My Story
(Blog 0001 AndrewHadden.org)
God insists that I explain my path – tell my story – to “everyone,” and to do it on this blog in just a few pages. You have no idea how difficult I find that to be. God pushed me to write my story, and his story of what he was teaching me, in a book, and it took hundreds of pages and he had to push and push me to do it – and it still needs work, and shortening. You see, there are many things that need explaining. My path is not “normal.” I am not normal – I can appear to fit some typical “molds,” but I really do not, and my path, my journey, does not.
Let me first try to sound “typical,” though I am not, so you will have some mold to compare me to. My father and grandfather were ministers, and several uncles. I was called by God to be a minister, which, by the way, means “servant,” a servant of God and of others. I prepared by going to a Bible college for a while for preparation and then getting a master’s degree in Bible from my denomination’s seminary. I studied hard but really found myself drawn to read my Bible and pray and seek God on my own more than through books about the Bible or religion. But I excelled in seminary and was tempted to pursue a doctorate so that I could rely on knowledge about God and about the Bible to teach others. To that God replied, “No, I want you to rely on Me.” I obeyed.
Let’s try another mold. I always excelled at school and loved science, math, history, etc. I excelled at standardized tests, to where I was told I could be anything I wanted to be and, belatedly, was informed I could have gone to most any university in the country (and got mail from many of them because I was a National Merit Scholarship Semifinalist). But God let me be ignorant of the opportunities before me so I would go where he wanted me. I was a science major for a couple years, with the department scholarship, but decided I liked people better than test tubes and switched to management. So I got a degree in management, but had thirty semester hours of chemistry and physics, and a math minor. And God still had not called me, though I considered (and feared) that he might. I graduated with honors and did it in three years. I planned to get a Master of Business Administration degree immediately. But God had other plans – he let me almost die from sickness (strep and mononucleosis) and some questionable medical care. God let me experience great weakness, and a sense of shame and humiliation from unemployment, and working in an engineering lab in automobile manufacturing, and then he called me to ministry. But he refused to explain what kind of ministry and let me feel a certainty that I did not fit any mold I knew of for ministry. Then he used a Bible college dean to convince me I needed to go ahead and get a master’s degree in administration (as originally planned) as well as a master’s degree in Bible.
So, after being called by God, I went to Bible college just enough to get preparation for seminary and then went back to the town I went to college in to go to the state university for an MBA and to my denomination’s seminary for a master’s degree in Bible. I did eventually finish both degrees, but the degree in Bible took much longer because my wife forced some steps away from that preparation. Along with my MBA, I also picked up the equivalent of an accounting major – as a tool for any kind of leadership – and I again excelled. I also passed the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam and earned credentials to practice that profession – just as an extra credential. I ended up being on the corporate comptroller’s staff of a large international oil company and having very responsible positions where I could learn a great deal – about international business, accounting, finance, regulatory and professional standards and requirements, information technology, and management. However, I thought I was on a forced detour from “ministry” and chaffed under it. In reality, God was preparing me in ways I did not understand for “ministry” (service to him and to others) I never expected.
Then God let me go back to seminary, when my wife was ready. I even applied to be a missionary, because I had a burden, a compassion, for people outside this country that burned within me. God let me apply for missionary service, and I was approved, but then he also closed that door (but took eleven years to explain that he had done it). God has reasons for all he does, but he does not always explain them. In seminary, the second time, I also had a great desire for prayer and an intense “burden” (compassion) to pray for my own nation and the Church at large. And God revealed to me things coming on my nation in the future. He also asked a vow of me. He asked me, "Are you willing to speak the hard words, words hard to say and hard to hear?" I gave him the vow he asked – and it has cost me a great deal ever since.
