In 2018, Evangelist Daniel King organized a massive evangelistic outreach in the nation of Belize. Ten evangelists joined together and did ten crusades simultaneously. One of those evangelists was Pastor Michael Moonoo. He has continued to go back to the same island where his crusade took place. In today’s episode, he shares about the continuing fruit that has been produced in Belize since the nationwide outreach.

Show Notes: 

What fruit do large evangelistic events produce? Today we talk to Pastor Michael Moonoo. In 2018, he participated in our massive outreach to the nation of Belize called the Belize Festival of Hope. Since then he has gone back to Belize several times and on today’s podcast he shares testimonies about some of the long-term fruit our outreach produced in that nation. 

Website: https://www.destinylife.org

Pastor Michael Moonoo started in ministry as the youth pastor at his church in Houston, TX.  He attended Bible College in Columbus, Tx where he eventually became a faculty member. Her also met his wife there. They moved to Dallas and became youth pastors and later associate pastors. In 2007 the Lord spoke to them to start Destiny Life church. 

 For the last several years they have taken teams from their church down to the nation of Belize. They participated in the Belize Festival of Hope and they have continued to see great fruit from that event especially on the island of Key Caulker. 

Questions:

What fruit have you seen on Key Caulker since you participated in the Belize Festival of Hope? 

What is God doing in Belize right now? 

What plans do you think God has for the nation of Belize? 

Key Quote: Some plant, some water, some bring in the harvest. When you did the big national event, you planted a huge seed, we came in behind what you were doing and were able to do the cultivating, the pruning, and the nurturing and bring in the harvest. It takes everyone doing their part. 

Transcription 

Daniel King (00:00):

Welcome to the podcast. I’m with my good friend, pastor Michael Mooney from destiny life church. And several years ago, we did a massive outreach in the nation of beliefs. It was a nationwide outreach. We took 10 evangelists, did 10 crusades simultaneously all over the entire nation of beliefs. And, and pastor Michael was already working down there and beliefs, but he joined in on the outreach that w God had put in our hearts to do for the whole nation. And where did you go for your crusade during that event?

Pastor Michael Moonoo (00:34):

Well, we went out to key caulker there it’s a little Island, 20 miles off the coast to believe. So how do you get to key Cocker? Well, there’s two ways. There is a little puddle jumper airlines, but they’re kind of expensive. It’s a five minute flight, I believe. However, you can take a 50 minute boat ride for like 36 bucks round trip, and it was, it’s an experience. So that’s what we did. We had a blast.

Daniel King (00:56):

And so you participated in that nationwide outreach and people were saved during the outreach. They’re on key Cocker, but you’ve continued to go back to the nation of beliefs and go back to that, that particular Island tell us what’s been happening since then. Well,

Pastor Michael Moonoo (01:15):

So, you know, after the crusade that you had set up out there and it was such a privilege to get to be there and take part what you guys were doing. We, we had so many miracles that happen on the Island, and I believe those pastors really, their eyes were opened up. There was a couple in particular, this absolutely ate up the word. And so when, when we left, we contacted about a month later, contacted some of the pastors and they asked us if we would come back. And from that point on, I think we’re five years going now that they’ve been so receptive to the word of God, we are still seeing people say, we’re still seeing people healed people delivered, and they’re receiving the word of God and their ministries are increasing. They’re doing bigger things for God. We’re seeing their faith rise up one pastor in particular.

Pastor Michael Moonoo (02:04):

You know, he, he has a tent for his church and he puts it on a rented land. This guy is believing big and we’re believing with him, but he started a kid’s ministry on the Island and he would maybe have 15, 20, maybe 25 kids. And he consistently, every Saturday morning he would meet with those kids. He would feed those kids. And later on because of that door, that was open at the crusade, we wound up bringing a team of about 22 people from Amarillo, Texas last year. And we did a camp for the entire Island will now pass

Daniel King (02:40):

Oscar for all the children on the Island for all the children on the Island. And so how many kids came to them?

Pastor Michael Moonoo (02:45):

We have our, our number by the end of the week was about 109. I believe

Daniel King (02:49):

We’re not talking about a very big Island. That’s almost every kid on the whole place yet

Pastor Michael Moonoo (02:55):

Was told. The elementary school only has about 80 something kids. So you had more kids

Daniel King (03:00):

At your event than actually go to the elementary school.

Pastor Michael Moonoo (03:03):

Correct? That was great. And it was one of the biggest things the Island has ever seen. And and so with that now, after we left the kids ministry for pastor Oscar, it’s basically doubled. And so he has anywhere from 40 to 50 every week, he feeds them. And, and even during some of the trying times like the, you know, all the different virus stuff going on, he made a vow that he was going to keep feeding those kids. And some of those kids that might be the only good meal they have during that week.

Daniel King (03:32):

Wow. So you’ve continued to have an impact there. And then have you been going to other places and beliefs as well? What’s been happening in those other places?

Pastor Michael Moonoo (03:39):

We have, we we’ve been going down to Punta Gorda for about six years to another church down there in that area. But then last year in November, a door opened up there was a pastor in Dan Grega that we had, we had met through Facebook and, and we kind of follow each other and different things. And we were going to Belize to bring Christmas presents, to get to the Island. And so since we’re going to be in Belize, we, we never really could schedule this gentleman because of our, our time so limited, but since we’re going down anyway, we scheduled him. That door opened up. We had so many great things happen during that week of teaching and ministering the word, administering the anointing. And so now the re that region in the town of van Grega has opened up. And we’ll be we’re planning on going back during Thanksgiving this year, but it’s now he has a feeding program and he’s feeding every single day. Well, I have such a great love for the nation

Daniel King (04:33):

Beliefs and all of the wonderful pastors that are there. It’s such a unique country. Half the people speak English, half the people speak Spanish, you have the Caribbean feel to it, but then you also have the Latin American fields kind of like Guatemala. You also have the Mayan that are down the Punto Gorda area up North in the orange walk area. It really feels like part of Mexico,

Pastor Michael Moonoo (04:58):

The nights in in some of that area

Daniel King (05:01):

Also. And then you have Mennonites and then you have the, the, the, the people, the, the [inaudible] people that are there as well. So you’ve got all these different cultures and different people. And God’s hand is upon the nation of beliefs. I think it is perfectly situated to have an impact on nations all over the world. It can have an impact on the Caribbean. It can have an impact on Latin America. It’s only a short plane ride from Houston, Texas, so it can have an impact on, on the United States. And it’s still considered part of the British Commonwealth. And so sometimes the British Navy comes and docks their ships there, so it can have an impact over in Europe. And so I think God’s eye is upon the nation of beliefs. And I believe that revival is coming to the nation.

Pastor Michael Moonoo (05:50):

Yeah, I believe that. And you know, you mentioned some of those nations, we found that there’s, there are tons of Israelis that go to the Island, tons of Italians that go to the Island and tons of Canadians. So you’re so right when you mentioned that that is a hub, and it’s almost like a launch place. As a matter of fact, our pastor friend in Punta Gorda has actually sent someone from his church to minister in Canada. And so now we’re seeing that we’ve sent people to Billy’s for years. People still go to Belize, but now believes is sending people out into other regions and sending the gospel out from the country.

Daniel King (06:24):

Wow, that’s tremendous, you know, years ago, God spoke to me and said, Daniel, the mission field will become a mission force. And so lots of mission trips have come to beliefs. I mean, they, they get on the plane from Houston and sometimes on one plan, you’ll have two or three different mission trips that come down and they’re ministering. And so beliefs has been considered a mission field by, by many, but I think the day is coming where beliefs will become a mission force and reach out to the nations all over the world and have an impact. And, and I love the pastors down there and, and the people of beliefs, I’m just praying for God’s spirit to be poured out on the nation.

Pastor Michael Moonoo (07:05):

Absolutely. You know, they’re doing such a strong work down there and what I’ve noticed, you know, it’s, you know, the, the, the, the nation is not a very wealthy nation at all. It’s very poor. However, I see these pastors, they, they go beyond themselves and giving to their people and bringing good things to their people, and they really make big sacrifices for their churches, for their communities. And they’re so selfless. That’s what I see. They’re so selfless. I’ll tell you real quick. One of the pastors down there, we were down there a couple of years ago, he showed us some land that they were blessed with. And he told me his vision was to to grow cacau, that the thing they make chocolate out of. And of course, it’s very lucrative. Well, you know, he, he did plant some cacao, but then he planted a lot of fruit trees.

Pastor Michael Moonoo (07:52):

Well, at the onset of, of some of the, the, the pan, the COVID stuff, these fruit trees had started bearing fruit, and that he will pack up a little small pickup loaded with fruits and vegetables and take it out to the villages and all these people can eat. And so nobody’s going to starve out of this guy’s jurisdiction because there’s tons and tons of fruits and vegetables that he and his people have made a community garden. And now they’re, they’re just going. And so he could have planted cacau and made all kinds of money, but he was thinking, what can I do for my people? And the timing was perfect because nobody would buy, look a cow, any in the world because nobody’s going in or out. So this is perfect. And we’re seeing that kind of thing happened in Belize.

Daniel King (08:33):

Wow. What a tremendous testimony. Well, I really consider what you’re continuing to do to be part of the fruit of the, the massive beliefs festival of hope that, that we got to do. And I’m so delighted that you’re still down there working in beliefs, that, that you didn’t abandon the country, but you’re continuing to work because ultimately to change a nation, you can’t do it all at one time. It did, it takes a process building up disciples. And so thank you so much for continuing to work in the nation of beliefs.

Pastor Michael Moonoo (09:05):

Thank you for planting that seed. You know, you mentioned it so well, I believe some plant some water, some bring in the harvest. And when you did the, the big, big national event that you did, that really was a major seed. And then we came in behind what you were doing. And we were able to do the cultivating after that and do some of the pruning and nurturing, and then also bringing in some of that harvest. So it takes everybody doing their part. Amen. Everyone do their part.

Description: Robbie Leaf is a Native American who has a heart to reach Native Americans with the Gospel.  He wants to see representatives from every Native American tribe in heaven. Today, as Daniel King, “The Evangelism Coach” interviews him, he shares on the challenges and rewards of ministering to indigenous people in America.

Show Notes:  In American there are 562 Native American tribes. Many of these tribes have their own unique language and culture. More than 3 million people in the U.S. are from a native American background. The biggest tribes are the Navajo, the Cherokee, and the Sioux.  Many Native Americans in the United States struggle with issues of alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide. Indigenous Americans need Jesus.

On today’s podcast, we will hear for Robbie Leaf. He is a Native American who has a heart to reach his people and other Native Americans with the Gospel.  Robbie Lead is Cherokee  on his father’s side and Muskogee Creek Nation on his mother’s side. He recently returned from a ministry trip to a reservation in South Dakota. On today’s podcast, he will discuss some of the secrets of reaching the Native tribes of America.

