User:Savoycurtis/sandbox

Curtis Savoy was born and raised in a small town outside Landover called Glenarden in Prince Georges County, Maryland. He was born on the 19th of January 1979, the second of two children to Etta Louise and Narnel Savoy at PG County Hospital in Cheverly, Maryland. Altogether his mother had three other children from previous marriages, which includes first his older sister and then second his two older brothers. His older sister graduated from high school in 1982. But, he recalls that his older brother was struggling with some issues related to drugs, so he didn’t graduate on time from high school as expected. On the other hand, though, his other brother managed to graduate on time from high school as was expected during the early part of the 1990s. Basically, he and his siblings made it through some very challenging times as far as a single parent family household is concerned.

In other words, his mother gave birth to four children including him, which she later raised on her own as a single parent mother, because his mother and father separated from one another in terms of marriage, roughly sometime around when he was in either first or second grade at Glenarden Woods Elementary School. The origins of his immediate family delves into the family history of both his grandmother Helen Anderson and his grandfather John Anderson, which be traced back to a small town called Danville in the state of Virginia, where his distant cousin Apostle Lawrence G. Campbell has faithfully served as Senior Pastor of Bible Way Cathedral, for quite some time.

As an openly gay Prophet, in light of his reflections on the shame and honor stigma of the Black church during the early 1980s and the 1990s about issues on what the Bible does and does not say about homosexuality, the Prophet Savoy never had what he would consider a healthy relationship with his immediate family, because he came out to his mother and the rest of his family while he was dating his very first boyfriend during the 9th grade of high school. During that same year, a friend of his named Rodney Holton told him about MCC, which was founded by the Rev. Dr. Troy Perry in 1968. And so, he became a member of MCC-DC while he was still in high school at Suitland High in District Heights. However, because of several misunderstandings in terms of his religious background in the Black church, specifically, the Pentecostal tradition, the Prophet Savoy submitted a membership dissolution notice to MCC-DC, and left the denomination.

And since then, even up to the time while he was preparing to continue his college education at Towson University during the Fall of 2009, members of his immediate family said and did insulting things to him because of his sexual orientation as a homosexual. And so, after surviving homophobia for many years from members of his immediate family, the Prophet Savoy realized that he could no longer speak to his mother nor spend any time with anyone else in his immediate family during the holidays for religious reasons. Specifically, because of their lack of acceptance towards him as a gay Christian with a perspective on the Christian faith, which is somewhat different in terms of what they were taught over the years about the Bible in the tradition of the Black church about salvation, and how to live a Christian life of holiness as a way of living.

His sister was the first one that was able to go to college and earn both an Associate’s degree and a Bachelor’s degree in Nursing from PG Community College, and Columbia Union College. And in June of 1998, he graduated from Bowie High School in Bowie, Maryland. Furthermore, after the Prophet Savoy met the Bishop Dr. Rainey Cheeks at the Sunday worship services of an open and affirming Black church called Inner Light Unity Fellowship Church in Washington, DC and meditated on the pulpit sermons of the Bishop Dr. Cheeks; the Prophet Savoy completed one year of metaphysical training at the School of Spiritual Science at the National Spiritual Science Center in 2002. During that same year, the Prophet Savoy survived a bad relationship break up with Michael Kyle Thomas. And it was during that time in particular (which he considers a spiritual breakthrough) that the Prophet Savoy had a vision of the Divine that challenged and changed his perspective on life for the better in light of spiritual development. And equally important, without the spiritual support of a spiritual advisor, the Prophet Savoy was the second one (in terms of his immediate family) that was able to graduate from college with a Bachelor’s degree in Religious Studies from Towson University in 2012. This was the first sign of God's grace and care upon the life of the Prophet Savoy as he continued to discern his call to the ministry of the Christian church.

Unfortunately, though, the Prophet Savoy had to separate himself from his immediate family roughly sometime around the Fall of his second year at Towson University, because of numerous disagreements about the Bible which almost resulted in getting the PG County Police department involved with the family dispute arguments in terms of possibly having to file a restraining order to protect himself from getting hurt at his mother’s apartment where she lived at the time in Seat Pleasant, Maryland as a result of several “heated” arguments that they oftentimes instigated most of the time. Specifically, about various issues about the religious stance of the family in terms of the Bible regarding his sexual orientation, which one of the reasons why as an openly gay Christian, the Prophet Savoy came to the conclusion that he could no longer pass the peace of Christ with anyone in his immediate family anymore, during the holidays at their dinner tables for religious reasons.

And so, being able to reach back three generations into the religious history of the Prophet Savoy, delves into the religious roots of both his grandmother and his grandfather, whom he really didn’t know that well. His grandmother made her transition because of cancer during the 1960s before he was born, and his grandfather made his transition because of heart complications during the middle of the 1980s, a few years after he was born.

The religious history of his immediate family has everything to do with Bible Way Temple on NW New Jersey Avenue in Washington, DC, which was founded by Apostle Smallwood E. Williams, and was later led for quite some time under the senior pastorate of Apostle James Silver as one of the Presiding Bishops of the Bible Way Churches of Our Lord Jesus Christ World Wide. And one of the reasons why the Prophet Savoy recollected a few things about Bishop Silver is simply, because Silver was the Senior Pastor of Bible Way Temple when he was baptized at the church in 1996.

According to the Prophet Savoy, Bishop Silver was trained for the ministry according to the tradition of the Bible Way Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ World Wide in terms of what Silver had learned from Apostle Williams, about the Bible. And how to pastor a large church with a very rich history of being a Black church that to this very day is a Pentecostal church that still espouses the old school style of Holy Ghost filled worship, and a charismatic style of Pentecostal preaching in the African American Pentecostal tradition that always convicts the weary soul of the believer to press on throughout the ups and downs of life by trusting and believing by faith in the power of the Bible that JESUS NEVER FAILS.

After he left the Pentecostal church of his childhood, the Prophet Savoy testified as an openly gay Prophet to many people over the years that it was during the 1990s and numerous times afterward that God continued to call him into the ministry of the Christian church. And during the Fall of 2012, the Prophet Savoy was approved for admission as a seminary student in the Master of Divinity degree program at Chicago Theological Seminary. This was the second sign of God's grace and care upon the life of the Prophet Savoy as he continued to discern his call to the ministry of the Christian church. The Prophet Savoy is a member of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a local congregation of the United Church of Christ denomination.