How 15 Private Minutes with Ergun Caner Wrecked My Career Plans

Ergun Caner has always had impact.  As the former dean of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary and president of Brewton-Parker College, he taught thousands of students.  Millions have read his books.

In many ways, God has used Caner to make some big or small affect on people for Christ.  The impact Caner had on me personally was profound and life-altering.

The back story:  Almost 10 years ago, I enrolled at Liberty University as an undergrad in their Religion program.  I believed that God had called me into pastoral ministry, but He was still fleshing out the details.  

Ergun Caner taught a number of the classes I took, and he had written some of my textbooks.  He was the giant of Liberty University.  We all looked up to him because he was irreverent, funny and in-your-face. 

By the time I had graduated, my own ministry plans had been derailed.  I had lost my business, and along with it, my reputation.  I was sure my "calling" to enter the ministry had been a mistake.  I must have misheard God, which has happened to all of us.  I was unsure of my future.

Liberty University has an open house every summer to let prospective grad students meet the faculty of their various graduate schools.  I made plans to attend.

What was I going to do?  In my heart, I wanted to help other people who had lost everything, or were worried they might.

An MBA could help small business people survive as entrepreneurs.  On the other hand, a law degree would mean I could fight to save other business owners from the defamation we had suffered.  Maybe both degrees together would be useful.

I hoped to make my decision at the open house.  I was leaning toward starting with an MBA instead of law school, but I could be swayed either way.  I just wasn't sure where God was leading, but I was trusting Him to make the final call.

We had to travel from our home in Burlington, North Carolina, up to Lynchburg, Virginia, a 2 hour drive, to get to the open house.  We left too late to get there on time.  There was a lot of stress in the car as we drove because we would be missing part of the event. 

The open house was at Bruner Hall.  The event was already underway, but we didn't walk into the auditorium right away.  First we wanted to pray, so we ducked into a little room just off the entrance and sat down.

I said, "God, You know what I am about to do."  I was about to enroll in business school.  "If what I am about to do is not your will, please stop me.  Amen."

I jumped up, and my wife and I hurried into the auditorium.  A dean was on stage, in the middle of a speech.

Bruner Hall is poorly laid out as an auditorium.  The entrance doors are on the side of the hall, not the back, and rather close to the stage.  So as we entered, a couple hundred people turned to look as us.  This was embarrassing.

I tried to cut left, toward the back of the room, away from the stage.  Unfortunately, someone had stacked some equipment on the floor just beside the door.  I tripped over it and went flying, in full view of everyone in the room.

I would have landed on the floor, but I was caught by a stout little biker dude.  What was a guy dressed like that doing here?

I had worn a suit, but this guy was dressed to actually kill.  He was wearing studded leather wrist straps and a scraggly beard.

Suddenly I realized who it is who had caught me.

"You're Ergun Caner, aren't you?" I asked him.

What are the odds?  There were hundreds of other people I could have smashed into, but I had actually run over the dean of the seminary.

"Yes, I am," He smiled, shaking my hand.  For the next 15 minutes, we chatted while the man on stage droned on. 

Caner's wife was from Alamance County, where I lived.  He had attended services at the Lamb's Chapel, where I had been a member for 8 years.  He was a big fan of their preacher, Brian Biggers, who I also love.  We had tons in common.

Caner had a fantastic ability to carry on a conversation with me without any sense that I was a nobody.  It was impossible not to love this guy, and his outfit was a piece of it.

After all that talking, Caner asked, "So, what are you doing here?"

"I'm about to enroll in your seminary," I told him.

I was confident that God had answered my prayer.  What I was about to do, God had sent Ergun Caner to stop.

I have since finished seminary and entered full-time ministry.  Today, I pastor a sweet church in Raleigh, Brier Creek Fellowship, where we're all about connecting wrecked people to God.

I thank God that He sent Ergun Caner to wreck my plans.  I hope Caner will let me wreck his plans sometime, and accept an invite to come preach at my church plant.  He is always welcome.