Steven Anthony
steven@realitysf.com
Pastoral Assistant
The question, “when were you saved?” seems a bit odd to Steven Anthony. As far as he is concerned, he was saved 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross and that kind of redeeming love continues in Steven's life to this day.
Steven was born and raised in San Francisco, California. His mother was 19 and his father was 24 and they only stayed together for the first four years of Steven's life. Sadly, Steven's earliest memories of them are some of his most painful. Both parents were drug addicts and, in accordance with California’s "Three Strikes law," Steven's father would not be home for a long, long time.
As his mother’s heroin addiction worsened along with the relationships she chose, Steven quickly adapted to a childhood of isolation and solitude: constantly shutting himself out and hiding under beds. Locking himself in closets as tears streamed down his face, he would repeat, “No one really loves me." In his silent rebellion, he was building a towering fortress around this heart with no intention of letting anyone past the walls.
By God’s grace, his godparents decided to adopt him when he was nine years old. Around the same time, his dad came back into his life. His father had been living in San Jose for a year and had started a new family. Steven’s dad would pick him up on the weekends and try to persuade Steven to move to San Jose. Though weekend visits to San Jose were spent breaking car windows and stealing candy from the local grocery store, he somehow ended up at a bible study for neighborhood kids. This is where he first encountered the Spirit of God. When he got back to San Francisco he asked his mother, “what religion are we?” to which she replied, “Catholic”. As an 11-year-old, he tried to pray and read the King James Version of the gospel of Matthew, but he didn’t understand it, so he gave up.
Throughout high school, Steven had a few friends who grew up in Christian homes. He asked them a lot of questions, but was generally more interested in girls and making money by selling marijuana to schoolmates. Growing up listening to nothing but rap and hip-hop, Steven learned to write rhymes but was never comfortable with rapping. Most of the rhymes he wrote stayed on paper until he started his first band when he was 19. After realizing the things he wrote about and the things he wondered about raised more questions than they did answers, he decided to really start reading the Bible for the first time and find a church. The church he found didn’t line up with the Jesus he read about in the Bible, so once again he gave up. He toured with his band and made a lot of friends in other bands that were Christians. He also made a lot of friends that were not and found himself pulled in two directions. On one hand, Steven still talked a lot with his Christian friends about how he "loved" Jesus but couldn’t stand Christians or The Church and on the other hand he knew no matter how much talked about Jesus, He didn't truly know Him as the loving Savior he read about in the Bible. The more this tension pulled at him, the more he began to read and take inventory of his own heart.
Amidst all of this, God was patient and pursued Steven ceaselessly. If you ask Steven, he'll tell you the many ways God has been a mighty power through the darkest parts of his life. During an Easter service at Reality, he wept and finally started to understand what God meant when he called him His son. At that moment, Steven said, "yes". "Yes," to God's love and "yes," to the work God wants to do though his life. Steven knows he is loved endlessly through the blood of the Lamb. Now, even the most painful memories are seen in the light of redemption. The walls built around his heart are being broken down by a faithful God full of infinite grace and Steven now sees every experience he has as an opportunity to minister to others. Steven loves Jesus and His church and wants nothing more then to stay faithful to God’s call to be a minister to the bride of Christ.