 In Rev. 7:9-11  it says there will be representatives from every nation in front of the throne room of God, After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and unto the Lamb. The Greek word translated here as “nation” is the word “ethnos.” So this means every ethnic group will be in heaven including representatives from all the tribes. God loves Native Americans.

 Here are some of the questions Robbie Leaf answers in today’s podcast:

 * When you were younger you had a fascination with the supernatural. Tell me about that and how that fascination helped you find Jesus.

* How did a Native American like you get saved at the age of 22? 

 * Why is it hard to preach the Gospel to Native Americans?

 * I have heard native Americans say, “Don’t trust white people. Don’t trust the government.” I am a white evangelist, what can I do to build trust with native Americans so I can talk to them about Jesus?

 * Where did Robbie get the nickname “Mad Dog?”

 Key Idea: Robbie Leaf says that in order to reach Native Americans, the evangelist needs to:

1. Come with no agendas.
2. Serve them.
3. Be patient.

Transcription 

Daniel King(00:00):

Hi, I’m Daniel King and I’ve traveled to over 70 nations around the world in a quest for souls. And today we have a special guest with us that I’m so excited about because God has anointed him to reach a special segment of society that needs Jesus. His name is Robbie Lee. Robbie. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you being on the podcast.

Robbie Leaf (00:29):

Thank you, dr. King. It’s a very, very blessed an honor to be

Daniel King(00:33):

You’re here now just a minute. I’m going to tell them why you’re special. In just a moment, I’m going to tell them about the special area of ministry that you’re anointed to do. But first let’s talk a little bit. How did we meet?

Robbie Leaf (00:51):

We met it was a C fan bootcamp. You were an instructor, you were one of them evangelist instructors. And I was at the cross for all nations bootcamp evangelism bootcamp, and I was one of the students. And that’s where I’m at, where I’m at, dr. Daniel King.

Daniel King(01:10):

And so what are, what are some of the things that you learned during those sessions?

Robbie Leaf (01:16):

I learned a lot about surrender about submitting, about being obedient to God and learning just how continuing to dislike. ’em Die to self in every area of my life, learning how to be physically fit for, to afford a mission field in Africa and onward, wherever God leads me. And there’s, and of course, evangelism a lot of different people from different walks of life and different countries learned a lot through them, just their, the evangelism, evangelism styles, their their personalities. And there’s so much, really, so much to talk about with that, that it’s just, as, it’s not a life changing experience, you know, on, on all.

Daniel King(02:08):

I’m so delighted that you’re here on the show with us. Robby Lee is a native American and he is specially gifted by God to reach other native Americans with the gospel. And he has a heart for reaching American Indians, indigenous Americans with the good news of Jesus Christ. And so tell me a little bit about your, your heritage.

Robbie Leaf (02:35):

Well, my heritage is I’m on my dad’s side, I’m Cherokee and on my mom’s side I’m Creek Muskogee Creek. And I was pretty much raised in some of the ideology of native culture. And yeah I’m other tribes, but I am registered with the Cherokee and the Creek nation. And you live in, in

Daniel King(03:00):

Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I live, which is the heart of Indian territory. And there’s actually lots of people in our area that, that are native Americans here in America. There are 562 native American tribes. And many of these tribes have their own unique language. They have their own unique culture. And in total there’s more than 3 million people in the United States who are from an native American background. So the biggest tribes are the Navajo, the Cherokee in the SU. And I was thinking about these, the, these different tribes and nations in the, the verse from the Bible that comes to mind is revelation seven verse nine through 11. And Robbie, let me read this to you. It says after this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation tribe, people and language standing before the throne.

Daniel King(03:59):

And before the lamb, they were wearing white robes and were holding Palm branches in their hands. And they cried out with a loud voice. Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and onto the lamb. And so this verse tells us that every nation tribe, people and language are there in heaven, standing before the throne and the, the, the Greek word, which is translated as nations in English is actually the Greek word ethnos, which is where we get the word ethnic from in today’s language. And so this means that every ethnic group, every tribe of people will be there represented before the throne in heaven. And so this tells me that God loves the various tribes. God loves the Cherokee tribe. God loves the Muskogee Creek tribe. God loves you. You’re going to be one of those standing in front of the throne. And, and, and talk to me about God’s heart for native Americans.

Robbie Leaf (05:02):

Well I just remember Billy Graham said back in 19, I believe it was 1967, gave a prophetic word about the, the native people are a sleeping giant in this nation. And right now I feel like the sleeping giant has awakened with the native people. I feel like not just me, but there’s other native people all around this country and this continent that God’s raising up to go back to our, to our heritage, to the people and bring the fire and the passion of the Holy spirit of Jesus to them to bring healing, to bring deliverance and to set free the captives of so many strongholds for four generations. There’s so many strong holds of, of addiction of alcohol, drugs, poverty S premature death. There are so many strongholds. I’ve been over a fan over to native families and, and generations over native people. And I’m seeing a new, a new vision of God coming in and raising up people to go back with the fire God, with a passion with that zeal to lead our people, many people into, into salvation, the lead, into breaking the chains of those addictions and those strongholds. And it’s captaining. Now I’m seeing a beginning stages of it. And I’m excited for the future of what he’s going to do, continue to do in native culture.

Daniel King(06:40):

Now, were you raised in a Christian home?

Robbie Leaf (06:43):

I was not raised in a Christian home. I was raised pretty much a little bit about what the native, the native ideology about. This is my little story. I grew up in a secular home. No, there was no, no Christianity, anything like that. I wasn’t raised in church or anything like that as I was raised a little bit with just a mentality of don’t trust, a white people and don’t trust the government and don’t trust non native people. So, yeah, no, I wasn’t raised in a Christian home.

Daniel King(07:16):

Did anyone from the church ever reach out to you when you were young?

Robbie Leaf (07:20):

I just remember when I was a little kid my mom, I think it was my mom. There was a, there was a pre, there was like a children’s church near my town is Wagner, Oklahoma. And I went for a month, just checked it out. It was a children’s church or whatever, but I had to get, I had to take a bus, like they had to pick me up and I think as a month, month and a half, and then they didn’t pick me up. That was my only exposure to church. When I was,

Daniel King(07:47):

They forgot about you, they stopped picking you up and you were never exposed to church again. Okay. So then how did you end up becoming a Christian?

Robbie Leaf (07:55):

Well, as a young age, I was into like I had an unusual fascination with the S the supernatural, like ghosts and unexplained phenomena and horror movies and books about the unexplained and hornos and stuff like that. And then I, so I started getting it, started going to heavy metal music and punk rock music, and all kinds of this junk this, this worldly horrible stuff. I mean, it would take too long to talk about it, but yeah, I was pretty much into that. That was what raised me. I didn’t really have anybody in my life, not even family members to really say that, you know, just give me a sense of worth or sense of self esteem that I can do something to my life. So basically those horror movies, those horror books, heavy metal, punk rock, pretty much raised me in.

Robbie Leaf (08:56):

And I basically grew up on that and it felt when I was bullied at school, it just felt that I just had that anger, just all that stuff, all that frustration of not feeling like I fit in anywhere, or I belonged anywhere. It fed a lot of anger and a lot of frustration, and then reinforce some of what native, native family members and native people. I was around. Like, don’t trust a white people, see, look what they’re doing. They don’t treat you right. They’re bullying you, you know, don’t trust a white people. Don’t trust nothing, anybody that’s not native. So that reinforced my anger and my hatred towards society for my youth, most of my youth. And but I came to a point I was even atheist. I didn’t believe in God. And if he did exist, I believe that he didn’t care about me or my people. So that was my mindset when I was young. Just that if there was a God, he didn’t care,

Daniel King(09:52):

You didn’t even believe that there was a God. So, so then when did you have an encounter with God? What brought you to now? You believe that there’s a God?

Robbie Leaf (10:01):

Well, like I said, I was kind of like a militant atheist. I had a little ideology of that native mindset of not trusting people, but a year before I got saved, this was in spring of 1995. I was like just into that darkness and all that depression, all that blackness. And I was cold hearted, but this man, this, this old, this elderly man came to my apartment one day. And he was cleaning the carpets and he was singing hymns, like Christian hymns. And I was like, who is this guy? You know, I was making, I was mocking him. I was making fun of him, you know, like it’s Christian Guy. And I’m like, is he

Daniel King(10:41):

Amazing sweet? Like that

Robbie Leaf (10:46):

Stuff like that? Like, who is this guy? You know? So I actually asked him if he was a Christian and he said, yes, son, I am. And I kind of like, well, I don’t believe in your white God. And I don’t believe, and your white, white man’s religion, stuff like that. And then, you know, it was like, instead of really just give it to me. Well, I probably deserved it. He was, he was like, I’m sorry, you feel that way, son. I want to pray for you and nothing. No, I’m, I’m cool. You know, but he was really gentle. I just remembered this gentle, humble man. When I was like making fun of him, he was so gentle and gracious towards me. And he said, he gave me a scripture, a piece of paper. It was scripture. And it was a poem, also a poem called a touch of the master’s hand.

Robbie Leaf (11:34):

And he gave me that, he said, son, I’m going to pray for you. You know? And Jesus loves you. And he still, no matter what you say to him, he still loves you. And he still has a plan for your life. And he walked out that door and it just stuck with me. I was, I was just lying to myself. I was depressed. I was having suicidal thoughts. And for that whole year, that man, what he just did, just his demeanor, just his presence just was haunted me, I guess you can say. So I came to the point in the spring of 1996.

Daniel King(12:09):

How old were you at that point?

Robbie Leaf (12:11):

I was 22 years old,

Daniel King(12:13):

Two years old. And you heard this man singing and you, you impacted your life. You started to think about that.

Robbie Leaf (12:21):

Yeah. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to think about it like, but something about that, man, just the presence that he held. It was like, it, it just, like I said, like kind of haunted me even when I was in my sin, haunted me. So that spring, I found myself, like I said, depressed, I had suicidal thoughts. I felt so worthless and empty and feel like trash to the world. And I found myself at night, it’s a spring and 96, one night just crying and looking in my ceiling ceiling. And I’m in my bed saying, God, do, are you real? If you’re real, show yourself to me. I don’t think you’re real. I don’t think you care about me, but if you’re real show yourself to me because I don’t want to live anymore. And I’m for two months, two, three months, every single night, I found myself doing that. This weeping like so miserable, I was wanting something real. I tried to find it in pot smoking and all these other things. And I wasn’t finding any peace. I wasn’t finding any joy, any fulfillment or worth in anything I was doing. So I found myself as an atheist, as you know, a person that hated felt like I hated God and hated Christians crying out to him. Are you real? Show yourself to me? And then like two, three months into this, something happened to me. It was him, his presence. I felt

Daniel King(13:52):

A love. I felt a peace.

Robbie Leaf (13:55):

I felt an acceptance that I never felt in the world. It was a supernatural presence of love that came into my bedroom. And I was transformed that night. Like you are real. And instead of tears of pain and suffering, I started crying tears of joy. And then that night I’m like, well, I need to go to church. I need to get my rifle. Right. And I didn’t know what church to go to, but he led me to guts church

Daniel King(14:23):

Guts church there in Tulsa, Oklahoma pastored by pastor, bill Scheer, bill share. Great man of God. I love that guy. Yes. So you went to guts church and what happened?

