Founder's Profile

With reluctance, at the request of my colleagues in the In Christ Fellowship (ICF), and believing this to be in divine order, I am, for the first time, writing an account of the events in my life that I believe have led me to the founding of this ministry. In doing this I also seek to follow the example of our Lord, who did not hesitate to tell who he was and why he was here; and of the Apostle Paul, who, no less than 24 times wrote that he was an apostle, and spoke often of the way God was using him, to the glory of God.

After several years of service as a youth in my church, I knelt for prayer in the choir loft after leading the congregational singing one August Sunday morning. Almost immediately I heard a quiet voice say: “Go to Olivet.” I looked up to see who had leaned over to speak to me, but saw no one. Realizing that it must have been the Lord, I was so deeply moved it caused a slight break in the service.

Some years earlier I had made plans to attend Olivet, our church college, but circumstances, including a lack of faith on my part, made me decide to train for an accounting career locally. I was now a happily married man in a successful industrial accounting career, with two small girls. For months I went through deep concern over whether these words meant that I should prepare for full-time service for the Lord or not. This was settled, on my knees at about 1:30 a.m. on 11/30/1943, when I naively asked the Lord to give me an answer on the first pages I turned to in my Bible, where I immediately found this passage:

Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child. But the LORD said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the LORD. Then the LORD put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth.

     —Jeremiah 1:4-9, KJV

The next morning, I awoke, wondering, “Does this mean that I am actually called to preach?” Again I naively asked the Lord to answer on the first pages I turned to by having them contain the word “preacher,” having no idea that this word occurs only 11 times in the King James Version I was then using, nor that the book I opened to, “Ecclesiastes,” means “preacher”; but here is what I read: “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh …” (Ecclesiastes 12:1, KJV).

As I continued reading, my anxiety began to increase! But what a relief when I reached verse 8:

Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity. And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs. The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.

—Ecclesiastes 12:8-10, KJV

Three times on one page! From that moment on I have never doubted my call to preach! Would you have, had this happened to you? It took me years, however, to realize how much more of my life these passages from God’s word, including the rest of the chapter, were predicting.

The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd. And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

—Ecclesiastes 12:11-14, KJV

Later that morning I announced my intention to resign, and set in motion the report that, “Jim Weeks has lost his mind, is going away to school, and feels he is called to preach.” They were right about the call and the trip, but I leave it up to you to decide about the rest of the rumor!

One thing I immediately noticed after my call was how much more difficult it is to witness person-to-person for the Lord after being identified as a preacher. As a layman, a very common reaction was, "What are you a preacher?" My answer was, of course, "No, I'm a layman." This usually made it possible for me to continue my witnessing. What a difference it makes to have to answer this question with a "Yes, but — !" This almost always puts a damper on my witness. So, lay witness, I challenge you to take advantage of this advantage you have over your preacher!

At the time of the call, I wondered why the Lord had closed the door on my plans to go to college when I was single. I later found out; however, that the years spent in industry were again and again the key to employment: while in college and seminary, and later in life. Only the Lord knows though, how many times in the next 7 years of carrying a full-time study load, working full-time supporting my family, the birth of a son and another daughter, student pastorates, then in more recent activities, I have been reminded that God warned me early on that “of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.”

But the story continues. The first time I returned to my home church to preach, a former neighbor lady whom my mother had led to the Lord, asked me if my mother, who had been killed in a car wreck on the way to my High School graduation, had ever told me that she had dedicated me to the Lord for the ministry before I was born. She had never mentioned this to me. You may believe that my reading of the passage in Jeremiah that confirmed my call to ministry was a coincidence — I cannot!

I graduated from Olivet Nazarene College (now University) with an A.B. degree in 1947. Ordained an Elder in the Church of the Nazarene on September 9, 1949; and graduated from Nazarene Theological Seminary with a B.D. degree in 1950. My prior years in industry made it possible for me to gain evening employment while in college at a job that made it possible for me to study while the tabulators were grinding away, and to be the Account for the international governing board of our denomination my first two years in seminary, before resigning to start a new church.

After a few years in pastorates and in full-time evangelism, I began to sense a need to make a change in assignments. Once again, though by then I realized how naïve it was to do so, I asked the Lord to direct me to an answer on the first pages in the Bible I turned to. While in prayer on my knees I opened my Bible and began reading again in Jeremiah, this time to Chapter 22 in the NIV, where I read in verse 20: “Go up to Lebanon and cry out ….” After a sequence of events, totally unforeseen, but which I later realized were predicted in the Jeremiah passage used in my call, my request for a missionary appointment was denied.

