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Friends And Family
Conversations from the studios of God's Way Radio in Miami, FL.
WAYG-LP | 104.7FM
Friends And Family
From Darkness to Divine Calling: Pastor Mark Mills' Testimony of Faith and Recovery
Pastor Mark Mills, from Glory To Glory Christina Fellowship, shares the raw recount of his descent into the throes of addiction—a stark contrast to his upbringing in a devout Christian home. His journey from the depths of substance abuse to a profound encounter with Christ is a testament to the power of redemption and the grace of God. Join us for an intimate conversation with the pastor of Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship, where we delve into the complexities of parenting through a child's crisis, the role of tough love, and the importance of hitting rock bottom for true transformation.
The fabric of this episode is woven with stories of grace and the significance of mentorship. You'll hear how the steadfast prayers of a parent and the guidance of key figures influenced my path to ordination and ministry. We celebrate the organic growth of a home Bible study into a church, emphasizing the significance of personal calling and the mentorship that drives ministry. Pastor Mark's closing prayer encapsulates our shared experiences, invoking blessings and reinforcing the impact of personal faith narratives on our communities.
You're tuned in to Friends and Family, a God's Way radio exclusive where we introduce you to some amazing people. In John 15, verse 15, jesus says I have called you friends for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known to you. That's our aim that God would be made known to you. Stay with us until the end of our conversation for more information on this program and other unique offerings from God's Way radio.
Speaker 2:Well, God's Way radio family. I have a very special guest here with me today and if you listen pretty frequently, you might get the impression, or you might realize, that a lot of the guests that we have here I've met them before, I've heard their teaching or we've served together. But every once in a while I get to sit down with somebody I don't know much about and it's as exciting for me as it is for you guys, and today is one such day. I have Pastor Mark Mills here in the studio. Thank you for coming, sir.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure, it's good to be here.
Speaker 2:And just getting to learn a little bit about Pastor Mark. The name of the church is Glory to Glory, christian Fellowship. Yes, it is. Oh, I got it right. All right, and it is in Greece, new York, which is near.
Speaker 3:So Greece is a suburb of Rochester. We're probably five minutes outside of the city of Rochester.
Speaker 2:Awesome, so big shout out to.
Speaker 3:Pastor Jeff.
Speaker 2:Breed, pastor Rob Kellogg, and even in the area I mean all the way back to Pastor Bill the awesome, awesome family of churches up there in the New York state area. But you didn't always live in the Rochester area.
Speaker 3:No, I didn't. I grew up in North Jersey, in a little town called Belleville, which is a suburb of North New Jersey, about 20 minutes from Manhattan. Really busy place.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was my youth.
Speaker 2:Truly busy, or you're bringing sarcastic. Oh, very busy, oh okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a. North Jersey is extremely densely populated, oh wow, and so it's very fast paced life, very, very busy life, kind of there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, see, I don't know. I'm learning so much. So North Jersey. So, pastor Mark, one of the first things I always ask people when I get to sit down with them in the studio is how'd you come to know the Lord Jesus?
Speaker 3:So how I came to know the Lord. I will give you the. We have time.
Speaker 2:We have time.
Speaker 3:Well, a bit of a condensed version. Let's do that because it is a bit of a long story, but it is. You know, I often think when I think of my testimony, I think of I can't remember the name of the song writer, but in the refrain of the song he says to tell you my story is to tell of him, because that's what I always think of when I share my testimony is it's about him. It's about telling the story of God's grace in Christ. So so I grew up in what was a Christian home. My dad got saved when I was about eight.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:My mom. You know I never really knew and I never asked her she lives with us now whether my mom got saved at that time or whether she actually had been saved. You know she took us to church once in a while. But when my dad got saved everything changed in our home. My parents came very committed Christians. To this day. My wife and I try to emulate what they did they. Every day, 365 days a year, my parents after dinner would go in their room, turn off the light 30 minutes of prayer, turn on the light 30 minute Bible study. They did that 365 days a year for a good four decades till my dad passed.
Speaker 2:And just the two of them.
Speaker 3:Just kids were playing or sleeping or well my brother and I were not saved and, you know, particularly as we got to our teen years, we wouldn't be home much. So but with that being said, my parents being strong Christians, my, that part of New Jersey is a very it's very active in a bad sense very active area. You know, being so close to Newark, so close to New York City, a lot of drugs. So by the time I was 11, I was drinking and smoking marijuana by 11, by 14, doing pills by 17, cocaine and all those kind of things. And, mind you, you know I say that I was able to manage that for a long time. I got good grades in school, got into college, I was an athlete, but probably around 18, 19 years old it really began to take hold of my life.
Speaker 2:So, so, just kind of chime in in there. I guess the term wouldn't be like functioning addict or something like that as a young teen. And was this like every day, or was just you would go out on the weekends and party, or what I mean? It's hard to comprehend that you were able to have the grades and the sports.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, through my high school years it probably wasn't every day, but it was close to it. I mean, you know, there were a lot of drugs in our school, so we would be in school on drugs there was. It was just a lot of is very available in that community and yeah, and it was very consistent. But by the time I was 18, 19, it was every day and that degenerated into heroin addiction. So by my early twenties, by probably about 20, I was a heroin addict.
Speaker 2:And around what year was this? I'm sorry, if people do the math, they're going to know your age. Yeah, no, that's fine.
Speaker 3:So that would have been around 1987. 87.
Speaker 2:And the reason I asked is because this was, or this is more of a question now. This was a big problem across the country at this point, wasn't it in the 80s? Or was it a dependent or I?
Speaker 3:mean looking back. It certainly was in the New York, new Jersey area. New York City was in a bad spot at that time. It was around when the crack epidemic and all that. So there was a really bad time in that area at least I couldn't speak for the whole country, but certainly was there.
Speaker 3:You know there was a. There was a turning point in my life that so you know I was a heroin addict, but I didn't. I had never used a needle in my life. And I had a girlfriend who she used to say to me the day you stick a needle in your arm be the last day I talk to you. And I loved her. I did.
