1 877-431-4276Two Questions that Lead to Heaven | Ethan Hood
On today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast, I talk to Ethan Hood. He is only fourteen years old but he is already being used by God to lead people to Jesus. Today, he explains the Two Questions that can Lead to Heaven. Get ready to be inspired…If a fourteen year old can preach the Gospel, you can too!
Learn more about Ron & Christina Hood and their ministry: https://www.musgomissions.com/
Summary:
In this episode of the Evangelism Podcast, 14-year-old Ethan Hood shares how he uses his family’s “evangelism trailer” to share the gospel with people in his community. Ethan explains the two key questions he asks to start gospel conversations: “If today was your last day on Earth, are you sure you would go to heaven?” and “If you stood before God and He asked why He should let you into heaven, what would your answer be?” Ethan then walks through the five-part gospel presentation his family uses, covering grace, man, God, Christ, and faith. He shares testimonies of how this approach has led people to put their trust in Jesus, even including a 6-year-old child. At just 14 years old, Ethan has already seen God use him to share the good news and lead many to salvation.
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
On today’s episode of the Evangelism Podcast, I talk to Ethan Hood. He is only 14 years old, but he is already being used by God to lead people to Jesus. Today he explains the two questions that can lead to heaven. Get ready to be inspired. If a 14-year-old can preach the gospel, you can too.
(00:29):
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:34):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:59):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest with me, Ethan Hood. He might be the youngest guest we’ve ever had on the Evangelism Podcast. Ethan, thank you for joining me today.
Ethan Hood (01:17):
Yeah, thank you for inviting me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:19):
Alright, so Ethan is the son of Ron and Christina Hood, great friends of ours here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and they have a great ministry called Must Go Missions. And so Ethan has been our friend for many years. He hangs out a lot with my son Caleb, who’s also 14. And Ethan, do you remember meeting Caleb? How long have the two of you been friends now?
Ethan Hood (01:48):
As long as I can remember. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:51):
So you were pretty young when we first met. Now your father has a great heart for evangelism and he put together an evangelism trailer. Can you kind of describe for the people who are listening, what does the evangelism trailer look like?
Ethan Hood (02:07):
Yeah, so the evangelism trailer, it’s kind of like a food truck. So the sides open up and they’re flap so they open up and so you can speak from inside the truck to anybody passing by. So it’s painted sky blue with clouds all over it and it has big words, big letters on the front that say, are you going to heaven? Two questions are really answer. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:29):
Alright, so are you going to heaven? Two questions that reveal the answer, and in just a minute here we’re going to ask you what those two questions are. But first of all, kind of tell the people who are listening, how do your family use this evangelism trailer? What are some of the places you’ve taken it to and what would it typically look like when you use it?
Ethan Hood (02:55):
So we use it at different events and outreaches that happen all over the city. So we take it to the Tulsa Dream Center a lot and we talk to people there with Tulsa Dream Center. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:09):
So let’s tell people what the Tulsa Dream Center is. So we live in South Tulsa, but up in North Tulsa there is the Tulsa Dream Center run by our home church, a victory church. And there’s a lot of people that have a lot of needs up there in North Tulsa. And so our church has been reaching out to North Tulsa for many years now. People come to the Dream Center for food. They recently built a swimming pool to help teach kids how to swim up there and lots of ways to reach out to the community. And so sometimes they’ll do a big feeding event, and right now it’s Thanksgiving time and so they just gave out a bunch of turkeys and stuff. And so when people come for the food, you guys will take your trailer and you’ll park it there in the parking lot and as people are waiting in line, you’ll start to talk to them.
Ethan Hood (04:07):
Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:08):
Okay. So kind of tell us what those conversations are like. What do you say when people come and start talking to you?
Ethan Hood (04:15):
So for a lot of the time people are just wondering what the two questions are that I mentioned earlier. And so those
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:21):
Two now they’re wondering because big on the truck it says, are you going to heaven? Two questions that reveal the answer.
Ethan Hood (04:29):
Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:30):
Alright, so everyone’s wondering, Ethan, what are the two questions? Can you tell us what are the two questions that reveal if someone is going to heaven? I really want to know. I want to make sure I’m going to heaven when I die.
Ethan Hood (04:43):
Yeah. So the first question is that if today was your last day on Earth, are you sure that you would go to heaven?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:52):
Okay, so if today was my last day on Earth, am I sure? Well, I hope so. I sure hope I go to heaven.
Ethan Hood (05:00):
That’s the answer we get a lot of the time. And so then that’s why you have the second question. If you were to stand before God and he was to ask you, why should I let you into heaven, what would your answer be?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:13):
Well, what answer do people usually say there?
Ethan Hood (05:16):
Well, a lot of the times they are Christians. So they say, I believe in Jesus Christ and this is good. And once, if they say that, then we ask if we can pray for them if they need any prayer. But also a lot of the time they say, well, I’ve been a good person, I’ve done good things. And this is,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:35):
Oh yeah, I go to church sometimes. Every Christmas I go to church. I love going to church at Christmas time, usually you get some presents and stuff and you see a little twinkly line on the top of the tree. And so probably got to let me in if I go to church on Christmas. Do you hear that type of answer?
Ethan Hood (05:54):
Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:55):
Okay. And so if someone gives you that type of answer, what do you do?
Ethan Hood (05:59):
And so then that’s whenever we go into the main message,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:03):
The main message, Ethan, tell us the main message. How can we be sure that we’re going to heaven when we die?
Ethan Hood (06:10):
So we use a format that was made by an evangelist who taught other people how to lead people to Christ. And so it starts with grace, then man, then God, then Christ, and finally faith.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:27):
Okay, so let’s go through those. You start with grace, then you talk about man, then you talk about God, then you talk about Christ, then you talk about faith. And so each of those different points, I’m sure you would say several different things, maybe pull out some scriptures to talk about. Kind of walk us through how you would present the gospel to someone. By the way, I think that this format was originally developed by d James Kennedy, who he started evangelism explosion. And so he taught people to go through these five different points. Alright, so start with grace. What would you say about grace?
Ethan Hood (07:08):
So grace, it’s really short. You just share the verse, the verse. Romans 10 13, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:21):
That’s a good place to start. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so that’s God’s grace. Okay, then you go into talking about man. Now does it include women too? Is it Yes.
Ethan Hood (07:33):
This is man as humanity.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:35):
Man as humanity. Okay. And so what would you say about humanity?
Ethan Hood (07:39):
And so a lot of people at this point are wondering, well, what do I have to be saved from? And so man, we have to be saved from sin and saved from death. And so we lead with Romans 3 23 for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:54):
Okay, I’ve sinned, you’ve sinned, we’ve all made mistakes. What is sin? What do you say? If someone asks you what is sin?
Ethan Hood (08:02):
Well, sin is the wrong things that we do, the things that keep us from God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:09):
And so when people sin, there’s a price that has to be paid. What’s that price?
Ethan Hood (08:15):
And so the Bible says in Romans 6 23, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:26):
So Jesus was the only one who was ever sin free. He was the son of God and he, he died on the cross to take the price for our sins. So we’ve gone through grace and man, then we go to talking about God, what would you tell someone about God?
Ethan Hood (08:42):
And so a lot of people have misconceptions about God. Like I said earlier with the second question, they say, oh, well I’m a good person. I should get into heaven. They think that God is up there with a set of scales judging the things from the bad things you’ve done. And if you’ve done more good things than bad things, then you get into heaven. And so we really just explained that this is not how heaven works. And so heaven is a free gift and that leads into Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:09):
So if you’re talking about God, you might quote John three 16 there. Can you quote that for us? Do you know John three 16?
Ethan Hood (09:17):
For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever shall believe in him shall be given eternal life
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:25):
And kind of explain what does that verse mean? Imagine you’re talking to someone they maybe haven’t heard John three 16 or they don’t really know what it means. What do you tell ’em it means?
Ethan Hood (09:36):
Yeah. So Jesus Christ came down from heaven and was born as a baby and he lived a sinless life and died on the cross for our sins. And if we believe in Jesus Christ, then we will be saved and we’ll be given eternal life in heaven.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:54):
Alright, so you talk about God, God loved the world so much, he gave his only son, and then you talk about Christ. What would you tell them about Jesus Christ?
Ethan Hood (10:04):
Yeah, so with Christ, we start off with Ephesians two, eight through nine, which says four, by grace we are saved through faith and that not of ourselves, it’s the gift of God not of works so that no one should boast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:21):
Okay, so why was Jesus’ death on the cross necessary? Why was that needed for people to be saved?
Ethan Hood (10:28):
Well, we said in man sin, you have to pay a price for our sin. And so Jesus died on the cross for our sin. He paid the ultimate price so that we could live free sinless lives with Jesus. And so that’s what Christ is talking about. For our grace, we are saved through faith.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:50):
Alright, then we come to the fifth and final term that you talk about and that is faith. What is faith? How can someone have faith? How do we put our faith in Jesus Christ?
Ethan Hood (11:02):
Yeah, people really don’t know what faith is. So faith is kind of like trust. Faith is sitting in a chair, which is a common example that we use. If you sit in a chair, you have full trust in the chair, you completely trust in the chair that it’s going to hold you up and it’s not going to break. If you see a chair that one of its legs is broken, you’re not going to sit in it, you’re not going to trust it. You’re not going to have faith in it, so you’re not going to sit down on it. And that’s what we have to do. We have to have faith in Jesus that he can save us.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:36):
So we put our trust in Jesus, that through Jesus we can be saved.
Ethan Hood (11:41):
And so with a chair, if you sit down partially, but you still have all your weight on your feet, you’re not really sparing your feet, you’re still on your feet. So you have to put all of your trust in the chair so that you can have rest for your feet. See, you have to put all of your faith in Jesus. You can’t put some of your faith in Jesus and still try and do good things. Try to get into heaven that way. You have to put all of your faith in Jesus. That’s the only way to get into heaven.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:12):
Alright, so then if someone says, I’m ready. I want to put my faith in Jesus right now. I want to make sure I’m going to heaven, I want to make sure I’m saved. How do you lead them in the process of putting their faith in Jesus?
Ethan Hood (12:25):
Yeah, so we just start off with again, or not again, sorry. Romans 10, nine. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And it’s really that simple. You have to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart. And so we just lead them in the salvation prayer.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:47):
Okay, well why don’t you lead us in a salvation prayer right now. What would that sound like?
Ethan Hood (12:54):
Well, very simply, it’s just, Jesus, thank you for dying on the cross for me and for my sins. Thank you for your forgiveness that you’ve given me, and thank you for helping me to live with you forever. Jesus name, amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:10):
Amen. Alright, and then after someone says a salvation prayer with you, then what happens?
Ethan Hood (13:15):
Well, after that we ask if there’s anything they need prayer for, any problems that they have, family issues, anything like that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:23):
Alright, this is a great outline and you do a great job of quoting the scriptures, knowing how to present the gospel. Does this work, have you actually seen some people come to Jesus as you’ve been talking to them? Give me some testimonies. What have you seen happen?
Ethan Hood (13:41):
Yeah, this works all the time. Every time we go there are people who just come up interested and we tell them about this wonderful gift that God gave us and they believe. I remember one time we were at a community event, not a church outreach or anything, and it started raining. So we put up a tent to help people just get away from the rain. And so there was this family that was under this tent and they were just sitting there and we weren’t trying to force ’em or anything, we were just there, just reaching out to them, giving them water as we do. And eventually they just came up and asked, you guys are really nice, why are you like this? My dad and me, we just helped them go through this process and we just went through the process. This process is very adaptable so you don’t haveta halt, always start with the two questions. And so they didn’t come asking about the two questions. They came asking about why we’re so kind. And so with this process, it’s really easy. You can just share the gospel with anyone. And so we were able to lead these people to the Christ just originally just being kind to them and then helping them with this.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:59):
And you often give out water or something to people who are coming by.
Ethan Hood (15:04):
So we give out water and sometimes other drinks if they’re available and we just give them out. Sometimes it’s hot days and so they need water. So we’re just able to help the community and just help.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:17):
Alright, I got some rapid fire questions for you. One question is, what is the oldest person you’ve shared the gospel with and then what’s the youngest person you’ve shared the gospel with?
Ethan Hood (15:29):
Oldest person I’ve shared the gospel with, well, the cool thing about this, I haven’t just done this with my truck. I’ve been on mission trips and I’ve helped with this too. The oldest person I’ve shared the gospel with I think was in Florida. We were on a mission trip one year and we were going to door to door and knocking and just telling them about a block party that we were doing with our ministry there. And so we were just talking with them and if given the chance, we would tell them about Christ and tell them about Jesus. And so when we were talking, this old lady came to the door, I dunno how old she was, but she was maybe 60 or 70 and we were just,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:08):
Yeah, that’s really old.
Ethan Hood (16:09):
Yeah, we were just talking with her.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:11):
Don’t tell my grandma that.
Ethan Hood (16:14):
But we were just talking with her and just telling her about this block party and she was saying, oh, I don’t know if I can make it. And so we just started talking about how this gift that God gave us and how we can live free of the burden of sin. And so we just led her to Christ through that, just knocking on doors, giving out flyers, talking about Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:40):
That’s awesome. What about the youngest person? How young have you shared the gospel with someone, the
Ethan Hood (16:45):
Youngest person? Well, I think again, on the mission trip at this block party that we had, a lot of families came and a lot of children came because we were giving out clothes and toys and stuff. And well, we let our ministry let an altar call at this place and the people who lifted their hands, we would go out through them and just pray for them and just help them through it and just help them understand what they’re getting into because we don’t want to sign them up without actually telling them what they’re getting into. So we were doing this and there was this little boy who raised his hand and he was just wanting to know Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:27):
How old do you think this little boy was?
Ethan Hood (17:30):
He must’ve been six.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:33):
About six years old. Yeah. Okay. So from six all the way up to 70, you’ve seen the two questions work in sharing the gospel. Okay, here’s another question for you. How many times, just an estimate, doesn’t need to be exact, but how many times in the last 12 months do you think you’ve gone out with a truck witnessing?
Ethan Hood (17:55):
Yeah, so we’ve mainly done it over the summer, over the hot months, just handing out waters and things like that. And we really helped a lot during Covid as well, just handing out food and ministering, stuff like that. So over the past 12 months, we’ve probably gone to an event almost every month, so maybe 10
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:16):
Times. Wow, that’s amazing. Now each time you go out, how many times would you share the gospel typically?
Ethan Hood (18:22):
Well, when you go out to these events, they’re sometimes mainly Christian events that are held by Christian organizations. So I wouldn’t start with these two questions maybe 10 to 15 times, but five out of those I would actually share the gospel with and 10, they would already be saved.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:42):
So if you’ve done it like 10 times this year, you’ve probably shared the gospel anywhere from 50 to a hundred times this year. That’s pretty impressive for a 14-year-old to share the gospel. Now, how many people would you estimate that you’ve prayed a prayer of salvation with?
Ethan Hood (19:00):
Yeah, so a lot of people, they hear this story and they’re really moved, but they’re not really ready yet. So we don’t push them, we just only do it when they’re ready. See, sometimes these people, they’ve been going through a lot and there’s been so much leading up to this moment. And so when they finally ask, they’re ready for it. And so sometimes this is the first step in their process. Sometimes we’re the first step in the process for them being saved sometimes or the last out of the however many times I’ve shared the gospel with them, I’d say maybe 20 or so.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:34):
Wow, that’s amazing. I mean, for a 14-year-old young man to be able to share the gospel that many times and to lead 20, probably even more people that you’ve actually led to Jesus is really impressive. Now, last March you got to go on a mission trip with us down to the nation of El Salvador. And my son was on the trip too. What was one of the things on that trip that really moved you, that God really did in your life when you were in El Salvador?
Ethan Hood (20:10):
Yeah, in El Salvador. Man, that mission trip was so amazing there. After one of the Crusades, I believe, or maybe it was the night before we had a crusade just talking about it. I just realized, and a lot of us realized that we are on this mission trip to save people, but this is also helping us personally. And so on Wednesday night we had a massive worship session and the pastor of our church came down to help with this and we just had this massive worship and we really just had massive baptism in this pool at the hotel that we were staying at. And so many people were getting baptized. And eventually towards the end I decided to get baptized too. And that was really impactful for me. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:07):
What did it mean for you in your life spiritually?
Ethan Hood (21:10):
Well, spiritually, I was sharing the gospel. I was going out and I believed it, but I wasn’t really talking to God. I was praying for these people, but I wasn’t praying to God. I wasn’t really having a connection with God. I knew he was my savior. I knew that he was my friend, but I never really understood that on a personal level. And so after that, I just started, whenever I was praying for people, I wouldn’t just pray for them to a spiritual guy up in the sky floating around. I would pray to a friend and asking them, please help this person. Help them to realize that you are so much more than just an angel floating around up in the sky who has magical powers. You are a real person who can help them. And it just really came on a deep person.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:13):
And so your relationship with God really became more personal and God really moved in your life. That is so awesome, Ethan. Thank you so much for sharing. If you want to know more about the ministry of Ron and Christina Hood and Ethan Hood, and the entire family is involved, you can find out more about them by going to their website must go missions.com. And so you spell that M-U-S-G-O missions.com. And on the website there’s a place where you can give to them through PayPal. You can be involved in helping them to go out. If you are in the Tulsa area, the Oklahoma area, you can connect with them and actually go out and volunteer and help to witness to people. They’re doing stuff almost every single month. And so you can get involved in helping to witness to people. And so let’s just finish up today, Ethan, by praying for the people who are listening today, would you just pray that everyone who’s listening would have boldness to share the gospel? Maybe they’re much older than you, but if a 14-year-old can do it, I think anyone can do it. And so just pray that we all have boldness to talk to people about Jesus.
Ethan Hood (23:40):
Oh dear God, I just thank you so much for all that you’re doing in all these lives, and thank you for everyone listening that you are helping them to realize that no matter what age they are, no matter who they are, that you can help them and you can empower them to lead anyone to Christ and you can connect with them on a personal level. I thank you that if there’s anyone watching who may not be saved, I thank you that you are just working in them. Jesus name, amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:12):
Amen. Well, Ethan, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Yes,
Ethan Hood (24:17):
Thank you.
Evangelism Podcast Host (24:18):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you want to lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King’s School of Evangelism, learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and is seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give antar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry and much more. If you want to be an evangelist but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:20):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries. Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much, and God bless you.
Evangelism Podcast Host (26:41):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
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Shane Degen | Jesus Loves America
Shane Degen is a from Australia, but he has a heart for America. God gave him a vision to do fifty stadium events – one in each state in America. Today we talk about how God set him free from a life of addiction to heroin and gave him a passion for evangelism.
Learn more about Shane Degen: https://jesuslovesamerica.com/
Discover Shane Degen’s Two Hearts Gospel Presentation:
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Shane Deagan is from Australia, but he has a heart for America. God gave him a vision to do 50 stadium events, one in each state in the United States. Today we talk about how God set him free from a life of addiction to heroin and gave him a passion for evangelism. You’ll be inspired as you hear his passion for living for eternity.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:43):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:06):
Daniel King. Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Shane Deagan from Australia. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Shane Degen (01:20):
Good morning, Daniel. Thanks for having us.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:23):
Alright, so you are an evangelist.
Shane Degen (01:25):
Yes sir.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:25):
And you have come here to America as a missionary because God has given you a vision to reach the nation of the United States for Jesus.
Shane Degen (01:38):
Yes sir.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:38):
And your ministry is Jesus loves America. Yes,
Shane Degen (01:42):
He does.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:42):
So I love us.
Shane Degen (01:43):
Yes. It’s the gospel in three words.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:45):
Well, let’s start at the beginning. How did you become a believer and then how did you start stepping out in evangelism?
