400 hear about '90 Minutes in Heaven'

"This is a dead man walking," the Rev. Roger Miller said in introducing his guest speaker at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Maumee.

The "dead man" was the Rev. Don Piper, a Baptist minister from Texas who became a best-selling author (and a question on the Jeopardy! game show) for his 2004 book, 90 Minutes in Heaven: A True Story of Death and Life.

Monday evening, Mr. Piper told a rapt audience of 400 at St. Paul's about his experiences on and after Jan. 18, 1989, a cold and rainy Texas morning when an 18-wheel semi-trailer plowed into his 1986 red Ford Escort on a narrow bridge.

Nine wheels on the driver's side of the semi rolled over the pastor's car, according to Mr. Piper, and four paramedics who arrived at the remote scene did their best to help but ended up pronouncing him dead.

Then the Rev. Dick Onarecker, a Baptist minister who was stuck in traffic behind the crash, walked up to a policeman and said God was calling him to pray for the victims. A policeman told him it would be no use, the one victim had died, but the minister persisted and the officer allowed him to walk over to the car and pray.

Mr. Onarecker climbed into the rear seat of the crumpled Escort, lifted a tarp that was covering Mr. Piper's mangled body, and began praying as he held the victim's right hand -- one of the only parts of the victim's body that wasn't broken and bloodied.

The details of the accident as described by Mr. Piper on Monday were grim and grisly. The pain he experienced and the 34 major surgeries that followed led to bouts of depression and outrage.

"I did not handle it well," he said flatly.

But the accident and the crash scene were not a problem, because he wasn't there, he said.

"I didn't have a long tunnel with a bright light at the end. I didn't have a near-death experience. I was just dead," Mr. Piper said. "I drove over the bridge, I took my last breath here, I took my first breath there, and I was standing at the gates of heaven."

While the 61-year-old minister and author seemed to have the words of his testimony down pat, he delivered the 70-minute talk at St. Paul's with convincing passion and sincerity.

The heavenly gate in front of him was "spectacular in every way," he said. "It looked like the inside of an oyster. It is dazzling. It is spec-tac-ular."

The gate even looked to be alive, he said, but he figures it was because it reflected the light of God's glory.

He was welcomed by people he knew and loved on Earth -- his grandfather, a great-grandmother, high school friends who died young, teachers, a neighbor. He realized later that all the people there played a role in his spiritual growth, he said.

"You will not sneak up on heaven. Everybody there knows you're coming," Mr. Piper said, drawing laughs.

When he looked through the gate, he saw a "broad boulevard down the center of the city" flanked by mansions, he said.

The streets "appeared to be made of gold. So that's $1,700 an ounce, right? God can make the streets out of whatever he wants; apparently gold is his choice."

Speaking slowly and with great emphasis, Mr. Piper said he experienced "a buffet of senses, of aroma, and sound, and touch. It's simply the most real thing that's ever happened to me."

The sounds included angels' wings and "thousands of songs at the same time … that all fit together" without clashing. The music "permeated me," he said. "If you have an affinity for music, you're going to have a spectacular time in heaven."

Then, looking past the gates, he saw "the brightest light I have ever seen," atop a hill, "and I knew that this is where the Lord is."

He started to walk toward the light, he said, but suddenly the heavenly scene ended.

Mr. Piper found himself back in the cold Texas rain, under a tarp, broken and bloodied in the twisted wreckage of his Escort. Ninety minutes after the truck had hit his car, he could hear Mr. Onarecker singing the hymn, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."

Mr. Piper said he started singing along, startling Mr. Onarecker. The pastor jumped out of the car and raced over to a policeman and said, "The dead man is singing."

The universal appeal of Mr. Piper's story is evident in the fact that 90 Minutes in Heaven has sold 5 million copies in 46 languages.

The topic remains a public fascination, with a recent book by Todd Burpo, Heaven Is For Real, marking its 64th week on the New York Times Best Seller List, where it is currently No. 1 in the nonfiction category.

Mr. Piper said he wrote his book nine years ago so that he wouldn't have to talk about the experience anymore. "And it's not gone well," he said jokingly.

He has told his story to nearly 3,000 audiences around the world since the book was released in 2004.

It's a story that can captivate an audience's attention, with a rare "inside" look at life and death, faith, and the great mysteries that affect everyone.

As Mr. Piper put it on Monday night, "I don't know if you've noticed, but the death rate here on Earth is 100 percent. You're not getting out of this alive."

More information is available online at donpiperministries.com.

Contact David Yonke at: dyonke@theblade.com or 419-724-6154.