Pat Boone on Facebook

One of my Facebook friends is musician and actor Pat Boone. I just sent him the following message:

Years ago (when I was a freshman in high school in 1970), you visited the Howard Johnson in Springfield, Missouri, at an event billed as The Jesus Experience.

I had just returned from Teen Challenge St. Louis, where I'd been a volunteer. There were a lot of long-haired "Jesus people" (some called them "Jesus freaks") playing folk music on guitars.

They announced that you would be visiting, and that you'd be baptizing people in the swimming pool.

I'd been sprinkled as a baby who grew up in the Methodist church, but I'd come to feel that that was not a true biblical baptism, because I wasn't even saved yet when I was sprinkled as an infant. So I really wanted you to baptize me that night. But I was too young, and I'd told my dad that I'd be ready for him to pick me up at precisely midnight.

Your baptism was scheduled for midnight, so it didn't happen for me. But I did get my immersion baptism eventually, and it was as memorable as it would have been if you'd baptized me in that swimming pool, because it was another midnight baptism, and it took place in Springfield Lake.

I recall I was thrilled to meet you, because you'd just starred as David Wilkerson in The Cross and The Switchblade, which had been extremely influential in my life. Later, I got to meet the real David Wilkerson and the real Nicky Cruz, and I prayed with both of them. That was a very pivotal time in my life.

Thanks for doing such a great job portraying David Wilkerson on the silver screen. We lost a real man of God when David died recently.