I want to be a reformer

Now today is my birthday and I have had a busy weekend.  I have received so many well wishes from so many people this weekend, via facebook, mail, and in person.  Thank you all so very much.  At dinner yesterday with my family Vania asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday.  Now at my age, (I am not old yet) birthdays sometimes are just another day.  So, I said to Vania, “I am not sure, it’s just another day in my life”.  She stood up from the table motioning at herself and said “just another day! If it wasn’t for you” waving at herself.  I got it and Jeannie just laughed saying “I guess biology class is paying off.” 

Now in all seriousness, I want to take the time to share from my heart.  After seeing so many friends we have connected with over the years and so many youth that Jeannie and I have had the privilege to minister to, I can truly say I am so blessed.  God has placed me in this world for so such a time as this, and as I get older, I can only hope, I have made a big enough ripple in the pool of life to impact as many as possible for the good.  Over the last few years after hearing from so many I am beginning to think God has blessed me in just such as that.  I am a man blessed beyond capacity, enriched with love and lasting fruit of my labors.  I see this in my own children and the many we have ministered to who are still actively growing in the Lord.   I thank and love each and every one of you from my heart.

I have been bloging for a few weeks now and this in it’s self is a learning experience for me.  I am here just to ignite a passion, and thought in you.  Hoping to build a learning experience for all of us and a forum for us to talk and get answers.   I will get back to the theme I was on next week but for today I want to share my life experiences with you, and along with that, it still goes with what I have been sharing.  In no way do I feel bitter or angry and that is not the reason for such a topic that I have chosen.  It is from my heart and the things I have learned over the years and want others to grow and from that is why I do this.  I have always had questions that never received answers or because I dared to ask them, was rejected, even by ones I felt was dear to my heart.   I have even lost friends, and fellowship from other ministers for asking question concerning what I would call religious sacred cows.  

When I moved to Texas I decided to do church differently, but in a few short months with me only making a few small gradual changes in the church, they decided I was not the man for them.   After about a year we started a new church saying from the beginning we wanted services to be the result and not the cause.  We went to a church plant seminar and found that there was no real working model for us to go by.  So once again we found ourselves doing what we have always done because that was what everybody expected. 

Then there came a man by the name of Billy.  He loved the Lord with all his heart, because he knew what God had brought him from.  He was unorthodox and had a lot of questions.  He had seen what religion had done and had enough of that.  He grasped the concept of what I was saying and felt God wanted in our group.  In services he would speak out, share or even ask questions.  Often this was even during my teaching and preaching.  Others were just shocked and thought he was so disrespectful, but I never saw it as such.  He had questions and needed answers.  This kept me on my toes in study and prayer.  The church services began to open up, people were beginning to get it and understand our services were open and they needed not leave with questions or with needs not being met.  There were times it seemed like a debate between us but we loved each other and would allow each other to be themselves. 

This only lasted for too short a time.  Billy became sick and died.  During His sickness I would spend one evening a week at his side just to love on him and talk.  One day he looked at me and said “Pastor they just don’t get it do they?”   Then he shared with me something I already knew. “Pastor I would often disagree with you or ask that hard question for them, so they could get it and know that a church could be open.”  “They just did not get it, how can you pastor people who don’t get it” I told him it can only be by the love of God.  I could only hope that a few would get it.  Billy died and I miss that man, our services have not been the same since.  By the grace of God we are now changing into what I feel and see was what God intended for His church in the New Testament.

Let me share with you my experiences, as simple as it is but, much like you.  53 years ago today I was born to Clara and Lester Anson in Schylur, Nebr.  It was a day of a miracle from the start.  First, I was a result of a promise the Lord gave my mother to have a son (I have three older sisters).  Second, that after my birth the doctors said I was going to die but God gave me a miraculous blood transfusion changing my blood type.   I knew from an early age there was a God purpose for my life and from the time I can remember I fell in love with God and pursued that purpose. 

I preached my first sermon at the age of 11, I don’t remember what exactly I preached but it was already prophetic then.  I do remember what the pastor did say after that message, which is forever burned in my heart.  At the time I did not realize what he said was so prophetic.  He said as I was preaching it seemed that I was throwing spiritual stones at spiritual walls, knocking down traditions and ways of men that were blocking freedom for God’s people.  I was stoning spirits that were holding people in bondage, setting people free.  Today, I now know what that meant, and still ask God to guide me to the fullness of that word.  I feel today that God has called me to be a reformer, to break down walls of tradition.

