John Seitz
Biography
I was born in Minneapolis Minnesota. My mother grew up in a tough part of the twin cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul). My father had a vocational degree in agriculture. (farming). He was passionate about farming. When he married my mom he was working at a Swift Meat Packing plant in the twin cities. He quit his job at Swift and purchased a farm in rural Wisconsin not too far from a small town called Elmwood. This property was not far from where he was born. So they moved to the farm. It was in the mid 1950's. I was about 2 years old. My father was emotional broken resulting from his father, being treated badly by my great grandfather George Seitz, a German immigrant.
Being emotionally broken, he was not a good father, He put all his time and effort into farm work and didn't spend much time with me and my sister. I just had the one sister. She is two years younger than I. Whenever he did discipline, it was way to harsh, and usually out of his anger. He treated me as though he didn't like me.
My parents were experiencing financial problems because the farm wasn't providing adequate income, and my father came down with something called "Pericardiitis in the 1960's . Pericarditis is inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart. It was these two factors that caused them to make the decision to move to Rochester Minnesota in 1966. My mother had a college degree in Medical records. She got a job at the Rochester State Hospital in Rochester Minnesota.
My mother, having grown up in a tough neighborhood was also rather hardened by her childhoodexperiences. Her mother was killed in a car accident in the 1920's. Her father committed suicide a short time later over her death. My mother was also very harsh with me when it came to discipline. I was ADHD, which apparently frustrated her. She must have thought that this kind of behavior could be changed by discipline. Attending school in Rochester was difficult for me, because I was from a totally different environment. Rochester had more of a big city flavor to it. The school kids were tough, and I was bullied by the tougher kids. My passive behavior was the cause of a lot of abuse by others.
My father was very shrewd with money, and drove cars until they were completely worn out, or wouldn't even run anymore. He did business with an auto junkyard often. The owner of this junkyard was looking for help, and said the person didn't need experience, that he would train. I began working in this junkyard at about age 17. I did indeed learn about cars and how to disassemble junk vehicles. My job was to disassemble engines and sort the many different types of metal to be recycled. This was an excellent way to learn how engines are put together.
Driver's education was being offered in high school at that time, so I began driver's education. I learned how to drive a car with a manual transmission, because that's the type of car my parents owned, having operated a farm. I got my driver's license about 1969. I bought my first car from the junkyard, a 1955 Chevy.
When in high school I was interested in the electronics program they offered, but for some reason I never took the course. When I graduated from high school in 1971, I attempted to enroll in the Electronic Technician program at Rochester Vocational Technical Institute. I did not qualify because of my poor high school math grades. I was extremely let down, thinking that my life was doomed. Why did they not tell me that it was possible to retake the math? I remembered my interest in Autobody repair, so I decided to pursue that as a career.
Autobody repair was not offered at Rochester Vo-Tech, so I applied at Winona area Vocational Technical Institute in Winona Minnesota in 1974. I took the one year course they offered, and graduated with a degree in Autobody Repair From that school in 1975.
At a very young age I began to use passive behavior as a way to deal with my mother's harsh discipline. This behavior is something I still struggle with to some degree. I tasted alcohol for the fist time at about age 18. Having the emotional issues, It wasn't long and I was addicted to alcohol. Alcoholism took it's course and by the time I reached age 30, I was in fear of my life ending in a car accident or some other alcohol related cause. I was also experimenting with other mood altering substances like marijuana.
In 1978 I met a beautiful sweet girl by the name of Mary Lynn. We dated a couple years, and planned to get married in August of 1980. I was working at an auto dealer Body Repair Shop at the time, but wound up getting fired that summer. We decided to go ahead with the plan to get married in hopes that things would work out. I had trouble finding a job in the body repair business, so out of desperation, I opened my own Auto Body Repair business in 1978.
Me and Mary Lynn got married on August 16, 1980.
