I am still enormously in debt to Dr. Francis Schaeffer, the founder of the L'Abri movement and at one time a co-pastor in St. Louis with one of my Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary professors' - Dr. Elmer Smick.

I began reading Schaeffer in my mid-teens and discovered that there was a whole way of seeing, a world-view of which I had no idea - that the Christian faith was more than 'Are you saved, brother?' and constant reiterations of John 3:16 and various biblical stories (to be illustrated mostly in flannel graph - remember that?). I discovered there was skeleton-structure, bones, sinew and flesh to the faith - a philosophy for my life and for anyone seeking to become truly, fully 'human' - and I have been curiously pressing into the Mystery ever since.

Schaeffer and his wife Edith Schaeffer (as the British Grace Magazine puts it) were "determined to demonstrate, in the ministry of L’Abri, a true outworking of trust and dependence on God in all circumstances, a demonstration that the unseen supernatural world really exists."

The magazine continues, "So, for example, they committed themselves to prayer, asking that God would send the individuals to them that would find their ministry helpful, and that God would provide all necessary resources of money, housing personnel and so on."

The Schaeffers believed that 'God is There' - that God is present and could and would direct in their lives and ministries. So they trusted, acted, or sometimes simply waited.

Schaeffer also wrote True Spirituality  because of a desire to show what living the Christian life looks like when, moment by moment, we 'rely on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who is given to (the Christian) because of the finished work of Christ on the cross.'