Growing up I sat at the feet of my pastor learning the word of God, yet seeing things different and growing with many more questions.  I just knew I had to be what God wanted in my life. As I entered my teen years, I had already suffered wrong and set backs.  I struggled with all the same things many teens do and maybe more due to some of the things that had happened to me.   I just remember reaching a point of pouring my heart out to God.   At that time I was asking to be like many of the great preachers of that day.  I will never forget the voice of God that day as it spoke so clearly to me.  Some may say it was my imagination or I made it up but, I even today know in my heart it was God that spoke to me.  “Why do you want to be like those men, you are aiming to low?  I have a purpose just for you and it is even greater than they.  Seek me with all your heart and I will make you what I would have you to be.”

At the age of 16 I felt the call of God to move to Independence, Missouri, to grow in ministry under a pastor there.  I don’t know how to explain it nor how it may have came about, I just knew that was where God wanted me.  Some how arrangements were made and I moved in with a family.  At that time the rest of my family was still in Nebraska.

I could make this a long story but, at this time I will make it short.  Due to a series of events in my family and by then their involvement in the same church I was kicked out of our home and on my own at the age of 17.  I stood for what God said was right and also, what I knew in my heart to be God.  Through all this I was still growing with more questions and finding few answers.  I was sent to set under a pastor that was very charismatic and showing a power of God that I had only seen in big ministries that I had been exposed to.  This was a very Pentecostal church with the whole package, if you know what I mean.  The Pastor was what they called apostolic.  We were taught everything about submission and all that went with that.  I did not stay in that church because I felt they were teaching all the right stuff, I stayed because that was where God put me.

Over the 17 years I was there, I grew in ministry and leadership.  I became connected to many different ministries and traveled one year with an evangelist.  My eyes were opened to so much that few do not understand.  I know that there are some of you that may read this that came from that same church; I may or may not know your personal experience there, good or bad, but please understand mine.  I could not fall back or give up, I heard a voice from God and I was there to learn.  Many may never know the heat I took for standing up for them when I saw them wronged by the pastor.  Many may never know the heated fights the pastor I engaged in.  A few were very close to being physical, all because when I saw a wrong I was not afraid to make a stand.  Yet, I stayed! God would not release me.  I know how it is to respect ministry and a man of God even when you see his flaws.  This man even did me wrong and violated areas of my trust that no one should.  Wrong is wrong and the system of church I grew up under fostered this kind of spiritual abuse. 

What kind of system you may ask?  Well where the Pastor is master and chief, he is the only one who can hear from God.  The Ministry is a special kind of elite status, and the members are there to do the work and support it with their money, even if it keeps them from paying their bills.  Tithe or else was the call from the pulpit.  Questions were piling up with very little answers.

What I was reading in the word was not matching up with what I was seeing.  What I was going through in life was not making since.  I was the one living and doing it by the book, or was I.  I worked on a job 40-50 hrs a week and then worked for the church for no pay up to 40-50 hrs a week.  It was costing me my family and my life.  Yet I could not leave at that time. 

Then, the time came for us the leave that church.  You would think I had learned enough about church systems and unbiblical leadership, but I guess I didn’t.  The first church was a living nightmare.  I began to teach and do things according the bible and ran head strong into tradition.  Well, before I knew it I was out and made to feel like a criminal.  I ran into opposition with in my own fellowship over the events in that church. The leadership would agree with me that the Bible does teach what I was doing, but we just don’t do it that way anymore.  They sided with a man (that was caught in an affair a few years earlier) against me; my only wrong was going against their traditions.

I started my own church a little later, and all hell so to speak broke out against me.  I did not know what I was doing but, I just did not want to do it the way I had been exposed to.  I wanted to change things but did not know how.  So, I found myself doing church like we always have.  Yet, I refused to give into the pressure to be like all the others.  I began a journey with God; dug into His word and poured my heart out to him.  God began to radically change me and heal me from within.  Yet, the church that I had built was already hung up with traditions and was not going to change with me.  So, after 13 years I knew I had to resign to move on into the areas God wanted for me. 

I traveled for a few years sharing God’s love and purpose for all who would  listen.  During this time I myself was rediscovering the Bible in a whole new way, and finding God a fresh in my life.

 I have found myself in Texas doing what seems starting over.  In a way I am.  I am finding answers to my questions.  Finding those who except me for who I am and are not trying to change me to fit their mold.  I can’t go back and do church as usual.  I can’t get angry or bitter at those who wronged me for they have been tools to shape me into the man I am.   I don’t feel I am the only one right, and do not wish to abandoned my long time friends.  When you read these posts they are not because I am angry or bitter, they are a part of my journey in truth. 

I feel a God call, to tell others, to help them discover God in a fresh non-man made way.  To discover who they are through Jesus and the kind of relationship they too can have with the Father.  These posts are designed to spark thought and discussion, to break through and find truth.  Its ok, ask the hard questions, challenge my thinking, and let’s discover what is in God’s word.

There are so many of you out there that I love and are in my heart.  You are in our prayers and God Bless!!!

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