Thursday, June 29, 2023

Chapter Chapter Eight Testimonial /Michael Payton Legacy/ by Peter Romanowsky CEO/President of the New Covenant Evangelistic Association Inc l

 

  Unedited voice to text  and a work in progress/Once Upon a Time there was a ideal looking long hair and bearded hippie living next door to the apartment complex that my in-laws own and also next to George Lucas's Hilltop Victorian Mansion and his name was Michael Payton and he always had a smile and a garden in front of him and an organic garden at that and  it was always my impression anyways, and one day a friend of mine named Randy McAtee, led him to the Lord Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and for Michael was an altar boy in the Catholic Church in his youth and was raised in San Anselmo California in Marin County and but he had not experienced the New Birth by the Holy Ghost, in Jesus Christ and the Father and being raised a Catholic myself. I never heard about the new birth and thought that I just had to be as good as I can, to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and it seemed like I could never be that good enough. Compared to all the well-dressed and successful looking people, that went to Mass on Sundays and I never heard the gospel preached during mass. But only current events in the news, except for the liuturgy of which was all in Latin. When I was growing up and I couldn't understand anything said and my back hurt from kneeling so long during the communion ceremony and Michael became part of our new and fledgling Jesus movement Church and became a saint in our midst and the most flawless person that I have ever met, with a kind heart and giving and never taking bad about anyone and as handsome as a Greek statue. With his jet black hair and beard and he also was a singer and guitar player and joined our makshift, choir with Kenneth Hopkins and myself and Linda Weaver and Randy McAtee on makeshift, instance and we sang and played and worship the Lord on Sundays and beginning formally in the Woodacre Improvement Club.In Woodacre  California, in Marin County and then we moved to the beautiful wedding chapel that looked  like a cathedral and a castle on a hill overlooking San Anselmo and ironically Michael  also lived in the neighborhood with George Lucas, before he became world famous and now again he's living in a neighborhood near him again in new location and in humble rented means. Michael also  worked at the Black Market Import and export store in San Anselmo of which was the largest import export store in Marin County and his bosses were both "Gay" and owners together and after Michael was Born Again one of the Gay owners noticed a dramatic difference in Michael and begin wondering and being curious as to what happened to him and one day Michae. Woho had the keys to the Seminary Chapel, took him up there to pray with him and he was born again also and for he had been in the homosexual and "quote Gay"  lifestyle for some 20 years. After his first pastor introduced him to homosexuality and set him up with another gay member of the church and they became partners together and gay lovers and about the time that this gentleman noticed Michael's complete change in his life. The gentleman was contemplating suicide. For he was getting older and couldn't get young Gay lovers and was going to what was called the dark rooms in San Francisco. Where people had sex in the dark with total strangers and this was before the AIDS epidemic and he felt like jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge, before he saw Michaels change and so Michael brought him to one of our Sunday morning church services. In the most beautiful cathedral like Chapel in Marin County, On Seminary Hill at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, lpocated in San Anselmo. of which are humble little church congregation rented for our Sunday services and all though Seminary. Being a Presbyterian Seminary and the oldest Presbyterian Seminary West of the Mississippi and had relocated from San Francisco to San Anselmo and by the grace of God. The manager of the Seminary let us rent what was commonly known as the Wedding Chapel. For it was so that beautiful and was used and rented for weddings. Whenever it was not used on Sundays and so we were able to use the chapel and the gentleman that Mike Peyton brought to Church one Sunday morning, looked so bored during the service and it looked like he had his head in his hand and couldn't get  out of the service fast enough and hoping it would end soon type of look on his face and demeanor and to my surprise he came back again and again to our Sunday morning service and eventually asked if he could be the organist for we had an organ in the chapel and he became our organist. For he had been the organist some 20 ynmears ago in the church that the gay pastor introduced him into the homosexual lifestyle and the name of the church denomination was the Disciples of Churst a major denomination and of which anyone would know or have heard from or about in Christian circles as a legitimate Bible Church and I believe it may have been the same denomination, that Jim Jones was a part of at one time. Before he became the great Pretender or the apostate backslider, in the Assembly of God denomination or some type of archetype Pentecostal and Holy Ghost filled Church, like that of where, he learned his devious ways, of how to speak the Holy Ghost and Christian language and of which by he had deceived, so many and for when I first heard Jim Jones on the radio he was perfect in every word and claimed to be healing people in the name of Jesus and or using the typical Pentecostal and Bible language and if not charismatic language of the day and but when I went to a Jim Jones meeting in Ukiah and he wasn't there. I heard his business manager and what I heard disturbed me very much and that's another story about fake Church supporting the Communist of