Hi everybody, it's Pastor Jonathan Shelley from Steadfast Baptist Church, and I wanted
to make a very serious video about a situation that has gone public, and some pastors and
ministers have actually called for the resignation of one of my friends, Pastor Steven Anderson,
and they have suggested that he should resign or is unqualified, and I am very close with
him. I've called out other preachers in the past, I've made a lot of public comments,
and so, you know, I don't think it's always my place to make a video or make a statement
about this, but I do believe in this situation I want to make a video, and it's mostly because
I don't think that it makes sense for Pastor Anderson to necessarily respond in this situation
because it's his family, and, you know, to give him and his family a chance to restore,
I don't think that it even makes sense for him to make a video, but I did want to make
a video to address the situation of if he should resign or what my thoughts and feelings
are on it. I've taken some notes here to help remind me of some of the things that I wanted
to say, but this is due to the fact that some of his, a few of his sons have made a few
public videos, and they've gotten some attention, and they've said some different things about
him and his family and just their kind of family dynamic, and so some people have suggested
that this is a necessary situation for him to resign. Now, there is a lot of information
that's been put online about this, but there's also information that has not been put online.
I have personally talked with Pastor Anderson in great detail about the situation multiple
times. His wife has communicated several times to my wife things that have been going on.
I have reviewed all of the videos and many of the comments that have been made, so I
also went to Faith Forward Baptist Church for a few years. I'm very close with Pastor
Anderson. In fact, we probably talk on the phone, you know, around once a week. Sometimes
it's more, sometimes it's less, but we have a very close relationship. I work with him
on a lot of things. I've been around his kids several times, and so I definitely know their
family well. I know him very well, and I know the situation pretty well, and, you know,
I actually called him and I asked him some pretty tough questions, and I guess in the
question of if he should resign or not, I just wanted to get some clarity. I wanted
to ask my questions, ask him some very difficult questions, and, you know, after having talked
with him and understanding the situation in very great detail, you know, I do not believe
that he should step down and resign at this time, but I want to explain why, and I kind
of want to talk about the situation in great detail. There are a lot of people that would
love for Faith Word Baptist Church to be destroyed and Pastor Steven Anderson to be
destroyed and his whole family to be destroyed and, frankly, every Christian to be destroyed.
Additionally, the Internet, unfortunately, it magnifies things sometimes. You know, the
Internet can be a great tool. It can be a great weapon. All the Internet does is magnify
things, whether it's good, it can magnify good greatly. If it's bad, it can magnify
bad greatly, and we live in a world where, unfortunately, sometimes some people's lives
and situations get really magnified on the Internet, and we see a lot of detail that
we wouldn't normally see. You know, I believe that there's a lot of evil people that have
taken advantage of Pastor Anderson and his children in this situation, and they're really
manipulating his children against him, and, you know, I think what would be sad is to
allow these evil workers and a lot of these bitter, envious people to be successful in
manipulating and taking advantage of this situation.
