Happy Birthday, Faithful Word!
Hey everybody, Pastor Steven Anderson here from Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona.
And this month we're celebrating 10 years of history for Faithful Word Baptist Church.
It has been a great 10 years.
God has blessed tremendously and honestly it's been a huge success far beyond anything I could have imagined.
Especially since when we started 10 years ago, we got off to a little bit of a slow start.
First of all, when my wife and I moved here with only three kids at the time,
we only brought what we could fit into a Ford Escort with five people in it.
So we had stuff under our feet, we had stuff behind our heads.
I mean we were just jammed into this Ford Escort, five people and all of our stuff.
We get here on a Thursday morning and literally had our first service three days later.
So in the midst of having to get the water turned on, the electricity turned on, buy a bed, buy some basic furniture,
I was going out soul winning every day for those three days, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
and just inviting as many people as I could to that first service.
Well the first service rolled around and we had four people show up.
It's funny because I woke up that morning and the first thought in my head when I woke up was, no one's coming.
So I decided to get in the car and drive around to all the people who had said that they would come
and I knocked on their doors and said to them, you're coming, right?
And you could tell they kind of looked at each other like that they weren't coming until I came by.
But then they said, yeah, we're coming.
So we got four different people to show up for that first service, including my family.
Total attendance of nine people.
And then that Sunday night we had a couple different visitors show up.
Wednesday night it was just me and my family.
Next Sunday we had a few different visitors show up.
So we got off to just that slow start of just a few people here and there.
But honestly the church grew a lot slower than I had expected.
We only averaged about 10 people per Sunday morning during that first year.
And there were a lot of times when I questioned what I was doing because I was following the Bible.
I was trying to do everything exactly as the Bible lays out,
which is different than a lot of the advice I'd been given by a lot more modern methods and so forth.
So I questioned myself sometimes.
I didn't really know how it was going to turn out.
And I just decided that no matter what happened, I was just going to stay with the way that I was doing it
because I felt that it was biblical and I shouldn't change.
So I stuck it out for that first year and we came to the one year anniversary of the church.
And we had seven people in the service, which is funny because the first service we had nine people.
And in a year we'd grown to seven.
But anyway we just kept on going.
Let me ask you something. Is it too hard for the Lord to build Faithful Word Baptist Church?
You know, because I don't think God can do it.
I don't think God can build this kind of church.
In 2006, you've got to be kidding.
This is like dinosaur type stuff, right?
This is ancient history.
You know, I don't believe that.
I think God's going to build this church.
God's going to build this house up, jam packed.
We're going to fill it up and then we're going to get a bigger building and we're going to fill that up.
And then we're going to do what we're going to do after that?
We're going to get one that's even bigger and we're going to fill that up.
Because God's going to do it.
And I don't have to take it into my hands and go out and kowtow to the world and get on my knees and say,
Oh, please, would you come to church? We'll make it just however you want it to be.
No, sir! We're going to make it how God wants it to be.
And if God can't do it, then you know what? Let's just go home right now if God can't do it.
Then what are we doing here?
If God can't build this church, what are we doing?
You know, let's go out and have some fun, man. Let's go do something cool.
Let's not go to church if God is not big enough to do something in this church.
And God says, look, I want you to put me to the test.
I want you to believe that I can do something big.
And I want you to make Christianity real in your life.
Not just something where you go to get your little vitamin of,
Oh, I feel so good when I come out of church. I just tingle all over.
You know, God says, look, I want to do something big.
I want you to see me work, but you're limiting me because you don't think that I can do it.
And you think it's too hard for me, but you know what? The Bible says,
Is anything too hard for the Lord?
I have many goals in my life. I have a goal to see as many people saved as I can.
That's why I went to Phoenix, Arizona to start a church knocking doors.
Yes, that's how I started my church.
Yes, that's how I'm going to continue to see God bless that church.
Yes, door-to-door soul winning is what works in 2007.
Yes, preaching the gospel to every creature.
Not handing out a flyer, not just inviting somebody to church,
but opening my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel.
Hey, that's what I'm talking about, soul winning.
I have other goals in my life.
I have a goal to see Faithful Word Baptist Church grow to greater proportions.
I have a goal to raise my family and my children for God.
I have a goal, many goals.
But I see the Apostle Paul's goal, and I'm sure he had all those same type of goals.
I know he did.
But he had another great goal that was the driving force all the time.
He said that I may know him.
So after about a year and a half in the house, we finally got into our first building.
This is actually our very first location.
It's just a small 700 square foot office space.
Right now we're using this as a video studio.
But back then, my pulpit was right here, and all the chairs were facing me this way.
I'd preach this way.
The piano was right there.
You say, Pastor Anderson, do you want to be a successful pastor?
No.
I want you to be a successful Christian.
And so I'm going to be the kind of pastor that will make you successful in your Christian life.
You say, will that make you a success as a pastor?
No.
No, because if I wanted to be a success as a pastor, I'd go, it's fine.
Like Joel Osteen or something.
And I'd just preach only positive, and God's so good.
And we'd have all kinds of jiving music up here, and it'd be like a party up here.
Hey, that's how I'd be successful as a pastor.
I could pull up like the guy that's around the corner in the parking lot here.
There's a church right in this parking lot.
The pastor drives a Jaguar convertible.
The license plate's God's man.
He's driving a $75,000 car.
That's success.
I don't want success. I want you to have success.
And sometimes I have to preach something that makes people get up and walk out.
It makes the revolving door of Faithful Word Baptist Church just spin as people come and go, come and go, come and go.
It doesn't matter, because you're going to succeed if you stay here and listen to the preaching and get it.
And I don't care whether that revolving door spins so fast that people are coming in, going out, coming in, going out as fast as they can go.
That doesn't bother me at all.
Hey, as long as you succeed, it doesn't matter if I succeed.
It matters if you succeed.
That's the kind of pastor I want to be.
That's the kind of leader I want to be.
I want to be like Moses and David.
I want to be humble and little in my own sight.
I'm not trying to get my name in some history book somewhere.
I'm not trying to be in the Guinness Book of World Records.
I'm not trying to be engraved on a plaque somewhere.
One day this body's going to turn into dust and one person's going to be exalted in that day, the Bible says.
When I'm rewarded for anything that I've done for Jesus Christ, Christ alone is going to be exalted in that day.
And that's fine with me.
He must increase.
I must decrease.
Hey, you must increase.
I must decrease.
That's humility.
Putting other people as more important than yourself.
And then in the back there was the mother baby room.
That was the original.
And then off to the side, I just had a space here for some office.
So we met here for ten months and then we pretty much outgrew the place.
So we ended up just moving right across the parking lot to our second location.
And the church continued to grow steadily, slowly but surely.
Honestly, the way that our church grew, the first year we pretty much averaged ten, including my family of five.
And the second year we averaged twenty.
The third year we averaged thirty.
Fourth year we averaged forty.
Pretty much just kept growing by about ten people per year.
This is the truth. This is reality.
Don't kill the messenger.
I'm telling you the truth.
I'm warning you that the people in this city who do not believe on Jesus Christ are on their way to hell.
Whether I say it, whether you say it, whether anybody says it, it's the truth.
People who are not saved, the Bible says, will spend eternity in hell.
Whether you like it, whether I like it or not.
And you're watching a football game.
You're watching a basketball game.
You're watching a baseball game.
You're criticizing Pastor Anderson.
You're criticizing other pastors who are standing up and preaching the truth.
Because it's too negative.
Because it hurt my feelings.
Because it turned off a visitor.
Hey, I'm not here to turn on a visitor.
I'm here to turn on some soul winners to go out and preach the gospel and win people to Christ.
I'm here to try to turn on some of it.
I'm not turning people on for the kingdom.
Hey, if the Bible turns people off, then they're just going to have to be turned off and thank the word Baptist Church.
You know, do you think people join our church because of the fancy building that we're in?
And you know, the same people who say, ah, your church is in a strip mall.
So what?
Those are the same people that couldn't handle this kind of preaching anyway.
So that's true.
It's the same people.
Oh, you know, your church is in a strip mall.
They're the same people who complained when our church was in a house when we first started.
And it's funny, when we switched from the house to the strip mall, a bunch of people showed up who hadn't been in a while.
Oh, wow, you're in a building.
They still didn't like the preaching.
Because it's not about the building.
And you know, I've been to some churches that have a palace of a building.
But you know what's interesting about that?
When you first walk in, you're impressed.
Wow, this is so nice.
You know, after a few weeks, it's just a building.
Then in 2012, when we'd outgrown this building, we got into our current building right here.
And here is where the growth really began to pick up.
I could probably preach about 90-some percent of the Bible and keep a lot of people happy.
Right?
I mean, if I just took the one percent of the Bible.
You know, there's 31,000 verses in the Bible, right?
And I could take those 31,000 verses.
And I could say, you know what?
Let's just take one percent of those 31,000 verses, approximately, that are in the Bible.
Let's take the 310 most offensive verses and just never touch them.
Or maybe, you know what, I'll just preach 90 percent of the Bible.
