I'll see you in the next video.
All right Pastor Anderson, so how does it feel to be the one being interviewed right
now instead of the one doing the interview?
Now I finally know what everyone was going through.
I can sympathize.
Yeah, I'm used to doing interviews myself, so that was kind of different being the one
being interviewed.
But this is going to be challenging because as somebody who has watched your preaching
for a long time, I feel like I know you real well.
As I imagine most people who listen to your preaching, they feel like they know pretty
much everything about you.
You listen to all that preaching, you hear a lot of personal stories.
So I'm hoping to maybe find out some new things, some revelations for everyone about
Pastor Anderson.
This isn't going to be another hardball interview, is it?
I don't know.
I mean, I guess it all depends on how deep I have to pry here because yeah, this might
get personal, get it interesting.
So go ahead.
So I know you're from California, the Sacramento area, so is that where you lived your whole
life?
Yeah.
I mean, I was born in Sacramento, California.
I was born at Kaiser North on Morse Avenue.
And I lived there my entire life up until I was 22 years old when I went off to Hiles
Anderson College.
And then when I was 24, I started the church here in Arizona.
So all the way up until I was 22, I lived in California.
And what's interesting is that I traveled very little because now I'm traveling all over
the place.
I've been to 49 states and like 15 countries.
I've been banned from more countries than I've actually been to.
But anyway, I didn't really travel much.
I mean, that was pretty much my whole world was just Northern California.
I mean, I felt like I was taking a big trip if I went to San Francisco or Reno,
Nevada or something like that because we lived there in Sacramento.
But I grew up in a Christian home.
Both of my parents were godly Christians, independent fundamental Baptists.
That's how I was raised.
And they had just moved to Sacramento shortly before I was born.
And one of the biggest things about my early childhood that I remember is just that
I was constantly switching schools.
And we were constantly switching churches.
So literally, I think the first six years or something of my school life, I went to
six different schools.
So that was kind of formative for me, I guess, just learning how to adapt and
meet people and make friends and everything.
Because I remember at first, I went to kindergarten at a place called Calvary
Baptist Church.
They had like a church school, and it was a pretty good-sized church,
pretty good-sized class that I was in.
Maybe 20 other students my age or something like that.
So I went there when I was in kindergarten.
But then for first grade, there was some kind of a church split or something.
So I ended up being pulled out of that, and I was put in a Christian school
meeting in someone's garage.
So it was like an ACE school in someone's garage.
So I did that for first grade.
Then for second grade, I went to a different church school called
Tabernacle Baptist.
And then for third grade, I went to a non-denominational Christian school
called Victory Christian School.
They're Baptist in their doctrine, but they just called it Christian so that
they could bring in more students or whatever.
So I went there when I was in third grade.
Then when I was in fourth grade, I ended up being homeschooled for the first
time.
So kindergarten, first, second, and third, there's four different schools.
Then I did homeschool for fourth grade.
And the only thing I remember about being homeschooled was just PE.
So I can't even remember a single book being in front of me.
I mean, I know I did, of course, all the academics.
My mom taught me the English and the math and science and all that.
But the only thing that really stood out to me was my mom's PE.
I loved her PE program.
So for PE, we did gymnastics.
So this is just me and my younger sister.
And my younger sister is like 20 months younger than me, so a little
less than two years.
So we would do tumbling and gymnastics, because I guess my mom
really liked that when she was growing up.
So she had us doing like headstands and back walkovers and
handsprings and cartwheels and stuff like that.
So it was actually pretty fun.
Can you still do some of that stuff?
Yeah, I still can.
I keep up with some of that.
Yeah, well, my grandfather was known for doing exotic handstands.
So he would be sitting in a chair like this, and he would kind of go up
into it.
I can't do it, but he would go up into a handstand.
And he'd walk around on his hands.
There's a picture of him doing a handstand on top of one of those big
pylons on a pier.
So it was kind of a dangerous handstand.
And he got suspended when he was in school for doing a handstand on top of
the school building, on top of where they rang the bell or something.
So he was kind of a role model for me.
So I would always try to walk around on my hands and do stuff like that.
So I really enjoyed that.
Well, then we started going to this church called Citadel Baptist Church
around the time I was nine.
And it was like we'd finally found a great church, because we'd been
bouncing around, just kind of struggling to find a good church.
A lot of churches were going liberal, or they'd start praising Billy Graham
or John MacArthur or whatever.
So we were struggling to find something that would stay true to being
an independent fundamental Baptist, King James, stuff like that.
So we started going to this church, Citadel, and it was like kind of a
dream come true for us.
They said, you know, finally, an independent fundamental Baptist church
where people are normal.
You know, there were just a lot of cool, normal people.
So I was really hoping to go into fifth grade, because I just finished
fourth grade homeschool.
So I was devastated, because my mom signed me up for fourth grade.
And I'd already done fourth grade.
And so I was just really upset.
But it was because I was always a year ahead.
So I started kindergarten when I was only four, because I already knew
how to read.
My mom taught me how to read from Dr. Seuss, hop on pop, and one fish,
two fish, red fish, blue fish.
So she taught me how to read and everything.
So I was always a year ahead.
And I thought that was great to be a year ahead.
I thought, I'm just going to graduate early.
But my mom said, oh, everybody's going to get their license, and you're not
going to have their driver's license.
I'm like, I'm nine years old.
I'm not thinking about that.
And so she made me go to fourth grade again.
So I was pretty devastated about that.
So I went to fourth grade twice.
Oh, man.
Wow, that was always my greatest fear, because I started school early, too.
But thankfully, I never had to do any repeated grade.
So how many brothers and sisters do you have, and where are you?
And are you older?
Well, I'm the third.
