New Journey, The

Transformation

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Aaron Chancy (Host), Pr. Ricky Wade

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Series Code: TNJ

Program Code: TNJ000045


00:01 The following program discusses sensitive issues.
00:03 Parents are cautioned that some material
00:05 may be too candid for younger children.
00:08 Today, we'll meet a former drug user
00:10 and alcohol abuser but is now a pastor
00:13 in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
00:15 Join us on today's New Journey.
00:48 Welcome back to The New Journey.
00:49 On today's program, we have Pastor Ricky Wade.
00:52 Pastor Wade, we thank you for being on the program today.
00:55 Well, I appreciate being here.
00:56 Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
00:57 For the record, Pastor Wade, where are you from?
00:59 I'm from Portland, Tennessee.
01:00 It's a small little town
01:02 close to the border of Kentucky.
01:04 Okay.
01:05 I grew up there my whole life. Okay, okay.
01:07 Now let's jump into your family background.
01:09 What was it like growing up in your household
01:11 as a young man?
01:13 We grew up Seventh-day Adventist.
01:14 We went to church on a regular basis.
01:16 I don't remember missing church for practically anything.
01:20 We just enjoyed going to church.
01:21 Okay, now it's interesting,
01:23 your background is similar to mine growing up.
01:25 I grew up in a Seventh-day Adventist home,
01:27 both mother and father,
01:28 but it led me to various things that aren't typical,
01:32 I guess, for that type of growing up.
01:35 You stated when we talked before
01:38 that you got kicked out of school in the seventh grade.
01:41 What was going on?
01:42 Actually you were going to Adventist school.
01:44 Sure, I was going to the school there in the Highland community
01:48 and had a principal.
01:50 He paddled me.
01:52 It left some marks on me, left some distinct bruising.
01:57 It looked like we might end up in court over it.
02:01 My father ended up meeting with the school board.
02:03 The church board got involved,
02:05 and they just asked him not to pursue
02:07 that route so we didn't.
02:09 When it came close to my eighth grade year
02:11 and enrollment for that year,
02:12 the school said that I was not going
02:15 to be allowed to enroll,
02:17 and so I finished out my school in public school.
02:21 I went to Portland High and graduated in 1987.
02:23 Okay, so you went to mixture of public school
02:26 as well as Seventh-day Adventist school.
02:27 Correct. Okay, okay.
02:29 Now you eventually did get into the drugs and alcohol
02:32 down the line.
02:33 What was going on internally?
02:35 Or what caused you to lean toward that type of lifestyle?
02:39 You know, having been rejected,
02:44 so to speak, from eighth grade,
02:47 I ended up with a little bit of a chip
02:48 on my shoulder toward Adventism,
02:51 toward the Christian walk in general
02:54 and whether I had remained at Highland or, in this case,
02:59 whenever I went to Portland, some of my circle of friends,
03:03 they started experimenting
03:05 with marijuana and with alcohol.
03:07 And by about my 11th grade year,
03:11 especially probably at the beginning
03:13 of my senior year, I was experimenting with both.
03:17 And in my senior year,
03:19 I was just a little bit more than experimenting.
03:21 I would sell pot on a regular basis
03:24 to help finance my own.
03:27 It wasn't a habit at that point
03:28 but just trying to be part of the in-group.
03:33 Miami Vice was pushing all this glamorous drug
03:38 and so, I just kind of got caught up
03:40 in that scene as well.
03:41 Now you said something interesting,
03:42 you said Miami Vice was kind of glorifying some things.
03:46 How much of an impact do you think
03:47 that entertainment had on your lifestyle at that time?
03:50 It had a decent impact.
03:52 Miami Vice came on Friday night
03:55 and although I was engaged in some of the things,
03:57 I didn't get to watch Miami Vice.
04:00 You know, we cut the TV off,
04:02 we were not overly conservative Christians,
04:06 but when Friday night came, we put on the music
04:10 and all the other entertainments
04:11 were eliminated...
04:13 Okay. We began the Sabbath.
