Stephen Baldwin - The Unusual Suspect: My Calling to the New Hardcore Movement of Faith

Copyright 2006 by Stephen Baldwin

All rights reserved.

Warner Faith

Hachette Book Group

237 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.

The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

First eBook Edition: September 2006

ISBN: 978-0-446-40389-4

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jesus

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christ

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augusta

God... thank You for waiting... giving me the choice... now I get it! I need You now... more than the air I breathe... I am yours... I will do ANYTHING... !

Kennya, Alaia, Hailey... my gifts... my earthly joy... my friends... my angels... ! God knew what I needed... to see Him... !

Mom, Dad, and all of my brothers and sisters and their families... I love you all... more than any words can say... see you all in heaven!

Carl Johnson & my New City Gospel Fellowship family... thanks for all the spiritual food, worship, love, support and prayers for me & the girls.

Luis Palau Association... Luis, Pat, Kevin, Keith, Andrew, Steve and all of your families... & the entire staff at LPA... The Lord has blessed me... with all of your love, support, prayer and guidance.

Pastors... A. R. Bernard, Ravi Zacharias, John Carter, Michael Hayes, Michael Fletcher, Floyd Nichols, Zane Anderson, Chuck Swindoll, Raul Ries, Jay Hazlip, Zeny Tinouco, Bob Coy, Shelly Sampson, Matt Potterbin.

Fellow Soldiers... Jonathan Spinks, Carl Ritter, Paul Rodgers, Todd Hendricks, Tom Maharis, Gary Heavin, Michael Esposito, Michael Smith, Daniel & David Gonzalez, Hill Bowman... thank you and all your families.

The Skate Family... Paul Anderson... yo bro... thanks for starting it all, Darren Wells, Christian Hosoi, Jay Alabama, Rick Weigele, Lance Mountain, Ray Barbee, The Livin It Crew, listed at Livinit.com.

Gary Terashita... thank you for believing... your passion... and most of all... your strong gutsy vision... so God would speak through this book.

Special thanks to the Warner Faith family, particularly David Young, Maureen Egan, Rolf Zettersten, Chip MacGregor, Chris Murphy, Harry Helm, Jean Griffin, Lori Quinn, Jana Burson, and Cara Highsmith.

Mark Tabb... aka Tabby... Praise the Lord for bringing together... a wild fire... and beautifully gifted wisdom... you said it best... This aint work... this is fun! Thanks again.

Friends... Pat Reaves, Michael Kingman, Lawrence Holdrige, Alex dAdrea, Lawrence Fishburn, Paul McCormick, Corey Kilgannon, Matt Greacen, Sam Rockwell, Keith Diamond, the Bevilacqua family, Dan Martineau & family, and all other friends listed at stephenbaldwin.com.

Louis & John Greacen & family... thank you for your example, perseverance, faith & prayers that our Lord has honored... you are with me always... I love you guys... !

The Body of Christ... please keep praying... learn His word... never take yours eyes off JESUS... lets kick some butt... for His kingdom... ! ! ! God Bless.

Faith

Main Entry: faith

Pronunciation: 'fAth

Function: noun

Inflected Form(s): pluralfaiths /'fAths, sometimes 'fA th z/

Etymology: Middle English feith, from Old French feid, fei, from Latin fides; akin to Latin fidere to trustmore at BIDE

1 a : allegiance to duty or a person :LOYALTYb (1) : fidelity to ones promises (2) : sincerity of intentions

2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God(2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof(2) : complete trust

3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially: a system of religious beliefs

synonym see BELIEF

- in faith : without doubt or question :VERILY

An Unusual Experience

T he weirdest part of being a celebrity is the awkward moment when someone stops me on the street and says, You look familiar. Where do I know you from? I usually play along and say, I dont know. They keep staring at me, and its hilarious because I can see they are doing a Google search of their brain trying to figure out how they know me. Did we go to high school together, they will ask. I play along, smile and say, I dont know, dude, where did you grow up? Saskatchewan. Huh. Im from Long Island. So they start Googling some more, but they keep coming up with more wrong information because they typed a wrong word into their search engine.

After a while they finally hit the right key and this funny kind of embarrassment comes over them as they start to realize Im a celebrity. Wait a minute, they say, are you a Baldwin? Yeah, how are you? Pleased to meet you, Stephen Baldwin, always a pleasure, I stick out my hand and say. This is followed by a long pause and more often than not they come back with, No youre not! I tell them its really me, but they stand there and argue with me. This has even gone on to the point where people ask to see my drivers license. When it reaches that point I excuse myself and tell them I really dont have time to argue over whether or not I am in fact STEPHEN BALDWIN.

Now, however, I get this version where Im walking down the street and a young lady will stop me and say, Are you Stephen Baldwin!? I say Yeah, nice to meet you. She will let out a little screech and say something like, Oh my gosh! I cant believe its you. Then she will say, Are youreallya Christian? I go, Yeah, giving my life to Christ is an awesome experience. And then she will take a half step back, look at me with a look of total shock and say, No yourenot.

I cant win, but I can understand her surprise because I have to say to all you people out there who cant believe Stevie B is now a Christian, no one is more shocked by this turn of events than me. Im the last guy on this planet I ever figured would wake up every morning and say, Thanks God, what do You want me to do today? Now this faith defines who I am. Is that not the craziest thing youve ever heard?

BALONEY

The Bible says faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see (Hebrews 11:1). Up until a few years ago that sounded like a bunch of baloney to me. How could anyone in their right mind buy into that? It wasnt until after I became a Christian that I remembered how much I loved bologna when I was a kid. Growing up on Long Island I ate bologna all the time, but then I grew up and my tastes became more jaded and I quit eating it. Only kids like that stuff. Me, I was too sophisticated, too refined, too grown-up to throw some bologna between a couple pieces of bread and chow down.

I think this same logic kept me from exploring God for so long. My parents drug me to church when I was little, but once I got old enough to choose for myself I never went back. Why should I? In my mind God was for kids, just like bologna. It wasnt until I was willing to dial back the clock and have the mind-set of a child that I was able to understand what this faith was all about.

What I didnt know then but I now know is that everyone must do the same thing. According to Jesus, the only way anyone will ever understand what appears to the grown-up mind to be nothing but baloney is to stop looking through the cynical eyes of an adult and embrace it with the heart of a child.