Both Debbie and I were raised up in the Church. She was a shy little Southern Baptist girl and I was a backslidden Pentecostal boy raised up in the Church of God and the Assemblies of God. God called me to preach when I was 10 years old and my Pastor at that time gave me the opportunity to preach 2 sermons in the little church I belonged to.

By the age of 15, my life began to quickly turnaround and I found myself out of the church and living in sin. As many teenagers do, I turned to smoking, drinking, and wild woman (well, the girls that I dated weren't really all that wild but I got pretty wild).

Debbie and I met at work, dated for about 4 or 5 months and married 2 months later on Sept. 2, 1979. My wife robbed the cradle, I was barely 18. An event took place on New Year's Eve night of that year with another couple that was suppose to spend the evening with us and usher the New Year in together, (they never showed up, never called, and later, never apologized for not showing up). God used that night to let me know what kind of friends in the world that I had. He dealt with me for 3 weeks, and on that Sunday morning, I
got up, got dressed and told Debbie that we were going to MY Church. Reluctantly, Debbie went with me that morning and our lives have never been the same since.

Our oldest son, Little Roger, was born on Sept. 15, 1980 and I later became the Youth Pastor of our Church at the Assemblies of God in Lake Alfred, Fl. where God blessed us tremendously. One year later God opened up a door for Debbie and I to go into Full-Time ministry. I became the Youth Pastor, maintenance man and toilet cleaner at Glad Tidings Tabernacle (Assemblies of God) in Key West, Fl. and Debbie got a job at the Church as a daycare worker. This is where we met Bubba and Sista (Mike and Terry Linderman).

We had a wonderful ministry there and once again God blessed us and the Youth Group. For the 2nd time, we had started out with about 5-8 kids and within less than a year we had 40 young people in our youth group.

In the summer of 1984 God called Debbie and I to Pastor a Church. We moved back to our home in Auburndale, Fl. and started a Church in Lake Alfred, Fl. Debbie had been having trouble conceiving children and had experienced 4 or 5 miscarriages that nearly split up our marriage until God gave us a miracle and our middle son Matthew was born on March 23, 1985.

We pastored that little church in Lake Alfred for 2 ½ years and then the worst day in my life happened. I was told by God to resign my pastorate at the church due to my financial woes and a failing Trucking Business that I had (He was teaching me that my family came first). Shortly after that I had an accident where I rolled over my Tractor Trailer just below Norfolk, Va. The semi and trailer was totaled and Debbie and I lost everything that we had in the business which amounted to about $15,000 at the time.

After that I went through a couple of more truck driving jobs with other trucking company's and then our youngest son Caleb was born on Sept. 9, 1986. I quit driving a truck and started back in the lawn business for the 2nd time. Then the nightmares began. In the spring of 1990, Matthew had a severe accident that left him in a coma for 3 days and the doctors gave him up for died. On the 8 day the doctor said that if he kept progressing as he was that he could be released in about 6 weeks, bound in a wheel chair, mentally retarded and
would be in need of assistance to live the rest of his life (Debbie and I refused to believe the bad report, we agreed with God's Word and chose life for our son). 2 to 3 days later we wheeled Matthew outside the hospital, and made him get out of the chair and get in the car and we took him home healed in Jesus name.

In 1992, I bought a lawn, Garden & Feed Store that bellied up after one year. We started a pet shop while I was filing bankruptcy on the feed store to try and make a come back from all the loses that we had occurred. We sold the pet shop within the year due to a lack of income and I decided to just stick to mowing yards.

A home bible study group began to meet in January of 1994 in our home with my wife, 3 boys, my Mom, Brother Don and Sister Geraldine. As the number increased it was decided to begin a church ministry. We launched out and rented a church building with about 25 members with a vision for preaching and teaching the Word of God to the community and to make an impact on this society. The Church was called "Street Outreach Center" and was Incorporated on Feb. 15, 1995. The name was changed to "Outreach Worship Center" in Sept. of 1995.

During the Christmas Holidays on Friday, Dec. 22, 1995, Debbie received a phone call at her work, just before noon that knocked her off her feet (literally). She got word that her husband (that's me) was involved in a gas explosion that left me with 2nd and 3rd degree burns over 24% of my body and that I had suffered a shattered wrist and a broken neck as the result of a 20 ft. jump out of a front end loader.

For 8 years Outreach Worship Center has shared Church facilities with The Church of God at 121 W. Bridgers Ave in Auburndale, Fl. (just a couple of blocks west of here). And in August of 2002, God blessed us with this old building. With $6,000 in our building fund, who would have guest that would have been enough money to put as a down payment on a commercial building (with God, All things are possible). And with no credit established, our church received owner financing for 10 years at 6% interest instead of the 8% that we asked for. We immediately began to remodel and beautify the facilities and with everyone in our Church sacrificing their time and hard earned money (over and above their tithes), pulling and working together with the help of God we have come this far without borrowing any more money or getting in debt in any way!

God has continued to grow and stretch our faith. During the month of January, 2004, I resigned from my secular job managing my dad's trucking company at God's instructions and went full-time in the ministry pastoring our church. The first instructions that God gave me as His full-time servant was to take a month off away from my family and church for some much needed rest and that I was to spend much time in prayer and fasting. During that special time alone, God began to speak to me concerning the new direction that He had in store for our ministry. He told me that Pastor's Mike & Terry Linderman would be sent out of our church to start a new congregation and that Pastor's Richard & Melissa Oppenheimer would become the lead pastor's of our local church. My role would now be that of an Apostle to oversee both churches and the many churches that we would give birth to in the future.

As a response to this new vision and direction that God was leading us into He had me to rename the church, "Outreach Church International" on May 24, 2004. He told me through a prophecy that my vision and ministry was too localized and that He was going to give us a global outreach to reach the world.

On December 12, 2004 we attempted to launch a New Church plant in the Winter Haven area and placed Mike & Terry Linderman as the Lead Pastors over that congregation. However, both of our Pastors found themselves in the hospital one after another prior to that weekend due to Terry having a gallbladder attack and Mike with a Heart Condition.

We also experienced a road block with the City of Winter Haven who was given us a hard time with approving the building that we were renting to hold our Church services in. But praise God, every obstacle was removed through persistence and much prayer and on Sunday, December 19, 2004 we began our first service. There were 13 members from Outreach Church that volunteered to help begin this new work. On February 20, 2005, just 7 weeks after opening the new Church they had 21 in attendance on that Sunday and on Easter Sunday they had 40 attend their morning service.

As of this writing, today's date is June 9th, 2005 and this past Sunday Morning, New Horizon had 32 in attendance. God continues to bless and new families are being added every week to the Kingdom of God.

There are 2 scriptures that sum up our Church's and my families testimony- Phil. 4:13- "I can do All things through Christ which strengthens me." Phil. 4:19- "My God shall supply All your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus."

What is our strategy?

You need to understand this because I get all kinds of questions like: Why don't we sing hymns on Sunday morning? Why don't we take communion more often on Sunday morning? Why do I use modern translations of the Bible? Why don't you wear a coat and a tie?

These kind of questions are basically saying, why aren't we more like the traditional church? The answers to all of those questions becomes crystal clear when you understand our strategy. Jesus said, I didn't come for the healthy in the world. I came for the sick. "To seek and to save that which is lost." Our goal is to reach people who don't know Christ and those who have fallen out of fellowship with God.

I developed a little profile of the typical person we were trying to reach. We call that person Outreach Joe. Outreach Joe is married to his lovely wife Outreach Joann. They have two kids, Outreach Jimmy and Jenny. 1 Corinthians 4:22 "Yes, whatever a person is like I try to find common ground with him so he will let me tell him about Christ and let Christ save him." Paul said, When I'm with people I try to become like them in order to reach them.

So I said, "What is the typical Outreach Joe?" Here he is: This guy is a great guy, a nice guy. He lives here in Polk County. But while you were in church on Sunday morning, Joe was at home mowing his grass or relaxing in his pool reading the paper or with a can of Busch beer in one hand and watching television. He's a nice guy. He just doesn't know he needs God in his life.