04:15 Now growing up did you ever have resentment
04:19 towards Seventh-day Adventism?
04:20 And I ask that because, you know,
04:22 I remember growing up as a young man,
04:24 and you know, you see all your other friends
04:26 on Friday night, Saturdays, you know they are doing things,
04:29 they're going to school dances and all,
04:31 and you cannot do that.
04:32 So it's kind of like a resentment
04:34 towards the Sabbath and the Church.
04:36 Did you ever feel that? I did.
04:38 But by the time my senior year rolled around, I had...
04:42 On Friday evenings I would go to the football games,
04:46 I went to the dances, I had just, you know,
04:51 my relationship with my parents,
04:53 you know, I told them look,
04:54 this is what my friends are doing,
04:56 and this is what I want to do,
04:57 so up until about my junior or my senior year,
05:01 we did all of the Sabbath stuff,
05:03 and I still didn't watch TV at home,
05:05 but I would go to the football games,
05:07 and I would go to the dances.
05:08 So, at home my parents
05:10 maintained conservative Adventism,
05:14 but on my own I went my own direction unfortunately.
05:18 Now you eventually went to the Navy,
05:20 and you started drinking, rather heavily at Navy.
05:23 At what age did you go in
05:24 and what was going on in your life
05:26 that was causing you to drink so much?
05:28 Sure, my senior year, I turned 18,
05:31 graduated at the end of May.
05:34 The first of June, I had bought a motorcycle,
05:39 I thought I was going to be Tom Cruise,
05:40 and that's what I had envisioned the Navy to be.
05:46 The second of July, I was in boot camp,
05:50 so I just graduated, went directly into boot camp,
05:53 and then by the time I got on the ship,
05:55 that's what everyone on the ship did.
05:58 If you did not have duty that particular day,
06:01 you went out and drank.
06:03 And sometimes it was a little but more often it was a lot.
06:07 Okay.
06:08 Now, you told me before that you would drink
06:12 and then later on you would pray at night.
06:15 Why would you do that?
06:16 Would it be a guilty feeling that was going on or...
06:19 It was just like a security blanket,
06:21 you know, I would be so drunk sometimes
06:25 that I would lay down and the room would be spinning
06:27 and I actually enjoyed that, just spin myself off to sleep,
06:31 but before I would go to sleep, I would pray,
06:34 you know, my standard prayer and ask for forgiveness
06:37 knowing that tomorrow
06:39 I am gonna be engaged in the same activity.
06:40 Doing the same thing.
06:42 Yeah, I have been there many times.
06:44 You know you're doing wrong,
06:45 you kind of give this little prayer
06:46 but, you know, the very next day
06:48 you're gonna do the same exact thing
06:50 and I guess that's a part of, you know,
06:52 as growing up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church
06:54 or growing up as a Christian as a whole.
06:56 Things are ingrained in you,
06:58 and even though you're doing wrong,
07:01 you tend to, you know, you still go to church,
07:02 maybe still pray a little bit,
07:04 but your heart really isn't in it
07:06 as it should be.
07:08 Now, you said that you were married,
07:11 you got divorced, and then remarried,
07:13 what was going on in this situation?
07:14 Sure, I married Christie.
07:17 She was a girl that we had grown up together.
07:19 I've known Christie since we were just little kids.
07:21 We've got a picture album,
07:23 where we were playing baby dolls,
07:24 and the baby dolls was
07:26 our younger brothers and sisters...
07:28 This was your childhood sweetheart.
07:29 So to speak, yeah.
07:31 We fell in love so to speak at a very young age
07:36 and then finally admitted that we were in love,
07:38 but we both got engaged in drugs and alcohol,
07:43 and she developed an addiction, and it really started
07:47 interfering with life in general.
07:50 And for 12 years we dealt with the addiction
07:54 and finally I just got to a breaking point
07:57 and of all the things that I truly regret,
08:00 I regret that I used divorce as a tool to try to heal us.
08:05 Okay.
08:07 But we have been divorced actually two times.