My older sister is nine years older than me.
And my older brother is six years older than me.
And then my younger sister is just a little bit younger than me.
So it was almost kind of like two sets.
It was kind of like my brother and sister's generation,
and then my sister and me.
But I definitely was heavily influenced by my older brother and sister.
Obviously, I looked up to them.
And so they were big role models for me.
But when I was growing up, I remember my sister being a teenager.
And she used to want to take me to the mall.
And she would just want to try on clothes.
And I was just supposed to kind of sit there while she tried on clothes
and tell her if I liked it or not or something like that,
which is pretty boring.
When you're a little boy, you're not in fashion.
So she was a teenager.
I was a little kid.
But I would get an orange Julius out of it.
So that was a big thing.
I'd go to the mall, and she'd go to these trendy stores.
And I would just sit out there for what
felt like an eternity outside the waiting room
while she'd try on all these clothes.
And then I'd get the orange Julius was the payoff.
And my sister also used to want to kind of dress me up or style me
in the trends of the time, which is the 80s.
So she'd buy me some clothes and do my hair and stuff.
So she would feather my hair.
I don't know if you know what I'm talking about.
That feathered hair, so she'd feather my hair.
I had the stonewashed jeans.
I don't know if you know what that is.
I don't know.
It's too weird to describe.
You just have to group it up anyway.
And then you'd have the jeans, and you'd peg your jeans.
Now that stuff's coming back, oddly enough.
It's kind of strange to see the 80s stuff coming back.
But yeah, so my sister was a lot older than me.
So I wasn't as close to her.
I'm pretty close with her now.
But back then, there were times
when she would take me to the mall and different stuff
like that.
And then my brother, I spent a lot of time with him.
He was six years older than me, but we got along pretty well.
We hung out a lot.
So my brother and I were pretty close.
And I ended up kind of getting his musical taste
and his styles, kind of everything
that he thought was cool.
That kind of ended up becoming a lot of the stuff
that I embraced.
So even though I was born in 1981,
sometimes I can relate to people
that are a few years older than me as far
as with the cultural stuff just because I
learned a lot of my brother.
So tell us a little bit about the 80s Steven Anderson.
What was the 80s Steven Anderson like?
What kind of things were you into?
I've heard you make references before in sermons
to some of the video games.
I've heard you talk about Contra and stuff like that.
So I can kind of relate with some of that.
So I mean, what kind of things did you do?
Were you a video gamer?
I mean, I really did a variety of stuff.
I used to ride skateboards.
But this is back when the skateboard
was shaped like this, you know what I'm talking about?
Because it seemed like the banana board thing was more
like, that's what I call it.
I don't know if that's what it's called.
But those came out, it seems like, more in the 90s.
So I was into skateboarding in the 80s
when it was like the one that was shaped
like a fish shape, you know what I'm talking about?
And so I liked riding those skateboards.
And I don't know, I was into all the electronic music.
So that was a big thing for me.
All the new wave, post-punk 80s music, electronic music.
Did you take any music lessons or anything?
Because I know you've got your piano books
that you do now, what's your musical background?
Oh yeah, I was always big
on playing the piano growing up.
So my sister Ronnie actually taught me how to play the piano.
She taught me my first song, Three Blind Mice.
She put tape on the keys
and taught me how to play Three Blind Mice.
And then after that, that's all she taught me though.
So after that, I just taught myself
just from reading books actually.
So I taught myself for years how to play the piano
after she gave me just a few basics.
And I was always begging my parents
to give me piano lessons.
So I taught myself out of books for years.
I would practice for hours a day.
And finally, my parents broke down and got me lessons.
And I was really happy about that.
I think I was around 10.
I started playing when I was really young,
like maybe five, six years old or something.
But by the time I was 10,
my parents finally broke down
and got me the piano lessons.
Like three times a month,
I would go for a half hour lesson.
It was kind of a minimal piano lesson, but I loved that.
So I played all classical piano.
That's all I learned.
So there was nothing with hymns.
So I did that for a long time into my teenage years,
just playing a lot of classical piano.
I learned a little bit of guitar and stuff like that.
And I had a few songs that were kind of my show pieces.
If I was at a party or something,
I could play the songs on the piano.
But later on,
when I became an independent fundamental Baptist in earnest
and really got serious about serving God,
then I wanted to play hymns.
And it was literally like having to start over.
Because the classical piano is so different
than playing hymns.
So I almost had to go back to the drawing board
and I went back and I used a course
called the Henry Slaughter Piano Course.
And it was a pretty good course.
I liked it.
And that's how I learned how to play hymns.
Well, later on in life,
I went to repurchase it because I'd moved
and I'd lost the books and I didn't have any more.
And I wanted to recommend it to other people.
And I went on Amazon or eBay
and these books were selling for like $200 and stuff
because I guess they were just totally out of print.
And there just wasn't anything like it.
So that's why I decided to make my own piano books
because the Henry Slaughter Course was out of print.
And I wanted to kind of improve upon
the Henry Slaughter Course.
So I definitely built upon his foundation,
but I decided to change a few things.
Like for example, he put a lot of his own songs in.
So half the songs were famous hymns
and then half of them were songs that he wrote.
Well, I decided to just go with all famous hymns
because nobody really cares about these songs
that are original to the author
that didn't really catch on.
Years later, they're not a thing.
So I decided to go with all famous hymns.
And then also he would transpose things to an easier key.
I decided to just only pick songs
that were in an easy key in the first place.
So every song in my piano course is in the key
that you'll find it in a standard hymnal.
That way people can start playing in church from day one.
So that's why I came up with that piano course.
But music was a big thing for me growing up.
Like I said, playing a lot of piano.
