Hi. Welcome to this site.
My name is Daniel and I’m the one who decided to start building this website. I just had it put on the World Wide Web recently (April 12th, 2021). I thought that some of you might want to know more about me so I am providing a brief description of parts of my background that are relevant the content and the goal of this site. I hope we get better acquainted through email as well, but that’s up to you.
The first part of this document is about what my beliefs were like in the past and then it goes on to explain more about what my beliefs are like now and what kind of experiences I’ve had that prepared me to launch this website. I hope you have fun reading. Have a great day (or night).
I grew up as a somewhat nominal Catholic and with a worldview that was relatively secular. During my teen years, I left the Catholic Church and became interested in some other religions which I studied and practiced in part. Back then I treated religion like a salad bar in which I took whatever (ideas) I liked and avoided whatever ideas (I didn’t like) as if my feelings are some kind of ultimate authority which could discern what is ultimately true or not true. I trusted in myself back then. If we feel that there is no real “truth” or no real “authority” beyond ourselves or that is greater than ourselves then we all just ‘believe as we see fit’ and ‘do as we see fit.’ But an obvious problem with that is, people have been doing all kinds of horrible things to each other on a small scale (like from one individual to another) or on a large scale because they ‘believed as they saw fit’ and ‘did as they saw fit’ and trusted in themselves. Of course most of us will immediately say that, ‘those people are so much worse than me’ (and you’re probably right), but one thing that I had in common with those people who did such horrible things is that I believed and did as I saw fit, and some of you may believe something similar to that right now. But what if there is really is a greater truth that could improve people’s lives and make the world a better place?
I used to go to 711 when I was a kid and make ‘mut slurpies’ (mixed flavors of frozen ice) and during my teen years I went on making my own ‘mut religion’. Back then I had some negative views about Christians. I remember talking to another high school student who told me that he wanted to be a Pastor and I tried to talk him out of it for a long time. I thought I was doing him a favor.
A few years later I moved to a small town where the weather was very cold and there wasn’t much to do for entertainment. I met some Christians when I moved there who were very nice to me. They would invite me over for dinner, give me warm clothes, give me advice about where to find work, and things like that. This made me realize I had misjudged Christians. They were not as bad as I thought. They gave me a Bible and even though I would have preferred books from other religions at the time-I deiced to read the Bible they gave me. I started reading the New Testament straight through from the gospel of Matthew which is the first book in the New Testament. Matthew chapter 1, then 2…then the next book which is the gospel of Mark…and so on. It was the first time in my life I had read the Bible that much. I wasn’t a good student when I was a kid and I didn’t like to read. But I started reading books by that age and some them were long books so by that age I spend more time reading the Bible as well. I used to think that reading the Bible would be more boring that reading the dictionary, but actually it was interesting and I think got that ‘boring’ bias from the secular culture that I grew up in.
As I read the Bible, my first reaction was that, all the years I was a Catholic I didn’t know my own religion. I thought that I had pretty much heard all the important stuff from the Bible during the Catholic masses, but I found that there were so many words in the Bible that I wasn’t familiar with that ‘filled in gaps’ where I lacked understanding of what the Bible actually teaches. This is also part of the reason why I thought back then that every Church had it’s own interpretation of the what the Bible says which I thought makes all the interpretations more or less invalid. But, as I kept reading the Bible I saw that there was a lot of stuff in there that was pretty clear and not open to interpretation. I didn’t believe it all myself yet at that time, but I realized that different people who read the Bible objectively should pretty much come to the same major conclusions about what it teaches. I even heard a Jesuit priest say years later that, “we neglect reading the Bible” and he advised Catholics to read it. I am not encouraging people to be Catholic, but if you are Catholic and you’re reading this don’t feel left out-okay.
I started attending a Christian Church that the Christians invited me to. If there had been some temple there from some other religion I would have almost certainly gone there rather than to the Church, but in this small town there wasn’t so I went to Church. Out of respect for those Christians, I tried to behave myself while amongst them not using bad language or misbehaving, but when I wasn’t at Church I would hang with my small town friends and we would go spin around on the ice in my friends truck, get drunk, party, and act like typical young non-Christian guys.