I do believe that he should continue pastoring, and here's the thing. In my conversations
with Pastor Anderson, he was completely transparent. He even asked me point blank. He said, do
you believe I should step down? He told me if I think that he should, that I should say
that to him, and I should preach about it, and that he would still be my friend. And,
you know, even if he did step down, it wouldn't hinder the work of Christ, because at the
end of the day, he still should be used as an evangelist and as a preacher and can write
books and do shows and give his opinion. Like, the alternative reality is not even a negative
reality. Faith-forward Baptist Church can continue to go and reach people and do great
missions trips, so even if that was the necessary step, you know, the work of Christ can still
move forward, and the new IFB is doing great. So, you know, it's not like that's necessarily
a negative outcome or a bad outcome, but I don't think that it's the right outcome. I
don't think it's the right move. It doesn't make sense based on the circumstances and
the details of the situation. And, you know, I've asked Pastor Anderson about, you know,
his home life and some really difficult, and frankly it was embarrassing on my part,
questions to ask him, but, you know, a lot of things that were said about him online
are just simply not true. And, you know, I definitely believe his testimony. He's never
struck his wife or punched her or done anything like this. He has not abused his wife. I do
not believe he abused his children. And the world today loves to twist facts and twist
reality and be hypersensitive in these issues, and so a lot of times there's always a little
bit of truth to every statement, but they sometimes get exaggerated and taken advantage
of. And I believe, unfortunately, while his children, many times they're going to talk
about things that happened, they may misremember, miscommunicate, kind of exaggerate. I know
myself included sometimes when I'm telling stories from the past that I sometimes don't
get all the details right. And, of course, if we're in a bad mood, if we are upset, we
can tend to maybe exaggerate, embellish, or twist certain facts. Maybe even sometimes
just make things up even occasionally. And I believe, unfortunately, that's what's happened
in this situation. You know, I think that it's also clear that, you know, even from
his own kids' testimony, that Pastor Anderson's a really likable, kind, gentle person, you
know, in general. I mean, if you hang out with Pastor Anderson, he's one of the most
easy-going people. He's fun to be around. I've seen him interact with his children on
several occasions. They have a lot of good time. They're laughing. They have fun. You
know, just the general disposition. I mean, he's definitely a likable person, very charismatic,
very caring, and, you know, he's very smart. You get to learn a lot when you get to talk
to him. And so, you know, this has been confirmed by his children. I believe that, unfortunately,
you know, his kids are just, a couple of his kids are just misremembering. You know, especially
John's kind of just exaggerating some of the things that he said about his father. And,
you know, it's probably good punishment if the kids didn't like it. You know, it's funny,
it's like, well, we were punished and we didn't like it. It's like, no one likes punishment.
Punishment's bad. And, you know, frankly speaking, from my own personal experiences, you know,
I didn't like getting punished. And if I wanted to try and twist the narrative of what my
parents were like, you know, I could make them seem bad. In fact, I do remember distinctly,
my brother was one time punished by my mom with a two-by-four. And he was a teenager,
and he was just very rebellious, very stubborn, and she was a small woman. And, you know,
she was trying to figure out a way to punish him, and she did it. And look, I don't believe
that was abuse. You know, it was just, but again, if you just take those circumstances
out of context and you're just like, my mom's using two-by-fours, it's just like, you could
really exaggerate and make things look way worse than they really are. My mom was a great
mom. She loved us. She never abused us whatsoever. You know, I really appreciated her parenting
in a lot of ways. And unfortunately, you know, my brother was just a stubborn, rebellious
kid at that stage in his life. And he, you know, all of us were. All of us make dumb
mistakes. And, you know, my brother and some of my siblings at times said some really negative
things about their parents because they were dealing with their own issues, and they got
upset. And I don't want to repeat them, but I've heard just some of the worst things imaginable,
and frankly, it wasn't even true. I've heard people say that they hate their parents, and
it wasn't true. I've heard spouses say weird things, and, you know, it just wasn't true
in the moment. They were just, they were angry, and they got confused, and they're not thinking
straight. And, you know, sometimes we can just say dumb things. We can get into bad
spirit and a bad attitude. And unfortunately, because of the internet, this allows people
to take advantage of you when you're vulnerable, maybe when you're immature. You know, when
I was a teenager, I was very immature. I did a lot of dumb things, and I'm glad that someone
wasn't there alongside to try and encourage me to get on camera and just say a bunch of
really dumb things, a lot of immature things, and to especially talk negatively about my
parents. I'm sure I'm just as guilty as anybody else as occasionally saying negative things
about my parents, but, you know, that wasn't appropriate. That wasn't right. You know,
I love my parents. My parents did a really good job in general. And while I'm sure that
there's things that I would nitpick, and there's things that I want to do differently, you
know, if I wanted to, I could paint them out as horrible people and say all these terrible
things, but it just kind of, it's just kind of a manipulating situation. I know my brothers
and sisters, they would say, oh, dad used to break paddles on us and stuff. But I remember
asking my dad about that situation, because they were saying like, oh, he's so bad, and
he would make us and it's like one time my dad was like disciplining my sister and he
basically like missed or something and hit like the bed or something and that's what
broke the paddle. So it wasn't like he's breaking the paddle on the child. They were just embellishing
it, changing the story to try and make it seem worse than it is. And of course, this
can happen. This kind of stuff does happen. And you know, I think that unfortunately,
what's very clearly happening in this situation is very evil, bitter people and even some
reprobates are trying to manipulate some of Pastor Anderson's children that are adults
against him and take advantage of him. And you know, this is what I want to say, I want
to say to his children, look, you guys don't have to be your father. You don't have to
be a zealous, on fire pastor who reads his Bible for hours every single day and learns
all these foreign languages and goes on all these missions trips. Like it's okay if you
don't want to be that zealous if you're not going to be that Christian. Obviously, everybody
would would hope for children to be very zealous. But you know, most people are going to just
be an average, normal Christian that just goes to church and kind of lives their life.