I only got piano lessons
for I think about a year and a half.
And then those had to be canceled.
I went on to teach myself
and I got into doing stuff with electronic music
with synthesizers and stuff like that
when I was a teenager and fooled around with that stuff.
But then when I got serious about church and soul winning
and I took my first mission strip to Germany,
then I just ended up kind of selling all that stuff
and just getting out of the music thing.
But in later years, it came in handy.
Like for example,
putting some of the Psalms to music that I've done.
And also I did a little bit of the background music
in After the Tribulation,
a little bit of the electronic background music.
So I've used it a little bit here and there,
obviously leading the singing.
And even to this day, when I go preach different places,
if I go preach at a church
that doesn't have a piano player,
I'll jump in and play the piano.
I'm not a good piano player.
I'm mediocre at best,
but don't tell the people that are buying the books.
But honestly, the books are great.
As they say, those who can do
and those who can't teach.
So even though I'm not a great piano player,
the books are great because I'll go to churches
and people will just be playing on the piano
and they'll say, oh, I learned so well,
way better than I've ever played.
And I'll walk up to them and say,
wow, you are so good at piano.
And they'll say, oh, I learned from your book.
I'm like, how did you learn from my book?
You're better than I am.
Yeah, well him playing is a completely different animal
because my wife's a good piano player, but.
Your wife's amazing.
Yeah, but she used to be able to play hymns very well.
She had to have music for literally everything she played.
And that was something that she had to learn.
And it, you know, but then.
So she did the classical stuff too, or?
Yes, yeah, she learned classical.
She had to have music for everything she played.
And so, yeah, it was kind of a transition for her.
And she, you know, there was some different books
that she used too that kind of helped her out with that
but yeah, then my mom, on the other hand,
my mom, she's a good hymn player,
but she can't read music, but she can play,
you know, she was a church pianist for years
and did a great job.
So it is definitely different.
Yeah, it's a big transition.
And I just got to a point when I was around 18, 19,
where I just kind of phased out music a little bit.
And there's only so much you can do with your time.
I got into other things.
I got into learning foreign languages.
I got into traveling and just other things,
got into different athletic things and everything, so.
So how about sports?
Were you ever a part of any ball teams
or anything like that?
No, I never was.
When I was growing up, I was never into team sports,
probably because my dad wasn't into team sports.
And you're kind of into the things that your dad's into.
So my dad was pretty athletic in the sense
that he would go out and do physical stuff.
Like, for example, he was really into riding dirt bikes.
He was really into, you know, sail boating for a while.
He would do water skiing, snow skiing.
So we did a lot of athletic type activities,
but just not team sports.
He wasn't one that watched football or baseball
or basketball or anything.
So I didn't really grow up being that into those things.
I went to soccer camp a couple times
when I was in elementary school.
I played PE along with all the other kids.
I was just a mediocre player at all the sports.
And then when I turned 12 and I was in junior high,
seventh grade, I decided, man,
I'm gonna join the sports team.
So I decided to join the JV basketball team.
And I was pretty into fitness at this time.
I started lifting weights a lot
and trying to really get in shape.
And so I showed up for all the JV basketball practices.
And, you know, I was there throwing up
with the rest of them,
doing all the wind sprints and getting in shape.
So I went to a whole bunch of practices
leading up to the season.
And I was pretty excited about, wow,
I'm actually on a team, you know, playing sports.
And the first game came along
and my mom ended up getting a job
and I couldn't go to the practices anymore.
So I literally went to all these practices
and then it just fell through.
So I never got to play in a single game
on any sports team in my life to this day.
So except just, you know,
fooling around on the playground or something,
I've never actually been on a real sports team
to this day.
So, but you know, everything happens for a reason.
I'm sure God worked it out that way for a reason.
Maybe if I would have been on the sports team
and kind of gotten into that world,
then maybe my life would have just gone
a completely different direction.
So maybe it just wasn't meant to be.
So I've never been on a sports team.
So how about 90s Pastor Anderson?
You know, did you have any jobs as a teenager?
You know, what kind of jobs have you worked?
Well, I worked for my dad
from the time that I was just a little kid,
just, you know, on the side.
He had me crawling under houses and through attics
when I was a very young kid.
I mean, I was very small, you know,
because I could fit in all these places.
So he had me crawling attics, climbing under houses
as far back as I can remember.
And he actually had us answer the phone for his business
when we were very young, which is,
it's kind of weird looking back when he had us do that.
But I'm talking when I'm 10, 11, 12 years old,
I mean, I'm answering the business phone
and setting up appointments for my dad
to go do electrical work, literally.
So, I mean, I had the spiel all memorized.
You know, it's $55 for the service call.
That covers the first half hour.
And then it's $36 for each half hour after that.
Most things can be taken care of in the first half hour.
You know, I'm making sure how are they gonna pay for this
and if they're paying by check,
they have to have a MasterCard or Visa.
So I had all these different things
and we have this whole pad of paper.
And so there are some funny stories about that.
Like one time my dad called
because he would sometimes call to test us, right?
So one time my dad called and my brother answered the phone
and so my dad's pretending to be a customer
and he's kind of messing with my brother.
Like, he's like, you're just a kid, you're just a kid.
And he's like, sir, I am an adult.
He was really only like 11 or something.
But anyway, so yeah, we were answering phones.
So I mean, we got a lot of great work experience
doing that.
And then I did a few little volunteer things here and there
but my first real job was for Roundtable Pizza.
That's why I'm so enthusiastic in my sermons
about Roundtable Pizza, especially in my earlier sermons.
But I got a job there when I was 16
and this is how I got hired at Roundtable.
I went around and applied
at just a whole bunch of fast food places.
