BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

The two collided head-to-head. The cracking sound reverberated through the stands. Ted spun out of the hit and kept running. Except it felt as though he’d lost his legs. As he ran, he was hit again. The force of impact knocked him out of bounds and into a fence and the bar that supported it. Another hit flipped him to his back. It felt as though the entire opposing team had landed on him. Ted was hurt! His head hurt. His back hurt. Still, he wanted back in the game. “Elmer, I’m OK,” Ted told his coach. “Put me back in the game!” Ignoring Ted’s plea, the coach turned and spoke to someone. “Call an ambulance.” “Elmer! I don’t need an ambulance! Why won’t you put me back in the game?” “Because my name’s not Elmer.” Things Aren’t What They Seem “In the emergency room, the doctor asked me my parents’ names,” Ted recalls. “I knew I had parents, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember their names. I had a serious concussion.” Beyond that, Ted also had a broken back, and a crack in one of his vertebrae. “That was 1984, and my football career was over,” Ted recalls. “Worse than losing football was the feeling that I’d lost myself. My identity was so tied to football that I had no idea who I was without it. “I’d been raised in church and believed in God, but I’d never been born again. When I was 17, I heard the voice of God for the first time. He spoke my true identity to me. He’d called me to be a pastor. “I went to college on an academic scholarship, determined to prove to God that I wasn’t pastor material. For the next several years, I made the worst choices. I never smoked, drank or did drugs. But I took cheating to a new art form. I was also a womanizer. I had a huge hole in my heart that I thought love could fill. Of course, it just left me feeling more needy. “I was seeing a woman who was bisexual. We were on the phone and I was setting up a time to be with her when God spoke. This was the second time I’d heard Him. He said, 'You’re about to go to a place from which you won’t return.' “I apologized to the young lady and told her that she would never hear from me again. A few years later, she died of AIDS. “When I was first in college, I saw a young woman dressed in leather and swearing like a sailor. A few years later, I saw her again. Her name was Dawn and she’d changed. She invited me to a Bible study and led me to the Lord. During all those years running from God, I’d never been convicted of sin. Once I was born again, I was so convicted that I wept over my sin.” Accepting the Call Ted’s aunt, Gloria Cherry, pastored a Pentecostal church that he and Dawn attended. “I’m ready to acknowledge the call of God on my life,” he told her. “Next week, you’re going to preach a trial sermon,” she replied. Born again only about two weeks, Ted didn’t know how to preach. So he asked God for a message, and God gave him one: “Send Me, I’ll Go.” As part of his message, Ted gave his testimony. During the altar call, 35 people gave their hearts to Jesus. Ted and Dawn married and remained at that church for three years until his job promoted him and they moved to New Jersey. Dawn’s uncle, who lived in New Jersey and had been a drug addict for years before becoming clean and sober, urged them to attend his church, Living Faith Christian Center. There they discovered that the pastor, Lamont McLean, was a Partner with Kenneth Copeland Ministries. Ted had heard the faith message preached, but says he had never been taught faith like he learned it at Living Faith Christian Church, and by listening to Brother Copeland when he came to the church or spoke at meetings in the area. “The first time I had a conversation with Pastor McLean he said, ‘You need to know that I see the call of God on your life. I’m going to teach you everything I know. What God has put in me, I’m going to put in you.’” From that point on, Ted took notes and studied every sermon Pastor Lamont preached. Meanwhile, in his personal life he became national sales manager for FUBU (For Us, By Us), a black-owned, American hip-hop apparel company. The job came with a six-figure salary. 14 : BVOV

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