11-Year-Old Ordained Evangelist Healing, Ministering and Speaking in Tongues
Ezekiel Stoddard is an ordained evangelist from Temple Hills, Md who is said to have the gifts of speaking in tongues and healing, and who writes his own sermons at only 11-years-old.
Although most Christians have read Acts 2:17 in the Holy Bible that states, "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams," some are surprised to see Stoddard in action.
"A lot of grown-ups will look at me like I'm just a joke and I need to sit down," the 11-year-old minister told the Washington Post. "It doesn't matter the age that you can be licensed. It just matters ... how much word do you have and how much God has called you."
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Stoddard was ordained as an evangelical minister in May by his step-father and mother, Vasconcellas and Adrienne Smith, who are pastors at Fullness of Time Church in Capitol Heights, Md. While the 11-year-old boy uses his voice to sing and preach on many Sundays, likes to ride go-carts, watch the Los Angeles Lakers and play basketball.
Despite his ability to enjoy his youth, Stoddard told The Washington Post that God, a voice that sounded like fire, revealed that he would preach and heal people in a dream at the age of eight.
"God said, 'You are going to lay hands on the sick and preach to the poor,' " Stoddard told the Washington Post. "He said, 'Son, you are going to be something.'"
Now, Stoddard has said his mission is to minister the gospel and bring souls to Jesus Christ. His mother, Adrienne, told the publication that her son takes his time to study the Bible.
"Ezekiel really studies the Bible,'' said Smith. "He will cross-reference, and he will go deep into the Scriptures."
However, the young preacher admitted that devoting his life to Jesus Christ at such an early age is not exactly easy.
"The hardest thing is, when I [tell friends] about Jesus, some of them will drop me and say, 'You're not down with us anymore,' " he told the Post. "But that's what God made us for. . . . We did not be a Christian to not experience anything. God wanted us to experience everything to make us stronger in the Word."
Still, the young minister told ABC that he is exactly where he wants to be and where God has placed him.
"This is something that God called me to do and that's something that God wants me to do, and this is what I want to do," he told ABC.
