Evangelist Carmen D. Spruill:

Pastor Evangelist Carmen D. Spruill:

·         Carmen Graduated from East Carolina University in Greenville, NC in 1994 with B.S. in Computer Science with a concentration in          Decision Science/Accounting

• Accepted Fully and Sold Out for Christ in January of 1999
  

• In 2008, attended Liberty University for evangelism
  

•       Carmen appointed as secretary of Promise Land Church of Christ in 2000, laid foundation for correspondences going in and out, record and keep minutes…keep the Pastor’s and Church’s appointment book…Maintained the flow of documents, and request coming from lay members, to, for , and from the Pastor and the Church
  

•       Carmen appointed as Clerical Assistant on Secretarial Staff of the Goldsboro-Raleigh-District Assembly in 2002….helped create fliers, manage and deliver announcements during sessions. Assembled handbooks, books, and packets to keep the members and churches informed for the GRDA…Created and modified letters and correspondences as needed for GRDA. GRDA was an assembly that was over 180 churches in the USA and in abroad.
  

•        In 2004, appointed the Assistant Secretary for the GRD Assembly, my duties were the same as the clerical assistant, with more responsibility, which included being a member of the GRDA Cabinet,  and assisting the Secretary in her duties to handle the business and information of the assembly, (printing, creating brochures, programs for services, contacting churches, and leaders for the purpose of gathering information), collecting, storing, and  distributing recorded minutes and highlights during all assembly meetings, and assembly services, and making sure the clergy assembly board members and the Presiding Prelate were well informed and their needs addressed during assembly functions
  

•        In 2005, licensed as a minister and became the Associate Minister at St. James Church of Chris, D.O.C
  

•       In 2008, attended Liberty University for evangelism
  

 

•       In 2009, became secretary of St. James Church of Christ
  

•       In 2010, was ordained an Evangelist and installed as Pastor of Truth 4 Life Ministries, Inc. by Apostle LaJaye Britt
  

•       In 2011 and currently, attending Northwestern Theology School to receive a degree in Biblical Studies and Christian Counseling
  

Evangelist Carmen D. Spruill: (with some modifications,  I submitted this to the evangelism class I took at Liberty University)….Before I became a Christian, I use to at least try anything at least once. There were some things I did not want to try and didn't. But, if I wanted to I would do it. I loved to party and when my husband and I met in college; I continued the same activity. We loved to host parties, and buy the alcohol. I often wondered  if someone ever got hurt coming from one of our parties, could we get arrested? During high school, I wasn't sexually active, but, that was only by the grace of God, I had been drunk in hotel rooms and houses with guys where we would have high school parties, that it could have been an ugly instance, but God protected me through it all. I had friends, one was the daughter of a woman preacher, and the other was the daughter of an avid church-goer. My mother, even though she was not an avid church-goer (she went on holidays and special occasions only, because she thought church people were fake, and didn’t do anything but talk about folks all the time, interesting isn’t?). But, I knew at some level she, and other parents had to be praying for me, and their children, to get us out of some the potentially bad situations we found ourselves in.

   After college, Eric and I began to live together; we were not married at the time.  We fought constantly, sometimes even  physically. One day, my mother-in-law asked me if I would like to join the senior choir at her church (which turned in to my home church later), and I was unsaved, but I did it anyway. I was touched by something. I always felt like there was a presence around me, with me, protecting me, even though I was not saved, even when I was younger because I was an only child of a single parent for 10 years. So, I joined the choir and began to sing for Jesus. The more I sang, the more I felt it, the more I sang the more I was touched, the more I had to show up for practice, the more I was surrounded by Christians,  it began to change me. One day, I was in the audience of the church, I did not have to sing that Sunday, (evidently I felt the need to go to church regardless, even if I did not have to sing). Our Pastor, the now Bishop Anthony R. Terrell, Sr., made the call to salvation, and my husband went first, and then I followed right behind him. We were married then; in fact we got saved one year after we got married. I believe we felt like we could not be saved because we were still living in sin (living together), so we did not get the urge to make it official or fully commit until we got married. I did not receive the Holy Ghost, immediately, until an experience I had at the altar a couple of weeks later, after I was baptized, my Pastor, Bishop Anthony R. Terrell, Sr. laid hands on me.

  One of the biggest changes in my life is that I have learned how to love people more, because God showed me He loved me, and I was unlovable. I am not as self-centered as I used to be, it used to be all about me and what I wanted, but God has shown me how to sacrifice, and that the less I make it about me, the happier I am. I cannot make people satisfy me, but, God, through Christ, is my Satisfier. My focus is off of people trying to make me happy; it is on me and God making each other happy. When I had the need to be a people-pleaser, now I have the need to be a God-pleaser.  I have gained more control over my destiny, since I released control to God. For God wanted better for me than I wanted for myself. Therefore with God, I found, I am not locked into what people say that I am, but, God has made me entitled to only what He says I am, and that is the greatest, and the best I can be in Him. Furthermore, I am never locked into an outcome the world or the enemy has set before me, but, only the outcome God has for me, and it is always the victory.

  

  I learned that if I spent time with God, in Bible reading, in prayer, He knew how to love on me, I could hear Him, and He would direct me. Also, you do not have to be saved to get saved. Just seek Him, and he will meet you where you are. That is God’s ministry in my life, literally meeting people where they are, no matter how dingy, no matter how dirty, no matter how ungodly, as Jesus put on those nasty human clothes and came to save us, He calls me, as an evangelist following His example, to put fear aside, know that greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world, role up my sleeves, go out and help somebody through Jesus Christ, overcome, and introduce them to an awesome Savior…I sought Him in a choir stand, and I found Him. If we would give others the opportunity to spend time with us, God's people, they will find out about Jesus. No matter how ungodly they are, some of them just need to have the opportunity to hang around the Christ in you. I found out, that if you would just get to know Him, no strings attached, our lives will change. Your perspective will change, mine did. I had no intentions of "getting saved", but I got to know Christ through His people, and I fell in love! He is real, I taste and I see. When no one else loved me, I felt Him loving me. That is why I committed to Him. When others thought I was strange, somehow He made is presence known to me, because I needed him. If we would just need him, He would supply what we need emotionally, spiritually, and physically. ****THE BEGINNING!..

Evangelist Carmen D. Spruill: