Pastor/Teacher Anthony Payton

Anthony Payton, a native of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, serves as Senior Pastor/Teacher of Come As You Are Community Church, 7910 S. Anthony Blvd., in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He speaks very candidly of a life of addiction and of deliverance in “Anthony’s Story” at www.comeasur.org. What Satan once meant to use for evil, God has now converted and uses for the good of His kingdom building here on earth.

Pastor Payton married on June 28, 1986 to wife Sandra Kay. They are the parents of two teenagers, Zachary Ian and Lydia Kay. He resides with his family in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He enjoys watching movies with daughter Lydia, playing basketball with son Zachary, reading, traveling and shopping.

Anthony accepted his call to the ministry in 1986. He preached his first sermon on April 14, 1986 at True Love Missionary Baptist Church, in Fort Wayne, under the pastorate of the late Bishop Jesse White.

Led by the Holy Spirit in 1995, Anthony Payton accepted the responsibility of stewarding 23 people at the former Greater Come As You Are Missionary Baptist Church. Today, with a membership of over 500 people, Pastor Payton has transformed the vision given to him into what is now Come As You Are Community Church. With ownership of more than 76 acres of land in the southeast section of the city, the churches home is a 25,000 square foot state of the art sanctuary, and home to Northeast Indiana‘s first Charter School, the Timothy L. Johnson Academy.

Pastor Anthony Payton unequivocally pronounces that our plans, pursuits and purposes are designed by God. We must collectively and individually have the courage to apprehend them and live out our destiny.