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Greetings

My name is Gary Ellis; I am a Pastor and Elder in the Living Fellowship ministry of churches. I reside in Chicago, IL. And I am part of the Chicago Living Fellowship Church.

I was born in 1968 in Naples, Florida, and am now 55. My parents moved to Winter Haven, FL., when I was five. Our neighbors invited my parents to church and began taking our family to service. That was the beginning of an incredible 50-year journey of hearing the beautiful story of God.

Sunday school was unique for me as the teacher taught lessons from the Old Testament stories and focused on the characters of those stories, like David, Joshua, and so many more. It introduced me to a new world of imagination. Those stories led me to Jesus Christ, and my life has never been the same since.

As a 9-year-old boy in church, I would listen to the pastor tell those stories through preaching, and my first memory of hearing from God was a Sunday am when he preached that God was a spirit and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. This message not only quickened me, but it sounded familiar as if I knew it or remembered it, and it provoked me to have questions that greatly stirred me to learn more about God and who he was. I never forgot the simple truth that God is a spirit.

Our pastor baptized me at ten years old in a lake near the church, and I knew then that I wanted to live for God for the rest of my life.

As I grew to 15 years of age, I began to seek God in a call to preach the gospel of Jesus. I told my pastor at the time, and he put me to the test. And once he saw I was serious, he began to teach me how to become the preacher I knew God was calling me to be.

I started preaching in my home church at 17, and at 20, I left home and became a pastor in the state of Alabama. I eventually went into the field as an evangelist and spent the next eight years traveling through the country, preaching to as many as we could.

I moved to Chicago in 1998 and settled as part of the Chicago Living Fellowship church. I preach and travel between the four churches of the fellowship and, with this blog, look to do some writing and preaching in telling the Story of God through his son, Jesus Christ.

My life has been quite a journey, and the Lord has been very faithful. There have been many moments of loss and gain. And in all of it, the journey has become one of learning and abiding in the unending love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As it is written in Phillipians 3 verses 7-11, the Apostle Paul states.

  • Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me and is safe for you.
  • Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh.
  • For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh
  • Though I have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
  • Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
  • As to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. 7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
  • Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ
  • And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith
  • That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

My Hope for this site is to encourage those who have heard the story of God and provoke them to do more incredible things in Christ. If you have not heard the story, I hope to introduce you to the story and welcome you into The Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God bless you, and may the Holy Spirit enlighten you in his Eternal Story..