Transforming the Inner Man

"In the world I grew up in, I was raised to be tough. That's how you got ahead. That's how you survived." And with 8 brothers and sisters, Roy Conwell had his work cut out for him. One brother, Ernie, plays tight end for the St. Louis Rams. One of his sisters set a Washington state record in discus, and another was second in the nation in shotput. 

Although Roy was raised in a Christian family, the Gospel never overshadowed his father's emphasis on becoming strong and tough. When there was a disagreement among the kids, he wouldn't step in and end it; he'd have them fight it out. 

"I grew up with a brutal view of manhood. In my family, manhood was extreme. Strength was just huge in my family," Roy said. 

Personal strength also was central to Roy's Christian experience. The kingdom of God was more of a hard-fought achievement than a free gift. And the standards of God's kingdom were impossible to live up to, even for the strongest, most disciplined follower. 

"I had always been cynical about the church, and I was cynical about my own ability to live the Christian life as a transformed person," Roy said. "If I've been born again, then why do I struggle so much with temptation and sin and kindness?" 

"I didn't see any actualization in my own life of the truth I saw in Scripture. I became a cynic about myself and about the church. I doubted the church's ability to be a loving, life-giving community because I'd never seen it."

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Although Roy has spent the past 15 years as a Vineyard pastor in Kent, Wash., a suburb of Seattle, his church experience before that was an evangelical smorgasbord. 

Growing up in Kent, his family attended Nazarene and Christian Missionary Alliance churches. Feeling a call to pastor, Roy went off to Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, where he became active in a coffeehouse ministry to street kids. He spent 8 years in the American Baptist church, and then embarked on a mission to the Dominican Republic, where he served as chaplain at a Christian school. 

Two years later, in 1980, he and wife Gail moved back to the Seattle area to have their first child. After a short time off, he moved his family to Tigard, Ore., near Portland, and spent two years as a church planter. Then it was off to Kodiak, Alaska, where Roy and Gail served in a halfway house for violent, delinquent and abused kids Ñ "the worst of the worst," Roy explained.

"I wasn't too happy with myself at this time. I felt like I should already be a pastor of a successful, good-sized church, and it wasn't happening. 

"So after two years in Alaska, with their third child on the way, they moved back to Kent in 1985 to start a church.

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At first, we didn't know the church was going to be a Vineyard," Roy said. "We didn't even know what the Vineyard was. 

"Like many people in the Vineyard, Roy still recalls his first encounter with John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard movement. A friend had given him an article by Wimber about signs and wonders. "I thought, "The last thing the world needs is another religious nut,' and I threw it in the trash," Roy said with a grin. 

A short time later, Roy accepted an invitation to attend a small conference in Seattle where Wimber was speaking. 

"The message wasn't anything new to me. There was nothing really special about it," Roy said. "But when he said, "Come, Holy Spirit,' it was the first time I'd ever heard that in my life. And the Holy Spirit came upon me, and I started crying in front of all these people, and that was totally unacceptable to me. 

"The cynic had met the tenderness of God. 

"For me to come to Christ meant that I needed to understand what it means to be gentle and kind. The awesome thing that happens as we get exposed to the love of Christ is we learn what it means to be tender. 

"That's one of the subjects Roy hopes to talk about this weekend at Vineyard Boise's men's retreat. Roy believes our culture's definition of masculinity creates huge obstacles for men as they enter deeper into the kingdom of God. 

"When I was younger and I'd read over the Fruits of the Spirit and come to "gentleness' and "kindness,' my automatic response was, "Those are for girls,'" Roy said. "Our culture doesn't really know what manhood is all about, so we struggle with those things. 

"The challenge, he said, is for men to see their masculinity in a different light, to see it the same way Jesus did. Making that fundamental shift gives men the strength to be gentle and tender and compassionate. 

"We're still men, but we've found a balance."