WE NEED YOUR TESTIMONIES!!!
We need your testimonies! Please post a comment with your name, when you were part of TPMI, a brief testimony, and where you are/what you're doing now. We're looking forward to hearing from each of you and re-connecting as we celebrate this milestone year of ministry! Click on the comment line underneath this posting to submit your testimony.
The year of 2006 marks a year of celebration and reflection on the Mighty Works of God over a quarter of a century. We would like to provide this BLOG to serve as a meeting place and point of encouragement as we reconnect with each other and plan for things to come.Anyone who is interested can contact us at the Houston office or email us through this site by posting a comment. The comments will be moderated, so if your information is of a sensitive nature, please make us aware so that we will not compromise you or this ministry in any way.
Blessings,
Turning Point Ministries International
Dr. J. Doug Stringer, Founder/Director
The year was 1981. Doug Stringer was a fitness instructor, running his own exercise studio. Tired of his own hypocrisy and disgusted with his life, he sat down one night in the back room of the studio and prayed a simple prayer: “Lord, if you can use someone like me after all I have done to wound Your heart, I make myself available to You.” God took him at his word. It seemed the Lord couldn’t find enough needy people to send Doug’s way. He ran the exercise studio and then took a group of believers to the streets most nights after the studio closed. There we encountered runaways, topless dancers, and drug addicts. We couldn’t meet every need, but we were willing to do what we could.
We transformed the exercise studio into an outreach center. By 1983, we renamed it Turning Point Studio—a Christian Activities and Fellowship Center. We were a bunch of young people without money or official church support, yet we provided temporary housing for the homeless, conducted street witnessing and evangelistic crusades, did Jericho marches around rock concerts, and sponsored other activities geared toward fellowship and discipleship.We began linking with other ministries in Houston and distributing ordinary business cards that simply read,
"Somebody Cares at Turning Point Ministries call 24 hours a day."