08:11 Yeah, okay, well. Went through it a second time.
08:14 We got remarried.
08:16 She had gone through a program
08:18 and I thought that it was behind us.
08:20 Okay.
08:21 Her addiction resurfaced
08:23 and I said, "Lord, I just can't take it!
08:25 I'm weak." Okay.
08:27 And as a result, we started the process again
08:31 and this time I was awarded full custody,
08:34 and praise the Lord, I can hardly contain myself,
08:39 she has been clean and sober,
08:42 it will be five years this fall.
08:43 Praise the Lord.
08:45 Now, what was some of the drug
08:46 that you and your wife were using together?
08:50 Marijuana was the big drug.
08:53 We kind of separated because I've used LSD.
08:57 I've been on a trip,
09:02 you know, several times
09:05 and at first on the West Coast,
09:08 that's when crystal methamphetamine was huge,
09:12 and I tried crystal but it didn't present
09:17 what I was looking for in a drug.
09:19 Now the LSD and the meth and some of the other drugs,
09:21 what effects did you see upon your mind, your body
09:25 as you were using these drugs?
09:27 Well, LSD, you know,
09:29 you are going to have hallucinations
09:31 and, you know, I would have
09:33 some pretty major hallucinations.
09:37 One of the very first times that I did LSD,
09:40 I took a number of hits,
09:43 and it started on a Friday evening,
09:46 and it lasted all the way
09:48 until in the am of Monday morning.
09:51 So you were pretty much be awake
09:52 for that whole time?
09:53 Oh, you are awake, your heart is beating
09:55 like 200 beats a minute.
09:58 The room,
09:59 when you're standing still, it will look
10:02 as if it's breathing the ceiling,
10:05 whenever there is textured things,
10:07 they look like they are moving, just mind games.
10:12 You know, I understand that
10:14 being that I used to be on cocaine and ecstasy,
10:18 I used a little bit of heroin, and all of these various drugs,
10:22 and I would be up for days.
10:24 I mean, the longest I've been up
10:26 is four or five days, just wide awake.
10:28 You know, you're tired, you try to go to sleep,
10:30 you lie down, but as soon as you lie down,
10:32 your eyes get real big and you can't go to sleep
10:35 and, you know, when I started school,
10:39 I thought that, because I had used drugs
10:41 for years that, you know,
10:42 my mind will be kind of all eaten away and,
10:45 but the Lord had blessed.
10:46 The Lord had very much blessed
10:48 to where even though I had used drugs for a long time,
10:51 I was still able to excel in school later on.
10:54 So have you seen that even though you used the drugs
10:58 that you have been able to excel in various things?
11:01 I did.
11:02 In my undergraduate degree, I've a Bs in Psychology.
11:05 And my undergraduate degree, I graduated with a 389,
11:10 but I was still drinking and after every exam
11:13 I'd get high of being in celebration.
11:15 Okay the test is over.
11:17 That's download, get ready for this information.
11:18 The reward itself, yeah. Yeah.
11:21 But now I'm currently enrolled at Andrews,
11:24 I'm working on my Macman,
11:25 Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry,
11:28 and I'm maintaining 4.0 currently.
11:30 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
11:31 Now let's back up a little bit.
11:34 Before you got to pastoring, you know,
11:36 somebody introduced you to the Amazing Facts,
11:38 the Amazing Facts Bible study lesson.
11:40 Talk about what happened with that?
11:43 It was the day that my son Jake was actually born.
11:46 And Demetrius was a friend of mine.
11:49 Demetrius came in.
11:50 He was working at the hospital that day,
11:53 and he and I began to dialogue.
11:57 He asked me where my relationship
11:58 was with the Lord
12:00 and we spoke for just a little bit
12:03 and on his lunch break he came back
12:05 and he gave me an Amazing Facts track,
12:06 I can't remember exactly which one it was,
12:09 but I began to study with a little more depth,
12:12 and the Lord convicted my heart
12:15 that I really didn't have a relationship with him.