You know, I'm applying at Taco Bell, Burger King,
McDonald's, whatever, just whatever the fast food places.
And I wasn't hearing anything back.
And I was thinking to myself,
man, I must be doing something wrong
because nobody's getting in touch with me.
So the last place I was applying at was Roundtable.
And I just said, you know what, on this application,
I'm gonna kind of beef things up a little bit.
You know, I'm gonna spice this up a little bit
because the other applications I'd been doing,
I was just putting down, I didn't have any work experience.
So this time with the Roundtable application,
I put down, you know,
I worked for this electrical company.
I was answering phones in the family business.
I was doing this, I was doing that.
And then everything that I'd volunteered for at church,
I made a big deal about my responsibilities.
So I really just came up with all this experience
that I had and then boom, that was the job I got.
So I learned an important lesson.
You know, you really gotta go into detail
and kind of polish the apple
when you're applying for a job.
So I got hired at that job at Roundtable.
And when I first walked in on my first day of work,
this guy that worked there looked at me and he said,
it's Guile.
And that was a character on the video game Street Fighter II.
Do you remember that one?
Oh yeah, I know that one, yep.
So on Street Fighter II,
there was a character called Guile.
Well, my hair at the time was bleached blonde
and it was kind of punked out.
And it would later become a style
that a lot of people would have.
But at the time,
I was kind of the only one that had my hair like this.
So when I walked in,
he thought I looked like Guile from Street Fighter.
So then he literally just called me Guile
from then on and then everybody called me Guile
to the point where literally on the schedule,
it would just say Guile is working at this time.
Like that was just what I was known as.
And it's interesting because I've always been known
by nicknames throughout my life.
I've always been given some kind of a nickname,
which is interesting.
Like I remember when I was in sixth grade,
I got put in this like experimental class.
There was no room for me in the normal class,
which I went to the normal class
for one day at public school.
Cause I went to public school for sixth grade
and I just loved it.
I was like, oh, this class is great.
This is perfect.
I already know some of these kids from the neighborhood.
I'm going to love this.
It's going to be a great school year.
And they're like, oh no,
you can't stay in this class
because the state of California says there can only be 34.
You're number 35.
So they pulled me out and they put me in this class
with like dysfunctional kids.
It was some kind of an experimental class
called Partners in Learning.
And it was just a nightmare.
But I ended up liking it in the end.
It was one of those things,
God puts you through things to teach you
how to deal with different kinds of people.
And so it was one of those things
that looking back was good for me,
but I got put in this weird class.
And one of the things about me in this class
that I was one of the only white kids in the class.
And I was the only cool white kid, all right,
according to the minorities that were in the class.
So basically I was named Casper just for being so white.
So these kind of ghetto type kids would be like,
what's up Casper?
So I always get these strange nicknames throughout life.
That's funny.
So when I was at Round Table Pizza,
I was called Guile the whole time I was there.
So then on Halloween one year,
I actually dressed up as Guile
because Halloween was the biggest day of the year
at Round Table Pizza for some reason.
It was just, I guess when you're in the pizza business,
that's the number one day above all else.
So everybody has to work on Halloween.
So they wanted us to dress up.
So I dressed up as Guile.
So I already had the hairdo.
And then I just put on like a white t-shirt,
I think camo pants, combat boots.
Is there any chance we'll get to see a Guile picture ever?
I hope not.
Or at least from that age,
because I think that'd be interesting to see.
I think that there are a few pictures out there,
but I don't know if any of them
captured the true Guile-ness.
But somewhere there was a picture of me at Round Table
on Halloween wearing the Guile outfit and everything.
But I don't know where those pictures are.
I'll have to dig those out.
So I've heard the story about how you met your wife before
and how you guys got married.
But one thing I wasn't sure about,
because I'd like to start getting into the pastoring now,
but did your wife know that you were planning
on being a pastor?
Were you planning on being a pastor then?
So when did you decide you were going to be a pastor?
Was it before or after you were married?
Well, when I was a kid, a very little kid,
I always wanted to be a preacher.
But I actually wanted to be a missionary
more than anything.
Then when I was a teenager,
we started going to some liberal churches
and I just kind of was in a worldly teenage phase.
So I kind of lost sight of my vision
for wanting to be a preacher.
But then when I turned 16 and I got into
a red hot independent fundamental Baptist church,
actually right after my 17th birthday,
I started getting serious about the things of God
when I was 16.
And then I got in a great soul winning church
when I was 17 with hard preaching and everything.
Then I was re-inspired to want to be a preacher again,
because I really liked that pastor and that church.
And so that motivated me.
So I wanted to be a missionary actually,
because I was really into studying foreign languages
at that time, around the time I was 16, 17
is when I really started studying foreign languages.
And so when I met my wife and talked to her
about the future and what things would be like
if we got married, I told her that I was actually
probably going to be a foreign missionary
and that we might go live in some other country.
And I just wanted to make sure that she was okay with that.
I didn't want to do a bait and switch of,
here look, here's my life in California.
California is this cool place.
And I was showing her all the sites in California.
And then it's like, oh psych, we're going to go
to some messed up country and be a missionary.
So I was talking about being a missionary at that time.
But I started to realize that not being pre-trib
was a deal breaker.
And it became very clear to me,
I'm never going to be a missionary if I'm not pre-trib
because in that system, you have to go around
and raise support and all these different churches
support you.
And I just thought to myself, I'm not the kind of guy
who's going to be able to go around to all these
churches and get them to like me and support me.
And of course I was right because very few people
like me.
So anyway, I decided being a missionary
is not going to work for me.
And then I also realized that the home base
really needed a lot of work.
I realized the United States was really going south.
Churches are going south.
So I just decided to be a pastor in the United States.