Months went by as some of these Christians were praying for me. On Easter, a number of leaders from other Churches gathered at the Church I was attending. A Catholic priest was there and so was a Pastor from a Church that believes that God still does miracles. I felt a connection with the Pastor from the Church that believes in miracles. He invited me to his Church and reminded me that some in this town don’t like outsiders. It’s interesting that he said that because my roommate and I got into an argument and my roommate responded by walking by my room with his shotgun and cocking it so as to intimidate me. I moved out, and this Christian guy let me stay in a house for free. He wasn’t there that much so I kept letting homeless drunk guys stay there because I thought I was nice and also tough and I wasn’t afraid (well maybe afraid of shot guns haha).
Anyway, I was young and liked adventures and I had been bottled up in this small town for a while. I started thinking about moving out of the town. I worked full time, but I wanted to make more money. I had made friends with one of the drunk guys who had stayed at the house and he offered to go fishing with me and said we could make a lot of money by fishing. Fishing in Alaska in the Winter is very dangerous, but back then I liked danger-still that may have been a little too dangerous even for me which is part of why I was thinking it over. When you watch TV shows about fishing in Alaska at least they go out there in big boats-I guess we were gonna go out in a small one. He had to come to my town to get drunk because they don’t allow alcohol in his village and I supposed that he might be a capable enough fishermen once he was sober. He was only homeless while in the town I was in. He had a home in his village. Some of the very small towns (especially where Native Alaskan Americans live) are called villages.
I was really thinking about leaving town, but on one day (before I had left town) I really felt like going to this Church that believes in miracles. It’s hard to explain what happened. I thought I was a tough guy back then, very proud, very athletic, very set in my plans and ways, but on the day of the mid-week service in the miracle Church I felt somehow humble and like I needed something and I had a desire to attend the Church service. No one was with me persuading me I just felt that way so I went to the Church. One of the Christians there was from Texas. He was so ‘Texas’ that he had a cowboy hat on in Alaska during the Winter, but I think the Pastor was an Alaska Native guy. I remember walking up to the guy from Texas and saying to him, “I want to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior.” He said with his hardcore Texas accent, “Did ya hear that! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” Looking back on this, I don’t really don’t remember considering becoming a Christian, it’s like God changed my mindset and drew me into the Church because they were praying for me and by that time I knew the process of believing, but I wasn’t expecting to follow that process and I guess the devil was trying to draw me out of town and possibly kill me in the cold water before God’s plan could be fulfilled in my life. God has a plan for all of us.
Even with all that prayer, I just spent so many years immersed in a culture that thinks negatively of Christian faith so I hesitated even as I talked to the man from Texas. The man from Texas brought me to the Pastor and the Pastor put me on the spot and asked me in front of the Church members. There were not that many because it was a mid-week service so I guess only the most spiritual Christians were there. I had said, “I want to receive Jesus as my Lord and Savior” to the man from Texas and his wife, but the man from Texas took me the Pastor and the Pastor asked me in front of everyone, “Do you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior” (he said something like that) and I just barely said, “yes”, but it was enough to affect me spiritually.
I told them I had health problems and other problems and they prayed for me and commanded evil spirits to go. The Pastor said, “do you feel better” and I said “no” because my body didn’t feel better. But me saying this seemed make the whole Church angry and then they started aggressively praying for me and commanded evil spirits to go and I felt almost completely healed right away. I was so jaded in my heart back then that if I had a girlfriend I could not feel much love for her (I wasn’t born that way, I pushed myself to be that way for years), but after I asked God to forgive my sins and was prayed for I felt love and emotion so freely that I was surprised. It wasn’t gradual-a lot happened in one single day to the point that I concluded that God is real and the Bible must be true. I was so surprised and amazed that I wasn’t thinking much about all the antichristian stuff that had built up in me over the years-at least not that afternoon.
Later I went home and I was trying to pray and read the Bible. I didn’t really know how to pray so I tried to pray the Lord’s prayer (also called the “Our Father”) because I knew it from when I was Catholic. I felt an overwhelming desire to desire to sleep, but I fought it because I wanted to keep praying and reading the Bible. I am not sure if I had a vision at that time or if it was a dream, but I felt that God communicated something to me through whichever it was. I don’t remember hearing a voice, but I do remember that I understood without hearing a voice. I understood that I had a choice. I could keep living the way that I was living and follow my plans for my life, but I would be dead even though I was alive….or I could basically just trust God and be a Christian. I started to give up and think ‘I’m too far gone’ then somehow it’s like I felt strength and then I thought ‘it’s not too late.’ I came out of the vison or dream whichever it was. I don’t want to go into what I saw right now because I prefer to rely on scripture more than visions or dreams, but I will say that I did not see God, I just believed that God was there in the dream/vision.
In hindsight, I think that one afternoon ‘Christian experience with God’ would not have been enough for me to stick with it. Perhaps for others, but not for me. I was too set on my plans which would have ended up hurting other people and which would have gone against God’s plan for my life. We don’t all need to give up our plans when we believe-I guess most of us don’t, but I did.
It seemed like God did over time what was necessary to draw me to Him, keep me with Him, and prepare me for His plans for my life. I always had a choice because that’s how God works, but He was kind enough to help me see which choices were right. It was a step by step process. It took months for me to really accept the whole Bible fully. My mind was full of anti-Christian ideas and I had to talk about them with Christian leaders who were capable of giving me good answers because honestly some of them were not. Some of them were not used to being challenged as much as I challenged them with hard questions. And maybe you know the current gap between American culture and Bible-based Christian faith. You know that many in the USA and some other countries too tend to think that it’s mostly lonely, gullible, desperate or weird people who become Christians these days, but the ironic thing is that secular people who think that, don’t bother to actually read the Bible enough or interview Christians enough to really see what’s going on there. They form these strong opinions and decide they are not interested without even looking into things even a little bit deeply even though Jesus is the most historically influential person in the history of the world by far. If a person were to want to find out if anything is really going on spiritually you would think they would start with Jesus and the Bible, but instead for many people (like me-the way I was) it’s their last choice or not even on their list of choices. But you almost wonder if that is a kind of conspiracy or something. If there is something going on there, if there are unseen spiritual forces that effect our modern culture and want us to avoid Jesus and the Bible, and want to make Churches corrupt so that we aren’t interested in Jesus and can’t get in touch with God. Well, that might sound like a bit much for you right now, but keep it in mind. But you might wonder, what does the Bible really teach and what do Christians look like when they are not corrupt? And what kind of power do they have? Does God’s power really work in their lives? You can’t fake that. If Jesus really raised the dead man named Lazarus out of a sealed tomb four days after he was dead in front of many witness (John 11) and did other miracles like that, it could explain why he was so popular and people came from far and wide to see Him even though wasn’t rich, wasn’t a worldly king, didn’t have a worldly army, didn’t use force, didn’t have the same traits as military or political leaders in history. Is Jesus still working today? In who’s lives? Christians lives or some other lives? I hope that if you keep reading through this site you will find out. If Jesus really did the miracles that are mentioned in the Bible, then it explains why He was so popular. I mean why would so many poor people and others risk traveling in or order to see him and then follow Him around?
Plus, New Testament says that Jesus came fulfilling one prophesy after another. That is, Jesus fulfilled the prophesies that were made by the Old Testament prophets even though most of the Old Testament prophets didn’t live at the same times so they didn’t meet each other. So the idea is that, God enabled them to see into the future and predict the coming of Jesus the messiah, His birth, His humble attitude, His miracles, various things throughout His life, His suffering, His death, His resurrection, the spread of His teachings, His return and the end of the world. Yeah, all that’s mentioned in the Old Testament, and fulfilled in the New Testament. The Jewish scriptures and the Christian Old Testament have the same books (though the rabbis changed the order of the books after Jesus came) and most of the verses are translated the same way. Some Christian and Jewish scholars disagree about the meaning of a few verses, but most people don’t even realize that the Jewish scriptures and the Christian Old Testament are basically the same. I have known many Jewish people and I like them, but I know that most of them just consider themselves ethnically Jewish and don’t read the Jewish Bible very much and hardly know what it teaches. I’ve read the entire Jewish Bible and the Christian Old Testament.
