Next Book In Progress

I am meeting Joe Walker for lunch and a brainstorming session tomorrow. Joe is a member of my Sunday School class. The class is rather large and knowing everyone is a bit problematic. I said hello and goodbye occasionally to Joe and his wife. That is, until one Sunday, he stood before our class and told a story from his childhood about a man that transformed his life from the everyday dead-end drudgery of a very poor and street-wise young boy running down the road to extinction into a life filled with the light of Christ. The story grabbed me by the scruff of the neck saying, hey, wake up, this is a story on a divine level. Here was this well-dressed, educated, eloquent, and soft-spoken gentleman that I had ignorantly assumed had at least an upper-middle class upbringing and adult life, and to find out about the extreme poverty he lived in as a child, aroused my curiosity. It usually takes God's intercession in a life to make that kind of change. As Joe proceeded through the story and to my complete surprise, the story's divine level became clearer as he told of the God-inspired man that had brought about this abrupt and miraculous change in his life and made him a devout follower of Jesus Christ.

C. Ray, a simple sign painter of meager financial means, was the man who not only made an astounding and life-altering change in Joe's life, but thousands of other poverty stricken boys living in a very tough part of my city from 1938 to the 1960's. God had also saved C. Ray, himself, from a life of youthful crime and an adult life filled with an empty hopelessness. With that gift in mind, he set his sights on repaying God's love and mercy in a profound way. Thus, as a grown man, he set out to bring all the tough young boys he could to a church environment filled with antedated requirements for dress not suited for children and Biblical lessons taught in a style that made no connections with their backgrounds. With that in mind, C. Ray's God-inspired imagination gave birth to the amazing boys Christian organization that was aimed at and designed specifically for troubled street youths. Most Bible lessons would not come in a hot-stuffy Sunday School classroom. C. Ray knew the key to getting the boys attention and, with God's help, would lead all he could right to Jesus Christ's doorstep. C. Ray possessed little formal education, but he admired and understood the fact that Jesus was a forward-thinking and  innovative teacher.  So, to get his message across, he adopted Christ's methods, and C. Ray's game plan formed from those methods serve as a model for the type of thinking Jesus wants us to use in spreading the Good News.

 

I included a picture of the cover of the used and tattered book that I found on Amazon that was written about C. Ray's Straight Shooters published in 1949 through cooperation with the First Church of the Nazarene in Oklahoma City of which The organization of boys were members, even if a little unappreciated and discriminated against in the early years. But C. Ray had God on his side, and, as I have come to learn, there are no locked doors before you when God commands that you perform a mission in his name. The book, though informative, is lacking the punch needed to truly rouse people to the realization of just what this solitary man accomplished and what a glory to God his idea and ensuing work was and still should be. This story should serve as a blueprint throughout the years for those forward-thinking and creative people wanting to serve God by bringing his word to those in darkness and ignorant of God's love and all that a life lived in him brings to the table, but in a more powerful and effective manner. With Joe Walker's encouragement and God's bringing more people seemingly out of nowhere with more and more information about this story and much prayer, I believe this book should be rewritten. I have merely given you a passing glimpse of the powerful story of C. Ray and The Straight Shooters organization. If God wills it, the book shall be written.