Posted on 07/19/2015 12:38:55 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Getting troublemakers off the street used to be Jim Runnels’ job as a police officer, but now he wants to bring them in in a different way.
“Someday God’s going to tap you on the shoulder and wake you up,” Runnels recalls the president of the Open Door Mission in Omaha telling him.
Runnels was a sergeant with the Omaha Police Department for 18 years and within that time he had many run-ins with that same president. Pastor Bob Timberlake was his name and he knew Runnels as the officer who would drop off the forgotten, the drug addicts, the runaways and the homeless.
“Just take the scum,” Runnels would retort every time.
Nowhere in Runnels' mind did he picture himself becoming a pastor, specifically to reach the same “scum” he used to arrest and wash his hands of.
One Way Out
Having long sloughed off the fact that he was going through a dark depression from all the things he carried around with him through the years, suicide now seemed like the only option.
Between the denial of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, the tough exterior he showed to others was merely a facade that led him to think suicide was his only option out.
“Apparently they didn’t see my (do not resuscitate) card in my wallet,” he now jokes.
Against his will, doctors brought him back and his life changed forever.
“You think you have problems before you commit suicide, wait till you survive one, you’ve got a whole new set of problems,” the father of five daughters said.
His wife of more than 20 years divorced him and took everything. Out of embarrassment, his children quit talking to him.
“I had nothing left,” Runnels said.
God's plan
Friends, who happened to be Christians, took him in and nursed him back to health.
“Through this I learned that having nothing but God was the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.
Within that time his friends discovered something special about Runnels. He wasn’t a burned-out cop, he had a story of despair and hope that needed to be shared because there were others who could relate.
“They told me I needed to be a pastor, but I wasn’t fit to be a pastor,” he said.
Months later, at the age of 42, he was attending Grace University in Omaha, sitting next to “kids” in their 20s who also felt led to be a pastor.
“I was the campus grandpa,” he joked.
After graduating from Grace, Runnels found himself pastoring in churches across Iowa and Nebraska, all while obtaining his Master of Divinity. When his current wife of 18 years received a teaching job in Humphrey, he chose Columbus as the place to settle down and share his story.
“I don’t want a megachurch, I just want to give back to God by honoring him the way He honored me by being there for other people,” he said.
An open third-floor space in a downtown building practically fell in his lap, that’s when he knew he was doing what God wanted of him.
“There are no dress codes, there are no assigned seats. Every week is new and different,” he said. “If you’re broken or you hate church, you’ll love this one.”
When it came to the naming this new nondenominational church, the answer was simple. He once had a band that took well-known secular songs and rewrote the lyrics to reflect a Christian lifestyle before playing them at fairs and festivals. The name of the band was One Way Out.
“Well we had a lot of T-shirts leftover with that name on it so we figured, why not name the church that and use up those same T-shirts?” he jokingly said.
The fact that the name of his band and church reflect the type of people he tries to reach made Runnels realize everything that took place was part of God’s plan all along.
Having an unconventional church was no accident.
“It’s very informal here. I have people ask questions during a sermon and I love that,” he said.
Sunday school is held at 9 a.m. Sundays followed by a service at 10 a.m. One Way Out Christian Church is located on the third floor of Pioneer Plaza at 2402 13th St. The entrance is from the alley, through the glass door facing north.
For more information, call Runnels at 712-269-9520 or visit the church's page on Facebook: One Way Out Christian Church - DOC.
What kind of family is that? “His wife divorced him, and took everything. Out of embarrassment, his five daughters stopped talking to him.” What? “Embarrassment? All five girls are that hard hearted? How sad.
I’m not saying what should or should not happen in anyone’s family, but that emotional betrayal by his girls must have hurt deeply. Something tells me a couple will manage to ‘get over the embarrassment’ long enough to ask Dad to help pay for one of their weddings. Maybe the father was a real louse during the marriage.
God bless him.
They were raised by him to hate broken (weak) people who mess up. As an officer, he showed no mercy and compassion. He disdained the down and out. He was hardhearted.
Then when he became weak and down and out, his daughters treated him like he treated people all those years as a police officer. He was filth to them and his wife.
God bless him and save his wife and daughters.
Hoisted by his own petard. Well,
he is making the most of what he still has, that being life experience. Sometimes fate makes us walk in the scuffed, trodden shoes of another.
Sometimes fate makes us walk in the scuffed, trodden shoes of another.
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