But then I was again forced back into the business world. I received a standing offer from a top consulting firm, but, in deference to the needs of my wife and family, took a lesser consulting firm’s offer of a position that would allow me to be home every night (after moving to the Kansas City area). I was a consulting systems analyst for a big project for a prosperous pharmaceutical firm for a year. Then they tried to hire me but couldn’t due to a sudden hiring freeze – which inspired me to look elsewhere. Then I ended up in a local job advertised nationally in the Wall Street Journal – for my special blend of financial, accounting, management, and information technology skills. It involved corporate planning, financial and operational analysis, and forecasting for a large industry-leading company. I also designed (or greatly enhanced) and built financial and operational models, and planning and data-mining systems. I also, in that time, expanded my formal education in information technology as well as completed the last course for my seminary master’s degree in Bible.
But my heart ached to be in whatever “ministry” God really had in mind for me. I did not understand God was preparing me all along for what he had in mind. I left the business world and found a position as an associate pastor, as well as administrator for the church’s K-12 school and large daycare operation. But then I discovered a lot of undisclosed financial problems, as well as integrity problems, and knew I had to expose the problems tactfully and resign to preserve my integrity and their finances. In the process, God connected me to top leaders in my denomination and made a place of honor and high leadership for me at the denomination’s headquarters. I was to come in under a top leader but prepare to replace him. But God had other plans. God had me pray for and preserve the man they sought to replace, and told me I could not take the high position – because he wanted the first of my strength in prayer. He was not kidding. God drew me into prayer, intense prayer, to where I could pray for hours at a time. I prayed for my denomination, for the people I worked for and around, for decisions where God’s wisdom was needed, and for revival and spiritual salvation to come to my nation and the nations of the world. I ended up taking a much lower place of leadership by recommending another get what I considered a dream job if I could not have the “ministry” I wanted, and serving that man. Later, I gave up another big promotion when God told me not to take it, and had me recommend another and encourage him to take it. I learned to serve and lead from the bottom, by influence and demonstrating a servant’s heart.
In that process, God began to ask some very hard things of me. One was to tell leaders what God was saying the future would bring. While I was in the office of the top leader of the denomination telling him how God had insisted I could not take the high-level position they had planned for me, and that God had said he wanted the first of my strength in prayer, God made me tell him of God saying revival was coming – in a dynamic vision and prophetic word. But the revival came and they took notice, and God used me to motivate the organization to prepare for the impact of the revival, and more that would come. In doing that, I ended up leading large modernization projects that cost millions but brought much needed improvements in operational efficiency and capacity. I gladly took on load and risks others shrank away from or did not believe could be justified, approved, and funded. And that role opened up much access to leaders and the opportunity to share more with them of things God said were coming on the nation, the Church at large, and the world. That included warning of Islamic terrorism coming on the nation and the world – before 9/11 – and seeing it fulfilled, even including a map of terrorism across the world seen in a vision that matched one on the news five years later. This, in some measure, fulfilled the vow God had asked of me to speak words hard to say and hard to hear. But God gave more revelations and connected me to others hearing similar things from God and gave me more to warn them was coming.
God also increased my time spent in prayer – and my connection to others having revelations from God about things coming – by having me start a non-denominational prayer center ministry and run it on nights and weekends, but not competing during hours or days churches were normally having services. More prayer began to bring more revelation, and more certainty. God also brought people to me with similar, confirming revelations, and in need of confirmation and encouragement in the roles God gave them to warn other segments of the Church at large. As God continued to speak and grow me, he also made it clear I had a responsibility to warn my denomination’s leadership more broadly than I had already. I obeyed at great risk to my “career” and job security – but it would have been very selfish to have withheld the warnings. People needed time to prepare for what was coming, and the Church needed time to prepare for the great number of souls who would come to Christ due to what was coming. To not obey and warn could cost lives and souls. I obeyed and God had me leave the denominational headquarters job a few months later, to go full time with the prayer ministry – even though it would be a very great sacrifice financially and was being done on faith and obedience alone.