Angela Davis and belittling organizations like the Full Gospel business fellowship and such and as I left the so-called Chapel with an indoor swimming pool of which they claimed was used for baptism. Jim Jones's wife followed me out of the chapel and asked me what was wrong and I told her that I just had a bad feeling about what was going on in there and she had a little Jewish a young lady with her. Who said that she was an atheist and Jim Jones brought her to the belief in God and little that she know that Jim Jones claim to be God and that he was the god of all these poor and unfortunate Souls and I will share the rest of the story about Jim Jones at another time and in another chapter of this memoir of mine and back to the gentleman named Brother Frank Worthen. Who became our organist and one day he came to me and asked if he could put a series of messages on our Christian radio program, that I was ministering over and I said "no problem" and "yes" and for he was concerned about speaking about coming out of the homosexual lifestyle and wanted to help others and he was concerned it my defend some of our members in our little congregation and I said absolutely not and by the grace of God.⁰ I was the first to put Frank Worthing on the air to share his testimony of how he had come out of the homosexual lifestyle and he called his ministry the Brother Frank Ministry and it was a series of at least three to five programs of 15 minutes and it make a long story shorr, 0pin the future he ended up giving his testimony on major television networks and I am humbly and proud to say without pride,  that I was the first one to put his testimony and Ministry on the Airways and then one day or night Frank words and had a dream to go and visit Kent Philpot the head of the open door Ministries and small denomination that came out of the Jesus movement and had bookstores to draw people into the open door churches and his office was behind the main bookstore of the mother Church in San Rafael and Kent was working on a book called the Third Sex and for nobody up to this point, had spoke  about or written a contemporary book on the subject and during the Jesus Movement for example and AIDS hadn't been in the picture yet and this was what one would call a preemptive strike by the Holy Ghost,pppk inspiring Kent and Kent wrote Frank Warden into his book and his story and put his address in the book and or contact number and people begin flooding Frank with telephones calls and letters saying how blessed they were to hear of his coming out for the Lord and for at that time and even today it was believed by the liberal media established and brainwashed collegians that people were born homosexuals and couldn't be changed and here was a major example of someone that not only came out of the homosexual lifestyle. But eventually married and together him and his wife carried on a Ministry called The Lighthouse Ministry in San Rafael California and after first together with Kent Philpott started what was called love in action Ministry and eventually as a result of this book and so much correspondence and attention coming to him apparently that he became the unofficial head of what came to be known as Exodus International. A 0cover Ministry for all other Ministries reaching out to homosexual gays for Christ and of course Frank Worthen was invited on the national Circuit of talk shows, including Phil Donovan and other shows no doubt of which I can't remember and still holding on to the fac that I was the first to let him share his testimony and Ministry in the media and on radio and but it was Kent Philpott's book, The Third Sex that really put Frank Worthen into the Limelight and although eventually Exodus International ran its course and Love In Action also the ministry that Frank Worthen was the  head of along with Kent Philpott as a sponsor and Frank Worthen also was given an office and position as a pastor in the church eventually, to the open door of which can Philpot pastored and as aforementioned Frank  married and eventually together with his wife started the lighthouse International Ministry in San Rafael, to reach homosexual gays for Christ until he's gone to be with the Lord. And to get things straight Kent Pholpott was not a homosexual and neither ways Michael Payton and one day Frank Worthen came to me after leaving our little congregation and moving on to the Open Door Church and eventually becoming a co-pastor and said to me that he had a second dream and that in the dream he was told that I was his Elder, "in the Lord" for he was older then me and that was comforting to know. For I virtually never saw him again, pafter he moved on to the Church of Open Door. Meanwhile wow Frank Worthen was still playing the organ in our little church block on Seminary Hill he and Michael Peyton started a thrift store for our congregation in San Rafael and Michael remodeled this storefront like only I could imagine her I had not such skills and apparently he got them from his father who was in the sheet metal business and had to know a lot about constructing construction and Contracting and putting in sheet metal conductors in buildings for heat and air conditioning and he even remodeled the bathroom or toilet area and to me he was a proverbial wizard at it and Frank Worthing stocked the thrift store with all kinds of things from the black market Import and Export store that he was Partners in still with his former gay lover and at the store was an amazing piece of work and all together by the love and the most Frank Worthen and Michael Payton and but this was not Michael's calling to manage a Church Thrift Store and his ambition was to be a doctor and but instead he eventually inherited his father's sheet metal business and no doubt was the best employer that people ever had for at Michael's memorial the chapel was full to capacity with his employees and Friends saying goodbye to at the large Funeral Chapel of which his memorial was held at this part of Michael's life was part of the legacy of the Jesus movement of what he was a deacon and a soldier and a street witnesser and a guitar player and singer and helped in our radio programs as an announcer and contributed with music and then he met the love of his life named Carol who Fellowship also in our church and his love and devotion was so great that he had three wedding ceremonies believe it or not and the third cultivated in The Wedding Chapel in which we used to meet in and had moved down to another Chapel called Montgomery Chapel at the foot of Seminary Hill and before moving to our storefront in San Anselmo and the chapel was filled with people of which could hold a couple of hundred people is my estimation or at least a hundred or more attended and it was a glorious and formal wedding  after having a ceremony in our little church congregation and fellowship and even my son was dressed in a tuxedo when he was just 5 or 6 years old and was the ring barer and Michael's mother was there and I presumed his father and another minister performed the wedding and I was kind of on the sideline for I already preformed his second wedding and I  had been battling and suffering from depression and burnout from all the ministry activity that I have been involved in and things were kind of a blur to me at the time and I was about to end or head into the greatest crisis of my life up to that time for the church had ran its course and all of those in their late teens and early twenties we're getting married and moving on to Novato the town north of Marin County North of San Rafael where rents were more reasonable and one can raise a family for my wife for and I were living in the heart of Marin County and one of the richest counties in California and sometimes on and off is the richest along with San Mateo County which is south of San Francisco and people just couldn't afford to raise a family in a heart of Marin County and because my in-laws owned the house so we could continue living in San Anselmo and our disciple house and homeless house ministry had ran its course and we were renting to some College of Marin students the same college that Robin Williams attended and lost his first talent contest and the radio Ministry had ran its course and the television Ministry that we helped pray up and that my brother was chief engineer and manager of had when is course and my wife and I and two children and eventually a third settled to a life of contemplation and for some 3 years eventually when everything is run its course except job my overseas missionary work in Europe and the Middle East and a mission that our church was the first to sponsor in San Juan Del Rio Mexico of which is another story and about 5:00 about by this time I had suffered a complete nervous breakdown and burn out and couldn't leave my home eventually for 3 years contemplating and meditating and praying and studying and it had become my greatest and most severe and austiar and ascetic  Monastery experience and my wife was very supportive and had a part-time job with her family and we had income, coming in from the students down below and there was no reason for me to leave the house anymore because all the other Ministries had run their course and our home was like a Garden of Eden in miniature and even a perennial stream ran through it and redwoods grew in our garden and Deerwood come also as well as raccoons and I spent a year in my bedroom recovering from this Mass depression that I was suffering from and I made my way into the living room and camped there and begin studying etymology, dictionaries and encyclopedias and I wanted to know the etymological meanings and histories of every word and after a year of doing that with my wife going to Seminary libraries to pick me up books and ordering me books like the most current encyclopedia by random house and the complete Oxford dictionary set in a two volume set and books on etymology like by Reverend skeet and by the editor of the Oxford Dictionary and after a year of doing this sleeping and lying on the floor surrounded by these books I then watch every Christian television show for a year on the two cable channels that we had at the time and we had one of the first and most primitive internet computers like Atari and after a year the Christian television ministers began to repeat themselves and I felt okay this is a cycle and it's time to move on again and this time on Thanksgiving Day I was able to walk away from my home for the first time and walk across town to my mother-in-law's lavish Hillside home with a view to spend Thanksgiving dinner with her and my family and what caused this Great Depression and dark night of the Soul I can only attribute to Satan wanted to sift me like wheat like Jesus told Peter that Satan has desired to sift him like wheat and but that he had prayed for Peter that is Faith fail not and my faith was tested like never before and there was a continuous darkness and depression in the background of my mind and it was so dark that I could not feel hope or faith and or love at the time in my heart and soul as my mind struggled with this complete darkness and blackness of the spirit in the spiritual life or world and I had to learn to completely walk by faith and not by sight and not by feeling but by the word of God and God's promises in the Bible and that became my only light in the Darkness where I could not see the next step that I was taking and I was certainly walking through the valley of the shadow of death and I had constant suicidal feelings and thoughts  both day and night and they never left me and even traveled into my sleep with me of which is usually where people can escape from their pains and depressions and anxieties and go into another world and forget and yet these feelings traveled with me into my sleep also and I kept breathing and hoping against hope and not