The Church of the Servant Calls - Ron Knopf

The Church of the Servant was not the first church I had ever been in, but it was the only one that attracted me and provided a pathway to understanding Christ and His message. In 1972 I was in charge of developing and implementing a detention and intervention center for juvenile delinquents. At the time we had one of the highest juvenile crime rates in the state. I was the Chief of Child Protective Services at the DSS, and we handled probation services for the county. Some children were detained in jail. After opening the new Juvenile Services Center on Blue Clay Road, I began an extensive volunteer program to engage the community with the youth in our custody. Of course we sought ministerial help. That was how I met Clem Jordan. He came to our pastoral organizational meeting and when one of the ministers said that the county should stop looking for free help, Clem immediately responded that Christ was not a paid employee and that he would be glad to be of service. And he was.

Anne and I started attending Church of the Servant in the Fall of 1973 during its first year. Our first service was held at a parishioner’s home. With the children rolling around, we sat on the floor and passed the Eucharist to each other. My family history involved some seriously negative experiences with organized religion, and while they allowed me to visit a church with friends, they would not permit me to be baptized in any denomination until I was an adult. Incorporating the work of theologians and Carl Jung and group dynamics and modern psychology in Adult Christian Education, Clem brought me into the Episcopal church.

When we discussed the baptism of my children in 1974, we did not have a building and I would not have been comfortable doing it in a building anyway. Too formal! And I was not interested in the Devil stuff either and neither was Clem. He baptized me, along with my son Richard and my daughter Rhonda, at our modest home with family and friends present. The next day we went to the lot on Oriole Drive and the three newly baptized Christians participated in the ground breaking service for our future building. Thanks be to God.