The Story of Word of God Ministries

The Word of God Ministries and the whole Bible concept started around the turn of the century, right after Bruce and Susan got booted out of the Bible church they were in. Ultimately it was a good thing, as you can see by the writings. Here's an outline of the story.

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Passover

Moshe Arm Raise

Passover will be on Saturday 4/7/2012 through Saturday 4/14/2012. First (Saturday - already a Sabbath) and seventh (Sunday) days are Sabbaths.

Remember days start the evening before. The Word of God Ministries uses the current rabbinical calendar. Not because it's the most accurate (it's not) but because we can stay more unified.

Updated: October 28, 2011

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Updated: September 16, 2011

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Updated: September 16, 2011

About The Word of God Ministries

In the Beginning was the Word:

and The Word of God Ministries is Bruce and Susan Bertram with our kids Lynette, Chris, and Eric. We're not really a huge formal organization like some. Just a family that reads the Word and tries to do what it says.

Susan had a normal childhood, living pretty much in one place and going to one Disciples of Christ church. Bruce's childhood was a little more scrambled. Susan had one set of parents; Bruce had six stepdads and four sets of foster parents, getting adopted by the fourth at 14. While Susan went to one elementary, one middle, and one high school, Bruce's high school was his 20th school. So of course Bruce went to lots of different churches too. He was baptized a Catholic in the first foster home, went to Methodist, Baptist, and Assembly of God churches, and finally stopped for a while at a Baptist church in high school. For a while.

After marrying in 1980, we both decided that we'd like more service than a conventional church could offer, so we went to a Calvary Chapel for three years, then a Wesleyan. Later we moved to Colorado and tried to find a place at an Evangelical Free church, another Calvary Chapel, and about 1997 went to a Bible church where Bruce was an elder for a couple of years. Looking back, it feels like we were always wandering in the desert.

Also about 1997, Susan discovered a book called 'Signs in the Heavens,' which was about how Satan had hijacked the signs (through astrology) that God put in the heavens (Genesis 1:14) to tell His story. She was so excited when she found it that she didn't finish it right away but showed it to Bruce. He read it three times then gave it back to Susan and she read it a bunch. It opened our eyes to the fact that many of God's ways in Scripture have been kept away from the average church-goer by church tradition and dogma. We began to discover that Torah had been hijacked also, and locked away from Christians by the anti-Semitic teachings of most of the church. The author, Avi ben Mordechai, came to speak at the Bible church and helped us start on the path to learning how to live all of God's living oracles.

Shortly after we began to put all of the Word into our lives, we were looking around for other authors who might have similar insights and ran across Brad Scott at Wildbranch Ministries. He had (and has) a lot of good information too. Unfortunately, we stopped being friends because we didn't agree about the two-house teachings (spoken of in Identity Issues). Bruce had studied them at length and decided that they weren't Scriptural.

We went from there into the Messianic Movement, getting involved somewhat with First Fruits of Zion and even considering moving down to Phoenix to be more of a part. Gradually we came to realize however, that much of that movement is more concerned with Judaism than with the Word of God. While we were going through this stage we were still part of a Bible church where Bruce was an elder and shared the pulpit for a while. However, as we worked some of what we were learning into our teachings the people there slowly worked us out of their church. First by keeping Bruce from the pulpit, then blocking him from teaching adult Sunday school (where several visiting pastors had overheard some of his classes and complimented him in public for the quality), and finally freezing Bruce and Susan out of the church altogether.

The Growing Years:

We guess you could say the growing years were after we figured out that the Messianic movement was not truly representative of Torah following believers. Bruce was starting to write (and had written quite a bit to his fellow elders at the Bible church defending his new understandings) and found that he needed two things. One was a way to frame his understandings in a simple way, and the other to start a website to share what he was discovering with others of like mind. As he was praying about both around 2001, he feels that God gave him the insight to call his new understanding Whole Bible Christianity. He learned about websites and started the first version of it at about that time too.

It came about that we didn't see the need to stop calling ourselves Christian just because some had dragged the name through the mud. But we weren't Jewish, even though we followed the whole Bible. Then it hit - why not call ourselves Whole Bible Christians?

Where we're going:

Our 'mission statement' is to put God back together (Jesus and God and the Spirit), put the Bible back together (all of it is for all believers all the time) and try to put the Body back together. The first two are actually easier, at least in our personal walks. Putting together the Body is somewhat more problematic. As we're sure most of you reading this have realized yourselves.