Okay, I changed the direction of this document for a bit, but I hope that was a good thing in your eyes. Back to what happened in my life next. So for months after I confessed “Jesus is my Lord and Savior” I was hoping that I would find another explanation for why I got healed, and why it happened in a Church when I believed in Jesus, and why I had those other experiences. I think I was hoping that if I could find another explanation I could justify turning my back on God and turning my back on Christian faith. I felt divided, but I figured whatever is true is what I need to follow whether I like it or not. I read Christian books, I did research online, I went to different Churches and talked with Christians and others about what happened to me and I heard various opinions. I kept having more experiences that seemed to fit exactly what the Bible promised would happen in the lives of those who believe in Jesus.
I was also watching to see what this unseen God was doing in my life as well as what the devil was doing in my life. I saw strange stuff. You might not believe me, but I was there. I told you that I gave up my plans for my life to trust God and be a Christian. Shortly after that, I was on a long train ride and a man I didn’t know (there was something sinister about this guy) showed up and sat near me, he encouraged me not to give up my old practices (that I had before my Christian experience) and he offered me exactly what I wanted months before. Stuff he didn’t know. Things I didn’t tell him that I previously wanted, and I have never met this guy, and here he was offering me what I wanted months before out of nowhere. Stuff that would have been contrary to God’s plans in my life. I was pretty sure the devil sent him and I thought that if there is a devil there must be a God. Another man who worked on the train, walked by and saw me reading a Bible and he said, “He’s reading the good book”, but few people talk like that so I thought God was helping me. Maybe you guessed it, I was moving out of that small town. I was going to California. I had dropped out of college a while before all this even though my grades were better than average. I didn’t know what to do with my life at that time, so since I gave up my plans, I decided to go back to College.
Thank God I got into a good University and majored in Religious Studies (I got a BA). You might think that students are permitted to try to find out if there is a God or not in Religious Studies, but I don’t think so. It’s not quite what I thought it was gonna be. It’s mostly like “humanistic study of religion” or “pluralistic study of religion while avoiding making any concrete statements because we have no guts or balls’. Well, that’s if you ask me, but I am nevertheless very grateful to my professors for any useful things I learned. I learned about what people think in the academic world about religion and since people challenged my faith many times it gave me a chance let the Holy Spirit help me find answers to these challenges. I mean, if faith in Jesus is true, it’s gonna stand up to anything right? Yeah, it will-as long as you’re sufficiently in touch with God. I don’t wanna put myself on a pedestal here, but God can enlighten even a person that is below average so why not me? The Holy Spirit is for everyone who is willing to receive Jesus. Bible/Acts 2:38b-39“…And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and who all who are far off-for all whom the Lord our God will call.” Bible/John 14:26 “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” The Holy Spirit can teach us “all things” although some are better able to recognize guidance from the Holy Spirit than others. If you read Reinhard Bonnke’s books or Smith Wigglesworth’s books you will see how the Holy Spirit enlightened these men tremendously. I recommend reading, “The Secret of His Power” or downloading the audiobook version. It’s short book that’s mind-blowing and makes my own story seem very small-that’s fine with me. It’s incredible what God can do in a person’s life.
