And finely some one said this story is fake!!! but still it is a sad story even if it happened to the author himself.
* The story above is FICTIONAL ….as is Pastor Steepek.
* Photo is copyright and has been licensed.
*The photo used is NOT Pastor Steepek, just an illustration.
* To contact the author:
pdubb@hushmail.com
Blessings to you,
My name is P-Dub. No, I am not the Christian Rapper who also goes by that name. I am the Author of “From Pauper to Pastor” the story of Pastor Jeremiah Steepek that went viral on Facebook on July 22nd. I wrote the story to express how I was feeling after visiting some churches in my hometown of San Jose, California. Many times I went to these big churches broken hearted, feeling lonely, depressed and searching for God. Sadly, every time I would walk out of the church, I felt worse then when I walked in. No one greeted me. I would smile at people and they would look down or away. I would try to approach people but felt out of place. I just ended up sitting in the very back of the church just hoping someone would reach out, but no one ever did. Everyone seemed to have their own cliques and I wasn’t part of them. I finally gave up and started to just fellowship with God on my own.
When I wrote the story, I wanted to share my heart without letting people know I was struggling. I’m the co-owner of a popular Christian web site and didn’t want people to talk about me or judge my walk. I have come to know that sometimes, Christians can be quick to judge and slow to forgive or understand and didn’t want to have to explain myself. When I put up the story, it was just to share with my websites Facebook family and that was it. What happened next, I could never have imagined.
An hour after putting up the story it had 2 million hits and kept growing by the minute. I knew it was the Lord sharing what I was feeling with his people. The story quickly kept growing and was soon at 8 million views. I started to get many emails from people all over the world saying how the story touched their lives, made them reevaluate their walk and many came back to Jesus. Even Atheists wrote in saying that the story touched them. I was so blown away that the Lord could do so much with such a little story.
As the emails continued, I started to receive very mean spirited ones. Christians calling the story a lie and fabrication. Well it was, but like I said, it was meant only to be used on our Facebook page. I didn’t think of putting up a disclaimer because it wasn’t a news story or something that needed a verified source…it was just a story. I also started receiving letters about the photo I used and how I was stealing it and not giving credit to the author. What people didn’t know is that I searched for Royalty free photos. It took me to Flickr where I found the photo that I used from Brad J Gerrard. I mistakenly took Royalty free as FREE and used the photo to compliment the story. I replied to an email and let the person know it was a Royalty Free picture from FLICKR. The person explained to me how Flickr worked and I immediately took down the post along with the 8 million hits and sent an email to the photographer to ask him for forgiveness and made things right.
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