Robbie Leaf (14:36):

Well, it came in, they’re kind of still skeptical Cole. Like I had long hair, had sunglasses, had abandon a back pocket and wore a baseball shirt, kind of looking like a thug. I thought, Oh, the other kind of rough. So I know what to think. I went there by myself, got all this courage. I had to go in there by myself and check it out. And I just knew that I saw the love of Jesus on these kids that were sitting in the bleachers when they, when they were looking at me and just to love. And it convicted me almost like the devil that night was telling me, you don’t need to go up to the alter. You don’t need to give your life to Jesus you’re too.

Daniel King(15:15):

So the devil was whispering in your ear trying to stop you from getting saved. Yes, he was. And was the Holy spirit talking to you at the same time?

Robbie Leaf (15:23):

Yeah, that whole sermon he was doing. I felt a tug in my heart that I need to go to the altar. That, that what he’s saying, like give my life to Jesus, go to the alter, walk up there and give your life to Jesus. What the devil was lying to my head and my, and my thoughts saying you don’t need to go up there. You’re too cool for that. What are you going to do? You’re not going to be, nobody’s going to like you anymore. And I’m always going to care about you to the people I was hanging out with the old crowd of, of people that were as messed up as I was. They won’t like you anymore. So the devil was lying to me, even though I knew in my heart, I need to go up there. So there was a war in my spirit that night.

Daniel King(16:04):

And so what ended up happening who won the war

Robbie Leaf (16:06):

That night, Satan Satan won out. But when I left there, I was so convicted that every single day I’d call the guts church, the guts TV hotline, and said, I need to talk to somebody. And the, the, the, it was the receptionist or whatever. It’s like, okay, give us her your name and your phone number. We’ll have somebody call you as soon as possible. So waited. I went to work that Monday. Nobody called me. So I called again second day it’s Tuesday. I need to talk to somebody. We’ll get somebody to you. So Friday finally, I’ll call them again. And then just before I went to work, I had an evening job that night on Monday through Friday, before I went to work on Friday, a guy named Darryl called me and said, Hey, I’m, I’m calling you. And I’m wanting to just touch base with you and tell you what’s going on.

Robbie Leaf (17:00):

And I told him, I think I, I don’t know about Jesus, man. I’m, I’m just miserable. And I’m having suicidal thoughts and I’m feeling alone and misunderstood. And I don’t know about this, but I just tell me something about him. So he ministered to me and he prayed over me and he said, I wanted to meet you show up an hour before church on Sunday night. I want to meet you. And so I did. And that was Sunday night and he comes in and we talked for an hour before service. And what was his name? Darrell there.

Daniel King(17:38):

Darrell. And so you came in, you started talking to him. What, what did he say to you?

Robbie Leaf (17:42):

Basically just loved on me. I mean, like you said, Jesus loves you, man. And it wasn’t anything fancy, anything eloquent is like the love of what he would. I, when you said that I care about you and Jesus cares about you and loves you and he wants to change your life. I knew it. I mean, like he was, he wasn’t giving me some lip service. It was real. Cause I could see it the way he was talking to me. So it was, it wasn’t this basic just Jesus loves you. He has a better plan for your life than what you went through. And I believed it because I saw it as love. And that was genuine with him. That relationship with Jesus was genuine with them. Cause they exuded from that to me. So yeah, that night I went to the altar, I got saved and they were having baptism all night that night. And I got baptized.

Daniel King(18:36):

You got baptized the same night you got?

Robbie Leaf (18:38):

Yes, that was June 30th, 1996.

Daniel King(18:42):

Wow. Congratulations. What a tremendous story. And now you’ve discovered that that God has a call on your life. I heard that you went to a school down in Brownsville during the Brownsville revival with a evangelist Steve Hill, who was a great evangelist. And he called you mad dog. T tell me about that.

Robbie Leaf (19:06):

Yeah. then the mad dog named the nickname. I got right just before I got saved. I was working at ups. That was my part time job just before I got saved. So I got a reputation of a, of a short tempered and angry guy. So my supervisor at ups called me mad dog. But when I shared my testimony at Brownsville and March of 1998 I mentioned that I just kind of was making a joke on onstage about my, during my testimony to my neck, call me mad dog. You know? So from there, Steve Hill would say, mad dog that’s that’s, Robbie’s native American name, you know? But

Daniel King(19:48):

So we got Robbie, Matt dog leaf with us today, but now he is saved and loving God. But that wasn’t really your, your native American name.

Robbie Leaf (19:58):

Yeah. Till this day, people are still people at Brownsville say it’s Robbie’s native American named no, it’s just a nickname. That’s the infamous nickname I had before I got saved.

Daniel King(20:09):

Now, while you were there in school, you got to know Daniel Kolenda, who at that time wasn’t a well known evangelist. Now of course he’s become Reinhard Bonnke his successor and taken over Christ for all nations. You also knew a Russ, Russ Benson, Russ Benson, while you were there. And so what were they like when you were in school together?

Robbie Leaf (20:31):

They were, it was it’s, it’s amazing that we’re older now, but back then were, were a bunch of us were kids that just loved the Lord, but were goofy. You know, the sense of humor, those guys. I still remember that. It’s like just there, we’re all just goofy guys. Just love Jesus. We went out witnessing together and perming together, but we’re just a bunch of goofy guys that just kid around

Daniel King(20:55):

And now look at how God is so powerfully using you for preaching the gospel, you and Daniel Kolenda. And it’s amazing. All right. So, so just recently you went to South Dakota and you preach to native Americans up in South Dakota. Tell me about that. What happened?

Robbie Leaf (21:15):

Yeah, last week I was invited. I was actually originally before I got accepted to Christ nations evangelism bootcamp. This year I was on the mission field and the Jenkins sea reservation and Wagner South Dakota for 14 months. So I was there last year and the friends I made up there, they invited me there. They were doing evangelistic outreach on main street on Wagner, South Dakota. And they invited me to come and speak and preach. And I came up last week and did some outreach, did some, you know, just one-on-one evangelism here and there. And then last Saturday night around this time, actually they set all the speakers up and they had a native American worship band there leading worship and did outreach right on main street on Wagner, South Dakota, and had me preach, had me share a little bit of my testimony and preach and just, just be, just do it. There’s Wagner considered a reservation. Yeah, it’s right on the reservation. It’s like, so what’s the tribe. That’s there, it’s a Yankton Sioux, Yankton Sioux.

Daniel King(22:24):

And so how did people respond to this outreach?

Robbie Leaf (22:28):

Cool. Well, actually it was like, there was about, I’d say 80, 90 people that showed up, which is pretty good because there’s, there’s so much of a story, a backstory to it, but I’m,

Daniel King(22:40):

You had native American music from one of the church bands and then you preach, what was your message?

Robbie Leaf (22:47):

It was a tied it in some of my story of what I’m sharing with you guys. And then about how he redeemed us. Like he all he can make what we go from the old man to the new man that the old things have passed away and all things can become new in your life. And I shared mostly about any of you, maybe struggling with what I used to struggle with, with the music, with the movies, with, with sexual lust or what, or addictions or whatever, like Jesus Christ. I’ve basically just preached a simple message. Just like,

Daniel King(23:25):

How did people respond to the message?

Robbie Leaf (23:28):

There are actually a lot more responsive than I expected, because to be honest with you, some native people they’re very hostile to the Christian message. They were represented as a white man’s religion or white man’s God. And there’s so much bad, bad memories from the past of assimilation or whatever, but they actually received it very well. It was also though, they were kind of scared when it comes to the ultra call that was given, I was like, this is the first person like, they’re wait for, they didn’t want to be the first person to be up there. They were like I don’t want to be up there if you’ll go, I’ll go kind of like, there’s still that little hesitancy in that fear, I guess you could say, but it was amazing nights. Seven people got baptized at the end of the night.

Daniel King(24:19):

Wow. Seven people got baptized on the reservation. What a tremendous miracle. That’s amazing.

Robbie Leaf (24:26):

Yes. And it was a very, and that’s good. I mean, because

Daniel King(24:31):

That’s great fruit. That’s amazing. That’s wonderful. All right. I got a question for you. You’re you’re called by God to be an evangelist. And because you’re, you’re native American you are able to, to speak in a credible way to others who come from a similar background to you. Now I’m an evangelist to as you can see, I’m white. I don’t know if you can see on the podcast, but I’m about as white as they come. And you know, I’m an evangelist. And so I go to different nations and we talked to people from many different cultures, many different colors, and I love everyone. But you, you talked about how many native Americans are taught. Don’t trust white people don’t trust the government. So, so how can, can someone like me who who’s a white evangelist, who, who loves people, cares about people? What can I do to build trust with native Americans so that I can talk to them about Jesus

Robbie Leaf (25:38):

First, no agendas. Like you go in there when it comes to a native person, most native people, if you’re not native, there’ll be like, what is this non native person or white person, whether they want, they, what they want from me as not in every case, but most cases that are like, why are they, what do they want from me? So you gotta come in with no agenda. Like I’m, I’m here to love you guys. I’m here to just serve them. Whether it’s like helping, if they’re going through a hard time, helping them with groceries or a few bucks here or there, and have no agenda, like have not have nothing like trying to like put fire and brimstone or whatever, you know, just love them. Just simply just love them. Like I’m not here to to judge you or try to beat you over the head with something you got to simply just come love them and continue to love them and have them just have, have them trust you and have no agenda about it.

Robbie Leaf (26:40):

Once some people are different, more different than others. Some will open up more, but some are really so closed off. And so wounded from the past and what they’ve been indoctrinated with that you just gotta be patient. You’ve got to continue to be patient and persevere and just love them. And just, just shared a love of Christ with people before they were going to have really listened to like a gospel message, this like really intently. You’ve got to the show, I’m here to love you. I’m here to serve you. What can I do to help you and just be your friend or, or just serve them in some way. And then they’ll open up.

Daniel King(27:22):

Yeah. I heard someone say one time that people don’t care how much, you know, until they know how much you care. And so I hear you saying, number one, have no agendas. Number two, serve them. Number three, be patient number four, just befriend them. And then that’ll open up a door to, to share the gospel with them. I have two stories for you. One is a success story. One is a, an unsuccessful story. So, so the, the, the bad story first I was just last week I was participating in a food outreach where people were coming in cars and we were putting food in the trunk. And as we were giving them food, we were praying for people. And if they weren’t saved, we were telling them about Jesus, inviting them to give their life to Jesus. And so there was one man, his name was Jack.

