48 Years—This Old Guitar No. 5

1970—Jesus, Ken Hager, Emory Worsham, and Me

I spent the Summer of 1969 traveling with a youth ministry throughout the Midwest. Ours was a team of six college-age kids hailing from Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Sweden (I think). Over the course of that summer, our time was invested with the youth groups of four different Lutheran congregations. One of the people I met that summer was a Youth Pastor named Ken Hager of Faith Lutheran Church in Cleveland, Ohio.

I lived in a western suburb of Cleveland—a town named Berea—and after that summer ministry time, I went back to visit Ken. We became friends. The above song—number seventeen in my song production story—grew out of those wonderful times of fellowship with Ken, Emory, and others.

Our ministry organization was named Lutheran Youth Encounter (L.Y.E.). The man who led me to Christ in 1968—David L.C. Anderson—is also the founder of LYE. LYE has since dropped the denominational marker from their name and are now known simply as Youth Encounter.

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And please read The Rescue Story, a harrowing tale about David’s rescue from the icy waters of the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska.