Pastor's Testimonies about Family Foundations and The Ancient Paths Seminar:

October 2004, Glendale, Arizona

 

     I am a blessed man.  It was not always so.  I come from a family of 12 children. There was a time when my life was bound by alcohol. Everywhere I looked, alcohol prevailed.  My great-grandfather was an alcoholic, my grandfather was, my dad was, my brothers were, my uncles and everyone I knew were alcoholics!  Not surprising, by age 12 I had experienced the effects of alcohol and it soon became the single most dominating part of my life. 

      As it is with alcoholism, sinfulness and devastation followed closely behind.  My wife and I conceived our first child out of wedlock.  Our finances were crippled and our marriage was in shambles.  We had religion, but it did nothing for us!

      We struggled through life for many years and then heard about a seminar called “Ancient Paths.”  We attended not fully understanding what it was about or what it could do for us.  It became a pivotal moment in our lives.  It caused us to change.  We took what we learned, applied those truths to our lives, and our lives became meaningful and wholesome.

      We repented of our sins.  We asked each other’s forgiveness.  Then we blessed each other and asked God to bless our marriage.  We didn’t stop there.  We gathered together our whole family, three daughters, three sons-in-law, and our grandchildren.  We explained to them what we had discovered.   Then we washed their feet, and begged their forgiveness.

     Generational curses began to break.  Lies broke.  Mistrust broke.  Financial devastation broke.  Just as Craig Hill had said, alcoholism broke.  Not only did it break in our lives but no longer do our daughters, our sons-in-law, or our grandchildren drink. Not curses, but blessings are now being passed from one generation to another. 

      I’ve never heard anyone else say this, but although we never told our parents living away in another state what we experienced, the alcoholism broke in my dad’s life as well.  At the age of 72 he quit drinking without notice!  Blessings were not only being passed down, they started going up too!

      My dad was never a religious man.  At the age of 72, partly because of his drinking I suppose, he became a very sick man.  Every time I went to visit him, I would pray for him before leaving.  On one occasion, when it came time to leave, my mother asked if I would pray for him.  I was running late and in a big hurry.  I expressed desire to leave quickly.  My mother could not believe it! “You’re not going to pray for your dad?” she asked repeatedly.  I decided to go ahead with it when she said he was already up and waiting for me.

      I entered the room and I placed my hand on his shoulder. But nothing came to me.  “Lord” I said, “bless my dad and - - -” and words would not come to me.  My dad took my hand from his shoulder, moved onto his heart and began saying “Father, bless my son.  Bless his life.  Bless his work.  Bless his wife and his family.  Bless his ministry.  Bless him as he comes and goes.  Bless everything he does and everything he says”. To my knowledge I am the only one of his children that he blessed before he passed on.

      By the way, he committed his life to the Lord before he died.  God is so gracious! Thanks FFI.

 Pastor Steve Connelly

Living Springs Assembly of God
(623) 935-3202
 livingsprings@afo.net

August 2004 - Simi Valley, California

 

     When my husband mentioned hosting the Ancient Paths Seminar here in our church, I was TOTALLY against it!  My first response was NO! When he asked me a second time, the answer was still NO!  Then, before I knew it, he had agreed to host the event. From that time on, I had made up my mind that this was HIS seminar and I would have nothing to do with it!  I tried to use almost every excuse I could make up not to be present at the seminar.

     So, on the first evening of the seminar, I told my husband that he would be taking care of HIS people when they started arriving.  In my rebellious state, I would show my husband -- I would physically attend, but mentally, I would be somewhere else, ANY PLACE but there!

     So even after the initial introductions, I was still a little bit leery of these people who had invaded.  After watching the first video, all of my defenses/walls started crashing down around me!  I found out some things about my self that I’m sure that I never wanted to know — my fears, insecurities, and the cursings that I was heaping up on my family!

     It was as if a light came on and I could finally see what had been causing me such anguish over most of my life!  I never had any idea why I did the things that I did until the seminar!  I finally understood T.D. Jakes’ saying, “Woman thou art loosed!”  I felt such a charge in my spirit - such a looseness of all the LIES that I had bought into for so many years and it was all due to the seminar!

     The seminar brought REVELATION, taught me REPENTANCE, IMPARTED good manna for my soul, and has literally TRANSFORMED my life!   I am thankful that my husband listened to God and did not listen to me!  God knew that there were things going on inside me that needed to be “pruned away” so that I could go to the next level in my spiritual growth! 

     We were so impressed with Martha and Shaun Davy and the entire Ancient Paths seminar that we are planning on taking the training (for Ministry seminar) so that we can in turn help others who are buying into the lies and don’t even know it.

     Shaun and Martha, thanks again for being obedient to God’s plan of planting Craig Hill’s vision of Ancient Paths!