But when I married her, I told her I was probably
going to be a missionary.
So here's something I've always kind of wondered.
So you started out to just pastor a church.
I mean, did you ever envision a ministry
like you have today?
Not at all, no way.
And so my question is, when did you
start realizing that, hey, this is
going to be more than just me pastoring in Phoenix?
When did you start realizing the potential?
I mean, I don't know.
At what point did you realize, hey, a lot of people
are paying attention to what's going on here?
It was pretty early on.
But when I started the church, I just
was planning to start another independent Baptist church.
I wasn't trying to be different or start a new movement
or be the greatest or anything like that.
I was just trying to just start a church.
And so I didn't really have a huge plan.
And I definitely didn't think about influencing anybody
outside of Arizona.
I was just trying to be another independent fundamental
Baptist church.
I felt like we needed more.
And so I wanted to do my best and pastor a church.
So I thought that the church in Phoenix
was going to grow a lot faster than it did.
I envisioned having a huge impact in Phoenix, Arizona,
having a big, thriving, soul-winning church.
And so when I started the church,
I was kind of surprised that it didn't grow faster.
Because I felt like I'm doing all the right things.
I'm reading my Bible.
I'm praying.
I'm going soul-winning.
So I was a little bit disillusioned,
because I felt like I was working so hard
and not really getting a lot of results.
But I just prayed to God and said, you know,
I'm not going to stop.
I'm just going to keep doing it,
because I know that this is what the Bible says.
And so I'm just going to leave the results in your hands.
So the church grew more slowly than I expected.
But I never envisioned the internet thing.
I mean, even when I started putting my sermons online,
it was only because of the fact
that when I left an invite on somebody's door,
I figured, well, if they come to the website
and find some preaching, they can sample the preaching.
And then they can find out more about the church,
and they'll be more likely to visit.
That's what I was thinking.
And so the first time that I heard about someone
in another state listening to my preaching,
which was maybe, I don't know,
four months into pastoring or five months into pastoring,
I was really pleasantly surprised by that.
Oh, wow, it was like one person.
Oh, wow, somebody's listening to my preaching
in another state.
And then I started hearing from more people
that were listening just in that first year, 2006.
And so then I started seeing the potential.
And then I started trying to promote the stuff online
and get it out there online.
And within the first, I would say, year, year and a half,
we started having about 2,000 sermons downloaded per month.
So I'm preaching to a church
with 10 or 15 people in it,
but 2,000 sermons are being downloaded every month.
So I thought that was pretty cool.
And then next thing you know, it was 10,000.
And then by the time 2009 rolled around,
when the stuff that kind of put me into the media
with the border patrol and the Obama stuff,
by the time that happened,
I was already having 20,000 sermons downloaded every month
before I was ever even in the news or anything.
So it just built up to 20,000 MP3s.
And this is before YouTube was a big thing for us.
It was just MP3s, just people were downloading the MP3s.
But I got on YouTube in, I believe, 2007.
And my sister told me, my older sister told me,
hey, you need to put your sermons on YouTube.
I was like, what's YouTube?
I didn't even know what it was.
So then she told me about YouTube,
but I didn't act right away on that.
And then a buddy at work started telling me,
oh man, do you know what YouTube is?
I've heard of it.
And then he started telling me about some video
where some lion attacks a wildebeest
and then like a crocodile takes it away from the,
you know the video I'm talking about?
It was one of the early viral YouTube videos.
It's just like a nature video.
So he showed it to me.
And that was my first exposure to YouTube
was watching this crocodile and a lion
like fight over a carcass.
So then I was like, okay,
maybe I should put myself on YouTube.
So then, yeah, exactly.
So I'm sure that means something.
It's a lot of symbolism in that clip.
So anyway, back then you could only put
a 10 minute video on YouTube.
So I had to chop up my videos into 10 minute increments.
So each sermon was like six uploads.
But my first videos to YouTube,
before I even started filming my sermons,
because I didn't even have a camera yet,
were just slideshows.
So I took a clip of me preaching against Billy Graham
and just put a slideshow of pictures of Billy Graham.
And it's just me preaching against Billy Graham
for like eight minutes or something.
And that video literally got over a million views.
Oh wow.
And then I had another video, Joel Osteen Exposed,
because this is the real early days of YouTube.
And it was just a slideshow of pictures of Joel Osteen
with me preaching over it.
And it eventually literally got like 1.5 million views.
So those videos aren't up anymore
because they got eventually nailed for copyright.
I guess some of the photos were copyrighted.
So those were my two first big viral videos
that got like over a million views.
And then of course in 2008, I believe it was,
I had a clip from one of my sermons
where I talked about the verse,
him that pisseth against the wall, that phrase.
And it's funny, when I uploaded that clip,
I didn't think I was even uploading anything special.
I thought, this is just another clip,
because I'm uploading all kinds of videos to YouTube.
So in 2008, I uploaded this video clip
and I didn't even think anything of it.
And that video just went crazy.
And it was literally at one point,
the number 10 most blogged video in the world
for like a certain week.
You know, it was like the top 10 blogged videos this week
and it was number 10.
And that video was just everywhere.
So that was a mega viral video,
just that little clip from that sermon
where I talked about him that pisseth against the wall.
So then I got the reputation
for having preached a whole sermon,
because I guess people think
that my sermons are four minutes long.
He preached a whole sermon about standing up
when you go to the bathroom.
Hey, I still pee standing up, by the way.
Same here.
Not gonna, I'm gonna die on that hill.
I'm willing to die on that hill.
And you know, it's funny is people,
people are constantly criticizing me, attacking me,
mocking me for these things.
