In this interview, Alan shares how a lifelong commitment to spiritual disciplines—daily Bible immersion, prayer, confession, fasting, journaling, and community—helped him break free from past sexual sin and sustain a 54‑year marriage with his wife Theda. He recounts his pre‑marital confession, Theda’s forgiveness, and a life‑threatening illness that underscored the urgency of relying on the Holy Spirit. Alan credits mentors such as Dr. Ron Frost, Lydia Luthi, and Walt Townsend for shaping his view of Scripture as a lens to meet Jesus, and he emphasizes that disciplines are meant for encounter, not legalism. The conversation also addresses audience skepticism about “spiritual disciplines” and provides a concrete transformation story of a recently‑released prisoner, “Bob,” who was instructed to hand‑write selected verses, leading to a dramatic spiritual renewal. Community groups, small‑group ministries, and accountability are highlighted as essential contexts where these practices are lived out and reinforced.
Chapters
I'm assuming at some point you began grabbing some spiritual disciplines, whether that was scripture or attending church. What were some of those that were really helpful for you to walk away from some of your past sexual behaviors?
Yeah, and with Theda, and by the way, even before I came to Christ, I came to Christ, like I said, in March. We were thinking we might get married. And back then, even before I knew the Lord, I said, "I need to tell you my whole story because if we do get married, I don't want you to have to read the fine print after we said 'I do.'" Wow. It's not fair. And I said, "I'll understand if you say, 'I forgive you,' but I prefer not to spend my future with you." Yeah. And I told it all. And she says, "I forgive you and I want to spend my life with you." And I was like, "Wow." You're like, "I'm in." Yeah, and so for Theda, you know, and I'll answer your question, I'm gonna throw this in here a little bit fast forward. Like I said, we've been married 54 years. 25 years ago, Theda got a life-threatening disease and we weren't sure she was gonna make it. We had a 3-year battle. She was in so much pain, she couldn't even whisper what she needed me to attend to. Just hideous pain. And so one time when we were doing a Family Life Conference, we're getting in the elevator after a session, she says, "Alan, I just want you to know, if you were ever unfaithful to me, you'd break my heart." Well, okay, that would be true for any marriage, but the specialist, when he diagnosed what she was battling, said, Sadness is what brought this on. Wow. Laughter will fix it. So if I were to succumb and not use the tools that the Holy Spirit's given me, it wouldn't hurt Dita, it would kill her. And that's not an exaggeration. That's just our story. This isn't everyone.
Right, right.
So, you know, I was visiting with Nick prior to our getting together today. And I probably— the vocabulary I used, spiritual disciplines, makes sense. I kind of rephrase it for my own journey, and I'm going to read the words I wrote down here. I'd probably use a different vocabulary to just describe the soul-filling, heart-refreshing, life-protecting pattern that is my day-to-day way of being. I just, you know, Camp Crusade for Christ, spiritual breathing, you know, where you confess and then you receive the forgiveness. For me, this is a daily experience of steeping myself in God's Word, not because it's a book, as one of my most wonderful mentors, Dr. Ron Frost, puts it. He says, "These are not opaque pages we look at. These are the lenses through which we see him." Ron, he's a brilliant man. Two bachelor's, two master's, a PhD from King's College London. Nobody's read the Bible more than this guy. He reads it 3 to 4, sometimes 5 to 6 times a year for the last 60 years. And he's like a 5-year-old kid that just came to Christ. He goes, "Man, Allen, have you met him? Have you met him?" And so I have people like that in my life who have shown me to pore over— and here's— I brought one of my Bibles here because I'm— Lord, you got to talk to me. I need you. I've got to meet you. I don't need to study a manual. I need to meet the person. So, that's the only way I make it. You know, there's other heroes that have helped me. There's this lady that walked into our church. Her name is Lydia Luthi, Swiss woman in her 80s. The service is about to begin and she comes. She goes, "Alan, she says the love of God is enough to fill a life. It is enough." You know, as it says in Psalm 63, 'Because your love's better than life, my lips will praise you.' Now we all have also kind of our personal backgrounds, our makeup, so not everybody has to do what I do.
Yeah.
But this is what I do, is I get in the book and I said, 'I gotta hear you, I've got to meet you.' And there's all kinds of other things I use. That is, to use the word spiritual discipline, yeah, It's just how I navigate every day.
Alan, I have a good friend who says something like, when people spend a lifetime with Jesus, they either become eternal masterpieces or they spend a lifetime without him and they become eternal horrors.
Yeah.
And whether it's you or your mentors or this Swiss woman in your church, it seems like you've been surrounded by eternal masterpieces.
I really have.
And you're becoming one, Alan.