And it's okay if you're that person. I think that there's maybe this pressure on them to
be as zealous and on fire and just like their dad and it's okay that you're not. But you
don't necessarily need to try to go to this other extreme and try and act like your dad
is doing something wrong. Just to justify the fact that you're not going to be like
your father. Most people are not going to be Pastor Anderson. Most people are not going
to be a pastor. Most people are not going to be a missionary. Most people are not going
to memorize scores of scripture. That's okay. We understand that. Of course we would want
more people to be like that. But it's okay to just be a normal Christian. But don't allow
your own feelings of insecurity about this cause you to lash out at your father. You
know, the Bible makes it clear that it's supposed to honor our father and our mother. And even
if a lot of the things or pretty much all the things that they said were true about
their parents, it does not justify you going out and going online and talking negatively
about your parents and saying all these things. You know, it's just, it's not the right attitude.
It's not the right way to handle yourself. I would encourage you to stop making videos
because even if it was true, you shouldn't be doing this. This isn't the right way to
handle it. Evil people are trying to take advantage of you. I wanted to read a verse.
The Bible says in Proverbs 23 verse 22, hearken unto thy father that begat thee and despise
not thy mother when she is old. You know, there is a tendency in man to potentially
not like their parents, not appreciate their parents, not be thankful. But you know, the
good thing about Pastor Anderson and his children is his children are very smart. His children
are very articulate. They are well-read. They are very healthy physically. They are saved.
They still, you know, prefer the King James Bible. You know, these kids, you know, from
a big picture are still great kids. Now, are they doing some dumb things? Have they made
some bad decisions here? Have they said some negative things about their parents online?
Yeah, and that's unfortunate, and I hate that, but you know what? Teenagers do dumb
things. I think we all have to recognize that teenagers do really dumb things, and this
is more extreme than most situations, and I get that. But most people are not Pastor
Anderson. Most people do not have a hoard of reprobates and enemies trying to attack
them all the time. Most people are not an extremely influential pastor that's leading
a soul-winning charge and revival in our country, and so I think that it's not necessarily
fair to say, well, I don't have this situation, but you know, you may not have as many evil,
horrible people trying to negatively influence your children and take advantage of them,
and while they're vulnerable, use them against you in a negative way. And I think that we
have to take that in consideration. I am willing, you know, to talk to any of his children.
I, you know, I, but here's the thing, I'll be honest with them, and what I would love
to see is I would love to see his children decide, hey, you know what? That probably
wasn't the best move. I need to go back and tell my parents I'm sorry and just get right
with them. Because this is what I know about both Pastor Anderson and his wife is they
still love their children very deeply. They care about them very much. He's told me that.
He loves them. He appreciates, you know, their relationship greatly, and he would love to
see them restored. He would love them for return. Of course, he wants them to, you know,
repent and, you know, apologize for some of the things they've done wrong, but that's
what they need to do. And, you know, I haven't seen anybody, you know, saying, hey, these
kids need to stop what they're doing, apologize, get right with their parents, and really that's
what needs to be said to these children. And I totally get why he would not make a public
video about this or say this because I would never want to have a video online that could
be used by all these enemies and trolls to constantly have all these snippets of me saying
something negative about my children online. I think they don't realize that Pastor Anderson
cares for them so deeply that he's not willing to permanently ruin their reputation or say
these things to hurt and harm them. And, you know, that's why I feel like maybe it's necessary
for someone else to maybe make a video or say something. And, you know, some people
may disagree, maybe I shouldn't get involved, I don't know, but at the same time, like,
I care about Pastor Anderson so much and I want his family to be restored and I think
that someone needs to tell these children, look guys, you know, you're not making the
right moves here, you're not honoring your parents, you're being disrespectful, you're
being rebellious, you're being taken advantage of. These people making videos with you do
not love you. They do not care about you. They only want to hurt you and your parents.
