Sunnyvale, California

Life Stories

Chloe Hagen

Chloe Hagen is thankful for the Sunnyvale Church this year, for giving her parents help with medical costs and for giving her the best birthday party ever.Click here to watch the Quicktime movie

From Sports Radio to Sunnyvale Church

Woody Chaves can be heard talking about sports on KNBR Sports Radio 680 AM with his on-air name of Ray Woodsen. But lately he's been talking more and more about a new topic in his life. It's his walk with God. He originally came to our Sunnyvale Church OpenDoor service about 4 years ago with an ex-girlfriend. The relationship eventually ended and a few years later Woody found himself searching spiritually. With no church connection, he remembered the good modern music and the fresh spirit of OpenDoor so he came back. And it's turned into a regular habit over the past year and a half. Here is the story of Woody's spiritual journey in his own words:

"One of the things about my line of work that’s been so tremendous is the ability to meet some pretty interesting people. I’ve mentioned this in my testimony in the past, from a couple of presidents, to top athletes, everybody from Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson to Steve Young and Joe Montana, and they’re all great and interesting people; very accomplished in their own right, but there’s no question that the most amazing person I’ve met is Jesus.

The more and more I read about Him and about the Bible, the more and more I’m amazed at His wisdom and how He handled different situations and what He had to say about the human condition and the love that He brought down from God. That is someone I want to follow for the rest of my life and somebody I’m glad I met more than anyone else.

If you told me a year ago that I would have been in this spot now, I would have said, "No way!" But it’s amazing the paths that life takes you on.

I think my story in some ways is like so many others in that I was trying to run my own life and doing a lousy job at it. Finally it got to the point where I realized that I could not steer the ship so to speak and I needed someone more able, more knowledgeable, more capable to take the wheel, and that’s Jesus and so far the results are pretty darn good.

I know I have a long way to go and I think we all realize that in our spiritual journey. We have missteps, there are times when we mess up still, and I realize now that those are the times where I’m trying to get that wheel back again and realize hmmm that’s probably not the best idea.

I’m getting baptized because I want to demonstrate my commitment to Him and to show my gratitude and I don’t think you can possibly think about Jesus without feeling such a great feeling of gratitude for what He did for us.

The statement that best represents my feeling about this baptism is God is forgiving my sins and washing them away. The good news is that He can do this for anyone and make it a new day for anyone. This is what I’m experiencing today, and as I said, it’s a very happy day."

Woody was baptized in OpenDoor on July 29.