Beeson Update: A Modern Day Jonah: Life Lost-Life Reclaimed
By Heidi E. Heater, Editorial Assistant, Beeson International Center, Asbury Theological Seminary
Although called to preach at age 12, Scott Frisbie, like Jonah, ran in the opposite direction. He didn’t end up in the belly of a big fish with seaweed wrapped around his head, but he sailed toward the proverbial Tarshish.
As a teenager, he rebelled, running from the call. His high school classmates voted him “least likely to succeed.”
He went to Bible College in hopes of “getting it right.” He soon tired of being a hypocrite, and dropped out, becoming entangled with addictions.
“But the call wouldn’t go away!” Frisbie, ’00 M.Div. and current D.Min. student at Asbury Seminary said. “God was still there and he wasn’t letting go of me no matter how hard I tried to run.”
Frisbie worked in a mental health center for a time, caring for the outcasts of society. Ironically, Frisbie felt no one cared for him and decided to end his life.
But God had another idea. As Frisbie perched on the edge of a silo, preparing to jump, God spoke again: “Scott, I want you to preach to people!” Frightened by God, he climbed down, but it wasn’t until two years later that he finally accepted Christ.
His marriage was again on the rocks, and he realized he was on the verge of losing his wife and the opportunity to know his unborn child. He cried out to God, who again, heard his call and challenged him to attend church.
By providential coincidence, the pastor’s sermon was entitled, “You’ve Never Gone Too Far to Go Back to God.” Frisbie listened, struggling with doubt and white knuckling the pew in front of him during four verses of the altar call. As if reading Frisbie’s thoughts, the pastor walked to the song leader, admonishing him to sing just one more verse.
Frisbie slipped past others in the seat, all but shoving them aside, and ran to the altar. He begged God to forgive him.
“It was like Aslan roared and threw (the weight of sin) down off my back,” Frisbie said. “I remember the point where the victory came and my cry turned different. It turned to a laughing kind of cry. I realized I’d actually been forgiven and no one could take that from me!”
Frisbie began to pray about what to do next and enrolled in Asbury Seminary the fall of 1996. After receiving his M.Div. in 2000, he pastored a Wesleyan church in Florida for five years and taught in a Christian school.
In 2010 he couldn’t shake the desire and call to “study to show himself approved”. He returned to the Orlando campus to pursue a Doctor of Ministry in Transformational Innovation.
“This D.Min. has given me spiritual growth,” Frisbie said. “It’s allowed me to empty myself and be set apart for Kingdom work. It wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t do this. No way it could happen the way it has with the different flavors of professors teaching me. It could have happened with me reading, or being convicted, or praying, but it wouldn’t have happened with real and different people. God appointed these times, these people, and my growth to occur at Asbury Theological Seminary.”
Frisbie has completed all his coursework and is currently working on his dissertation that examines the problem of evil and the way it affects teens to 20-somethings. This is the time period that Frisbie ran from God and the group that seems to be absent from today’s churches.
“I’m passionate about this topic because I lost 20 years of ministry and possibilities,” Frisbie said. “I hope through the study and the dissertation we can find out more about this demographic and how to prevent these wayward years. It’s never too late to be what you might have been!” Frisbie said.
Frisbie intends to finish in December 2014.