Speaker 3:I was unsaved, she was unsaved, but we had a conversation one night and I won't go into all the details, but she had gotten married and we were still involved, and she came to my house 430 in the morning. I was walking home from a bar and she was sitting in her car. She came to tell me that her husband had tested positive for HIV and she said she had tested negative. But they told her just a matter of time she would be positive. And so she was saying to me, because we were still involved, she said you need to be tested. She was a little older than I was, I was probably 21 at the time, she was 35. And and I, you know, I just I didn't handle it well. I kind of zoned out and didn't say much. And she kept saying to me you know you're mad at me. And I would tell her no, I'm not mad at you. And at one point in the conversation she said if you weren't mad at me you would have held me. And I didn't. I just I told her, I just didn't know what to think, what to do, and I'll never forget this. I can still see this conversation now.
Speaker 3:She looked me in the eye and she said Mark, I'd rather be dead than know that I've hurt you. And she got in her car and left. There's about five, five, 15 in the morning. She lived about 20 minutes away. I just went in the house. I actually went in the house and did more heroin. Got home the next day around five o'clock in the evening, got a phone call from a friend that worked with her and she was very blunt, very to the point. She just said Mark Connie's dead. She had she. The last thing she said was I'd rather be dead than know that I've hurt you. And she got in her car, she drove home and she killed herself. And that was the first day I stuck a needle in my arm. And the downward trajectory at that point it was steady for years, but it became rapid. My decline came incredibly rapid.
Speaker 2:Did you consider killing yourself?
Speaker 3:I never considered that, you know, at least not. I never considered it actively, like I never, never thought about that.
Speaker 2:You work, in essence, killing yourself by doing what you're doing. But as far as hey, this day, this time, I want to know.
Speaker 3:I never did plan to do that, but there was a period of time. So a few years later I had just gotten out of jail and I think at that point I had reached such a bottom that again, I wasn't trying to kill myself, I wasn't thinking that way, but I think all hope was gone. So I didn't much care. I got out of jail in May I'm sorry, march and within two months to the day, literally, I checked into a detox. I had lost 40 pounds in two months just in drug addiction. I was literally wasting away.
Speaker 3:But right before I went into this detox, my landlord she had known me since I was probably 13 years old. I was walking into the front door of the house and she just said Mark, if I gave you the number to a Christian program, would you go? And to this day I think I was just trying to avoid the conversation. So I said, sure, I went in my house and she lived upstairs. Maybe 10 minutes later she came down with this little piece of paper with a phone number. So I'm in New Jersey, this is to Rochester Teen Challenge. So I took it, I stuck it in my pocket.
Speaker 3:I was on parole at the time and I knew that I was. I was gonna end up going back to jail at some point. So I checked into a detox in East Orange, new Jersey, for a week and at the end of that week they were. They wanted us to get involved in one of their programs, you know, an outpatient secular program, and I had been thinking about it and thinking about it and I didn't know why.
Speaker 3:Again, I was not a Christian. But when they called me in the room at the end of the week they wanted me to sign up for one of these programs and I said you know, I have this number to a Christian program in Rochester. I said I think I'm gonna try that and they tried to. They discouraged it, they felt it was running away from the problem and I said, well, yeah, you know, maybe, maybe it is, maybe I'm running away, but I'm gonna give it a try. So about two weeks later I took a train up to Rochester, new York, checked in the teen challenge again unsaved, and had heard the gospel since I was eight, but it never resonated with me in a way that I would bow my knee to that truth.
Speaker 2:What's your relationship like with your parents at this point in your life?
Speaker 3:So my parents now my dad has since passed, but I will say this looking back, my parents were absolutely amazing. They, I mean, they knew where I was at, I'd go to jail and they'd come visit me. They never, they never abandoned me. They never gave up. They I don't know how they did it, but they remained faithful all those years. They, you know, they would pray, you know, in those prayer meetings every day. My dad told me years later that because my brother was doing the same thing I was, he was three years older, but they said every night we just prayed for you and it took 15 years of their praying before I got saved, 15 years of laboring you know in prayer.
Speaker 2:I'm guessing that they really navigated that line between never abandoning you but not supporting you or enabling you. Can you talk to that a little bit? Yeah?
Speaker 3:they did. They never contributed to what we did. If I were, say, for instance, to ask for money, I'd never get it. There was no way they were giving me money. But at the same time, whenever I needed a roof over my head, they gave it to me. You know, there were times where I just, you know, I was at the end of my rope and I needed a place to stay, and actually I didn't even have to ask. They never took my keys away. I could just come home and I had a place to stay, there was food to eat. So they would always make sure they were there for me in that way to take care of my needs, in that way, place to stay if I needed it. But they would never contribute to my behavior, never give me money, no, those kind of things but always supportive. When I went to jail, they were there every weekend to visit me, and you know.
Speaker 2:Can you speak directly to parents listening in the same situation? Because we know it's not a cookie cutter one size fits all right If someone's listening, excuse me right now. And they're thinking okay, as long as I give, as long as I don't take their keys, don't give them money, visit them in jail, then they'll become a pastor.
Speaker 1:And I don't mean to make fun of anyone- listening.
Speaker 2:I really wanted to give you an opportunity to speak to their heart. How would a parent navigate that situation?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is difficult. The way my parents handled it is the way they handled it and I would not tell someone else, well, you need to do it this way. This is what my parents did for me. You know, I've always felt. You know there are times where you know you look at the Lord.
Speaker 3:As a matter of fact, the text I'm gonna be sharing from with the men this weekend is in Hosea, and part of the Lord's strategy to bring about repentance with Hosea was taking everything away, right, and in Israel he's saying I'm gonna take away your grain and I'm gonna take away your oil and I'm gonna take away your wine. He was gonna bring them to repentance through difficulty, and my wife and I have often thought about our own children and how we raise them and you know, what would we do in those kinds of circumstances? And sometimes it is the reality of letting people feel the pain of their decisions that actually brings them to repentance. That God uses, and I think you know, other than putting a roof over my head, you know I had to feel the pain of my decisions.
Speaker 3:You know there was jail time and there was all of those things, and so I would encourage parents and it's a difficult thing and I will say it's not only a difficult thing, it's a very difficult thing for a mother to allow her children to go through hardship and not try to make it better. But in my life, you know, even with their help, I came to a point where I was reduced to nothing. I still remember when I showed up in Rochester 25 years old. I was a college dropout and everything I owned in the entire world fit in one suitcase. My life had been reduced to nothing and it took that. It ultimately took that to bring me to repentance and to bring me to Christ. So the balance I think parents have to navigate is not getting in God's way, not trying to make it better. There may be things you need to do to help your child survive, but Bye. But being able to take your hands off and not try to make things better for them, but let the pain of their consequences run its course.
Speaker 2:That's so well said, pastor Mark. Not get in God's way. You know, and and in just a ministry. You know I have the privilege of being an assistant pastor here with pastor Zach and you know you never tell a parent want to do and anything like that. But but even talking about what a parent might do, you know hey you know you have this adult child. You might need to let them know.
Speaker 2:Hey, you know you can't do this in the home you need to leave the home and they automatically go to other, gonna be homeless and die. You know, and, and, and you found For the most part right, you said sometimes you'd have to come home, but for the most part you found a way to pay rent. Sure, survive. You know what I'm saying, and, and and I think especially in, in, in middle-class families, where families with a little bit more money or resources, it's like man there, the kid is just so comfortable you know they have everything they need.
Speaker 2:They're so comfortable. Parents, without knowing it, sometimes might be Paying for things without even knowing it. You're paying their gas, you're paying their car, you're paying everything and and, and you are giving them money In a sense. Right, so it's, it's. It's a scary thing.
Speaker 2:My kids are tiny, they're all little so so I think about it sometimes too, and I understand, I've never been there before yet. But, um, but, as you said, right, letting them feel some of it. Man, lord, lord, speak to these parents. But, pastor Mark, we left off in your story at Teen Challenge.
Speaker 3:Yes, so. So I arrived at Teen Challenge September 14th 1992. Now, for me, my parents always went to a very Bible teaching, strong Bible teaching churches. So when I did go to church, what I was used to was, you know, verse by verse, teaching the Bible and those kind of things, you know. Again, it wasn't a Christian, although I will loop back to that thought in a moment. But when I got to Teen Challenge it was a bit different. I don't know how all of the Teen Challenges are now, but at the time they were very charismatic To the point where. So I showed up that day and you know I'm in upstate New York now, but a lot of the guys in the house are from Brooklyn and you know these are kind of guys I would have been hanging out with on the street, you know. So I felt comfortable in that sense.
Speaker 3:But I'll never forget the first night I'm there they had chapel and During the worship time these guys are all just yelling out in tongues Wow, and I had never heard that. You know, I had never heard anything like that. So I'm standing in this circle, I kid you not, I'm thinking to myself, I'm looking around at these guys, I'm thinking I was just talking to these guys. They were just, you know, normal guys. What are they doing? What are these noises? I didn't even know what tongues was. I never heard it. So my, my immediate thought was I, I said they must be drugging the food To get them to do this, you know. And so I'm in my mind, I'm calculating, you know. Okay, I won't eat a lot, you know, I just have to stay three weeks, parole, I'll be over, I'll go back to New Jersey. But the Lord, the Lord, was gracious, got me through that part of it and I'll never forget two weeks. I got there September 14th.
Speaker 3:Two weeks later, september 28th 1992, there was a gentleman. His name was brother Kurt Kurt Siebert. He was to come in on two. It was a Monday or Tuesday. He would come in and do chapel in the evening and to be honest, I don't remember what text he shared, but I remember that after he finished he asked us all just to stand and hold hands and he said just pray quietly to yourself. He said then I'll close us out in prayer and the way I describe it.
Speaker 3:To this day I never prayed a sinner's prayer. Nobody led me in a prayer, but the only word I could use to describe that day is the word surrender. It was as though, just holding hands with those guys, my eyes closed, my head was bowed, I Just knew the battle was over. I knew it was over and I and I knew that the Lord had won and I, just, I just surrendered to him and and I got saved that day and my life Was never the same. Ended up, you know, and this is the grace of God, that was September. I had a girlfriend back in New Jersey at the time that I had told I'd be back for, and Over time they, you know, counsel me that that wasn't the wisest decision to make, and so I Contacted her and broke off that relationship. So on, at Christmas, what they do with the staff so the staff could go home, they send the men home with Church families, to men, to a family in the area.
Speaker 2:So in the area, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:So myself and another guy went to this family. The singers that lived in the city of Rochester and the wife Vanessa had a cousin named Teresa who lived around the corner. I see where this is. So, yes, so Christmas Eve she came over, had dinner and Met her. She was a single mom at the time and Three wonderful kids, and so met her on Christmas Eve. Christmas day she cooked dinner. We went around the corner to her house and she cooked dinner for us and you thought this is good yeah you know I was trying to behave, trying to do the right thing, but we just started writing each other letters.
Speaker 3:She wrote a letter to encourage me that she thought God was doing something in my life and so I had to leave to go to Pennsylvania for eight months Okay, to finish up teen challenge and we just would write each other letters. And he got to the point where every day I'd write her a letter, every day I'd receive a letter, got back to Rochester to work at teen challenge and Within a couple of months I put a ring on her finger.
Speaker 2:Amazing, oh man, so much I want to ask you about okay, so so you get saved, wasn't one day to the next, I mean the next day. You are totally different person, I mean so. So my part of my testimony is is Is drugs as well? I, when I got saved, it was gone immediately. I never had the desire again to do any drugs, to drink it for me, everyone's different. What was your experience like in that room?
Speaker 3:mine is the same as yours, though. So I often because you know, sometimes people can get discouraged when they hear you say that, because they're still battling with things, and what I say to them is look, god knows what we need. Yeah and God knew I needed to be delivered yes, from drugs. I couldn't. I had, I couldn't go on just fighting a battle. I needed to be the, and he did. Yeah, he took away the desire. He just he took all of that away. But I do remind people we didn't take everything away.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what I was about to say. Yeah, they each have our battle, sure, yeah?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's battles that had to still be fought. Their battles they're still being fought. Yeah and they go on for a lifetime. But yeah, by his grace he took that away.
Speaker 2:Amen and anything else from that time in the first if you want to call it stint in Rochester in, you know, when you got saved there in Teen challenge. Anything else come to mind, like I'm thinking did did any of the I don't know what you would call them the staff? Did they mention anything to you? Was there any conversations? Any of the guys you were with anything come to mind? I just wondered if anybody had one of those moments where they go there's something happening with you. What happened? I don't know anything like that comes to mind.