I was also addicted to tobacco, and was trying to quit, without any success. I remember one Sunday in 1978, when I had been without smoking cigarettes for a week or so, but began smoking again, and was upset with myself. I was so broken emotionally, and I knew God was calling me to him, and I remembered a friend from the church that I attended in my teens. (my mother had been a Christian from a very young age, and brought me and my sister up in the church). I called this friend and said I needed to talk to him. I drove to his house and told him about my situation, and that I wanted to repent and say the sinner's prayer. That day I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I did not start making changes in my life right away. Old habits and behaviors seem to die hard. The Lord in all his compassion knows this, and has a divine plan for all of us. This plan was unfolding in my life, none the less.
One day a man by the name of Andrew Fisher stopped at the shop to get and estimate on a total repaint of one of his cars, a Mercedes Benz. He said that the Lord told him to stop at my shop for an estimate. He owned more than one of these cars and I worked on other cars for him as well. I believe the Lord put him in my life to help me navigate the course as a new Christian. His words of kindness and direction literally changed my life.
I was still struggling with passive behavior and alcoholism. As a result, the business was not doing well. I was also suffering from exposure to automotive paints and solvents. I was experiencing periods of extreme weakness and fatigue, accompanied by seeing bright spots. I sought medical help for this and It was diagnosed as hypoglycemia. (low blood sugar). I was told that this was being aggravated by the heavy alcohol use. The doctor described it as "Pre-diabetic". She said that it was almost certain that I would be diabetic by my 50's.
It was the combination of these factors that made me so sick that I thought my life would soon end. I knew that alcohol was a serious negative factor in my life, and I knew that I was an alcoholic. My mother visited me at the Autobody repair shop, business I owned, and broke down crying in front of me. This was in 1982. This was very upsetting to me, so at that point I knelt down and prayed "Lord Jesus, please remove this addiction from me before it destroys me". It didn't happen instantaneously, but within two years I was sober. That was 1985.
I have never touched a drop of alcohol or mood altering chemicals since.
Autobody repair, being a hard labor type of job and the exposure to the chemicals caused me to look for other ways to make a living. People that are in that field usually quit and do something else, or start a business where they run the business and are do not have to be directly involved in doing the work itself. Having already done that unsuccessfully, I was looking for a change. I closed my Autobody Repair shop in 1982, when I got a job offer from a business called Maaco Auto Painting. The business that I ran was such a negative experience that I didn't want to work in this trade anymore.
However, this job offer was excellent pay, so I took it. For once in my life my skills were really appreciated. The system they used was based on the assembly line. It was production Body Repair and Painting, which was high volume. They observed my painting skills, and almost immediately moved me to the painter position. The position called for someone that could solve problems quickly, and soon they were calling me "The Wizard" because of my skill. It kind of makes me wish that I had a job like this years earlier. Even though It was a very rewarding job with good pay, I was still planning on quitting the Autobody trade. I began to think about the field of Electronics again, and somehow, found out that I could simply re-take the high school math that I needed. so in the year 1984 I began taking the high school math as an adult extension course. I was still painting for Maaco at the time. The manager of Maaco knew he would be loosing his best painter, and he was trying to intimidate me to keep me from leaving. He would say things like "are we going to find you hanging from the high wires?" My math class was once a week on Wednesday night, and Wednesdays he would keep me late. Autobody work is very dirty work, and I would go home after work, and shower and change for the class. I remember not having time to go home one night, and I had a change of clothes with me. Minnesota is known for it's harsh winters with below zero temperatures. That particular night, I had to change clothes in a compact car in a dark parking lot in sub zero temperatures. I was so frustrated, I thought of quitting. By this time Andrew Fisher had become a good friend, after telling him about it, he said "Don't quit, stick to it". So I stuck with it, and later realized that Andrew's advice had changed the course of my life. If I had quit, I wouldn't have done the career change, and who knows where I would have wound up.
In 1985 I began The Electronic Technician program at Rochester Vocational Technical Institute. I completed the course in 1987, graduating with a 94% grade average. I got better jobs with higher pay after that. In August of 1987 I got a job offer from Unisys Corporation, a mainframe computer manufacturer in Clear Lake Iowa. I quickly sold the trailer we were living in, and moved to Clear Lake Iowa.