If you were me and 11 years ago you decided to design a church to reach Mr. Non Christian in the Polk County area -- he's a hard worker, he loves his family, he's having fun -- how would you reach him?

Some suggestions: How about, while Outreach Joe's in the grocery store, we put a track on his window that says, "Come to church or go to hell!" Would that reach Outreach Joe?

Outreach Joe goes to work five days a week, sometimes six. He gets home at night. His home is his castle. He closes and locks the door, turns on Monday night football, sits down to watch it as he eats dinner. Let's send somebody to his house -- a stranger -- at night and knock on his door, right in the middle of his meal and have him say, "Come to church with a bunch of people you've never met before." Would that reach Outreach Joe?

How many of you think Outreach Joe is going to listen to Christian radio? No way. How many think he's going to watch Christian tv? (I hope he doesn't! I don't want him to get inoculated and think that's the real thing.) Before he gets all these phony ideas about Christianity, I want to get his attention.

Outreach Joe gets to hear about Jesus by somebody getting close to him and becoming his friend. Somebody says, "Hey, Joe! You've gotta come to this church. It's incredible. Come to this building that's real friendly and doesn't even look like a church. The pastor doesn't wear a robe. You don't even have to wear a suit. They tell jokes, laugh and have a great time and the music isn't hymns; it's like contemporary pop music. The messages are encouraging and uplifting, with topics like "How do I handle the financial stress in my life?"
You've gotta come to this church. Come on, Joe!" That's about how 80% of the people in this church got here. People told people... "Come check out the good news!"

We have a family church atmosphere where people can feel welcomed and accepted, but not put on the spot. We want them to be comfortable and relaxed, to know that everything's going to be alright. We want them to come in, sit down, get their feet wet, listen for a while, check it out, and consider the claims of Christ. We don't embarrass people before they become believers.

He is skeptical of organized religion. "I don't mind Jesus and God. I just don't like organized religion." We say, Great, come to Outreach. We're disorganized religion.

He likes contemporary music. Every once in a while I have people say, "How come we don't use traditional Christian music?" Obviously our music is a little bit different. We want to use music that people understand, that their ears can relate to. Years ago, when we first started, we tried to appeal to everybody with our music. Surveys show that 96% like adult contemporary music, not heavy metal rock. Something you could tap your toe to, something with a beat. So we made a decision and said, "We are going to be a contemporary music
church." That's our style. Every now and then we will sing some of the old hymns, but usually that's on Sunday Nights.

You can't please everybody. Certainly we have lost many potential members because of the kind of music we have, but we've gained many also. Every once in a while somebody will say, "I really like your preaching but if you'd just turn that music down!" We're not going to turn it down! Baby boomers like to feel the music. If you don't like this music, I can give you a dozen good Bible teaching churches in the Auburndale area. You just need to find the church that matches your style.

Some churches are real emotional. Some churches are real formal. Outreach is kind of a middle of the road church. We're not so  organized you can't sneeze if it's not in the bulletin. But we're not in total chaos and people aren't hanging from the chandeliers either. We're kind of middle of the road and obviously a lot of people want a middle of the road church in style. It has nothing to do with preaching the good news. You have to teach the Bible. It's how you deliver it.

He prefers the casual and the informal over the formal. That's why I don't dress up. I don't wear a suit. He's overextended in both time and money. That's Outreach Joe

That's our target. When you understand who we're trying to reach does it make more sense why we have the kind of service we do on Sunday morning? We're not trying to attract a Christian who's been a believer for fifty years and wants to sing "Rock of Ages". We're trying to reach the guy who wouldn't be caught alive in any of the other churches. That's our goal.

Sunday morning is geared for you to bring Outreach Joe. If you're not bringing your neighbors and friends and work associates who don't know Jesus on Sunday morning, you're missing the whole point. That's the purpose of Sunday morning. Our Sunday evening and midweek service on Wednesday is designed for believers. In it we do longer worship, we do more in-depth Bible study, we go book by book through the Bible. We use that kind of teaching to build up believers. We use the topical exposition on Sunday morning -- like, What does God say about stress? What does God say about marriage? What does God say about worry? What does God say about money? -- to reach nonbelievers.

Now you know why we do what we do.