Daniel King(28:17):

He was native American. And I ended up having a 20 minute conversation with him. Most of the cars, I would spend one or two minutes with him, pray with them, and then they’d go on their way. But Jack he, he was willing to talk for a long time and he was native American. He was, he spent some time sharing with me, some of his beliefs about how there’s a great spirit up in the sky. He told me that he doesn’t believe in the devil. He says, I’m not against Jesus, but he does emphasize that that’s not how his people get to God is through Jesus. And he also shared with me several near death experiences. He had with people that were right on the edge of death. And he got even to be in the room while they passed over to the other side.

Daniel King(29:02):

And so he was talking to me about that. And then he really resented that white people had stolen his language and stolen his culture. And so I spent about 20 minutes talking to him and I asked him if he would pray with me, the prayer of salvation and, and he declined and he wasn’t ready for that, but, but I was able to at least plant a seed in his life talking about what I believe, listening to what he believed. And I spent most of my time listening because I think by listening, it’s a good way to show that you care. Then here’s the good one time. My wife and I got to lead a teen mission trip to a reservation up in Canada and up in Canada. They call them the first nations people cause they were the first people here.

Daniel King(29:57):

And so the place where we went is called LA shh. It’s up in North, Northern Canada. And it’s a, it’s a first nations area, a very poor, lots of trouble with, with, with drugs and alcoholism and poverty. And it’s really sad, but a lot of people in that reservation struggle with depression. And there’s a split. You heard of suicide that attacked many people in that area. And we were told that in the year before we arrived, that many, many teenagers had been committing suicide in that community. And so many teenagers were committing suicide, that they actually had a tree that they called the hangings and tree. And [inaudible] teenagers had gone to this tree in hung themselves. So one did it. And then the other teenagers were coming along and imitating, I mean, negative peer pressure and they committed suicide on the same tree.

Daniel King(31:04):

So, so we went and we preach the gospel and we prayed with people for salvation. And then we took all the teenagers from that community and went out to the hanging tree. And we broke the curse of death that was over the hanging tree. And we said that Jesus died on a tree so that you wouldn’t have to die on a tree that he took the curse of sin and poverty and disease and even alcoholism and drug addiction upon himself. When he hung on the cross, he hung on a tree and he hung on the tree so that you don’t have to hang yourself on a tree and through Jesus, you can be saved. And we, we actually took note cards and wrote down on those note cards messages of hope and inspiration and hung those messages on the tree. And we said, no longer, is this a hanging tree?

Daniel King(32:12):

Now this is going to be a place of hope. And it had such a tremendous response there that we, we heard a year later, a year after our mission trip that a year later, not a single person in that entire community had committed suicide. And that’s the power of the gospel. The gospel can change people’s lives. Even people that are in difficult circumstances that are depression attacked by the spirit of suicide, Jesus can set them free. The Bible says he whom the son sets free is free indeed. And he can set you free from the spirit of suicide. So, so if you were, we were with a group of native Americans today, what message would you give to them?

Robbie Leaf (33:02):

That the same Jesus Christ that changed my life. That turned me from an atheist, a person that hated God considered that he was a white God and white P and I, my hatred of white people, if he can change my life, completely transform my thinking my life from depression, from suicidal thoughts, to joy, to peace, to loving my brothers and sisters, no matter what race they are, he can do the same thing for them to exactly even, even greater, greater things than what I’m, what I’ve been able to do. And he’s 24 years. So that’s what I would say. That he’s the same Jesus. The Bible says Jesus Christ at the same yesterday, today and forever. The same Jesus Christ Rose from the dead 2000 years ago is the same Jesus Christ. I can come in and change your life and transform every single aspect of your life. Mine, no matter what it may be. Even this area or life, what he’s done in my life, he can do the same thing in their lives. That would be my message.

Daniel King(34:07):

Wow. That’s tremendous. Robbie mad dog leave. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I appreciate it. You are a tremendous evangelist and God is going to use you to reach many people for his kingdom. I’m very honored to have you. God bless you.

Robbie Leaf (34:26):

Thank you for having me, dr. King I’m I’m I’m. I’m just, I’m just thankful for you to have me on this podcast. Thank you so much.

Daniel King(34:33):

Absolutely. And remember everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Description: Joe Franklin grew up as a pastor’s kid serving his father Rickey Franklin, the pastor of New Day Church in South Lake, Texas. But from the age of five he knew he was called to be an evangelist. For three years, he became a youth pastor for his father’s church, but now he is launching out into full-time evangelism. On today’s Podcast, Daniel King, the Evangelism Coach, interviews him about his decision to become an evangelist and about an evangelistic outreach he is doing today.

Show Notes:  

Joe Franklin was a pastor’s kid as he grew up but his passion was always for evangelism. Now after attending the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp, he is transitioning to becoming a full-time evangelist.

In today’s podcast, he shares about how he has been organizing evangelistic outreaches in several American towns including: Wincheter, Tennessee; Nashville, Tennessee; and Dallas, Texas.

 Transcription 

Daniel King (00:01):

I’m evangelist Daniel King. And my favorite verse in the whole Bible is everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I’m with my friend, Joe Franklin. And he is excited about evangelism, Joe, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

Joe Franklin (00:18):

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, dr. King. It’s an honor.

Daniel King (00:21):

Now you’re here at new day church in South Lake, Texas. Your father’s the pastor here. His name is Ricky, Ricky Franklin. And tell me a little bit about how you grew up as a pastor’s kid.

Joe Franklin (00:39):

Yeah, so I grew up with, I’ve not eight brothers and sisters, six brothers, three sisters. And so I grew up in a big family and with a pastor’s kid, my parents always invited us into ministry. So if a candidate share my testimony real quick, we actually went to our revival meeting and I saw this vision of myself riding into heaven on my parents’ back. And they were on roller skates and they’re riding into the pearly Gates. And as they go in, I get pushed back off their back. And I hear Jesus’s voice say, I want to know you for you. I want to have my own personal relationship with you. I grew up learning a lot about God when I was five years old, I told the Sunday school teacher, you’re not telling the story, right. It goes like this. And I got up there and taught the class. So I knew about God, but it wasn’t until I was 13 that I really knew. God is a personal Lord and savior and it changed my life forever.

Daniel King (01:31):

And so that vision was an encounter with God. And did you ever resent being a pastor’s kid? I didn’t. I loved it. Did you ever have a time of rebellion or running away from God?

Joe Franklin (01:43):

No, not really. No. No.

Daniel King (01:47):

Really. I was actually raised by parents who were Christians and they were missionaries in Mexico. And so to be part of our family was to be part of the ministry. I’m a big believer that God does not just call individuals. He calls families. He’s a generational God. He’s the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And so he’s the God of Ricky Franklin and Joe Franklin. And you’re not married yet. You don’t have any kids yet? Not yet. So no kids yet, but someday you’ll have kids and the anointing increases from generation to generation. And so you’ve, you’ve been involved in ministry growing up here at the church, but now you feel called to be an evangelist. You, you, you actually were youth pastor here at the church for how long were you? The youth pastor? I was youth pastor here for three years. Okay. And then now you, you feel called to be an evangelist. Tell me how did that happen? How did you know that you were called to be an evangelist? When I was

Joe Franklin (02:44):

Five years old, me and my four siblings are sitting in the van and the, the sky prophet from New Zealand to just spoken at the youth group. My dad is the youth pastor at the time and he came over to the van and he just began to prophesize over each one of us. And when he got me, he just said, I see the nations coming to you. I see you going all over the world and preaching the gospel of Jesus and bringing millions of people to Jesus. And just prophesied that over me, this calling of evangelists on my life. And ever since then, I’ve always been drawn to people and drawn people just come to me and they tell me their life story. And I’m able to just share Jesus with them and just have a heart to see people come to know Jesus.

Daniel King (03:25):

How old were you when that man gave the prophecy? I was just five years old. Wow. That is very similar to my story because when I was five years old, someone prophesied that I was called to be an evangelist. So my father pastored a little tiny church in Cloudcroft, New Mexico. It was just a very small, like 12 people in the church. And one day he invited a prophetess to come. And so God woke her up the night before and said tomorrow morning in church, there will be someone wearing a blue shirt in your, the prophecy that the person wearing the blue shirt is called to be an evangelist. So she came looking for whoever had a blue shirt, no one was wearing a blue shirt. So she preached for a while, hoping someone would come in, but no one came in late. And then she remembered that all the kids workers were downstairs.

Daniel King (04:07):

So she turned to my dad and said, could you please bring all the kids workers? God has given me a word for someone. So they all come up and none of them are wearing a blue shirt, but there’s a long line of kids. And at the end of the line was this cute little, five year old boy wearing a blue shirt. And she said, God, is this the one that God said? Yes. And so she prophesied over me that Dan says you are called to be an evangelist and go to the nations to preach the gospel. And so from one five-year-old evangelist to another, gimme five. That’s amazing. And I didn’t waste any time. I preached my first sermon when I was six years old, come on and we still have the cassette tape from it. My parents do. And I sound like an evangelist on that cassette tape. One of the things I say is if you are saved, stay saved. If you’re not saved, you better get saved. So, so when you were growing up, that’s awesome. Did you look at books of evangelists and stories of evangelists? Tell me about how you fed that, that passion for evangelism.

Joe Franklin (05:04):

Yeah. Growing up, that’s funny. My extra, my first sermon was people get ready. Jesus is coming.

Daniel King (05:09):

That’s a good sermon. How old were you when you were like five years old? Five years old? Yes. All right. So, and as far as books

Joe Franklin (05:17):

We read my parents read to us every night. And so they read to us the heavenly man by brother Yan, they’d read to us Heidi Baker’s books on unconditional love. They read to us these old missionary stories and these old evangelists going across the world and preaching the gospel. And so, and grow. I grew up hearing about Reinhard bunkie. I actually got to meet Reinhard Bonnke he, when I was 10 years old and he just inspired me, so, so much to go after it and to preach the gospel everywhere and to believe God for big, big things. So who would you,

Daniel King (05:46):

He says your favorite evangelist. It’s gotta be Reinhardt. It’s gotta be Reinhard amen. He’s he’s an amazing man of God is led over 80,000, 80 million people to Christ in his lifetime. What a tremendous achievement. And so that’s actually where you and I met at the Christ for all nations evangelism bootcamp, which is being hosted by Daniel Kolenda, who is a Reinhardt Bunky successor. And so you were a student there and I was one of the instructors to tell me some of the things that you learned in school. And did you learn anything in my class?

Joe Franklin (06:24):

The other guy, amazing things from dr. King. I think my favorite thing where the five smooth stones, right? The for the sermon, a story, a solicitation, a scripture a good structure in it. And the last one is, is really important and I’ve forgotten it.

Daniel King (06:42):

Those are actually Daniel Kolenda. And so he told me to preach it. He gave it to me and then he says like, this is the structure I want you to follow. So I’ll give him credit. But

Joe Franklin (06:52):

The other one, it was good from you. Dr. King was, I told this chicken story, dr. King tells this amazing story and he puts his whole heart and soul into it. And I learned how to tell a good story and put your whole heart and soul to it. And I’ve actually told that same story and fallen on the ground just like you did in class.

Daniel King (07:08):

So, so can you show our audience how I did it in class? Yeah.

Joe Franklin (07:11):

So in class he gets up and he tells the story of the chicken and this chicken dies and he goes around the room and he goes, and he falls over completely on the ground and make the best chicken noise. We heard all for the whole six months of bootcamp.

Daniel King (07:28):

That’s awesome. Okay. So since you graduated so much from bootcamp, you were launched out into evangelism and now you’re going to be a full time evangelist. Yes, sir. And you’ve already been starting to do outreaches here in the United States. And so you’ve done an outreach in Winchester, Tennessee in Nashville, Tennessee, and then in Dallas, Texas, it tell me about those outreaches in who participated and how did those come together?

Joe Franklin (08:00):

Yeah, so we just had a heart, like just feeling the Lord, drawing us a couple of different people to do something while we were here in the United States, our trip to Africa got pushed back. And so he said, let’s, let’s do something for God right here. The harvest is ripe right here in America. So let’s see what God will do right here. And so we went to one student, Eric dykes, his hometown and in Winchester, Tennessee, and we saw 30 people give their lives to Jesus. We saw a youth group of we saw a couple of youth groups come together and there was about 75 youth there on Wednesday night. All of them left, healed, filled with the Holy spirit and saved. And so that was awesome right there. We got to see God break off depression off of people. Eric’s cousin got radically saved and set free of a lot of demons and was on dope 20 minutes before one of the services and came and got delivered of those demons. And then didn’t have any detox symptoms at all, all week long. I’m sure that he can come on and tell that story,

Daniel King (09:02):

But yeah, we’ll definitely listen to his story. Now, tonight, we are here in South Lake, Texas at your home church where your father pastors and we’re, you’re doing an outreach. Tell me about the outreach. How have you organized it? What’s going to happen tonight and what are you expecting God to do?

Joe Franklin (09:23):

Yeah, we, so we started organizing it by calling my dad, passed tricky and getting him to get on the phone and to call some other local pastors and just create a little bit of a buzz and to say, Hey, we’re going to do this. And we’re going to do something in the midst of a pandemic. We’re believing God that souls are going to be saved. Lives are going to be changed. People are going to get healed. People are going to get set free. And this week so far, we’ve seen over six people give their lives to Jesus. Hallelujah. Wow. That’s amazing. That’s great malls and all over. Yeah, it’s been incredible. And tonight we just organized the event. We got these bounce houses from from our church organization has these bounce houses at the ready and available for churches. And so we were able to get those and rent those out. We called the food truck and got a food truck out here. And then we just said, let’s just believe God for miracles. Believe God for salvation. And so we went around and we invited the public and went door to door.

Daniel King (10:16):

How did you get them to go? You were going through the neighborhoods door to door, putting flyers out, inviting people to come. Yes.

Joe Franklin (10:24):

Yes, exactly. And we made an event on Facebook and asked them to come on Facebook and just had all of our church people share it with all their friends and say, please share, share, share, invite your friends via Facebook, and then hand out flyers and personal inventory.

Daniel King (10:40):

Before we started this podcast, I noticed that out there, there are already kids that are in the bounce houses there. They’re bouncing there. They’re having fun. You’ve got the food truck. People are eating food. I saw you had a little platform set up with, with some chairs. And so we’re going to have a time of ministry to people tonight. And how many people do you think might come

Joe Franklin (11:03):

Even God for a hundred people. If we had a hundred people, it’d be just absolutely amazing and would just blow, blow me away.

Daniel King (11:10):

I think that’s tremendous what a tremendous vision, because you know, a lot of people think about doing crusades over in Africa or in Asia. You see thousands of people that come, but you know, we also need to reach people right here in our backyard right here in America. And so for a local church to do an outreach, I think every church should do at least four or five major outreaches a year. At least every quarter, they should be out there in the neighborhood, inviting people to come doing an outreach. And that’s the way that the church grows is if you’re out there telling people about Jesus. And so tell me some about how how does the gift of the evangelist function in a local church setting? So, so obviously you’ve been here, you’ve been serving your father and his vision. You have this calling as an evangelist. And so how do you function as of in advance Solice but in an American local church setting? Yeah,

Joe Franklin (12:13):

I think for me the biggest thing is bringing that faith to the equation, the faith to believe God for big things. The pastor’s wife, my mom last night said, this is the most exciting thing we’ve done in two years. Wow. She said, this is so exciting. She said, I thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for bringing some friends with you that would say, Hey, we believe God that he can do mighty things, even in the midst of everything that’s going on in this nation. And so I think just bringing that faith to believe God, that God can break things open and that the gospel is powerful and still effective today. And that the gospel still works.

Daniel King (12:52):

And so as evangelists, we are like fishermen. Yes. And we’re looking for the right bait to catch people for Jesus. And just a little bit ago, you showed me some costumes that you guys made as, as bait because kids like costumes. Tell me about the costumes that the church made. Yeah.

Joe Franklin (13:11):

Yeah. So the church does a vacation Bible school every year and they made the costumes for that. And they wrote scripts that just teach kids about the Bible and teach kids about God using these characters like monsters, inc. Can we say that again?

Daniel King (13:24):

Yeah. Go, go for it. So, so you did, you did monster

Joe Franklin (13:27):

Zinc Madagascar. We did. 

Daniel King (13:30):

I won’t tell gloomy Disney, if you don’t despicable me.

Joe Franklin (13:35):

And we use all those characters to tell the story of Jesus. It just in creative ways. And actually the lion from Madagascar is actually at home in Mexico right now helping a missionary there to preach the gospel.

Daniel King (13:48):

Wow. That’s tremendous. And so you’re using different ways to attract the kids to come and then to be able to share with them about Jesus. Wow. What a tremendous blessing today.

Joe Franklin (14:00):

Yeah. We went around with a big minion costume and people were running. People were running to us. Usually we were running out to the people, you know, but the people were running to us and we got to share the gospel with them through that minion being out there as well.

Daniel King (14:12):

Awesome. And so you feel called to be a full time evangelist. So you want to do crusades. Tell me what happens next. Where are you going to go and start preaching to big crowds of people? Yeah.

Joe Franklin (14:23):

So I’m going to Southeast Asia going to Pakistan and we’re going to do a crusade there and October, and it’s going to be incredible. And then believing God to do one in a crusade in Burkina Faso as well, and also in India. And so just believing God for mighty things next year is going to be amazing. We’re also going to do a crusade in Mexico and then maybe do a couple outreaches at home in Dearborn,

Daniel King (14:47):

In Baltimore as well. So you’re doing events here in the States and then also going overseas. Wow, sir, you’re going to see such tremendous fruit. I’m so honored that you were one of my students and I’m so proud of you because you didn’t just listen in the classroom. You’re putting it to work. You’re already leading people to Jesus and seeing fruit from that. And I know that all the angels in heaven are rejoicing for all the people that are getting saved. So I I’m, I’m proud of you. I’m amazed, Joe. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. It’s great to have you on today. Thank you, dr. King, bless you.

Description: Macoby Donaldson is a radical soul winner who is willing to take risks in order to lead people to Jesus.  Recently he went to the CHOP / CHAZ zone in Seattle, Washington to preach the Gospel in the midst of the turmoil that comes with racial injustice. As he faced danger (4 people were shot), he led several people to the Lord and also confronted demonic forces. Daniel King, the Evangelism Coach, interviews him on today’s podcast.

Website: www.macobydonaldson.com

Show Notes: 

Do you remember when a group of radicals in Seattle, Washington took over part of the city to form their own Autonomous Zone known as CHAZ?  

CHAZ (the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone) started on June 8, 2020 when the Seattle police department vacated the East Precinct building. Policemen fled the area. Later the name was changed to CHOP (the Capital Hill Organized Protest). 

Many people in the media insisted it was a “peaceful protest.” But during the existence of CHOP, there were at least four shootings, two deaths, arson, and several sexual assaults.

Many of the people in at the CHOP were protesting because they wanted justice and an end to racism. Many of them were protesting because of genuine problems in our society. Mayor Jenny Durkan finally shut it down on July 1, 2020.

On the program today, Evangelist Macoby Donaldson tells about how he went with a team of evangelists to preach the Gospel in the midst of the chaos. Here are some of the questions he answers on today’s podcast:

* Was CHOP peaceful like the media was reporting? 

* No police were allowed in the CHOP. Did you feel like you were in danger? Did you ever feel like your life was at risk?

* What response did you receive when you started telling people about Jesus?

* Did you see anyone who was demon possessed when you were ministering? What did you do?

* What do you think is the solution to all the problems like racism and economic inequality that the people of CHOP were protesting about?

Key Idea from Macoby Donaldson: “The light of Christ shines brightest in the darkness.”

Transcription 

Evangelist Daniel King  (00:00):

Today we have with us a special guest Macoby Donaldson. He’s a radical soul winner who is willing to take risks in order to lead people to Jesus. Thank you for coming on.

Macoby Donaldson  (00:11):

Yes. Thank you, Dr. King, for having me, it’s such a privilege to be on your podcast.

Evangelist Daniel King  (00:15):

And then just a minute, I’m going to ask him to share with us how he went to one of the most dangerous mission fields here in America. But first I want to say welcome to Coby. It’s great to have you with me today. Well, where did we meet?

Macoby Donaldson  (00:29):

We met because I recently went through the Christ for All Nations (CFAN) Evangelism Bootcamp and you were one of our instructors there at the bootcamp.

Evangelist Daniel King  (00:35):

And so what are some of the things that you learned?

Macoby Donaldson  (00:38):

Well, we learned, we learned a lot of things, but it was focused on mass crusade, evangelism, leading manny, many people to Jesus.

Evangelist Daniel King  (00:44):

And so honestly, if you went to a school like that, you feel like you’re called to be an evangelist. Tell me about how you discovered your calling,

Macoby Donaldson  (00:52):

You know, the AngelList. Yeah, absolutely. I didn’t grow up around people that were evangelistic. And so I thought I was kind of just supposed to be a street minister. I thought that was kind of the only that’s all evangelism was. Yeah.

Evangelist Daniel King  (01:02):

Yeah. The picture of the guy on the street corner with a mega phone and say, y’all got it. Hell, you’re going to die.

Macoby Donaldson  (01:08):

That’s about it. That’s about ad. But the Lord told me to go to this crest, correlations, evangelists of bootcamp and it opened my eyes to what evangelism can be. And it just, it lit on fire. I don’t let Betty people on fire for mass crusade evangelism.

Evangelist Daniel King  (01:23):

So tell me, what did you learn at the bootcamp that did your picture of what an evangelist is? Shift some? Yeah,

Macoby Donaldson  (01:30):

Yeah, absolutely. You know, we learned so much, we had many, many instructors and ed courses classes every day. One of the things I learned the most is just how hard work and determination is one of the key factors that evangelism, if you want to be someone that leads people to Jesus throughout your whole life hard work and being dedicated to this is probably the most important thing you can do.

