“It’s Not About Being Perfect”

Forty-two people declared their desire to follow Jesus during the Pentecost 2025 evangelistic event that the Body of Christ church held this summer in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Several were baptized on August 9 at the conclusion of the meetings. Attendee Michael Huff didn’t come for the sermon.

Michael had just moved to Fort Wayne fresh from a work-release program. Friends told him about a back-to-school giveaway at a red brick church in a hardscrabble neighborhood. There was one condition: to get the supplies, you had to sit through the hourlong service.

Michael was fine with that. His girlfriend, Tonya, was not so sure. She had been to churches before, the kind in which the preacher’s voice boomed and women were told to obey their husbands, and she had left feeling demeaned.

Inside the sanctuary on a hot late July evening, things changed. Cody Miller, Lake Region Conference evangelist, did not dress or speak as though he was trying to impress. Dressed in jeans and sneakers, he told stories about real people and real struggles. He read Bible verses straight from the text, pointing out each one so that listeners could check for themselves. There was no talking down to the listeners. There was no pretending to be perfect.

“I could relate to that,” Michael said.

For years Michael had not imagined himself in a church at all. His childhood was a blur of 26 schools, nights in homeless shelters, a father who ran from the law, and a mother who could not keep a home. By his teens Michael was stealing and selling guns. At 18 he was arrested on burglary and firearm charges. The possible sentence was 150 years.

In jail he wandered into a service led by a former criminal with a hook for a hand. This pastor knew the life. He had lived it. “I went back to my cell crying and praying,” Michael recalled of that unforgettable day in September 2015. “That was the day I decided to follow God.”

After nearly a decade behind bars Michael met Tonya. She was fighting her own way out of addiction and a custody battle for her two daughters.

When they showed up at the church along with 200 other visitors for the back-to-school giveaways, they didn’t expect the outpouring of love. Members welcomed them both, remembering the girls’ names and sending texts in the days following to see how they were doing.

Then came the sermon that changed everything. Cody began with a warning. “What I am about to say might offend you,” he told the congregation, as Michael hung on the evangelist’s every word. “Do not be mad at me. You will see it in the Word yourself.”

The topic was death. Most churches, Cody told them, tell grieving families their loved ones are already in heaven. “But,” he continued, “I’m sorry if you think that, you know, Big Mama is up in heaven right now looking down on you, but that’s not the case.”

The Bible, the evangelist explained, describes death as a sleep. The dead wait for Christ’s return. He moved from verse to verse in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, showing the promise of resurrection. Cody walked them through verses showing that when you die, you’re waiting until Jesus comes back.

For Michael the message rang true. “That has always bothered me,” he said. “I have read it myself. When you die, you wait. I said to myself, ‘They can’t be up in heaven already, cause Jesus hasn’t finished yet. And He says, I’ll build a place for you and then I will come back for you. You know, nobody knows the day.’ When I heard him go through it, showing every verse, I thought, Yeah, that is the truth.”

On Friday, August 8, 2025, Michael stepped into the baptismal waters, grateful for the Bible knowledge and friendships gained. “It is not about being perfect,” he said. “It is about being real, and God can work with that.”

The original version of this story was posted on the Lake Union Herald news site.