I thought Christianity was kind of dumb.

Jeff thought he was checking off all the right boxes. He was baptized as a baby. He was married in a church. And he never missed attending service on Easter and Christmas.

But going any deeper into Christianity definitely wasn’t his thing.

“I thought believers suffered from a lack of intelligence,” Jeff recalls. “I would argue why I thought Christianity was kind of dumb”.

But his wife Jenny continually prayed for change. “I just wanted him to come willingly with me to church,” she remembers.

One day, Jenny bought Jeff a Mark Batterson book, and, to her surprise, he read the entire thing. It hit him square in the eyes that maybe, just maybe, there was something more to a Christian life.

A hunger for more stirred inside Jeff and he became interested in checking out Northwoods with his wife. Several times he felt strangely emotional during worship music. He decided to get baptized again. Then came the class.

Northwoods hosts a class called Doing What Jesus Did. Participants learn to share their faith, hear from God, pray for others, resist the enemy and discover their spiritual gifts and how to use them.

Jeff admits he selfishly signed up to join his wife so he wouldn’t be stuck at home with his small children for six months of Tuesday nights.

“I was a bit nervous when he signed up,” Jenny recalls. “He was still a bit judgmental at that time.”

Jeff said he entered the class “totally blind,” but quickly had his eyes opened from the first night, realizing God could do tangible things in a life.

“Crazy things happened,” Jenny said. “He went from zero to a hundred.”

Jeff’s transformation continued after the class. He is now a table leader in the same class and is leading several ministries at Northwoods.

“He’s a completely different person,”Jenny said. “He is the spiritual leader of our family now. And I was just praying for him to come to church.”