So I'll take the 3,100, you know, verses that people don't want to hear.
And I'm still preaching a lot of Bible.
You know, but that's not pleasing to God.
You know, God wants me to preach 100 percent.
You want to know what is holding our nation in the balance tonight?
Oh, it's in the balance.
Our nation is in the balance.
Our nation is at the crossroads.
Our nation is in the valley of decision.
And there are very bad things that can happen in this country in the very near future.
It has nothing to do with this election.
It has to do with the men in the pulpits of America.
They are the ones on whom everything depends.
It doesn't depend on Barack Obama at all.
It doesn't depend on Mitt Romney at all.
It depends everything on the preacher.
And I'm not saying this preacher.
I'm saying every preacher.
Every preacher in this country who stands up every week with the word of God in their hand
and a congregation of people before them ready to hear what the Lord has spoken.
They are holding the fate of our country in their hand.
What are they doing with it?
Preaching lame sermons, being afraid of the faces of who's in the congregation,
holding back on key truths because they're not sure how people are going to react when they hear it,
censoring the sermon, sugar coating the sermon, not preaching hard on soul winning,
not leading the charge, not knocking doors, not preaching controversial things,
but preaching things that people want to hear, softening the message.
Look, there's a reason why our country is going through the things that it's going through.
It's one word, sin.
This is the building that our church has met in for the last three and a half years.
And the accomplishments that we've had over the last ten years have been a team effort.
It has been the work of a lot of zealous, hardworking Christians that make up Faithful Word Baptist Church.
It has not been a one man show.
One man could not even begin to accomplish what we've accomplished.
And so going into 2016, our church is continuing to grow and thrive.
And the more people who come here, the more we're going to accomplish for God.
And it's been exciting just over the years in this building as we've knocked out walls to accommodate the growth.
In fact, even just right now, we're expanding the auditorium as our church continues to thrive.
So if you're a part of Faithful Word Baptist Church going into 2016, you are here at the most exciting time in our church's history.
God has blessed us tremendously over the past ten years, but the greatest days are yet to come.
One thing I like about Faithful Word is that it's not just a one man show.
We definitely all really like Pastor Anderson, but it's the whole church, it's the whole congregation that really makes it what it is.
It's all the people.
Hi, my name is Caleb Shue. I moved here from Seattle, Washington just a few months ago.
We moved here a couple of years ago after we started listening to Pastor Anderson on the internet.
My family and I moved here from Kentucky about 2800 miles to attend Faithful Word Baptist Church.
Me and my wife actually moved here six years ago and we had our son here.
I moved my family from the most isolated population in Hanalei, Hawaii to come to this church.
We moved 1777 miles here to be part of a soul winning church, to be part of a church that has congregational singing,
to be part of a church that, you know, every Sunday you're learning something new.
My wife was very hesitant to move and once we were here for about three months,
I remember a particular incident where she told me after church one day that she's never been this happy in her entire life.
And I feel the same exact way. Faithful Word has impacted me in an extreme way.
We moved out here. My wife was six months pregnant.
I had a two year old and everything I own in the back of a Camry.
And we came out here, no job, just a place to live and a great church to go to.
People move across country for jobs and things like that, you know,
and they say, oh, you're moving across country for a church. There's churches everywhere.
Well, there's jobs everywhere, you know, but they say, oh, well, that's crazy.
You know, it's like, well, not jobs like that. It's like, well, not churches like that.
You know, so this it was the best decision probably I ever made.
And I don't know where I would be without Faithful Word.
Yep. Best decision we ever made was coming here. It's helped our daughter.
It's helped the soul winning grow. It's helped our knowledge in the Bible grow and just, you know,
generally improved our life all across the board.
The reason I moved to this church is because, you know, the first time I heard Pastor Anderson's sermon,
I just thought, I've never heard anybody preach like this. I've never heard the Bible preach this way.
And so I kept listening and I kept growing in the knowledge of the Lord and the Word of God.
And I thought, you know, this church is something so special. I really need to be a part of it.
And I think that's why I moved down is because I thought there's a church that is so passionate about winning souls.
I think I need to be a part of this church. I think that's the only place where God would have me go,
is to be a part of a church that's like Faithful Word Baptist Church.
So I just want to thank Pastor Anderson for being the pastor who will stand up for the Word of God
when it's not being preached at other places.
Hello, my name is Chris Segura. I've been a member of Faithful Word Baptist Church for over six years.
And what I want to say to Pastor Anderson is this.
The Bible says in 1 Timothy 5.17,
Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the Word and Doctrine.