Shane Degen (01:56):
Okay, right. So we’ve only got half a day. No, I’m kidding. Give an evangelist to Mike, he’ll take over the show, but okay. So I met Jesus in the jail cell in the year 2002, January 16. So up until that point in my life, I’d gone to church as a boy. But in my latter teenage, some stuff happened to me as a kid and I got kind of tempted by the enemy as it were for that big wide world of sin and depravity. And so as a teenager started taking drugs, trying to probably numb the pain, but looking for hope. Never really as a boy, I went to Sunday school and church. I never really met the Lord. I just had lots of good teachings, but I did love God in my heart. Anyway, at any rate, I went off into the world, got tempted and started taking drugs as a teenager, starts with marijuana. But by the age of 19, I was a heroin addict. I had a $3,000 a day habit, but I was always very, that’s pretty expensive. Yes sir. It’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:10):
After a few days I’d run out of money.
Shane Degen (03:13):
Yeah, I guess. So thus eth the lifestyle of crime to support that. And so there’s a lot of people either deal or steal in that world. And I was selling a lot of drugs to support my habit and it just went from the lighter, lighter party drugs. It just got worse and worse. But I was studying science at university and my major was chemistry. So I kind of fell in with some meth cooks and I was using that to support my heroin habit and all that. Started around 18, 19 and continued up until about 24. I owned some businesses. I had an internet business, a nightclub, and a rave production business. So I was a bit entrepreneurial. Within a year I dropped out of university. I didn’t finish my undergrad at that point. And by the age of 24, the police caught me, sent me to jail.
(04:16):
Then six months later, I was laying on my bed of the Toowoomba Watch house, which is kind of like the holding cells in Australia. And I was just laying there and I was thinking about what am I going to say to the judge because the next day I had to stand before him and give an account and he was going to sentence me and I realized I am not going to be able to talk my way out of this one. They had me, had me on some, I had stabbed a guy. I was on production of methyl amphetamines. So very serious charges. I was going away to jail for a long, long time. And as I was laying on my bed trying to come up with an excuse, realizing going to, I can’t took my way out of this, God spoke to me in that moment.
(05:08):
I wouldn’t say I necessarily heard an audible voice or I didn’t see a light just deep within my heart. I knew I knew and it was like God said to me, how would I like to be standing before him on judgment day, trying to come up with an excuse for hell because that’s what I was doing, trying to come up with an excuse for the judge and I didn’t want to go to jail for a long time. The idea of hell and eternity, that’s not just a couple of years, that is forever. That struck me. The fear of the Lord struck my heart, eternity became real. And so I surrendered to God in that moment. In my heart, I just chose to do the Christian thing, whatever that meant, I’m going to do that. So read a Bible, get to church on Sunday, try and pray. But really what happened in that moment, even though it was a fear of the Lord moment, I had an amazing encounter with the love of God that just changed the trajectory of my life. I did do a couple of years in jail, but when I got out, I met my amazing wife, Amanda.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:24):
And now you have eight kids.
Shane Degen (06:26):
Yes sir. So our oldest
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:28):
Is 22. A big family.
Shane Degen (06:29):
Yes. Well, God has blessed us. Yeah, without a doubt. My joy.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:37):
So your oldest is 22,
Shane Degen (06:38):
That’s Locklan.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:39):
Yes. Going down to what’s your youngest?
Shane Degen (06:42):
So I’ll go through it. So Locke’s 22. Then we have Elijah, he’s 20, they’re kind of one’s in the army and one’s a mortgage broker. Then I have Noah, he’s 18, just finished school. Then Gabriela is 16. Then we have Moses is 13, Abe, Abraham. Oh, sorry, I missed, Evangeline is 11 and then Abe is nine and then Isaac is
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:10):
Seven. Okay, so then you got out of jail.
Shane Degen (07:14):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:15):
You became an engineer.
Shane Degen (07:16):
That’s true.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:17):
And then God called you to be an evangelist. And so how did that happen?
Shane Degen (07:24):
Okay, so from jail. Yeah, I got out. I started studying engineering in aerospace, avionics and I did undergrad. I worked for Boeing for a season in Australia. And then my professor offered me a scholarship to do a PhD. So I was about six months into that scholarship, enter revival now. So from 2002 I went into jail. 2004 I got out and started college straightaway. And then up to 2008 was my undergrad years. And then my last few years I worked for Boeing and I was going to work for them full-time when the scholarship opened up. But in the mid of 2008, there was, that’s the year I started my PhD. There was a revival that was broadcast on God tv and that just changed my world. I saw lots of people getting healed. I saw wheelchairs getting empty.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:19):
Which revival was that?
Shane Degen (08:20):
That was in Lakeland, Florida.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:23):
Okay.
Shane Degen (08:23):
Yep.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:24):
And who was leading that?
Shane Degen (08:28):
I forget the name of the evangelist, but yeah, but that revived.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:33):
I remember hearing about that. Yeah, it was powerful. It was a big deal.
Shane Degen (08:36):
Yeah, they had like 35 people get raised from the dead over a series of 120 days.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:44):
Wow.
Shane Degen (08:45):
Now I’d been a Christian for six years and I’d never seen any miracles. We believed in miracles. I just never saw them in the west. You’d hear about happening in places like Africa and that kind of thing. But I was seeing them live on TV every night. I mean 55 people got up out of wheelchairs over the course of 14 days watching these people get up and walk. And then every couple of days there was a new dead raising testimony. There were 35 different testimonies. I tuned in about day 55 and tuned out about day 80. But that 30 days was enough to catalyze me into the things of God. So up until that point, if you had have asked me how long was I going to live, I would’ve said, oh, 70 years, 80 years would be good. But after that, I just knew that I was going to live forever and I had to reprioritize my life for the forever.
(09:45):
As an engineer, I won’t in this major international competition for UAV design, I was a workaholic. We would be up to 80 hours in the lab or field testing. And I realized in that revival that everything I was working really hard on meant nothing in eternity. I was going to get to heaven bankrupt as it were, that I couldn’t take any of that stuff to heaven with me. The only thing I could take to heaven with me was people. And I needed to reprioritize my life to help others get to heaven. So that mobilized me out onto the streets to start showing the gospel, the message of that evangelist, it was essentially, Hey, the stuff we are doing up here, God will use you to do it. Get out there, tell people about Jesus and you will see these miracles break out. Gone are the days where we just tell people about Jesus. Now we need to demonstrate the power of the kingdom. I’d been a Christian six years, never shared the gospel. Once I had seen one person come to the Lord just through living it, he’d seen the change in my life and he started coming to church with us. I was too scared to be honest with you. But since that revival, I see a handful typically get saved daily.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:08):
Wow. So in Australia you had the opportunity to do a stadium event.
Shane Degen (11:15):
Yes sir. Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:16):
Jesus loves Australia. Tell me about that. It took a big step of faith to do it
Shane Degen (11:21):
Right. Wow. Let me just tell you the process to that. So I stepped out of my postgrad in 2010, took a masters just for an early exit just because I had this fire for souls in me. The word of the Lord is shut up in my bones, like a fire says Jeremiah and I grow weary of trying to hold it back and indeed cannot. And so I just had to go after God. So I stepped out, started going out on the streets. But then within a couple of weeks I went to a conference, had a visitation from the Lord and he said, stop, wait. I had stadiums and crusades and everything in my heart, but the Lord said to me, wait, I want you to pray for three years. And if we do that, then we would see the birth of a worldwide revival in 2018.
(12:15):
So this is the year 2010. I needed that word from God. It was a very clear conversation, two-way conversation. It was only a few sentences, but I had it with the creator of the universe. And up until that point, I had very little faith for hearing God’s voice, but I needed that word to sustain me through a three year prayer meeting. So from 2010 to 2013, I just prayed like about eight hours a day, up to 16 hours a day. Instead of going to work, I would go pray, but I would still go out on the streets once a week into 2013. That’s kind of when I stepped into the ministry just started. But even since then, I spend the first half of my morning with the Lord just in prayer and worship, really trying to hear direction from him. And then we mission in the afternoon, go do whatever it is God’s called us to do.
(13:11):
So just in our local area, we started off with a seven university campaign across southeast Queensland in Australia. All this kind of transition happened in Brisbane, Australia, which is the capital of Queensland. And so we did seven university colleges kind of doing revival and harvest. But I was very frustrated at the fruit I was seeing, wasn’t seeing much. But then we stepped out and we did cities. We started doing country towns. We did three major towns, but again, there was only some getting saved. We weren’t filling the arenas and the stadiums we were booking at that stage. And so I left Australia, I packed up, moved to North India, poured my life for a few months into North India as a missionary, trying to reach the largest, most unreached people group on the planet in the states of Uta, pian, Bihar. But that door closed after a few months.
(14:16):
We couldn’t work there any longer. So returned to Australia, just started seeking God, what do you have for us? What do you have for us? And it was stadiums, big stadiums in the capital city. So went in and had a lot of conversations with those guys. Went and booked this massive series of gospel events and then went back to my prayer closet and prayed for the 80 million to do it. And it didn’t come, but that caused me to go get alongside churches, start to rally churches, work with pastors. And then in 2017 I went to Sydney because I kept having dreams about Sydney. Sydney’s the largest city in Australia, has a population of about 5 million people. And I kept getting words about Sydney. So I said, okay, Lord, well which part of Sydney do you want to do? Like this area or this area or this area? And God just said, stop. He says, come up here, see what I see. I saw the whole city of Sydney. I went, all right, well if it’s going to be Sydney, then we need Stadium Australia, which is right in the middle of Sydney. It’s the largest stadium in Australia at that time. Its sponsored name was a NZ stadium. And so we booked it by faith, this multimillion dollar stadium. At the time I was still believing God for a bottle of milk for breakfast some days for our family. But whilst we booked the $2 million.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:55):
So you booked the stadium while you were praying for milk for your family,
Shane Degen (16:00):
Right? Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:00):
So that’s a big step of faith
Shane Degen (16:03):
That actually the word that caused that to happen actually started eight years earlier in 2010 after I first stepped out. So one day I was in my backyard really trying to figure out how I was going to get a bottle of milk to feed my children. The next day we had no milk and I just cried out to Lord. I said, Jesus, I need $2 for a bottle of milk. And I very clearly heard the audible voice of the Lord say to me, son, right now you’re learning to trust me for $2. One day it will be $2 million. I woke up, went to bed that night, a great peace came on me. I went to bed, I woke up the next day, milk was on our doorstep. And so God showed his faithfulness with the milk. And indeed it happened almost a dozen times over the next 12 months where we would go to bed, no milk, and it would just be on our doorstep the next morning. So that really sustained me through that eight years until we saw the fulfillment of that word December 1st, 2018, where we booked the $2 million stadium.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:15):
And so God enabled you to raise the budget, and what were the results of that outreach?
Shane Degen (17:24):
So we had a couple of thousand people turn out growing in the grace of fundraising. So yeah, we didn’t have any money two weeks out, but we got enough money for the deposit six weeks out and then two weeks out we made the final payment on the stadium. But over the course of watching it unfold, churches when we came to town, they knew we had no money. And so it was hard to get them to come on board. But as we just kept going back to the churches, letting them know what’s happening, helping them with their evangelism programs, we had a point where we had a couple of major breakthroughs, either financially or with connections, and it was those breakthroughs that the churches saw, oh wow, God is in this. So they started signing up and in the end we had 2002 people come in the door according to the counter.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:34):
Wow, okay. So then God gave you a vision for America.
Shane Degen (18:40):
And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:40):
So you’re from Australia, but you’ve come here to America as a Australian missionary and you’ve started, Jesus loves America. What do you see God doing here in America?
Shane Degen (18:54):
Well, first of all, the harvest is so ripe. It’s just amazing the number of people who know about Jesus but don’t know him. So we see a lot of people come to the Lord here.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:08):
Do you feel like the United States is more open right now than Australia?
Shane Degen (19:15):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:16):
Just in conversations that you have with people.
Shane Degen (19:19):
Without a doubt, I would say that America is probably four to five times more Christian than Australia, particularly in the southern states, which is where I mostly am. But even in the northern ones, the ones that a lot of people would consider heathenistic states, they’re twice as Christian as Australia. So yeah, there is definitely an openness for the gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:43):
I think that’s an encouragement for people in the United States to hear, Hey, we have a great place where we can really make a big impact for God.
Shane Degen (19:52):
That’s right. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:53):
I mean, you talk to pastors everywhere you go, it doesn’t matter where you go in the world. They say, oh, in this place it’s really hard. It’s hard. But I’ve found that wherever you go, there’s people that are open to receive Jesus.
Shane Degen (20:05):
That’s right, absolutely. The harvest is ripe. It’s the laborers that if we need people to know their God, that lion of the tribe of Judy, he wants the raw and he wants to save souls. So yeah, it’s definitely very ripe here. What’s kind of mobilized me for stadiums and those kind of events is personal evangelism. Everything that I’ve just learned on the streets, we just take into churches and we take that from churches to the cities. So our typical campaign philosophy, what a typical campaign would look like is we’ll go into a city and tried to connect with the gatekeepers in the city, the senior leaders, senior ministries, just share with them. We’re evangelizing pastors. Go in there, share what we do, asking them if they need help with their evangelism programs. Could be bible colleges, seminaries or just ministries in general. And then typically they’re a little bit standoffish until they get to know you. But once they see some of the fruit, then they’ll open their doors and then we go and train, mobilize their people. But it’s right from the beginning, it’s with this vision of we are going to bring the city together. So at the same time we’ll start talking to the stadium, start negotiating with them the price, because that takes a lot of money plus faith and yeah, whilst rallying a team that’s going to help us pull this event together.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:42):
So what does that look like when you go into a church
Shane Degen (21:47):
And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:47):
You’re training them in evangelism, what are some of the principles that you share? How do you motivate normal church members to get involved in sharing their faith?
Shane Degen (21:59):
Okay, well, so the key is the Holy Spirit. We always start with without the Holy Spirit, he is the master evangelist. We are wasting our time because the number one reason you probably know these statistics that people don’t share their faith is fear. 22% don’t share their faith because of fear. 17% don’t share their faith because they dunno what to say. Another 17% don’t share their faith because they don’t have opportunity and 9% don’t share their faith because they are too busy. So the fear thing, the Holy Spirit is the key. The spirit of power and boldness dunno what to say. Well, we’ve got simple little tools that we train people and what to say. But also what we’ve found is that once people know what to say, many Christians actually dunno how salvation works. So when we train people in tools, they just got saved, they made a decision, they prayed. Now they come to church on a Sunday, maybe go to a midweek group meeting, but they don’t know the process of salvation. So by training them in how to evangelize their friends, we’re actually giving them the confidence in how to be able to share the gospel. So that lowers the fear factor as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:24):
So what do you want to see God do here in the United States?
Shane Degen (23:30):
Well, we were just at Lasagne and I just came back from, well, okay, a few weeks ago now, about a month ago I think, or six weeks. Yeah. I came back from Anne with such a fire. God shifted something in me that it is possible if the church collaborates for us to evangelize nations. Two years ago we had a prophetic word given to our ministry. We came to America to Dallas based on two words and a dream a friend had. So that sent me to America and really it was just to do a citywide event. But while we were there raising the money and bringing churches together, training churches, getting a team and everything, we received this prophetic word around 50 states, 50 stadia simultaneously. One day, 20, 25. Now at this point in time, I was struggling trying to pull together a multimillion dollar campaign, one team, one budget, one city, the whole,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:39):
It’s interesting how God works, like our biggest vision, we’re like, we’re going to dream so big, we’re going to take the whole city. And then God says, no, my vision is 50
Shane Degen (24:50):
Because you start once you’ve
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:52):
Done, because God thinks way bigger than we do.
Shane Degen (24:55):
And sometimes when you’ve done something once, he wants to stretch you.
(25:00):
My background’s engineering. We have project management plans with roadmaps and milestones and yeah, that’s not how the Lord works. He wants you to get out of the boat, walk on the water. It defies all science. So yeah, that’s often what we find, which is why I don’t always have a management plan anymore. Our project management plan is the Lord. We seek him daily. He kind of shows you, I’ve found the big picture, but the mistake that we can make is trying to get to the big picture in our strength, leaning on our own gifts and talents and that kind of things. If we want to see God type fruit, God type results, we need to become 100% dependent on him letting him do the work, letting him bring it together. And we are just following him that way because he does the work. It’s a lot more effortless, it’s a lot more fun, and he gets the glory.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:04):
Now you also have a passion for entrepreneurship.
Shane Degen (26:09):
Yes.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:09):
And God’s given you a mandate to raise up believers who will be so entrepreneurial successful that they can give 90% and keep 10%.
Shane Degen (26:27):
What
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:27):
Would you say to the entrepreneur who wants to be used by God to put resources into evangelism?
Shane Degen (26:36):
So this whole concept comes from a man, I’m pretty certain his name is Rg Lano, about a hundred years ago. And what he did, his testimony is he was just a business guy who went to his local church, but they were always telling these stories of missions overseas and how God was moving. And so he went to his pastor from memory, he went to his pastor and said, what can I do? I really want to help more. He felt called to go be a missionary overseas. And his pastor said to him, no, how you can help the most, you’re an entrepreneur, how you can help the most is get more money to give to missions and let the missionaries do it. This was kind of the mentality, the philosophy at the time and just with that church. And so he was like, alright, God, well bless me more so I could give more because the missionaries, they need the money and the more money they can get, the more souls they can reach.
(27:41):
And on both levels, number one for eternity. But number two, helping them just here on earth. And so what he did was he signed 90% of the equity of the shares of his company over to the church. That way he could give 90% tax free. Now, yes, in America people can give tax free, but the limitation not many people know is that it’s at 60%. You can only give up to 60% of profits tax free. Above that you have to pay taxes because he wanted to give above the 60% threshold. He gave ownership to the ministry and then lived off the 10%. Well after he did that, God exploded his business. I forget the exact figures, but like a thousand fold type thing because God could trust him with the little God gave him much. So he did retire very, very wealthy. There’s a university at Tyler now called Larna University, but his entrepreneurial activities were in earth moving equipment. I think he built one of the first or had a patent for one of the first one ton moving Earth equipment a hundred years ago. But he had many patents in that area.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:03):
A lot of evangelists. Listen to this podcast. What advice would you give to evangelists?
Shane Degen (29:13):
I love Jesus. Everything. The number one thing that just has made the biggest difference in my life as it’s that first watch recently, this is what I’ve realized it is I spend the first three hours of the day just with the Lord and in the Bible from Hare culture, it’s called the first watch. But I think giving that first part of your day and your morning to Jesus, number one, you fall more in love with him. People want to not just know about God, they want to meet people who know God. We want to bring them into a relationship with God. We’ve got to know him. So kind of, I think I meet evangelists all over the world and I’m very blessed to be able to do that. But that’s the key to everything for me has just been that first few hours with the Lord in the morning.
(30:16):
From there, I get the ideas from there, I get the direction. He’s my CEO. When you work in a business, a lot of businesses, not every business starts with a staff meeting. People get delegated their tasks for the day. But so I get my instructions for what to do next or where to go for the ministry from that place. But David says this, he says this one thing I have desired that I will seek, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold his beauty, number one, to inquire in his temple. Number two. So I think when we come before the Lord, there’s got to be this place of letting go of your to-do list, and I need help with this, this. And it’s really just a place to worship, to praise, to behold his beauty and his goodness and to fall more and more in love with him.
(31:10):
And this ever number one pursuit to mine is this deeper intimacy with the Lord. And then from that place, half the questions actually get answered, that God just sorts ’em out for you. But we typically still have our questions. So he just starts to speak and then you can go about and do what he says. And I’ve found that’s the way to be the most fruitful. The days where I get busy, and I don’t do that because you’re pressured, because of some deadline. I get up and I start phone calling, emailing, you’re kind of hitting the target with 10% of the phone calls, 20% of the emails. But if I would be disciplined in setting that first part of my day apart, when I come out of that place, people are contacting me. I don’t have to ring them. The phone calls I’m making, it’s hit, hit, hit, hit. So I can actually be more fruitful, even though I’m working less, but I’m spending more time with him because he’s ordering my footsteps.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:18):
Let’s finish with a word of prayer for America. Would you pray that God would send revival to this nation?