Evangelist Daniel King  (01:51):

So did you get a megaphone? Are you going out on the street corner and using a megaphone to preach? Now

Macoby Donaldson  (01:56):

We have done that sometimes not exclusively, but yeah, we’ve been open air preaching at Walmart and at grocery stores and things

Evangelist Daniel King  (02:04):

And, and, and when you’re, you’re going out preaching, what’s your message. What are you telling people?

Macoby Donaldson  (02:08):

Our message is usually based around a scripture. So we will pick a scripture. Maybe it’s John three 16 for God. So loved the world. He gave his only begotten son that, you know, anyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. And we will just create a little 32nd message. You know, Jesus loves you so much that he died to pay the price for your sins. You know, it’s it says there’s either believer there’s perish. There’s not a third option. It’s it’s option one believer option two parish. I want everybody here to be able to say they believe so you can be with me in heaven and we’ll just create a 32nd one minute message and we’ll preach.

Evangelist Daniel King  (02:40):

Wow. That’s amazing. Now, since you graduated from bootcamp where I had the privilege of instructing you and talking to you about how to preach the gospel, you went to one of the most dangerous mission fields there is. And it was actually right here in America, in the Pacific Northwest, which is a huge on tapped mission field right here in America to the city of Seattle. And if you’ve been listening to the news lately, you might remember that in Seattle, there, there was recently a bunch of unrest and they, they shut off a portion of the city from the police and they called it at first, they call it Chaz, C H a Z, which stood for the Capitol Hill autonomous zone. Then they changed the name. Everyone was making fun of them because Chaz sounds funny like, Hey, your arm from Chaz. And they thought that sounded kind of lame.

Evangelist Daniel King  (03:37):

And so they changed the name to chop Capitol Hill organized protest. So I guess chop like karate chops that a little bit more manly than hi, we’re from Chaz. It’s a little tougher. And so that this whole thing started on June 8th when the Seattle police department vacated the East precinct building and they shut off a several block area in Seattle and put up walls and said that police aren’t even allowed to go into this area. And during the time that they did this, there were at least four shootings to people who died. There was lots of arson and several alleged sexual assaults. And so when you, you actually went there during the midst of all this to tell people about Jesus, why would you do that?

Macoby Donaldson  (04:25):

Well one of my buddies actually felt like the Lord had, had showed him this, you know, Chaz chop area. And he called me and he said, Hey, let’s go, let’s go shine. The light of Jesus to this dark place. And so we went we bought plane tickets later that day and we just kinda went went to Chaz and we began to scout it out and see how

Evangelist Daniel King  (04:45):

We could minister there. So you just went online, bought a plane ticket, flew there, and you went to Chaz. How did you get in? Did, did you see people with guns? Were there people with guns, keeping some people out?

Macoby Donaldson  (04:58):

There were people with guns by the time we got there it was already very organized and, and from what I understand Antifa had left and Antifa is the more militant of the two groups. So black lives matter was the reigning organizer of chop. By the time we got.

Evangelist Daniel King  (05:16):

And so on the news, I saw a lot of people that kept insisting that it was a peaceful protest. When you were there, did it look peaceful to you?

Macoby Donaldson  (05:26):

No. There was a, there’s nothing peaceful about it. It was many more people that died. I mean as far as I know, we we’ve heard stories of many more people dying than whatever made it onto the news. Even people that they took their bodies and they left, you know there was blood on that we saw in the morning after somebody died blood all over the seabed where somebody had been shot. So you actually saw blood from people that had died yeah. The night before.

Evangelist Daniel King  (05:51):

Wow. And so you’re going there to witness and that puts a certain urgency to witnessing when, when you know that literally are dying and they, if they don’t know Jesus, they could end up in hell for all of eternity. So, absolutely. Wow. And so when you started telling people about Jesus, that’s kind of, what response did you get? What was your strategy for witnessing and chop?

Macoby Donaldson  (06:15):

I had the privilege of being there one day early from the time our group got there. So I actually got to scout it out the night before we all got there. They were, everybody was getting there the morning. I think it was a a Wednesday morning. I got there Tuesday night. And so I went into chop at night and just kind of scouted it out. And there were, I was actually with a Christian group, another friend of mine was there a local group. They were trying to bless people with worship and ice cream. And they got kicked out because they were being very kind of intrusive and very like just open about, Hey, we’re we love Jesus. We want to bless you guys. And that turned the, the leaders of the black lives matter movement off because they want, if you were white, they only want you in there to receive and learn. They don’t want you preaching any message. Cause you know, they would say, we’ve been listening to you for 400 years. It’s time for you to listen to us.

Evangelist Daniel King  (07:04):

And, and so you saw other Christians that went in there and were, were trying to do ministry and they ended up getting kicked out. Yeah. Did, did you get kicked out?

Macoby Donaldson  (07:15):

So no, we never got kicked out. So the Lord gave us a strategy. It was a blessing. It was kind of like Joshua and the spies Joshua when they went into the promised land, they were able to spy it out. So I went Tuesday night and we spied out and we came up with strategy. So we just got food. We got a tent, we partnered with some local churches and some local groups. We got a truck two pallets full of food. And we just had a girl going all day long with hotdogs and burgers on the grill. And we were just serving people all day long. The first day we hardly did any real ministry. We just talked to the leaders at chop. We said, Hey, we want to set up a tent. We just want to feed you. And the second day we took another step and we started praying people on the third day, I was even able to during the black lives matter organized forum, which is where they all come together and they come with artists.

Macoby Donaldson  (07:58):

I was actually able to get up and share a scripture from Martin Luther King’s speech. I have a dream it’s actually a scripture that he shared in that speech. And we wrote a pray for peace. So is, it is an amazing time. There was nothing peaceful about what they were, what was going on there, but we were able to come in and kind of gradually step forward evangelism and over 60 people ended up getting saved. And so how long were you there for we’re there for four days, four days. And over those four days,

Evangelist Daniel King  (08:25):

60 people gave their lives to Jesus. The angels in heaven are rejoicing when only one center gets saved. So they’re throwing quite a party that 60 people gave their lives to Jesus. Now, now tell me some of the, the, the, the challenges that people there were facing. Cause I understand it wasn’t, it wasn’t just one group. There was lots of homeless people that showed up and tell me some of what you saw.

Macoby Donaldson  (08:49):

Yeah, there was a lot of drugs. I would say the most prevalent for me the shocking thing was as almost every other person was high, just whacked out on drugs. Of course there’s no police, so you can do whatever you want. The only thing that’s going to happen to you is you might get in a fight or you might get killed, I guess is the ultimate. But most people were on drugs. They’re very prevalent there’s needles. We saw needles, we saw all kinds of drugs and that was the most prevalent thing. A lot of homeless people, a lot of like hippies what I would consider it to be. It’s almost like it was a Woodstock kind of a thing. And then people that are very passionate about the social, social justice aspect against police brutality and also the black lives matter core kind of movement.

Evangelist Daniel King  (09:31):

So there are lots of different people and lots of different agendas. And, and what was some of the response from some of the people that you witnessed too? How did people respond?

Macoby Donaldson  (09:41):

We found I feel like there was a pretty good pretty good mix, but it was, there was not in the middle. It was either very positive or very negative. And you, you know, you probably heard the term, the light shines brightest in the darkness, the darkest darkness. And we really found that to be true with our experience at chop, there was a lot of darkness, a lot of violence, people were getting raped. Allegedly. I think a lot of people ended up losing their life. People, there was a fist fight, every five or 10 minutes, you know, people touching girls and beat them up or all kinds of stuff. Did you ever get in a fist fight? We got really close to one. I actually got in a mix once, but I never liked throw any punches or anything, but I was trying to protect this, this girl who was getting beat up, like beat a bat by other girls. I was just trying to protect her. You know,

Evangelist Daniel King  (10:27):

Now I heard that no police were allowed to go in. So did you ever feel like you were in danger? Did you feel like your life was at risk?

Macoby Donaldson  (10:37):

I was, I actually had a kind of a dialogue with the Lord before I went and I really feel like he said I need you to be willing and ready to sacrifice for me when I get there. I assumed beforehand that cause I had heard that it was this big, scary place with everybody was dying. And that wasn’t the case I had never really felt scared for my life. While I was in there. I really I knew it was a possibility we could die, but I really, it was, it was more about the strategy he gave us. I need you to die to your vision of what this is going to look like, take it my route. We went slowly. First day we fed people and we kind of took a step. Every, that we gained favor with the leaders of black lives matter and we were able to infiltrate the group at and even love all the leaders pray for that. We watched one of the leaders feat and her life has changed. And so it was a different kind of sacrifice. So in a way, you know, we did have the sacrifice, what we thought the trip was going to look like, but I never felt like I was close to death, I would say.

Evangelist Daniel King  (11:33):

And then mayor, Jenny Durkin finally shut it down on July 1st. Some of the protesters even came to her house and I think she got freaked out about that. And like, we, we let’s put a stop to the protesting. And many of the people that were in chop were we’re really protesting

Macoby Donaldson  (11:54):

Because of, of genuine issues that they feel are in our society. They, they want justice. They want an into, to racism, which I hope that all of us want to see justice. We all want to see an into, to racism. And so they’re protesting because of genuine problems in our society. What do you think is the solution to these problems that we face in our society? You know, it’s interesting because there were, there were many great people there. You know, some of the people are just are hurt and they, their ideas are skewed, but there are many great people, but even the people that had real passion for equality and justice they could never get on the same page. They were always fighting. Even the black lives matter movement. One lady would get up and say, we need healthcare. If we had mental health care, if we had universal healthcare, this problem would be this way because of this, this and this.

Macoby Donaldson  (12:47):

And then somebody else would get up there and say, no, it’s because of education. If the education was different, it’d be like this. And they would fight and they would shout both people had megaphones and they would shout over each other. It was just chaos. And it was just very clear that all the enemy does is he, he brings confusion. He brings chaos. And the answer, the only answer is Jesus Christ. Our surrender to Jesus Christ, his plan, his way, his will. That is the only thing that will bring peace and justice into the world. And so how can we bring Jesus to people? We just, we share him, we share the love of Jesus. You know, you can tell your testimony before Jesus, you know, I was addicted to alcohol, I was addicted to pornography. I had an encounter with God where I met the Holy spirit face to face, and he told me he wanted to be my friend.

Macoby Donaldson  (13:29):

And we began our friendship on that day. I surrendered my life to Jesus. I turned from my sin and afterwards I’ve got purpose in my life. I’m not addicted to sin and I just feel free. And I feel amazing. I want everybody, I come in contact with to have that kind of, that kind of the, at least the option to be free, to have purpose for their life. So tell me two stories. I want you to tell me two stories. I want you to tell me one story of someone that you tried to minister to, and it went really horribly. Yeah. And then I want you to tell me another story of someone you minister to, and you had a tremendous outcome. Yeah, absolutely. The one I’ll start with the bad one on a good note, but there was this young man who Marcy actually, his name is Marcellus.

Macoby Donaldson  (14:11):

I remember his name. He he came to us, we had been doing this for four days. And on the last day we were feeding people. We were praying and it was kind of like winding down to the police. We knew that the police were coming to tear it down. So some people were leaving. Some of the tents were leaving. So we were the only people serving food. So they came to us and this young man Marcellus came to us and he said, Hey, I want to be baptized. Cause we had a water tank, a boat and we were baptizing people with water. And we we asked him all these questions. Do you believe Jesus is a son of God? Cause we hadn’t had conversations beforehand. He just kind of saw us doing what we were doing. And he kind of initiated the conversation and I asked him, you know, do you believe Jesus is the only son of God?

Macoby Donaldson  (14:51):

Are you ready to give your whole life? You know, and all these questions. And and he said, yes. Are you ready to turn from your sin? You know? Yes. And so I baptized him and water and we prayed that we prayed the Holy spirit would fill him up. And 30 minutes later he comes back and he’s got a sign and he made a cardboard sign, but it’s, he’s talking to the third person about himself that he says, who baptized this boy, I did not give you permission to baptize this boy. And he had a red Rose and he threw a single red Rose in the baptism tank and then he walks off.

Evangelist Daniel King  (15:24):

So he was speaking in the third person. What do you think was going on?

Macoby Donaldson  (15:28):

There was a David speaking to us through his voice, his voice and saying, who baptized this boy, I didn’t give you permission to baptize this boy. And he threw a single red Rose in the baptism tank and he left. Wow. So that went pretty horribly.

Evangelist Daniel King  (15:43):

Did you try to cast out the dad or

Macoby Donaldson  (15:45):

We, we, we ran after him. I had to run through town to find him and we found him and prayed for him. There wasn’t any strong manifestation. He seemed like very double-minded like it was tough. I think he was on drugs and it was just tough. And I honestly, I don’t know what happened.

Evangelist Daniel King  (16:02):

Well, we’ll, we’ll have to pray for him. Pray for myself. Yeah. I know. God loves him and has a great plan for his life. And Jesus is more powerful than any demons. So I pray that Jesus will capture Marcellus and set him free from this demonic attack, from the pits of hell and release him into God’s calling on his life. Amen. Okay. Now give me a good story. What, what was something really amazing that happened?

Macoby Donaldson  (16:30):

I love this story because it really portrays a scripture that I love really beautifully. And it’s Romans two chapter four. It says that the kindness of God is meant to lead us to repentance, but to lead men to repentance. And so there’s this man who had a seizure in the morning time. And he, he had fallen. I think he’d fallen at a curb. He said, and his back was terribly injured from the seizure. So he went to the hospital and the ambulance and and he came back in the afternoon to the park where we were and he was eating some of the food we were providing. And and I said, you know, do you have any pain in your body? He said, yeah. He told me what happened with his seizure. So I prayed for his mind, but also his back was terribly, terribly injured.

Macoby Donaldson  (17:05):

He, his shoulders were kind of up and he couldn’t move his back. He couldn’t like do this. He couldn’t bend over his back was extremely stiff from the fall when he had the seizure and we prayed and in Jesus name, we pray prayed and he got healed. The back pain left. He had movement in his back and it was an amazing healing. It was a very, very miraculous healing that we could see the effect of it. And I asked him, I said, man, this is proof that Jesus loves you. You know, he died not only to pay for your sickness, but also to pay for your sin. And the wages of sin is death. And we did the evangelism thing and he, he very genuinely said just, I don’t know that I’m ready to give my life to Jesus right now today.

Macoby Donaldson  (17:43):

And I pushed a little harder, but I, I, I didn’t push you on, cause I really appreciate it. It seemed like he was really thinking, really trying to figure things out. So I blessed him and I said, man, he loves you so much. And I pray that his love chases you every day he left. But the basic thing is that he came back two hours later and he said, you know, I thought that whatever I said no to living my life for Jesus, that he would take the healing away, but the healing remained my back still feels great. I don’t have any pain in my back whatsoever. And so I think I want to get baptized. I want to give my life to Jesus. And so immediately we baptized him in water. He gave his life to Jesus. He repetitive his sins. He baptized him and it was a beautiful, beautiful picture of God’s goodness, leading people to repentance. Wow. That’s a tremendous story.

Evangelist Daniel King  (18:26):

Yeah. Do you have one more amazing story of what God does?

Macoby Donaldson  (18:28):

This is, this might be the most intense intense moment of my life whenever this happened, but we were walking home after it was dark and that we heard a madman yelling just nonsense and vulgar stuff from a rooftop. And we were yelling back at him, you know, Jesus loves you. And he, he said, if you really love me, come up here and give me a hug. And so we found a way up there. We ran up there, we were just administered two 11 on him. He was high on cocaine. He had the bag with him right there. And it was, it was a wild thing. He was saying vulgar things. And he was kind of rapping and doing like a rap kind of thing. And we just, he was all, he was going on for five, 10 minutes and we just stopped. And he said, Hey, just put your hands up and say Jesus.

Macoby Donaldson  (19:11):

And we started administering to him and we he started manifesting demons and he started growling and, and, you know, kind of doing that thing where it’s like demonic tongues, and it’s really nasty. And we had a breakthrough and he fell over on the ground. This is a man high on cocaine yelling, cuss words, talking about vulgar sexual things. And he, he, he falls, he feels the power of God. He falls back on his, back in the parking garage on on the roof of a parking garage. And he gets delivered of demons. And then we pray for the whisper and he starts speaking in tongues, new tongues, Holy tugs. And then immediately after that, he actually falls asleep on the floor of a parking garage on the, on the roof of a parking garage. And he falls asleep and he’s asleep for like a few minutes.

Macoby Donaldson  (19:54):

And we had to decide like, are we going to stay here and wait for him to wake up? Oh, how long is he going to be sleeping? And we, we figured that he probably hadn’t had any peace in his mind for several days. And so that’s why he was tired. He, he, he got peace with God and and he, he was able to rest. So, but it was amazing, sorry, there’s amazing transformation. He was being very vulgar and cussing and very, you know, just very worldly. And he had a counter guy, he got delivered, he got saved. He gave his life to Jesus. He got set free, filled with the spirit. He came up and he was like talking about scripture. He wasn’t cussing anymore. So it’s an amazing transformation. Wow,

Evangelist Daniel King  (20:32):

Tremendous. Yeah.  I’m so proud of you and going into the darkest places and preaching the gospel. Congratulations on seeing such tremendous fruit there. I think it’s really amazing that God can take someone like you and use you to do amazing things for his kingdom. And so, congratulations. I think your boldness is commendable to go to the darkest place and to be a shining light in the midst of great darkness. Thank you so much for listening to the evangelism podcast, where our goal is every soul. God bless you.

Tom Brown is the pastor of Word of Life Church, one of the fastest growing churches in El Paso, Texas. On today’s podcast, he talks about how he is reaching out to his community using a variety of creative methods. He is the author of several best selling books and has been featured on ABC’s 20/20, MSNBC, and the History Channel. He is often called “The Exorcist” because of his ministry of casting out demons.

Show Notes: 

Website: http://tbm.org

Question: What are you doing to reach out to the people of El Paso?

Tom Brown shares about touching lives through: 

* Holiday Fun Fests

* Feeding Programs

* Website Outreach

* Social Media

* How Tortilla Soup has brought tens of thousands of visitors to his website.

* Finding a niche for your ministry.

Key Quote: New church plants need a good name, a good location, a good website, regular social media presence and they need to work it by ministering to people. If they work it hard, they will be successful.

Transcription 

Daniel King(00:00):

Yeah, I’m here with pastor Tom Brown from word of life church in El Paso, Texas. We have been close friends for a long time. In fact, pastor Tom gave me one of my first opportunities to ever preach edit church. When I was still a teenager, he had me come preach on the fire of God. And then my brother and I used to dress up as clowns. And he had us come in and minister to the kids at his church several times. And so pastor Tom, it’s great to have you on the podcast today. It was great to be on God bless. And this is the evangelism podcast. We’re talking about evangelism and church growth and different ways that churches are reaching out to their community. And so your church is growing very rapidly. They’re in El Paso, Texas. Tell us what are you doing to, to reach people for Jesus in your community?

Tom Brown (00:49):

Well, you know, the first time we met we were getting ready to do our harvest festival. So in replacement of Halloween, we have something for the kids. And then we also preach the gospel every 20 minutes while kids are, you know, hundreds of kids will be coming in there. That’s why we invited you to come and do it. I think that was, that was Sonia told me that was the first time we had to come to the harvest festival. So one of, one of the simple outreaches once a year is we had that harvest festival and it’s amazing how many people ended up joining the church, just because of it. They come to the Lord. Hundreds of hands will be raised during this two hour festival. As we do a Christian play every 20 minutes while people are there. So that’s one outreach.

Tom Brown (01:30):

Of course we also have our church televise on television. Let’s not forget though, those social media is getting more and more important. People still watch television too. So we’re on CBS, NBC where the most widely watched local program in the city of of most lo most local religious program in the city of El Paso. We’ve seen the ratings. We come up on our, our, the number two rated highest rated to show every time we’re on at the six 30 and the seven 30 is the time slot. So we’re excited. I mean, the stations do not want us to leave because we bring a big audience there. So we S we still reach out with television. And now with COVID, that’s taken place. We now have a feeding program, which we haven’t, we did not really officially have had before. What we did is anyone who needed food, we would give them a gift card to go to a local grocery store from one of our members.

Tom Brown (02:26):

And they would go buy groceries and buy what they want. But we realized with COVID and 50 million people getting unemployed during this shutdown and this coven, we had to help people. So every Thursday we have from 300 to 500 plus cars, family cars will come in and we will load the trunk of their cars with lots of food. And they will be wrapped around the charts. They will be wrapped around all the way to the next exit. I mean, we were in a corner, so you go down Pratt, then they turn on Saul. Kleinfeld all the way down to the next major exit. It’s incredible. And then we have people with, t-shirts saying that they’re ready to pray for people. So as people are waiting in line, we have people asking for prayer, what do you not need God to do for you?

Tom Brown (03:14):

And so that’s another outreach that, that we’re, we’re doing. And of course, and I see you’re also very active on Facebook doing teachings on Facebook. How have people responded to that? It’s tremendous. I mean, right now, it used to be our website that has been the most successful. I mean, we were one of the top religious sites for a long time in all of the Southwest. We’re probably still very high, but we had some trouble when we had to get a new software and that new software messed up our algorithm. So we weren’t ranking as high, but we still get a lot of visitors. But now we realize social media is become more of an important factor than just people going to the website. They like to see you live. One of the things I learned is go live. You can record something and put it up.

