After taking a year, for our fledgling congregation to get its feet on the ground and start growing with attendance around thirty souls or more and bouncing up to around forty and eventually, doubling that, by having a friday evening coffee house service. In the Rafael Building, between San Anselmo and Fairfax on Scenic Ave, of which apparently was used by a famous rock and roll band called the "Credence Clearwater Revival" of the album cover with a member on a ten speed bicycle, inside the building of what looks like the interior of picture was taken inside. Somewhere about these times, I met a gentleman named the Reverant Lee Avent a Southern Baptist Seminary educated man originally from Texasc, who offered me ordination papers (after seeing our new founded Church Congregation and ministry) from the New Covenant Evangelistic Association and after taking a simple test to know what I believed, I was given ordination papers and made Vice President of the Association. For there were only two members left and their wives and were two elderly and mature gentleman. Who had organized this religious and 501C3 nonprofit organization in the early 60s, when there were fewer restrictions on what one can do and they put everything they could think of in the bylaws from radio and television stations for instance and Bible schools and Churches and the authority to ordain members and give official and state recognized papers, in order for instance to be able to visit people in person in jails and access to hospitals for visitations, marriages and such and was told that someday the Incorporated Association, would be left to me as president someday and eventually was the case as both the President and the Secretary, both passed away and not long, before incorporating another association and thus leaving the first to my wife Becky she became the treasurer and after the divorce came to Sausalito and gave me a copy of my ordination papers and eventually made me President, as we were the last two members left and it takes a minimum of two, to form an Association or an Incorporation and eventually we included a Golden Gate Baptist Seminary graduate and trained preacher name Douglas Strorms and a former Air Force Captain, as Secretary and she kept the position as Treasurer and everything was going so fast in the ministry after our first year of struggling to pull a congregation together at the Woodacre Improvement Club in Woodacre California, then we moved to the San Francisco theological Seminary and Cathedral looking Chapel called the Wedding Chapel for its beauty, for our Sunday services of which we rented from the Seminary and was the most beautiful Chapeland still is in all of Marin County and the whole Seminary grounds looked like a Castle and is and was the oldest Presbyterian Seminary West of the Mississippi and it had moved from San Francisco to San Anselmo, sometime in the distant past and was virtually empty in the daytime for most of the students were part of a conglomeration of seminaries on the East side of the San Francisco Bay, around Berkeley and so Sunday, we virtually had not only the Cathedral like Chapel and but the keys also to the six-story library adjacent to the chapel and we were in Heaven on Earth for the Seminary was on a hill and looked like a Castle in the sky and about this time, after our first year, things just started to proverbly skyrocket and doors of ministry and opportunity were opening up and it all seems like one big blur of activity looking back and hard to pinpoint the times dates and places and time line sequences of all the activities that started happening, after our first year of the church ministry and will try and attempt to the best of my memory and ability and honesty in the Holy Ghost to relate all the things that begin happening after our first year and of course with the covering of our church by the New Covenant Evangelistic Association Incorporated, we now had legal covering also and not just an unincorporated Church and had legitimacy in the face of all the blessings and opportunities and trials and tribulations and responsibilities, that come or that came with the territory and we ran with it and prayed with it and look for every opportunity to get the message out that Jesus Christ was not only the son of God but that he exchanged His righteousness for our filthy rags of sin so to speak and the New Birth of Jesus Christ that is the only way to overcome this sinful world and walk in the Spirit. Things were going at lightning speed at this time and everything was going so fast it was like all a blur, in my memory and but the Bible teaches that the spirit will bring back all pertinent memories, when we need them and so on top of after moving out of our luxury and brand new Hillside and glass home in the Redwoods we moved to my wife's apartment building next to George Lucas's Hilltop Victorian Mansion and while I was overseas ministering my wife became the apartment manager of the apartment complex called the Ancho Vista in San Anselmo and from there again she moved to our next proverbial mansion for mini estate in the Redwoods again and this time a two-story home of which we use the first floor as a disciple house or Bible teaching and a homeless shelter and while we lived in the apartment complex prior, we help rent one of the apartments as a homeless shelter also, with our new found friends named Randy and Ken Hopkins who whom the later mentioned lived in our apartment with us prior, before moving to the Elm Street estate and we all continuing the work of taking in the homeless and sheltering people and at that time we still lived in the apartment complex my brother and I and (of course our's wife's being included) had a burden to start a Christian television station in the San Francisco Bay area, of which is a top markets in the United States, if not in the world. For we had heard of a UHF color station that had gone under and was up for sale and my brother and I and an Elder Minister, from the First Baptist Church of Sausalito and whom performed my wedding and was at my baptism and at my ordination also and being one of the elders that laid hands on me and he was also a engineer at the ABC channel 7 television station and my brother also was a licensed engineer, capable of operating a television station by law and we met with the owner of the defunct television station and the television station manager, who was extremely nervous at the prospect of the television station going under and all that was left was the transmitting Tower and transmitting building on top of a mountain in San Francisco and there was no studio and the transmitting building had to be used as the main operating center and was playing pre-made video programs of which I don't even think that was happening, much at the time and the manager showed us the camera vault and the owner looked pretty upset at the station manager and the owner's name was a Mr Price and the manager's name was Mr Goldburg or something? Anyways we didn't have any money when meet with them, to start to start the negotiation, to buy the station and it was simply by faith and prayer and after we found out the information we needed and how much the station