Speaker 3:What the one? There were two people in particular. One of them was my roommate, who was a gentleman named paul duncan. Okay, and so I was 25, paul was 45 and they roomed me with him and he was probably the first Person in that realm and I and I will say long term, my dad was the greatest influence on me as a christian, but paul was, you know, he was from brooklyn and he's a real gruff. He was, he was a sanitation worker in brooklyn and but watching him and he would, he took me under his wing and he would. He treated me like a father and would you know, no, you can't do this. And and you know, you need to write her a letter and tell her you're not gonna, you're not coming back for her. And you know he was very and.
Speaker 3:But the one thing about paul that struck me Was, you know, 45 year old guy. We were rooming together. Every night, in the middle of the night, he had to get up to go to the bathroom. He would never get back in his bed until he knelt beside it to pray. I watched him do that every night that he'd come back in the room and he'd kneel down by his bed and he would pray and I thought there's something he was. He was the strongest guy in the house In terms of his faith and I thought there's something there I need to be Paying attention to that he is mindful of god, you know made a great impression on me and, at the time, the assistant director.
Speaker 3:Um, the reason I wound up in Rochester was when my landlord gave me that number. Her brother had been a heroin addict and she told me a year later when I came back to visit that I looked like her brother did two weeks before he died and that's what moved her to to give me the number. Her brother had a best friend who got saved and he was now the assistant director in Rochester.
Speaker 2:No, that's how I wound up there. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:So his name was Ron Williams. Now he had Contracted aides before he got saved. So he has since gone home to be with the lord. But he would take me aside. You know, he knew, he knew her and knew the relationship there and he would spend a lot of one-on-one time with me, just uh, discipling me in the faith. And those two men in those early days, boy, they were invaluable to me In in rooting me in the faith you know what comes to mind.
Speaker 2:I gotta believe and I pass them out. I could be way off base here. Don't, don't, don't be shy to to take us back on course. Truly, I mean I gotta believe. It was so much, not only, but so much of your parents prayer. I mean I'm listening to your story and I'm just getting this picture of gods in heaven going why I gotta move this over here. I gotta, I gotta move, I gotta move things miraculously because I'm gonna answer these prayers. I mean the brother and the landlord and the director. I mean it's like god bringing everything together. I mean it sounds like you agree.
Speaker 3:Absolutely To this day I I will tell you my parents prayers and today to instill my mother's prayers I believe are absolutely significant in who I am and where I am. I'll tell you this just a fast forward, and then we can back up sure.
Speaker 3:I was ordained in 2000. Okay, pastor Jeff breed ordained me, um, and I served there in the church as an assistant pastor until 2005 when we officially started. Glory to glory. But after my dad passed away. He never told me this, but my mother shared with me that when I was still a heroin addict unsaved heroin addict my father used to tell her he's gonna be a pastor one day. I don't know had to be the Lord talking to him because there was nothing in my life that would indicate that I would ever be a pastor, a Christian living like that.
Speaker 2:Your dad wasn't a pastor. He was a believer, a strong believer.
Speaker 3:He was a strong believer, you know. He taught in his church. He would do adult Sunday school, you know, again with my dad, my mom said to me once actually she said this in a prayer meeting that we were getting a prayer meeting. We were at the start of it and we were just talking and she shared this with the folks that were in the prayer meeting. She said that for years she had looked at from the time I was ordained this was after my dad had passed and she had moved up to Rochester and was living with us.
Speaker 2:Was your dad alive to see you ordained? He was.
Speaker 3:He was there at the ordination. He never got to come to the church. Okay, he was alive when we started but he had gotten sick and wasn't able to come. But he knew we had started the church and we would. Back then it was cassettes. We'd send down cassettes and he'd listen to me preach. But my mother was sharing with this group of people. She said that when she would think of me and my dad she always thought of in a good way, I hope here David and Solomon. She said because David had a heart to build the temple, but the Lord said that's not for you to do, I'll give that to your son. And she used to say my husband had a heart to be a pastor, but the Lord said that's not for you to do, I'm gonna give that to your son. And so that's always remained with me that my dad was a pastor at heart but God just never called him to it. But he called his son and he got to see that. You know so Amazing.
Speaker 2:It's a grace of God, it's amazing, amazing. I think whoever's listening. If you're listening right now, I don't know we're in a competition. I'm being more blessed than you, and normally I don't even do this during the recorded interviews. We have a lot of live programming here on God's Way Radio. This will end up on the podcast. First on our podcast and then we might air it.
Speaker 2:So I don't normally give out the phone number, but I just have it on my heart right now that maybe somebody might wanna call, maybe they might wanna get in contact with you, maybe they might need some help or some direction. So I'm gonna give them the phone number to the radio station and then we'll work to get that person what they need. Remember, here at God's Way Radio you can call or text us at any time, night or day. If we don't get to the phone immediately, we'll get the voicemail or we'll see that text. Our studio phone number is 786-313-3115. You should save that in your phone. That way you can use it at any time, no special code needed, just like any other phone number. 786-313-3115. Pastor Mark, you're telling us how you won over your bride, how, through the amazing writing. Yes, you know the other thing that's so beautiful. There is that man. You were just faithful to the Lord. It sounds like You're just seeking the Lord and he brought her along.
Speaker 3:Tell us more about getting married and so yeah, so I can say this really with, and it actually fits right, because I bet her on Christmas Eve and to this day I say she's the greatest Christmas present I was ever given. She is a gift from God. And you know? Just a brief background for my wife. My wife and I said she was a single mother at the time. She is from Florida, she's from Ocala, okay yeah. And she actually had to flee Ocala. She was married to a pastor and it was an abusive marriage.
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness, and she had to flee and take the kids with her, and he since passed away not too long after that. But she was, you know, she was on her own, you know, with three small children and had to. She had family in Rochester, that's why she fled there. So she had to do that. But again, he was a pastor. So I came back from Teen Challenge and I, you know, and I worked there for a while in Rochester and then I just got a regular nine to five job working in manufacturing. You know we had finished writing our letters. By the way, we still have all those letters. Oh that's sweet.
Speaker 3:They are, and all of them are. I would write a five page letter every day, and she would write a five page letter every day, and so for eight months that's what we did, just wrote letters to each other, and we've kept them. We still have those, but she's an incredible Christian woman. She got saved young, in her early teens.