But you know, I don't really mind being mocked
for standing up when I go to the bathroom
and hating sodomites, you know, and you know,
hating Obama.
Oh, wow.
Those are, you know, not something I'm ashamed of.
Right, well, it seems like what I saw happen,
it was, as the internet got big
and as things started going viral,
I watched the old IFB back off.
And yet you like doubled down.
You know, that was a big difference, you know?
And so I think that, you know,
you're proof that there is still
a large group of people out there
that still wants it straight, you know?
They want, they like the hard preaching.
And you know, I think I wish more of these guys
would get back to doing like they used to.
Well, you know, if they're gonna preach hard,
I hope they do, but if they're gonna preach
watered down sermons, it's better
if they just stay off social media,
as far as I'm concerned,
and just let us put up the real stuff, right?
I just wish I had some video
of some of the preaching I heard growing up.
Yeah, that'd be great.
I really wish I had it,
because the thing is, today if it's not on YouTube,
it didn't happen.
Right.
But you can make a lot of these guys eat their words.
Oh, yeah, no doubt.
And when it comes to that
piss it against the wall video, too,
what's funny is that Brother Jimenez,
this is before he was a pastor,
but he'd come out and preached a couple times
at our church in Arizona.
And he was in the military at this time.
So he's in the Air Force, and this video was big.
So he's in the locker room in the Air Force,
and his commanding officer comes in,
and he's like, Jimenez!
He's like, yes, sir.
And he's just like, IP standing up.
Oh, wow.
And he said that to him because he'd seen the video,
and he knew that Brother Jimenez was connected to me.
He just says that to him, right?
It's like, what do you say to that?
What do you say when your commanding officer
comes up to you and says, Jimenez!
IP standing up.
And then he's just like, well, that's good,
you know, because these days a lot of people don't.
They just walk away.
And then the next day, the commander of the whole base,
who is commanding like 18,000 troops or something,
walks up to him, and he's like, do you YouTube?
And he's like, uh, yeah.
He's like a little bit taken aback.
And then he's like, oh great,
because I have this video project
I want you to do for us.
And it turned out he didn't know anything about videos.
Brother Jimenez was not really tech savvy.
I think to this day,
I don't even know if he has a smartphone.
He might have just got a smartphone,
but when we were on the trip
for the Beyond Jordan movie,
he literally had a Bible device.
You remember those little electronic Bibles?
I had one of those.
You have one?
Yeah.
Or had one?
I still have it, but the battery's dead.
It's kind of been replaced by the smartphone, right?
Yeah, I haven't used it in years.
Yeah, Brother Jimenez was using that.
But anyway, because he had this reputation,
because some of his sermons were on my YouTube channel,
he was just like the YouTube guy.
So he ended up teaming up with another buddy of his
who actually knew a lot about video,
and they ended up making this really funny video
like for the base.
So I got him a video gig.
So he got to do this really fun project,
but it was kind of like Tom Sawyer.
He got another guy to paint the fence for him,
but he got to be involved with it.
So when was the first time that you had somebody
that you can remember had somebody come out here
just to visit your church?
Do you remember that?
When did that start happening?
How long?
Like somebody just flying to Phoenix.
Yeah, somebody coming to Phoenix just for faithful work.
Probably around 2008, I would guess.
It might've been as early as 2007.
2006 is when you started?
Yeah, well, I actually technically started
on Christmas day of 2005.
But 2005 was only a few days.
So really, the first year was 2006.
For sure, by 2008, that was happening.
It might've been 2007, but I don't really remember.
But it was for sure happening by 08.
And then, like I said, by 2009,
there were about 20,000 MP3s being downloaded per month
from the church website in addition
to whatever YouTube was doing.
And then obviously, the border patrol thing
took it to a whole new level.
And then the Obama sermon took it to a whole new level.
And then 2010 and 11,
I kind of refer to those as the quiet years.
We were just kind of growing,
and things had quieted down a little bit,
just kind of plugging away.
And then obviously in 2012,
we filmed After the Tribulation.
And then we kind of entered the era
of coming out with these documentaries
that really brought in a lot of new listeners
and stuff like that.
Okay, so in all your years pastoring,
have you had too many, very many pastors that have,
especially in your early years,
were there many that would reach out,
try to fellowship with you,
ask you to come preach for them or anything like that?
Or were you just always kind of to yourself?
No, because before people knew who I was, quote unquote,
then people would reach out to me.
And I'd have local pastors call me and talk to me,
or I'd go to different meetings
and people would fellowship with me and everything.
In fact, back in 2007,
I got an opportunity to preach at a pretty good size church
that was running a few hundred.
It was like a conference they were having.
And I guess they had a whole bunch
of guest preachers fall through.
And my sister went to the church at the time.
And so her husband called up the pastor and said,
hey, my brother-in-law is a pastor down in Phoenix.
He's an independent fundamental Baptist,
King James, whatever.
And the pastor's just like, bring him on, bring him on.
Like he didn't even know who I was at all,
but I guess he just lost a bunch of speakers.
So he's just like, sure.
So I get a call on Monday morning saying,
hey, you can preach tonight in New Mexico.
And it was like six and a half hours away.
And so we literally just scrambled that morning.
We're throwing everybody in the car, grabbing clothes.
We didn't have time to change our clothes.
We just grabbed the church clothes
and we just start jamming up there.
Cause we didn't even find out about this
till like late morning and the service is at seven.
So we're just flying up to New Mexico.
We stop at some gas station bathroom,
changing into our church clothes and stuff
while we're gassing up the car.
And we get up there, the service has already started.
I walk in there, I sit down, we sing one song
and then it's like, all right, brother Steven Anderson,
he's the pastor of Faith Forward Baptist Church.
He's gonna come preach to us.