was up for sale , approximately five million dollars, of which was the debt of the station and anyone that could pay the debt could have the station and so we were all jacked up and excited about this and my brother and I decided to go on a road trip to drum up support to buy the station and we drove with our wives to Los Angeles and talk to the station manager there of the Faith Broadcasting Network, of which owned a Christian television station in Los Angeles and then we drove across the deep too Florida and met with a Christian brother who was in the process of building a Christian television station in Fort Lauderdale and visied his beautiful home with crystle clear waters and slough and then we drove up to Virginia Beach to meet with and to talk to Pat Robertson, who had a Christian television station there and whose Vice President, had started a program called the 700 Club and his name was Jim Baker the first host and although Pat Robertson wasn't there. Jim Baker welcomed us with open arms and came bouncing out of his office after prayer and looking so good and thin and young and excited and when he had heard that two young men and their wives had driven all the way from California to talk about buying a telephone station in San Francisco.The first wordhe said was "you can do it!" and again he would say "you can do it!" and he gave us free reign, of liberty to walk around the station studio and showed us the closet, where the first television station was started from, for it was owned by a used car salesman and the transmitter barely got out of the city limits, before Pat Robertson bought it and founded the Christian Broadcasting Television Network CBN and when we returned back to the San Francisco Bay Area, I gave Pat Robertson a call to talk to him on the phone. For we had missed him in Virginia Beach and he was in a very grumpy and in foul mood and apparently was in between something, when I called and he asked me how old I was, before I could even tell him about this television station that was for sale and that had gone under and he apparently had heard about us from Jim Baker when visiting the station and apparently was taken back by our ages. For we were only about 21 years old and we're full of faith and it's not money and but money always comes later after faith! So I had to rebuke the devil from him on the telephone for griping and bitching and especially after driving all that way to turn him on to this Major Market television station and he stopped his bitching and quietly said that I had just rebuked him and I told him that I was not if you can him, but that I was rebuking the devil that was talking through him and so time went by and we put the television station dream and vision on the back burner and meanwhile try to incorporate a television station in corporation and we had told this to the lawyer of the most popular Christian radio station in the Bay Area called KEAR and he was excited about it too and then apparently he told the president of KEAR Mr Harold about it and next time we talked to the lawyer, he had cold feet about helping us to incorporate and at the time we were not thinking that we already had a corporation, or were about to receive a corporation when I was made a board member and Vice Predident andcthat would have covered the television station as a non-profit and and in the meanwhile Mr Harold the President of the Christian radio station, started having television programs of his own and apparently we had lit a spark and a fire had started, and I mean to say that I Holy Ghost Fire was started and we were firestarters and inspirators and full of faith and then another strange thing happened, I got a call about a Pastor Harold Breaderson, who was Pat Robertson's pastor (unbeknown to me at the time) and he was speaking at an event in San Jose and he had heard about two young men, who were interested in starting a television station in the San Francisco area and he was already famous in the Charismatic Movement and he asked us to pick him up and to drive him to Santa Rosa for another speaking engagement that he was scgeduled and while we were driving him up to Santa Rosa, he had another young minister looking or business looking man with him and Harold had a piece of paper with a telephone number in his hand that I believe was meant for us and it was the number of an apparent financier for Harold's Ministry was connecting people together for big things to happen and again when he saw how young we were he faltered also like Pat Roberson did and gave the telephone number to the young man that was accompanying him (and that was that) and again, I say we put it all on the back burner and began to forget about it in our immediate minds and then another amazing thing happened, for Faith Broadcasting Network that we first contscted ended up buying the station after Pat Robertson didn't even want to hear about it at the time, from two young and freshly saved man and we also stayed in touch with the President of the Christian television station (who probably tipped him off of of us looking to start a station in San Francisco) that he was building in Fort Lauderdale and he came out also looking at buying some equipment and we rendezvous with him and talked about what was happening and all and yet he really could not help us for he was in the middle of building his own station for the Lord and somehow and or some way of which I can't quite remember, I bumped into the new and current manager of the San Francisco station that was just bought and turned into a Christian color TV station of which was our original prayer and my brother was hired to be in her place and for apparently she may not have had a first class FCC operating license like my brother did and all the programming was sent by videotape from Los Angeles to the San Francisco station and she could have been a licensed FCC operator manager but somehow I doubt it looking back and she seemed upset initially by the look on her face after my brother got the position and I can't remember all the details how and for by this time a white haired and middle aged preacher well it's now in charge of the Los Angeles station and the one in San Francisco now and he was the one that eventually hired my brother and my brother became sole manager of the San Francisco station and if that was an answer to prayer I don't know what was and for God did not give us the station to own for the Lord and but he did give us the station to operate and manage it and I was too exhausted at the time to produce any videos to be telecasted for I had so many other things on the plate and on my mind and an overseas Ministry and we had a thrift store and we had a storefront to manage and a homeless shelter in our house and around this time I was also doing radio broadcast if I recall and so I was pretty much burned out by the time we acquired the station and my brother did his job diligently and for and for very little missionary wages. To be continued and unedited....please support this ministry if you have been touched by the Holy Ghost and felt healing in your hearts Write to New Covenant Evangrlistic Association Inc P.O Box 2404 San Anselmo Calif 94979
No comments:
Post a Comment