Shane Degen (32:29):
Amen. Yes, Lord. Oh Lord God, there is 50 states, Lord here, 50 states, 50 states, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. We thank you Lord for what you did last Tuesday. God, there was a mighty breakthrough for this nation and just, I really believe the word of the Lord now is run. The doors are open, wider, wider than before. There was already so many people getting saved before, but for the evangelists, for the missionaries, for those in ministry, there is such a port says one Corinthians 15, A great effective door for the gospel has been opened for me. And so God, we just, I pray, Lord for the revivalists, the evangelists watching here, Lord, that you would mobilize, mobilize, run now with the vision, run, run, run, run, run. Now is the time to run. Go up your loins and run. Because we have this window, we have this window where things are going to rapidly accelerate.
(33:49):
There is going to be just I, just a massive advancing. I see just this rapid acceleration. The interesting thing about the harvest fields is once a seed goes into the ground, it grows for months. The Bible says a man sows seed to the ground, goes to sleep all by itself. The ground produces first the blade, then the head, then the seed in the head, then he puts the sickle in. It’s like there’s all this time of preparation, but in one moment the harvest comes. I really feel like this is that moment for America. Everything we’ve gone through for the last four years has just been ripening the harvest. But now is the time. Now put your sickle in, says the Lord. Hallelujah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:54):
Amen. Shane, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Shane Degen (34:59):
Thank you for having us. Daniel,
Evangelism Podcast Host (35:01):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you want to lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and is seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give an altar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry and much more. If you want to be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:03):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review. You will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries. Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much, and God bless you. For
Evangelism Podcast Host (37:23):
More information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
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Mark Drake | Bringing Youth Hope
Youth Hope was started in 1936 by some little old ladies who wanted to reach out to young people. It was originally known as the Christian Friendliness Society. Now they minister to children across the Quad Cities area. Today, Evangelist Daniel King interviews Mark Drake who has directed the ministry for the last thirty-seven years.
Learn more about Youth Hope: https://www.youthhopeqc.org/
Watch a video from a recent outreach we did at Youth Hope
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me, Mark Drake from Youth Hope. Thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (00:12):
Thanks for asking, Daniel. Appreciate it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:14):
Alright, so Mark, we are here in a beautiful facility in Moline, Illinois and we are with Youth Hope. You’ve been leading this ministry for 37 years now.
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (00:32):
Yeah, 37.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:33):
And so tell me a little bit about Youth Hope and what Youth Hope does.
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (00:39):
Yeah, appreciate you asking. First of all, I would say when you say in a beautiful building, we didn’t have these facilities, but I’ve often said we can sell all the facilities. It matters what we’re doing with people, right? It’s all about the hard people. They were reaching a lot of people for Jesus as Christian Friendliness Association, which began in 1936 without the centers, we built the centers and the camp so that now we have a place to take people, but we also have something that might be magnetic to, because people sometimes far from Jesus, I call ’em everybody future believers, we’re either going to believe on this side or that side attorney. So everybody’s a future believer that future believers might come in here, cool looking, or it has an activity center or a sports center. And if we can get ’em in for whatever reason, we don’t care why they come, we care how they leave, right Daniel, we don’t care why they come to your festivals, right, to have fun and do we care how they leave. So 1936, the women that were in a Bible study really came to.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:42):
So 19 36, 19 36,
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (01:42):
It
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:44):
Got started.
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (01:45):
Got
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:45):
Started. And what’s the story of the start?
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (01:47):
Yeah, good for you. 1936, a group of women in Bible study. We’re seeing a lot of immigrant families to our quad cities in Illinois, part of Quad Cities and Molina and Rock Island, Illinois. And they saw the need to reach out and love and they said they want to give them food and they had a clothing at the time and then teach ’em about God’s love. So it was all by seeing the need that they decided to start Christian Friendness Association, which became Youth Hope and it’s grown since then. Not any different in heart or spirit, but in what our reach and breadth of it is.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:23):
So what are some of those core values that have led Youth Hope over the years?
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (02:30):
Yeah, first off, the way it started going, we want to see the needs in the community to say what are the needs? We’re doing a mentor program with schools and there’s need to support teachers. So chaotic in public schools. There’s programs not in schools anymore, so how can we be a partner within? And that’s exactly, they looked and they saw people immigrating saying they need food, they need clothing, they need friendship in God. So again, the core value I think for all of us believers is to say, what’s the need? Because the need’s going to get filled by somebody or something, but we have the hope of the world and the true answer so we can meet physical needs. We still have a food pantry here. If we can meet needs with art because they got art programs are dropped and schools and that leads them to the hope of the world, then we got ’em on the right path.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:20):
As I was touring the facility, I’m absolutely amazed. I mean, you have a dance studio, you have an area dedicated to art, you’ve got a beautiful gymnasium, you’ve got a food pantry where you’re giving out food and there’s lots of people lined up there today waiting to get food. And so you’re looking for needs. You’re helping to meet those needs. Now tell me a little bit about your story. It started back in 1936. You weren’t there originally. You’ve come, but you’ve been here for a long time. So how’d you get a part of Youth
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (03:55):
Hope? It ends up being a calling, but it was really motivated by, I was a delinquent youth in the Quad City Surf Factory. My mom lives two blocks from this particular center. And when I came to Christ a month later I left for Yso National Park. Then I left to go to college and then I went to graduate school and seminary and then worked a couple places and I always found a need to come back to the quantities to share Jesus with all the people I hadn’t before I left because I just became a Christian. So my story began that I had decided I was going to come back quad cities and commit for two years. I wanted to share with my old drinking friends, I want to share with family. I wanted to share with people that would be marveled at what God’s done in somebody’s life because I was a delinquent. And so my mom actually saw an ad in the paper about an opening for somebody who worked with troubled youth, said This would be perfect for you. And it was called Christian Friendness Association. And I came here to do that and pursue God that way.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:59):
And then you got involved and how long did it take before you rose to being a director?
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (05:08):
Well, that’s a director of an area demeanor, minimum security prison here for juvenile boys. I used to do ministry out there on Wednesday nights too. He said to me, mark, I said, the problem with you is you’re coming as the director of youth, but you’re also coming as the director of the whole organization. So I never got promoted. I came, you started out, I was the director and director of youth and I didn’t know what that encompassed it. I came here to worked trouble youth and they said, well, you’re in charge. And that was it. I had no training anything. I have a master’s in counseling, went seminary in counseling. And so I had no business training. I had no, how do you run an organization? I didn’t have me teaching me. So I sought mentors. So I just kept going forward with my heart to reach people and I’d see needs one of great needs.
(05:55):
I went to probation, I was going to court with this one boy over and over and the one probation officer pulled me aside and said, he has the biggest file on probation in our county right now. That’s how rough and tough this kid was. I said, that’s why I love him. I think it’s great and he needs the Lord. And they took me back and met, had a probation and everybody’s going, who are you? I work with this Christian organization. They go, oh yeah, we know Christian organizations around. They’re kind of doing their thing. And I realized, Daniel, we should be their hope. We should be the first people they turn to. And I said, Hey, we’ll work with any probationary youth you have. Oh man, we have a need. So again, they say,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:33):
We got all kinds of people we
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (06:35):
Want you to work with. And so that’s where it began the concept. I think God started planting that seed that we needed to be not the best kept secret in the quad cities, but the light on the hill. And so God gave me, I’m a deer hunter and I actually wasn’t getting a deer and I was doing all what spiritual men do. Then you talk to God about the deer. I felt like he was breaking my heart out there one day saying, you don’t really love the kids you’re working with. And I was telling him why I do and what I’ve done of course. And he said, I want you to commit a place for them to come to. So a few years down the road we opened a Rock Island youth center, so they have a place to come to and get off the street.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:18):
And so over all these years of ministry, you’ve seen many transformed lives, many miracles that have happened. What are some of the stories of the miracles that God has
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (07:28):
Done? Oh yeah, Danny, when I first started it was real big gang stuff going on in the quad cities and we opened the Rock Island Center and then we opened the Moley Center, we started calling it. And then we opened a camp and we call it the three parts. We go out and find and we pursue ’em. And unfortunately, in fact, I just saw a demonstration of it today, unfortunately quite a bit of the church has stopped looking out here and they look in here
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:53):
Instead of looking out at the community, we got to
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (07:55):
Keep going after they stay inward focused and then we open centers to bring them in and then we open camp to get ’em out of their environments for a week or a weekend to just, I call it purification time. It’s kind of like these kids are born on the north side of Denver and they’re drop of water and they’d land in the water and it’s real pretty stream when they’re infant possibly. And then it goes through the sewer system of Denver and they come out and they’re so we’re taking ’em on there. We’re purifying that water for a week or get ’em away from music and their phones and the gangs and everything.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:28):
I mean, that must be a great experience for a young person to go from TikTok all the time to being out at the campground.
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (08:37):
And Dan, you were talking about creation. You start with creation. I was one time out there we were cleaning woods to put in our basketball court and using chainsaw and a tough kid came up and he’s involved in a gang and he’s like, man, I got a bathroom. I said, well just find a tree dude. And he’s like, what? Just go out. So there right away they’d never experienced that. So he ran across the whole field to go way down in the woods to go to the bathroom. I don’t know why saw him fixing. So he comes running down, not even all the way finished yet screaming. And he was scared of something and I’m thinking, what in the world could be so scary out here? And he ran into, he called it a prehistoric bird. It was a wild Turkey. It was in a rut. But how far this kid in a housing complex who doing gang stuff? He was from the creator and the created that we have dominion over that and that that’s meant to be enjoyed. And he scared of something he shouldn’t be. And Satan’s twisted his mind to think that’s the fear. But his life, you can put it back in the hood that you
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:38):
Might run into a gang, but let me introduce you to it, Mr. Turkeys. Exactly.
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (09:45):
But then as soon as I said, Hey, that’s just the Turkey. Don’t worry about man. You tell anybody I wet on myself, I’ll kill you right away. The tough guy came up right thinking the guy cheese are scared of a Turkey threatening in my life, right? I said, that’s not how in a lesson about ta, you talk to men. And I said, I would never do that. So when the group was coming back, I said, let’s start a water fight. He said, why? I said, because we’re going to get all wet. And so we started a water fight as soon as they got there and everybody was wetting it, right? So he got that. But it’s just that whole thing. So stories like that to me are taking people back in the woods to creation and getting them there so that they can hear the creators whisper out there.
(10:26):
We’ve been fortunate enough to have quite a few people live with my wife, Sarah and I, and it’s really neat. One Asian boy that became an older son to us, and he don’t want to tell you, but he’s in his forties now, but he was with us and he came to Christ and he had sisters and cousins all involved and he’s not going to get back home. We’re like, well how come? And he goes, because if I don’t get home quick, I won’t even get a place on a couch. And his name’s Sue. And I said, Souk, what are you talking about? He goes, well, my cousins are living with us. And my brother, he had a bunch of brothers, sisters and they’re from Laos and said, and Sarah looked at me and I said, is it okay? She goes, yeah. And I go, well you want to come stay here? And he lived two cities away from us and we offered it to him and it was like one of those funny things in a movie we feel like he shut the door and we start talking about it and he’s knocking and he already went home and packed his one bag. It was that fast and he was moving in and
(11:19):
It became life-changing from us and our kids because as he walked with the Lord, he’s a minority and they don’t see that. My kids don’t see that they saw souk. He’s our brother and we’ve had different races live with us. And so the life transformation that I’ve seen like souk and his other boy are amazing. But it also always impacts our lives, doesn’t it? Daniel and our kids’ lives.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:46):
Tell me some more stories of this transformation in people’s lives that’s happened over a period of time. Because evangelism isn’t just something that happens in a moment. Sometimes it takes a lot of work and effort to bring people to where they’re walking close with God. So what are some of the
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (12:04):
People? Yeah, before we had a camp, I used to take kids in advance to the boundary waters, Minnesota Canadian boundary water. We take ’em out in canoe and backpacks and you camp out there, you make your own latrine just to make ’em really get away from everything. There was a young man, he was a teenager then, but he was involved in a gd, he’s a gangster disciple and said he gave his life to Christ, disciple him. All of a sudden he shoots two people. Fortunately they didn’t die, goes out for pizza. That became his big thing in the community at that time, I remember the chief police at this task force I was on said, how can somebody go out for pizza that? And I said, Hey, if you don’t respect the creator, you don’t respect what he created.
(12:51):
Well this boy went to prison and I’m sitting in the office in here, I look talking, you say 10 years later he comes walking out and dreads and everything and I said, how you doing? And I’ll leave his name out. But he said, man, he goes, I just got out. I go, I had to come find you. And I go, I’m glad you did. What’s going on? He said, God was speaking to me while I was in prison. I got in solitary a lot. And he said, and all those things that you was telling me they’re true.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:21):
And
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (13:21):
He said, I had time to think about all the people that tell me all these other things. It got me where I was at. And he goes, I just want to tell you I believe him now. And to me that’s transformation in God’s time wouldn’t be the way you and I’d want it, right? I’m sure he wouldn’t want that way, but he got there. We lived for this real short time on earth and that 10 years seemed I wasted my whole life. What he kept saying, I said, now lemme tell you they’re true. Satan wants you to believe that because now what was he 30 something? I said, you’re 34 and if you believe that, then you believe there’s nothing left to do but to trash your life or take whatever you want from life. But you’re 34, you can do amazing things. Now he went on to have a family and stuff. So God transforms lives in his time
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:06):
And you’ve really seen God do amazing things and a lot of it has come because of your many years of faithfulness. What advice would you give to someone who might be young in the ministry and just starting out like that? I mean you starting out with just a position and now seeing what God has done through youth Hope, I mean is really miraculous. So what advice would you give to someone young in ministry who maybe wants to give their life to serving God?
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (14:37):
Oh yeah. I think two things, and I think you maybe saw this with your parents. One of the best things you can give to as a leader is longevity. Because when you’re there a certain amount of time and then you leave, you’ve grown to where God wants you yet growing us all the time. So he’s wanting to transform your life and by you growing and transforming where he has you, it becomes impactful. And then just even today in our meeting, the one young man that came in, he wanted to see me, he goes, I can’t believe you’re still here. And he’s in his thirties now. No, he’s at 41. Mark, I can’t believe you’re still here. It gave him familiarity. It gave him comfort in him. I introduced him to pastors over there and said, Hey, I’m still going to be around. Let’s go to lunch, but here’s some guys I want you to meet. Because it gives that consistency.
(15:31):
It is in that journey that we grow the most. And the other thing I’d say to young leaders is if you’re gifted, even if you don’t feel like it, I struggle with the imposter syndrome. Even if you don’t feel like it or think you are and you can’t hear when people say it, you’ll get chances and opportunities and it may look like this is it. I had a great campus ministry recruit me. I had won a ministry for Eastern European Ministry that would be based out of Colorado Springs and they recruited and a mega church that was really on the boom. Then it would be a name you’d know that recruited me three times and it was so honoring. But I remember my pastor and his wife at that time, and so young leaders listen to this, unless you’re released, you don’t have a right to take the calling. And that was a great word to me because that excitement of the potential of growth and the things I could do and maybe make a world impact, but you got to go back home and say, has God released me yet where I’m at? Even if it’s hard right now, even if I’d kind of like to get out because there’s times in every ministry, I’m sure you even had it at times. One more adventure in a different,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:43):
What would you say are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced with Youth Hope over the years? What does it take to keep a ministry like this going?
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (16:54):
Well, it’s grown. It’s grown and grown and grown. I think it takes humility to say, I dunno how many times I’ve said to people, I’m really not good at anything but finding
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:05):
People that God still manages to do something with me.
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (17:08):
My wife and I are working on a book and I titled it, it’s amazing what God gets done with what he’s got to work with in the 50 mistakes I made to build a ministry
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:17):
Because so 50 mistakes, I had to, you didn’t have just one or two, you
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (17:20):
Didn’t. I had to narrow it down. There was a lot more I wrote down, but I’m trying to narrow down to go which ones are the most impactful that I can do. I’m trying to do it in one to three page, almost Proverbs
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:30):
Going, what were some of a couple of the biggest
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (17:33):
Mistakes? Right? Right off the bat, I came here at 25, my master’s plus at
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:38):
25, everything
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (17:39):
I knew everything dude. And I was working at a college campus charge of two halls, the biggest two hall and a full-time interventionist counselor for suicide, ideology and counseling students is alive on college. And I came here and our first building here was a house in the middle of a small residential neighborhood with the stairs that go up the back door. And I remember the first day I reported, I go in early, no one’s there and I go to the back door and there’s aluminum storm door and it was stuck and I was like, God, why did you call me here? I’m so mad at God going, what am I going to do in this little neighborhood? What are you possibly as? I leaned my head against the door and I was like, okay, God, I’m going to give you two years. I told him, I’m going to give you two years. I went down and I got my tools and I fixed the score. The first thing I did is executive director here and it was only called director then, but I was so dishonoring to God that if God calls you and I felt like he’d called me here, but I was already begrudging God for calling me to such a lowly position that nobody knows I’m in this aluminum storm when you’re 25 you kind of want the lights. And I had a lot of attention there. And
(18:48):
So that was the first one. The first mistake was right on the first morning to go, man, when God calls you embrace it. He’s got a big plan, doesn’t he? And we say that, but we don’t believe it in the moment. That would be the beginning of the mistakes. But the journey was tremendous because he took a young man that was training, counseling and started teaching him how to lead to lead, to lead to lead. And he did that through a lot of people too. Right.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:19):
So now you’re going through a time of transition and the reason I’m here is because you’ve asked my sister Esther Joy King to come on board and to take a leadership role here. And what are some of the dreams and visions that God has placed in your heart for the future of youth Hope?
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (19:41):
It’s a really cool question, Daniel, because first year I was here, a board member asked me to put together kind of a five-year dream vision thing without a community. Just say, Hey, what would be for you? And one of the things is to move across the river from Illinois, Iowa, around the Mississippi and reach people in Davenport too because it impact back and forth too. And with your sister, we were just met with people from Davenport, they called us to take over a youth center there and it was fun to be here still to be a part of that beginning.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:13):
So that was an idea you had back when you first started
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (20:17):
In the first five years I think goes from God. Yeah, it was right
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:19):
Off. That’s one of the interesting things is God puts dreams and vision in your heart and some of them are for next year, but some are for a long
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (20:26):
Time I’ve written on that five year plan, I have to look at it again. I think I showed it to your sister, but I think it was in two years later. It was supposed to happen 30 some years ago in my human mind. But God had started that ball moving way back then knowing one in his time and in human time. We think it’s a long time ago, but not for God. Right.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:48):
Well, I’m super excited that my sister Esther is going to be here. What a tremendous blessing that is. Our family comes from a great legacy of ministry and so I’m so proud of her and it really is amazing. I mean I think you’re very wise because a lot of ministries in America, sometimes the leader holds on to everything. I was just last week with a pastor from Japan and he was telling me that 50% of the pastors in Japan are over the age of 80. I mean, that’s a situation where they’ve held on too long and not given it over to the next generation. And so I think you’re very wise to start looking for the next generation. And I’m very honored that you would bring my sister here to be part of Youth Hope. And I think that God always moves from level to level, from glory to glory. And so there’s been great victories in the past. I think there’s going to be great things happening in the
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (21:54):
Future. Yeah, I always hope we’ve had an opportunity in Galesburg to take an armory in Monmouth and we’ve had opportunities to go expand bigger, but I was never able to do it in building what I felt God had me build here. But I dream that and your sister actually started talking about some of those because she has contacts here. So it’s just cool to go, wow, we almost did this and we didn’t, but maybe now it will still come to fruition, but don’t give me too much wisdom that 55, it felt like God nudged me and said, put in your notice. So I put in a notice board, I’m resigning. They’re like, what? And I was like in seven years and I really thought God was saying 62 and I didn’t know financially how or if I could, but it didn’t matter. Once God nudges you because he has his plan and his time, I see it all coming together and it feels great.