Faye Epps

(Pastor John Epps’ spouse)

September 2003 - Manila, Philippines

 

     Interestingly, our church byline has always been - Bringing and Building Families Together in Christ.  The tools of FFI will surely be instrumental in achieving what God had put in the hearts of our founding pastors. 
     We would like to use many of these God-given tools to serve as the "motherboard" of our local church.  Not that this was original design or intention, but why reinvent the wheel?  The setting up of its platform can be duplicated in many churches, leaving the pastors and workers free to minister with the people through the Holy Spirit.  It moves the concentration of burden-bearing to the Lord and not to the pastor.  With it also, our church will share these joys with other churches in the area and serve them through this ministry.  While others specialize in other ministries, we are asking God to make us focus on this ONE THING....to bring His people together to be that ONE holy, pure and blameless Bride for our Savior Jesus Christ - for isn't that His inheritance?! 
     For me personally, I wish there were more words than "excited" to express my joy in this gold mine of people and principles in Family Foundations.  It is my prayer that the Lord will protect the ministry and keep it a happy and healthy (spiritually, physically, emotionally, etc) groomsman for the Bride of the Groom. God bless you all.

Pastor Alberto Fernandez

Community of Faith Alliance Church

alberto_gina@hotmail.com

February 2003 - Spokane, Washington

     A year ago, not a soul in our church had attended an Ancient Paths seminar.  We had positive reports of it, through our missionaries in Brazil, but had never heard of one in our area.  9 months and 14 seminars/trainings later, we are convinced that these seminars are potent in reaching to the depths of the heart, bringing forth permanent life change through Jesus Christ.

     After hosting our first seminar, we noticed one wonderful result.  Some of the individuals we had been meeting with for pastoral care, were changed more deeply in one seminar, than anything we had accomplished in many weeks of counseling.  We pastor a church full of hurting people, as many of you do, people whose lives have been torn apart by divorce, abuse, drugs, criticism, and more.  To see Jesus transform these lives was ample reason to motivate us to refocus energy into bringing more of these seminars into our church.  They fill quickly as others see the changes in those they live and work with.  We now host the seminar monthly for our region, with 12-19 different churches represented at each Ancient Paths seminar through participants and team.  It is a wonderful example of the Body of Christ working together.

     At one point, we had concern about draining needed personnel from other ministry responsibilities as we expanded our involvement with Ancient Paths and other FFI seminars.  As it turns out, we have enlarged the pool of healthy, serving members at Word of Life, and are seeing an explosion of growth in the number of ministries and leaders we are overseeing. The individuals who have been through FFI’s “Training for Ministry” are even more effective now in other ministries in our church, such as men, women, children, and youth.

     Our belief in the value of these seminars is so strong that we have assigned one of our associate pastors to invest the majority of her time & energy into expanding Family Foundation Int’l ministry into the Pacific Northwest and overseas.  As a team, we are committed to helping other churches bring this seminar to their area.  If you want to talk with us, just call.  We will be glad to speak candidly with you from a pastor’s perspective about any questions you might have.

Serving Jesus with you,

Carl Hampsch, Senior Pastor

Sally Scammell, Associate Pastor

Talmadge McCamment, Associate Pastor

Word of Life Community Church (509)226-5148
wordlifechurch@juno.com

Here is what leadership of a church in Florida reported after holding an Ancient Paths Seminar:

...."THIS MINISTRY IS THE BEST MINISTRY I KNOW OF (IN ORDER) TO SET PEOPLE FREE AND BRING LASTING CHANGE TO PEOPLE'S LIVES IN THE SHORTEST LENGTH OF TIME. WE HAVE HAD MANY OTHER MINISTRIES HERE...,  BUT NONE AS EFFECTIVE AS THE FAMILY FOUNDATIONS MINISTRY."

The Pastor of a church in Virginia recently sent the following note following his church's first Ancient Paths Seminar:

"THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE 'ANCIENT PATHS' SEMINAR. ... SEVERAL PEOPLE HAVE SHOWN ENDURING SIGNS OF THE BLESSING THEY RECEIVED, INCLUDING MY WIFE.  AS FOR ME, THE TEACHING WAS SOME OF THE CLEAREST, MOST MATURE AND BIBLICAL WITHOUT BEING OBNOXIOUSLY FUNDAMENTALIST THAT I'VE EVER HEARD. IT PUT MANY POINTS TOGETHER FOR ME THAT HAVE ALTERED MY WORLDVIEW...."

The Pastor of Calvary Assembly of God in Pottstown PA wrote this note following his first Ancient Paths Seminar:

"THE ANCIENT PATHS SEMINAR DONE BY CRAIG HILL ON VIDEO WAS TIME WELL SPENT.  THE SEMINAR ITSELF WAS DONE IN VERY GOOD ORDER WITH THE TEACHING SESSIONS, SMALL GROUPS AND BREAKS.  AS CRAIG HILL TAUGHT, HE BROUGHT OUT THE DEPTH OF THE WORD IN VERY SIMPLISTIC AND UNDERSTANDABLE LANGUAGE.  HE TOLD REAL LIFE STORIES WHICH THE AVERAGE PERSON CAN RELATE TO AND APPLY THEIR TRUTHS TO THEIR LIVES.  ALTHOUGH I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THIS MINISTRY WAS ABOUT BEFORE THE SEMINAR STARTED, I AM GLAD I WAS INTRODUCED TO IT AND ATTENDED IT.  I WOULD RECOMMEND THIS MINISTRY TO ANY CHURCH THAT IS SEEKING TO DRAW ITS CONGREGATION TO A CLOSER WALK WITH THE LORD."