feeling any hope and only believing and not feeling any faith for faith is not a Feeling but it is the evidence of Things Not Seen or even felt and all pain will eventually be forgotten as Jesus spoke of a woman and childbirth and being able to forget the pain as soon as a child is born and God bless us with forgetfulness of our immediate pains and sorrows and distresses and fears and I vowed to myself that I would never use the words worry or doubt or fear or anxiety or hopelessness again and even though I have failed a number of time since in keeping my vow to myself about using these words and nevertheless I have never told anybody to start worrying about anything and for worrying accomplishes nothing and I have a place that word my heart in life with the word concern and concerning fear and the fear of God the Bible says that perfect love casts out all fear and God is love so I never tell people that are his children to fear God for God is our father and those without love and outside of the family of God and who are not born again and yes they are fearful because of their consciousness of the evil that they are doing and But ultimately as the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil of which the Lord told Adam and Eve not to eat, was not the tree of evil for Pure Evil does not exist in God's universe for God is love and tree was a mixture of the knowledge of Good and Evil and not Pure Evil and for pure evil cannot exist in God's universe of goodness of which is greater than any evil or Darkness and if one feels hopeless or lacks the feeling of Hope and just remember again that hope is not a Feeling for it is a faith in believing and believing is a verb and something active and by walking forward and moving forward in faith no matter how dark with the only light is the light of God's prophetic word and the words of the Bible and scriptures to walk upon and when nothing else feels or looks right and one feels so condemned by the devil who is called the Accuser of the brethren and who accuses the Brethren day and night according to the scriptures to be continued and edited from voice to text warts and all and after I came out of that horrific experience, I was so happy and free and glad to be free of not only anxiety but of what is called in religious circles severe scruples of which nothing you do feels right before the Lord and that everything you do seems wrong and not right and not good enough and even to the point where I was afraid to move or roll over in bed I lift my arm without feeling some type of horrible guilt and condemnation before everything I did and thought that every move I made and I got to the point where I would be standing in the kitchen in my pajamas and my wife would leave to go to her part-time job and when she got back I was still virtually standing in the same position I'm afraid to move and was frozen and again I was so happy to be released from this fear of doing everything wrong and constant condemnation and anxiety and I thought that everybody would be happy with me and I begin to do all the things that I was afraid to do when I was in that agoraphobic state and I sailed down the coast as far as Monterey in a small 25 ft wood sailboat and I was planning on taking my family to Israel for the summer to do missionary work that I had already been partners with a Christian Missionary couple in a restaurant and hotel business of which we ran at night and I had already rented a two-bedroom flat in Bethlehem overlooking what was called The Shepherd's field and I had bought in the Volkswagen Beetle Bug used there and I felt that I had accomplished or have done all the groundwork necessary to bring my family for a summer and my in-laws and specially in my father-in-law didn't think I was healed right and or was thinking right and even though a Christian psychiatrist analyze me prior to going into this long and 3-year period of being cloistered in my home he had told me that what I was experiencing was the same thing that sister Teresa of Avila experienced and who founded The Cloisters Nun Society of the Carmelite Order of where the sisters never left there monasteries and or homes and likened my experience to hers and as I was starting to cloister myself at first for 45 days and then for 3 months and then for 3 years and my wife never complained or showed any distress, for I was home all the time and with the kids watching television from my living room floor and I was the ultimate stay at home Dad and even though like kids had to step over me to walk to the living room sometime and all my books scattered in a circle around me and so ultimately due to the rich and powerful influence of my extremely wealthy and politically Powerful and hedonistic father-in-law who was a self-described heathen and for he had a deep resentment against religion and Christians. For his aunt had disinherited him for being a heathen and he even laughed about it and kind of dance and saying that he was a heathen and that he was a heathen and I told my mother-in-law and she said he was just joking and he also told me he was Jewish and my mother-in-law also said he was joking and about that I don't think so! Even though he was raised by Christian Science parents and Jewish people tend to migrate to the  Christian Science churches and he sure did act amazingly miserly and told me I would never get a thing before I married his daughter and that's why he thought I married  his daughter for his money and I wouldn't marry his daughter until I was assured that she was born again Christian and I even signed over my community property rights to my wife under pressure and duress of course to prove that I didn't marry his daughter for money and after signing the papers at the Republic Title and  Trust Company in San Rafael I looked up at my mother-in-law and my wife and I said slowly and delibertly that I hope I didn't just sign my family away and it was certainly what I