Years later, as I was in my career in computers and electronics progressed, I began to feel that tug upon my heart again, as God was calling me to himself. Me and Mary Lynn began attending a charismatic church in Clear Lake Iowa, called "Agape Christian Family Church". I enjoyed the atmosphere, and the instruments were modern, including violin, electric guitars, drums and keyboards. In 1991, I got laid off from the job in Clear Lake. I had lived in Rochester so many years, we thought of it as our hometown, so we moved back to Rochester Minnesota. When I moved back, I wanted to attend the same kind of a church as the one we had been attending, so I chose a church in Rochester that was affiliated with the one in Clear Lake. This church was called "Mount Zion Christian Center". This church was a charismatic church also, and the congregation was so loving and kind These people ministered in the gifts of the spirit. I saw the Love of God modeled in such a profound way, that I knew I was home. I began to grow spiritually as all the layers of emotional brokenness began to roll off. Mary Lynn liked this church also, and she was being changed also. My youngest son, Nicholas was two years old when we moved back to Rochester. He grew up in this atmosphere, and today he is an incredible man of God at 35 years old. He currently lives in Redding California, the home of Bethel church.
The church services were on Saturday night, because they didn't own a church building, and the church building they rented was not available on Sunday morning. One Saturday night the elders of the church returned from a trip, and the Holy Spirit was moving so powerfully, that people were obviously filled to overflowing! We were still fairly new to the church at this time. I knew that the elders had been somewhere, and I thought that they had been to Times Square Church, which is the church David Wilkerson started in New York City in the 1980's. Later on, I found out that they had actually been to a church in Toronto Ontario called "Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship". This church in Canada was experiencing a revival, where the Holy Spirit was moving powerfully. The people were giving awesome testimonies of being changed in profound ways, more in Love with Jesus than ever before. Right away, I knew that this is something I wanted to experience.
I was not very well off financially, however, but the Lord did make a way for me to go. A small group of us drove there, taking a large vehicle. We attended one of their signature conferences called "Catch The Fire". That was 1996. I couldn't experience the Holy Spirit like others, and did not know why, but later discovered that emotional brokenness can actually prevent a person from receiving. Over the course of 15 years I traveled there many times, and got totally changed. My breakthrough came in 2001, when I attended a "Catch The Fire" conference. After the sermon we were instructed to get in groups of 4-5 and pray. During this prayer, I experienced a gut wrenching sensation that was accompanied by intense weeping, and could actually feel "Pain Draining out of Me". I knew that part, but I didn't know that this is actually emotional healing, and it would be a permanent change! After that I could experience the Holy Spirit as powerfully as others had.
Today I stand completely healed of the hypoglycemia that I spoke of. Also, I did not become diabetic as the doctor had predicted in 1984.
THE STORY OF THE MUSIC
Backing up to my childhood, my mother started me taking lessons on the Clarinet. I tried, but didn't really care for it, so I changed to the Piano. I took lessons all the way to my late teens. I became very good at it. However, I had other interests, and let it go. Years later, I had an interest in guitar, so I bought an electric guitar and started taking lessons. I was 39 years old. I applied myself to it, and in no time, was pretty good at it. I have been on church worship teams more than once. One day the Lord spoke to me, and said "Worship Leader". At the time, I couldn't even speak in front of people, having a lack of confidence. Now, looking back on it, the lord has done an amazing work in me, and I have led worship for years in many different churches and settings.
When I started playing guitar, I overdid it, and in my left hand, I was experiencing excruciating pain, and was thinking that I would not be able to continue playing. I attended a conference in St. Paul Minnesota. The speaker had been speaking about the innocence of a child, and how their prayers touch the heart of God. After the sermon, during ministry time, they asked for people to come forward for prayer for divine healing. In the context of the sermon, the pastor asked some young girls to pray for people. As they began to pray for me, I was getting emotional because it was so beautiful. One of the girls took it farther, praying things like "God, cause him to write songs that connect people with God, strengthening their relationship with you, leading them into worship. Cause him to write songs that touch your heart". That was more than 20 years ago. Not only did my hand get healed, but everything is taking place, just as the girl prayed.
Today, I am a worship leader, just as the lord said. I don't take it for granted, I cherish this position, and really enjoy it.
As I conclude this autobiography, I can look back and see how the Lord did an amazing work, taking this broken man and restoring him and transforming him to advance his kingdom.
