Still Growing: An Autobiography (25 page)

One day we have a barbecue, topped off with a barn dance.

On Circus Day, we go to the big top where circus performers train. The children get to try out the trapezes and trampolines. I sometimes teach magic tricks.

There are sing-a-longs, s’mores and bike rides for those who are able.

One very special day, the dads all play golf together, the kids have a very special day of their own and the moms get a makeover. Sometimes a husband tears up when he sees his sweetheart looking just like the
woman he fell in love with. That evening, the couples go to the restaurant on the grounds and share a candlelit dinner. For most, it’s the first time in months or years they have been able to connect and be romantic.

People wonder how the kids can do all these things when they are so incredibly sick. What Chelsea and I have learned about sick children is that their spirits can be unbelievably strong. They may have medical tubes coming out of various limbs, but they just tape ’em down and join in the fun!
They’re kids
. And they’re living.

Chelsea says, “Camp shows you that as long as you’re here, you’re living, not dying. These kids don’t live like they’re dying . . . they live like they’re living.”

Camp helps them feel alive. It helps kids be kids. It helps the entire family to forget about the illness for a week. This gives them a chance to re-bond and heal as a family.

It doesn’t take long to forget who is sick and who isn’t. Everyone is so full of life. We learn so much from these families. They love in a way we have yet to learn. They understand that time is precious.

By the time the week is over, new, lifelong friendships have developed. These friendships are so strong that the families often return to camp reunions—often without the child who was the reason they had come in the first place.

After 18 years of Camp Firefly, we are still totally hands-on. Chelsea is the one who does most of the work organizing and overseeing. It’s a huge task, but one she wouldn’t give up for the world. We see this as a camp that God has entrusted to us, and we always want to be good stewards of His precious gifts.

Chelsea and I love going to camp. Our kids love it, too. Yes, we go as a family. We look forward every June to when we can make new friends. While we’re there we are facilitators, but sometimes we are witnesses of miracles that take place before our eyes. Not miracles in the sense that the sick children suddenly are healed, but in the way families share a new light in their eyes. We see families connect with other families, bonding in ways that rarely happen in the rest of the world.

“It is the most important week of our year,” Chelsea says, “as far as what we learn, what we take away from it, what the children learn and the eternal perspective they receive. Camp reminds us and teaches us how we need to live as parents, and gives us an appreciation for every minute of our fragile lives. I personally come back different every year. It’s just amazing. I am so thankful for the camp. I’m unbelievably privileged to be a part of it.”

If you disappear from the public consciousness for nine minutes, people wonder when you’re going to make a “comeback.” The weird thing is, you haven’t really gone anywhere. Just because you’re not reporting to work on a soundstage doesn’t mean you’ve ceased to exist.

I still wake up every morning and put my parachute pants on one leg at a time. (Just seeing if you’re still paying attention—the ’chutes have retired to the attic over the garage. The Smithsonian passed up my offer of a donation.)

A few years after
Growing Pains
said farewell to the American public, some folks came to me with a script called
Kirk
(which seemed perfect for me, considering the title). It was a sitcom for the WB network (now the CW) that ran for two years. I played a 20-something guy who had “inherited” his three younger siblings when their great-aunt couldn’t care for them anymore. “Kirk” was an advertising guy low on the totem pole in New York City, living as a bachelor in a small apartment. Across the hall lived the beautiful yet untouchable doctor-in-training, Elizabeth—played by Chelsea. I wore a Band-Aid over my wedding ring because I didn’t want to take it off—not even for a sitcom.

We attempted to make a sweet and heartwarming show, just as family sitcoms started going out of vogue in the mid-’90s. Boundary-pushing shows like
Friends
and
Seinfeld
were the new norm, while shows like
Cosby
and
Family Ties
were slipping away.

It doesn’t take long for channels like E! or shows like
ET
and
Extra
to start asking “Where are you now?” People love to see what stars of the past are up to.

I think they just really enjoy seeing how we age.

Jack had been born and Chelsea and I were enjoying that chapter of life, but I wasn’t working on a show and I didn’t have anything particular going on in the way of ministry. I became uneasy. I felt like my career gear-shifter had popped out of fourth and was sitting in neutral. I felt like I was wasting time, going nowhere. I found myself sitting in the living room, idly picking stray lint off my Members Only jacket. (Again, kidding.)

What should I do to make a living now?
I asked myself.
Is my career over? Will I ever work on a sitcom again? Do I
want
to be in the biz, or should I go back to school like I’ve always planned?

I dove into my hobbies to give myself something to do while I tried to sort through these big questions. I also began taking some seminary-level courses through Grace Community Church near our home. I enjoyed them so much, I thought I might like to get a degree in ministry.

God had other plans.

Chelsea shook me in the middle of the night.

“Kirk! Kirk! You’ve gotta read this book. It would make a
great
movie!”

She waved the book
Left Behind
in front of my barely opened eyes. I groaned, rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. But she was so excited that she wouldn’t stop poking me. “Kirk, it would make such a great movie! I can just see you playing the part of Buck Williams, and I could play Hattie!”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said and went back to sleep.

A few weeks later, my manager got a call from a guy who said, “We’re doing this little film called
Left Behind
, and we wondered if Kirk would play the part of Buck Williams.”

