Baptism Testimonies: Sojourn’s Rob Bratcher

We will celebrate another Baptism Sunday on July 11. If you would like to take this important step in identifying with Christ and His bride, email baptism@sojournchurch.com by Sunday, July 4.

And now, Rob Bratcher tells the story of his salvation, which led to a recent baptism at Sojourn Gathered:

As an early 90’s child growing up in the Highlands I learned all about art, culture, and diversity at a very young age. I also learned the gospel at an early age in the classes my mom taught every Sunday morning at the Advent: our beautiful Victorian church home that stands proudly in the midst of the chaotic Baxter Ave. bar scene. After a long week of taking the bus to work and standing on her feet welding 10 hours per day, my mom would spend her Saturdays planning lessons for Sunday school.

She and my dad sacrificed many hours of potential resting time to make sure that our family was built on the rock. For years they set an example of love and selflessness. Our home served as a base for my buddies and me growing up, and my folks were always hospitable to every kid I brought threw the door.

Despite their selfless efforts to keep the family closely centered in Christ, I did what so many kids of my generation did: I fell. I never turned my back on Christ intentionally or professed atheism like so many of my peers; I simply drifted away in the night. I was obsessed with the scene of youthful debauchery that was so prevalent and so exciting to my callow soul. I spent my late teens and early 20’s masking a black cloud of ambiguous pain with a wide variety of uppers and downers. Soon the panic attacks began. My life had turned into an indescribably hellish, lucid nightmare from dawn to dusk.

Without my girlfriend, now my wife, Dana I would not have made it through; and I mean that the exact way it sounds. We found Sojourn in 2004. It was obvious to Dana and I that Christ was leading us in the right direction; that everything we’d been through happened for a reason. Soon, through the grace of God, my anxiety subsided and life became somewhat normal again. So of course I returned to the selfish hedonism of my past, this time thankfully without the drugs.

For several more years I lived recklessly. On the surface I didn’t appear to be a bad person, but I knew my heart was in the wrong place. I was in love with my possessions, chasing wealth, drinking and partying, blowing money, and not giving anything back. I went from a typical rebel kid to a typical godless adult.

Finally at the beginning of this year, after the company I helped build had led Dana and I to live in seven cities over the course of two years, we came home to Louisville. After several months of studying the New Testament, C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller, and briefly attending an amazing church in Charlotte, N.C. I felt as though we were being called home. God was working in my heart.

I resigned my position with the company and we left our beach condo in Tampa Bay. Since that time my life has changed drastically. Christ has led Dana and I back to Sojourn and into a faith deeper than I ever knew possible. I’ve shed many tears of pain and guilt looking back but now I know that Christ has been with me all along. I was lost and now I’m found. I am 27 years old and I’ve seen more than many people twice my age. I know the hopelessness of life without Christ. I prayerfully anticipate my Baptism and am thankful for my amazing rebirth in Christ.