So I didn't even have time to write a sermon,
but I just, the night before preached a sermon
called blessed are the pure in heart.
It was like 55 minutes long, I think.
So as I'm walking up, the pastor just shakes my hand
and says, 20, 25 minutes, brother.
Cause there was another guy preaching after me.
So I basically preached a condensed version.
I took that 55 minute sermon, condensed it down
to 25 minutes and preach and it went great.
And everybody seemed like they really liked it.
And the pastor loved it.
He invited me to preach again the next day.
I was like, great, sure.
So I stayed the night, I preached the next day.
Everything was great.
And then a bunch of preachers were approaching me
at that meeting talking about, hey, you know,
you gotta come to this other thing we're doing.
So, you know, they're reaching out to me, being friendly.
I met some people, but then just once they found out
that I wasn't pre-trib, once they found out
I didn't have a church nursery,
once they found out these things
that they didn't like about me,
then, you know, obviously I was never invited back,
but that was kind of cool to get to do that one time,
especially cause at the time my church
was only running like 15 people.
Cause this is like the first year,
a little after the first year,
I think it was like early 07.
So yeah, after a few years of being around
and the word got out about our church
and people pretty much knew who we were,
then I didn't get any invitations like that anymore.
And so the only places that I preach now
are pretty much just our friends,
but we have a lot of friends.
So I have places to preach literally every week.
If I wanted to travel and preach,
I could preach virtually every week.
At churches that we're friends with.
Right.
So yeah, and it seems like it's clear
that it's political who you have preach.
You know, back in the day,
I remember when we'd go on vacation,
people find out my dad was a pastor,
they didn't know him from Adam,
they'd have him preach.
You know, that kind of thing would go on.
But you know, now it's all political.
And you know, on one hand I can see maybe them,
you know, yeah, they're so big on the pre-trib
and stuff like that.
But what do you think about the fact now
that you are known for being the preacher
that preaches against sodomites and things like that
to the point where you're literally being banned
from a massive part of the world.
31 countries?
It's 31 countries and counting.
Right.
Because chances are I'll probably be banned
from a couple more countries
by the time this year ends, literally.
Well, you could just make plans.
All I have to do is just plan to go somewhere.
Right, but the thing is,
the things you're getting banned for
are not things that the IFB disagree with.
Well, I'm not getting banned for being post-trib.
Exactly, they're not banned for being post-trib.
And you know, you're not even getting banned
because of your position on Israel.
Well, and I'm not getting banned
because of the reprobate doctrine.
Right.
Because not a single one of these articles
has brought up, oh, by the way,
did you know that he believes that homos are reprobates
that can't be saved?
Because they don't even believe in heaven and hell.
Right.
They don't even care about that.
The stuff that I preach against homos
that they're mad about
is stuff that anybody who believes the Bible
believes the same thing.
Right.
Anybody who believes the Bible
has to admit the things that I'm preaching,
even if they don't agree on the reprobate doctrine.
I mean.
Well, most of the things I've read,
it talks about how you believe
in the death penalty for them.
Yeah.
But you know.
Which is what the Bible says.
That's what the Bible says.
And, you know, when people are,
you know, my dad once preached
that homos ought to be put to death
at a funeral, at a funeral.
My dad did, and that wasn't that long ago.
Yeah.
I grew up being taught that,
and I get very offended when people bring that up
like you invented it,
because that's just not true.
You know, but at the same time,
you know, what, you know,
does it ever drive you crazy?
I mean, what do you want to say
to these guys in the IFB that are hearing about this?
They know you're getting banned from these countries.
You know, there's missionaries in these countries,
but yet nobody's backing you up.
Because to me, if all the Baptists
would just be vocal about it,
then it would be pointless to ban people,
because there's just too many.
Well.
But they're being quiet about it.
Lately, I'm too busy to do this,
but I used to go and visit other churches
when they're having special meetings,
like on a Friday night, or Thursday night,
or something in this area.
And I would go to different fellowships,
and preaching services, and things like that.
And I've had pastors walk up to me at those meetings.
Like, I remember a few years ago,
I was at a church service.
A pastor walked up to me and said,
hey, I saw that you were just put on
the list of hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And he said, you know what?
We should all be on that list.
That's an honor to be on
the Southern Poverty Law Center's hate list.
We should all be listed on there.
That's what he said to my face.
But where's that guy publicly saying that?
Right?
Because where is he publicly saying,
hey, this is what the Bible says.
This is right, what he's preaching against the Sodomites.
So, in their heart,
a lot of them obviously support me in their heart.
I mean, who are they siding with?
These devils that are banning me?
These Sodom and Gomorrah types?
I mean, they're just scared.
Yeah, but I'm saying when I talked to him,
he said, hey, I'm with you.
Well, that's the thing I hear too.
I talked to another pastor that said,
I talked to another pastor on the phone
when one of these big battles was going on,
the pastor that I know.
And he said, well, I pretty much said
the exact same thing last Sunday night in my sermon,
but I would never put it online.
Is what he said, so it's like.
Right, yeah, and that's the thing I hear.
It's like, you know, I don't like past experiences,
post-trib, where is it, the Jews, you know.
You know, I understand where he's coming from
in the homos, you know, I believe that.
But yeah, it's like they're letting you
look like the only guy in the world that preaches.
They're standing around letting these news media sources
and all these groups make it out like you
and our crowd are the only ones that preach that way.
And I'm finding more and more, you know,
I just read an article too, they were crediting,
you know, you and the new IFB for all these things
that supposedly all the fundamental Baptists are for.
Yet at the same time, some of these guys
are promoting this article, you know,
just because it's against you.