Famous words by the Apostle Paul.
And on behalf of the Seguras, I just want to take a couple minutes to tell you what an honor it's been to labor with you in the Word and Doctrine.
Well I first came to this church because I saw a big ad in the phone book that said we're not a charismatic church and we do soul winning.
At that point in my life I was sick of the charismatic church and I wanted to learn soul winning.
And lo and behold, I got saved here. So I needed to have the soul winning to myself.
So I got saved here. I got baptized. And very importantly, I learned how to win souls.
A lot of churches talk a big talk. They talk about all the ministries they have and all the different things that they're doing.
But where do we really see the fruit of their labor?
They're always saying what they're doing, but what do we see?
Here at Faithful Word, what you do see if you come down is you actually see people soul winning.
You actually see people's lives being changed.
I honestly can say that if it wasn't for the church, Pastor Anderson and just the whole family,
all the struggles that we've gone through together between me and my wife, I mean, I don't even know where we'd be.
I could say we would be fully lost.
I mean, just this past Thanksgiving I was looking around at everything in my apartment.
Like I said, I didn't come out here with anything, but I have a fully furnished apartment thanks to the people in this church.
Everything I have since I got here pretty much was given to me.
I love how this church wants to serve God and they take the Bible seriously and they try to live their lives according to the Bible.
I've never seen that in any other church where people really do take the Word of God seriously.
They read it, they preach it, and I learn how to preach at this church.
And so I learn something new every week. I love the doctrine that's preached behind the pulpit.
I learn something every week when I come to church from the congregation and from the pastor.
So I'm blessed immensely because of that.
After making the transition from listener to actually church member, it has helped my family tremendously over the years.
I'm just so thankful for everything, for everybody at the church.
I love being at Faithful Word Baptist Church. The people are so friendly.
They'll be your friends after you've just known them for a few hours.
It's by far the most friendly and welcoming and brotherly church I've ever been a part of.
Is this the best church ever or what?
This is the best church in the world. That's the whole reason I moved here from so far away.
If there was another option, I wouldn't have moved 2800 miles.
On behalf of this church, I want to say we love you so much.
Thank you for saving us spiritually and physically.
You just have no idea how much damage you have helped us not to go through based on your word,
for perfecting us with your word, for teaching us the truth.
Thank you so much, Pastor Anderson.
And on three, can we say we love you, Pastor Anderson?
On three, ready? One, two, three.
We love you, Pastor Anderson!
Hi, this is Pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist Church in Sacramento, California.
And as a personal friend of Pastor Steve Anderson and the Anderson family,
I just wanted to take a moment and congratulate them on their 10-year anniversary
and just thank them for their faithfulness and the work that they've done.
I know for me personally, Pastor Anderson has been a huge influence in my life
and has helped me to grow and to become a better Christian.
And Mrs. Anderson, Susana, has been a great personal friend to my wife
and that's had a huge influence on her.
And their family, they're just a great, great family.
And we're so thankful for the influence they've had on us personally.
But also our church, Verity Baptist Church, would not be the church that it is today
if it wasn't because of Pastor Anderson and because of the influence of Faithful War Baptist Church.
And I'm just one testimony of thousands of people all over the world that could say the same thing
and many churches that would say that they are not who they are and where they are
if it wasn't for the ministry of Pastor Steve Anderson and a Faithful War Baptist Church.
And it's my privilege on this day to be able to announce that the church
and not just Faithful Word but many, many supporters and many listeners all throughout the world
have pitched in to be able to surprise them with a nice gift.
You know, many people don't realize that in ministry there's a huge burden that's put
not just on the pastor but on the family.
And today we want to give their family a gift.
They're going to be sending them on a trip to Prescott for six days
where they're going to be able to spend time together as a family
just relaxing, playing board games by the fireplace and of course they'll be hiking
and there'll be zip lines and they're just going to have a great time to be able to spend together as a family.
And then also there's another trip where Pastor Anderson and his wife will be going to Maui for ten days
and there's going to be all sorts of exciting things for them to do there.
And if there's anyone, if there is a pastor and a pastor's wife and a ministry that deserves this kind of time
it's Pastor Anderson, the work that he does, just how selfless he is and how he puts himself into other people.
He deserves this time and I just want to thank you for being a friend.
I want to thank you for your faithfulness and I'm looking forward
and I know that all of us are looking forward to see what God has in store for Pastor Anderson,
for his wife and for Faithful Word Baptist Church.
We know that the best days are yet to come and they're going to do even greater works than they've done.
God bless you brother and congratulations.
Happy Pastor anniversary!