Tyler’s Story

Hi, my name is Tyler Montgomery I am 26 and now an involved member and minister for the Apostolics of Greene County. But….. things haven’t always been that way. I spent the majority of my youth growing up in church, the first time my family graced the doors of Apostolic Bibleway Church in Linton I was about 8 years old or so. God quickly drew my family in and within a few years my parents, and me by extension, were heavily involved in the church and ministry. As I grew up surrounded by great people and a loving church I got to experience God for myself. I can still clearly remember riding in the truck with my Mom on the weekend of a revival we were having at the church and with childlike faith, I simply stated to my mother that I was going to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost this weekend. God fulfilled that promise and filled me with the Holy Ghost, and shortly after I was baptized in the Name of Jesus. Fast forward a few years to the point that I was 12, I can recall being at a youth service and I couldn’t tell you what the preacher spoke about that night, but I knew God was talking to me. That night I felt an overwhelming presence of God and even at a young age I felt that God wanted to do something with my life, and so I dedicated my life and told God that whatever I was, and whoever I would become, my life would be his. Unfortunately, my promise and dedication I made to God would be broken over and over again as I grew up and began to push away from God. As I got older, the relationship with God and commitment to the church that my parents had failed to become my own. Instead of getting closer to God, unanswered questions and a desire to fit in and blend in with the world led me off the path that God had for me. I reached a point in my life when I knew what the bible said and I knew what was right but because I lacked my own relationship with God I had no idea why I was doing those things or why I should continue to do them. I came to a point that I resented church, I resented how involved my family was, and how much time it “cost” me that I could have used for things I wanted. My heart became bitter and cold. Even though just a few short years earlier, I had felt the power and presence of God so vehemently, by the time I was a teenager I didn’t feel God at all in services even if everyone else around me was able to feel him and respond. I didn’t cry in church anymore, I wasn’t interested in church anymore, and I had no desire to be used of God, I was simply biding my time till I was old enough not to go to church. Even though my heart was hardened, just to show the faithfulness and goodness of God, I can tell you I still felt him try to chip away to get to my heart, one such time I remember the preacher talking and saying that “In the audience were preachers and ministers.” With my hands crossed I sat to myself motionless on that pew thinking to myself, “that’ll never be me, I will never be a preacher”. But you see God has a sense of humor…. and he never….. I mean never quits trying to reach us no matter how far or fast we run from him. Eventually, I would come to eat crow so to speak and the things I said I would never do, God led me back down the path to do exactly that. Now, how I ended up in a place where God could use me took some time and a lot of effort from Pastors and Mentors who loved me and saw what I didn’t see in myself. I continued much the same way with a hardened heart all through high school and into college, in my senior year of high school I had some new people come into my life our current Senior Pastor Williams and Pastor Gouldsmith. These two gentleman along with their families built a relationship with me and helped rekindle my love for God and desire to serve in his kingdom. I had reached a cross roads during my second year at Vincennes University where I was attending, my personal plan of becoming an architect fell apart, and I was left deciding where to go and what to do next. One fateful winter day while driving myself and two of my friends to class early in the morning I hit a patch of black ice and jumped the median of major highway at a high rate of speed and collided head first into another full size pickup truck coming the opposite direction. The shock of the impact knocked me unconscious for a few moments, the next thing I can remember is opening my eyes and being stuck at the edge of the oncoming traffic lanes the truck had been hit so hard it had spun 180 degrees and bent the frame so bad that my driver’s side door would no longer open. Miraculously though, all the people involved in the accident, myself, the other driver and the passengers in my vehicle, none of us suffered any serious injuries. God used this accident to recapture my attention and show me his hand in my life. After the accident God spoke to me and showed me how he had turned my vehicle in the opposite direction 180 degrees, this was a message from him I was still running still going the wrong way and he wanted to turn my life around and put me back on track. Through that tragedy my mind had been made up, I was going to serve God. There were still many mistakes, failures, and problems in my future but I was resolute to not give up or quit. In another difficult season of my life Senior Pastor Williams once shared with me, “I don’t care how many mistakes you make or how many times you fail, don’t you give up”. To be honest, that statement still sticks with me to this day. Because of God’s grace and all the wonderful people at the Apostolics of Greene County I still haven’t given up. I’ve got plenty of flaws and God is still working on them but I’m so thankful to be where I am and that God had enough love to get my attention and put me back on the right path. The bible teaches that God is no respecter of persons, so if God can this for me, someone who should have known better, someone who should have never fell out of love with God, then I have no doubt that he can do it for you. If you’re looking for a place to belong filled with genuine kind and caring people and place where you can grow and get to know God, I encourage you come visit one of our campuses or join us for one of our events. You never know that may be your day that your life is changed forever.