Sent to Preach the Gospel.

My life as a disciple started in August, 1972. After years of athiesm, Jesus spoke to me as I was under a walnut tree in our back yard in Santa Rosa, California. He said only three words, 'Can you believe?', but it was not only his words, but much more his reality which changed my life. From that day on I chose to follow him. My decision was to be one of those persons whom Jesus sends to preach the gospel.

And he said to them, Go you into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that does not believe shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. Mk 16,15-18

After having met Jesus, I spent every day in my back yard reading the bible and doing what the bible said, enjoying his direct presence. I chose to not believe my own thoughts, but rather that which Jesus says, as recorded in the bible. And understanding that he wanted me to be as one of his first disciples, I knew that I must do what I would read. One of the first parts of the bible I read was the sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 - 8 and began doing what I read.

A few weeks later I was meditating in my brother's room. I had just finished High School a few months earlier. The scripture came to me, 'Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Rev 3,20

Jesus had told me to do whatever I would read if I wished to be his disciple. How could I open the door? I thought about this for about 5 minutes. Then, without even knowing what the Holy Spirit was, I was filled with his presence. About an hour later I took my sleeping bag and my bible and went hitchhiking to get away from everyone and simply fast and continue to experience his presence. This was my last day living at my home with my family. For the rest of my life I would be going into all the word to preach the Gospel.

After my fast I was picked up from Christians belonging to the Jesus Movement in northern California, a group living at a lighthouse near Eureka called 'Gospel Outreach'. On the second of September, 1972 I was born again as a Son of God through my baptism in the Pacific Ocean with about thirty others. I lived the next four years in communes and christian houses, learning to practice the Word of God and preach the Gospel. And in these very special years I grew in my true love for Jesus.

My first sending was to Los Angeles with about thirty others. And two years after that I was sent to Munich, Germany with a team consisting of 16. We planted trees in the forests and earned the necessary money to begin preaching the Gospel in Germany. On the 3rd of June, 1976 I arrived in Munich, now being 21 years old.

For the next years I lived in one Christian House after another in Munich, serving in many ways. We all worked and gave what we earned into the house, that we might support ourselves as well as take other people in who were in need. During these years we had close contact with different missions in Munich helping homeless people.  And we preached the gospel everywhere; in the parks, in the streets and in the middle of the city. I soon became the leader of evangelism as well as the one who baptized those who believed the gospel.

In 1977 I was ordained as a Deacon in our work in Germany, serving together with Thomas Van Dooren, the main elder, and the other leaders. Ordainment was given by the laying on of Hands by Jim Durkin, a recognized apostle in the Body of Christ, and the presbytery.

In my givenness to preaching the gospel, I had some experiences with Jesus speaking to me. One of the things he said to me is that I am called to be an evangelist as Phillip was in the book of Acts. For my first years in the LORD I used to pray with people to receive Jesus as their LORD as they repented of their sins. But from this time on I would no longer do this, but rather baptize them according to their wish to becoming a disciple of Jesus. From this time on, again and again, spontaneous baptisms belonged to our preaching the gospel, sometimes accompanied with speaking in new languages or with visions.

After having seen many people come to know Jesus and become his disciples, I was ordained an Evangelist in the Body of Christ by Apostles and Prophets and leaders from many different churches throughout the world which were connected to Gospel Outreach.

During my stay in California, which lasted about a year, my wife to be, Lynn Garrett, became also a disciple of Jesus. And unknown to me, though she was only six month old in the Lord, the Lord spoke to her that we would one day marry. And Cathy had a dream where she saw Lynn and I marry. After the dream Lynn and Cathy were best friends. Cathy told her that she had to wait 5 years from the time the Lord spoke to her until when she married.

During my months in the States, I was preaching the gospel daily, in the parks, in the campuses as well as door to door. And those who believed were baptized spontaneously.

In November, 1982 I returned to Munich. I worked with an organization bringing bibles behind the iron curtain. And since they bought a new computer, I read a book and began programming their computer.

As the programs were written, I applied for a computer job at DIGITAL Equipment GmbH in Munich and became immediately one of their programmers. Evenings I would be preaching the gospel in bible groups by Sri Lanka or Ghana refugees as well as in the parks and streets of Munich. Being not married allowed me to give myself to the Church as well as to the work of preaching the gospel in a very special way.

On the 1st of November, 1986, I married my beloved wife Lynn. It was now four and a half years later, after the Lord had spoken to her that we would once marry.

Lynn and I would have bible groups in our house. As I would baptize people, they would often belong to our bible foundation courses for the first 6 months. Accompaning our bible groups, we met as a whole church in the middle of Munich once a week and also had different christian houses where many were strengthened in being disciples.

In 1990 my wife and myself experienced the Lord speaking to us about going to East Germany. In this year some of those who we had baptized or who had attendended our foundation courses chose to be sent out with us as we went to live in Pirna, near Dresden. Our daughter Sarah was now over two years old and our son Matthew had just been born as we left.

For the next three years I was the presiding elder in our new work in Pirna. Through the hand of God we were given a huge Christian retreat center free of cost. It was also the hand of God who granted me a financial freedom to lead the work.

I had been working with DIGITAL now since May, 1983. As we decided to go to East Germany I gave in my paper of resignment, not knowing what we would do for work and how we would earn the necessary money to live there. Since we knew the Lord had spoken to us about going to Pirna we also knew that he would provide for us. A couple months before leaving I was standing in line at the DIGITAL cafeteria. The Lord spoke to me, 'I want you to speak with someone.' So I paid for my food and said, 'With who, Lord'. Immediately he showed me the person. So I went and asked if I could eat with him. I knew Mr. Stangl a little bit from an earlier project. Starting with small talk, I was preparing to share with him the gospel. But this time the Lord lead the conversation differently. He had been looking for sometime for a group of people who could write an electronic pricebook and had just returned from visiting DIGITAL in Austria for this purpose.

For four years I had been getting up daily at 4:00 AM. I would pray for an hour and then spend the next hours writing my own computer language and my own 'Windows' form generator. At 10:00 AM I would start my work at DIGITAL and finish at 6:00 PM. On Saturdays I would only work from 6:00 to 12:00 AM. Since December, 1989, being spoken to in a dream, I had stopped. The special meeting with Mr. Stangl was in September, 1990.

Needless to say, for the next 12 years I wrote single-handed the electronic price book, the DIGITAL and COMPAQ internal offering system and the offering system and configurator used by thousands of DIGITAL partners throughout Germany. And in this way I could live in Pirna.

For my wife and myself, we were planning to go further into the east block countries in the future. Yet the Lord had other plans. Sometimes after I would fast for a time, I would finish the fast with the body and blood of the Lord in the Lord's supper. Just as I was eating the bread the Lord spoke to me, 'I don't want you to give communion to people who have not yet been baptized.' It was crystal clear and I rejoiced that the Lord spoke to me. Just hours later, as I returned from my fast to our communal house, one of the other leaders asked me, 'Rodger, what do you think if we take communion tonight?' I rejoiced with the idea and agreed with enthusiasm. As I can remember, we had never taken communion as a group until that day. As the meeting commenced and guests arrived, I realized that there were at least three people who had not yet been baptized (ever since my conversion baby baptisms and sprinklings I have never considered as baptisms in the biblical sense). As I remembered the words which Jesus had just spoken to me, my heart began to beat very strongly. I knew that I would have to speak concerning what the Lord told me that morning.

As the leader finished his message, I spoke up. Can I talk with you in the other room? Just this morning the Lord spoke to me, that I should not give communion to people who were not baptized. The leader didn't understand everything, but since I was the presiding elder he encouraged me to do what I believed the Lord wanted me to do. So I said to those gathered in our meeting hall, 'If you have not been baptized, then do not eat of the bread or drink of the blood.' I quoted three scriptures.

And when a stranger shall sojourn with you, and will keep the passover to the LORD , let all his males be circumcised, and then let him come near and keep it; and he shall be as one that is born in the land: for no uncircumcised person at all shall eat of it. Ex 12,48

In whom also you are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, Col 2,11,12a

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, 1.Cor 12,13a

One of those who was not baptized, and who presently was living in fornication, began to scream very loudly. Was I not being very harsh in what I was saying?

Through this incident the leaders of Gospel Outreach came to Pirna to assest the situation. One of the main leaders from the U.S.A., the leader from England, the leader from Munich and the leader from France all met together with myself and the other leaders here in Pirna. What should be done? The presiding elder of Pirna had a different teaching than that of the organisation?

