Mt. Vernon | “I’ve been in southern Illinois for three-and-a-half days, and I’ve never had a state’s weather try to kill me more…” joked Daniel Ritchie, vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention said during Spiritual Renewal Week at Logan Street Baptist Church. “Other than that, it’s been such an honor to serve alongside you guys, your churches, and in your community.”
In addition to speaking at Logan Street, Ritchie spoke at seven junior and senior high schools one elementary school, sharing his story with approximately 2,000 people.
Every year Salem South Baptist Association’s evangelism team finds a speaker to go into area schools. “We think we need to be engaged with the schools and the students there,” said Bob Burton, Association Mission Strategist with Salem South Baptist Association.
Ritchie quickly addressed the elephant in the room, not having arms. He told them it wasn’t because of a shark attack or anything like that—he was born without arms and without a heartbeat.
Due to that, he’s always had to face hard things head on. The hardest thing he physically had to learn to do was open doors. He encouraged students not to run away from hard things, but to embrace them, because that’s how you learn and grow.
Daniel Ritchie shares a message during Spiritual Renewal Week at Logan Street Baptist Church in Mt. Vernon.
He also shared that he’s faced his share of bullies, including back in school. However, he didn’t let that get the best of him. He found friends who would defend him, replaced hate with love, and is living his best life.
At the end of each assembly Ritchie took questions, letting students know nothing is off the table. “The students were so engaged and eager to ask questions,” Burton said. “We could have kept going at each school for a long time.”
“Being in these school assemblies these last couple days I get to share with them my story,” Ritchie explained. “I don’t get to share with them the life-changing gospel part, because then I get sued and the ACLU gets involved and that’s not great.
“But I was sharing this with the students: my struggle was never missing my two arms, God has been so kind in his creation with me. There are some fringe benefits of being armless, because short-sleeved shirts are long-sleeved shirts. I don’t have to change my wardrobe from spring to winter.”
Students were invited to Logan Street to hear Ritchie’s full story, because while he’s now accepted who he is and can joke, that wasn’t always the case.
When he was in high school, he let his hardships define his life, which led to comparison, hatred, and blaming God for creating him differently. “If God really loved me, he would have given me two arms and 10 fingers,” Ritchie said of his attitude at the time.
In his sophomore year, Ritchie he was invited to a church youth group lock-in by a classmate. Unfortunately, it was dodgeball themed, so Ritchie didn’t have a good time. However, the youth pastor shared the gospel with him.
That night Ritchie learned “my disability isn’t the biggest thing I have to overcome in my life; it’s my brokenness and my sin that distances me from the God who loves me.”
Ritchie was called into ministry, which he was confused about. He asked God how he, a recovering “people hater,” could step into that calling. However, he realized he was redeemed and recovered by God’s grace and keeping it to himself would make him the most selfish person on the planet.
Now, Ritchie uses every opportunity to share his testimony. He is the married father of two, served as a youth pastor, is now a traveling evangelist, and was elected first vice-president of the SBC last June.
Ritchie knows he probably has more opportunities than most due to his disability, but that’s just how his story played out. He shared a surprising statistic that 75% of people in Southern Baptist churches haven’t shared their testimony with anyone in the last 12 months.
“How in the world can we say Jesus is king when we don’t talk about him? How in the world can we talk about the good news of the gospel if we just see it as the same old news?” Ritchie asked. “Some of us need to revisit the grace that Jesus has been for us and not only apply that comfort to our life, but then go tell about it, go and share about it, go live like he really is your great hope and comfort.
“That’s when Mt. Vernon begins to change,” he told the congregation at Logan Street Church, “when the church walks out into the community and starts acting and talking and serving and loving like Jesus really is king. It’s not going to happen when your pastors do it, it’s going to happen when his people do it.”
Burton is already making plans to bring a speaker to schools in Jefferson County next year. “We have a lot of good credibility with the schools,” he said, “and that’s not something we’re going to take for granted.”