12:18 And by July 5th of that same year,
12:22 that was 1997.
12:24 Okay.
12:25 I was re-baptized
12:27 and began a new journey with Christ.
12:29 Okay. Praise the Lord. Amen.
12:31 Now it's interesting, okay, you were re-baptized
12:33 but then you eventually got caught in an insurance fraud.
12:36 Yes, sir. Talk about that experience?
12:40 This would have been in the fall of 1998
12:43 so not too long of a period,
12:46 close to a year and a half had gone by.
12:51 We had a vacation plan to Florida
12:54 and just prior to going on that vacation,
12:57 I had asked a guy that I had grown up with,
13:03 but he still was involved in a behavior and a lifestyle
13:08 that didn't represent Christianity.
13:10 I asked him, "Hey, while we are gone,
13:12 would you break into the house and take whatever you want,
13:15 you know, it's yours
13:16 whatever you like to do with it.
13:18 Okay.
13:19 He got caught, he turned state's evidence,
13:21 he wore a mike, had some recordings
13:24 of he and I discussing what had happened
13:27 and so I got convicted for a Class C felony
13:32 for attempted insurance fraud.
13:34 Okay. Now how did...
13:36 Being that you were just recently baptized,
13:38 how did the church respond?
13:41 Being that just came back in, baptized, praise the Lord,
13:44 and then you set up something for your house
13:47 to be broken into.
13:48 How did the church view it?
13:50 Well, they had a church business meeting,
13:52 an emergency church business meeting
13:55 and at that meeting there were tons of people.
13:58 Okay.
13:59 And they decided that they would...
14:02 I was a Sabbath school teacher for the adult class
14:05 and was really trying to work my way into becoming an elder
14:09 but I had one foot on either side
14:11 of the fence obviously, the felony proves that.
14:14 Yeah.
14:16 Can't serve two masters, that's for sure.
14:17 No, you can't.
14:18 And they decided they would put a sensor on me for one year.
14:22 Okay. Okay.
14:23 Now you eventually went to Arise
14:25 under the leadership of David Asscherick,
14:28 how did that transpire?
14:29 David Asscherick came to Kentucky-Ten camp meeting,
14:31 which is there in the Highland community
14:33 that's where Kentucky-Ten holds their camp meeting each year.
14:36 And while he was there, he preached a sermon
14:40 and his appeal at the end was, this,
14:43 what he had been preaching about
14:45 is what Jesus did for you.
14:47 What are you doing for him? Yeah.
14:49 So I pull out my checklist, you know,
14:51 I'm faithfully paying tithe,
14:53 my kids go to Sabbath school every week,
14:56 but in the end it just really didn't amount
14:59 to what I was being convicted of.
15:02 So David and I spoke,
15:03 he told me that he had a school.
15:07 I didn't even know who David Asscherick was.
15:09 He told me that he had the school
15:11 of evangelism for lay people
15:14 that were interested in getting involved in ministry
15:16 and I just felt a strong conviction
15:18 to follow that.
15:20 Okay. So, how did it go at Arise?
15:22 What did you learn at Arise?
15:23 And after that you became a Bible worker.
15:25 Talk a little bit about that?
15:27 You chain your Bible,
15:30 you go through practice scenarios.
15:32 You learn the importance of an evangelistic cycle
15:36 and you are actively involved the whole time.
15:38 You go to different communities,
15:40 you knock on doors,
15:41 you try to generate Bible studies,
15:43 and then you try to encourage those Bible studies
15:45 to attend the prophesy seminar at the very end.
15:49 It was fantastic, a very great experience.
15:51 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
15:53 And because of the Bible worker
15:54 that's why you are actually a pastor right now.
15:57 Let's talk about how it led to that
15:58 in the South Central Conference and the only Caucasian
16:02 in the South Central Conference.
16:05 Yeah it was great, you know,
16:06 the sensor that I was talking about earlier,
16:10 it ended up lasting for almost 10 years and...
16:12 Wow, and originally it was only a year, right?
16:14 Only supposed to be a year.