We were at a stale mate, simply because I, the main leader of this work, was certain that the Lord had spoken to me about not sharing communion with those who were not baptized. And yet almost everyone there had come to know the Lord and had been baptized my myself. There seemed to be no way we could come to an agreement.

Then the wife of the leader from the U.S.A. had the following vision:

In the middle of the village there was a dark grey structure, like a rock. The structure had a very special meaning to those who lived in the village, comparable to God himself. Every time there was an earthquake, the village dwellers ran to this structure and helped support it so that it would not fall and break. For a long time they were successful in their attempts. But one day there came a very large earthquake.

As usual, the village dwellers ran to support the structure. But the earthquake was too large and the whole outer structure layer, as they could no longer hold it together. The outer layer broke and fell. But then the people were so amazed, for they saw something so bright and beautiful, that they could hardly behold it. I have no words with which I could express what I saw, but it was like Gold covered with radiating jewels. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Then some of the village dweller were saying to one another, ‘Why have we tried so hard for so long to hold up the structure from falling’?

I had been serving the Lord now in Gospel Outreach for twenty years. Needless to say, much had changed. What began as an outpouring of the Spirit had become a large Christian structure. Although nobody understood the vision at that time, three months later we all understood it as the structure Gospel Outreach began to fall apart. We no longer were a Gospel Outreach church. Shortly after this our non profit organisation was disolved.

The Lord had been telling my wife and myself that something was coming, and that we should let it happen. I never had experienced such an outpouring of the Holy Spirit as our structure crumbled. For days I could hardly sleep as I saw Christ's Church in a way I had never seen it before. Many of the dreams he had been giving me over the last years had been foretelling this event.

At Christmas my wife and myself would often go with our children to visit her parents and three sisters in England. As we were visiting Alan Leighton, at that time the Vicar of a large Church of England in Middelsbrough, he had two visions. He saw two angels, each holding a scroll. They were there for my sake. On the one scroll it was written, 'A new work'. The other angel told Alan that he was not to read the scroll, but the Lord would reveal to me what was on the scroll.

A little over two weeks later I was in Paris, France doing some work for DIGITAL. On the 14th of January, 1993 I had three dreams concerning my calling in the Catholic church. Shortly thereafter I became involved with the Catholic church. Also Alan became a bishop in the Catholic church. But was not this contrary to all I had been teaching? How could baptisms and conversions happen directly in the Roman Catholic church? Is it possible for Catholics to become disciples of Jesus, without leaving the Roman Catholic church?

Through these dreams, I knew that the Lord had something very special planned. In 2001 I converted to being Roman Catholic and was shortly thereafter ordained for holding Word services. I also became the presiding leader in our local church council.

 

At this time Alan Leighton asked me about becoming a priest in the Old Catholic Church. He told me that the Ordination is recognized throughout the Roman Catholic church. After seeking the Lord concerning this, I agreed. First my ordination as a deacon, received now thirty years earlier, would be renewed as being brought into the apostolic succession. And on the next day I was ordained as a priest by the bishop Alan Leighton (Communion of International Catholic Churches), also in the apostolic succession.

 

Under the direction of Alan I also began my study to receive my Master of Divinity. I had already studied theology at the Ludwig Maximillian University in Munich. However because of the intensity and demands of my company, I was not able to complete my studies. I was keenly interested in all of the early Christian writings of the first 400 years AD. For the next three and a half years, from 2007 to 2010,  I read an immense amount of early Christian literature as well as studying intensely the Mishnah, the babylonian Talmud and the Tosepha. During this time I also wrote a book of about 400 pages concerning the sacrifice of the Red Heifer. It was during these years that the Lord spoke to me, telling me where Golgotha was as well as where the Red Heifer was sacrificed. I believe for the future building of the Temple in Jerusalem as well as his end time Church, this which he revealed to me, both directly by his words as well as through the literature I read and wrote, will play an important role.

With the highest honors I completed my studies at the Saint Alcuin House, the College of Theology. My Master thesis included the first 200 pages of my book concerning the 'Mystery of the Red Heifer Revealed'.

 

 

I am presently leading the team of Programmers responsible for the financial software of most of the Lutheran Churches in Germany. At the same time I have bible studies both in Offenbach, where I am working, as well as in the area of Munich and am diligently preaching the gospel to those with whom I come in contact.

And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. Amen. Mk 16,20

 

 

 

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