Name: Terrance “Teddy”
Age: 32
Occupation: Musician/Medical Center Business Ops Office Asst. /Entrepreneur
1. What does it mean to you to “Do It For The Kingdom?”
Very simple, be a servant-leader. Don’t lead with words, lead with actions. Be bold about who you are in God and what you represent, Kingdom Mind not Religious Mind. Whatever you do, if it doesn’t reflect God in it and He wouldn’t be proud of you for it, you’re doing the wrong thing. Understand that I mean living a life that you can always represent the Kingdom of God honorably wherever you are. And as always like I end my posts on social media: #LoveGodLovePeople because truly #TogetherWeWin (that’s my mantra)!
2. What advice would you give someone to help them BOLDLY share their faith?
Be confident in knowing that your job isn’t to save anyone by yourself. Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to be a representative of the God you serve through your lifestyle, not your words. Live a life of confidence that makes people say “there’s something about you, I can’t put my finger on it but there’s something special about you”. Love people first, serve from your heart and when the window opens share why you are who you are. If you attend a growing ministry invite them and pray that you be used as a liaison to introduce our Father to someone who may not have previously known Him, lost His number somehow and doesn’t know how to reconnect with Him or was maybe represented by the wrong people on His behalf which has made them closed off from wanting to get to know the Greatest friend any of us have.
3. As a man of God, what traits do you look for when you’re searching for your tribe (other brothers in Christ)?
Integrity is everything. At this stage in life with me being a social, loving person, I will say the tribe is pretty small nowadays, seasons change and you have to be committed to growth. That means your tribe has to been comprised of men of valor, honorable, and simply just striving to live right. No one is perfect, but if iron sharpens iron, not only do you have to make sure you surround yourself with iron, but that you are iron yourself. Wood doesn’t sharpen iron, it dulls it. DON’T BE WOOD! Find brothers that love God and love people, have a servants heart and enjoys having a good time, but also will get in the trenches and pray a wall down or go to war with you. I know, that’s asking for a lot so baby steps, focus on you becoming that first.
4. Honest moment-Do men of God worry about not finding their wife?
Whew in 2019? ABSOLUTELY! Finding that good thing is like finding Waldo in a sea of Waldo wannabe’s sometimes. “Hi nice to meet you, I’ll be such and such’s representative until she’s ready to tell you who she really is, please standby”. But in all seriousness, you do think about it as a man, but speaking personally I’ve chosen now to not stress it. Do I want to be the King of somebody’s daughter? Yes. Do i want to start a family? Yes. Do I have things that as a man I can continue to strengthen in my life and walk? YES, and THAT’S where my focus lies. Build you, run the race and trust in God. When the time is right you’ll see her, running just as hard’ “Drippin’ Proverbs 31”. I would say keep this in mind; before you commit to her you should already be in two intimate committed relationships already (yes, I said that): First should be an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father, that is the model by which we learn to love all others. Second, an intimate and committed relationship with yourself because “What good is being in love, when you cannot love yourself..” -Kendrick Lamar. Then third would be her, this structure is very important because she will need you to be in tune with God’s desires as well as your own, so that you don’t wander into the wilderness and have both of you lost. Hope that makes sense.
5. What advice would you give your sisters in Christ regarding understanding a man of God?
Women are the strongest beings on Earth, understand the power of your influence. As a woman, you have the power to either build a man up or completely tear him down by your words. Encourage a man to love God more than he loves you, so he’ll always know how he is supposed to love and care for you. Give grace to a man to figure things out, just not to the point where you being taken advantage of, you must have those 3 relationships stated previously in order as well: Intimate relationship with God; Intimate relationship with yourself, then and only then an intimate relationship with another person. Make sure he understands that Girl+God=WinWin through your lifestyle.
