"It was a blessing for me as I saw my students moved by the Spirit of God through the teaching ministry of Born to Blaze. Through Brother Carl's knowledge of the Word, History, and the Holy Spirit my students have been educated and inspired to go after God for guidance with passion. The move of the Holy Spirit and the anchor of the Bible came
through Carl's anointed teaching. My students received inspired revelation and practical tools. What a balanced blessing. I will be asking Born to Blaze Ministries/Brother Carl to come again to teach my
students."

Pastor David Plaisted
Director of Minnesota Teen Challenge Training Center
A ministry training center for TC graduates

Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Carl Anderson began a preaching ministry in 1987, at the age of 17, in various Lutheran church settings, and he started his own video production company as a young entrepreneur and began training in media arts. He did not yet personally know the Lord about whom he was speaking!

Just before his graduation from Concordia College at the age of 20 with a bachelor's degree in Communications, he saw his need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and committed his life to Christ and gave his own life for the advancement of the Kingdom.

It was a radical conversion, and soon led to an experience of being “baptized in the Holy Spirit” through the ministry of some itinerant speakers who were visiting John Wimber's Anaheim Vineyard Church. His life would never be the same. "Soli Deo Gloria" (To God alone the glory) became the cry of his heart.

His ministry was transformed. He now knew personally the subjects he had been preaching about previously from only a theological perspective. People to whom he shared Christ not only received salvation, but also many were healed in their bodies of various diseases. He spent two years in personal prayer and study, and then another two years in ACTS International Bible School obtaining an associate degree of ministry. He was licensed and ordained in 1994, and currently holds his credentials through Omega Team International. Later he spent another 3 years and obtained a Masters of Divinity.

In the early nineties he connected with various ministers for apprenticeship. One of them was Bishop Bill Hamon and Christian International and he received training in the prophetic, particularly learning to utilize prophetic ministry in evangelism, traveling with Bishop Hamon and others and getting his feet wet in utilizing the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He also produced ministry videos. His work in the mid-nineties was broad, encompassing many different streams of ministry including working with Generation X and teaching and training in Youth With A Mission (YWAM) bases in Ireland and Germany.

He held evangelistic street preaching outreaches in various cities of Europe and trained catholic saints in evangelization, ministering in Roman Catholic prayer groups and likewise charismatic, mainline Protestant and Evangelical ministries throughout Europe and the States. Multitudes received salvation and physical healings. He spent time in Asia, connecting with The Bridge International and training new converts in evangelism and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Muslim nations of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

In 1996, the Lord confronted him one day through a trusted colleague and shared that although he was traveling the world in ministry, preaching all about the Lord, he did not really know the Lord about whom he was preaching. He lived in a “christianese bubble” and didn't really understand the pressures of life that his audiences were experiencing. It was time for a “backside desert” experience akin to Moses in the wilderness, and Carl laid down Born to Blaze Ministries to pursue a closer relationship with the Lord for a period of years. He was not allowed by the Lord to make any contacts with leaders or travel in any capacity for a season.

He met his wife Sarah Elizabeth in 1996, who was pursuing missionary work and involved in leadership for a local church plant, Cities Vineyard, in Minneapolis. They married in 1997 and started a family, and created a tent-making business in professional video production, specializing in wedding video, having the ability to personally finance at least 50% of their missions overseas. The Lord has richly blessed this business, and for the past three years their company has won the prestigious honor of “Best Videographer” in the State of Minnesota by Minnesota Bride Magazine.

Over the early years of marriage and business, Carl learned to tune his ears to the voice of the Lord, and deepened his relationship with the Father, Son and Spirit, and began in international ministry again in the year 2000. His book, Changing of the Guard, is itself an incredible story. Written almost entirely in a 5-day period in 1995, the Lord encouraged Carl to “put it away in hiding” until the opportune time, and published it after a thorough re-write in 2005 as a timely word to the Rising Generation and those mentors who will train and release them into their destiny in God for these last days.

They (wife Sarah and three children Ethan, Gideon, and Zoe) recently relocated to Buffalo, Minnesota, an area about 40 minutes west of Minneapolis and a region of strong evangelical Christians. They hope to serve other leaders and churches there in coming seasons by helping bring revival with healing and signs and wonders to the area. They recently joined Village Evangelical Free Church, and Carl works with the elders/leaders of his own local church, serving in pulpit supply preaching and teaching when not on the road in ministry.

Born to Blaze Ministries has a dual focus: to bring a strong message of the Cross and stir up passionate discipleship to the Pentecostal / charismatic world, and an equally strong message in training the Protestant/Catholic/Evangelical world how to hear God's voice daily and walk more closely in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Born to Blaze has been called and commissioned by God to be a strong support to the Body of Christ worldwide. We are unique in that we come alongside ministries and individuals and encourage them to bear more fruit of the Spirit, to do greater exploits, and to walk closer with their God. We are the spark, the Holy Spirit is the flame, and greater fires blaze across the land as a result!

Soli Deo Gloria, Amen.