However, I don’t fit the mold of ministry either. My life and calling have been very different. In the beginning, over forty years ago, God warned, “. . . but know this, you will be tried as by fire, and refined as gold is refined, but brought forth as gold.” That’s been true for over forty years. Twenty years later, God used a minister from another continent to tell me God wanted to give me great authority, but he also cautioned me about the great cost involved in God putting me through what I had to go through to receive it. He also warned that Satan would do everything in his power to keep me from standing up in this calling. (But I had not asked for authority, only God’s presence and his voice, which I cherished.) At the same time, but separately, a missionary gave me a warning from God that I would go through a trial in which I would feel I had lost everything – and that it would be a trial of “wrong judgment.” That was over twenty years ago and it has all been fulfilled, all that time.
I have been slandered all that time, and the Church has repeatedly and constantly judged with “wrong judgment,” unscriptural judgment, and it has cost me everything and I have lived in poverty and rejection for many years while continuing to obey and do the ministry God has given me to do. Scriptural judgment is mentioned by Christ in Matthew18:15 and following, where he refers to Deuteronomy 19:15 and following. American law adopted the principles there – diligent inquiry (due process) and being able to face your accusers and give answer and evidence in your defense. Scripture adds that a single witness is not enough to condemn, there must be two or three – and Christ affirms that in Matthew 18, as does the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 13:1. The passage in Deuteronomy also outlines severe penalty for bearing false witness. But in my case, the Church constantly violated these principles – and brought judgment on themselves as Christ warned wrong judgment, harsh unscriptural judgment, would (in Matthew 7:1-2). This was a characteristic of the Pharisees in Christ’s day, whom Christ warned of judgment, and it came, and it is a characteristic of the Church today – harsh, unscriptural judgment. In my case the Church repeatedly judged when it was told, in the Bible, not to – and failed to judge when it was specifically told to, in the Bible (in First Corinthians 5).
The missionary who prophesied the trial of wrong judgement also said that God would restore. He did not say how that would come. Eventually, others did have revelations of how it would come – judgment. We tend to have a negative view of judgment, and not want to have it talked about in the Church – but, without judgment, God would have to be an unjust God who never defended the oppressed, the persecuted, and the abused. Defense and judgment are two inseparable sides of the same coin. And governments must give justice to the oppressed and wronged and abused and raped, by judgment on the wrongdoers – or great injustice is done.
There is more involved in my story than that though. I did suffer greatly under the impact of the slander, and associated gossip, of the Church. But I also was to carry a message meant to save many lives and provide for the saving of many souls. God, in his great mercy, needed to defend his message by defending his messenger – so that many lives could be spared and many souls saved. God’s judgment to defend was really mercy on a far greater number of people and souls. He really is a merciful God, but he sees and considers far more than we consider. Because of that, he is capable of being a far more just judge than we could ever be. He really does weigh the souls in the balance and act in love and mercy to preserve the most souls that he can. For my part, it was also love for me to obey God and warn people God told me to warn that they were in danger of judgment. It involved saying words very hard to say, as God asked me to vow I would, because I knew people I warned would judge me harshly and spread it far and wide to my great harm. But out of love and concern for them, I had to warn if God said to warn – it would be worse than hatred and a terrible selfishness to not warn. That is why God warns of serious consequences for those he sends to warn, if they do not warn – which you can read of in the Bible in Ezekiel chapter 33. But any real spiritual shepherd has a responsibility to warn that judgment will eventually come – but in this day few do, and it is out of selfishness – love for themselves more than love for their flocks.
Now I need to answer the real question. Who is Andrew G. Hadden? He is a man chosen by God, called aside for many years to know the heart of God and the messages of God. He has suffered for it many years, but he has also benefited. It is a wonderful thing to really know God. My greatest reward is that God trusted me to know the pain of his heart over his creation, the souls of men that he has created, and especially the pain of Christ over his Bride, the Church. I am a friend of God, sent to speak for him. I would not claim it if he had not said it. I am awed by the responsibility of it, and what it has already cost – but I would gladly pay the cost again to know the pure heart of the creator of the universe and all within it.