WS Chronicle

Living Water Bibleway Temple recently opened their doors in Winston-Salem. Senior pastor, Bishop Anthony Bazemore, and his wife, Prophetess Q. Ann’Gel, are hoping to bring a new voice to the people that will bring them closer to the Lord.

“Living Water Church was birthed out of a vision that my father-in-law had and his name was Pastor Howard Daniels,” said Bishop Bazemore. “For over 30 years, he pastored in the city of Winston-Salem and the name of his church was Living Water Non-Denominational Church.

“The church has been closed for over 10 years; however, when I married his daughter, and me coming from a family of preachers, I believe in legacy and I wanted to do something to honor him. After much prayer, we reopened the church, but named it Living Water Bibleway Temple, because I am a part of International Bibleway.”

Bishop Bazemore is originally from Baltimore, Md., but moved to North Carolina as a pre-teen. He received the call to preach at the age of eight.  

“After being taken away from my mom because of substance abuse, I moved to North Carolina with my father’s parents and that’s how I started preaching,” he said.

Bazemore says he had some character flaws that landed him in some trouble. He feels God saved him from those flaws and allowed him to open the church.

“My gifting got me places where my character could not keep me,” Bazemore said about himself. “I am a gifted preacher, but I lacked character. I have been to jail and through all of that process, the Lord saved me and redeemed me for real. After a failed marriage of 13 years, the Lord gave me a second chance and allowed me to marry a beautiful young lady that I’m married to now, who despite all of my shortcomings and failures, she saw that God’s hand was on my life.  

“She pushed me to become the man I am today. Not only did she push me, but she trusted me with her legacy, because Living Water was her dad’s church. She trusted me enough to handle not only her, but her father’s legacy and their legacy, because she could have rightfully so pastored the church.”

Bazemore went to prison for writing a bad check and said that experience taught him a lot.

“I don’t care how much you try to do for God, I was raised in the church all my life, but we as preachers are not above the law,” he said. “The closer you are with God, the tighter you have to have your stuff together.  

“It taught me patience and it taught me to love people from all walks of life. They didn’t give me a different color uniform because I went to prison for a bad check than the man sitting next to me and he murdered his whole family.  Everybody had the same uniform and you never knew what someone was in there for unless it came through in the newspaper or you heard them discussing their case. So, it taught me how to treat people fairly and more importantly, how to love people and to preach the message of redemption.”

At 33 years of age, Bazemore is at a unique age to where he can connect with both the older and younger generations at the same time.  

“Being a young preacher, I was always raised around older, seasoned generals, if you may say,” he said. “I think that one of the problems is it’s almost like Eli and Samuel. The older generation represents Eli. Eli knew how to discern the voice of God, but he could not hear him. Samuel could hear, but he could not discern.

“One of the problems I have with our generation is, we hear well, but we don’t know what to do with the information that we hear. Our older generation, they don’t hear so well now because of old age, but they have the discernment that we need. As a young pastor, I do my best to bridge the gap between the two and to show this generation that we still need the discernment of our fathers and holding them to a high regard.”

Bazemore says he wants to do more with the prison ministry because of his background. He also wants to connect with the homeless community as well. Even though the pandemic has put some of their plans on hold, the Bazemores are happy to have their doors open to the public.

“I love church, and it doesn’t matter how many people are there,” he said. “I had a word from God and I had a gumption from the Holy Ghost to go and do it, so I knew as long as He was with me, I was going to be all right.”

Living Water is located at 4175 Moat Drive and they have been open for nearly two months. They have not experienced any COVID-19 scares because they have the space to properly socially distance, as well as frequently sanitizing the space.

According to Bazemore, what separates their church from others is that he and his wife are preaching from life experience.

“Everything that I preach, everything my wife preaches, comes from a place of experience,” he continued. “Because we have that experience, we are able to touch the common man and we are able to help those that need to be helped. One of the things we believe in here is that compassion is the breeding ground for miracles.”

Bazemore said he feels that because both he and his wife are pastors, that makes them better in their craft.  

“Everywhere that I lack, she is on it,” he said. “I don’t think that I could do Living Water Bibleway Temple without her. She is a valuable asset to the church, but most importantly, before the church, she is a valuable asset in my life.”

Prophetess Bazemore is a native of Winston-Salem and is happy to carry on the legacy of her father and to speak the word of Christ to the people of the city.

“I believe the Lord is sending people that are hungry and excited about the new things that are going on here,” she said. “I believe the pandemic has caused people to hope and they are looking for different things. With us being a new church, as people get to know we are there and get to know more about us, I think more people will come.

“With those who have started to come, I believe they are pleased with how it’s family oriented and the spirit of Christ is there, so I think it’s going great.”

Living Water holds services at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday afternoons and on the second and fourth Sundays they hold an additional service at 7 p.m.