A reporter named Buck is one of those “left behind”
when the rapture removes all Christians from the Earth.

That was the plot of the book and film, a story that captured the imaginations of over 65 million readers of the novels in the series.

I read the script, but not the book. I liked it and agreed to play Buck. Then the producers asked Chelsea to play Hattie. She was so excited—her dream was coming true, and so shortly after she’d dreamed it. A few weeks later, we packed our family and moved to Toronto for six weeks of filming.

Each day before filming, I opened the book to read the scene we were slated to do that day, picking up the voice and actions of Buck Williams. I enjoyed working on the films, and I played Buck again for the second and third
Left Behind
movies.

What was ironic about the filming of the
Left Behind
movies is that there were very few Christians on the set. Chelsea and I, and possibly one other cast member, were the only believers. There was not even one open conversation on the set about God or Christ the whole time we shot the movie. Between takes and during lunch hours, I did my best to share my faith with as many cast and crew members as possible, but I still felt uneasy that most of the people had no understanding of who Christ is and what He has done. On the final day of shooting, I stood up in a cafeteria among the cast and crew and thanked them all for their hard work and great attitudes. Then I asked them to consider what
Left Behind
was all about—the return of Jesus Christ.

“What do you think will happen to you when you die?” I asked. Then I did my best to explain the gospel and urged each of them to turn their hearts to God. Despite my earnest plea, I got no applause from
that
audience.

One man, our Jewish photographer, walked up as I sat alone finishing my meal to let me know that he admired my courage to share my beliefs, even though he didn’t agree with them. Later, when no one was watching, I heard from a couple of professing Christians who decided to “come out of the closet” to tell me that they loved the Lord but were to afraid to do so publicly for fear they would be shunned by the rest of the crew. The words of Jesus came to my mind: “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed when He comes in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26).

In the summer of 2000, I was at a booksellers convention to promote
Left Behind
, signing DVDs for the long line of people snaking through the aisles.

Some guy looked at me, handed me a CD and said, “You
have
to listen to this.”

I tossed it on the pile of stuff I’d collected from the convention. Later, as I was driving to visit my grandmother, I popped the disc in and listened to the message. I thought it was interesting, but didn’t quite get it. Six months later, someone sent me two copies of the same CD. I listened again as I was driving to a church to share my faith story with the congregation.

This time it grabbed me.
Now I get it. This is huge
.

The man’s teaching was foundation shaking. It challenged so much of what I thought I knew about the gospel and how to share my faith with people in a way that is accurate and effective.

I called the phone number on the back of the CD and reached a ministry called Living Waters Publications. I asked to speak with Ray Comfort, the man preaching on the disc. I knew nothing about him, and I was surprised that I was able to reach him that easily. We started talking, and I asked if I could get more information on his ministry. He sent me the book called
God Has a Wonderful Plan for Your Life: The Myth of Modern Message
, which had a picture of Stephen the martyr being stoned on the cover.

Hmm
, I thought.
That’s an interesting way to talk about God’s “wonderful plan” for Stephen’s life—a guy getting bludgeoned by rocks. Cheery
.

I began to read, and it was like an atomic bomb went off inside me. This guy was saying things I’d been thinking about for so long but never heard anyone talk about. One hundred years ago people were all over this topic, yet I’d rarely heard any contemporary preachers talk the same way about the most important issue in history.

The book was all about sharing the gospel with people by addressing their moral conscience using the Law of God, rather than enticing them to “ask Jesus into their hearts” with the “God has a wonderful plan” hook. I considered what I read, knowing that no one had ever personally
shared the gospel with me in that very specific manner. I thought,
I wonder what would happen if I witnessed to myself in this way?

I got down on my knees and, like the book said, asked myself if I thought I was a good person.
Sure
, I thought.
Not perfect, but as good as anyone else. I’ve never murdered anyone
.

I then pulled out my Bible, opened it to Exodus 20 and went through the Ten Commandments, one by one, asking myself if I had broken them.

I certainly had failed to keep the first of the ten by not always loving God above all other things.

When I had made an “idol” by creating a god in my mind that I was comfortable with (see
chapter 12
), I had broken the second.

Taking God’s name in vain, or using it disrespectfully, was just a part of my everyday speech as a kid. I used it to punctuate many a raunchy sentence.

Setting aside one day in seven to honor the God who had given me life seemed like a reasonable request, but had been the last thing on my mind for the first 17 years of my life.

Always honor my parents? Ha!
If they only knew
 . . .

Murder? I thought I was safe with that one, but then I read Jesus’ words about how God considers hatred to be murder and lust to be adultery—I was guilty on many counts of both.

I’ve stolen little stuff and big stuff—that made me a thief.

Greed? Being relatively wealthy, I had most of what I wanted, but I would be lying if I said I was fully content with what I had. I always had my eye on something more.

When I was done taking my moral inventory, it had a profound impact on me. For the first time, I
really
considered what it would be like to stand guilty before an all-powerful, all-knowing God, who could see my secret thought life and would judge right down to the thoughts and intentions of my heart. I became much more painfully aware of my own unworthiness. I came to grips with the fact that I was a self-admitted liar and a thief. According to Scripture, God also saw me as a murderer and an adulterer. In those heavy, soul-searching moments, I wanted to surrender my life to the Lord all over again—this time more completely.