(22:41):
I hope to do a lot more ministry and a lot of other things and still help here, but we’re still growing and I’d rather be going on the way out when it’s still growing than staying so long that it’s going flat or declining. And I’ve seen that in churches being here 30 some years. You see that and you see it in ministry too, that somebody hangs on. It becomes too much of an image of who they are. And this was never mine. It was all God. And for a season of time, never know what guy can do with what he’s got. He didn’t have much to work with, but he did a lot. Right. And he plans to do a lot more.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:18):
Yeah. Tell me one more story of someone’s life. Who has changed or what God has done through Youth Hope?
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (23:25):
Yeah, it just happens to be another young man that comes right to mind because he just passed away in 2021. So he was a young man, he was in his forties, but he was around the same time as Sue. His name was kk. He was from Laos too. But in 2020, in March of 2020, he called me from California where he was living his wife and kids and said, Hey, we’ve got to meet with a surgeon to find out my final diagnosis of some liver problems.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:56):
And
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (23:56):
He said, we think it’s going to be real bad. And I had heard from him for years. He said, would you come out here? Absolutely, absolutely. So flew out there and went with him and they said, Hey, if you make it till Christmas, it’ll be amazing. And he ended up going through Christmas till the next September. But during that time there was a real time of reconcile him with God again and it never had left him. He still believed in God, but he had from his past and culture, Buddhism was kind of
(24:28):
Almost like the whole theory of, hey, it’s all those different ways to get to God. And he wanted to carry ’em both together. So because we were so close, and I brought soup too when he came here and visited too before he died in Suk with tomb. But it’s so close, just be able to say to him that we have a jealous God and there is the different God. And here’s word in scripture and I think you know that in your heart. And just to see him, he’s in glory now. And to see it all get adjusted and well and witness to his family. So it’s a privilege when you stay long enough somewhere to be a part of those phone calls and those people and to know one of the greatest wisdom for young leaders like you said earlier, I would say is don’t try to count what you’re doing.
(25:16):
Just keep doing what you’re supposed to do. Plant the seeds due to water because one comes out of prison, one was on his deathbed, you don’t ever know. And it is another place I failed. I shared the gospel for a year here with Troubled You took ’em to boundary water. I’d had guest speakers videos. I was showing everything. Not one teen gave it life cry. I literally was thinking about quitting my first year going, but I’d made a two year commitment. So I stuck it out. But I was like, I got to be the worst evangelist in the whole world. I tried everything. And we go to the beach up there at the end of a week and about was, and the guy guiding said, Hey, I feel like God’s leading me to do last message. He said, go for it. If God’s lenient go every team. But one gave their life to Christ on the beach that night. Every team and I realized, and they start talking about all they learned from the different speakers. And I realized, Daniel, we have no power. We can’t do. And God wanted to show me, it has nothing to do with you, mark, but be faithful what I ask you to do and in my time I’ll do my thing. And
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:22):
I think it’s really significant. You’ve shared these two stories about these two young men from Laos last year. I went to Laos,
(26:31):
Got to minister there. And ministry there is very difficult. It’s a communist nation, like you said. They’re Buddhist and the Communists actively persecute the church. And for the believers there, they pay a very high price. And so it’s very hard to reach people in Laos, but yet God brought them here and you were able to reach them. And so I think people really need to be looking for opportunities that God puts people right in our backyard to reach the world. Whether it’s immigrants, I mean we have lots of new immigrants coming to every different part of America. Immigrants are coming and some people get upset about it. But I think as the church, we can recognize this is God bringing the mission field to us and it could cost thousands of dollars to fly to the mission field, but right in our backyard, there is a mission field of people that need Jesus. And that’s what Youth Hope is all about, is looking for the mission field right here in the Quad Cities area. We have a lot
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (27:33):
Of immigrants here a lot.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:35):
And doing everything you can to reach this mission field that God has brought us.
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (27:39):
I love your image of that too, because even being human, I don’t agree with illegal immigration period. But as a believer, illegal or not, it doesn’t matter if they’re there to share, God may have.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:54):
There’s lots of scriptures that talk about welcoming.
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (27:57):
Who cares? Again? They come in our centers, who cares why they came? We care how they leave. So they come here. Wouldn’t it be cool if so many of ’em were coming to Christ? They’re going back to their countries to say, I found the hope that we all need down here. And it’s not more material things or more money or the plethora you can find in America. It’s in your heart. You can be lost sometimes. I think faster in America, everything can become your God. You don’t need God very much over here compared to the places you’ve been, I’m sure.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:27):
Well, I’m so impressed being here at Youth Hope. It’s so amazing to see what God has done. It’s amazing. So many miracles. And thank you so much for sharing some of your story today. I really appreciate it and God has more for you. Your story’s not finished yet. Hopefully,
Mark Drake | Youth Hope (28:45):
I’m hoping. I know an evangelists now and I hope to carry his beans and rice on the missions field. You’re welcome to come anytime. We’d love
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:52):
To have you brother, mark. Thanks for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Alright, God bless. Thank you.
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Sean Dunn | Reaching Millennials and Gen Z With Innovative Digital Strategies
Today’s generation is not worried about going to hell when they die because they often feel like they are living in hell right now. So how can we reach them for Jesus? Sean Dunn is reaching Millennials and Generation Z with innovative digital strategies. First he interrupts their social media time using paid advertising and Hollywood produced content. Then he uses online chats to provide answers to the real questions young people are asking about the pain they feel in their lives. They present the hope that comes through Jesus and ask people to make a commitment to follow Christ. You are going to love hearing about Sean’s innovative method of evangelism on today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast.
Learn More About Sean Dunn and Ground Wire: https://www.groundwire.net/home
See how Sean Dunn reaches people who are hurting: https://www.jesuscares.com/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Today’s generation is not worried about going to hell when they die because they often feel like they’re living in hell right now. So how can we reach them for Jesus? Sean Dunn is reaching millennials and generation Z with innovative digital strategies. First, he interrupts their social media time using paid advertising in Hollywood produced content. Then he uses online chats to provide answers to the real questions. Young people are asking about the pain they feel in their lives. They present the hope that comes through Jesus and ask people to make a commitment to follow Christ. You are going to love hearing about Sean’s innovative method of evangelism on today’s episode of The Evangelism Podcast,
Evangelism Podcast Host (01:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary, and evangelist, Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:24):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today I have a very special guest with me, Sean Dunn. Thank you for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast.
Sean Dunn (01:36):
Well, thank you sir. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:39):
Now you have a very unique ministry reaching out to Generation Z. Tell me about it.
Sean Dunn (01:47):
Yeah, actually our focus is really millennials and Gen Z. I’ve been a youth ministry guy since I was 18, and as the generations continue to flow through, my focus is continue to stay right in that spot. So we specialize in 15 to 34, 39 is really our specialty.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:05):
And you are using innovative strategies to reach out to this demographic, mostly here in America. Tell me a little bit about some of what you’re doing to reach out.
Sean Dunn (02:20):
Yeah, well, we in the church and parents and grandparents, we look at our kids who are staring at their phone all day and we wish that they’d put ’em down, engage with people. And I’ve had pastors pound the table and say They won’t come to church. And my response is, but they won’t put down their phones either. So it’s either a problem or it’s an opportunity. We’ve seen it as an opportunity to really engage with them and go after them. So our strategy is really not to invite them to a location where they can hear the gospel, but it’s really to interrupt them as they’re living their life on their phone every day with messaging like Jesus cares dot God likes you.com. What’s the point? Do I matter? I feel broken.com. Invite ’em into a conversation through marketing. Our tagline is often when life hurts, Jesus cares.
(03:13):
Chat with somebody who understands, and we have this massive team of online volunteers that are engaging with the lost. They don’t come online and say, Hey, I need to go to heaven. They’re saying, Hey, I’m going through hell. And we’re able to help them understand how Jesus interacts with them to give them peace, hope, joy, perspective, purpose, but also let’s talk about what he does eternally as well. So really it’s a marketing play with a backend call center that’s not on the phone like our generation embraced, but it’s really through text, instant message with volunteers all over the world.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:47):
Okay. So you mentioned the word interrupt and that seems to be a really important term that you use. So you are going after people, they’re on their phones. I know my son and daughter 14 and 12, they love screen time, they love getting on the phone and we have to pry it out of their hands sometime. But this generation is spending all their time on phones. And the challenge that a lot of churches have is how do we get people into the four walls of the church? People just aren’t going into the four walls of the church anymore, but you’re trying to reach them on their phone and you use this term interruption where you’re interrupting them in the midst of whatever they’re doing. They’re on TikTok, they they’re scrolling doom, scrolling over, just watching videos and how do you interrupt their random search for entertainment and bring them to a point where they start thinking about spiritual things?
Sean Dunn (04:45):
So the same way that if you start thinking about getting a new car, all of a sudden the Jeep dealer knows and he starts targeting you. So it’s really through strategic advertising where we’re leveraging the algorithms. We are going after young people that are, they’re walking past the church, not into it, and they’re struggling with some form of depression, suicidal ideation, purposelessness. They’re showing those signs in the way that they’re behaving online and our messaging finds them. And so we don’t approach them in that moment and say, would you like to have a theological discussion with me? We approach ’em and say, life’s hard. How are you doing? Come talk to us about it.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:36):
And so these are kids, they’re going through depression, they’re thinking about suicide, they’re having issues with their parents having issues at school, and you come to them in that moment where they’re experiencing pain. And what do you say to them?
Sean Dunn (05:52):
It depends on the campaign, but like I said, some of the campaigns are when life hurts Cares come to Jesus cares.com. Some of it’s God likes you. I had people wrestle with me and say, no, God loves you, but God loves you is almost white noise to them. They believe that God loves ’em. They don’t believe God likes them. Some of it’s I feel broken.com, some of it is one of the young ladies logged in and she said, do I matter? And she instantly connected one of our online volunteers who said, you absolutely matter. You matter to me. I’m sure there’s people in your life that you matter to, but most importantly you matter to God. So we teach our online volunteers. You have to transition the conversation because if you let people, they will talk around the true issues for days. And so she said, you matter to God. Has anybody ever shared with you what God sees when he looks at you? And she said, no. Can I share? Absolutely. So she said, just eight, like one-liners out of scripture says, you are created in his image. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are precious in his sight.
(07:01):
You are. The apple of his eye just started to layer these things and you could just tell the young people today, they just want, they need to know because they’ve been beat down so much. If they know that somebody’s there for them, that God loves ’em, they just eat it up. And so she was eating it up and the coach, the online volunteer takes it and transitions and says, not only does he say those things about you, but he thinks you matter so much that he can’t imagine eternity without you. Did you know he made a way so that he could spend eternity with you? And she said, no. She ends up praying to give her life to Christ. It was beautiful. And at the end of the conversation, the online volunteer says, Hey, you came online and you asked me this question. You said, do I matter? But now that you know what God sees when he looks at you, now that you have a hope and a future in him, I’m going to ask you, do you matter? And her response, she came on with a question mark. She left with three exclamation points in all. She said, I do matter. So that’s just one of literally the thousands of stories of young people that are just coming to us because the marketing captures their attention and they end up having these amazing conversations with somebody who will take the time for ’em.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:14):
And so you are actually marketing to people. You’re doing advertising campaigns. Which platforms have you found the most success on? Are you advertising on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube? Where have you found the most success?
Sean Dunn (08:30):
Well, as you know, technology shifts, platforms change. Right now our top two platforms are TikTok and Instagram. So TikTok is very unique in that TikTok, TikTok will not let you succeed if you take people off of their platform. They want to keep everybody on their platform. So we had to figure out how. So our old call to action on all things meta is come over here and chat with us. In TikTok, we had to figure out how do you share the gospel, give a call to action, start follow inside of their app. And so we have videos that just like we have an animated video that just starts with this animated person just says, Hey, you got a minute. God’s got something he wants you to know. And just pure gospel for a minute, 27 seconds long. I thought it was too long, but it worked.
(09:19):
And at the end of it, it says, if you recognize that you’ve sinned and that sin has kept you from being close to God, you want to be, if you realize Jesus paid the price for your sin, it takes care of the eternal, I mean walks through the gospel, then go in the comment section and just make a declaration. I just gave my life to Christ. It is a public profession of faith because everybody who follows them on TikTok can now see that we’re seeing between five and 600 people every day on TikTok make a public profession of faith on there. So each platform has its own unique nuances, but man, it’s just been so fun to see what God’s doing.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:57):
That’s awesome. What are some of your TikTok channels that you’re sending people to?
Sean Dunn (10:02):
Yeah, so just off the top of my head, it’s the campaigns, but I don’t know how they’re worded, but Jesus cares. Jesus changes everything. I feel broken, do I matter? What’s the point? According to him, which is a website where we’re just encouraging people to say, Hey, come explore what Jesus sees when he looks at you. When I ask somebody, what do you think Jesus sees when he looks at you? I get two answers usually. First one I get is He doesn’t see me, he’s ignoring me. He’s not paying attention. Or the second one is he doesn’t like what he sees. And either one of those we can interject. Let me tell you what Jesus really sees when he looks at you and he adores you. He created you intentionally. You can just, so yeah, so those are some of the different URLs and the different campaigns on TikTok that you can go and explore.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:55):
That’s awesome. And are you putting out multiple pieces of content per day? Yes. Because I know that on the TikTok algorithm, they love it when you just pump out a ton of content. And tell me about some of your content. What is it that’s catching people’s attention? What hooks are really resonating with the younger generation?
Sean Dunn (11:17):
Well, so TikTok is different. TikTok has, we had to create a whole new strategy around TikTok, but meta for what’s been working for us for years is it truly is we need them to see themselves in the content. So we’ll have a picture, an image of a girl she’s sitting in a car and slow motion, just a tear dropping down. Her who of us hasn’t just had a bad day.
(11:46):
So it dropped because of the slow motion, the artsy piece of it, it’s dropping. And then as soon as it hits her leg, you hear a honk and you realize she’s sitting at a green light and she’s not moving. And it just says, when life hurts, Jesus cares. People say, Hey, I feel that pain too. Or there’s an African-American girl who she’s getting in her car and she’s talking to her phone and she just says, why is life so hard? I try so hard and I keep failing. I just don’t know if anybody cares about me. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get this right. When life hurts, Jesus cares through that content, we know that we’ve hit it, hit it perfectly. When people log in and they say, Hey, I just saw this piece of content and that’s me. That’s how I feel.
(12:35):
And so again, unfortunately young people aren’t waking up saying, oh no, I’m going to hell. They’re not asking the right questions. We have churches out there that we talk about the seeker sensitive model. They’re not seeking, they’re not asking the right questions. They’re in survival mode. So we have to help them ask the right questions, suggest Jesus is the answer, and then give them an opportunity that’s safe for them to walk in. So again, the attitudes and the perspectives of younger generations, especially Gen Z when it pertains to the church is very negative. 70% believe the American churches irrelevant. But here’s the one that really gets me. 26% of Gen Z trust pastors, that means 74% of the younger generation, they drive past the church and they think, I don’t trust them. That’s not safe. So if we help them ask the right questions, hoping that they’ll walk into a church, most of them won’t, but we know that they’ll live their life and they’ll dig into deep conversations on social media. So that’s what we offer ’em as the stepping stone. The old model of ministry used to be, let’s get ’em to a building so we can tell ’em about the man. Now let’s introduce ’em to Jesus and then move him towards the local community.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:50):
So once you capture someone’s attention, then you bring them to one of your websites where they can actually chat with someone who will minister to them via their typewriter. And so these young people, they’re not worried about going to hell because they feel like they’re living in hell right now. And then how do your counselors, the people that volunteer to help, how do you train them? Is this something that anyone can do? Do they have to be, do they have to go to seminary in order to answer questions? What do they need in order to actually help some people?
Sean Dunn (14:29):
Yeah, so our training is actually, we call it the Groundwater Training Academy. It is pretty extensive because there is both message as well as methodology, meaning we’ve learned a lot of things. When you don’t have tone, you don’t have eye contact, you don’t have body language, all you have are words. There are some really there, there’s some things that you need to understand. You need to understand how to language things so it doesn’t come across as aggressive. And so we take you through all that. It’s about a six hour training, but you can’t do it in one setting. But it covers everything from the technology behind the ministry to the heart behind the ministry, to how do I deal with the suicidal kid, or how do I minister to a Hindu, or how do I minister to a Muslim? So we train you on all those things and you’re assigned a mentor to walk with you through it.
(15:21):
Our team of volunteers both 24 hours a day in English and Spanish both, and it’s about 15 to 1800 people that are active on that team, ministering to people all through the day, 24 hours a day. And it’s amazing because the models of ministry I’ve been involved with is you had to show up at church at seven o’clock to be able to engage. If you wake up at three in the morning and you can’t sleep, there’s people who want to talk to you. If you have time at three in the afternoon, there’s people who want to talk to you. And so it’s always moving and always flowing. And one of our greatest needs is more of these volunteers so that as our traffic continues to increase, which it has been, we have enough coverage to make sure that we can do a good job with them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:08):
Now, I have a lot of evangelists and people that really care about the Great Commission who listen to the Evangelism podcast. So if someone’s hearing this and saying, Hey, that is the great opportunity for me. I would love to be a keyboard warrior for Jesus. How can they get connected to you and find out how they can volunteer to be a part?
Sean Dunn (16:30):
Yeah. Let me tell you a quick story. First. I had a new volunteer just join, it’s probably been six months now, but he called me and I think in the first month he led eight people to Christ. And he said, this has amazing. He said, it reminds me of going fishing with my grandpa. And I thought it was a great analogy. He said, when I used to go fishing with my grandpa, I loved it because he loved it. My grandpa loved to fish. And he took it a step further and I thought, that’s beautiful. He said, when I used to go fishing with my grandpa, my grandpa did all the work and I got all the credit. He baited the hook, he cast it, he reeled it in. Eventually he’d clean it, but I got to stand there and take a picture like I did something. He said, I feel like the harvest truly is ripe. People are more open to the gospel right now than they’ve ever been. They just need to be approached in the right way and invited into kind of process what’s going on with them. So if you’re interested in learning more, the best place to do that is to go to ground wire.net/coaching. It will take you to a place where there’s frequently asked questions, some interviews with some online volunteers or a place where you can begin with an application. But that’s ground wire.net/coaching.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:41):
Let’s talk a little bit about your history and how you got started doing this. What is it that drives you? What gives you this passion for evangelism? Where’d that come from? And then how’d you get started in doing this type of ministry?
Sean Dunn (17:58):
Yeah, well, thanks for asking that. I was a weird kid. I’m a weird adult, but at 14 years old, the Lord called me to ministry. It was so clear that I actually wrote in the back of my Bible, contend for a Generation was the phrase he gave me. And I just assumed that meant youth pastor because that was the only model of ministry at the time. Nothing entrepreneurial was encouraged. And so at 18 years old, I go to Bible college, I get hired the first week or the second week I was there at a church to be their youth pastor. At the time, my arrogance thought, wow, they recognized God’s hand on my life. Looking back, I’m thinking they were stupid and desperate. I mean, they did not. I was 18. They didn’t check references. They needed some help. And so I stepped in and I just say that to say I’ve been in full-time ministry since I was 18 as I stayed in the local church and started to travel full-time as a speaker and an author in 97, and I was the guy traveling with the bands, the bands could get ’em in the field.