For more than three years I would often wake up crying over my inability to do what I felt the Lord was calling me to do — and I was now too old for a missionary appointment. Then the answer came! In my pastoral study one morning, I felt heavily burdened over this matter. After praying about it, the thought occurred to me and I prayed, “Lord, maybe you plan to use me in Lebanon after the Tribulation period,” and I felt definitely relieved. Rising from prayer, I reached for my mail which my Secretary had brought in earlier, and found the American Bible Society Record on top.

The thought occurred to me, “I wonder if the Bible Society has work in Lebanon”; so I turned to the back cover and read: “Bible Lands Agency, North, P.O. Box 747, Beirut, Lebanon,” and then —: “Secretary to be appointed.” Within minutes I was in conversation with a General Secretary of the Society in New York, and the process was in motion that led to my appointment to that post. Once again, it was those years in industry that made this appointment possible.

This agency was a joint agency with the British and Foreign Bible Society, and had offices in Athens, Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, and Jerusalem. While there I was asked to also supervise the Istanbul, Cairo, and Alexandria offices for a year of my four-year term. What a joy it was to be so solidly in the center of God’s will; fulfilling what the Lord had predicted when he called me to be “a prophet [preacher] unto the nations.”

As Americans, my family and I were treated royally by the people of the area; but there was a problem. As the primary nation making it possible for the Zionist forces to drive the Palestinian people from their homes, businesses, schools, and hospitals, into refugee camps, the traditional respect for America was deteriorating rapidly, and I began to sense was affecting attitudes toward our work. We changed the foreign names of our work to local language names, which we believe helped; but the problem grew.

Once again around 1:30 in the morning, the Lord made clear his will for me. This time no Scripture was involved; a “light” inside of me just “went out.” The next morning my request to be replaced was on its way to New York and London.

Though that decision forfeited full college tuition and living costs for all four of our children, and a comfortable living in a rewarding field of service, neither my children, nor my wife nor I regret that decision. The appointment to this position of my competent and dedicated Arab associate, Fouad Accad, has proven to be a tremendous blessing to the work that has been carried on after his retirement by a son. Now deceased, Fouad has left one of the most valuable accounts I have ever read on Muslim Evangelism in a very inexpensive book: Building Bridges, Navigators Press, NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO 80935.

While in Beirut, it was a privilege to take graduate work in Arab Studies at the American University of Beirut; and upon return to the States I continued these studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. These studies, along with my experience across the breadth of the Bible Lands has helped me to gain a more biblical perspective on the Israeli/Palestinian problem than the typical Evangelical Christian perspective I grew up with.

While in Ann Arbor my graduate work toward a Ph.D. was proving to be more theoretical than practical for my needs, so I sensed the need for a change, and the Lord enabled me to start another new church for my denomination, this time adjacent to the University.

The following years have been spent in various ministries: college staff work, evangelistic pastoral, concentrated Bible study, and writing. It was during those years that some of the insights that have led to the formation of the ICF began to take their final shape, though we have lately discovered that their roots are evident in articles and recorded sermons back to at least my seminary days.

At my colleague’s request, I will add some biographical data. I was born September 26, 1920 in Hopkins County, Kentucky, the youngest of eleven children. My father was a coal miner and a tenant farmer. I married Violet Watson of Cincinnati, Ohio on June 8, 1940, the eldest daughter of a Nazarene pastor. We have four children, ten grandchildren, and sixteen great-grandchildren. After retirement, we moved to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for family reasons, where we now reside, working well over “full-time” on the ICF ministry.

I hope you will realize that I am recording these events and data in hopes they will encourage you to prayerfully read the articles of interest to you on our website, and give God a chance to speak to you about what part, if any, he wants you to have in sharing our ministry.

There is no way for me to adequately thank my wife and children for the adjustments they have had to make as I sought to find and follow what I am sure has been the will of the Lord for our lives, and that without  a word of complaint; though my children have had a far more difficult time in getting their college and graduate degrees than would have been necessary, had the Lord led otherwise.

Most of all, an eternity of worship, honor and praise will be inadequate for me to express the depth of my gratitude to God, not only for my unmerited salvation and the salvation of those I love; but for the privilege of being an instrument in his hands for the salvation of others for whom our Lord died.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

     —L. O. Emerson

_______________________________