Phillip Mayberry p

I was raised in a nominal Christian family. We went to church more for appearance’s sake than out of a love for Christ. The unspoken rule was that we were only allowed to talk about God at church or on the way to or from the church. Anything beyond that was thought to be fanatical or “out of balance.”

When I was about ten years old, our pastor had an affair... and it destroyed our church. Because of this and the way our family had been, at age eleven I rejected Christianity. I believed a person chose Christianity because they were born into a Christian culture: I told my parents that they would be Buddhist if they had been born somewhere else. I’d been baptized but was not saved. I was very bitter and resentful as I grew up. I was bitter toward Christians because I thought they were like mindless cattle, never questioning what they believed, and yet unable to explain why they believed it. I generalized my experience to fit everyone.

Spiraling Depression, Despair, Rage

Weed became an obsession when I was in the 7th grade and I immediately began dealing. It got worse. I went to a Christian private school but was eventually expelled. During my high school and early college years, I was a drug user and womanizer. I was very depressed. I thought there was no hope in life.

The Lord Brought Me from Darkness to Light

by Phillip Mayberry, Ashe County

type of music I listened to only increased the depression. At this point, I honestly think I was demon possessed. When I looked into the mirror, something looked back from behind my eyes, and seemed to be laughing at me.

Cutting my arms started when I was 14. I felt such despair and rage. If there was a God, I hated him. I would get so worked up that the only time I could feel anything was when I cut myself. I searched in vain to find something of worth to replace the only true treasure, which is Christ. I lived a life that hurt people and destroyed lives. It was all about me. For selling drugs, I was arrested four times but bailed myself out with the money I’d saved from selling them.

Freedom Through Christ

One night, my cousin, who’d faithfully shared Christ with me all my life, confronted me, saying: “Phillip, you know what the truth is. What is it that is stopping you from following Jesus Christ?” At that moment, I did know the truth. I had no answer for the second question! I knew Christ was the way and that Christ was true. I had no good reason for not following Jesus. All the things I was doing left me empty...

He asked me to go to church with him on the following Wednesday night. When I got there I already knew the gospel: Christ died to save sinners. I felt God overwhelmingly and irresistibly calling me. I found myself completely undone, on the floor crying out to God and praying with my cousin for about a half hour. That’s when the Lord changed my heart and set me free. delivered me from ecstasy, weed, and a variety of other drugs in an instant! I’d been drinking heavily as well, I don’t believe drinking is a sin per se, but I do believe drunkenness is a sin. I was afraid I’d go back to drinking and drugs. My cousin and I prayed, and I didn’t touch alcohol for three years. The Lord also delivered me from a fifteen-year cigarette addiction over the next month.

Forsaking All to Follow Christ

The Lord convinced me that his Word was true and my friends needed to know. They told me, as I preached to them, that I’d gone insane. I would take a small Gideon Bible into the drug houses and preach to the people there that God was my portion. I lost every friend I had from my childhood, but God sent other believers to be my friends and my family. Jesus told me through the Word to consider the cost of following Him (Luke 14:28). It did cost me dearly, but he has richly given me a hundredfold in this life, and eternal life in the age to come (Mark 10:30). I learned quickly that whoever does not take up his cross and forsake all that he has cannot be Christ’s disciple (Luke 14:27, 33).

The church I attended as a child was a Bible-believing church that believed in Scripture memorization. It wasn’t fun and games. When I was saved, all the scriptures faithful Bible teachers taught me in my childhood came back to me, as though my mind had been instantly unlocked. I heard the Scriptures flowing in my thoughts constantly, whereas before there was only depression and hatred.

2 years at MTSU, and transferred to a Bible College called Global University (A.G.). During this time, I worked at restaurants, did construction, and worked other jobs to put myself through school. As time progressed, through studying church history and my own private study, I became reformed in my beliefs. I really liked the Westminster Confession and the London Baptist Confession (1689). I didn’t know there were any reformed denominations anymore, but eventually I came in contact with a PCA (Presbyterian Church of America) pastor. He ended up being my pastor. Soon after that, I was youth director at a PCA church, but felt increasingly called to pursue ordination.

In all of this, I’d given up on love. I made a vow to never tell another girl I loved her unless I was going to marry her. I dated several girls, but when I met Heather I knew she was the right one. We dated and were engaged for two years. We’ve been married for eight years now and have two beautiful little girls. My education continued with a four year post-graduate degree from a conservative seminary (Master of Divinity/MCL, Covenant Seminary, St. Louis, 2008). I always felt called to be a pastor of a small church, where I could be involved in people’s lives personally.

I began to look for a Bible-believing church where I could preach the word without compromise. After searching for about a year and much prayer, I visited Ashe Presbyterian in Jefferson. The people there function like a family. They crave the Word, and love each other. It’s beautiful. It’s been a year and a half, and it feels like home to our whole family.

He is Powerful

Enough to Save the Most Hopeless Life

The Lord has really impressed upon me that He is powerful enough to save the most hopeless life: because he saved me. If people could just see how good he is, they couldn’t stay away from him! When I talk to people I don’t see them as more or less likely to be saved. No matter what situation people are in, the Lord can bring them from darkness to light. He can break any addiction, and set people free from hopelessness. His people will be willing in the day of his power!