About me

My name is Russ Hicks. I was born in 1950, and was brought up in the Church of Christ. I was baptized by my uncle Olan when I was 12. My home church is the St. Joseph Church of Christ in St. Joseph, Michigan.

My late wife Carol and I were married for 36 years until she passed away in 2008. You can read my tribute to her here. We had two sons, Justin, born in 1976, and Joshua, born in 1980, who did a fantastic job making this website a reality.

In 1987 I became involved in a ministry at the nursing home wing of a local hospital at the suggestion of Bill Naylor, who since became a very close friend and mentor to me. He had been working out there mostly alone for twenty years when I came along. Around this same time another lay preacher, Charlie Brock, joined us. The three of us worked together for seven years, until Bill passed away in August of 1994. The last Sunday of his life found him leading singing for me, since it was my turn to give the lesson that day. I have fond memories of him chatting and joking with some of the residents and staff, not to mention the insightful lessons he used to teach!

And I felt honored that he always referred to me as his "Timothy." He was certainly always my "Paul." Needless to say, everybody loved and misses him.

For the next two years Charlie and I carried on with Bill's work until the time came when Charlie's congregation could no longer spare him. Since then I've been carrying on alone.

In 2014 the place was sold and closed down so I wemt to two other nursing homes and now conduct two Sunday morning services, one at 10 am at one place and 11 at the other. They were about a half mile apart.

These are for all the residents who want to attend, right in their facility. There are many from a wide variety of denominations who regularly attend, almost all in wheelchairs. My lessons therefore tend to be more devotional than doctrinaire, just as Bill's were, and communion is offered to all who wish to partake.

The experience continues to be very rewarding for me, although finding time to prepare a sermon every week isn't always easy, even though I recently became a victim of the economy and lost my job due to my company's downsizing.

In 2017 my church had a sort of restructuring/reshuffling event, and so at their request I am now preaching Sunday mornings there. I had to drop one nursing home and change the time for the other so that I still do one before our regular church services on Sunday mornings. Both are gratis.

In 2019 I remarried, after 11 years of widowerhood. All this plus two golf leagues and euchre at the senior center keeps me fairly busy.

This study is the result of a class on Revelation I taught in the adult bible study class at my home church on Wednesday nights a few years ago. Some of the comments here are a direct result of that 'open-discussion' class. During the course of the class I designed the flowchart in order to make it easier to keep everything sorted out, and it worked pretty well. I had people tell me that over the years they had been in numerous classes on this subject, but that this was the only time that they had actually gotten anything out of it.

And now it appears that this website version is doing the same thing for others, as well. According to my email this site has been taught, in whole or in part, in the bible study classes of 82 churches both here in the USA and abroad. In addition to that, the flowchart image has been used by a theology student, with this website's URL being listed on the bibliography page of his college thesis on Revelation. He ended up with 170 points out of a possible 150, explaining that the flowchart image gained him 20 extra credit points! Another student, from Australia, used this site as one of his resources for a paper he wrote on Revelation 20:1-10 and ended up getting an A- grade.

Most recently, this website was listed on the Resources page of NBC-TV's "Revelations" website which, unfortunately, is no longer online. Very exciting.

I do not write all that with any sense of bravado or pride, but merely to show that this site has been useful to a number of people. My hope is that it proves useful to you as well.

I don't claim to have any special insights. The information contained here is all pretty much basic to the amillennial position, which is held by most in the Church of Christ. Although I believe it is accurate and true, many may not know what the amillennial position really is. I hope this particular type of study helps to make it clear.

The idea of putting this onto a website was my older son Justin's, and he helped in some of the initial setup. But it is to my younger son Joshua that I am most indebted for making this website a reality. In terms of design and organization, it was his expertize and skill that made my ideas work. In fact, this site would not exist were it not for him. I am most grateful!