Speaker 2:Well, I was gonna say I mean I wish she was here to ask her directly, but man, what the Lord must have done or how she must have clung to the Lord to not lose her faith in that situation. You know what I mean? I mean pastor, he's supposed to be ABC, and is God even real? Is this whole Christianity thing even real?
Speaker 2:I would imagine that had to pass through her mind, at least Anything that you could share with us on that, that she shared or that. You know that crisis of faith in a sense. Or was she just locked in?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know she has never mentioned a crisis of faith in the Lord, but there were some very real marks, if you will left, and, interestingly enough, in regards to ministry, because you know she there's just. How do you trust, right, how do you trust when the pastor, who is your husband, has done these things, has betrayed you and the family in that way? So much so that, when Pastor Jeff said he was gonna ordain me, she thought what she said.
Speaker 3:I had no plans on being married to a pastor again, and so, yeah, that was a challenge for her. Was, you know, being married to a pastor and and?
Speaker 2:How long were you married at that point when you oh five, when you got ordained?
Speaker 3:So I was ordained in 2000.
Speaker 2:We started the church in oh five.
Speaker 3:We got married in 94. So we had been married six years and you know, the Lord was gracious, I was always serving, I still would serve at Teen Challenge. And then when we went to Calvary, rochester in probably I'm gonna say it's about 97, 98, we went there, I was involved in the ministry there and I was an elder at first. I was oversaw the ushers and I was an elder in the church and so there was a progression that I think helped her get a little comfortable before I was ordained. But yeah, but she mentioned after I was ordained that, you know, when she first heard it, when Pastor Jeff proposed, well, when Pastor Jeff said I was going to be ordained because that's the way he did that, that she thought I can't do this again.
Speaker 3:You know.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:But I'll tell you this, and I'm sure Pastor Zach would say this, I'm sure any of the pastors here would echo this, certainly Pastor Raz would there is no way I would have been able to do the things I've done in ministry without her. She has been the absolute rock of my life.
Speaker 2:I don't wanna cry, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:She has been. She has been the absolute rock of my life and you know, hopefully I'll get to come back down here and I'll bring her with me. I'd love to be able to do that. Get her some son Miami, son man, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Well, we'd love to have her, and then we have to convince her if she wants to come into the studio.
Speaker 1:See, maybe you get her some flowers.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no. We want, we want Breiber. We'll wait. We'll wait when she's ready, but I know I mean just hearing from you about her. Oh man, what an amazing time would be to speak with her. But tell us a little bit about your kids. They were about how old when you got married, or?
Speaker 3:So let's see the oldest would have been. He was 10.
Speaker 2:Okay so, they were they're grown. Grown now.
Speaker 3:So the three oldest yeah, the three oldest at the time were 10, eight and six. Okay, and then, after we got married, we had two more.
Speaker 2:Wonderful.
Speaker 3:And you know and I say this too and I know you know we live in a culture with a lot of blended families. You know, for us it was a little different there. When my wife first came there. Obviously their dad was down here in Florida. They were up in Rochester and he passed not long after that.
Speaker 2:That must have been hard for them.
Speaker 3:You know, for the oldest I think it was the other two they really didn't have that strong relationship with him because they had been in Rochester for a few years. They never saw him after they left.
Speaker 3:He never, you know, he never came up to visit and they never came back down. So it wasn't as difficult in that sense for them. And I know this isn't always easy, for you know families, blended families and things. But one thing I've always been blessed by when we were going to Calvary of Rochester with Pastor Jeff, so we didn't change their names, we wanted to honor that and but we were a family. And so one of the people in our church saw somewhere one of our daughters, the last name, and it dawned on them oh, they're not his biological children. And they said we never knew that and that was always our heart was that we would just be a family.
Speaker 3:I will say this I have never we've been married 29 years I have never said I have stepchildren, because I do not. I have five children. I raised all five of them. I have five children and they are my children and so that has always been a blessing to us to be a family and to, for the Lord's grace, to allow us to do that. So I would say you know there are families out there and I know this is our. The time we live in, the culture we live in, is a lot of blended families. Do what you can to make that one family unit to labor, to love one another in such a way that people on the outside looking in would never know that these aren't all the biological children of these two people. You know, we should labor for that and really strive to make that what our home looks like.
Speaker 2:Amen. Uh, if my uh math guesses are correct though I don't know if any of them are children anymore. What your youngest is? How old our youngest is 21. I was getting as 20s. Wow She'll be.
Speaker 3:She'll be 22 in May, Wow so are they spread out?
Speaker 2:They're all still in New York, or?
Speaker 3:so three of them Well, two live in Chile, where we live.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Uh, one lives in Gates, which is the next town over she. She lives literally five minutes from us.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And I was telling uh, pastor Raz and Pastor Zach, her kids, she has two kids. Uh, she's a school teacher. They get dropped off of the school bus at our house.
Speaker 1:So they live that close.
Speaker 3:So that's great, we get to spend a lot of time with them. Our oldest daughter lives about 45 minutes away, okay, uh, her and her husband have three kids, so they're a little further. We don't get to see them as much. And our son, who's the oldest? He lives in Tampa. Oh, wow, yeah, he moved back down here, uh, around 1920 years old, and lived with his grandmother in Ocala, and then he had a friend living in Tampa and he moved down to Tampa. He was probably about 21 and he's been there ever since. So yeah.
Speaker 2:So, pastor Mark, you you got ordained and uh, what? What gave you the idea to start a church? I mean, you had a church. You were we're Pastor Jeff. What? What happened? How did the Lord do that?
Speaker 3:Well, the, the starting the church and being ordained are both uh kind of the same thing, in a sense that not the same thing, but the same way that they happened. Um, I was in an elder at Calvary, Rochester, yeah, and I will tell you, you know, I had a good job, was working as a production supervisor in a manufacturing uh company, was making decent money, was providing for a family of five at the time, and Pastor Jeff had asked if I would go to shepherd's school, which I, you know, I was glad to do that and my job uh. They were gracious to give me extra time off so I didn't have to use vacation time. So before I went to shepherd's school, we were. I never saw myself as a pastor, I never thought I was going to be a pastor.
Speaker 3:It wasn't an ambition I had. Um, we were. I used to teach at the church. I uh, pastor Jeff at the time had a school of ministry on Saturdays, kind of a Bible college thing. I taught there. I filled in for him a lot of times on Sundays or Thursday nights, but never had an aspiration to be a pastor.