They hate you. Please stop allowing people that hate you and despise you to take advantage
of you and manipulate you right now. The person that actually loves you is your parents. I
know this. Pastor Anderson and Juja love you. These evil workers do not love you. Now I
want to respond to some other things. There is some pastors and leaders that said he should
step down. Somebody that I know very well and was a friend in the past is Pastor McMurtry.
He's made a public statement about this and said that he believes that Pastor Anderson
should step down. And he said that, you know, me and my church and our group are a bunch
of cowards and Kool-Aid drinkers for not wanting him to step down. I want to address that.
For one, I totally understand where Pastor McMurtry is coming from. I understand his
viewpoint and I even respect his viewpoint. You know, from the outside looking in, I think
it would be easy to judge the situation and just say, I think that it looks too bad and
that Pastor Anderson should step down. But since I have investigated and asked the questions
and know these people individually, I don't think that that's the right move. And so I
do disagree with Pastor McMurtry on this situation, but I don't think that Pastor McMurtry
is the enemy here. I don't think him expressing his viewpoint is even necessarily a bad thing
because that is his true viewpoint and he's expressed it and I totally see where he's
coming from. I want to explain, though, why I still disagree on this. And before I do,
I do also want to say something else. And again, I wrote some notes down just so I'd
make sure to remember some of the things that I wanted to say. But, you know, when it comes
to Pastor McMurtry, there has been some animosity back and forth in the past. And, you know,
I kind of a few years ago was realizing, like, this doesn't make sense for me and other fundamental
Baptist pastors to be enemies. Like, we have greater enemies out there and bigger foes
to fight. Like, I just don't want there to be this bad blood. And like, I had taken some
videos down that I had made about him in the past. And, you know, in hindsight, you know,
especially one of the sermons that I preached about Pastor McMurtry, I made some, like,
really speculative statements at the time. Our church had been going through a lot of
serious situations. Our money had been stolen and people are trying to overthrow our church. And,
you know, I wasn't sure what was going on. And what I should have done is I should have just
called Pastor McMurtry, asked him all about it. But in that sermon, I had made some really
speculative statements about it and kind of insinuated some things about him and his wife.
And, you know, those weren't true. I talked to him shortly after that. And I've talked to him
a couple times since then. I even talked to him recently about this. And, you know, he did not
have anything to do with that. You know, that was wrong for me to insinuate those things. And,
I'm sorry for having done something like that. Additionally, I had made some comments about some
of his sermons. And, you know, I definitely disagree with some of the things that he's
preached. But I think I should have probably handled myself a little bit more respectfully,
talked to him privately, tried to get his side of the story before just necessarily going out there
and lambasting him or saying some of the things I did. Additionally, he had made a video with
another situation with another pastor. And he seemed to imply that he was kind of threatening
this pastor with some information from my perspective. And so I ended up saying,
this seems like a mild form of extortion. And I think some people have taken that and really run
with that. And, you know, since then, I've talked with him about the situation. My interpretation at
the time was that it was a mild form of extortion. And that's what I called it. But, you know, I
don't believe that was his intention after speaking with him. I believe he's sincere. You know, I think
that maybe just the wording, you know, caused me to have that opinion. But I don't believe he's an
extortioner. I don't think people should say that. I don't think he should be stepped down. I don't
think he's disqualified. I don't think people should attack him over that. And, you know, I've
taken down that video. You know, I don't want to fight other pastors. And I don't want people to
attack other pastors. You know, our biggest enemies in the world are not Pastor McMurtry and his wife.
You know, I think that they sincerely love the Lord. His wife is a really sweet lady. And they
appear to be very good parents. They seem to have really good children. They do soul winning. He is
not my enemy. He's not my enemy in this situation. I think that, you know, the enemies are very
clear. The reprobates and these bitter, envious people that are trying to take advantage of the
situation to make it way worse than it is. There's a lot of slander and railing and all kinds of
accusations being thrown everywhere. And that's not healthy for anyone. That doesn't help anybody.
And I think that especially on our side of the equation, we need to do better and not return
evil for evil or railing for railing, but try to do our best to stick to the facts and try to
be gracious. You know, again, I don't know that I've always been gracious. I've called out pastors
in the past. And I think that in some times maybe I was being a little too harsh. I've tried to
change that a little bit because I want to make sure that the people I'm attacking are really
worthy of that attack and that we're really fighting the right people because I do not
believe other independent, phenomenal Baptists are our enemy. You know, if they're wrong in the
gospel, yeah, we need to call them out and we need to label them. But you know, people that are right
in the gospel, even if they do some things we don't agree with, you know, I'm gonna try my best
to try to give them more grace than I have necessarily in the past. I also want to say
again, you know, I probably insinuated some things about Pastor McMurtry, maybe even his wife, and
you know, again, I do not harbor ill will towards them. I think that they're great people. And while
I may disagree with them on a few minor points, it's usually something minor. And you know, my
personality sometimes is to make things seem a little bit more bombastic or, or extreme than
they really are. And you know, I want to do a better job of that as well. Because again, these
are great people. And you know, I understand why Pastor McMurtry maybe doesn't necessarily want to
have something to do with our crowd, and has had has distanced himself at times, because you know,
some people can be pretty rude, pretty ungracious, and maybe just a little immature at times. And you
think that we should try to work on improving that and having more charity in general. So I want to
make it clear, even though I disagree with Pastor McMurtry, you know, opinion on this this situation,
I totally see where he's coming from. I've had a long conversation with him about it. And I don't
even fault him for his his his opinion. I just I just do disagree. And I don't disagree because I
dislike him or I think there's something negative about him. I simply disagree with him because of
the situation. And I'm gonna address that, but I wanted to at least make it clear. You know,
I'm not making this as a response to me not liking Pastor McMurtry or other people that have called
out Pastor Anderson. I'm not making this in response to the fact that I'm just his close
friend. I just think that we need to look at the situation and create the right standard for
pastors moving forward. Now, this is something I've wrestled with for a while. As far as like
exactly how do you interpret these situations? What does happen if a pastor has adult children
that have gone bad? And you know, I've thought about like, what what would happen? What if a
pastor raised, you know, six or seven kids and one of those kids ended up being a reprobate? What
would you do? And you know, from my perspective, you know, if if one of these kids goes if a kid
goes bad became a reprobate, I still would not hold that against the pastor and call for his
resignation. You know, I think that there is free will. I'm not a Calvinist. I do believe that
people get to make their own decisions. And while we should do our best to try and get them saved
and encourage them to serve the Lord, it's possible that a kid could just go bad. And
and frankly speaking, we look at some of the greatest men in the Bible, many of them had bad
children. It's possible to say that every single man of God in the Bible is a bad parent. Or maybe
a simpler explanation is just that free will really exists. And that Cain really killed Abel
and that, you know, many men of God had some bad kids time to time, and that it's not necessarily
meaning that those people are bad people or did something wrong in their parenting, but more that
children truly have free will. Of course, no parent is perfect. But here's the thing when it
comes to Pastor Anderson, there is no clear area that we could all just point to and say,
this is the area of where his parenting is bad. You know, he disciplines his children,
that's been evidenced very clearly. He obviously provides for them, he takes care of them, he's
educated them, he's taken them to church, they're well groomed. And in fact, even according to the
world, you know, he's been investigated by CPS multiple times by a bunch of false reports,
and they've cleared him every single time. Because there isn't anything really there. In fact,
there's nothing there. It's not even that there's a little bit. Of course, no one's perfect, like I
said. But there's no evidence of anything there. You know, I've been around him, I've seen him. I'm
not going to try and say that he hasn't made mistakes, because I don't know. But I'm sure
every parent's made some mistakes. We can't hold pastors to this ideal of pastors can never make
any mistakes. And of course, teenagers and young adults are going to sometimes have bitterness
towards their parents because they're still immature, they're still growing up, and they
still just don't know what's going on. And I think unfortunately, the internet allows them to air out
a lot of dumb stuff. And you know, I hope that these kids can can realize that maybe they're
being taken advantage of. But look, I mean, his children are still successful. It's not like the
scenario I even dreamed up is even a reality because his kids are saved. They're, they're hard
working. They're successful in their careers. They're, you know, fun people to be around. In
some, you know, a lot of people have their friends, you know, they have relationships, they
are very articulate. So you know, it's not like these kids are just even really that horrible.
When you look at the big picture, yeah, did they say some dumb things online? Sure. Have they made
some mistakes? Sure. Obviously, you can see that, you know, John and some of his children have made
some bad decisions. They've gone against some of the preaching that Pastor Anderson has clearly
laid out what the Bible says, and they have some bad interpretations on things. But that doesn't
make them a horrible person that doesn't make them some evil person or something like that. They're
just making some bad decisions. And, you know, unfortunately, for some people, they need some
space to make some bad decisions. The prodigal son, I mean, this guy went out and made some bad
decisions. And then he came to himself and he realized, man, I've really screwed up. And I made
some bad choices. I don't believe that the parent of the prodigal son was a bad parent. That child
had a time of rebellion. And you know, that's, it is what it is. It would have been a shame for him
to have had social media. And the time when he was living with harlots, spending all his money on
harlots and riotous living, that would have been shameful and embarrassing. But, you know, I'm not
going to blame the father for that situation. And there's not really anything here that we can point
to. So number one, there isn't anything clear. Pastor Anderson doesn't believe there's anything
clear. And then why would we end up rewarding a bunch of evil workers and reprobates by forcing
Pastor Anderson to either quit ministering or quit pastoring or something like this or step down
when there isn't some obvious issue? There isn't some obvious issue where, you know, with like
Pastor Romero, who committed adultery and was visiting casinos, those are clear lines. And those
are clear things that we can point to and say, he did this, therefore, he's disqualified. There is
no clear error here. There is no clear situation. You know, I think that it's something that we have
to realize that there's a little bit of gray and that free will really exists. And it's not fair
to necessarily hold pastors accountable for all the actions of adult children. I don't think that's
a good precedent. I don't think it makes sense. And I think that we need to not reward the enemies
of God who want to take advantage of children, because if we reward them, then they're going to
do this to everyone. They're going to say, oh, now all I have to do is find any pastor's kid and try
to influence them and take advantage of them and then I can disqualify a pastor. You know,
that's a bad precedent. And that doesn't make sense. Additionally, I'm sure that these videos
have gotten a lot of attention. And you know, that's why I'm making a public video. Normally,
I would stay out of it. I'd say it's not my business. And you know, frankly, it isn't my
business. I simply want to make this video because I want these kids to maybe hear a different voice
and say, look, you need to stop what you're doing. It doesn't make sense. You know,
I'm willing to talk with you if you want to have someone to talk to. And I'll tell you lovingly
that I disagree with your decisions and I'll try to help you through the situation, but I don't
think what you're doing is right. And look, you know, when it comes to the qualifications of a
bishop, you know, the Bible does talk about having faithful children not accused of riot unruly. The
Bible talks about ruling your house well. And frankly speaking, here's the thing. Obviously,
Pastor Anderson is punishing his kids. They're obviously getting saved. They obviously well
behaved in church. And you know, I've never observed their children in his presence being,
you know, disrespectful and not being well behaved. I mean, they were very well behaved
in church and very kind and fun to be around, frankly speaking, in a lot of cases. So,
you know, I think that unfortunately for them, they're very smart and very privileged.
