James “Jim” Chandler: Born in October 1953 in a small town in southwestern Oklahoma called Walters, I am the second to the oldest of five kids born to J.C. and Mary Chandler. We grew up on the south side of the rail-road tracks that run through the middle of the town. This part of town was the poor side of town, known as Snuff Ridge, and always carried with it a stigma for all the folks that lived there, especially the kids growing up there. There always seemed to be a lack of things in our lives, except the true love of a Mother that never gave up on her kids. There were hard times that fell upon our lives, and many times physical abuse from an alcoholic Dad, but Momma always seemed to make it bearable for us, giving us continued hope for a better day coming. The bitterness and unforgiveness from years of abuse and torment were to play a unbelievable role in the lives of the Chandler kids in the years to come, and without a genuine relationship with God, Satan’s wiles would be evident in these lives...especially in mine! I went through two marriages by the time I was 26 years old, and the wild life seemed to beckon me more and more all the time. Drugs and alcohol became my constant companion, and a “redneck” character was becoming more evident in my life as the years passed. In the late 70’s I started running around the C&W nightclub scene and had all the makings for a real outlaw. I learned how to fight growing up, so that came almost natural, and there was plenty of that to be had out in those nightclubs. I danced and romanced my life away in those honky-tonks for about 14 years, and the drugs and alcohol really took a toll on my life in more ways than I can describe. I lost several auto upholstery businesses throughout the years, and my credibility dwindled as well. I could blame my childhood, being raised like a poor pauper, even the side of town that I grew up on.... but the real fact was: all of this adversity that plagued my life was due to many ‘bad choices’ in my life, and the chooser was none other than myself! Like many of the country songs from years ago, I lost everything and had come to the end of my rope in life. All seemed hopeless, but actually at the point I was at in life, I was simply a candidate for a miracle and just didn’t realize it. But, on June 3rd 1989, after being strung out on drugs and alcohol for 14 years, I woke up feeling a bit strange that morning. There was nothing wrong that hadn’t been wrong for many years, and hard-times and let-downs were not strangers in my life, but I felt that my life was to make a drastic change that morning. I didn’t have a clue how it would or why, but I sensed it so strongly. I turned the TV on as I sipped my coffee, sitting on the couch in my pajamas. The first thing I saw on the screen was a TV preacher, so I jumped up and turned the channel as quickly as I could. I turned the channel selector as far one way as it would go and back down the other direction as far as it would go, and every channel was blank except for the one that the preacher was on. I thought, “Great! What else is going to go wrong? Now my TV is going out!” For some unknown reason, I just turned to the channel that the preacher was on and left it there. I wasn’t going to listen though....I had problems that I needed to think and work through, and I didn’t need some TV preacher bothering me with his speech of how I needed God in my life to make me better. All of a sudden, as if something grabbed me and set my attention on that TV and the preacher, he looked into the camera and started speaking as if he was talking directly to me, and in essence said, “I see someone out there that is lost and confused, and you don’t know what to do with your life anymore. God has a plan for your life, but it is going to require something of you. If you want your lost life straightened out, humble yourself before God. Right there where you are at, get on your knees and humble yourself before God and He will come into your heart and life.” There was a Devine Presence that flooded the room I was in, and in a moment of time I could see in my mind all of the failures of the past years of my life, the people I had hurt and let down, and I could see the worry wrinkles on my precious Momma’s face that I know I put there by the way I lived my wild and crazy life. Suddenly, as if there was a wall crumbling down in my heart, I hit on my knees and began crying and calling out to God to please help me. I began pleading with Him for forgiveness for all the things I had done all of my life that I knew were wrong as a $3.00 bill. I have no idea how long I was on my knees on that living room floor, but when I got up, I was a changed man. I knew without a slight doubt that I would never see the inside of a bar or nightclub again. I knew in my heart that the alcohol and drugs that were instrumental in the degradation of my life were done and history in my life. At that moment, God took an old wild outlaw, saved him, and called him to preach of His Love and Mercy to the multitudes in the streets and prisons of our society. From day one, I was never ashamed of what had happened to me, for I was a “new creature in Christ Jesus”, and just knowing that was like drinking a cool glass of clear water on a hot day. Oh, I marveled at His Mercy on a wretched man like I was, yet I was born again to win! Called into the ministry after being saved about a year or so, prison corridors became my parish, and the hundreds of cells holding inmates were as fields of grain just waiting to be harvested with the Word of God coming out of my heart and through my mouth, proclaiming the good news of God’s Saving Grace. Many preachers are called to deliver their sermons of the Saving Grace of God from beautiful pulpits, and I have done some of that over the years, but God called me to “go into all the world and preach the gospel(good news) to every creature”, and I have two ways of doing just that. I preach it and I sing it, and God has anointed both in my life. The messages that I preach are simple and forthcoming, yet delivered with compassion to the lost and wounded soul. My songs are “right where you live” type songs. Many will bring you to tears and many will bring you to your feet. I have had many people come up to me after a service and comment that the song I sang sounded like I was singing it directly to them, and it touched their lives. That is because of the anointing destroying the yoke that Satan has put around their necks(Isaiah 10:27 & Luke 4:18). It is so very gratifying to sing for the Lord, which is my passion, and see it touch the lives of so many people. I began singing in the prisons of Oklahoma, and have witnessed both, the ministry of the Word of God and some powerful songs, touch the lives and hearts of hardened men and women and see them humble themselves under the Mighty Hand of God. In my preaching, I call people to stand for God in the face of adversity and not submit to the beckoning call of sin. I confront the sin of unforgiveness, which God told me has ‘bottle-necked’ His blessings in the Body of Christ and thus created an impasse to His Throne of Mercy. My life was totally and drastically changed by the unadulterated Word of God, and God forbid that I ever “water it down and make it palatable for people to bear”. Jesus never moved with pity, but with compassion, yet never compromised His Message of hope and reconciliation, love and forgiveness, and living a holy and uncompromising life before God. I know that without love, there is no faith. And where there is no faith, there is no pleasing God. And to please God, we cannot allow a lost soul to remain lost and undone without hearing that the God of eternity loves them and has a Devine Plan for their lives. This message is what brought my son, Craig, to the saving knowledge of God through Jesus Christ about 5 months before he was found dead of Methadone toxicity on June 29th 2005. Had I watered it down or made it like pabulum for a baby, he might never have found it worthy of sincerely surrendering to. God has given me a love for people, and I know that Satan has trickery that will be the demise of many people, and we, as Christians, have an inherent responsibility to reach out to them with the Hope of the Gospel and rescue them from the wiles of the devil and the consequences of sin. I have had the honor and the privilege of leading hundreds of people to the Foot of Calvary, where Jesus, the Christ awaits them, to give them a reborn spirit and an eternal life that goes far beyond any human comprehension. And that is not all. Also,a life here on earth filled with the expectation of what God is going to do from day to day. Yes, I am a witness of the Saving Grace of God, the life changing power and hope in Christ, and the Dream-Making Reality of a Heavenly Father. Yes, God has brought me a long way from the days of growing up on Snuff Ridge and the years as an outlaw in the C&W nightclubs of the infamous Lawton, Oklahoma to where I am today. Oh, I can hardly wait to see what He has in store for my life and all of the ministry He has for me in the remaining years of my life. I know this: when He comes, He will find me preaching and singing of His Marvelous and Wondrous Love and Mercy to a lost world, alongside and with the love of my life: Catheryn Marie Chandler, who is my companion, my inspiration, and my precious friend. Waking up knowing that I have Jesus, her, and my precious Momma in my life.......just amazing Jesus, simply amazing! And I give you praise for your wondrous works in my life!