Testimony Tuesday: Resting in God’s forgiveness

By Bella Agnello

When you are forgiven much, you forgive much.

For someone in law enforcement, extending forgiveness to the person they are arresting seems contradictory. As a Christian, Bruce Upchurch, director of Campus Security at Cedarville University, learned the power of forgiveness early on in his life when he realized how much God forgave him.

Upchurch grew up in the Philippines as a missionary kid. When he was 13 years old, his family moved back to the U.S. In high school he got involved with the wrong crowd, and he began drinking and doing marijuana.

When Upchurch graduated from high school, his dad requested one thing: he needed to go to a Bible college for one year. He attended Faith Baptist Bible College without a fight, knowing he needed to straighten out his life. Coming into college with nothing but a filthy mouth and a six-pack of Corona beer, he thought he would be kicked out in a couple of weeks.

Little did he know, God would give Upchurch a group of friends that encouraged him to look more like Christ in his speech and conduct. Still, his lifestyle did not change. 

In September 1987, he ended up at a bar with his coworkers from the UPS Store he worked at. Instead of enjoying himself, he sat there feeling the weight of shame brought on by the habits he accumulated over the past few years.

“I didn’t drink, I left, I went back to my room, fell on my knees and said, ‘I’m done. I’m absolutely done with this,’” Upchurch said. “There is a moment in time where you decide which side of the fence you are going to walk on – I was tired of walking two sides of the fence, claiming to be a believer and being a believer living like the world.”

Though he made a profession of faith in Christ at seven years old, Upchurch rededicated his life to Jesus and his life began to drastically change. Over the course of the next few months, he threw out his heavy metal tapes, made a commitment to stop cursing and got involved in church.

As his time at Faith Baptist Bible college began to wrap up, Upchurch looked for colleges that had a criminal justice program. Even as a little boy, police officers inspired him. He admired their character and the courage they displayed as they fought crime, and he knew he wanted to help people for the rest of his life.

Upchurch heard about Cedarville through his brother and enrolled in their criminal justice program in the fall of 1988. While studying, he worked at a K-mart in Xenia as a security guard. In his studies and at work, he used the things he did in high school to make him think more critically about crime and bringing justice.

“The hard things you experience in life really develop you into the person you are today, as long as you allow God to be the one that’s the driving force behind it all,” Upchurch said.

During his senior year, he submitted an application to be a deputy sheriff at Greene County Sheriff’s Department. Though one of 300 applicants, the department hired him before he graduated with his degree.

“People who come from Cedarville are in high demand, especially in the law enforcement field,” Upchurch said. “[They] want people who are honest – who have integrity – and being a Christian has that perception.”

That same year, Upchurch and his wife Tina – who he met at Cedarville – got married and they actively became part of their church.

“Being a police officer, it’s hard to always be at church because you’re required to work Sundays, and so there are times throughout my life where maybe I was at church a couple times a month,” Upchurch said. “But I was there every time I could be.”

After 16 1/2 years as a deputy, Upchurch began working for the Oakwood Public Safety Department. He served as a police officer, EMT and firefighter. He grew his knowledge of all three fields and saw how the roles worked together in the many calls he responded to. Yet, though he gained knowledge from all three roles, he also took on the trauma of all three.

“Oakwood began the end of my career,” Upchurch said.

With rising hatred for the police, Upchurch began to feel the stress of constantly being hypervigilant about his surroundings.

“I could drive down the street and get double fingered just because I was a cop,” Upchurch said. “It became very stressful, and God taught me I needed to stick closer to him during those times. If not, I would have let it become overwhelming.”

God taught Upchurch the significance of Philippians 4:4-7, where Paul encourages Christians to be anxious for nothing but to surrender everything to God. And God led him to opportunities that allowed him to apply this practically. During shifts, he lived in the firehouse with men who acted crudely and handled their trauma in negative ways. God pressed it on his heart to share the gospel with them through conversations and through his conduct.

Upchurch got to share the gospel in another way when, in 2010, his family decided to pursue adoption. He saved up enough money to buy land on a golf course to build a bigger home, but God moved his heart, his wife’s heart and his four kids’ hearts towards international adoption.

In 2012, Upchurch’s family got matched with two boys from Ethiopia. However, before they could officially become part of the family, he needed to raise $10,000 within a week.

Upchurch held a garage sale, and several people from church stopped by to donate items to sell. Then, neighbors started showing up to add their own items to the donations. By the end of the garage sale, he raised over $2,000.

Several other people donated money to their family, but they needed to raise $7,140 more to reach their goal. Unannounced, their pastor asked the congregation for a one-time donation. The church raised $7,280.

In three days, God provided Upchurch and his family with the $10,000 needed to adopt the boys.

“Most of what God’s taught me has been through the adoption process,” Upchurch said. “Adoption is the best thing you’ll ever do and it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do.”

Because the boys came from the circumstances that they did, Upchurch learned he needed to discipline them differently than he did with his other children. And, he learned to extend forgiveness and unconditional love, as well as how to approach discipline with gentleness.

“As a police officer, it’s easy to not have a gentle spirit,” Upchurch said. “You shouldn’t in some situations – not if you’re going to live. With my kids, it had to be different.”

Now working at Cedarville, Upchurch uses his story to motivate students to go deeper in their faith. His number one advice to students is to keep pressing into the truths found in the Bible.

“Stay in the word of God,” Upchurch said. “Read it every day. Study it. And then be actively involved in the local church. If you’re not, you’re going to find it easy to drift off. God has called us to be active, to work and to spread the gospel.”

Upchurch reflects on the many ways God provided for him, overwhelmed by God’s goodness.

“It’s all by the grace of God that I have my wife, my six kids, my five grandkids with one on the way,” Upchurch said. “I look back on who I was in high school, I know my heart and my thoughts. I have learned a lot about the grace and forgiveness of God throughout my life.”

Bella Agnello is a junior Broadcasting, Digital Media and Journalism major with a concentration in Journalism. She enjoys thrifting, listening to records and reading classic Russian literature in her spare time.

Photos provided by Bruce Upchurch