John Carter

About the author...

John Carter is a slightly misfit, former engineer, teacher, and kind of but not really 20-something. He has walked in the worlds of engineering, ministry, and a life with God and people for nearly 20 years. He contracted a serious case of following the Lord, but it's taken him into all sorts of places that don't fit the standard-issue curriculum of "Christian life." It's been quite a ride.

The slightly-longer version...

That's the short version. The slightly longer version is, he's had a career with a bit of variety, at least by engineering standards. He started off in the world of computer simulation, doing feasibility studies on Army radar, radio, and network designs. For a lot of years, he was all about the technical business of simulation and analysis. All about it. To a fault.

Like any large organization, the Army rewarded his ambition with promotions and more power. He moved quickly into management positions. He found that setting a course and moving out on it was very much to his liking.

Along came a son, and the realization that some things were beyond management. Babies don't much care how smart you are, or how together you've got it. God was getting his attention now.

On a quiet autumn night in 1994, John realized that God's love for him really was unconditional: there wasn't anything to make it go away. Nothing's been the same ever since. "Normal" went away for good.

Amazing things happened along his way; he learned that the Bible is full of descriptions of Christians as "good." He learned that God wasn't so far away as he'd believed. He learned at home, at work, in family. He went through a lot of ridiculously-good training through his work: total quality management, leadership, personnel management, teambuilding, systems engineering, infrared and radar systems, simulation. He wondered why the Army did this so well, and the church, well, not so much. He learned the life-changing power of small groups of believers meeting in each others' homes.

He noticed that, as he had been mentored and fathered by a number of men in his life, he was doing the same to others. It seemed to be in his identity, his DNA. He noticed that there was no shortage of fatherless people around, young and not-so-young. They were great journey-mates for him.

He met a missionary couple in Israel in 2001, and thought, "If I ever got to where I could retire early and do whatever God invited me to, without dependence on the whims of congregations and mission boards, that would be incredible." Five years later, the window opened and he flew through it into the wild world of God's calling and tempo. "Normal" still hasn't returned, and he doesn't expect it to. Ever.