Tom Brown (04:01):

You’ll get some good views, but the you’ll get the most when you go live, because people want to see all your mistakes. They want it. They want to see that, see that you’re human. Yeah, that’s right. Yes. Yes. It’s not Polish. Or there going to be no editing. We’re not going to bleep a word. It’s all going to be there. So people like it live. So I’ll come up with a teaching a revelation and I’ll just share for a few minutes, a revelation that God gives me. And then I’ve discovered, you know, I my website used to get one 10th of all hits was from my tortilla soup recipe. I’d actually put it on there just so I didn’t have to write it out for all my members. So I had millions. This is not, I don’t mean hundreds of thousands.

Tom Brown (04:44):

Millions of downloads from your tortilla tortilla soup. Yes. So people would, one person said they put too many Chipotle peppers and they now call it exorcism soup because people know me as an Exorcist as well. They’ve seen me on MSNBC, the history channel ABC 2020. But so I found a niche. My associate pastor said, Bishop, start doing these cooking things. Did you see how many people were viewing you? I said, I know I was a stranger. Why would so many people want to see a minister, cook a food, cook a recipe, but they do. And then I’ll interject while I’m cooking some teachings, some thoughts of the scriptures. You know what I mean? Maybe I’m, I’m waiting for something to boil. I’ll begin to preach this. 

Daniel King You’re like the cooking evangelists, pastors, maybe. So we’ve got a guy. It would be a great show.

Tom Brown (05:30):

You’re going to come up with a name for me, cooking. Pastor let’s keep working on the title. But anyway, the chef who leads, they heavily cook. He’s done the good ingredients and the bad, the good, the good, good word. Yeah. So we’re doing everything we can. And, and we do it properly. Probably I’d go live five, four or five times a week. And, and we get huge hits. People just come. And then of course, all of our services are at least our 11 o’clock service and Wednesday Bible study, it’s all live. And our Spanish service is also live. And my associate pastor gets almost as many hits as I do. He’s so popular to, so, and so what advice would you

Daniel King  (06:15):

You give to a young pastor who’s just starting out.

Tom Brown (06:18):

They want to grow their church. Well, I think number one, well, you got to come up with the name of a church. You got to come up with a logo. You have to come up with a webpage. You have to know where you’re going to be located. Who’s going to do your praise and worship. And then you have to figure out, we’ve got to have an online presence. I already mentioned a webpage, but you have to have that online presence on Facebook, Instagram, some of the other bigger ones. And I tell people stay with the big ones. You don’t have to work so hard. They already have an ready-made audience for you, and then work it and, and start to witness to people, minister to people, invite them to your church. And I’ll tell you there’ll be successful if they’ll work at heart.

Daniel King  (06:57):

Awesome. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Pastor Tom.

Description: Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, tried to shut down all the churches in California using the Corona virus as an excuse. Today, Pastor Brenda Wood explains why she broke the law in order to keep her church open. 

Show Notes: 

Brenda Wood pastors Word of Life Church in Riverside, California. When the Corona virus hit, she conducted parking lot services in front of her church but the governor of California made a law saying all church services are illegal while also keeping liquor stores and abortion clinics open.  She filed a class action lawsuit with Civil Liberties against Gavin Newsom, the governor of California. The lawsuit is currently in front of the 9th Circuit Court. Even though it is illegal, her church continues to meet while also following all the CDC guidelines for preventing the spread of Covid 19.

Website: www.theword.us

Brenda Wood answers questions like:

What should a church do when the government declares having church is illegal?

Why the church is desperately needed, especially during times of national emergency.

What health guidelines and social distancing rules should a church follow?

Why the Gospel cannot and will not be stopped.

Key Quote: “Our founding fathers founded this country because of religious persecution and it’s rearing its ugly head again, and we have to take a stand and stand up for liberty.” – Pastor Brenda Wood

Transcript: 

Daniel King (00:00):

Wonderful. We are here with Brenda Wood from Word of Life in Riverside, California, and she has been breaking the law by having church services in her church during COVID the governor of California said that they weren’t allowed to have any church services. And she’s actually joined a class action lawsuit, suing the state of California to force them to have their religious rights that are guaranteed by our constitution. Pastor Brenda, thank you for being on the podcast.

Pastor Brenda Wood (00:40):

Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.

Daniel King (00:42):

Tell me what has been happening at your church.

Pastor Brenda Wood (00:47):

It’s kind of crazy. We never thought something like this could happen, not in the United States of America. And so when the COVID pandemic came down in the beginning, of course, we listened to the president and we wanted to be good citizens. But after that I started having a church in the parking lot of, and in people just drove up, stayed in their vehicles, wore mask and no one was getting in or out. We didn’t even open our restrooms. However,

Daniel King (01:17):

So they were in their cars. Windows rolled up, they had their mass sun. Yes. And what happened when the government found out that you were meeting in your parking lot though?

Pastor Brenda Wood (01:28):

Well, the night before Palm Sunday, and when I say the night, I’m talking about 8:00 PM the night before the Riverside County health director issued an order that there would be no church drive in services. And so I felt that was a violation of the first amendment and our, you know, our constitutional rights. And I was approached by civil liberties lawyers that week and asked me if I would join a class action lawsuit against the state of California. And I said, yes.

Daniel King (01:57):

Okay. So the first amendment guarantees us freedom of religion in this nation, freedom to practice our religion, freedom to have church. And the government told you, you weren’t allowed to have it

Pastor Brenda Wood (02:11):

Well, and that’s right. And you have to kind of balance it out. There was a liquor store we’re in a strip mall, there’s a liquor store. Next door. People were coming and going and congregating in the parking lot, not wearing mask. And yet they’re really coming down hard on church churches in the state of California. And so there’s no balance. And I really do believe that this is a direct attack against the church to keep the church close, but we know that church is essential and that people need to hear the word of God, especially during a national state emergency.

Daniel King (02:45):

And so what is the status of the court case? Right.

Pastor Brenda Wood (02:49):

Well, right now it’s in the ninth circuit court and it’s been sitting there for a while. Of course we’re believing for great things. And I I’m praying that it goes all the way. I think it’s I think it’s just vital that we declare the church essential in the United States of America.

Daniel King (03:07):

And so you’ve actually decided to go against this law into, continue to meet. Tell me about that.

Pastor Brenda Wood (03:15):

We met outside for a while. Then the second Sunday in June we started meeting inside and again, we go by all the CDC guidelines, we take check temperatures and all of that. And so I just believe that if you can meet at schools, if you can meet at Costco, if you can meet, you know, in, in grocery stores, you can certainly meet at church.

Daniel King (03:40):

And so in your church services, are you singing songs? Oh yeah, because I heard that in some churches, they, they, they said you’re not allowed to sing because you could catch COVID if you sing,

Pastor Brenda Wood (03:52):

It’s not some churches, it’s all churches in California, so, Oh yeah. But we’re still singing. Are you praying for people? Oh yeah. Are you preaching from the pulpit? Oh yeah. So we’re going forward where, you know, the gospel will not be stopped. And that is really the issue of all of this is they’re trying to stop the gospel and the gospel is not going to be stopped. Now. It’s great to go online. We all have online services and we love that. But you know, a Hebrew says do not forsake assembling yourselves together. That verse has become so alive to me during this crisis, how important it is for the body of believers to come together. We need to see the glory of God in each other. It brings us closer to each other and to God.

Daniel King (04:38):

Amen. That’s tremendous. And so in your services, have you been seeing God move during this time? How have you been reaching out to people?

Pastor Brenda Wood (04:47):

Absolutely. you know, the residual effects of COVID-19 have been suicide has gone up. Child abuse has gone up, domestic violence has gone up. And so these are residual effects

Daniel King (04:59):

And even economic conditions, people are struggling economically because of all of the restrictions

Pastor Brenda Wood (05:05):

They are struggling. And, you know, the poverty level of course has gone up. And so people are hurting and they need some answers. They need people that are ready and willing to pray for them. And so that’s what we’ve been focusing on, hurting people and just reaching out as people come in, we’ve got a lot of people that have come from other churches, their churches close, and just spend time talking and praying with them and, and, and, and encouraging them. And, and so there’s just you know, I’ve had people call me on the verge of suicide and I pray with them and talk with them. And you know, I think that’s where we need to all pull together and understand that the church must stay open.

Daniel King (05:46):

Have you faced any criticism for staying open either in social media or the media? Tell me about that. Oh yeah. I got some hate mail in the very beginning. So what did the hate mail say? They said, I hope you all die

Pastor Brenda Wood (05:58):

To that effect. These were from Christians. So I quote unquote, Christians.

Daniel King (06:03):

We love you so much. Why don’t you go on to heaven right now?

Pastor Brenda Wood (06:06):

Exactly. Pretty much. But you know you know, when you’re doing, you know, when you’re doing the right thing and I gotta tell you, this lawsuit is not a frivolous decision for me, my husband and I, we took three hours and prayed and sought the Lord and ask God, is this the course that you want us to take? And I just believe with all my heart that it is

Daniel King (06:25):

Well, the ninth circuit tends to often vote liberal. And so I wouldn’t be surprised if the ninth circuit might come up with a reason why you’re not allowed to have church. But if that happens, will you take this to the Supreme court?

Pastor Brenda Wood (06:42):

Absolutely. We’ll go all the way. I’m very happy with my civil liberties lawyers and they’re very courageous people and they love the constitution and I love the constitution. And that is what we’re fighting

Daniel King (06:56):

Now. What do you think the church should do if the Supreme court or the government ever tells us, you can, you have to stop having church? What do you think the church should do?

Pastor Brenda Wood (07:06):

Well in that case, I think we might be a lot like China and have an underground church, but church can not be stopped

Daniel King (07:14):

That they could be coming in America where we would face persecution. But I think even in the midst of persecution, even when people try to stop the gospel, the gospel continues even in closed nations, places where we’re, there are laws against being Christian, Jesus still touches people’s lives. And no matter what the government does, you cannot stop a higher power of what God is going to do.

Pastor Brenda Wood (07:43):

Amen. I’m in and the gospel will not be stopped. And that’s, you know, that’s the cracks of all of this that we’re going to preach the gospel. We’re going to preach the word we’re going to go forward and do what God has called us to do. And I am proud of the church. This is the church’s greatest hour, in my opinion, and the churches stepping up and stepping in, and we’re going to let our light shine and we’re going to go forth.

Daniel King (08:06):

What advice would you give to other pastors who are trying to decide whether they should open church or stay closed?

Pastor Brenda Wood (08:12):

Well, first of all, you have to pray and do what the Holy spirit is telling you. I’m not I’m not judging anybody for staying close. I’m not judging anybody for staying open, but I know what the Lord told me. And he spoke to me. And so I’m going to stand by that and my convictions, and this is truly a, about our freedom. And, you know, our founding fathers founded this country because of religious persecution. And so, you know, it’s rearing its ugly head again, and we have to take a stand and we have to stand for freedom and stand for the right to meet together.

Daniel King (08:51):

Pastor Brenda, I admire you as a woman of God. You are a woman of great faith. You are a woman full of strength. And so thank you for taking a stand for what’s right here in America. Thank you for being on the pipe.

Speaker 3 (09:06):

Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Love you guys.