Let's Meet: Tony Arza of Mountain Moving Ministries
Describe Tony in 5 words: Sarcastic, passionate, loud, poetic, reflective
What inspired you to start Mountain Moving Ministries?
I was inspired to start Mountain Moving Ministries when I was 15 years
old. I had just come to a relationship with Christ and knew that I
wanted to share this new found love. That was when I decided to be a
missionary and be committed to go anywhere people ask me in order to
share the message of Christ and the Church. Mountain Moving Ministry
reflects my own faith journey in a way as it is continually molding to
whatever it is God is calling me to focus on at that time.
If
you could tell all women one thing, What would it be? I think it would
be that they are loved. So often in faith we can get boggled down in all
the technical things. We think of our journey toward Jesus as avoiding
sin and being a "good" person. But the reality is we are all broken and
we all need this Divine Lover. Knowing that you are loved as a woman is
so important, I believe every girl wants this, to know that she is worth
being loved. And many times, that question goes unanswered by their
fathers and so they seek other men to tell them that they are worth
loving. Maybe the men in your life made you feel like you had to meet
certain expectations or that you were only good enough if you did
certain things or didn't do certain things. The reality is, we are all
broken, every single girl on this planet is broken she is imperfect, and
the world wants us to refuse to accept this, the world and at times ill
advise people of faith tell us we have to be perfect. We have so many
voices which say you will only be loved "IF" or you are only worth
loving "WHEN". This causes each of us to develop a feeling of deep
insecurity and a fear that if people knew we weren't perfect we wouldn't
be loved but you are. In fact, not only will you be loved you are
loved. That is why this message that you are loved is so vital for women
today because it answers the longing they have for acceptance and
counteracts their fear of rejection. If women today hope to live a life
of peace and joy they must accept this love, and ultimately they must
accept themselves. Life is full of much heart ache and this is not the
solution to every problem but this self-acceptance and acceptance of
God's Love promises a haven of security and a garden of intimacy. The
journey toward a life of value and a life of love is through this road
of Acceptance. Maybe
you are someone who strives to live a faithful life as a Christian and
you very rarely fall into sin, and you say many prayers each day do all
the "right" things. This is wonderful but if on the day you fail and you
sin and you don't pray because you got busy do you still have peace.
Are you still secure in the love of God. Because we can't make "God's
love" like the "worlds love" and think we can earn it. Or that God has a
standard by which he judges those who are more worth His love and those
who aren't No, He doesn't, He loves you always at every moment and in
order to accept His love and the love of anyone else in our lives we
must accept ourselves. As women, you must love yourself not based on any
"thing" not on something tangible or external it must be a total
acceptance of all your faults and sins because Jesus accepts us with our
Sins and thus we must learn to accept ourselves. This path to self
acceptance is immensely difficult. Yet, I think it is so quickly
overlooked and that's why I think it is the one thing I want all women
to know, because their journey toward lives of love and happiness all
begins within their very hearts .Some times the hardest person to love
and accept is ourselves, but only in doing this will we allow the love
of Jesus to flow into our lives.
Something
I found that your always closing and opening up conversations is "Jesus
Loves You." How do you find people's reactions to this? Haha. This is a
great question cause I get many different responses to this. I usually
get an awkward stare at first because most people don't really know how
to respond. Some say thank you others say you too and on a few occasions
I get "I don't believe in Jesus". I always try to be loving and in my
love for the people who say they don't believe I just all the more
emphatically say "it's ok, well... he still loves you." Sometimes I get
people who say at my school you don't need to tell Christians that we
all already know he loves us. But my response to them is this- if we
really knew that Jesus loves us we would have changed the world a long
time ago. Just turn on the television and you will see that clearly we
as Christians have not allowed the depth of this reality to totally
consume our hearts, because if we did we wouldn't have to worry about
trying to convert people, they would be converted by the joy and peace
comes from a true knowledge and acceptance of the love of Jesus.
What
is your favorite way to unwind from a busy week? I love to sit in my
room and play guitar. I personally love to write songs, I've even
recorded some of the stuff I've written. Nothing brings me more peace
than allowing my heart to be put into words and allowing those words to
meet the emotional nature of whichever chords I'm playing. Singing to
Jesus or about the sufferings of this life is a great way to learn to
embrace the reality of hardship in this world and unite it to Christ on
the Cross.
What
can we soon expect from Tony Arza and Mountain Moving Ministries?
Soon
you can expect a new series of podcast and God willing a reboot of the website-tonyarza.com.
We will most definitely keep speaking wherever the ask us to and be
sure to Share the healing message of the Gospel with everyone we
encounter. But at the end of the day I really don't know what is in
store for me and my ministry because really my life and my ministry
belongs to Jesus. It will be around for as long as he wills it and when
he doesn't it too will fade away. For I only started this ministry for
Jesus and to do His will and as he reveals more and more to me I will be
sure to respond no matter what the cost.
Tony Arza is a 22 year old college student who currently is attending
Franciscan University. He had a conversion very early on in His life,
and at the age of 15 he started Mountain Moving Ministries. Tony has
traveled to several continents including Africa, Australia and Europe.
After doing mission work overseas he develop a tremendous love for
mission work here in the United States of America and decided to focus
his ministry closer to home. He now speaks at Church retreats around the
country. He looks forward to doing much more as
time goes on including a more technologically friendly ministry helping
him achieve his goal to reach as many people as possible.
*Thank you for stopping by The You Are Loved Campaign, Tony! We look forward to seeing great things come from your ministry.*
