The Christ Church Stories: Part One: Episode 5: Two Stones. One Commission

Two Different Trips to Israel Changed My Heart and Gave Direction for our First Three Decades.

The Rock and the Commission

As fast as the growth had come in the early years, it leveled off just as quickly.

By our sixth or seventh year, Christ Church had stalled—not declined—just flattened. We were averaging around 6-700 people every Sunday. Ministries ran, but something was missing. I found myself in that strange pastoral place where things are “fine,” but nothing feels truly alive.

The true state of my heart was captured by a simple, but profound expression I would read decades later about losing the “Why” of the work.

That’s when I met Herb.

We met at a conference in 1992. I didn’t know him at all. He was seated in the hotel restaurant eating his breakfast when he saw me walk by. As I said, I didn’t know him.

He invited me to join him for breakfast. I did. And somewhere toward the middle of the ‘getting to know you’ phase, he said to me, out of the blue, “David, last night in a dream, God told me I’m to send you and your wife to Israel. All expenses paid.”

I didn’t believe him.

Priests hear a lot of promises—well-meaning offers that rarely materialize. I smiled, thanked him politely, and attended the conference. But I was interested in his statement. At the same time, I wondered what kind of person makes an offer like that. I avoided him the rest of the conference.

When I returned home, I told Fran. She was intrigued, but she didn’t pack a bag.

Six months later, we met again at a follow-up conference. Herb looked me and said, “Have you made your plans?”

“No,” I said. “I didn’t believe you.”

“What would it take for you to believe me?” he asked.

“Honestly? Cash.”

Without blinking, he wrote me a check. $8,000 toward a trip that would eventually cost $12,000. And that’s how it began.

In February 1994, Fran and I flew to Israel.

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In the Footsteps of the Lord

I didn’t realize how much I needed that experience. I was burned out. Restless. Unsure of the future. Christ Church had plateaued, and I didn’t know if I was the right leader for what came next—or if anything would come next at all. The trip became a kind of sabbatical—a chance to listen for God again.

I loved it. I was soaked in the land, the gospels, and the story of the Lord.

Midway through our time in the Holy Land, my mother called from Arizona. My sister, Leslie, had fallen into a coma—this was a personal family tragedy. Leslie would not recover.

We needed to return home. But first, we had one last day in Galilee before we could board our midnight flight to the States.

That morning, we walked along the northern shore of the lake. Our guide led us to the traditional site where Jesus met the disciples after the resurrection. Where he fed them breakfast, restored Peter, and gave him a new commission.

I was emotionally spent. Disoriented by sorrow. As our group paused at a monument, I sat down heavily on a rock without even noticing what it was.

And that’s when it happened.

A jolt—like an electric current—shot up my spine to the crown of my head. Goosebumps broke out across my arms. And I began to weep. Not quietly. It was a river of release—grief, exhaustion, surrender. Something holy was happening, though I barely understood it.

I remember looking over the Sea of Galilee, and the tears would not stop. They were for Leslie, for sure. But they were also for me. I had started this church, and it was going well, very well by any metric. But I didn’t understand where I was supposed to lead the people, not to mention others who would come.

I had forgotten the ‘why’ part of what I was doing.

We flew home that night. Tel Aviv to Chicago. Chicago to Phoenix. Phoenix to Tucson—to say goodbye to Leslie.

Weeks later, a photo of the rock, a monument, arrived in the mail. One of our fellow travelers had snapped a photo of it when he saw me weeping so powerfully.

Notice the carved inscription on the monument. Additionally, the cross is surrounded by eleven marks representing the eleven disciples. The five C’s at the bottom are Roman numerals for the 500 witnesses of the Resurrection.

Only then did I notice the Latin inscription: Euntes docete omnes. I deciphered it with the help of a Latin professor at SMU in Dallas.

It means: Go. Teach everyone.

I stared at the words.

Go. Teach everyone.

It wasn’t just something Jesus had said 2,000 years ago. It was what He was saying to me—right then, right there. On that rock. In that moment. He jarred me loose from my burnout and plugged me into the Great Commission.

It changed everything.

I returned from that trip with a fire I hadn’t felt in years—a sense of purpose and clarity. The plateau didn’t bother me anymore—I knew the mission. Go. Teach everyone.

Everyone within the sound of my voice.
Everyone within the reach of Christ Church.
Everyone hungry to hear the saving news of Jesus Christ.

I was amazed. I began to feel a passion returning. I had direction. I had focus.

Was it Leslie’s death that opened my heart? Was it the jolt of electricity that shot up my spine? What is walking in the footsteps of the Lord in the Holy Land? Was it losing my ‘why’ and having a desperate need to find it?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And Yes.