And they don't realize how good they've had it in a lot of ways. And so they're just kind of
latching on to whatever negative things they can dream up in their mind. And they're just,
they haven't really had a lot of negative things. So they're just kind of inventing these things
and allowing the world's vocabulary and language to
to pervert reality. And I hope that maybe they will consider some people that actually
love them and care about them, what they think about the situation.
I also want to say that there are people that really hate the new IFB. And these people should
be avoided. I don't think that that's Pastor McMurtry. I don't think that that's these children.
I don't think that that is Pastor Anderson. We know who they are. And we should avoid these
people, have nothing to do with them. The Bible is crystal clear on that subject. And these people
do not love Pastor Anderson. They do not love his family and they want to destroy it. And so,
you know, please avoid these individuals. Additionally, you know, I'm praying for
Pastor Anderson and his family. I'm praying that his children will have a change of heart.
And, you know, for the people that are going to obviously disagree with me and say
that they think that I'm just biased or whatever, it doesn't really matter what my opinion is.
God's will will prevail. And, you know, I'm praying for the Lord's will to prevail. And,
you know, if I'm wrong, if Pastor Anderson is wrong in this situation, time will tell. But at
the end of the day, you know, there's nothing obvious here. There's nothing clear here to
change the status quo. Pastor Anderson's church is doing great. They're doing amazing soul-winning
trips and missions trips. The spirit in that church is great. I've visited it recently. It
has a great spirit. A lot of the evil people that have been there in the past have been purged from
that church. You know, there's a lot of great people in Faith Ward Baptist Church. And frankly
speaking, just the movement in general that he's associated with, the New IFB, is doing amazing.
Verity Baptist Church had record-breaking attendance at their 14-year anniversary.
Our church had record-breaking attendance at our 10-year anniversary. And so, of course,
the devil would love to stop this amazing group of Christians that are doing a lot of things for
the Lord and are very zealous. And, you know, this does not need to stop. We need to continue
preaching the gospel, going soul-winning, reaching more people, and not allow these kind of inward
attacks to distract away from the true enemies of the gospel and what's going on. Our world is
getting very bad very quickly. We need as Christians to rally together and to love one
another. And yes, we do need to hold each other accountable when necessary. And I think that,
you know, I think I've done so. I've asked Pastor Anderson all the hard questions,
embarrassing questions to ask. I've done the research. I've listened to the videos.
And I'm willing to talk to his children. But at this point, like, the evidence is obvious.
The situation's pretty clear. And so I hope that people will not be discouraged by something like
this. And I think that there still can be good out of this. You know, maybe because of the attention
this has gotten, some people will just hear about these churches. They'll hear the gospel. They'll
get saved. Hopefully this will cause other children to see from this example and say,
wow, that's a bad decision. I don't want to do something like this and shame my parents and
make these bad moves. And you know, I think that maybe it can help these children realize
it's okay to not be Pastor Anderson or, like a lot of the members of Faith Word Baptist Church,
if you just want to be a normal Christian, just be a normal Christian. But you know,
you need to apologize to your parents. You need to get right. You need to stop criticizing them
and being negative online. You need to stop exaggerating and telling things that aren't true.
And you know, you need to stop making some bad life decisions and hanging out with bad people.
They do not care about you. They do not love you. And you could make even worse decisions and
hurt yourselves even worse. And I don't want to see that. I would hate to see that.
You know, for most pastors, and I'm not trying to shame them, but for most pastors,
they're not very public online. They're not making a big splash and they're not doing much.
And for them and their families, you know, maybe their kids aren't doing things like this, but
they're also not in the spotlight. They don't have a bunch of enemies coming around them.
And you know, so you can't necessarily compare everybody with Pastor Anderson. He is a little
bit of a unique situation and he's a little bit more influential than most independent
Baptist preachers. And so you're going to see more attacks, more heat. You know, I've been
pastoring for, you know, a short time, six years or so, but I've seen some extreme persecution.
Some of the weirdest people that I've ever met have come to these churches. And I didn't grow
up in this movement. So the people, some of the people that have been attached, attracted to the
new happy churches are not normal people. These are some of the worst of the worst,
the most evil people, the scummiest people, and they would love to take advantage of
good people and hurt them and harm them. And don't allow that to discourage you and allow them to
take advantage of you. Additionally, there's a lot of fakes and gossipers and slanders online,
and we need to avoid them, not feed the trolls, you know, and try to realize there's going to be
a lot of haters and they're never going to stop hating. You know, unfortunately Pastor Anderson's
life has become a little bit of a reality TV and a lot of dramas aired out, but you know what,
life's messy sometimes. And we should stop allowing enemies to take advantage of this
and highlight everything that they can and twist the facts. We need to realize that we're here for
the cause of Christ, and this is not beneficial to the cause of Christ, of course, in a sense of,
you know, children talking negatively about their parents online. It's never good, it's never okay,
and so we need to stop encouraging this behavior, justifying this behavior, acting like it's a good
thing. You know, we need to realize that Christianity is going to go forward and that
the new IFB is going to go forward, and Pastor Anderson should continue pastoring, in my opinion.
Now if he makes a different decision, it's up to him. I have no control over him. I'm only his
friend. But I want to encourage him. I think that he's being attacked right now, and you know,
the Bible does say that a man's foes shall be they of his own household. We can't ignore that verse.
We can't ignore that there's children that are rising up against their parents. We can't ignore
the fact that the law prescribed a situation in which children would be stubborn, rebellious,
and not hearken unto their father and their mother, and God forbid that would be any child
of any pastor, but it's possible, and we need to make sure that we are giving pastors the benefit
of the doubt, that we're gracious, and you know, I think it makes more sense to have a Gamaliel
viewpoint and say, look, let, you know, let's let them alone. If God be for them, who can be
against them? You know, we don't want to fight against God, and I believe that God is with Pastor
Anderson. He's with Faith Word Baptist Church. They're doing great things. They're having great
soul-winning trips and missions trips, and I want to encourage them that their spirit is great,
and I believe that God is going to still use this church, use the new IFB, and he's going to
continue to reach more people, and I want to see more Baptists become friends and be more
like-minded and be more supportive. I don't want us to get into a situation where we're just
nitpicking over little things. We need to call out the heretics. We need to call out the false
prophets, and I'm committed to that, but I think when it comes to people that are Christians,
and we have our minor disagreements, we should try our best to have more charity, and you know,
that starts with me. I'm going to try and do better. I'm going to try and focus more on the
people that need to be attacked and only attacking them, and I hope that, you know,
in this type of a situation that people will just pray for the best outcome. They won't take
advantage of children, and I hope that, you know, the people that are in these churches will be
encouraged that, hey, the Lord is for us. I think that the new IFB has never been better, and it's
going to continue to even get better and not allow something like this to distract you from
your own personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, from raising your children to love the
Lord and to serve God, and for children to do the right thing. We need to encourage them, and we
need to love them and admonish them and teach them, you know, the right things, and I believe
that my friend Pastor Anderson has been a good pastor. He's been a good parent, and he's a great
friend, and, you know, I really hope that he won't be discouraged through this, but rather it just
confirms what the Bible says, and I hope that his children will repent, get right with them, that
their family will be restored, that we can delete some of these videos, and that we can move on.
And, you know, there is a path forward. We need to, you know, seek reconciliation for these families,
and I hope that these people will repent of their wicked ways, and that they will, you know, get it
right. Again, I'm free. I'm willing to talk. If people want to ask me questions, I'm an open book,
and, you know, for the most part, when my pastor friends have issues, I'm going to try and stay out
of them, but because this one's pretty public, people have been calling for public resignation.
Pastor Anderson's my close friend. I thought it would be beneficial to make a video and encourage
him, and encourage his children to make the right decision here, and for people to understand this
situation in a little bit more detail, but I hope that you will continue to go to your church,
wherever you're at, support your pastor, give him the benefit of the doubt, love him and his
children, and try to, you know, dissuade people from contacting the enemies of the Lord. This is,
you know, a real threat out there, and with the internet, be careful what you do, because
unfortunately it will live forever, and so this is the video I wanted to make. God bless you guys.
Have a great day.