(18:58):
It wasn’t about my name, it was about the band, but I got to share the gospel with them. And I learned very quickly, I’m an evangelist. I am not a pastor. And so I thought that I would do that my entire life. I mean, that filled my cup. My ego was out of control. I thought it was all about me and I was loving it. And it was December, 2002 and I was climbing the ladder and it was on a Tuesday. I’m sitting in my office and I’m adding up the number of people I’d spoken to that year. And that year I’d spoken to 156,000 people and I was patting myself on the back thinking that I was pretty great. And two days later, I was deflated because two days later I started reading a George Barna book, and George Barna never leaves you feeling good.
(19:41):
He points out the problems, he points out the trends. He says, we are losing. But the thing that got me was, and we all know that there’s times when God amplifies something and whether it’s a scripture that you’ve read so many times before this particular time, it was a statistic that I knew, but it grabbed my heart differently. On Tuesday, I’m excited about 156,000. In the first paragraph of this new book that I’m reading to prepare for the new year, it says that there are 33 million teenagers in the United States. And I went from feeling, really, I’m sorry,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:16):
That’s a huge number. It’s it’s a great harvest field that Jesus says, pray that God would send laborers out into the harvest field.
Sean Dunn (20:25):
And I went from really excited about 156,000 to being deflated. And it put me into this kind, a little bit of a tailspin for three months where nobody knew what I was struggling with, but I was struggling with my model of ministry because God was doing something different in me. And I had three epiphanies that came out of this. Number one is my model won’t meet the need. There is no way, even if I can triple what I’m doing and get it to half a million people, it’s a drop in the bucket. Second thing I realized was in the western world, heathens don’t go to Christian events. So I’m an evangelist who’s speaking to people who agree with me. And I was saying, God, where the lost? Where are the lonely? Where are the discouraged? I started to ask questions like, God, how do we reach a generation?
(21:13):
Doesn’t want to be in the same room with us. How do we reach a generation that plugs their ears every time we disagree with them? And the third one was scripture says, go into all the world. And I kept saying, come to me. And I was really wrestling with that. And three months in, as God tends to do, he just gave me a statistic that set us on a new journey. And that statistic changed my paradigm immediately. And the statistic is no longer relevant, but it simply said that 97% of the students in the nation listened to the radio at least five times a week in 2003. And I went to my board and I said, if we know where they are, why do we keep asking them to come where they don’t want to be? Let’s go to them. Let’s go buy time on these alternative rock stations, hip hop stations, country stations.
(22:05):
And so we started on traditional media. We started on radio. We added tv. We were on MTV, vh one Adult Swim. We were buying time on those major platforms. We added billboards. But our biggest pivot came in 2017. I went to my board and I said, young people consume media differently than we do. I love telling people my age that we’re talking about Jesus on MTV because we remember what MTV used to be, but it no longer has that influence, and the audience has changed dramatically. I said, they look at the small screen, not the big screen. I said, if we want to be relevant, we have to figure out how to invade their phone. And that’s really what we started to do, and that’s really when our scale began to grow. Can I share with you some of our numbers from last
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:53):
Year? Yeah. Please tell us what results have you seen?
Sean Dunn (22:57):
Yeah. So first of all, let me tell you that the numbers seem like I had a friend tell me, they’re like video game numbers. They don’t seem real. I had another guy in Houston look at me and say, Sean, I want to believe you, but I don’t. He said, because I know how difficult it is, the Western world Church doesn’t know how to reach young people in mass. And he said, I know how expensive it is. And so he challenged me. He said, don’t come back and talk to me until you get your numbers validated, but if you get them validated, please come back and talk to me. So we took that as a challenge. We called the Ranon Foundation, said, who do you trust to do non to do nonprofit metric evaluation and make sure that they’re not fudging the truth? And so they gave us the name that everybody trusts. And so we called ’em and said, Hey, we need you to do a deep dive. So they do that every couple of years for us. I can provide that if anybody has questions, but they basically validate our numbers. So here’s our numbers. In 2023, our commercials were seen 1.3 billion times.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:58):
Wow.
Sean Dunn (24:00):
And the way you measure if your marketing is effective is how many people take steps of the 1.3 billion? We had 6.8 million people take the next step and visit one of our websites. George Barnes, as the average church in the United States sees one person a year come to Christ. Last year we saw 567,545 pray to receive Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:24):
Praise God.
Sean Dunn (24:26):
And here’s another one too. Churches and denominations in the US will tell you that it costs ’em over $35,000 on average to see one person give their life to Christ. Last year, our all in costs was $6 and 51 cents.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:41):
Wow.
Sean Dunn (24:42):
So it’s been mind blowing. And I talk about when I was traveling and speaking and people were asking me to sign things, my head was just, I thought it was all about me. This is really a humbling place to be because we know that God is doing this, and our job is just to make sure we stay as close to him as possible. He’s got the strategies, he’s got the messaging. We just need to be faithful and not get in his way.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:07):
So with all the advertising you’re doing, that’s a pretty significant budget. How do you raise money to put into evangelism? Do you have people that help to support you?
Sean Dunn (25:20):
We do, absolutely. Yeah. And it really is just about telling our story. There’s people out there that are saying, man, I care about my kids, my grandkids. I care about culture. I care about the morale in our nation. Some of ’em truly care about evangelism, and they say, man, I want to invest in something that’s effective. And so, yeah, it has become easier and easier to tell our story as we’ve continued to see more and more people come to Christ. And so people know that, okay, so for every $7 that came in last year, somebody walks the island, gives their life to Christ, and we have people say, Hey, I think I want to take care of 10, or I want to do a hundred, or I want to do a thousand. And so yeah, we continue just to let God bring in the resources and we invest it well when it’s given to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:07):
Us. That’s amazing. So if someone wants to support you, how do they find out more information about how they can do that?
Sean Dunn (26:15):
If you go to ground wire.net, that is really the best website for that. So all of the other websites are facing the young people we’re reaching. So we don’t have donation buttons on those sites. We don’t. Here’s who we are about us. We just have messages. We’re trying to funnel them directly into the God conversations. But if you want to learn about us, go to ground wire.net and you can request request those financials. You can request our metrics audits that we’re happy to share with you, whatever we can, but you’ll probably find most of it on that site.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:54):
That’s awesome. Now, you mentioned this big number of young people that are giving their lives to Jesus, and as an evangelist, one of the questions I’m always asked, I’m sure you’ve been asked a thousand times. What do you do about follow-up? How do you get them to the next step?
Sean Dunn (27:11):
Yeah, so we have two primary goals this year. One is on the evangelism side, one ISS on the follow-up side. Our evangelism goal is to see a minimum of a million professions of faith in the calendar year. We are on track. We’re very, very close to that. As we approach the new year, we need to pick up just a little bit of steam to hit that goal. But the second one is to see 30% of those who make a profession of faith take a meaningful and measured step in their spiritual journey. So that can be everything from signing up for our, we have a discipleship drip that we call Hope Connection, where for 16 days it’s delivered to their cell phone. It’s basically spiritual discipline, but young people don’t want to be told what to do. They want to watch somebody else’s story about how did reading the Bible change their life?
(28:02):
And then they get to decide if they want to do it. We are building an online community on the app called Discord, which is an app that young people are very familiar with because it was built for the gaming community to have community. And we’re building a community there called Chasing Christ. That’s another one of our growth tracks that they can opt into. We have a group of people who will walk with them for four weeks after they come to faith to figure out how do I grow closer to Christ? So we give them different options. There’s about five or six things that we offer them, and we invite ’em. We have partners. Most of what we do is in the US when we do something internationally, it’s because we have a discipleship follow-up partner in that country that will take the follow-up. And so in Kenyan, India, some countries in South America, we are partnering with some ministries that are boots on the ground to move them forward as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:58):
Now you said that you do it in both English in Spanish with your Spanish track. Are you doing some things in Central and South America?
Sean Dunn (29:07):
Yes, sir. Yeah, on the Spanish track, we’re in five other countries in, so we’re in Mexico, Venezuela, El Salvador, Columbia, and Argentina. I think I could be wrong, but that’s roughly what we’re doing. But yeah, we’ve found that it’s a model that’s working very, very well, even in these other countries. And so when we have the right partners on the ground, we take our expertise in the marketing space and we take our massive coaches and we move in and buying marketing in their country.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:43):
That’s awesome. And I think that’s very innovative. Every country I go to around the world, I mean, people all have very nice cell phones. They spend a lot of time on cell phones just like kids here do. And so I think that your strategy will work well in many different countries and even in some Asian countries where here you would pay a significant amount for each impression. In some countries, I’ve done some advertising and it can be pennies to reach thousands of people. And so there’s just so many people and the advertising isn’t expensive in some other parts of the world like it is here. So I think the years to come as you strive to reach your million and even beyond that, I really pray God gives you a strategy that will work around the world.
Sean Dunn (30:43):
Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. Our board said a couple of years ago, we weren’t going to even begin to think internationally until we hit a milestone of a thousand or a hundred thousand Professor of Faith in the US in a calendar year. Because the quickest way to destroy momentum is to try and grow too quickly. So when we hit that a couple of years ago, we began to explore internationally. But our focus continues to be the us. This is where we believe, this is my calling. It is Western world predominantly us young people who have everything, and yet they have nothing because they don’t have Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:18):
That’s awesome. Well, Sean, it’s really wonderful to talk to you today. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Really appreciate it. And I love your strategy. I love what you’re doing. The young people of America need a touch from Jesus, and you’re connecting them to Jesus right where they’re at. So thank you for what you do, and thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
Sean Dunn (31:45):
Thank you, Daniel. I appreciate you having me.
Evangelism Podcast Announcer (31:48):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you want to lead millions of people to Jesus? Do you desire to be trained in the practical side of building a ministry? Then check out the Daniel King’s School of Evangelism. Learn how to be an effective evangelist from Dr. Daniel King’s 20 plus years of experience. Daniel King has done crusades all over the world in over 70 nations and is seen over 2 million people give their lives to Jesus. But it wasn’t easy. There was no crusade school. So Daniel traveled the world learning from and observing top evangelists, noticing how they successfully won souls for Christ. Now he wants to share decades of knowledge and experience with you. Topics of the Daniel King School of Evangelism include what is an evangelist, how to be a master soul winner, how to give antar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you want to be an evangelist, but don’t know where to start, the Daniel King School of Evangelism is for you. Enroll today in the School of Evangelism by going to Daniel King ministries.com/evangelism.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:50):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus, and I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from Hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the Evangelism podcast on Apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with King Ministries. Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today, I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts it on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much, and God bless you.
Evangelism Podcast Host (34:10):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
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Chance Walters | Best Chance to Receive Christ
Evangelist Chance Walters joins Daniel King on the Evangelism Podcast to discuss his passion for sharing the gospel. Walters shares that his passion for evangelism came from his own salvation experience and serving with Teen Challenge. He has been involved in various types of evangelism, including street preaching, door-to-door evangelism, and school assemblies. Walters also discusses his experiences in Pakistan, where he has witnessed God pouring out His Spirit.
Learn more about Chance Walters: https://chancewalters.org/
Check out the EMT (Evangelist Missionary Training) School: https://chancewalters.org/emt/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King. I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest with me. Chance Walters. Thank you so much for joining me.
Evangelist Chance Walters (00:10):
Thanks Daniel. It’s my joy. We
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:12):
Are together at a conference in Indonesia where we’re talking about reaching everyone on earth with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the power of the Holy Spirit. And you have been an evangelist for many years. You’re passionate about reaching people for Jesus. Tell me a little bit about where that passion came from. How did you get started telling people about Jesus?
Evangelist Chance Walters (00:37):
Well, Daniel, that’s a great question. I was in jail. I was 23, my fourth DUI didn’t have anywhere to go, and I stepped into Sandhills Teen Challenge on April the 29th. I went to sleep and I woke up. I walked into a chapel service and I got saved. I was raised in church. I tell people the best drug, the best drug I’ve ever done is my parents drug me to church. And so I was kind of born you to church. Yeah, I was born and raised in church, but I wasn’t looking for God, but God was looking for me. And at 23 years old, I encountered the love of Jesus and the largest, most successful faith-based recovery home in the world. I had never heard of Teen Challenge, but there’s Teen Challenge centers all over the world. But they were there when I needed them the most, and I got saved.
(01:35):
I tell people I made a commitment. I made a commitment to graduate that program, and a year later I felt called into ministry. I love to say somebody helped me and now I want to help you. I want to help the next person. But I got saved and my spiritual father was an evangelist and I served him. I was in the program for a year, but then I stayed on staff and I served him for three years. I signed up for a six month internship and it turned into three years and traveling church to church, school to school, doing school assembly, sharing my testimony. It got in my DNA and I just love to see people get saved. There’s no greater thing to live for, I don’t think.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:25):
Amen. It’s always exciting to see someone give their life to Jesus. So tell me a little bit of some of the different types of ministry that you’ve been involved in. What type of evangelism? I mean, there’s many different types. Some people go out on the street and preach, some people are going door to door, some people are preaching big crusades. What types of evangelism have you done over the years?
Evangelist Chance Walters (02:47):
Well, I love my journey because people ask me, chance, who are you? What do you do? They want to put a label on you and me. I’m like a denominational mutt. I was born Baptist, if you will. I went to Teen Challenges and Assembly of God affiliated program. Then I went to Lee University, the Bible School, which is Church of God. So I’ve just kind of bounced around, but I just love the global church and I’ve been able to serve in different capacities. Before we started our nonprofit, before we launched our evangelistic ministry, I served on staff at a local church as youth pastor and associate pastor. And so looking back, I’m so glad that I had these stepping stones, if you will. So I have a greater perspective of the church and a deeper respect for people and their positions. And so I’ve been a part of all different types, as you say, of evangelism. For me, it all started in a nursing home and I was in Bible school. I would go to a nursing home and preach on Sunday mornings at 8:00 AM and I’d just be laying hands on everybody, but it was my Jerusalem. It just kind of started at home and sharing my faith with my family. I’ve watched my whole family tree get saved. I’ve watched so many of my old friends that I usually get high with. They got saved. And so it’s just been this journey of just growing in my faith.
(04:27):
And so I don’t think it’s everything. I don’t think there’s one answer. I think it’s just starting where you are. And I love the tagline of the conference that we’re at right now. Reaching everyone requires everyone, and
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:42):
Amen. You’re good friends with Teron Anaya, who is also a friend of mine working in the nation of Pakistan. I’ve been there several times to Pakistan with Tamran. You’ve been there several times with Tamran and the United Family, have been dear friends for many years. Love him. In fact, I’ve interviewed Tamran on the Evangelism podcast. So if you’re interested, go back and find his episode and if you want to hear about what God’s doing in Pakistan, but tell me some of what you’ve seen God do when you’ve gone to Pakistan.
Evangelist Chance Walters (05:14):
Well, God is pouring out his spirit in Asia. We’re in Asia right now. I think we heard last night 65% of the world’s population is right here in Asia and God’s doing something. I minister all over America. I’ve been to 49 states. I’m missing North Dakota.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:34):
You got to go there. There’s got to be someone in North Dakota that needs Jesus.
Evangelist Chance Walters (05:38):
Amen. And I’ve been to 36, 37 nations, but probably my favorite place to go is Pakistan because people are hungry for the gospel. Mass crowds coming to experience miracles, always say, Muslims are my special guests. I mean, they come to pray and they come for healing and God meets them right where they are. When Tamron opened the door for us to go to Pakistan, we’ve hosted Crusades and a lot of different places. But when Tamron and I met, sparks began to fly. He had been praying for eight years. God sent me back to Pakistan and we met. He lives about 20 minutes from me, and it’s just been a great experience to see what God is doing in that nation. But we’re in Indonesia right now, the largest Muslim nation in the world, but Pakistan is the second largest Muslim nation in the world. And we have to believe Daniel, that God’s raising up evangelists and missionaries in Pakistan to send them into the Middle East. I believe that. Amen. Yeah. This something is about to spark in the Middle East and we’re going to see this billion soul harvest that everybody’s talking about. It’s got to happen there. So that’s where most of the people live. And so now
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:05):
You just recently did a crusade with my friend Alejandro Hondo Arias, who I met in Costa Rica at a TL Osborne Crusade. He was probably about 12 years old at the time, known as a boy preacher of Costa Rica, but now he’s a great evangelist. And Alejandro set up crusades in about 20 different countries this year at Pentecost. And you did one crusade in Dominican Republic, the city of San Francisco. What did you see God do in Dominican?
Evangelist Chance Walters (07:38):
Well, I believe that the key to the Great final Harvest is unity is the missing link. If we would all come together for the sake of the gospel, there’s nothing that we could not accomplish as the church. And I love the initiative that they launched this year as the P 24 initiative. Their goal was 10 countries, 10 crusades with collaborating with 10 different ministries, reaching a hundred thousand souls. And I think they came close to their goal.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:14):
Okay. Maybe I misspoke. Spoke about 20, but 10 is great. Okay.
Evangelist Chance Walters (08:18):
I’m sorry.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:18):
No, it’s good.
Evangelist Chance Walters (08:19):
I like
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:20):
What a blessing evangelists, but I was just talking to Werner Al with the Go Movement, and I think this year they want to expand from the time of Easter into Pentecost This year they want to expand and do more countries. So I think that’s what I was thinking of.
Evangelist Chance Walters (08:39):
You’re right.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:41):
But you’ve also done stuff down in Brazil, lots of different places. Give me some testimonies, some pop testimonies from different parts of the world.
Evangelist Chance Walters (08:49):
I know I’ll give you a testimony from our most recent gospel crusade in Pakistan. My definition of revival is when God comes down
(09:07):
And when God comes down, there’s nothing that’s impossible. And we’ve just seen so many miracles, David, Daniel. People ask me all the time, why doesn’t God do miracles in America? And God does do miracles in America for those who believe. And it’s the same God. He’s the same Yesterday, today, forevermore and miracles. Matter of fact, if you’ve never seen a miracle, I tell people to go look in the mirror because you are a miracle. And the greatest miracle is salvation. And it seems that we’re living in the greatest harvest in the history of the world. Many times we get stuck and we can’t see the forest because of the trees. We’re just so busy in our own little routines. But when you look at what God is doing on a global scale, and I think that’s what we do as evangelists, is we get to see what God’s doing across the board. And we’ve just seen so many miracles. I mean, the blind eyes open, the deaf they hear. I think we’ve seen more demons manifest here recently. That’s what I wanted to say in the most recent Pakistan crusade. It just seems that when God comes down, that I think the devil knows his time is short, and he’s doing all that he can to deceive us, but we know the truth.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:45):
Amen.
Evangelist Chance Walters (10:46):
Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:47):
So if someone’s listening and they want to find out more about your ministry or maybe even support you and help send you to the nations, what is your website that they can find out more information about you?
Evangelist Chance Walters (10:57):
Just real simple. Chance walters.com. And we have a podcast that’s called On the Revival Road. It’s kind of our tagline, where in the world are the Walters is. And so we’re on the Revival Road, and that’s our podcast. You can check it out. And we have an email blast. If you go to our website, you can put in your email. And we send out email every Wednesday with just an update of where we’re at and what God’s doing. Very
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:25):
Cool. And you also have a training program for evangelists. Tell me about that.
Evangelist Chance Walters (11:32):
We do. It is called the EMT School. God spoke to me back in 2020 and all the churches closed. We were seeing so many people get saved. I mean, for the evangelists, it was the heyday. I mean, the world was just perturbed and we were preaching, and so many people were getting saved and with the Holy Spirit. And I prayed, God, what do we do with all these people? Because my schedule, everything was canceled, all my trips. So I was at home and we were ministering locally, and we saw so many people give their life to Jesus that I was praying, God, how can we disciple these people? And he spoke to me and he said, I want you to start the Evangelist Missionary Training School. And so that’s what we did. It’s nothing new.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:18):
I like the name EMT, evangelist Missionary Training. What a great blessing.
