My name is Josh Parker and I am currently an intern at First Anna. I have been a member of this church through my teenage years and am now a freshman in college, pursing a degree in ministry and a calling to the ministry.
It has been an incredible experience of working at First Anna and God has blessed me tremendously through this. The more I learn about other churches the more special I come to realize First Anna is. It is not often you can be apart of church that is honestly changing lives and making a difference in the community. Since being here, I have seen marriages saved, addictions lost, and seen people lose themselves and gain Christ. The Spirit is moving throughout our church and you can feel it not just when you walk through those doors but throughout the entire city. The city that I was raised in didn’t have this bright light of hope but rather a glimmer; we as a church never really felt like we could even reach our community
Growing up in Anna, it was a spiritually dark place because we were a lost community completely blinded by our hardened hearts. We were always concerned more about our football team rather than our spiritual health as a community. We had people looking for anything to fill that empty gap in their hearts. The problem was we didn’t have anyone showing these lost the only thing that can permanently fill that void. We did as most Christians/churches do and we made our little clan and kept to ourselves. Don’t take me saying these things as me thinking I was an exception because I wasn’t. I just want to be real and say as a Church we were not doing our part.
I say these things not point and say how bad we were but to contrast how different we as a church are. You look at our church now and lives are being changed and there is something in our community we haven’t really ever had. We have hope. God is using First Anna in a lot of ways we are helping the needy (Anna’s House), spreading the gospel, and making disciples through home groups and bible studies. When I say disciples I don’t mean to say just Christians but followers of Christ who are growing in Christ and letting him be a part of every aspect of their lives.
I am writing this though not just to say great job everybody although you should be extremely encouraged by how God is using our Church for his Glory, but rather to show what God has done so far and will continue to do so. We must as a Church not stop here but press forth and let God lead us as a church and individually in our lives. Keep spreading the Gospel, Pray without Ceasing, and Let God move.