From that point forward, the curve turned upward again, steep and strong. We grew from 700 to over 2,000 worshipers every Sunday over the next ten years. We build building after building. I called priests to serve and staff to assist.

That little phrase etched in stone by the lake in Galilee became the unseen inscription above every door, every sermon, every act of worship, and mission.

Euntes docete omnes.

Go. Teach everyone.

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The Rock That Followed

Five years later, I found myself back on the shores of Galilee—but this time with a group from Christ Church.

It was one of our earliest pilgrimages, and it was unforgettable. We worshiped on sacred ground, walked ancient paths, and felt our faith deepen in ways that words barely express.

But for me, one moment stood apart—and again, it began with a rock.

We were disembarking from a tourist boat near the Nof Ginosar kibbutz on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. It was just a transition point, the kind you might forget in the blur of an itinerary. But I happened to glance to one side—and there they were.

Massive black basalt boulders, strewn across the shoreline like ancient monolithic stones.

And in an instant, I saw it.

I imagined one of those stones—formed by the heat, shaped by water and time, touched perhaps by Jesus himself—becoming the baptismal font for our new sanctuary back in Plano. We were preparing to break ground the following year.

The vision gripped me.

That Rock Was Christ

I walked over to our guide, Raymond. I must have sounded ridiculous.

“Could you help me get one of these boulders shipped to Texas?”

He laughed out loud. “You Americans, you love your souvenirs!” he said, shaking his head. But then he paused. “I’ll try.”

Six months later, I received an email from Raymond. He had secured a backhoe, found the right stone, and pilfered the five-ton boulder from the lake’s edge. It was shipped by sea to Houston, and from there to our construction site, just as the sanctuary walls went up.

That Galilean boulder became our baptismal font.

It was already shaped by the centuries, with a natural hollow like a waiting basin. Engineers and artisans worked carefully to finish it—leveling the base, coring the center, preserving its beauty.

The Baptismal Rock from the Sea of Galilee. The Pilgrim group from Israel with their souvenir!

When it was finally set in place, just inside the sanctuary entrance, the entire construction crew stopped to watch. It was as if everyone knew: This was holy work.

That stone had waited millions and millions of years to hold the waters of new birth.

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Two Rocks, One Mission

When I look back now, I can see how those two moments — those two rocks — were always meant to belong together.

God had woven into our story both halves of the Great Commission.

At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, standing somewhere near the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus gave His disciples an assignment that would animate His Church for the next two thousand years:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” — Matthew 28:19–20

The first rock spoke of the first command: Go. Teach. Proclaim.

It was a rock that pointed us outward — into the nations, into the world, into the lives of those who had not yet heard.

The second boulder embodied the second command: Baptize. Welcome. Make new.

It stood as a fountain of life, drawing new believers into the family of God through the waters of baptism.

Two rocks.
Two sides of the same Gospel.
Two stones, shaped by the same Galilean shore.
Two reminders that our life as a church must always hold these together:

The call to go — and the call to welcome.

From that first trip to Israel in 1994, when Fran and I first stood on those ancient shores through the generous gift of Herb, to the installation of the five-ton basalt boulder as the baptismal font of Christ Church in 1999, God was reshaping our hearts and our mission.

The church changed. I changed. We rediscovered the center of everything. Our WHY!

Our mission became simply, and profoundly, the Great Commission.

Epilogue:

So much more needs to be said here, but space will allow only a few bullet points to summarize:

• I never saw Herb again. He had joined the board of the organization I served, attended two meetings, and then resigned. I wrote to him after the trip, and I think we spoke a few times. A few years later, he died. I’ve written about him several times, making the obvious point that his gift kept on giving—again and again. I’ve been to Israel 34 times and have taken over a thousand people and 60 pastors. Thank you, Herb!

  Nothing has made a bigger difference in my life and ministry than the annual pilgrimages I have taken there were dozens of people—something 60-70–every year.
  

• My sister was in a coma for the next six weeks. She contracted AIDS through an artificial insemination process which used infected semen from a drug addicted medical student at the University of Arizona. She was desperate to find a cure and hooked up with a quack doctor in Mesa. He gave her injections which sent her into an anaphylactic shock from which she would never recover. I really must tell her story, but not here. The Vestry planted a tree in her honor right outside the Children’s Education building. And we buried her ashes in the ground under the tree.
  
  When the time came to do some needed demolition in that area a few years ago, I heard about it and got a message to the staff to please notify me. My sister’s ashes were there. They did. One night, my son Jed (also an Anglican priest) and I took shovels to dig up her ashes and move them to the columbarium. Two priests. Two shovels. One holy mission. Strangely, her ashes were never found.
  

• The Baptismal Rock at Christ Church is a signature highlight of the Sanctuary. I’ll say more about the Sanctuary design process next week.

Next Time on The Christ Church Stories: Deepening Discipleship

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