About Me: Wayne Fair
A bit of my personal story (so far)...
Hello – my name is Wayne Fair – and here are some random facts about my life so far:
I am a descendant of Barnabas Fehr (which became “Fair”), a Moravian immigrant from Germany to the Philadelphia area in 1749. The Moravians are known historically because of their association with the “100 year prayer meeting” as well as an earnest missionary movement under the slogan of “we will follow the Lamb wherever He goes” and “In essentials unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.” Also, notably for my own theological evolution, there was (from early on) a significant number of Moravians who embraced “Christian Universalism” (the Biblically grounded belief that ALL of humanity will eventually be saved: the restoration, recapitulation, reconciliation and renewal of “all things”). Most notably among these were Peter Böhler, who was instrumental in the conversion of John and Charles Wesley.
I was Born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 1955 (yes, the obligatory “Roll Tide!”).
I am a “son of a preacher man” – my dad was a Baptist pastor for much of my younger life.
I have been married to my wonderfully patient and loving wife (Pat) for 48+ years.
We have 13 amazing grand kids!
I (as we Baptists put it) “felt the call” to ministry when I was 16 years old.
I graduated from the University of Alabama (of course!) – with a major in Religious Studies and a minor (almost double major if it had not been for “symbolic logic”!) in Philosophy.
In my early college years I migrated (theologically) to becoming convinced of the “Reformed” or Calvinist perspective (I couldn’t help it – it was predestined!)
Not long after graduation we moved to Jackson Mississippi where I attended Reformed Theological Seminary and attained (after 3 years) my Master of Divinity.
From there we moved back to “Sweet home Alabama” – and I pastored a PCA church for nearly 10 years (in the heart of the deep south, Eutaw Alabama).
Toward the end of that time we were strongly directed to be engaged in what was then called a “Racial Reconciliation” ministry – and found ourselves (our family of 6) living in a government housing project – with special focus on ministry to the children who lived there…
Somewhere in the mix I got interested in computer programming – and created a program to assist “preachers” in the development of single-thesis oriented sermons. This became “PC Sermon” which I marketed – the whole enterprise (pretty much) utterly failed – but important lessons were learned…
Then life really changed and we found ourselves back in “T-town” (as we call it – short for Tuscaloosa). Through an obvious act of divine providence – I got my first job as a computer programmer at a mid-size company (Randall Publishing Company – thank you Buddy Goertz!)…
And “the rest is history” – for the last 25+ years I worked as a programmer – sometimes bi-vocationally pastoring small “store front” churches (etc.)… Now I am “retired” (as of July 2023) and have been very busy with my YouTube channel, blog and doing research and writing towards “that one book” I hope (by God’s grace) to write before I leave “this mortal coil”….
I am going to leave this as is for now – but I will come back later and add more details on my theological growth (e.g. how I came to reject Calvinism – and embrace “Universal Reconciliation”, etc.) – but for now you can check this out:
I will just mention here that I am an “erstwhile” painter/artist – (see some of my painting here: Wayne’s Paintings)
Please feel free to reach out to me if there is anything I can do for you!
Thanks!
wayne
My YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZHQw2lK1Bjbn9B19GdSU2w
My Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/wayne.fair.90