New pastor helped pro players gain inspiration

The pregnant wife of a National Football League player lay dying in a Buffalo, N.Y., hospital. What appeared to be a normal pregnancy suddenly took a turn for the worse.

Her blood pressure had fallen. But other than that, doctors could not find anything wrong with the wife of the Buffalo Bills player, whose excessive consumption of alcohol threatened their marriage.

The athlete’s wife, the mother of two small children, was seriously ill. However, no one knew why. It wasn’t until surgeons opened her up in an emergency procedure that they found the problem. An artery to her heart had ruptured.

What the surgeons saw astonished them. The baby’s tiny head was pressed against the torn artery, preventing her from bleeding to death.

Sitting in his office, Curtis Porter, transitional pastor of Plaza Heights Baptist Church, Blue Springs, recalled this miraculous story that unfolded when he was a chaplain for the Buffalo Bills and pastor of Amherst (N.Y.) Baptist Church.

“If God hadn’t positioned the baby in the right place in the womb, so its head was pressing against the rupture, she would have died within five minutes,” Porter says, recalling blood was seeping out around the baby’s head.

This is not the end of the miraculous story, though.

Prior to surgery, the victim, who two weeks previously had given her heart to Jesus Christ under Porter’s ministry, had a personal encounter with the Lord.

In a Sunday morning testimony, she told the Amherst Baptist congregation the Lord spoke these words to her as she laying dying: “You may die and go home to heaven, or you can live. Which do you choose?”

She told the Lord that with her marital problems she would like to die and get away from it all. But because of her children, she chose life instead for their sake.

“You will live,” the Lord assured her. And she did. Doctors repaired the near-fatal rupture, and the baby in her womb was born some two months later.

During this years with the Bills, 1980 to 1985, Porter conducted Saturday morning chapel services in the game room of the Bills’ stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y.

All were welcome. But not all opted to attend, including a former Bills player – O.J. Simpson, whom Porter personally invited to attend while taking a Whirlpool bath in the stadium dressing room.

“He was polite and not rude, mean or nasty,” Porter recalls of Simpson, who embraces the Muslim faith. “But I could tell there was no receptivity to the Christian faith.”

Porter didn’t conduct every chapel service, but when he did – which was quite often – he shared the deeper spiritual life with the players, some of whom attended his church in nearby Amherst.

Noting job security is an important issue with all NFL players, Porter says his messages dealt with allowing the Holy Spirit to control and energize their lives with peace, relaxation and rest so they could do their best job physically.

“If your spirit is not energized,” he explains, “your body can’t do its very best work in anything you do. But when the Holy Spirit controls your spirit, then your body becomes even more effective in every task and every job a person might have.”

Porter says chapel attendees were very attentive when he spoke, attributing their attentiveness to a spiritual desire to serve the Lord.

“Most of them,” he says, “were very hungry for the word of God and the ways of God.”

As a chaplain, Porter fielded many questions. But the question most often asked by the Bills was “How can I live the Christian life?”

To live the Christian life, he says, is to give your whole life to the Lord Jesus Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit to come and give you His fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness and self-control.

Porter, who considered all the Bills as family members, didn’t limit his chaplain duties just to chapel services. When a need arose, he was there to offer assistance, encouragement and prayer.

Porter recalled the day he went to the hospital to visit the Bills’ starting quarterback, whom he called Joe, who was suffering from a concussion and some minor injuries.

As he was about to leave, Porter asked his friend if there was anything he could pray for him. And in the dark hospital room, Joe replied he was having difficulty finding a wife.

Joe explained he had dated many beautiful girls in his home state, but none of the relationships lasted. All ended in separation.

As Joe talked about his romantic failures, he told his pastor he was ready to settle down and tie the knot. So Porter closed his visit with a prayer asking God to bind Satan from hurting him in his relationships and helping him to find the right godly wife.

The 73-year-old pastor beamed as he recalled what happened next.

“Within nine months, Joe not only found the right young lady, but in a year’s time, he married her. We had a wonderful time with God finding His choice for him.”

Porter, who makes his home in Lee’s Summit with his wife Linnie, is no stranger to Jackson County.

He served the First Baptist Church of Blue Springs as its transitional minister for two years. And before coming to Plaza Heights the week after Easter, he served the First Baptist Church of Dexter as its transitional minister for 17 months.