Speaker 3:So we were sitting at an elders meeting one night and and then you know it's late at night and you know you're what, you're winding down, running out of energy, and I'm just kind of staring at the table and Pastor Jeff mentioned the guys that were going to shepherd's school. He said and when they come back, there was myself and two other guys. He said we're going to ordain Scotty Kevin and I'm going to go to the pastor and Mark, that was the first I heard of it. So I kid you not, I'm staring at the table and my heart starts racing in my chest and the only thought I had was I said I can't do this. I thought this is too, this is too big a deal. You know, being a pastor is really a huge responsibility and I just thought I can't do it. But I didn't really have a whole lot of saying that. So I went to shepherd's school, came back and Pastor Jeff ordained me and and I served in the church there.
Speaker 3:Um, every year, uh, pastor Bill Gallatin I'm sure you guys know Pastor Bill he would ask Pastor Jeff. So when is when is Mark going to start a Bible study?
Speaker 2:Well, before we get there, I want to ask um, you mentioned something really interesting that I do want to, I do want to uh, delve into for a moment. Hmm, you said, oh, I didn't have much of a choice in that, and you're laughing about it and we're joking about it, but I would like you to elaborate on that, because you know guys that are serving in church, you know even ladies that are serving in church in a, in any capacity, I think, and I'll let you comment on it. Uh, don't, don't, don't hold any of my comments to Pastor Mark's account Guys, the ladies that are listening but I think that it's something that is lost in our church. Not our church specifically Calvary is amazing but in general in the church, this idea of just just authority, of of discipleship, where, the way you're describing it, it sounds like this, and I'll give you the mic in a second.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like, hey, if you're going to continue, this is the next step.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know if, if you don't want to continue, then you can bow out, you can step out, but but this is the next step, you know, in serving the Lord and serving in our church, and continuing to follow the Lord, and, and and I think a lot of times people want to kind of write their own manual on how they're going to do it, and, and and when you're invited, when you're challenged. Sometimes you know it's not some people wish that their pastor would tell them they're going to be ordained, but some people they're told hey, you know what I want you to. I want you to to, to to make sure that this uh food gets put out. Hey, you know what, I want you to make sure that the parking lots taken care of.
Speaker 2:And and they're they're asked to do things, and Well, I'll get back to you, I'll pray about it. I mean, of course, nobody's going to tell you not to, but it's like, okay, yeah, sure pastor, sure I could do that, you know, yeah yeah, that's, that's that's. That's what I'm. Some of the things I'm thinking, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think that was a lot of what had happened, uh, without my paying attention to it was anything they asked me to do I did. You know I was, my heart was to serve. So if they asked me, the first thing I ever did at Calvary Chapel of Rochester, um, and we had been there a few months and got settled in and I I just said, is there anything I can do? And uh, they said, you know, we need all these doors painted. So I came in and painted doors. There you go.
Speaker 2:You know, I, I did whatever they needed.
Speaker 3:And uh. Then, when they found out I was teaching because I was teaching a teen challenge still they asked me hey, would you uh, teach this Sure? And I did it, and then they pushed me a little further.
Speaker 3:Hey, can you cover a Thursday night? Sure, you know. And to gradually tell I was standing up there on a Sunday morning, um, but I think it's important too and this is where the relationships are significant is I. I had a deep trust in my pastor, so I I believed that God was guiding him and that there were going to be things at times that, uh, he might see that I may not, because I may not not that God isn't speaking to me too, but that I may just not be listening as well. So when I say you know, I had no choice, excuse me, what by that? What I mean is, um, when he said that, I was terrified because I thought this is, I really had a respect for pastoral ministry and I thought it's, it is a big deal to be entrusted with the souls of other people.
Speaker 3:Um, but I. The reason I say I had no choice was I recognized he saw that and I trusted that. How was that trust developed and built?
Speaker 2:You know it's, you know it's a good question Um.
Speaker 3:I think with pastor Jeff it was just the way he gradually, you know he would, he would talk to me a lot about ministry, but the way he gradually and very systematically gave me greater and greater responsibilities, just just over the years, just handing me more things and and building me up in the work of ministry, Um, you know, I was, I was doing Sunday morning services and I wasn't a pastor, you know, but he had moved me to that, that particular point, and so that trust was developed, that you know he knows what he's doing. I may not always know what I'm doing, but I trusted he did. It sounds like you were able to trust more in him.
Speaker 2:As you saw, he trusted more in you yeah, yeah, that would be a good way of putting it. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely yeah, so you were ordained.
Speaker 3:So I was ordained, and then you said okay, I'm going to go start my church?
Speaker 2:Nope, didn't say that, didn't say that, didn't say that, didn't say that. I didn't say that.
Speaker 3:I didn't say that. I didn't say that. I didn't say that, so I had we were just having this conversation at breakfast I, um, I was very content to serve at our church and and probably would still be doing that today. Wow, um, you know, I was, I was teaching, I was involved in, you know, like a Bible college. I was doing that.
Speaker 3:Uh, I oversaw the ushers ministry, I oversaw the helps ministry. You know I was very involved and very content, um, my wife was serving and you know we were just very happy there is a family, uh but, pastor Jeff, this was also on a volunteer basis.
Speaker 2:You still had your full time job.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I still had a full time job and just doing all those things, and pastor Jeff would routinely would say pastor Bill keeps asking me when are you going to start a home study? And I'd say, I don't know, pray about that. But at the time, with all the things I was doing in the church full time job, five children just didn't think it was something I could do. So at the end of 2003, uh, pastor Bill had asked him again and he came to me Pastor Bill wants to know when you're going to start a home study. And I said, well, we'll pray about it. So I went home and I and my wife and I prayed about it and you know I'm trying to manage it right.
Speaker 3:So I came back to pastor Jeff. I said well. I said I said we're, this was late, uh, 2003. I said, well, we'll start one in the spring. It's about six months later. We'll start it in the spring. I said we're just going to do every other week. He said, no, I think you should start in January and I think you should do every week. Okay, so so I got no choice, no, I just got no choice.
Speaker 3:So, but again I trusted him. So he said if you do that it's not going to work.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Um. So I said okay. So I'm thinking this is just a home study for our church and that's what it'll be. So we started like a small group or something along those lines. So we started January of 2004 meeting in our home.
