Through our music and message, we hope to encourage families,
bring hope, encouragement and admonition to the church
of Jesus Christ, and call the unsaved to repentance
and belief in the gospel - all to God's glory.
Announcement!
The Anderson Family Band "Disbanding"
February 6, 2009
The Anderson Family Band will be "disbanding" after our annual Camp Meeting here at Heritage Baptist Church, April 19-23, 2009. We will fulfill our commitments (Lord willing) with joy, as always, but we will not schedule any more events.
The Lord has been very good to our family. Praise his name forever! Our family band was of God from start to finish. We all are saddened at the idea of not ministering as a family again, but we all feel it is time to give it up. While we were living in Iowa, our band was a wonderful unifier for our family. It kept us together and gave us vision beyond ourselves. We all lived together, practiced together and traveled together. We sang at nursing/retirement homes once a week for an hour, which kept us in practice, and we were able to learn new songs now and then. I worked full time, pastored a small flock, and at the same time, we were traveling/singing quite a bit. When we moved back to Texas, at the Lord's leading, we still lived, practiced and traveled together while I worked full time around the church. But we were finally back home with our church family that we dearly love.
Now, traveling became more of a burden to Celesta and Angela since they wanted to become more involved in our church life (besides singing in church). Then, Celesta went and got engaged (with my blessing, of course), and her life radically changed. Music no longer occupied a majority of her time. Imagine that! It's not like she waited forever to get engaged or anything (She was still only 30 years old). From the engagement on, she has been focused on homemaking, which her mother has trained both her and Angela to do. I guess you could say we did this to ourselves.
Yet Celesta still sang with us and we even traveled within a 3-4 hour radius occasionally. But curiously, we got fewer and fewer bookings. I wonder if it had any thing to do with the fact that Celesta did all our bookings? Hmmm!
Once Troy, Celesta's fiancé, moved down here from Iowa, he began singing and playing banjo with us on a few songs. Honestly, if Troy hadn't gone along, Celesta would have been worthless. Imagine that!? Then, after they were married, it really became a hardship, since her heart was with Troy, making a home and yes, bearing children, which she did just over 3 months ago (October 30). Gunner Michael Runquist is his name.
Now, Angela's heart is to stay more at home, too. She's still living at home, of course. She also teaches mandolin. Celesta teaches guitar and piano. Both play in the church's 25 piece band.
We stopped singing in churches on Sunday mornings or when there was preaching going on, a few months ago, since we felt our own local assembly deserved this blessing as much as any other church. Then too, we were occasionally hearing preaching from perverted Bibles, not the KJV, which we believe is God's inspired, inerrant, infallible and preserved Word. All others are deception.
But even at that, there still wasn't the same enthusiasm. Practice became more of a burden, and I understand why. I probably should have let it go when Celesta got engaged. But, I love this ministry and the fruit that it has produced to the glory of God. Many lives have been touched by not only our music, but by our lives, our countenance, our spirit and our witness for Christ (all to his glory). Our CD's have gone even further than we ourselves have travelled.
God requires that we bring him an increase with the gifts and talents he gives us, so we each will do something as far as music, in the church. I'm believing for the Lord to do something new and fresh in our family. Pray for us, if you will.
I believe we have fulfilled our mission or commission as stated below:
Through our music and message, we hope to encourage families,
bring hope, encouragement and admonition to the church
of Jesus Christ, and call the unsaved to repentance
and belief in the gospel - all to God's glory.
We hope we've been an encouragement to you and your family. If we've met and talked just once, or if we've looked for each other at certain events; whether you're a "fan" of ours or another band member, we thank you for your friendship and for your support. Thank you for your love. Many of you have prayed for us. We are very grateful for that. Sometimes when we've not felt the best physically, or struggled spiritually, we've sensed the anointing of the Holy Spirit on our ministry. Your prayers made a difference. Many have donated money for our CD's. Thank you. That helped us get to the next singing.
It's hard to say goodbye. Till now, this was easy. But now I sit here weeping.
To all the Gospel Bands who read this: do what you do for Jesus. Follow him as a true disciple. No games. No pretence. Nothing else matters in this life. We are preparing for the next life. That will be some singing, won't it? It won't be long!
To all believers: Make sure you're rooted and grounded in God's word. Hold on to Jesus. Things are fixin' to get very exciting in this world. But we have hope that one day soon we'll be over on the other side with our blessed Lord. Look up, your redemption draweth nigh. We're all commanded to occupy till he returns, though.
To all unbelievers: If you think you're going to make it to heaven on your own goodness or that there really isn't any heaven or hell, you've been deceived. The only way for you to be saved from sin and hell is to acknowledge that you are a sinner and that Jesus took your penalty for sin on himself. Only sinners can be saved. Jesus died for sinners. He was buried and rose again on the third day. That's the gospel according to the scriptures. Amen.
Your servant and His,
Mike Anderson
Visit Our Heritage Baptist Church Web Site @
to find out what produced the fruit we've shared with you
& to watch our services LIVE!
We will leave this web site up as long as the Lord permits.
We still have some CD's and can make more at home, if you'd like to have them.
As always, we don't charge for them, but will take a donation of any amount.
Anderson Family
205 PR 3902D #129
Mt. Enterprise, TX 75681
email: FourSing4Christ@yahoo.com
Don't forget to check out www.buildinganark.com
Since November 2004