I enjoyed College. I got a good student job managing a big cafeteria, I had friends, there were young people everywhere, I spent time in Christian student clubs and I continued to have Biblical experiences. For example, I was reading a book about how according to what the Bible says, God promised to heal the sick. So was really into that book and into the scriptures about healing. I met with some Christian students from my Christian club and another club and we went around praying on the campus on a Saturday. While in the central part of the campus I thought I felt the Holy Spirit move me to get down and pray for my friend who was walking with me. He was limping. I think he had hurt his foot recently. Two college girls that I guess were not Christian were sun tanning near us at the time. I prayed for him and he got a surprised look on his face. God healed him on the spot and he started walking normally. One of the girls that was sun tanning dropped her jaw and just stared. She him limping, saw me pray for him, and then saw him walking normally. I don’t think she had never seen anything like it and I guess she knew we were not faking it. If you are a college student, you might want to try attending some on campus (or near campus) Christian meetings with Ki Alpha or CRU.
I wish I could say that God did healing miracles through me all the time as He did through John G Lake, Smith Wiggleworth or Oral Roberts, but I am just a small time Christian trying to be bigger in the kingdom of God and hoping that God will work through me to help more people. I have experienced healing quite a few times, but not on a massive scale or something. You’d be surprised how many non-famous Christians experience Biblical miracles. It’s not just a few special people here and there. God’s promises in the Bible are for everyone who believes.
However, there are also plenty of Christians that are with God that never once saw a sick person healed and they are blessed too so long as they have true faith in God. The Bible records that Jesus disciples were slow to believe that Jesus was raised from the dead at first. The slowest to believe was Thomas. Thomas said he wouldn’t believe it unless he could see the nail marks and put his hands where the nails were.
Bible/John 20:24-29
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” 26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
There are a lot of faithful followers of Jesus who have not seen miraculous healings, but Jesus knows them and loves them and they love Jesus too. Of course, it’s easier to believe when you see miracles, but even those who have not seen and yet believe are blessed by God and loved by God. However, if you are reading this and you are not a Christian, I encourage to desire to experience God’s miracles, answered prayers, ect. so that you can verify that God is real and that He sent Jesus to us and that the Bible records what happened when Jesus came. I want to have a good relationship with Christian who emphasize miracles and with those who do not.
I don’t encourage people to believe in healing without simultaneously believing in scripture. You can have scripture without healing, but can’t have healing without scripture. God won’t work if you try heal without scripture or without Jesus. Scripture is a record of things that God said-it’s not really about the pages or the ink, but what God said and the power in what He promised to do whether it’s forgiveness of sins, eternal life, Jesus’s resurrection, healing or another one of God’s promises.
After College (I used to say that I would not have graduated without God’s help so glory to God), I spent years training for leadership in ministry. I was blessed. Because I had a chance to learn from some very excellent Pastors and very spiritual Christians who knew the Bible very well and were very mature and self-disciplined. They had spent so many more years that I had with God and had so many more experiences with God than I did and they helped me to grow up in the faith and learn. I think it’s rare to find Christians who are as spiritual as them , as sound in faith as they were, and as zealous as they were. I was often the most zealous Christian around until I met them.
I made friends from various countries during that time who were studying with me. Some invited me to visit their countries and help them run their Churches. Sometimes I went for short visits and sometimes I stayed for months or for over a year. I gotta say, I had a lot of adventures. Now, I’ve seen all kinds of stuff and experienced all kinds of hospitality and dangers and other stuff. I felt that my time abroad helped me to understand the way people think and act in other parts of the world and the way life is in other countries. If you ask me, the more time you spent in another country, the more you keep a low profile there, the more you experience life there, the better you understand-I think. If your big American Church is supporting their small Church in a developing country they probably treat you differently when you visit than if you live in that country and join their Church and are just another foreign Church member. Of course, I was usually a leader in the Churches, but I’ve been just a member as well. I learned to be bold, to be street smart, to pick and choose who I want to work with carefully (in my country or other countries), and I learned that there are times when only God can help us.
Now I am back in the USA and some people ask me where I’m from. Seriously?! Like, they think I wasn’t born here. Haha. Did I change that much while abroad?
Well I had a lot of experience preaching sermons, leading prayer, teaching Bible study, counseling, traveling, and did some other things setting up for worship service or washing dishes or whatever. So my point is that, I think my background is sufficient for me to set up this site. You might wonder why I am qualified. God makes me qualified otherwise I am not. I did receive a charge and was sent out many times, but sometimes I was hindered by one thing or another and I have been postponing starting a ministry in the USA that I believe God put on my heart quite a while ago. After too much time started to pass, I thought, well I better get started soon. As I type this, the Corona Virus Pandemic is still going on. I don’t want to get drawn into the debate over whether or not Churches should be open and when they should open and if they should stay open. Could be different for different geographical areas and for different Christians. The pandemic was not the only reason why I postponed starting this ministry. But I think probably should not have held off on starting it as long as I did.
For a while now, I started sharing God’s words over the internet and not just in person and I started asking people to pray for those who don’t have good local Churches near them. That they could get in touch with God over the internet. And my heart went out to them. Some people don’t have any Churches near them at all.
My heart is also set on ministry here in the USA. I grew up here as a non-Christian person who was deeply immersed in anti-Christian sentiment which blinded me to what there was for me in the Bible. It’s only natural that I want to be used by God to reach people who are the way that I was. Let them decide for themselves about God and the Bible. Jesus said, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:32-Yes Jesus was the One who said it). And I think people would agree that whatever is true will set us free. We are not ostriches sticking our heads in the sand. Has anyone reading ever seen an ostrich do that? I haven’t, but I heard they do. Haha. But anyway, not us! We don’t do that.
So, I am starting a new ministry that involves using this site.
Through this site I want to help people get interested in God and experience God for the first time.
And through this site, I want to help people to get connected to good quality local Churches that are near them which they can attend online or in person.
I do not want people that are already in good Churches to uproot from their Churches and join other Churches through this site. We don’t want a chaotic situation among Churches where they are competing with each other for members. It’s kind of ridiculous and worldly. People just need a good quality Church to attend either in person locally or online. *I suppose they should make even more effort for their spiritual lives if most of the Church attendance is online because it is a disadvantage in some ways, but it's way better than not attending any Church at all and some people may live in remote places or be bedridden or quarantined, ect.
At this point I also feel that, if some people are being badly neglected or mistreated in their Churches they should probably leave those Churches and join another local Church. I don’t say this with bad motives, but I have been that person before and I know what it feels like. So I don’t want shut doors in their faces, but I also don’t want people to leave their good Churches or their ‘good enough Churches’ to join others through this site.
Maybe some can continue to attend more than one Church at the same time as long as that has a good result and there are no misunderstandings. But if it somehow becomes a problem, maybe I will softly advise them to just attend their local Church or join some other Church near them. A Church is not a business, it’s service to souls and service to God and someday Church leaders will give an account to God. Some secular companies actually called their employees things like "RPU's" (Revenue Producing Units) while discussing them at their high level meetings where the big shots gather. If any Pastor thinks his or her Church members are RPU's he or she has become corrupted and should repent and should possibly have someone scratch their Ferrari. Haha kidding about the last part, have mercy and don't scratch the Ferrari, but consider attending another Church and don't let the devil use that to make you so frustrated that you don't want to attend any Church. God is always faithful to us even if some Pastors are faithful and some aren't.
Also, you don’t want to be in a Church where the devil has started to get some partial control over some of the staff members or Church members and they are now opposing you when you are trying to do God’s will. Of course, some think that’s the case when it's not because they are arrogant or conceited, but for others, it’s what’s really going on. Try reading the autobiography of almost any famous Christian who spread the gospel of Jesus a lot and you will realize that a lot of them were persecuted by other Christian leaders. The prophets in the Old Testament were persecuted by other Jews, the apostles in the New Testament were persecuted, and the Lord Jesus was persecuted. If we are zealous Christians working according to God’s will, we are probably going to get persecuted by other Christians sometimes.
I am nothing, but I have been persecuted and I want to be free to follow God’s will and I am happy whenever I see a Church where people are free to follow God’s will-not one where the leader stifles us and we are considered to be ‘bad Christians’ if we don’t to pretend they are right. I teach people to respect Pastors and Church leaders as the Bible says, but let us respect God more than we respect them and handle any conflicts according to God’s will. I don’t think that I am a trouble-maker, I try to make a distinction between Christians leaders who are sincere and doing pretty a pretty good job and those who are not sincere and not doing a good job.