Evangelist Chance Walters (12:22):
Yeah. When somebody’s in trouble, who do they call? E-M-T-E-M-T, they show up on the scene. And so it’s been fun. It’s a three month school to help you become more confident in sharing your faith. Just real simple. All that’s on our website.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:38):
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. I love hearing your story and just love your heart for Jesus. It’s awesome.
Evangelist Chance Walters (12:45):
Thanks Daniel. You too. I love to see what God’s doing through your ministry. And you don’t know this, but I’ve listened to a lot of your podcasts episodes. Oh,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:53):
Really? Wow. That’s
Evangelist Chance Walters (12:54):
Great. So if you’re listening today, share this. Be an evangelist and share this podcast.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:01):
God bless you.
Evangelist Chance Walters (13:02):
Amen.
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Evangelism Explosion | John Sorensen
John Sorensen is the president of Evangelism Explosion, the ministry founded by Dr. James D. Kennedy. For fifty years Evangelism Explosion has been training believers how to share their faith and bringing people from unbelief to belief. Their goal is to multiply the number of believers sharing their faith by providing on-the-job evangelism training to people who will go on to train others.
Learn More About Evangelism Explosion: https://evangelismexplosion.org/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. Today. I have a very special guest with me, John Sorenson from Evangelism Explosion, one of the greatest evangelistic ministries in the world today. Thank you so much for joining me.
John Sorensen (00:20):
Well, thank you. It’s wonderful to be here, Daniel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:22):
So let’s talk about Evangelism Explosion. I remember when I was young, I was wanting to learn about Evangelism. Well, this is when I was a teenager. Oh, wow. I I got a hold of your green book Oh, sure. Written by Dr. D. James Kennedy,
John Sorensen (00:37):
Dr. D. James Kennedy.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:40):
I went through that and I read all the illustrations about how to share your faith. And that really shaped the, the early years of my preaching, trying to lead people to Jesus.
John Sorensen (00:54):
Well, you know, he loved Dr. Kennedy, loved illustrations cuz he was, they said they were like windows. They allowed people to see in. And you know, I can tell you from my own experience that, you know, I’d been around the church my entire life. My dad was a preacher. I can’t even tell you how many sermons I heard in my life. And yet it was for me, right in the middle of the chair illustration, we used a very simple chair illustration that for the first time in my life at 26 years old, I understood it wasn’t merely knowing about Jesus that saved someone. It was putting your trust, like we’re trusting in these chairs we’re setting in now. This is an act that we took that moment of trusting in Christ. That’s when we’re saved. And and boy, what a difference it made in my life. I, I got up the next day and I, I didn’t even feel the same. I I was a totally different person and all from putting my trust in Christ. And, and you know what? I’ve been in that mode since. I’ve been trusting in Jesus firmly only holy and my life has been changed.
(01:52):
That’s awesome. So let’s start at the beginning. Okay. Tell me your testimony and how you came to Christ.
John Sorensen (01:59):
Well, again, my dad was a pastor. I was around the church my entire life. I was in church nine months before I was born every single Sunday. And and did all the kinds of Christian things that people do. I even went to Bible college to be honest with you, not too far from where you are in Joplin, Missouri, at Ozark Bible College. And I know there must have been quite a number of Christian around me, but I wasn’t a Christian. I had no idea how a person knew for sure that they were going to heaven. So for me, it was actually when a, a man asked me those two diagnostic questions, do you know for sure you’re going to heaven? And I said, no, I don’t. I don’t know that for sure. I don’t know anybody that knows that. And then he asked me the second question, suppose you were to stand before God this very night.
(02:43):
And he were to say to you, John, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? And I remember Daniel, I thought about it, it was a profound question. I knew it was, and, and I said, but you know what? I think my answer would be, I’m a pretty good person. I try not to do too much wrong. I hope that the good things that I do outweigh the bad things that I do. And that question is so critical, because what it did was allowed me to understand what I was trusting in to get to heaven. Yes. Right. Once he shared the gospel with me, because he had asked me that question, he was able to say, now, a few minutes ago you talked about a particular person. In your answer, it was, I’m a pretty good person and I try not to do too much wrong.
(03:21):
And I hope the good there was an I you kept, it’s you, you have a savior. His name is John <laugh>. What I’m telling you is there’s a savior named Jesus, and you need to put your trust in him. And so for me, that day, it, it changed my life. And so eventually God called me into becoming part of that ministry. Now, Daniel, I would’ve told you if ever there was a person that would never have qualified as a witness for Jesus Christ, I’d have been on that list. You know, I mean, I was sure I couldn’t do it. I had tried. And every time I had tried, I just made the person mad that I was talking to, you know, I felt like I was gifted at taking a normal person and turning them into somebody that was just hopping mad, you know, with only a few minutes.
(04:08):
And, and yet it was through EE that I learned that I can actually share the gospel with others. And so that same experience that you had and by the way, I think most Christians are in this boat. You know, I think I I’ve seen all kinds of statistics and some as high as 96% of people who bear the name of Jesus have never one time led another person to Jesus. Maybe they tried it worked out badly the first couple times, so they quit trying. And I’ve heard all kinds of reasons that Christians give. They’re afraid. Some say, well, you know what? I’m gonna goof it up for the next person. You know, I’m gonna, if if I try and then I’m gonna mess it up, and then I’ll just push ’em away. I won’t actually bring them toward, well, here’s the thing. This is the truth.
(04:49):
We as Christians actually can participate in leading our friends, our relatives, our work associates, our neighbors, and yes, even strangers that we meet, we can be part of, of sharing the gospel and leading others to Christ. And, and once we do it, to be honest with you, I can tell you that very first time that I was part of seeing, I can even tell you the guy’s name, I could describe the night you know, all the things about it. It was such an impactful moment in my life when God used me to lead someone else to Jesus Christ. And wow, that changed everything, you know? And in many ways, I would tell you, the ministry of EE has changed my life a number of times. The first in me coming to Christ, obviously that was a pretty big change. Secondly, in leading others to Christ, I never thought I could do that. And then thirdly, I found there’s even something more fun than leading people to Jesus until you might say there’s nothing more fun. Well, there actually is, there’s one thing more fun. And that’s training other people how to do that <laugh>. And when you start having spiritual grandchildren, spiritual great-grandchildren, when somebody, and again, I’ll tell you the, I can tell you the first time that my first trainee calls me up and says, I just let somebody to Jesus and listening to her excitement. And by
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:08):
The way, that sense joy that
John Sorensen (06:09):
Comes it, it is joy. And, and every single Christmas I get a letter from Marge. She was my very first trainee, her and another gal named Gwen. But anyway, every Christmas I get a letter and Marge to tells me every single person she has led to Christ this past year. Wow. And I get the joy of being, it’s, it’s like over 400 people at this point that I get to be part of, even though it was Marge who led
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:31):
Him to, can I share with you a testimony? So Sure. I have a son. His name is Caleb. He’s 13 years old. He just became a teenager. So we’re praying for wisdom, how to raise a teenager. Well on Saturday of this week, he went with one of my friends, his name is, is Ron Hood. And, and, and Ron has a great heart for evangelism. He took a, a truck, like a, like a trailer, and he wrapped it and it says
John Sorensen (07:01):
Two
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:02):
Are you going to heaven? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, two questions, reveal the answer. Yeah. And then he asks the same two diagnostic questions that someone asked you. And, and so anyways circuit writers from YWAM came to Tulsa and they’re doing some outreaches. And they were doing an outreach. And so my friend Ron Hood, he brought his truck to their outreach. And my son loves hanging out with his son. And so my son was sitting there in the truck asking every person who came by that, that two diagnostic questions. Awesome. And he was so excited. My wife was asking him, you know, what’d you learn today? He says, I can be an evangelist just like my dad. Dad is so and so. I’m so proud of him for being out there, sharing his faith. Yeah. Using those two diagnostic questions. Yeah. Which are a very simple method anyone can ask. And it just opens up a conversation, and then you can start to share the
John Sorensen (07:54):
Gospel. Amen. And they’re really not that hard to ask. And you know, we, we’ve got actually a number of what we would call questionnaires, questions you can put in front of those questions that, that make it very easy to have a ver just a regular normal conversation with a person that you meet. Turn that into a spiritual conversation through the use of just some basic questions like we learned. You know, you’re talking to somebody and, and they talk, they’re talking about their life. How’s your life going? What do you do? It’s very easy for you to say at some point in the conversation, well, it sounds like your, your life’s going pretty good. Or maybe you would say the opposite. You know, whatever it is you, whatever it is. And then you can say, you know what, I, I’m gonna ask you a kind of a funny question.
(08:34):
Scale one to 10, if you had to quantify your life, if 10 were the very best life ever, and one were the, the the worst life ever, where are you at today? And people don’t have any trouble answering the questions. I commonly hear 5, 6, 7. And you’re able to say, now can you tell me some of the things that make up that? Why is it a five or why is it a six? And they’ll tell you, usually they’re temporal that they mentioned, I’ve got a good job, you know, I’ve got this. I I have, I live in a nice house, you know, I’ve got a good girlfriend or whatever that happens to be. Yeah. But usually those are temp and you can say, but what that allows you to do now is you’ve started a conversation where now you can share a little of your testimony.
(09:11):
You can say, you know what the truth is, and think about this. It’s true. Before you came to Christ, you, you were a lower number than you are now. That, that you’re a Christian, whatever that is. And I can say, honestly, I used to be a one, but now that I, I know a guy shared with me this great news, I’m now a 10 every day. I know that sounds braggadocious, but it’s the truth. I used to be a one, now I’m a 10. Would you like to hear how that happened? I’ve never had somebody say, no, I’ve never, not one time. Wow. And so then I go, well, you know what, here’s what he shared with me. Five key things. And this is what you learned when you’re reading that green padded book. Yeah. There are five key. And you know, most people would say, traditionally, the gospel contains four things that, that really like it or not.
(09:56):
It’s, it’s truth that you have to hear and understand, respond to. Right. The, the gospel, these aren’t ee things. These are ju this is the gospel that everyone since Jesus’s ascension have agreed these four things. You have to understand where we are as humans. Right. The Bible says something very particular about us. It’s not all that complimentary. We’re sinners. We have all broken our relationship with God. Right. We’ve created this distance and divide through a thing called sin. You have to understand that now, you know, many people would agree they’re sinners. They don’t understand the scope of it, though they don’t get the degree in which they’re a sinner. The, the, the second thing that you would really need to understand is what’s God re God’s reaction to that? How does he feel about sin? Can’t he just push it under the carpet or something?
(10:43):
Well, no. Yeah. The very nature of God tells the city abor sin. And, and he, he, his his eyes are too holy to even look upon it. So that, that’s a real problem for us. On one hand, God loves us, but on the other hand, he cannot stand us sin. So what did he do? Well that leads us to the person of Jesus Christ, who he is and what he did. He is the God man. And what did he do? He came from heaven to earth. He lived an absolutely perfect life. He traded places with me. Right. This is the great substitute. And, and so that now I can be right before an all holy God, he took on my sin and died as if it were his own. It wasn’t his, but, and, and made a way for me to be right before God.
(11:25):
And then that leads us to the very final bit of that. If that’s all true, and it is, how do you get it? There’s, there has to be a moment when you appropriate that to yourself. And we understand from scripture that that’s called faith. And that’s that thing we were talking about when I put my trust in Jesus. That’s, that’s saving faith right now in ee we add a fifth item to that so as to not have to start the conversation on the bad news. You’re a center. You know, you can go try that right now. Go out on the street and just up to people and you are in a center, and you’re gonna find that some
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:56):
People, it’s a good way to start an argument.
John Sorensen (11:57):
That’s, it’s a good way to start an argument if you don’t wanna start an argument now, it’s, it’s, it’s true, by the way. It’s not an untruth. Instead start with the fact that heaven’s an absolutely free gift and it’s something that God wants to give to you. And so we start the conversation on heaven is an absolutely. So I was able to say, even in that first conversation, there are five things that I learned about how a person can know for sure. This is what changed my life from a, a one to a 10 was understanding these five things. And I’d say, say this, Daniel, you know, I’m, I am an extreme introvert, so I don’t your viewers, I, I don’t know. I’m sure that’s not what they think. It’s the absolute truth given the opportunity. I’ll go into a room and read a book every time by myself. So if God
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:43):
Can use an introvert like you That’s right. He can use anyway.
John Sorensen (12:45):
And that’s the truth. And, and, but it’s turned into one of the greatest joys of my life. And so I’ve decided to be different because I love seeing people come to know Jesus. And it’s become so such a an addiction for me. <Laugh> using that word in the positive way God has so invaded my life is to understand I can be used by him, he will he’ll use me. And that I get this immense joy of seeing people’s lives change. And there is no greater miracle. People love miracles. There’s no greater miracle than watching somebody go from death to life right in front of you. And I mean to tell you it’ll change some things.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:27):
Amen. And so one of the strengths of evangelism explosion is that you are training people how to share their faith. Yeah. Talk to me about that process and some of the results that you’ve seen. Yeah. From really equipping introverts and people who have never shared their faith before. How do you take someone who doesn’t know how to share their faith and and help them become competent Yeah. At talking to people about
John Sorensen (13:54):
Jesus? Well, the simple answer is through mentoring. You know, the model of EE is a one-on-one or a one on two discipleship model. EE is actually not an evangelism program. It’s a discipleship program where we’re discipling people in how to share their faith. Right. And so, if you are my training in ee, we’d go out together sometimes 7, 8, 9, 10 times, depending on which tool or product that we used with ee. But, but let’s say it seven times. And I can tell you, I’ve watched this happen thousands of times. The first time you don’t say anything, you know, I’ve taught you this basic outline that I just shared with you, grace, man, God, Christ, faith. And I’ve said to you, now, watch how I use that. Watch how I start the conversation. Just watch. And so this time you don’t actually have to say anything. We go out, we meet somebody, we have a conversation.
(14:39):
Maybe we’ve invited a friend to come join us for coffee. And and you watch how this happens. So then the next time I say, now Daniel, you saw what I did. Probably the shortest section that we did was on the, on God. It’s, it only takes about 30 seconds to say it. You, I’ve, I’ve shared with you what it is, the Bible verses you’ve learned them, the story you learned, the two main points that he’s loving. But also just, you know what, when we come to that spot, I’m gonna just say, you know what this comes into sharper focus when we understand what the Bible says about God. Now Daniel, would you mind sharing what it is that we know about God? And then you are just going to give it a go. And if you mess up, or if you start getting to the point where you forget something, just still look at me and smile and I’ll pick it back up and, and I’ll tell you what the nick, you do that.
(15:25):
Then the next time I say, you know what, just keep going. Go on into Christ and go on into faith. And, and I’m telling you that by about the fourth or the fifth time that we went out together in an incredibly safe way, because never were you put on the spot if you messed up, you just looked at me and smiled and, and I just picked it back up. Little by little, you would’ve picked up all of the pieces and learned to have that conversation. And so usually it happens around the fifth or sixth or seventh time, a person will look at me and go, I don’t need your help. I got this. I can do this. And so that’s the cool thing. And if I’ve given it to you in an understandable enough way, you can then turn around and pass it on to the next guy. And for us, this is called spiritual multiplication. And it’s the greatest joy that we as Christians get to have this side of heaven.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:14):
And now you’ve multiplied all over the world mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and, and you have evangelism, explosion people. And how many countries now? Well, we
John Sorensen (16:22):
Were the first Christian ministry to be in every single nation of the Earths Wow. Back in 1996. And we still are. And we have about 150 nations or so on earth that we are substantially working in every day. And the rest we do things in, but, you know, not as often or whatnot. But so he’s a and we’re in over 400 different denominations of the church. So that’s the, I love that the church can agree on the gospel and can can even go out together. We were just, we just did an event in Santa Ana, California, and I wanna say there were 12 different denominations that were there. And, you know, they’ve decided they’re gonna do their evangelism training together as a group, all these different churches and denominations showing up, learning to share the gospel and going out together.
(17:09):
And I just think that’s a hoot. I I love seeing that and kind of unity happen around the gospel. But yeah, so ee works all over the world, and we trained this past year just at 2 million people to be witnesses for Christ. Wow. Just at 2 million little over 900,000 children, ages four or fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, 9, 10, 11, somewhere in that range. And then about 1.1 million adults that we trained how to share the gospel. And and they went out. And in the process of going out, led 17 million people to Christ. Now here’s the thing. I cannot qualify, you know, you learned e ago use it all the time. That’s nowhere in my number. I I, there’s nowhere I can account Yeah. For people that were trained in the past, you know, that use it in their life, but you know, aren’t in some method to give it report.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:03):
Yeah. And at my home church, a victory church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it’s an independent, charismatic church. We have an EE group. They go out and they tell people about Jesus. They love that. And just go into the apartment complexes nearby and knock on the door and, and, and start witnessing to people as
John Sorensen (18:19):
We Yeah. No, I’ve actually heard of, of this church, and I’ve heard stories about what God’s done through y’all for years and for a long time. And I praise God for you. Yeah. Thank you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:30):
Yeah. So I have a question. You know, times are changing very quickly. Yeah. And today’s generation still deals with the sin problem, but they’re asking different questions than we’re asked 50 years. Yeah. Or even 20 years ago. How are you navigating Yeah. Changing culture and, and changing media and the, the different landscapes of, of how to share the gospel.
John Sorensen (18:55):
Now, firstly, I’m gonna say this quickly, the gospel hasn’t changed and people haven’t changed. The lost really haven’t changed. Now they’re asking different questions, which is what a very good, good word that you said, lost are still lost. The gospel still is the only method by which lost people get saved. But period, full stop. And Jesus, when he stood on that hill in Galilee, looking out at all of the generations and all the lives, the, the people groups and the ages that would come, he’s the one that prescribed this idea to us. Right? And so we know it’s relevant, we know it’s valid. Now, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do everything in our power to be as culturally relevant as we can possibly be. And so, to answer your question, we’ve changed, we have a number of tools that we’ve developed through time. XE is a, a for, for generation X and Y instead of it being more of a legal argument which is kind of like what I’d heard, that’s far more of a relational argument based on John 10, 10, Jesus saying, I’ve come that you may have life to the full.
(19:55):
What does that mean to have abundant life? And what is it that stops us from having that? Well, we know that that’s when we have broken this relationship with God. And of course that’s called sin in, in, in, but we don’t talk about sin in the same way. Now I will tell you this, we’re in the process right now of developing a new tool for high school age today, and that’s forcing us to have conversation about identity and about, you know, all things that we’ve just never had to talk about in the past before. But that being said, please, anyone listening, please, please believe this is true when I’m telling you there’s an openness to the gospel today that we’ve never seen in 60 years of ministry. And so I would encourage people, do not believe anybody who tells you it can’t be done today. We’ve seen so in the history of ee you know, in the seventies, and you’ve gone out to do questionnaires out on the street, and, and typically if you would’ve approached 10 people, one of those 10 would let you share the gospel. This is the seventies. Do you know what it is today? It’s six out of 10 today. Wow. On the street.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:05):
And so that’s showing more openness in today’s generation towards
John Sorensen (21:09):
Than has ever been in the last 60 years of this ministry. And, and, you know, and we’ve proven that not just in places like the Southeast in America, we’ve proven that in, in, in the northeast. We’ve proven that way out west in the, in the southwest west and in the northwest part of the United States. We’ve done these Equiped America events all over the United States. That number rings true. We, we actually did a full on study with lifeway to see if it was just our experience, or if it was, if, if a researcher could find, and you know what they found? Six out of 10 Americans are open hearing the gospel. Wow. At 5.1% from an absolute stranger. They’re willing to hear it. But here’s the last thing that I, I, I would encourage Christians to understand. When we put the, i, the the idea into that study about them searching it out on the internet and reading a website, the, the interest in evangelism went down dramatically.