Well, thanks. That's where, as we make our way through this visit today, the Lord has placed people in my life just saying, "Oh, you think he's that good? Take a look at this." He's better. Oh! And you know, Ron Jensen was the beginning. There's another guy named Walt Townsend. I met with Walt. He's now battling Alzheimer's and lives in Arizona now. We met once, usually 2 or 3 times a week for 25 years. And every time you get with Walt, you're thinking, "Wow, I want to know him like you know him." Just whets your appetite.
Yeah, I love what you're saying about spiritual disciplines. You said that the purpose of them is to encounter, to meet a person, to know Christ.
Yes.
And I think we can relate to that in our relationships and marriages. If I'm only taking my wife on dates or bringing her flowers or writing a note or sending a thoughtful text, if I'm only doing that for the purpose of doing it, like, "Hey, this week I sent 6 texts and brought flowers once. And yeah, like, the point is not the things, right? The point is to grow closer with my wife. It's about her. And if it's not about her, then why am I doing them? And I think that's what I hear you saying about our— whether it's prayer or Bible reading or for fasting, meditating, journaling, like, whatever we enter into, to remember the heart of it is it's to connect with the person of Jesus.
Absolutely.
Um, not the thing itself, because if it's just about The book, like, how many chapters did I read? Well, pick any book, you know.
I know.
But if it's to get to Jesus, that's the heart of it, and that's what we want to keep in front of us.
Thank you. That's well said. Two quotes just from a week ago. There's a woman in Good Shepherd named Shelley Gilmore, and she's just one of those people when you meet with her, like, whoa, okay, you know things about him and you know him. I want to know. Here's what she wrote. She says, imagine that a passage of Scripture— think of it as a passageway into the presence of Jesus, where we sit and have deep conversation with him, speaking, listening, treasuring. And I passed that on to Ron Frost. Here's his response. He says, it's important to come to the Bible for the who it offers more than the what it gives us. So that's where the lens through which we see and meet him, and I find this, we'll probably visit this a little bit later, is that being in community, you know, like when we did the Conquer series at Good Shepherd, we had guys around the table week after week after week, and then they went into Seven Pillars. You know, people go to Celebrate Recovery, they're in a growth group, They're in a men's group. Man, almost everything I've learned, I learned when I was in community, and the guys didn't even know. I just got rebuked. You know, I'd be in a growth group with couples, and this guy says, "Well, here's what I do for my wife." I go, "Oops, never thought of that." Yeah, we're learning, we're growing.
Yeah, you know, for some of our audience, Alan, this topic is maybe a little— they're leery of it because they've they've almost had spiritual disciplines preached at them as like earning or legalism. And we've all heard the phrase like, we're not just going to pray it away magically. It's not by trying harder. And so in some ways it might make us almost feel like, well, is this that helpful or important? So do you have any examples that come to mind of someone's story where you've seen that their integration of spiritual disciplines, the growth in Christ was a significant part of how they were being transformed? How have you seen that happen practically in someone's life?
Well, I'm going to share one specific one. There was this gentleman, I think he's probably early 40s. I can't recall why he was in prison, but he'd just gotten out. And one of our elders, a guy named Mel Erickson, the guy said, "Mel, would you help me meet him? Can you help make some new insides in here?" And what Mel literally did is he picked some verses, you know, some passages that would really speak to this man, and he said— I'll just say his name is Bob— "Bob, here's what I want you to do. See these 4 verses? Today what I want you to do is I want you to literally, to physically handwrite those verses because as the Word of God, because it's living, active, breathe, God's breath, as God's breath gets inside of you, Things are going to start to change because you are hearing from, meeting with, and walking with. So there was one specific that was just dramatic. It was unbelievable. And, you know, I've been in numbers of situations because I'm generally with couples who are in distress.
Right.
You know, whoa. Oh, I just saw this couple the other day. I visited with them years ago. So we met with him and it was not untypical in terms of how we bumped and bruised each other. And I says, "And then you and I met, buddy, and here's what you said to me. You said people don't change." He says, "But God changes people." And I went, "Wow, well said." So we become like who we hang with, right? We just do. So as, was it Houston who wrote Transforming Friendship? So, I get with the Lord Jesus and then I work with young men, middle-aged men, and old coots like me to say, "You can meet him. This is where you hear his voice. And he, if you're steeped in his presence—" And like you said, worship, community, conversation, keeping company with God, one man's definition of prayer. So I have walked with souls all the way from the moment of confession that I've been unfaithful to my wife. Will you go with me when I tell her the truth?
Challenging moments.
Yeah. I remember one of our staff members, he says, Alan, can you come meet with my wife and myself? And inside I'm going, oh God, please, Not immorality, not immorality, immorality. And then he confessed and it was. So we go from the absolute tragedy to restoration. And today, you'd be very proud of that man. Very proud of that man. He— it's restored because Jesus walked in and he makes dead things come alive. Look at us.