It's like, are you gonna stand there and let,
you know, these people credit Pastor Anderson
for being, you know, soul winning,
you know, for being, you know, easy believism,
you know, faith only.
I mean, are you gonna be, but they aren't.
It's like, they're okay with just letting you
take all the beating.
You know, that would irritate me a little bit.
It's fine with me, it really doesn't irritate me
because I'm fine with it.
Because at the end of the day,
it just means that more people are gonna hear my message.
You know, if I'm the one getting banned,
then people are gonna Google my name
and they're gonna get the soul winning demonstration,
they're gonna get the Bible way to heaven,
they're gonna get the doctrinal preaching
and they're gonna get saved,
they're gonna learn the Bible.
So I'm for it, you know, it's great.
If they want me to be the poster child for these things,
well, it's fine with me, you know,
and if they wanna go hide somewhere,
I mean, it's really their loss at the end of the day.
So it really doesn't bother me.
Although every once in a while,
I do just have to just wonder at it.
I just can't even believe it
because it makes it seem like it's just this fringe group
of a few people that actually believe the Bible.
When in reality, there are 7,000 men
that haven't bowed the knee to bail.
Right.
So it's really just their loss, you know.
God's gonna protect me and my family,
but there's some bad times coming in this country.
Well, they seem like they're really worried
about that sermon you preach
where you talked about changing the IFB.
They seem really worried about that,
but I've noticed they're fine
with letting you be the poster child
for a lot of the fundamentals, you know,
for the Trinity, you know, for soul winning,
you know, for, you know, hard preaching, you know,
they're letting you be the poster child for it.
So I guess they shouldn't be surprised
if you end up shifting things over to post-trib.
They shouldn't be surprised
that the young people are listening to us.
They're listening to our crowd, you know,
and they're not gonna have a future
unless they start reaching young people,
unless they start engaging in social media
and, you know, getting up to date with 2019 methods.
You know, their newspaper that they're publishing
is not gonna do as much as a documentary film on DVD
or a flash drive or YouTube.
Well, Revival Fires and Dennis Corll are now on Twitter.
They just added that, so they might make a comeback.
Have you ever noticed how older people,
if they get into social media, it's always Twitter?
It's like the old IFB official social media?
Right. I've noticed that.
So basically, I think the story of Pastor Anderson
and where he is today seemed like very ordinary guy,
pretty ordinary childhood,
just went to start an ordinary church, but-
Everyone else went crazy around me.
But really, what happened-
I still consider myself a totally ordinary, mediocre guy.
I mean, I have no great skills.
I'm mediocre at the piano, you know.
I'm mediocre athletically, mediocre intelligence,
you know, mediocre everything.
I'm just a normal guy,
a normal independent Baptist preacher.
I just didn't get the memo
when everyone else was being lobotomized
and just wanting to accept all this crazy, filthy stuff.
I just stayed the same.
So here's the difference.
To me, here's the transition.
When you did that video, uploaded that video of Billy Graham
and it got a million views, and I don't know,
I'm sure a lot of the feedback you got was negative.
No, most people liked it.
Really? Most people liked it?
Yeah, it got a million views
because most people were supporting the video.
Did they have all the comments and stuff back then?
Of course there were negatives.
Back then, I don't think it was a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
It wasn't like, it was like you give it stars.
You give it five stars, four stars.
That video had a good rating
and there was obviously a mixture,
but there was more positive than negative
on both of those videos.
But yeah, it seems like what happened with you,
whenever you did start to get the attention,
you didn't freak out and back off.
You just kept going with it.
I just kept doing the same thing.
I'm gonna hit it even harder
where it's like in the old IFB,
whenever they get hammered with something,
they back off and go into height
where if they'd have just kept going strong,
you know, they would have probably-
I honestly just don't really understand
where they're coming from,
where the fear's coming from, you know?
Because it's not like anything's bad happened to me
in the last 13 and a half years, you know?
Famous last words, you know what I'm saying?
The fear-
What are you so afraid of?
Nothing bad is really,
oh wow, I got banned from South Africa,
the rape capital of the world.
Say, where am I gonna go on vacation now?
Well, the fear is they're undead up to their eyeballs
and they can't lose the money in the church.
Yeah, but yet Faithful Word Baptist Church
always has plenty of money.
We've never had any debt.
We've never been able to pay our bills.
So, they're scared of a phantom.
So lack of faith. Everything's great, yeah.
I mean, I've lived a pretty happy life
over the last 13 and a half years.
Sure, there have been trials and tribulations
and hard times, but overall, there's been more good than bad.
I'm really happy, I'm loving it, I'm enjoying it.
And you know, this month has been great.
All these country bands, I mean, I'm enjoying it.
Well, I'm thankful that you put yourself out there
because I will say when I first started studying
on end times, I thought, I'm just crazy.
Nobody else believes this way.
And I thought, I must be crazy.
And I don't, I'm not really the type of person,
I don't know, I hope I would have,
but I don't know that I'd ever put myself out there
first before anybody else had.
But it did encourage me when I found out,
hey, somebody else believes this way.
Somebody else is seeing what I'm seeing
because I've got to be wrong here
because no one's agreeing with me on this.
But thankfully, you put yourself out there
before other people did.
You didn't wait for a support group
and I think God's blessed your ministry because of that.
And so I think that's a good lesson for the rest of us.
I'm not gonna be that way anymore,
but you did it the right way,
didn't learn the hard way.
So I think this was great.
I think we got a lot of good,
I learned a lot of stuff about you.
I hope so because I'm kind of an open book in my preaching
so everybody kind of already knows everything about me,
but I hope I was able to pull out a few deep stories
from the memory bank today.
Yep, well, thank you very much.
I definitely enjoyed it.
It's good stuff.
Likewise.