HEART FOR "UNDERDOGS" TAKES NEWSMAN
FROM THE HEADLINERS TO THE HURTING

Ministries Today - May / June, 2000

           Gregg Anderson traces his tender heart to the nation's worst drunk-driving crash in Northern Kentucky nearly 13 years ago. En route to the scene for Cincinnati radio station, he felt God's presence and sensed the victim's pain. Tears gushed from his eyes before he arrived.

           A year later he walked away from aspirations to become a network sports announcer. Ordained in 1990, for the last decade he has held various jobs, among them prison chaplain in Kentucky's maximum-security prison.

           Now part-time youth pastor at a church near Cincinnati, he also works with troubled youth for a Northern Kentucky school system. His duties include supervising GED classes at a county detention center.

           For the last seven years he has traveled regularly to Latvia, ministering in the Baltic state's prisons. Lately, he has contacted ministries springing up there to meet social needs in the post-Communist era.

           "I've always been for the underdog," says the founder of 70x7 Evangelistic Ministry. "Ministering to hurting people has always been a key part of what I do."

           While at the state prison, he prayed with inmates whose names he recognized from reporting on their crimes. Some were suspicious, thinking he was trying to do an undercover story but during his time there he made many friends.

           While many citizens grumble about prisoners enjoying free food, accommodations and cable television, most don't understand the high price of losing one's freedom, he notes.

           His career change came with a price. As a chaplain he worked for one-third the peak of his media salary, and he still earns far less than most reporters.

           "Gregg is a sincere man who loves god with all his heart," said his pastor, Sam Luke. "He's not well-publicized and there's not a lot of glamour in what he does.

Among the lessons Anderson has learned about caring for the hurting:

• Be Christ like and don't look for anything in return. The downtrodden can't give it.
• Serve without expecting accolades. God sees what you're doing.
• Turn the other cheek. Surly imamates have called him obscene names -one snarling, "I wish you'd drop off the face of the earth." But if he stops loving those who act hostile toward him, it curtails the miracle of God's forgiveness, Anderson says.
• There are blessings in helping others.

           "I've covered the Super Bowl, the Cincinnati Reds, University of Kentucky basketball·some of the greatest events in the last 20 years." He notes. "But that's nothing like seeing a downtrodden person walk forward and say, 'I want to accept Jesus.' You know you've been a vehicle to touch people for Christ.

May God's BEST be yours...Gregg