Local church

A testimony witnessed at Free Life Church

A couple week’s ago a young man I’d just met on the street in my neighborhood asked me if I was a Christian.

Yesterday I attended a local church in Mounds View, Free Life Church, at their new location, still under renovation, with I think great potential based on the strength of the connection between the church family and the presence of the Holy Spirit and I would say Yeshua Hamaschiach with them.

Grateful to Nathan who invited me so that I could witness his testimony alongside the rest of his church family there, who all warmly welcome me and my family, from Pastor Calvin to his daughter Christie and her friend from childhood Tasha who first said hi to us as we arrived just as they’d started the fellowship meal, me scanning the room looking for Nathan who had invited us.

After eating, Nathan would give his testimony.

For an 18-year-old, he spoke with poise and confidence, for about an hour, as he explained how he’d come to know God and be saved. At age 16 he’d lost his father but asked Christ to be his father in the moment of his earthly father’s passing, when he was confronted about whether he should hate God for what had happened. He decided he not only could not hate God but loved God more, and then felt the presence of Christ in the room with him, perhaps to let him know things would be okay despite having to watch and hear through the iPhone from the hospital staff in the Texas hospital that his father was no longer with them even as the ventilator’s sounds continued.

There were many moments to reflect upon: Nathan spoke of his background in prophetic house meetings, and his first time at a traditional church, where the word of God through the scripture and through conversations began to open him to a new path… all the unlearning he had to do that would soon come to pass.

He met Pastor Calvin and Pastor Brian who were evangelizing around the time of George Floyd’s death and began bible study, getting picked up by another young man who would often drive long stretches to ensure Nathan could attend, as he did not yet have his driver’s license.

This led to Nathan learning piano from Pastor Calvin and learning from his teaching over dinners after.

He now seems to be an integral part not only of the musical ensemble but also of the younger cohort of the church family. Nathan spoke about a covering that a church family can provide, as it did for him.

There were other good and memorable moments and conversations with Pastor Calvin, Christie, Tasha, Ben, Ian, Diego, George, and others which I’ll leave aside for now.

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It wasn’t until after returning home yesterday afternoon that I learned Nathan, who was giving this testimony, is Anne and Scott Quiner’s son; Minnesota readers may remember Scott was flown to a Texas hospital after Mercy Hospital was preparing to take him off a ventilator in January 2022.

In Nathan’s testimony he spoke about how his family was on the phone with Eric Trump trying to arrange it, if I heard correctly, although this wasn’t the focus at all of Nathan’s testimony.

This visit came at an interesting time for me.

It has been quite a while since I’ve been inside a church although if anything my faith is stronger than it has ever been, for a variety of reasons, not least because of phone bible study I’ve done the past two years with a friend in New Hampshire.

Earlier on Sunday, I’d completed a second pass edit on a friend’s book relating to the Bible, which brought me into many passages of the basic instructions before leaving earth, and then once having finished that step in the work, listened to this Yeshua Hamashiach overture, which brought me to tears.

Attending this church’s fellowship meal and hearing Nathan speak, along with several others, such as his friend Diego who was graduating, was something new for me.

It was service and fellowship and community that on the one hand seemed so informal and without unnecessary decoration, and yet there was a vibrant life in it that I think anyone interested in taking a chance on a new church and church family could find blessings in. I know I did. (And this with even missing the worship part of their service, which I understand are quite good.)

I don’t know when or whether I’ll visit again—it seems God is taking us on a bit of a tour through perhaps a few more churches to come, Revive next, which I understand stayed open years back as I believe Free Life Church did as well, and then perhaps an Orthodox church—but I hope to correspond with Free Life Church again and certainly look ahead to the next time God brings me together in such a way with those of faith.

You can listen to Nathan’s testimony here.