As for those Christian leaders who are not doing well. I don’t say they are unworthy of existence as only God can say that, but I would not send people to their Churches and I would encourage them not to give up on serving God (if God called them), but rather just seek to get God’s help to improve and also pray harder and pray a lot. Read the Bible more deeply and a lot, and try to adjust yourself to that Bible. This is a big part of how to improve. Don’t be discouraged, just improve. God will see your effort, and He can grant you success.
The apostle Paul said by the Holy Spirit, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). Like many other leaders in many Churches I have my own style. What I mean is, God has molded me and shaped me through people who trained me, through Christian books, the Bible, my experiences and now I am the part of the body of Christ that I am. So I may have a style of praying, worshipping God, serving God that is Biblical, but not quite what some of you may be used to. For example, I pray quietly, but I also pray loud when I can. So did Reinhard Bonnke and David Wilkerson. I am not anywhere near as prominent as them or as 'good' a servant them, but I also pray loud at times. So did Jesus (Hebrews 5:7 ESV), but a lot of Christians are not used to it. It’s not contrary to Biblical scripture, but to some Christians-well it just disturbs their world. Their gut instincts don’t like it. But the Holy Spirit has no problem with it. I will do it anyway. Rather than join a Church as a staff member where I can’t practice my faith with the style that I guess God raised me to have, I am starting a new ministry which I can use to share God's words with those who don't believe in it yet and guide them to other Churches or College Christian clubs.
Style is just an individual way (or Christian group way) of expressing or practicing our faith in God’s words. Faith in God’s words is what’s really important rather than style of prayer, but I mean whatever helps us have faith as an individual or as a group. Whatever helps us zealously practice our faith that is within God’s will.
I don’t want to limit my faith by putting it into a nice neat religious box which is part of the reason why I have to start this ministry after having been abroad for so long instead of just joining the staff of some Church here near where I live. Of course there are good Churches here, but I wasn’t raised in them. If God raised me to be this way, I will not be forced to grow some other way. God may raise up different ministries for similar, but slightly different purposes and God may raise up different ministries to manifest faith in different ways. I am not a bonsai tree that is shaped by men. haha I gotta be free to be guided by God.
And yet, if I don't stay within God's words I will go astray. Because the more we believe in God the more we will see that He knows better than we do. Immeasurably better than we do which isn't stifling, but joyful because we can enjoy His blessing, HIs power, His eternal life, His perfect guidance, and so much more. Church leaders are supposed to be used by God to guide us further and further into this kind of spiritual life and certainly not hinder us from this kind of spiritual life. Neither should they make our Church attendance about their ego, their selfish ambition or their money. I don't care if some people don't like what I said here. You know some Christians/Churches need reform. Didn't Paul speak as God directed Him in order to reform the Churches? (In the New Testament Letters; not that I am anywhere near as good as Paul or ever will be..uh no way) And wouldn't God keep speaking like that now? I'm not saying God is perfectly speaking through me as I don't have that much confidence in myself, but I am trying to aim at God's will.
Okay, what about accountability? Some Churches seem obsessed with accountability these days. It’s usually a good idea though. The purpose of accountability is to help each other stay in God’s will not to prevent each other from being in God’s will-which if we are speaking honestly does happen sometimes. I do talk with Pastors who can help me stay in God’s will. Even Paul wanted to check with the other apostles to make sure he was running his race for the Lord according to God’s will. I do talk to Pastors. But accountability is not for the sake of accountability-it’s for the sake of staying in God’s will. If I sounded a bit ‘sharp’ during part of this explanation, please excuse me for that. I am human and got frustrated sometimes, perhaps you can identify with some of my frustrations.
I hope you enjoyed reading.
Feel free to email me and discuss anything except for Math and sun dried tomatoes which I really hate. behappybefree202020@gmail.com
My name is Daniel.
