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A CHILD
MINISTERS DURING SUNDAY SERVICE |
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Miami: The first time Terry
Durham preached, he was not in front of a group of
people or even inside a church. He was in the bathroom
of his grandmother's home in Fort Lauderdale, delivering
his first sermon surrounded by tooth brushes, soap and
towels. He was 6 years old.
Five years later, Terry is an ordained minister who
preach es almost every Sunday at True Gospel Deliverance
Ministry, a 20-seat nondenominational storefront church
that his grandmother founded in 2000.
“They say, 'How can you be a preacher when you're so
young?' ” said Terry, now 11. “But when they listen to
me, they're shocked.” “God just put his Spirit upon me,”
“He said, 'I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.'
But he didn't say how old you had to be or anything like
that.”
“When I'm in the pulpit, it's like something turns over
me,” he said, “and I just turn into a man of God. And
when I'm out of the pulpit, I just turn into a
speechless kid.”
He does not write anything down, he said. He simply
reads the Bible the day before the service and waits for
the Spirit to move him.
Prof. Christine Gudorf, chairwoman of the religion
department at Florida International University. said,
age is not an issue, and seminary training is not
necessary.
“It's God who chooses the minister, and the Holy Spirit
gives charismatic gifts, especially gifts of preaching,”
Professor Gudorf said. “The community recognizes that
gift and confirms the person in a ministerial role.”
Terry and his twin brother, Todd, who plays drums in the
choir, were born prematurely on Nov. 19, 1997; their
grandmother, Sharon Monroe, recalled that as a newborn
Terry had to be connected to a heart monitor. After
their parents broke up, the boys were raised by their
father and grandmother.
Ms. Monroe said that when Terry was a baby, she would
sometimes give sermons while carrying him in her arms.
One day, when he was older, she recalled, Terry climbed
into her seat on he pulpit and chanted, “Go, Grandma,
go!”
Ms. Monroe said she had had a vision in which a child
joined her at the pulpit. “I never thought it would be
Terry because he was so sickly,” she said. “But Terry
has a certain thing about him.”
The most powerful experience Terry has had as a minister
came during a sermon when, he said, he healed a young
man who had an injured foot. As he prayed for him to be
healed, the man stood up and walked without the aid of
his crutches.
“That was the first time I healed someone, and from then
on I asked God to give me the power to heal people,”
Terry has traveled beyond Florida to deliver sermons,
including twice at Tiaise Temple Ministry in Allentown,
Pa. The pastor there, Donna Morgan, said Terry appealed
to adults because he inspired them to transcend their
perceived limitations.
“People listen to him and say, 'My God, look at what the
Lord can do when we are willing to be used by God to
speak his message.
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This page
is updated on April 1, 2009 |
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PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY
10 YEARS CELEBRATION
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