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District Bishop Michael Saddler: As a child, I hated church, even into adulthood. Maybe, because my mom  made  me go. I believe I hated school about as much as I hated church, but thank God I managed to graduate from high school. I had always told myself that once I was out of my mother’s house, church going would be out of the question. God had different plans for my life.

The church choir I was in was invited me to the Refuge Church of Christ to sing on the Revival Program. I wasn’t going, but my mother pressured me. To satisfy her, I went with the intentions of leaving when we were finished singing. That didn’t happen! Somehow I could not get up and leave. The young minister got up to preach taking his text from Romans 12:1 and 2. The message was, “Renew Your Mind”.  The message seemed to be directed towards me only. What he said made me mad enough to want to fight him. I told myself I would never again go back to that church. The next night, I was there telling myself I wouldn’t go back, yet continuously getting ready to go.

There were about three weeks of revival and two weeks of prayer. I do not think I missed a night. Something strange was happening to me and I could not explain it. I got baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, where the church I had attended all of my life only sprinkled. I looked in the mirror and said, “Is this me”?

I began tarrying until God filled me with the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues as His spirit gave me utterance. God saved me!  Since then, God saved my wife, God saved our oldest sons & their wives, and our youngest son.

God called me into the ministry only after being saved a year, which I fought and denied for a long time. Finally accepting and exercising the gifts, God blessed Elder Ralph White, former Diocean Bishop and founder of the North Carolina Metrolina Diocese and former pastor of Refuge to begin sending me into different areas where he needed me to go and preach the gospel.

I was sent to St. Phillips Apostolic Holiness Church in Winston-Salem, NC. God added on some very beautiful, hard working, dedicated Saints, who after going through some rough times at the beginning, continued to press and go forward. We persevered and moved forward.

When I started out in Winston-Salem, NC, I was a minister with my family and a few more members which you could count on one hand. God blessed and I was ordained Elder in 1984. God is continually blessing. Our congregation has grown magnificently to include a Children’s Church of approximately 25 to 30 in regular attendance. Our building has evolved from a run-down, dilapidated, gray house to a nicely designed white edifice and the Lord is STILL blessing!!! 

WHAT A MIGHTY GOD WE SERVE!!!

After God saved me, I sent myself to college. The things that I hated the most in my life have now become the most important ones in my life.