6. When did you decide to really “do it for the Kingdom”? (Translation: When did YOU decide to give your life to Christ for real, for real? LOL)
Awesome question and I feel there are multiple answers, “Lord if you get me out of this one..” LOL, but the one I truly believe was it happened in college. Now understand as a child of 8 years old I raised my hand and went to the altar and accepted Jesus one Sunday morning under my own will, but this was different. My Freshman year of college started famously; parties with upperclassmen, hanging out until 5am and going to 8am theory class; drinking and smoking almost daily. I was living “the life”. Newfound independence changes you, or exposes you to whom you really are, needless to say my association of new friends weren’t the strongest when it came to righteousness. Everything was good until one night I had an encounter with God during my sleep, I can’t call it a dream because I could feel wind, hear clear as day, see just as I can now, all of my senses were wide awake; I was awake in a sense. What happened in this “dream” changed the direction of my life, even until this day. I’ve been very selective with sharing this story, but I feel this is the appropriate avenue from which to share. It began with me standing in a room, literally ceiling to floor was white as fresh snow. I could see in first-person, same as you can reading this. I could see my hands stretching out from white robe sleeves, it was quiet, I was standing in one spot trying to understand where I was. Then, I cannot make this up, I saw a small red blob like the little green blob from the movie “Flubber” with Robin Williams lol. Just one, making its was towards me down the room, but once it actually got close and moved past me it spoke, and said some of the most hurtful things I’ve ever heard said about me, or that I had thought about myself. It shocked me, I couldn’t turn around to follow it, then all of a sudden another approached. What wound up happening was the more I fed into trying to decipher what was being said, the more appeared, to the point where the room was a see of small red shapeless, faceless, disrespectful creatures. There was so may that I could no longer distinguish words, just sound, angry sound, and the more that came the faster they moved and the louder it got; I thought I would actually collapse where I stood. Then as clear as day I heard a voice behind me say, “Just say my name”. Have you ever had a feeling where you know the answer but your brain, or fear sikes you out and tells you that you’re wrong? that was my moment. I responded, “I don’t know it, who are you” The voice repeated, “Just say my name”. At this point I felt a hand on my shoulder, I will never forget that feeling, I knew who it was, but I was afraid. So, I said His name, with zero confidence, and nothing changed. Then He said, “no, that’s not going to work. You have to say it like you believe that saying my name will change everything, that it will save you”. I said it again, “Jesus”. “Again” He responded. “Jesus”, with a little more oomph I continued. Then He said to me with all the calm in the world as He did every time before, “Keep saying it until you believe it.” So with all the confidence I had I began to shout, each time getting stronger until it screaming it like He was on the other side of the park with a water hose and I was dying of thirst with my hair on fire, “JESUS! JESUS! JESUS! JESUS!” over and over. The shapeless forms by this point had begun to fly past with rage and the sound was so loud until, nothing. No sounds, the room was all-white again, floor walls and ceiling accept there was something different; there was at the opposite side of the room a door, with this golden handle, as polished as I’ve ever seen. I reached out and grabbed the handle to open and as soon as it cracked, this amazing beam of light poured through and as soon as that happened, I woke up. Sitting straight up in my twin dorm room bed, tears already streaming down my face as if I had been crying forever. I didn’t know I was being held down by anything until that very moment, I felt a freedom, a peace and weight lifted, I felt like I could’ve floated out of the bed honestly. My roommate woke up to the sniffling and crying and asked me if i was alright (he was like six feet away so he could’ve been awakened by anything) and I replied, “actually, yes, I think I just met God.”
7. What were the BIGGEST changes you noticed in your life after you started living for Christ?
Things got hard! as long as I was doing whatever, going with the flow of life I was “happy”, what I really was is a word called complacent, lukewarm even. Doing just enough, to stay right where I was forever. When I really got serious about this life for Christ I had to rebuilt, “what are you willing to let go of to receive what I have in store for you?” Best decision I made was to stop trying to control everything, and be willing to go through what I needed to to be qualified for the calling He has on my life. 2018 was one of the worst years i’ve ever experienced, I thought I was going to lose my mind last year. Today, I realize that the mission was to survive 2018. “I consider that the sufferings of the present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us!”-Romans 8:18. The biggest change came day one of 2019, all of the circumstances were the same, God hadn’t whisked them all away; But I changed. The biggest change was the seeds I planted in 2018 and watered with tears, broke ground, there was a renewing of my mind that
had taken place. The way I began to view things changed, and I’ve had this peace that I cannot explain in any other way than God has given me grace and mercy to work through my own mind to recall that this battle is FAR from over, we’re just getting started and this time, I’m ready.
8. What resources do you use to feed yourself spiritually?
I’m a musician so being able to play is my go to, that is my release and there are times where it gets so real that I can’t even play another note. I love singing, (I just don’t when people ask lol) a good bedroom or car praise and worship goes a long way! I relate life circumstances typically to 3 things: Sports, music and my relationship with God; there is always a reference I can pull from to battle tough thoughts and ideas. Reading, and reading the Word of God is freeing. Listening to an inspirational talk or a sermon directed to what I may be facing that day is helpful, if I can pull one thing from what I’ve read or heard that day in the midst of a trial, I can keep myself grounded enough to walk through it.
9. Do you ever struggle with your faith walk and how do you overcome that?
I’m human, and I don’t know of anyone who hasn’t at some point. The good thing to know is the fact that you are still here is proof enough that God still has a plan for you, no matter how bad it seems, don’t give up. I have something I wrote one day when I was in a tough place but knew I’d be getting back up, sometimes you have to leave yourself reminders: “Today is not a good day to give up, quit tomorrow. Just ‘Win Today’ and when I wake up tomorrow, repeat the above statement.”
Living in HD 