Speaker 2:Uh, it started growing and just hit 20 years this year. Yes, I was starting the home Bible study. Yeah, for the home Bible study.
Speaker 3:Um, so it started growing, uh, pretty quickly. I mean it wasn't huge, but it was too big for our house. So there was a church across the street from our house. So a couple of the guys said, well, why don't we just pull our money and we can rent space there and do our? It'll be a the home Bible study, but we'll have room.
Speaker 2:Something else I love.
Speaker 3:It wasn't.
Speaker 2:Hey, let's do a fundraiser. Hey, let's go ask for money. Let's pull together some of our own and do this together.
Speaker 3:I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that attitude, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Now, at the time, though, at least from my perspective and my wife's perspective we're just moving the home Bible study across the street because there's not enough room in the home. Yeah, yeah so we did that.
Speaker 3:And obviously with our kids, we're all there. So some of the ladies started doing like we'll do something for the kids. Well, you know, so it's, it's changing, but I'm not paying attention. So we did that for about a year. Uh, early mid 2005, probably about May or so. 2005,. May or June, one of the couples that had been with us from the beginning took my wife and I out to lunch and he knew what he was doing, took us to Outback Steakhouse for steaks Bloomin' on you. He got me with the steak, but we had, you know, we had a nice lunch. We just talked. And so when lunch was over, the husband, he said well, we've been asked to sit down with you guys and ask when we're going to start Sunday services.
Speaker 2:Oh, because this whole timing wasn't on Sunday.
Speaker 3:No, we were meeting at I think it was Wednesday nights or something. So my wife and I looked at each other and I looked back at them and I said why would we do that?
Speaker 2:And who asked them that they ever tell you?
Speaker 3:No, they didn't, it was just, it was within the group. They had had a conversation and they asked him well, why don't you take?
Speaker 2:him out to lunch. We want to be a real church.
Speaker 3:Yeah, our own church. But that was my question. I said why would we do that? We all went to church together. Why would we do that? And his response was simply this. He said well, this is our church and, to be honest with you, my wife and I never saw it coming. We just were trying to serve the Lord and content to do that, and didn't realize that it had become the church for the folks that were coming. We were all still going to Calvary, rochester on Sundays.
Speaker 2:The first thing I think of is is what's Pastor Jeff going to say?
Speaker 3:I mean, are you taking people we did, but here's what. So this again, this is the way the Lord works. So that was, I don't know, a Monday or a Tuesday. So we had Thursday night church at Calvary, rochester. So I said, well, I better go in and talk to Pastor Jeff. So I walked in his office before church and I said I need to talk to you about something and before I could get it out he said you guys are going to start Sundays. I said yeah. I said how'd you know that? He said well, billy, who was his assistant pastor. He said Billy, and I have been waiting going. When is he going to start doing Sundays?
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:And then I'm realizing oh, this was his play all along. This is what he was looking at was taking some people from the church and planning another church. So I said to him. I said well, pastor Jeff. I said, if you knew that all along, why didn't you tell me that? And I'll never forget it.
Speaker 3:He said, mark, ministry can be hard, he said. And when things get difficult, if all you have is Pastor Jeff told me I'm supposed to do this. He said that's not going to be enough. He said we needed you to hear it from the Lord that this is what you're supposed to do. And to this day I'm thankful for that because he was right. Ministry can be tough. There can be difficult days in ministry and if you're pastoring a church and you're going through one of those difficult seasons and all you know is somebody else told me I was supposed to do this, that's not going to be enough. You need to be able to say this is what God has called me to and that carries you through those difficult seasons. So that's how we ended up starting. So they were very happy to send those few people out with us.
Speaker 1:Praise the Lord.
Speaker 3:And yeah, that was their plan all along.
Speaker 2:You know, it's such a contrast to the models that you see. You know, if you're listening and you're familiar with church or Christianity or church planting and I don't mean to speak poorly, it's just very different.
Speaker 2:And I do see the wisdom and how it happened with you and so many other Calvaries. The difference model is, you know, they're sent out with money, with a team, with a plan. I think sometimes they even do promotional drives or something, or they do flyers, or what do they call it, or not inaugural, Like the first service, you know there's a name?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm sure, Anyways. I get the idea. So, it's so different, you know, and you just say I mean if there's anything tied to it.
Speaker 2:But you just said it's knowing that you're called. You know when the times get tough, so so interesting Again, anybody listening that maybe they're in that season. Let me ask you this, pastor Mark, Can you speak directly to anyone listening that's in that season? They're serving the Lord. Maybe they're not called to start a church, but they're being called out to start something, to do something greater, kind of on their own, take a leadership role. What would you say to that person?
Speaker 3:You know, I think the well, the one part of advice I would give them is just growing in their confidence in God to be who he says he is. There's, no, it's not an accident that David says the Lord is my shepherd. One of the things I tell young people when they because inevitably young people ask those questions how do you know you know? How do you know what you're supposed to do? What's God's advice? How do you know God's will for your life.
Speaker 3:And I tell them well, there are certain things that say this is the will of God, you know for you, and those are easy, but I would, I try to and I would encourage anyone in ministry to keep this in mind. The longer I have walked with the Lord and the longer I have served the Lord, my personal confidence in myself to know what to do all the time has decreased. I just don't, I don't know what to do. I just don't have that confidence that I know what to do but simultaneously, kind of like scales on a balance, the more my self confidence has decreased, the more my confidence in the Lord as a shepherd has increased.
Speaker 3:Sheep don't know where they're going. The shepherd knows. The sheep just follow the shepherd. And, as what I've discovered is, you know, work more on deepening your communion with God, your fellowship with God, your time spent in prayer, your time spent in the word over strategy, because you can strategize all you want. You don't know what tomorrow holds anyway, but the shepherd knows what tomorrow holds and he knows where you're going and he knows how to get you there. And if you focus more on him, you sometimes you just lift up your head and you look around and you say I don't know how we got here, but we're here.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I was going to ask you If we fast forward I want to fast forward and then go back a little bit and we're coming near to the end of our time. I told you it would go quick. Where you guys at now Do you have a building about how many people go to the church? Give us like a real time update of glory to glory.
Speaker 3:So interestingly, and I guess it's different in different places, the type of ministry we do same thing here, just verse by verse, teaching of the scriptures. The city of Rochester, for some odd reason, just doesn't seem to take well to that type of ministry.
