Hi there! My name is Ian Rayner.
Well, what to say... Hmm... First off, I am not your typical type of person, as you may have seen from my videos. I love life, my family, my beautiful Girlfriend who you all know, and most importantly... God.
As you can see in the picture, I am a member of the Military. I am a 56M Chaplain Assistant in the Illinois Army National Guard, and I drill at Camp Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois with the 232 CSSB HHC.
Aside from my Military occupation, I do have a few jobs outside of it in the civilian world.
I make the best sandwiches you could ever dream of at Jimmy John's in Morton, Illinois, and I am working at one of my favorite things... I am an Associate Pastor in Goodfield, Illinois.
I came to faith in a very strange way. I was Atheist for most of my life.
I had a friend that was Atheist as well not too long ago, and we stopped being friends for about a year, until I met him on the street and asked for his phone number so we could reconnect and just drop the past.
He gave me A phone number, not his.
Luckily I did not call or text that number. He later texted me and said "Hey dude, it's Kyle, I gave you a fake number man, sorry about that. I'm just nervous that you may not accept the new life that I'm living."
At this moment, I'm thinking to myself, what the poop? So he proceeded to tell me that he had just became a Christian and wanted to share his new life with me. I, being as cautious as ever, believed that he was playing a prank on me, but I was figured I would counter his prank.
I hung out with him, and I can tell you right now that he was a completely different person.
this is where my life changed forever.
He took me to the Church he attended, it is called Bridgeway Church. At the time, they met in the Reynold's Theater in Morton, Illinois. We walked in, and I heard all that contemporary music. I hated it, it bored me so badly. I sat in the back of the room, and the 2nd Pastor of the Church came out and greeted the congregation. The next thing he starts talking about is that he feels that there is someone in the congregation that doesn't know Jesus and doesn't believe in God, and that he just prays that God lets that person feel his love and his presence. In that moment, it felt like 1,000 people were hugging me all at once and actually meaning to do so, I felt completely loved. I didn't understand the feeling because of the belief that I had at the time over the whole thing, but I knew that I could not deny this feeling that I had, it definitely was not of this world.
Pastor Matt, the guy who was speaking, talked about their upcoming baptism and how it's so important to Christian faith, which stuck in my head. He then started his sermon and talked about Mary Magdalene and how she gave everything she had for a container of oil to annoint the feet of Jesus, and I questioned myself, how would that feel to give everything you have up for Jesus?
Both of those things stuck in my head all day. Our family friend, who is now the Pastor above me, came and talked to us about baptism, and it reminded me more of what was talked about. Then, later that night, some crazy stuff happened.
I was laying in my bed, trying to go to sleep, but all I thought about was that story, I wanted to understand why someone would do that, and what it would feel like. I then had this feeling that I should look in my New Testament that I had. It was a blue Gideon's New Testament. I always heard, that if you open The Bible up to a random page, there will be something for you on that page, so I tried it.
I opened up right to that story
It was almost like God saying "Read it, and understand it, I am here."
I knew, in that moment, that I was wrong about everything, and I have been lied to. There is a God, and he loves us all, people are just blocking him out and not listening. Instead, they would rather worship themselves or a made up "God" like Allah, and give a murderer and rapist the title of "Prophet" and say their Religion is peaceful, and Christians are the violent ones.
My prayer, is that the world wakes up, before it is too late. The world has been feeding itself lies, that it actually believes.
Just a warning, incase you haven't noticed, I don't speak with restraint, neither did Jesus.
Join me on Sundays for "The TRUTH" as we uncover the lies of the world, and the truth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The TRUTH is a journey, that we all need to take together, thank you for everything.
I love you all! - Ian