The whole Bible people at Word of God Ministries in Grand Junction, Colorado:

	Bruce Bertram Husband of Susan, father of Lynette and Chris, father-in-law to Eric, and grandfather to Raine, Keira, Isaiah and Cassidy. By the time he was 13 his natural mom (he calls her the egg donor; natural dad is the ‘seed donor’) was married seven times. In between step-fathers he was placed in foster homes five times, and went to 20 grammar schools. At 14, by the grace of God, he was adopted. He got baptized as a Catholic at six years old (first foster home), and spent time in California and Hawaii’s Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Wesleyan and Assembly of God churches. After marriage he was baptized a second time and spent a few years in three different Calvary Chapels. After the second Calvary, he interviewed for a youth pastor position in Susan's former Disciples of Christ church, and was briefly an unpaid youth leader in a Wesleyan. The third Calvary¹ was in Colorado. There was also an Evangelical Free church, and he was an elder in a Bible church. He’s been to Messianic synagogues and visited some off-beat groups such as the Worldwide Church of God and Seventh Day Adventists. He studied systematic theology books from the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, and populist books from people such as Chuck Smith (founder of Calvary Chapel). He even had a Mormon girlfriend in high school. He actually listened to Jehovah’s Witnesses, got his own copy and read the book of Mormon, browsed the Hindu Bhagavad Gita, talked with Hare Krishnas, and even checked out the book ‘Siddhartha’ when he was younger. That’s what happened when you grew up with the Beatles! He's stayed with God, but it wasn’t because of the church. The churches He’s been in have been a lot like his natural mom – lots of touchy feely emotion, a few good actions here and there, but overall just not doing what you would expect from the Body. When it comes down to loving or leaving, all too many clubs choose the latter. Meaning that he was the one that had to leave. ¹Why so many Calvary Chapels, you wonder? At one time he and Susan thought they had the best shot at going the right way. Their ideas of following the Spirit and reading the Word are good. Alas, like every other group they hardened into a bureaucracy and are now more concerned with what Chuck Smith says than what the Spirit says.
	Susan Bertram Wife of Bruce, mother of Lynette and Christopher, mother-in-law to Eric, and grandmother to Raine, Keira, Isaiah and Cassidy so far. Raised pretty much in a Disciples of Christ Church. Susan has followed, and sometimes led, Bruce to all of the different churches they attended after she married him. No small thing when you spent your entire childhood in one church. She was a receptionist and assistant to the pastor for the first Calvary Chapel we attended. She also did Daycare for nine years and was a teacher's assistant in a high school welding program for three years. She's made her house into a home and unwaveringly pursues her God. Susan has always been oriented towards her heavenly Father, and was the first in our family to discover some of the whole Bible principles we now live by. She likes to say that when she was younger and asked to teach she didn't feel comfortable doing it, but after learning the whole Bible is for her too she doesn't hesitate anymore.
	Lynette Wilhelm Wife of Eric and mother of Raine, Keira, Isaiah and Cassidy, daughter of Bruce and Susan, Lynette, like her brother, was not all that happy when her parents stopped observing Christmas as a teenager. But she also saw and embraced the love and grace in God's Torah. She has always maintained her faith, even in the face of rejection from her friends at the Bible church, in college, and in the Mom's group she's part of. She shared her faith with Eric before they got married, and he saw the sense of what she believed and embraced it also. Lynette is very artistic, making wonderful cakes for birthdays, planning parties, cooking, taking photographs, making quilts, and other things like canning fruit and preserving vegetables. She not only makes her house a home, like her mother, but puts her belief in Torah to work by helping her parents. She shares her faith quite a bit with the moms in her informal mom's group through email and Facebook. On top of all this she home schools her kids, making sure they get the principles that God has taught her through the whole of the Word.
	Eric Wilhelm Husband to Lynette and father to Raine, Keira, Isaiah and Cassidy. Eric went into the Marines right out of high school, and spent about five years there working as an electrician on C-130's and Harrier jets. He married Lynette just before he got out and got a job as a technician working as the Western Colorado rep for a company that services gas stations. Lately he has been working with Bruce and Chris in a computer business. He likes to listen to the Bible on tape in his van (he has to travel a lot) and he loves to celebrate the biblical holidays with his family, teaching his kids the whole Bible way of living.
	Christopher Bertram Chris wasn't too happy when at about 15 years old his mom and dad decided to dump Christmas. However, within a short time he and his sister began to see the wisdom of following God's ways instead of men's, and chose himself to follow Torah. In high school he gave his teachers fits, defending the creation account and the science of the Bible. In college he stood for the whole Bible in spite of being ostracized by one of the so-called Bible clubs on campus. He's attended a number of Bible studies, but can't seem to get people to actually study the Bible very often. Any chance he gets he shares the whole Bible way of his beliefs with whoever will listen. He loves to dance, and is learning West Coast Swing (along with ballroom dancing) which is a good thing, because he needs to be light on his feet to give a defense for the hope that is in him.