What is wrong? We have been plagued with a disease that seems to be nearly incurable. That disease is sweeping our nation. Its effects are seen in every platform of America. With the disolving of absolutes, America's crime rate has spiraled, until it now costs taxpayers nearly 2.5 billion a year. A serious crome is committed every 4 seconds, one robbery every 83 seconds, and one murder every 27 minutes.

Drug addiction and alcoholism are in immeasurable proportions. The United States now has more than 9 million alcoholics. More than 500,000 heroin addicts live in the United States, and 43 million Americans have experimented with marijuana.

Suicide is the second largest killer of teenagers. Teenage pregnancies, incest, and sexual child abuse draw national attention. More than 2 million Americans a year contract gonorrhea.

Pornographic magazines (more than 20 million a year) and books crowd the newsstands. Video-cassette stores now market the products of X-rated theaters. One out of every two marriages ends in divorce. Some 1.3 million unmarried couples now live together, according to the United States Census Bureau. The IRS has made abortion clinics "charitable" organizations, therefore exempt from taxes.

What is wrong? We have now reaped a nation of atheistic schools, rampaging crimes, God-forsaken homes, weak-kneed churches, and powerless pulpits.

Where did it begin? What is wrong? The problem began in the home. We live in a day of fractured families and fractured marriages. The divorce rate has increased 700 percent in the past century. Over one million children a year are involved in divorce cases, and 13 million children under eighteen have one or both parents missing.

From sowing these seeds of confusion, disharmony, and immorality, we have a generation of teenagers that need somewhere to get direction.

In 1996 the Harvest Baptist Church of Fort Dodge Iowa, under the leadership of Pastor Marvin E. Smith III, opened the Anchor Character Training Center. This dynamic ministry to teenagers and adults who are looking and desiring deliverance, and crave to haev their lives rebuilt, is experiencing miracles.

Teenagers and adults have come form nearly 30 states to receive help. The Anchor Character Training Center offers a one year, two year, and three year program for teenagers.

Through intense discipleship, loving discipline, character building activities, and strong preaching on Biblical principles, and by grafting God's Word into the lives of the residents, strongholds are coming down.

Where rebellion reigned, submission is in control. Where involvement with the wrong crowd, foul language, drugs, sex, and alcohol abounded, respect for authority, soulwinning, sin hating, and praising God now abounds. These young people have changed from a disgrace to a trophy of God's grace.

A Note from Pastor Smith

The calling to the ministry of the Anchor Character Training Center was born from an account in the Word of God.

One day a man brought his son to Jesus. His son was possessed with demonic powers. He was out of control. He told Jesus that he had brought his son to His disciples, but they could do nothing for him.

Jesus rebuked the disciples as being faithless. After Jesus healed the young man, the disciples inquired why they could not help him. Jesus replied, "Because of your unbelief". Jesus added to that by saying, "This kind cometh not out but by prayer and fasting".

My heart was smitten by those words that the disciples could do nothing for him. Churches preach that Jesus is the answer, but we send the hard cases to the state programs. I believe that the Word of God has the answer to all of life's problems.

At the Anchor Character Training Center we have developed a Biblical-based program that is reaping unbelievable dividends in the lives of those who really give themselves to it.

The Anchor Character Training Center operates on a love-offering basis. We do not charge to come to the center. We ask parents to give what they can to help their loved one. We receive support from local churches on a monthly basis. Many of these churches have taken the home on like they would a missionary. Your prayerful and financial help will be used to see broken lives restored.

The Anchor Character Training Center is located on ten beautiful acres. The center has a 60,000 square foot facility that provides housing, meals, schooling, and character building.

Our heart's desire is to be a blessing to the broken lives that have been caught up in this fractured nation.

If you would like more information about the Anchor Character Training Center, please call ACTC director Brother John Brooks or myself today at 515-955-5270 or 515-955-3074. Harvest Baptist Church Ministries P.O. Box 430 Fort Dodge, Iowa 50501

Marvin E. Smith III
Marvin E. Smith III
Pastor

Our Statement of Faith

We believe in one true God, who is the person of the Trinity; perfect, infinite, and eternal. He is revealed to us as a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity, the Eternal Word, and the Only Begotten Son. He became a man by the miracle of the virgin birth.

We believe that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, and He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgement, and He has come to empower the Christian to live the victorious Christian life.

We believe that all men, by nature and choice, are sinners and lost.

We believe salvation is by grace through faith and is a FREE gift of God, neither earned by any self-righteous or religious work of man but can be received by personal faith in Jesus Christ.

We believe in the second coming of Christ and that His coming, which is our blessed hope, is always imminent.