16:16 I get back from Arise, I asked the current pastor,
16:19 "Hey, would you mind if I get behind the pulpit and preach,
16:22 I'm excited, I'm on fire."
16:24 And he took it to the board
16:28 and the board even 10 years after the fax said,
16:31 "You know we don't fill at this time."
16:33 So I continue to do Bible work.
16:35 I did Bible work in Kentucky-Ten
16:38 and eventually South Central Church asked me
16:42 if I would be interested in coming
16:44 and being a Bible worker for them.
16:46 Okay. I started in September.
16:49 It'll be three years this fall. Okay.
16:52 And from September until December,
16:54 we were doing some jail ministry work,
16:56 I had a number of baptisms
16:58 and I got to meet with President Dana Edmonds,
17:01 the president of South Central,
17:03 and he asked me if I would be interested
17:06 in being the lay pastor for the Joelton,
17:11 North Cheatham Seventh-day Adventist Church.
17:13 And I whole heartedly embraced it.
17:16 so God had a sense of humor,
17:18 where I couldn't be used in the Kentucky-Ten Conference,
17:22 I end up getting picked up in South Central
17:25 and God continues to open the door
17:26 because the North American Division is actually...
17:30 They're paying for me to get my master's.
17:32 So praise the Lord.
17:33 Now, how did it make you feel?
17:36 You just finished Arise,
17:38 you wanted to come to the church
17:39 and get behind the pulpit but they didn't let you.
17:41 For some people, they would have taken that,
17:44 you know, forget it, you know,
17:45 gone back to their old lifestyle.
17:47 But you, you didn't do that.
17:48 How did that make you feel internally though,
17:51 when they said, "No, you couldn't
17:52 get behind the pulpit."
17:54 You know, if we are not careful,
17:55 we will let our human emotions block and shut doors
17:57 that God is opening.
17:59 And so, when I originally went to Arise,
18:03 I filled out the paperwork, sent in the application,
18:06 and they called me and they said
18:07 it's all full for this year.
18:09 Christie and I had just gotten remarried,
18:11 we're on our second honeymoon in Florida
18:15 and that's when we get the call.
18:17 I'm a little disappointed but I get back to Nashville,
18:20 I was driving a semi at the time
18:23 and I get a call on a Friday afternoon
18:27 and it's someone from Arise and they said,
18:30 "Hey, we have had someone
18:31 that's not gonna able to make it,
18:33 would you still like to come?"
18:34 And I said, "If you give me about an hour,
18:37 I will be able to give you an answer."
18:38 I hang up the phone, I called Christie,
18:40 she said, "Great!
18:42 This is the answer, prayer what we have been praying about."
18:44 I hung up the phone, I called the guy
18:46 that I was driving for,
18:48 I said, "Eddie, today is my last day,
18:50 I'm headed to Arise."
18:52 We had discussed, he knew what it was about,
18:55 and you know, my prayer was, "Lord, if I take this step,
19:01 we were in enormous debt.
19:03 We've got $70,000 to go to Arise,
19:06 it is going to cost another $4,000 or $5, 000
19:09 by the time I have all my expenses
19:12 included in that.
19:13 Lord, I don't know how I am going to do it,
19:15 but if this is the door you are opening,
19:17 I will stay in full time ministry
19:19 for the rest of my life."
19:21 Praise the Lord, that's where we are at today.
19:23 He keeps opening doors
19:24 and I keep walking through them.
19:26 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
19:27 Now, you are involved with the discipleship program.
19:29 Yes, sir.
19:30 Talk about how the discipleship program works?
19:32 The discipleship program is simply...
19:35 It's a program that helps any Christian
19:39 but especially younger Christians
19:42 reach new heights of maturity.
19:45 You work with them.
19:46 You teach them
19:47 how to increase their prayer life,
19:50 how to enrich their prayer life,
19:52 and as they continue to grow,
19:54 eventually they will get to a point
19:56 where they can disciple others.
19:58 So you invest a large amount of time
20:00 into just one or two people
20:02 and eventually it will grow
20:05 as they begin to disciple others.
20:07 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
20:08 Now you mentioned a few minutes ago
20:10 about the jail ministry,
20:13 talk to me about how you got involved
20:15 in the jail ministry
20:16 and the results of the jail ministry?
20:19 Danny Hanson was a friend of mine
20:21 from the Highland Church, and he asked me to come down
20:24 and be a part of the jail ministry.
20:27 At first, I was a little reluctant,
20:28 I really didn't want to work with that group and that crowd,
20:32 but as I started getting involved,
20:35 I found that they were eager, they were always hungry
20:38 and you could always find someone to talk to.
20:40 You would go down, you pull...
20:44 Well, you don't pull up a chair because they are cement tables,
20:47 but you would sit down at one of the tables.
20:50 And 3, 5, 15, and sometimes
20:53 I would have 30 guys out of 60 people in a pod
20:56 that would come up.
20:58 They would listen, they would ask questions
21:00 and it's challenging.
21:01 Because you have got all these different denominations
21:03 and so they're coming at you with their proof text
21:07 and then you have to unpack the text
21:10 and actually show them the truth.
21:12 As you're revealing the truth, you can see it in their face,
21:15 in their eyes,
21:17 the conviction that's starting to just be pouring over them
21:20 and then to watch them embrace that conviction,
21:24 follow that conviction,
21:26 and then develop an eternal, hopefully,
21:28 an eternal relationship with the Lord.
21:30 It's just fantastic. Praise the Lord.
21:31 Now let me ask this,
21:32 why were you a little bit reluctant
21:34 at first to do the jail mission?
21:36 Oh, because I had a felony
21:37 and birds of a feather flock together
21:40 and so you know I might be associated in a way
21:44 that I didn't want to be associated
21:46 with that particular group.
21:47 I just wanted to break free from all of that,
21:50 but God blessed, as a matter of fact,
21:53 this year I finally got my rights restored
21:56 so I can vote again, I can hold public office,
21:58 I can do all those things
22:00 that forever I didn't have the right to do.
22:02 Okay.
22:03 What were some of the results
22:05 of when you received that class C felony?
22:07 Were you placed on probation, or what happened with that?
22:10 Sure, when I first got arrested,
22:13 I spent just a few hours in jail,
22:14 I bonded out and then I ended up
22:17 on like a four-year probation.
22:19 I had to do a million hours of community service where,
22:24 you know, in that range
22:25 because you'd work for one place for a while
22:28 and then, they would,
22:30 you'd be finished with everything,
22:31 they will have you to do
22:32 and then you are transferred to somewhere else.
22:35 Had a few fines to pay. Okay.
22:37 And within a short period though,
22:40 once a month you would have to check in
22:41 with a probation officer
22:43 but once I got all my fines paid,
22:45 and I finally got all of the hours done,
22:48 within about a year and a half,
22:50 I was put on a non supervised and...
22:52 Non supervised probation, okay.
22:55 Then you just finish it out
22:56 and then you just have the permanent tattoo,
23:00 you're a convicted fellow.
23:01 Oh yes. It's there.
23:04 For those that, let's say,
23:05 they've never been incarcerated,
23:07 never been involved in drugs, alcohol, or anything
23:09 but they have a burning desire for people, for ministry,
23:13 would you encourage them
23:15 to get involved in a prison ministry
23:16 or jail ministry anything like that?
23:19 Find some ministry, find a ministry,
23:21 even if you don't think you are interested in it.
23:24 Let God lead, and as He leads, He'll open up the doors.
23:28 He'll show you things that you're interested in,
23:30 show you things that you might not know
23:33 that you were interested in that He can press
23:35 upon your heart and help develop.
23:39 In looking back over your life, the many things
23:42 that you have been involved with the drugs,
23:44 the alcohol, the marriage,
23:46 remarriage, divorced, remarried,
23:49 what are some of the regrets that you may have?
23:52 You know, today in the Seventh-day Adventist
23:56 culture and world, we tend to glorify stories
24:00 like the story that I have.
