Please allow me to introduce myself. My Name is Steven Ackerman. I am from Janesville, Wisconsin. I am a single father of 2 young children, Nicholas (8) and Aubrey (5).
I have decided to totally take up the Cross of Christ and through much preparation and experience have decided to plunge myself into his mission field.
I am a recovering drug addict/alcoholic with a past of depression, anger, loneliness, frustration and many of the other problems and emotions that life all too frequently deals us. I have been divorced and am currently raising my two young children on my own, for the most of it.
Most of my adult years I have been a listener, encourager, counselor, and minister of the Lord, to friends, family and anyone else I have been given the opportunity to minister to. My approach is subtle, passive, but often, very effective.
I have lived a life of painful experiences and through many of them I would write to get in touch with my feelings and inner spirit. It was very helpful, at those times, to write, and then to read and attempt to memorize what I had written.
I write poems. My poems rhyme and rhythm and are written in a very simple to understand style. I graphically illustrate my experiences, my feelings and my hopes and strengths with easy to relate to, easy to read poetry.
My life has always been an outreach of some sort. I believe it is one of the spiritual gifts that God so generously gave me. He also gave me the ability to touch people's hearts and their outlooks on things through my poetry.
I have written hundreds of them over the period of my life. As I read back through them I'd noticed how many of them were outreach poems. I recollected people whose lives had been impacted through my words. The words I offer are words of encouragement and hope. Of strength and resolution. I noticed God's fingerprints on nearly all of them. The more that I read, the more that his plan had unfolded.
It has been my desire for the last few years to write a series of books which I had planned to call my "Dealing With Dilemma" series. I have already written, self-published, and self distributed several of my first book, entitled "Dealing With Addiction". I have given it out at the jails, mostly, and a few to the local drug and alcohol treatment facilities in town here. I am often told how helpful the book is, not only to the suffering drug addicts or alcoholic, but to their affected family members.
It illustrates and explains, to the best of my knowledge, the problem, the symptoms, the costs and the affects of this terrible illness. It opens up the addict's eyes. It says all of the things the addict wants to say but does not know how or is afraid to admit, let alone confess.
God has been calling me hard on this for a long time. To see this book in publication and distributed to all the jails, treatment centers, 12 step programs, counseling centers, and anyone else who was interested in reading it and learning about the topic at hand.
In this case, addiction is the topic. It is one of epidemic proportion. It is one that I do not believe is addressed nearly enough in the Church. This book is very informative, eye opening, and has an honest and accurate conclusion: that God is the answer to the problem. The only answer!
That is the conclusion of all of my book material. I have a potentially powerful ministry here. I want to reach out to the drug addicts and alcoholics. The severely (even the minutely) depressed. Those struggling with broken hearts, broken marriages, and broken families. The unhappy! The lonely! The hurting! The angry! The weary! My ambition is to minister to every age, color, gender, and social stature.
I have the experiences to write about. I have the tools to expose and promote this ministry in a big way. I have the plan to put this all together to become as effective a ministry I can imagine. I see very big things for this.
What I have done to this point is I have written and collected some 400 poems over the last few years. I have organized them by giving them all categories and indexing them on a Web page. As I was doing this, God was speaking to me so loudly that it was apparent that this was his mission for me:
To continue writing the rest of my "Dealing with Dilemma" series and to expand on it as he leads me. I am very compelled to write about depression, divorce, single parenting, sexual and physical abuse, immorality, abortion, hate and its crimes, and any other struggling issues that God lays upon my heart.
I want to impact the Church to get people to search deeply into their own hearts, to find Christ's calling for them. I know a lot of Christians, many of whom have not heard their calling. I was one of them until recently. If you haven't found yours, I encourage you to do so.
When the spirit of Christ is in you, I can see how you can move mountains. That is the intention of my mission. To move a mountain of sinners and lost souls into the brighter light of Jesus Christ.
As I am writing, I have a very solid and effective promotional idea to get this ministry the exposure it needs to make it available to those in need of, or interested in exploring it. My outreach will be powerful and effective. It is going to take a lot of work. I have a lifetime of books to write and a major promotional push ahead of me. It will take my full time effort and that is what I will give it: "110%". I am focused and my plan is a solid one. It is driven by the Holy Spirit. I have no doubts it will be very successful. God has a lot of messages for me to share. I already have thousands of hours into this. It is something God has prepared me for my whole life.
In order for me to do this wholeheartedly, effectively and successfully, I regret to say that I cannot afford to do it without any help, any more. That would be the ideal ministry, if I could, but, I have to feed my kids and pay my bills.
I have struggled up until now trying to do this alone. I am looking for mission support to help me survive and promote this effort. I am not looking for a lot of money. Just a little help!
I am looking for people who believe in my efforts and ambitions enough that they see fit to support what they believe is going to be an effective ministry. The financial support would be of great significance to me, but the belief and support in my mission would mean a whole lot more.
I, too, need encouragement and support at times. I am hesitant to ask for it. But I have drained myself in my efforts to this point and could use a little help from anyone seeing fit to do so.
I am looking for people to pledge $5, $10, $20 a month to aid in the creation and promotion of this Internet ministry. Beyond the website, excess contributions will be used to purchase hard copy books and distribute them where they are needed most.
If you cannot afford to pledge, or just have no interest in funding my mission, would you please pray for protection for myself and my family as we prepare to take on Satan head on.
Pray, please, for the success of this ministry. Pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal himself to all eyes that fall upon my words. And pray for these souls and lives that I am going after. That they will be reached, touched, affected, transformed, and that they will come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
If God puts it on your heart, to be of aid to me, please send your contributions to:
Steve Ackerman
509 Glen St.
Janesville, WI 53545
Please include your name and home address, as I would like to personally thank you and to keep you updated on the progress of this ministry. I believe things will happen very quickly, and I will be eager to share all results. Thank you for taking the time to read my letter.
Sincerely,
Steve Ackerman
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