Category: Stories

I was also first introduced to Ron as a new believer at Milldale Baptist Church. He would come at least once a year to Zachary, LA for the Pastor’s Conference in the early 1980’s. His conversational style of preaching had a way of putting everyone at ease, while his gentle, pointed humor both entertained and cut right to the heart of the matter at hand. I loved hearing him preach then and am still edified by his recorded messages today. I would love to see all of his messages put up on sermonaudio.com I don’t know when, but it will be good to see him again in glory someday. He’ll just say, look over there. Look what Jesus is doing.

2017.03.23

God used Campus Crusade in the late Spring of 1976 (through a Josh McDowell meeting) to lead me to believe in and follow Jesus Christ. During that summer, I became involved with a small church of dear people who were highly legalistic. Upon returning to the university I met with Campus Crusade and through them got involved with the movement. Though the effort was there, I wasn’t really growing. A fellow Crusader introduced me to Ron Dunn through a cassette. Specifically, Pastor Dunn’s sermon on Jeremiah 29:11-13 “Seeking the Lord” revolutionized my spiritual life from one of working hard and being legalistic to seeking the Lord through a personal relationship of seeking Him first while trusting and obeying Him. I have also greatly benefitted from Ron’s sermon series “Strange Ministers” coming to understand how God purposefully and graciously uses such things as discouragement, temptation, and even failure in our lives. J.I.Packer in “Knowing God”(in the chapter entitled “Those Inward Trials”) also speaks of those things. God has used Ron Dunn’s sermons many times over the years. My only regret is that I never saw him in person to thank him…

Who would have believed that two mischievous boys, friends from the sixth grade could have done the things we have. I am the one in Ron’s story about the scuffle we had in his mothers kitchen and we knocked over a boiling pot of cabbage. Ron called me a fool and had a hard time accepting my reply that we were both fools in the court jester sense.

I appreciate all that he has done and the times he picked me up when I was down.

I have served the latter part of my life as a missionary to French world.

I first met Ron at the Milldale Bible Conference. I was a tape of the month member for years. I still have boxes of his tapes. In 1997 our 16 year-old daughter was killed in an auto accident. Ron invited Linda and me to come see to his home. Ron and Kaye were very loving and understanding to us. About a year later at Milldale, I brought the message just before Ron and at the conclusion he was the first one to me. He hugged me and said he could see God working. He said, “Keep your eyes on Jesus and draw closer closer still!”
I loved him and miss him greatly.

Ron’s life and mine intersected at a time when we were both looking for answers. I will never forget him sharing -”we get the wrong answers because we ask the wrong questions”. It started me on path about searching for the right questions- understanding that the most important thing in life was to know God, to obey God, to love God- and as Ron quipped “to watch out for big trucks!” Interspersed between wisdom and wit, Ron was the mentor that I needed not as a preacher but as a man seeking to know God. A mentor who was just himself, unafraid to admit that he was working out his own life day by day. Ron could say more in a sentence than most will say in a lifetime.