24:02 And really and truthfully I wish
24:03 that I could have been
24:05 someone that never went through that
24:07 and we could be talking about Praise the Lord
24:10 that I stayed on the path of righteousness.
24:13 But Romans 2:4 says that,
24:15 God's goodness brought me to true repentance.
24:18 Praise the Lord.
24:20 And because of that I can share the story
24:22 and hopefully encourage others, you know,
24:25 even if it looks like your life has started down a path
24:29 that is going to end in destruction,
24:32 God's calling and if you'll just listen.
24:34 His arm is long enough to reach you
24:37 in the worst situation
24:38 that life may have thrown your way
24:40 or that you may have embraced,
24:42 and walked down that path but He will lead you back
24:45 to the path of righteousness,
24:46 and He will give you opportunities to witness
24:49 and bring others along with you.
24:50 That's the greatest burden upon my heart today
24:54 is to seek and save the lost.
24:56 You know, we just aren't doing that in North America.
24:59 The majority of our churches,
25:02 the pastors are just maintenance pastors,
25:04 we're just maintaining the church.
25:07 I wanna church that desires to get out
25:09 and engage in evangelism, get out and actually seek
25:13 and save the lost.
25:15 And put the excuses on the shelf at home
25:17 and come to the church ready to go to work.
25:19 Amen.
25:21 What have you seen has helped you
25:23 remain in the church?
25:24 You know, some people come in and they backslide
25:26 and they're right back up.
25:27 What has helped to keep you in the church?
25:29 Working with others.
25:30 When you engage in the salvation of others,
25:35 you fade out of the focus and they become the focus
25:39 and when you are working with Christ,
25:41 when you are yoked with Him, it just keeps you focused.
25:45 This is the mission,
25:47 this is the burning desire on your heart
25:49 and it really keeps you motivated
25:51 and moving in a forward and upward direction.
25:54 And I noticed being active in the church,
25:56 it helped keep me rooted and grounded
25:59 and as I continued to study the word
26:02 and continue to do literature evangelism,
26:04 and knocking on doors, getting to know people,
26:06 praying with people, being active in the church,
26:08 it has really kept me planted in the church
26:11 so, you know, I would basically encourage,
26:13 and I'm sure that you would encourage
26:15 folk that are coming into the church
26:17 to make sure that they get involved in something,
26:19 some kind of ministry in the church,
26:22 their own ministry,
26:23 whatever they have to do to stay active
26:26 to keep from going back into their lifestyle.
26:28 Amen.
26:29 Now what I want you to do, Pastor Wade,
26:30 is take about a minute or so.
26:32 I want you to look into the camera,
26:33 and I want you to appeal to that young person,
26:35 to those parents who are seeing their children
26:38 go out into the world.
26:40 What words do you have for them?
26:42 I just encourage you to remember
26:44 what the Bible promises.
26:46 The Bible gives us distinct promises.
26:49 God is greater, he that is in you
26:51 is greater than he that is in the world.
26:53 And if you'll just embrace these promises and go forward,
26:57 even if you have addictions, God can break those addictions
27:01 but you have to be willing to let him come in.
27:04 He will begin a work and He will finish a work.
27:08 All you have to do is be submissive
27:10 and allow Him to do that.
27:12 So I just encourage everyone to actually do that, seek God,
27:16 seek a relationship with Him,
27:18 build on it on a daily basis, and as you do that,
27:22 it will eventually turn into a relationship
27:25 that will be eternal.
27:26 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
27:27 Great advice.
27:30 Pastor Wade, I would like to thank you
27:31 for being on the program.
27:32 I know that many souls will be blessed
27:34 mothers, fathers, children, we just pray for all those
27:39 that want to come back into the church,
27:41 and even stay in the church.
27:42 Amen.
27:43 We like to thank you viewers
27:45 for tuning into The New Journey.
27:46 Be sure to tune in next time for an exciting story
27:50 on The New Journey.


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Revised 2017-06-29