I shifted course and went into but went left I was at Wheaton College actually and left there and went to a Bible college and closer to home and ran out of money was the other thing but um but uh decided that that ministry was going to be the course of my life and um so I guess one of the things I'd say and answer your question is I it was like an affirmation of the calling in my life that God indeed called me to be a shepherd and a shepherd of sheep and the thing that gave um my wife and myself the greatest amount of delight um was to serve um those people during that time and you know for 40 years of ministry that that was our life that was what we did and and actually not to you know veer off on a rabbit trail but this uh retirement realignment period has been challenging for us in a lot of ways because we don't have a flock that's our flock and we're not you know uh shepherd and wife carrying over a group of people and without without equivocation I know that we were called and placed to do that um for sure and uh another thing I I would say I learned in my younger years my biblical training was very conservative and it was theologically tight and uh staunch and there were a lot of things that in my earlier years I'd be willing to die for that I wouldn't be willing to die for today uh my my convictions are clarified uh versus preferences and and things that I'd say I'd probably extend a lot more grace to people than I did in the early years of my life in ministry I was more judgmental and narrow in my focus on what I believe and what I thought everybody else should believe uh but um Columbine when you when you face that life and death stuff like that and and the tragedy you see the loss and you see what people go through when they have that kind of loss and you see how community is affected you realize that the the heart of the gospel is the main thing and we've got to keep the main thing the main thing and not get it get so involved in all the peripheral issues that really when once we get to heaven are gonna matter a bit. Alistair Begg who was one of the preachers I listened to almost on a daily basis says in the bible the main things are the plain things and the plain things are the main things amen and if if we stay focused there yeah I mean we we have all these different denominations and everything else but if we can all centrally agree on the gospel yeah then then all the other stuff is is periphery to assert to a certain extent it's not not that it's unimportant but but the main thing is the plain thing yeah yeah amen no I think that's a great word and I couldn't agree more I guess that's really the essence of what I was saying too. 25 years later having replayed this in your mind thousands and thousands and thousands of times I'm sure are you getting tired of people like me messaging you and saying hey would you talk about this? No no I to be true and I think I may have said this to you in a in a response it's an honor it's an honor five years ago at the 20th anniversary I got a phone call out of the blue from a reporter from the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Times was doing a story on 20 years after Columbine and he said his take was he wanted to talk to I think three or four maybe more of the pastors who had been the spiritual leaders during the crisis not unlike the questions you're asking me to be honest with you but so he actually he actually came out and and did an interview and and wrote up an article eventually that was that was pretty pretty encouraging for me and I think it's kind of like and you've been around long enough not as long as me but you've been around long enough to know when people lose loved ones sometimes the people around them think oh I'm not going to bring your name up I'm not going to talk about it I don't think they want to talk about it just the opposite is true and I feel the same way about Columbine not that I want to be known as a pastor who had the first internet of Columbine but on the other hand it is a privilege to have been called to that and an honor to have been called to that so no it's just the opposite I'm honored I'm honored and again I wanted to say directly to you thank you for reaching out to me as it kind of warms my heart and and reminded me that God uses things 25 years later how can it be well I thank you for for responding to that call and the final question I'm going to to ask you to address that almost impossible question as best you can as we wrap it up that that people ask all the time that we referenced a while ago if someone says to you in response to Columbine a response to the next school shooting that happens God forbid why would a loving God allow something like this to happen how how do you respond to that question yeah well this is that that deep theological issue of the theodicy that's how theologians wants to talk about it the problem of evil and this goes all the way back to the garden and why did God allow Satan to to come into that garden and and God God gave man the ability to make his choices and obviously Adam if I were a different kind of pastor I'd say well he did it so it wasn't Adam's fault but I would never say that Adam took the blame because he was the leader and he should have stepped up right and done it but but what is the source of evil and I want to be crystal clear on this and probably nothing is going to surprise you when I say this the source of evil is not God the source of evil is say God made a world in which the possibility of evil could exist but God is not the author of evil so anytime I've talked to people in Columbine families or in other tragedies and we've had we had several tragedies in our church I would say to them don't look to God and say God why did you do this God did not do this God permitted it to happen God allowed it and that's the mystery and that question is unanswerable in that sense God will never tell us here's why I'm doing what I'm doing I know theologically I can say the big picture is for his glory God allows these things for his glory and then people would look at me and if I said that standing out at the school that day giving students the phone is saying well kids don't worry God's doing this for his glory they have punched me in rightly so but when the dust settles and you look at it theologically and you open your Bible and you ask the Spirit to speak you and say why is it that God permits these things it's back to the Joseph story as well God allows the possibility of evil in the world and Satan took him up on it and is the author of evil and won't we all rejoice on that day when Satan is cast into the lake of fire and we'll live in a world that is free of his influence and his impact you know I just not to belabor this but one of the things I was quoted as saying in the sermon that I preached that Sunday after Columbine was I smelled the presence of Satan and when I was standing there watching the terror in these kids faces and a local reporter got really upset with me and said how can you smell the presence of Satan and it actually became kind of interesting friendship with him of all things but but my answer to that question is God permits evil in order that man can never say we weren't allowed a choice man was allowed to choose and God obviously because of man's choice God in his great love because of his love for the world sent his only begotten son that whoever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life he will free us from that evil and he will set us free from all that evil one day but that's my answer is that is sin and evil resulted from results in our daily lives from the devil and praise the Lord one day we're going to be free from all of that but not yet and as we close I just couldn't help think of of Habakkuk when he asked God why are you doing this what are you going to do and God's response obviously I'm paraphrasing now was I'm not going to tell you because if I told you you wouldn't believe me exactly exactly yeah yeah that's that's the story of the book of Job really because Job goes through all that tragedy and crisis in the opening chapters and then Job and his friends have a you know a belabored conversation and when it gets to the last several chapters of the book guess what God does he just starts well you know he just starts asking a bunch of questions he asked Job where were you and I formed the earth where were you but where were you I created the you know these animals where were you and then he never answers the question in other words he's saying there are so many questions you don't have answers to I am the one who is in control and you just got to sit back and trust me and isn't that the truth that without faith it's impossible to please God so so you're right I love what you just said from the back I preached that to and I'm with you we wouldn't understand it if you told us anyway and I think sometimes we fall into the trap of wanting to understand everything and there are just simply things not only in the Bible but in the way God works that we will never understand at least until we get to heaven enjoyed that conversation with Bill Odomolin so very much I hope you enjoyed it either for the first time or catching it again in our summer replay series quick break and we will come back and get into wrap up mode right after this here at Grand Slam Ministries our goal is to share the love of Jesus Christ through multiple platforms while at the same time executing our core missions of mentorship and helping children in need the primary way we can effectively do all of those things is through the Dan Scott show our weekly Christian radio show that airs in multiple markets around the nation and the world we are asking you to partner with us to not only sustain what we are currently doing but to grow both our on air online presence and our ability to fund those core missions can you spare as little as twenty five dollars per month how about ten dollars per month if we can get two hundred partners to join us at each of those small sustainable levels we can begin to accomplish everything we believe God has called us to do so can you help us today with a donation of either twenty five dollars or ten dollars per month please go to www dot grand slam ministries dot org for your donation to get more information or to ask questions that's grand slam ministries dot org and thank you for supporting the Dan Scott show and grand slam ministries follow us on social media search grand slam ministries on Facebook and grand slam for God on Twitter and don't forget Dan's personal and public figure sites on Facebook Twitter and Instagram you're listening to the Dan Scott show presented by grand slam ministries we are back with a quick final segment on this 84th edition of the Dan Scott show thanks again to Bill Oda Molen for his time back in April as mentioned I wanted to in this final segment read an email that I received from a listener in the savannah river area listening to us on 92.7 the life FM there in the central savannah river area the the listener said I heard what sounded like a plea to hear from the audience so here I am chiming in though it's been a busy weekend and I'm afraid to get the details wrong it was encouraging to me that morning I had been up a lot of the night stressed about some recent sin I think it was your show one of the first parts I heard the just was that we can be forgiven and accepted even if we still have to walk out the consequences of our sin that resonated with what I had been working through and believe and it was encouraging to be heard over the air and reminded that that's a struggle many Christians face and I am not alone in that even if I have to endure the consequences of my sin also there were references to celebrate recovery which I have long been part of but have taken a break from and that felt like an extra touch of connection I love to hear about celebrate recovery and addiction recovery on the open air combating the power of shame and stigma that might keep people from reaching out or might cause people to feel alone in their struggle anyway you're not speaking to dead air or brick walls there are people out there listening and encouraged and the person signed it anonymous I just wanted to share that because we've been asking for your emails for your thoughts about the program and and if it's encouraging you at all it does me a world of good to hear things like that and to find out that the show had a special blessing for someone it is just just encouraging and it just confirms why we do what we do and I will say this to that person and to anybody else out there who's listening um I'm a big fan of celebrate recovery I have spoken at a number of their meetings and I think before too much longer we may do a show completely dedicated to what that program is about so thank you I would love to hear from you as well Dan at Dan Scott show.org you don't have to sign your name we won't identify you if you don't want us to but please know that it means a lot to us to hear that this program is a blessing in your life we'll see you again next week for episode 85 until then I'm Dan Scott God bless you and so long everybody thank you for listening to this week's Dan Scott show here and again catch up on past shows or find out more about Grand Slam Ministries please visit our website danscottshow.org and while there carefully consider making gift to help us in our mission to share the love of Jesus Christ that's the danscottshow.org (upbeat music) You