did and I woke up to a unexpected divorce of which looking back my late father-in-law had enginered and by threatening to disinherit her if she went with me to Israel for instance and my mother-in-law threatened to put my wife under conservatorship and my sister-in-law Linda that told me she was already under her conservativeship and I thought I was the head of my house and the head of my wife in biblical terms and it was all a farce and I found myself being given 72 hours to leave my home and my children and with a restraining order on me for three Yeats not to contact my children and I was proverbly driven from the face of the Earth and onto the water and the movie Nightmare on Elm Street was playing that week and I lived on Elm Street with Johnny Depp at his first major role and all looked dismal and bleak and I was thoroughly broadsided and was  left in consternation and confusion and proverty overnight so to speak andc again driven from the face of the Earth, metaphorically speaking and onto my leaky 30 ft boat on the San Francisco Bay off of Sausalito and for the next going into 39 years since 1984 the year the big brother and came  to find out that my big brother was my late father-in-law and the former supervisor of the richest county in California and I was powerless and penniless to hire a lawyer to defend myself against the divorce and I let my wife take everything rather than drag my kids through divorce  divorce court and to make them choose who to live with Mom or Dad and it took a long time for me to realize that it wasn't my wife's fault and  that all this happened and went down, for it was a highly engineered and groomed experience by my in-laws, as my brother and sister-in-law had moved to Southern California and I had no family left in Northern California to lean on or to stay with and was thus exiled to my cold and leaky boat until it sank some 20 years later during a  storm and after a year of living in  a 20 foot sailboat, someone donated a 50 foot ferro  cement Sail sailboat that had have been converted into a houseboat and was able to go through 100 miles per hour and more winds, on San Francisco Bay, without having to be in a slip and paying rent, of which I couldn't afford anyway and during this time virtually all my friends forsook me thinking that I must have done something terrible wrong like job's friends accused job of all kinds of things that he never did and it was all out of thier imachinations and Imaginations and picking away at any doubt about Job, instead of picking up his faith and Michael Payton was the only one who wrote me a beautiful letter in calligraphy hand writing, to comfort me the best he could and 39 years later after laboring administering with my hands in Sausalito and eventually bringing together a small congregation and anchor outs and Waterfront people and Michael Payton popped his face from the park and peeking over a wall looked at me and I didn't know who he was and thought he was just the person curious about our patio church meeting, in front of the library and then he came to our service and begin talking to me and I didn't know who he was and I didn't recognize him for it had been some 38 years since I seen him and I didn't recognize him at all anymore, for his beard had turned long and  gray and he had gained a lot of weight and as he was talking about the church services at the Seminary Chapel I asked him how he knew and when was he there and for I had a mistake him for for a bearded Guru  looking person who had gone all the way to India looking for the truth and went into a Buddhist monastery and the Buddhist priest told him the truth with Jesus Christ and he returned back to the United States as a Christian and I thought it was the same gentleman and I asked him what his name was and he said Michael Payton and I was floored and amazed and wowed and after 50 years, after first meeting Michael and him being a part of our Church Fellowship and a Deacon in my eyes and  I thought in my heart  that it was a miracle and he contributed a few thousand dollars to help buy food for our little Mission congregation and Church Fellowship,  before he went to be with the Lord recently in 2023 as i write this and on the same day that his beloved wife had gone to be with the Lord and I'll never forget his kindness and love and how he even took in an eighty five year old man into his heart and even into his bed with him, when he lived in the disciple house downstairs,  in our home after the gentleman had an argument with his daughter and left her house and Mike took him in and even put him in his own bed until the elderly and distinguished gentleman made  peace with his daughter and returned to they're well to do neighborhood and time and space would fail me to say more about Michael a man who has never been heard saying a cross word or criticism about anyone and was kind to everyone and would have made and excellent doctor and but the lord had other ans for him  and to be continued in the next chapter of this testimonial of my life and Ministry and loves and brotherhoods and friends ....to write and send support to feed and minister to our mission church in Sausalito please and thank you do to the New Covenant Evangelistic Association Inc P.O.Box 1591 San Anselmo CA. 94979 or PayPal # 415 374 0734 or Cash App $Cajidog code name of which was our official name for our church fund raising dog to by food for fellowship and retal on Sundays at the senior Center in Sausalito.before passing away after her mission also was done and God Bless You all Sincerely Waterfront and anchorout pastor the reverand Peter "Christian" Romanowsky and see you all Lord willing at our current Waterfront Church location in Dunphy Park Sausslito and rendezvous at the Gazebo at high noon for our Waterfront and Buccaneer Church services and barbecue, all day long and until  the evening every Sunday  

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