Speaker 3:All of the Calvaries and things are on the outside of the city, the ministries that have started out in the city all ended up moving out of the city and actually growing as they moved out. Just, it seems that in Rochester, rochester has a history, you know Charles Finney, and it's just a different history, I guess. And a lot of the inner city is not necessarily focused on that kind of verse by verse, bible teaching.
Speaker 2:I've only visited a couple of times, but it's like a mini New York City in a sense. Correct me if I'm wrong it's very developed. My greatest memory is the Museum of Play, because I have little kids.
Speaker 1:I just remember the coffee shops tall skyscrapers library, incredible large libraries. It's a city in all sense of the word.
Speaker 2:Interesting, so we were in the city because it's not in the city.
Speaker 3:We're in the city because of the time we lived in the city and there was a Catholic church that was closing with a. They had a school, a church and a that never happens.
Speaker 2:A Catholic church yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, a few of them in Rochester lately have.
Speaker 3:So one of the guys came into the study one night and he had a newspaper. He said look, this church goes. Then he said nah, they're selling this whole property. We couldn't afford it because at the time there were probably 20 of us and we couldn't. But about six months later I was just sitting on my sofa reading my Bible and praying and I just felt in my heart this you know, find out who bought the building, the property. So there's a lady in our church who's my administrative assistant. Now I asked her if she could find out. Can you find out who bought that property? Three days later she contacts me. The day I had asked her, a charter school had closed the property that day and the day I was asking her. So we had discussions with them and ended up, long story short, leasing the church building. Wow, so that was 2007.
Speaker 3:So we leased that church building beginning in 2007. They never wanted to sell. They said they would never sell it. They wanted to always be able to control the property, so they would never sell the building. So we went into a knowing we would known it. But we spent years there praying, looking for a property of our own. We grew probably from about 25 or 30 people. We grew to maybe 65, 70 while we were there, but again it was, you know, growth, strength, growth. It was always that kind of thing, but we never could find a building of our own until just this past year. Wow, one of my burdens 2023.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay 2023,.
Speaker 3:one of my burdens had always been you know, we were the generation that God used to start the church, and my heart was when we're all gone, we want to leave the next generation a property that they own outright. And they can just focus on serving God in ministry, not buying a building or paying off a mortgage and all those things and we had been praying about that and just longing for that, to do this for the next generation.
Speaker 3:And this particular building a church was in it that was shrinking and they initially asked if we would lease it and they would move their service time. We could have Sunday mornings, but we would lease the property from them. Within a month or so of discussions it changed to how about you buy the property from us and we'll lease it from you? Wow, we'll meet on Sunday nights or Saturdays, yeah. And then ultimately, we ended up buying the property. We moved in in June. It's got five acres of land. We moved in in June Wow, beautiful. We bought it in October. The church that was there, a number of their people just stayed with us, so they became a part of our church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they kept going to church Sunday mornings.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just kept coming Sunday mornings and now they were a part of Glory to Glory. Yeah, so we basically in October we took over the property, so we haven't had time to do anything with it yet and we're looking at the spring to make some changes. There's a lot of woods. We're going to probably cut down some of that and increase the parking lot, just have some discussions about how we might make the building a little bigger and things like that. But we've grown quite a bit in just a few months We've been there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Not sure why that is Not sure. Not sure why the Lord did it that way, but we've seen a lot of new faces just since we moved in, so just over seven months ago.
Speaker 2:So you think here what 150, 200 or not Doulton?
Speaker 3:children. We're probably close to 150, probably in there somewhere yeah sweet yeah.
Speaker 1:And growing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we're really excited about that and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's awesome. You know what? I always hesitate to ask or talk about numbers, you know, because it's not about the numbers, but you have it in the scripture. You know, at one point David wasn't supposed to count. Then he was told to count you know. Okay, now it's appropriate. Right now don't worry about it, but it's sweet to see it's sweet to see the people coming and, man, I'm excited. I'm excited for you guys. Pastor Mark, as we kind of close up here, you know we covered again.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing your testimony and what God's done at the church and your wonderful family. Is there anything else that you want to leave our listeners with? Again, as you think the audience that will be listening to this it could be anybody. This is first going to go on to our podcast pretty soon here, probably, the data recording were in March of 2024. It might be up by the end of the month or sooner, if not definitely in April. It's going to live on the podcast in perpetuity. It'll end up on the radio as well.
Speaker 3:So whatever comes to your heart and mind that you want to leave us with, yeah, yeah, I mean, you know I would probably go back to where we started and and that is you know, we always have to remember when we're telling our story, we're telling a story of God's grace and I would encourage anyone listening, wherever they're at, in their, in their walk, maybe somebody who's not, who's listening, who's not even saved. The God that we're talking about is limitless in his ability. There is, there is no limit to what he can do in a human life and, and I would challenge them to take him up on that, you know, fall into the arms of the Lord and see what God might do. I just had the privilege of talking to Pastor Raz and he's telling me the history of how you moved into this property and it's it. Is that story right?
Speaker 3:It's a story of God, and a God who is limitless in his capacity Amen and. And who does great things, and, and that they, you know if you're listening. Just trust him. Yes, trust him. Cast yourself into his arms, because you have no idea what God may want to do in your life, and, and and the story will bring him glory in the end.
Speaker 2:Amen, pastor Mark, I have one last request. Could you close us with a prayer?
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, father. We just thank you, lord. We thank you, father, for your marvelous grace, that you are the God who stooped down into the life of humanity, that you're the God who clothed yourself with our skin and lived among us. You're the God who suffered in our place. You're the God who is seated at the right hand of the Father. Lord Jesus, you are our King and Father. We thank you, lord, for the privilege of sharing with others the marvelous work of your grace in our lives. I pray, father, for the ministry here, for the radio ministry, for the church here, god, I just pray, father, that you would do great things in their lives, lord, that you'd be revealing yourself to them, father, encouraging them in the faith, continuing the good work that you have begun and magnifying your holiness in their lives. Please bless them and encourage them. Thank you for the privilege of being here. I pray, god, that you would continue to guide and direct the steps of the folks here in Miami, as well as ours in Rochester. We ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 2:Thank you again, pastor Mark Mills, from Glory to Glory Christian Fellowship in Greece, new York. God's a radio family grace and peace team.
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