(22:09):
So it is this one-on-one, or it’s this personal explanation. The other thing that was in the study that really surprised us was that four out of the 10 that had come to Christ said they never would’ve sought it if somebody wouldn’t have approached them. That the point being, it was so critical that a friend started that conversation. Now, look, you, you can either believe what I said or not. It’s up to you if you’re willing to try it. All you have to do is to go up to 10 of your friends and ask this question. I just heard this crazy person today who said, six outta 10 people are open to having a spiritual conversation. And I, I just have to tell you as your friend, I, I’m, I’m a believer, but I’ve never thought to ask you if you want to have a conversation about spiritual things, are, are you open to that?
(22:59):
Just ask that question. And if you find that none of your friends are, well then, you know, I was wrong. If you’re seeing what, what we were seeing all across the country, you’re gonna see six of your friends go, you know what? I really would like to have that conversation. Now. Listen, ask good questions like your son was doing, Caleb, way to go ask questions and listen to their answers and then build on what it is that you’ve heard. And, and the most important thing is, as a believer, please be ready to share some of the things that are going on in your life that is why you are so in love with following God. You know, be willing to share testimony about what God’s doing in your life and, and how he’s given you joy and how he’s given you peace, and how he’s given you patience and, and you know, all these things which he promised he’d give you. By the way, if you don’t have those, you need to call us. And we’re gonna help you come to know Jesus. Because if you have Jesus in your life, he’s given you amazing things that you can talk about as you share your faith.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:01):
That’s awesome. Well, if someone is listening and they want to learn more from some of the resources that you have, or they want to get trained by one of the evangel evangelism explosion trainers, or maybe even to help support your ministry, what is your website? How can they access more information about
John Sorensen (24:22):
It? Well, that’s, that’s awesome. So if you come to evangelism explosion.org you’ll find all of our training tools and you’ll find when they, those trainings are, and you can kind of let us know you’re interested and we’ll connect with you. The, the study that I mentioned, we put on a website called equip america.org. So if you go to that, go down to the bottom, you’ll see the live way study. You can download the whole study and read it for yourself. Every single question we ask and what the answers were. And so, you know, and then every day I put tools up on a, a, another, a third website I’ll mention called Share life.today, share life.today. Every day I put tools up there like this week we’re focused on memorizing God’s word. Well, what would that look like? And how would you share that with a friend? Something like that. And so we’re constantly putting tips up there, just little encouragements about how you can share your faith. And so people can use those absolutely free. And our, we get joy when we see Christians become bold witnesses for Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:21):
That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.
John Sorensen (25:25):
It is my joy. Thanks for doing the podcast.
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Brad Sullivan | Developing a Vision for Your Church
Pastor Brad Sullivan leads Surge Church in Mobile, Alabama. He is a third-generation preacher and he has a heart for reaching his community and the world. In today’s episode you will learn about the power of having a vision.
Brad Sullivan’s Website: https://bradsullivan.org/
Surge Church: http://surgechurch.tv/
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Brad Sullivan leads Surge church in Mobile, Alabama. He is a third generation preacher, and he has a heart for reaching his community and the world. In today’s episode, you will learn about the power of having a vision for your church.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:28):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:53):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a very special guest pastor Brad Sullivan from Surge church in Mobile, Alabama. Thank you for being with me today,
Pastor Brad Sullivan (01:07):
Daniel, what a joy it is to be with you. God bless you, man.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:10):
And I so much appreciate you and Surge church. Your church has been supporting me for the last several years. Few years ago, you invited me to come down and, and speak. And ever since you’ve been very faithful in helping us go to different nations around the world and, and preach the gospel. So thank you for sewing seeds into evangelism. Oh,
Pastor Brad Sullivan (01:32):
It’s our pleasure. You’re doing a great job. You’re a great asset to the kingdom of God and your heart, your spirit you’re anointing, we just feel is worth sewing into, and we’re just excited to be a part of the harvest that God is using you to to reap in these last days.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:49):
Your church really believes in reaching out to the community around where you are in, in Mobile, Alabama. Tell me a little bit about the, the philosophy of your church towards soul winning and leading people to Jesus and, and reaching out to the community.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (02:07):
Well, you know our church, we are in an area of west mobile. It’s called the Daws community. It’s about, it’s a bedroom suburban area of mobile, and it’s like two miles outside the city limits. And so we have just over the years, labored a lot in the community. And so we’ve become like a community hub. We we’re blessed to have the acreage, so that helps we have a 20 acre campus. And so, man, my goodness, I don’t, I don’t know where to start. Daniel spent so many years we’ve been laboring in the community, but we started a business network from the local businesses years ago, as in 2011, as a community started really growing more people were moving out west businesses were popping up and one day I just had this, this idea came to me to start a business network.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (02:54):
And we started that. Then we started the dolls community’s Christmas parade and that’s been going now for, in 2012. So I mean, it’s almost 10 years now and it brings out thousands of people. We stage it on the grounds of the church. We’ve worked with the schools our churches of voting center. We have ball fields, baseball fields where local teams and little league teams will use it for practice. We’ve become almost you know, our main auditorium has become an event center for so many like different ceremonies and events. It’s just been, I don’t know because of that though, it’s giving us a lot of influence and it’s given me as a pastor way more influence than I would have just preaching every Sunday inside the walls of the church.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:43):
Now you’re actually a third generation preacher and the church was started by your father, a great man of God at Jerry pastor, Jerry Sullivan. And then a few years ago, he started to pass the church over to you. And now your father has gone on to heaven. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, but you are continuing the church. But in that process of taking over the church, you, you took the old name, which, what was the old name of the church. It was
Pastor Brad Sullivan (04:12):
Living word church,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:13):
Living word church. And, and you switched it over to surge church. Talk to me about that process of rebranding it, why you decided to call it surge church and what type of impact that’s had.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (04:26):
Yeah, well, I took over the church in 2015. I was born and raised raised in the church and traveled, you know, I’ve been traveling in ministry, doing a lot of missions, work myself over the years, but when I became the pastor of the church I, I about even though I grew up in the church and I was established ministry by the time my dad turned it over to me, I was already preaching more than he was anyway. But I just being the pastor, I, I, I waited a few years and a couple years I was just establishing myself as a lead pastor. And then about two years in the Lord began to deal with me about what is this church gonna be in the future? You know, this is what it has been, but what’s it going to be?
Pastor Brad Sullivan (05:07):
What is the vision gonna look like? And so it was about a two year journey, Daniel of just praying, seeking God, writing vision, mission, and values. Because we, we actually didn’t set out to change the name of the church, cuz a lot of times what happens and if there’s any pastors watching, this will be great information. What happens is they’ll fill the need to make a change. And what they’ll do is just change the name of the church, but it’s really the same church. Just put a and just put a new name on it, but what you have to do you want, if you’re gonna change the name of an organization or a business it needs to be born out of the vision, not just slapping a new name on it. It’s gotta be born out of where you’re going. And so we really sought God long time for vision and mission and what our values would be as a church.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (05:51):
And then we read acts 2 42 through 47 hundreds of times during that timeframe about the culture of that first church after Pentecost. And it was something about their life together that we were just like kept focusing on it was their life together. The Bible says, and one night in a dream, the Lord just woke me up and it was like, so clearly their life together created a life beyond limits. And I just sat up in bed. I was like live beyond limits. That’s it. So once we had the it was a arduous two years of just praying and seeking and writing and rewriting vision. Once we came to that live beyond limits, then the very last thing we did was actually choose a name and we kept coming to surge because surge means a rapid increase forward to try to find one word that would encapsulate the phrase live beyond limits.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (06:38):
And I, I would just say though, for any minister pastor or even a business person, I’d be watching, you know, you have to change, you have to adapt and culture, doesn’t ask permission to change. It just changes. And we sometimes are resistant to change, but look, we don’t change. The Bible tells us, Paul said to hold fast to the traditions of your faith. He didn’t say hold fast to the traditions of how you express it. And we have to stay relevant. And relevance is simply the, you know, the permission to speak to the culture. And so our goal was to like, let’s pick a name, let’s have a, let’s simplify the name. You know, we live through the air of Christian centers and outreach centers and all these different fads and all these, you know, really long names. Everything
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:23):
Has like 12 initials.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (07:25):
Exactly. You know,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:26):
And no one knows what it is.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (07:27):
If your church name will not fit on the side of your church van, you might want to consider <laugh>. But anyway, it’s a bad joke. But our, our goal was let’s come up with a name that when Christians ride by, they’re gonna know it’s a church, but when the unchurch drive by, they’re gonna be like, Sege, what is that? And so that was really the essence of it. And so once we did that, then that’s allowed us to now begin to start working on reshaping the culture of the church to fit the, the new era. Well, we still have the DNA of who we were from when my dad founded it. But you know, as the leader now, the next season had to be born outta my spirit. And so that’s what, you know, that’s where surge church was born.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:12):
And I love how you’re describing the process of building the vision. It wasn’t something quick that happened. It’s over a period of time. So talk to me about some of the elements of your vision and then how that drives the, the ministry that the church does.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (08:29):
Well, it’s all based upon that phrase, living beyond limits, it’s encouraging people that you can have a surge. It’s funny, Daniel it’s like once we I, I took me a while to, to, to land on surge because we were, we were researching words that would, you know, kind of encapsulate live beyond limits. Surge just kept popping up because it means a rapid increase forward. Well, my wife loved it immediately. It took me some months, but I just wanted to have a witness because, you know, when you’re changing the name of something and my dad at the time was still on staff with us and he was fully behind what we were doing, but you only got one shot to make it right. It can be a hu big, it can blow up in your face. So I wanted it to be a God thing, not just a, a theme we were doing.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (09:09):
And but we didn’t know that it was gonna be a surge of C <laugh> and a surge surge became a buzzword for all the wrong reasons, you know, but it really is just based upon that live beyond limits to tell people, you know, your life can change. It doesn’t have to stay the same. You can break through to another level. You can experience a surge of God’s power and grace in your life. And so, you know, when we re re just kind of established a vision statement, we try to repeat our vision in as much as we can. And I would’ve really encouraged leaders. Don’t, don’t apologize for repeating your vision over and over whether or not.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:44):
So what’s your vision?
Pastor Brad Sullivan (09:46):
Well, our vision is the whole statement. I should be able to give that to you about heart, but I did notice you have surge church website up in your web browser. If we go to that and you’re putting me on the spot here but our, we envision a church that is changing lives through the message and power of Jesus Christ and making disciples to live beyond limits something along those lines, look at it. How close was I? We envisioned a church that’s changing lives to the message of power of Jesus Christ and mobilizing. I missed that one believers to empire our community and the world by living life beyond their limits. So I, I was really close. And so
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:23):
You have to repeat the vision over and over again until people even in the church say, ah, pastor, we’re tired of hearing it so much, but you just keep repeating it and, and drawing pictures of it and, and communicating.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (10:37):
Yeah, I think pictures are really huge after we a couple of a few months after we, we, and we made it a big deal. I mean, we went, we swung for the fence when we rebranded and, and did the launch, we kind of kept it a secret. We kept promoting something big’s coming. So we already had the legal, all the legal things done in the background. It wasn’t just like doing business as living word church. It was, it was changed legally. It was the, actually the, the, we, we trademarked the name and the logo and the icon. I mean, we did, we did all of our bases covered before we launched. Cuz what happens is a lot of times you see it in churches, they have nightmare scenarios where they I know one going around the mountain to your question, but this is just good information because what happens is in some cases, men will, pastors will change the name of their church and then there’ll be some type of trademark issue or whatever.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (11:28):
And then they have to go back and change it again. And so we made sure we had every T cross, every I dotted, I would really encourage people for you thinking about changing your business name or your church name to make sure you have all the legal things done before you announce it. So we went really big, but shortly thereafter though, Daniel, we came, we came up with a picture and we took our past and it showed our church back in the old days, our present where we are now, and then just a picture of this auditorium with huge screens and everything, our future. And just the, and it’s just for the point of showing people that, you know what, we’re, we’re gonna surge. We’re gonna keep moving forward and everything. We thank God for our past. We appreciate our present by, Hey, we’re, we’re not gonna say satisfied.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (12:10):
We’re gonna keep moving forward towards our future. And you know, when Abraham was struggling with his vision, what did God tell him to do? He said, look up and count the stars. And if you can number them, so will your descendants be? And so one of the things that we try to tell our people and I tell leaders this a lot when it comes to vision is that, Hey God, when God speaks, he doesn’t just use words, pictures come out of his mouth as well, because he understands the value of a picture because picture conveys a vision. You know, when Joseph dreamed of rulership, he saw a picture of it. And so if you don’t get a picture of your, of your future, your present might be permanent. And so we tell our church, look, that’s not, we’re not satisfied with that. We want, we want to do more, be more, make a more impact, reach more people. So we’re not gonna be just sit here and be satisfied with where we are.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:59):
I believe that every pastor should do at least one mission trip every year, just to see what God is doing in different countries around the world, just to get a feel for the, the amazing thing that God is doing overseas. And also that helps to, to season their preach and giving them some good stories to share and casting out demons. And, and, and I know that you have a heart permiss missions and you’ve done a lot of traveling to different parts of the world. Where are some of the places that you’ve done out outreaches
Pastor Brad Sullivan (13:29):
To? Well, I mean, I’ve traveled ex I’ve been to India nine times, Philippines, eight times. I’ve been in Africa four, five times. I’ve been to Europe Singapore, Hong Kong, central America, south America. So I’ve been on five of the seven continents. And I think too, for a pastor, one of the things that’s so valuable to get outside of your world is because what happens is we grow up in certain cultural, a Christian cultural context. And I, I, one day several years ago I was preaching Daniel in Singapore at a spirit filled Filipino Anglican church. It was like, go figure. And it’s
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:16):
The amazing thing is God works the same in every culture.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (14:19):
Exactly spirit filled Filipino Anglican church in Singapore. And you just sit back and think, you know, who would’ve, I would’ve never even thought it that exists, but it just goes to show you that the church is huge. It comes in all shapes and sizes and colors. Jesus is the head of the church and he has an amazing way of weaving this tapestry of diversity into the global unified body of Christ. And I think that’s so valuable for a pastor because you’re talking about vision and leading your church forward. You know, the church is so big. It’s bigger than what you, you may know, it’s bigger than what you’re used to. It’s bigger than what you, his maybe culturally have seen church as. And you know what, you can grow, you learn from it, you grow from it and it’s, it’s, it expands you. And if the leader isn’t expanded, then he’s not gonna be able to bring, you know, visionary thinking to his congregation.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:18):
Being a pastor right now is extremely difficult. The world has just gone through C, which had lots of challenges. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> there are lots of disagreements politically, and then you have economic challenges and there there’s so many demands and, and, and pools on a pastor. What advice would you give to other pastors to stay strong and to, and continue in their calling in the midst of what really is, is a very difficult task.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (15:52):
We have the saying in our church, Daniel, that we repeat so much, actually I repeat it more than the vision statement or, or our vision because it’s just a great reminder. It’s very simple, but it is very profound and it’s almost becoming ingrained in our congregation’s mentality. And we’ve actually just recently put it on the sticker form for people to take, but it’s wake up, be faithful and go to bed. And if you’ll just,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:17):
If you just do that for 40 or 50 years, you’ll make it. If you’ll
Pastor Brad Sullivan (16:21):
Just get up and be faithful, now you can get up and be faithful just to be stuck in your routines. But if you’ll be faithful to do what God’s told you to do, and every season, you know, you’re gonna look back and find out, you’ve come a long way. You know Noah had to build an arc for a long time, but he finished, you know, Charles Spurgeon once said by perseverance, the snails made it to the arc. You know, it’s kind of a funny Quip of, of conveying a powerful principle, but I would say, you know, just stay, stay fateful, stay the course, and, but be willing to adapt and to change. The fact is, again, things change, culture changes. You can sit here and say, well, what people ought to be doing, or you can find ways to go adapt so that you can reach people where they are.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (17:06):
You know, you can even fight it and lose, or you can, again, you’re not compromising your message or beliefs. You’re just showing an adaptability. COVID forced everybody to adapt. And so after we, after we changed our church over to surge and look here, we are about two and a half years in as surge. We’re still building what surge is going to be trying to reshape a culture around that, that whole thing. But a few months after that, I told some of our team members one day before a service and a team huddle, I said, look, guys, we made change our name again to CCC with constantly changing church. And I only said that as a, just as a joke, but serious joke to put in their minds that you know what, we’re not gonna be blessed. God, <laugh>, we shall not be moved from the you know, we we’re gonna change whatever needs to be changed.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (17:56):
And this is where I would encourage any leader, whether you’re a business leader or pastor or whatever, if you’re leading anything that is be married to your vision, do not be married to your strategies. You know, what, what happens to churches when they get stuck in this? Like going back into the eighties when it’s 20, 22 is because for so long, they’ve been married to their strategy. How we do it, bless God, this is how we’re gonna do it. But what that shows is you’re not married to your vision. You’re married to your strategy of how you do something. But when that strategy no longer works, you have to be willing to divorce it and get a new strategy. You never divorce your vision. You marry your vision, but you need to divorce strategies and be, get rid of things. If it doesn’t work, get rid of it.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (18:42):
You know? And, and be honest with people like that way. Sometimes I think pastors flight, they have egg on their face. They’re like, Hey, we’re gonna try this if, but don’t work, don’t work. You know, that way you’re up front. And it shows people, it gives people confidence in you that, Hey, you’re willing to blaze the new trails. You’re willing to push forward. You’re willing to try new things and they’ll, they’ll buy in with you and they’ll support it. And I think that’s powerful and just making tweaks and, and making improvements, solve, finding ways that you can improve even down to the way your building looks, find a little thing. That’s just, it might be something small, but every so often they come in, they see something different. I think it’s important. You know, Walmart, I don’t know if you know this, but Walmart changes the shade of blue in their buildings and stuff, you know, in their logo every so many years.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (19:26):
And it’s so subtle that you wouldn’t even be like, oh wait, it’s a different blue. It’s just a subconscious. It just shows you that they’re changing. They’re adapting. They’re, they’re willing to tweak anything right down to, we’re gonna tweak the color blue. You know what I’m saying? And I think as pastor, sometimes because we, we, we hold fast to our, our doctrine sound doctrine and, and, and the word of God, but we don’t have to express it the same way all the time. You know, we can find new ways to express it, new ways to get it out, just like you’re doing with technology.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:59):
And we’re looking to reach a new generation. So we use whatever tools and ideas that communicate the best with a new generation.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (20:08):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And pull your kids in on it. You know, I think that’s important. You know, my, when we were rebranding the surge, my kids were young. They’re 16 and 11 now, but they were a little younger then they kept it a secret, you know, <laugh>, I was shocked. They were able to keep it a secret until we had the big reveal one Sunday, but I, I had them pulled in on the logo designs, what colors, you know, us making them a part of it because you know, kids today are much more brand conscious because they’re on Instagram, they’re own TikTok. They, and so they’re really brand conscious down to how things look, how things are supposed to look what looks good, what doesn’t look good. And so I would get their opinions. Even at that younger, like 13 years old, I was getting my son’s opinion.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (20:54):
You know, what, what do you think of this? You know, because very brand conscious. And so, Hey, you know, there’s a business side to church, right? And so I think branding is important. And when you have a brand, you, you, you really promote that brand. But then we have to I think what we try to communicate, well, our team is that there’s a brand, then there’s a brand experience. That is what people, when, when they may come to your church because they see a brand, right. But when they come, they need to have, what, what is the brand experience you’re gonna have? And the brand experience will either create brand loyalty or they’ll, you know? So it’s kinda like when Amazon came out back in the day, no one knew what Amazon was. They thought it was like the, the Amazon river in south America. Right. But when people started liking Amazon later, they put that smile in their logo. What they, that was, they were, they were, they were conveying a brand experience that people were having. And and that created brand loyalty. And so I know that doesn’t sound spiritual and churchy, but it’s practical. And I think in a post COVID world, it’s important to think like that so that, yeah,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:04):
I think every church should look at everything they’re doing in through the eyes of a new visitor, rather than someone who’s already been there forever. They already know where to park. They already know where to take their kids to nursery. They already know what sit their seat. They’re gonna sit in, but a new visitor may not know where the restroom is. So you need to put up a sign so that they can find the restroom and find the nursery. And, and if a church can think through that and create, like you’re saying the brand experience, that they feel comfortable all the way through
Pastor Brad Sullivan (22:37):
That’s right. And that’s kind of a business way of saying, saying it, but it’s just the truth. I mean, this is how businesses think. And I know Walmart takes a lot of hits from people, you know, there’s jokes about Walmart, but Walmart’s pretty, if you look at ’em, they’re very impressive. Our local Walmart right down the street from our church had me come a few years ago. I think it was like 2018 when they launched the new online story. And I, and I, I gave a talk in a debt prayer of dedication for the first day of the grand opening, but I was just kind of seeing the process, seeing their plans. I was blown away. And it showed me that, that you know, Walmart was not going to let Amazon get the best of them. They were staying ahead of the curve. They’re like, all right, if Amazon’s delivering, we’re gonna deliver. Now, you can’t even rent a minivan or a 15 passenger van anywhere because Walmart, Amazon have ’em all rent <laugh>, but it just showed me, Walmart was willing to be on the cutting edge and change and adapt where other businesses weren’t, you know, it was like, who would’ve thought that Kodak would’ve ever ceased to exist, but Instagram put ’em out of business, you know, or, you know
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:42):
Yeah, I think I read that Kodak had the opportunity to be, have one of the first digital cameras and decided not to, because they thought it will hurt our business. If we allow digital pictures. And now everybody takes digital pictures and Kodak is nowhere to be found. That’s
Pastor Brad Sullivan (24:00):
Right. And, you know, look at blockbuster, remember back in the day, you, you had to be kind and rewind. You had a 50 cent charge. If you didn’t rewind your VHS, but I mean, Netflix on streaming and you know what it, when, when, when society change, when culture change and the church refuses to change, church is shut down and there’s a lot of churches that are shutting down. And so you have to be like, Hey, this is God’s ministry. And we got to adapt. We gotta learn. We gotta grow. We gotta do better. And we’ve gotta be forward thinking. And, you know, a pastor has to think, you know, you know, a decade down the road, you know, all the, you asked me earlier about influence and things that we’re doing. We’re about to launch a food ministry outreach in our, in our, in, through our church that we actually are hoping to grow it, to become something that can be mobile. It can move around our community. We could set up and do few distributions and prayer tents and things like that for, to reach people and to help people. But you know, I have been laboring in the community outside of, you know, just,
Pastor Brad Sullivan (25:12):
Just, even in a civic way for so long that I, I, I really started heavy in 2011. And then when I started the Christmas and it sounds crazy a Christmas parade, but man, that parade has been so successful, brings out so many thousands of people it’s given me so much influence. And, but it’s been years of doing this and it wasn’t, I didn’t do it in a way that, you know, cuz sometimes preachers are famous for trying to wor get people into their church. I just did it for the love of community. I didn’t do it in any way to, to try to, to use it as a tool of gaining people in our church. We, we, but it was just sewing and sewing and sewing into the community. Now I’m reaping the influence of it. I mean, politicians line up to try to get into our church when it’s election season, you know, I mean, it’s just, it’s been really remarkable to see how the influence is just in the last year and a half, just really blossomed across the city really. But it’s just been those years of sewing and, and for, for a pastor, he has to think long term like that a 10 year strategy or a, you know, what’s he anyway.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:14):
Yeah. You don’t wanna do something that makes the whole community mad at you. You wanna reach out, even if people don’t agree with you, reach out and be serve the community, be a blessing
Pastor Brad Sullivan (26:24):
That’s right. And if you just love them and win ’em with win them with kindness and generosity and serve <affirmative> they’ll, it’ll prove for them that you’re legit and that you’re genuine and that you’re doing it for the good of everyone, not just, Hey, been a community, prosperous, a church prosperous. And I just think that there, you know, and I even had a word from a pastor a few years ago, said that the Lord’s saying that he’s gonna give you influence with politicians. And I’m like, okay. I mean, it’s happening, you know, and I don’t even know what the end game of that is. It’s just, you know, but there’s still value for a pastor. You know, back in the day, a church was the cornerstone of its community. It was the meeting place. It was the community center. The pastor was respected.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (27:10):
His voice meant something. And that’s been taken away in society today. And if we can find unique ways to get that back, there’s still something to have an influence with politicians, to have an influence in the community, to be a voice and a figure in your community as a pastor, that’s a big deal in today’s world. And you just have to find a unique way in our community. We are outside the city limits just outside. So we could build that in that suburban area. Other people, you meant to find a different way of doing it, but there’s ways of, of getting your influence in the, in the community that just preaching every Sunday to, to the same people is not gonna, is not going to acquire that kind of influence.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:53):
Well, I really appreciate your insight. Absolutely tremendous. And if you wanna find out more information about pastor Brad Sullivan or invite him to come speak at your church, go check out surge church.tv, and you can find out more information about him and, and I just so much appreciate you and your church. Again, thank you for supporting king ministries and helping us to go to different nations around the world. You guys are much appreciated and thank
Pastor Brad Sullivan (28:20):
You. Thank you, Daniel. And whenever we, we announce in church, you know, when we talk about the, the different ministries we do it regularly, the missions outreaches that we support. I mean, almost every time when we mention Daniel King ministries, applause breaks out because people see what you’re doing and we appreciate it and we love you. And I would, I’m also available for leadership talk. So if anybody would be interested in talking about these things and talking through these things for churches, and I would be glad to glad to do that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:49):
Awesome. Thank you for being on the evangelism podcast.
Pastor Brad Sullivan (28:52):
You Daniel, God bless you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:53):
Thanks so much for listening today. I am excited about telling people about Jesus. And I want to invite you to be a part of helping us to rescue people from hell and take them with us to heaven. There’s two things you can do to help. First of all, can you go find the evangelism podcast on apple iTunes and leave us a positive review by giving a review, you will help other people find these valuable resources about sharing our faith. And second, would you become a financial partner with king ministries? Every single dollar that people give us enables us to lead at least one person to Jesus. And so that means for only $1, you can help start a party in heaven. And so today I want to invite you to become a monthly partner. You can start out for just a dollar, but if God puts on your heart to do more, of course you can do more. But please go to king ministries.com and become a monthly partner with us today to help us to lead more people to Jesus. Thank you so much. And God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (30:13):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again, that’s king ministries.com.
Please subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast with Evangelist Daniel King
Calvin Hunter | AMPED up for Jesus
Calvin Hunter is a young evangelist who is traveling to cities across America to reach people for Jesus. His ministry is called AMPED and they use music, bouncy houses, and extreme sports to attract the lost. As you listen to today’s podcast, you will be inspired by his passion for Jesus and his passion for reaching people for heaven.
AMPED = Awakening Mankind’s Powerful Eternal Destiny
For more information about Calvin Hunter visit: https://www.swordministries.org/
Big Idea: When you answer the CALL, you have to give it your ALL.
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Calvin hunter is a young evangelist who is traveling to cities across America to reach people for Jesus. His ministry is called amped and they use music, bouncy houses in extreme sports to attract the lost. As you listen to today’s podcast, you will be inspired by his passion for Jesus and his passion for reaching people for heaven.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:37):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King were Daniel interviews. Full-Time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King. Welcome
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:01):
To do the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I have a special guest with me, Calvin hunter. He is the director of amped ministries and through their ministry. They’re going to communities all over the United States, telling people about Jesus, Calvin, thank you for being with me today.
Calvin Hunter (01:23):
Thank you, sir. Great to be here,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:25):
Calvin. What does the word amped mean? Tell me about how you came up with that.
Calvin Hunter (01:31):
So AMPED means Awakening Mankind’s Powerful Eternal Destiny. It is a vision that God put on our heart to go into the cities across America, to stir up the people, to see the destiny and the call that God has for their life, for them to, to start walking in that full potential that God has for them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:53):
Can you tell me about some of what you’ve done recently?
Calvin Hunter (01:58):
Yeah. recently with amped, I was actually just in Houston, 10 Xs, where we took we worked at the local church there and we took people out on the streets and we did one-on-one street evangelism with the people there in Houston and reached over a thousand people face to face with the gospel. My wife and I personally did, and a span of about 10 dates. And so that was something that we did recently was the one-on-one outreach because every person, as you know, is called to do the work of an evangelist. Everyone has an anointing, has been given the gift of soul winning.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:37):
So tell me, what is that, What does that look like doing one-on-one evangelism? What are you saying? What responses are you getting from people?
Calvin Hunter (02:47):
Yeah, you know, I would say with one on one evangelism, it looks very different for each person at times. You know there is a pattern I personally like to stick with the place of, like, the Bible says that the goodness of God leads me to repentance. So with me, I like to stick with the place of letting people know that number one, Jesus loves them. So I always start a conversation, letting the person know, Hey, I want to tell you something today. I, to tell you that God loves you and he has a plan for your life. And so I always start the conversation with letting them know that Jesus loves them. You say, well, why would I start the conversation that way? Well, for me, it’s very personal because in 2012, when I first started soul winning, I remember I went to a nursing home and there was a lady in the nursing home and she was about 82 years old and I came up to her and that was the first thing I said. I said, Hey, ma’am I want to I’m here today. And I just wanna let you know that Jesus loves you and that God has a plan for your lives immediately. 82 years old living in the middle of America, you know, the Bible belt of America, the Bible be of the world and tears start running down her eyes. And she says, no one has ever said to me that Jesus loves me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:11):
Wow. So it was a revelation for her,
Calvin Hunter (04:14):
Yes. Revelation for her. And I think that we need to know that we think we’re, you know, and I’m talking to the Amer Evangel specifically. Cuz I believe that it’s maybe not. So in people’s minds around the world as much, but in America we need to know there are people around us. They don’t know who Jesus is and they don’t know that he loves them. And to just so that seed is the beginning of every can be the starting point of them having a relationship with Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:45):
Yeah. You’ve also organized large events getting lots of different churches involved. I remember a couple of years ago you did a great outreach in Spartanburg. Tell me about what God did there.
Calvin Hunter (05:00):
Yeah. And in, in Spartanburg, South Carolina, we ended up gathering over 30 churches together and we had over, we reached over 10,000 people with the gospel, brought together six different evangelistic ministries as part of our team and preached the gospel. And the town’s only about 90,000 people. And we reached over 10,000 people within one week. And what we did was we did men’s men’s conference women’s conference. We did prison ministry. We had youth outreaches. We went to the schools, I had, we had the BMA ex guys do tricks and team extreme breaking bricks and bats. And we preach the gospel in the schools to the different schools that would let us in. And, and then we invited everyone out into a park where we had even more activities, bounce houses food that was given away and preached the gospel throughout the whole day in the park had different. A lot of times I like to work with, I like to bring the churches together. So they’re all showing the unity of the body of Christ. You know, so we had different worship teams there, different rappers and artists and everyone was sharing their testimony and preaching the gospel throughout the whole, the whole main day in, in the event there in sparing part.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:28):
I remember when you were preparing for that, you had come with me on a mission trip down to the nation of Belise, where we did a mass of one day outreach to the entire nation of least 10 different crusades happening all at the same time. And you helped to organize and to set that up and you were so excited because everything we did in Belize, like we did a, a conference for businessmen, you said, oh, I gotta do a conference for businessmen in Spartanburg. And we did something for the young people you’re oh, I gotta do one of those for, for Spartanburg. And then we did a children’s outreach. You’re like, oh, I gotta do a children’s outreach. I gotta have some strength teams. I gotta have some, some extreme sports. And so that’s one of the things I really like about you, every idea that you saw, you immediately thought about how you could put it into practice in reaching people for Jesus. And now you’re doing the events and, and you have several planned coming up over the, the next few months you have bouncy houses, a, a sound system. Tell me about the, the outreaches that you have coming up.
Calvin Hunter (07:30):
Yeah. So coming up, we have over seven churches coming together in Springdale, Arkansas, we’ve rented a rodeo O and so we’re gonna have a big worship night on Friday night, all the churches are coming together, gonna do a big worship night, preach the gospel. And then on Saturday we’re gonna have bounce houses. We’re gonna have team extreme there, the BMX BMX guys there, and we’re gonna, we’re gonna, I’m gonna come a few. I’m I’m actually going down there here April 15th and I’m gonna be taking two people on the streets, teaching them about one-on-one evangelism and going out in the streets and evangelizing with them. And then coming back again, this will be June 1st through the fourth for the main outreach where we’ll go street evangelizing and the Massa crusade as well. And so we’re excited, but you know, to go back with the Belize thing, it is very true.
Calvin Hunter (08:24):
I think a lot of people, and, and I was already going, the Lord had spoken to me about Spartenburg and he had said to go into the city and to do the outreach. And so I was being obedience of the Lord. And then when I got connected and I got to go to Belize, I got to see everything that was going on. And I think that’s where faith has to kick in for the young evangelist, for the person that’s going. You, you’ve got to have the faith. When you see certain things to be like, you know what? I can do this. I can do this. You gotta believe to do the impossible. If you can’t believe to do the impossible, you’ll never try, but you gotta believe. And so you gotta, don’t ever lose the belief that you can shake a city don’t ever lose the belief, you know, as an evangels that you can change a nation, because that was our belief.
Calvin Hunter (09:09):
We went to believes. We said, Hey we can see all the beliefs here, the gospel and how, how many did we reach over a hundred thousand people during that, during that span. And, and I got to travel the whole country during that time, working with you and had my little brother with me, Daniel. And that was just amazing because that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about. And I got to learn a lot, you know, seeing under you learning and Evangel. And I got to take that and apply that in my own crusades and my own outreaches. And I still apply that same, same information I had today. I, you know, the simplicity of the gospel, you do an illustration that I love and you do it again. And again, I’m pretty sure anyone that’s seen you preach has seen it, but you know, you talk about the pastor that got up and he prayed for, for the one soul and he got the one soul and then the other pastor got up and he prayed for a guitar.
Calvin Hunter (10:00):
Well, that pastor got his guitar. Then that pastor and his one soul, they prayed for another soul. And that’s the thing we gotta, we gotta keep praying for the harvest and we gotta keep going and reaching the harvest. And so that is what is on my heart. A book, you know, by Tia Osborn, recently, soul winning. I mean, if anyone’s on here, they gotta get that book, get Daniel King’s books on soul winning and get that book on soul winning. If you’re not a soul winner, get the book, read the book, get fired up for Jesus. Cause it’s all about the kingdom.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:34):
You know, God is a generational God. He’s the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And one of the reasons that you have such a fire for evangelism is you come from a, a rich history of evangelism. Your father, Warren hunter is a good friend. He’s a great evangelist. And even in South Africa, your, your grandfather the preach, the gospel. And, and so talk to me a little bit about what you’ve learned from these previous generations and what you think God wants to do with our generation.
Calvin Hunter (11:06):
Yeah. You know I’ve learned it’s, it’s so amazing because my great grandpa was a missionary in South Africa. My grandpa is even he was diminished here over there, but now he does missionary in the nursing homes in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he has sees miracles in the hospitals all the time. So he’s also a missionary in, in that setting. And then my dad, you know, traveling the world and I would say, you know, I learned, I learned about that. Love. I learned about the thing that I learned from all of them the most is the love of God. Every time they went out and did something, they always did it with the love of God. They never did it angry with people, or they always did it totally in love with Jesus and always saw, they were always full of joy. They just, everywhere that they went, my grandpa, my great grandpa, my dad, everywhere they go.
Calvin Hunter (12:02):
They’re always exuding the love of God to everyone that they’re around. And as I travel with my dad, I would see that he, he exuded the love of God, but you also taught me different things. As, as, as a minister, you always have to maintain a relationship with God. You can never think, oh, I’m doing the work of the ministry and not have that personal relationship with the Lord. So I always, I watched him with my dad specifically, where he would spend time in the word and in prayer every day, if we were overseas, it was, there was always spreading that time in the word and in prayer. And that was the foundation. You know, you’ll you, if you gotta, your time in the word in prayer is valuable. And I think for anyone that’s young in ministry, you need to remember that. Don’t just get caught up in doing the work of ministry, cuz then you’ll burn out and we don’t want you to burn out. We want you to continue to go strong. You know that this year it’ll be 10 years of me being full-time in ministry. I have not worked a secular job ever again in the last 10 years for 10 years, I’ve had the honor and the privilege to travel the world and preach the gospel. And the circumstances are always different. You know, when I was not married, I slept on the floor. I up in cars, you know, whatever, whatever it was
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:16):
Now that you’re married. It’s a little bit tougher to do that. I remember when I got married to my wife, Jessica, suddenly my hotel bills went up because in, in my, my food bills, she wanted to go to nicer restaurants than I ever did by myself. I’d go to McDonald’s. She’s like, let’s go to that nice restaurant over there, but God still provides.
Calvin Hunter (13:35):
Yeah. And many times when you’re traveling by yourself, you know, people will feed one person. But then when you got like 2, 3, 4 other five people with you, there’s no, there’s no feeding in that. You know, but you know exactly God does provide. And that’s one thing that I’ve seen now being with my wife, I, I wish it’d be great to maybe us do a podcast some time, but we’ve come together now in this place of unity where we’re both saying, okay, we’re going to reach the gospel. We’re going no matter what. And that’s another thing I learned from my parents is no matter what the cost, no matter when, no matter where, no matter why we choose to serve God and we choose to be obedient to him. And some people they’re like saying, oh, I want to be, I want to be led by the Lord to go get people saved.
Calvin Hunter (14:20):
I’m waiting for the holy spirit to speak to me or some magic little bell to ding and ring over someone’s head. But it’s like, no, like the word of God is inspired by the holy spirit. He’s spoken. He wrote it down. He’s already spoken to us to go into all the world and preach the gospel he’s already into us. And so that is what I learned from them as well is you’re, you’re, you’re called, you’re called to go. And you, you have the choice. You can answer it or not. And so that’s what I learned from them. When you answer the call, you gotta give your all. Cause if you don’t put your all in the call, you’ll be in trouble. You’ll run shipwreck.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:55):
When you answer the call, you gotta give your all, I like that.
Calvin Hunter (14:58):
That’s right.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:00):
In fact, I’m gonna put that in my, my notes on, on my website, under every podcast, I put notes in a transcript of what people say it’s valuable. And I think that’s one of the most valuable things that you’ve said is when you answer the call, you have to
Calvin Hunter (15:18):
Give your all,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:19):
Give your, all, give your all for Jesus. So talk to me about inspiring young people. When you do your outreaches, you get a lot of young people involved and a lot of young people helping do you see God doing among a younger generation
Calvin Hunter (15:36):
Man with the, with the younger generation, they are people that are just waiting to hear. And once they hear they get ignited and they’re, they’re ready, they’re ready to run everyone that I talked to the younger generation, some of them, you know, especially with those that have, that have been in the church before, it’s like, they’re waiting, they’re waiting to connect with someone. They’re waiting to connect with a community or a family. And the second that they get plugged into that family, their potential is unleash because there’s such a, an, an energy to the younger people that once they get it, they become zealous and they’re ready to run with it. You know? And so I see that is if we will go after the younger ones, you will, you will see that the holy spirit will change their life completely. They’ll set them free they’ll and, and you, and they gotta be discipled, but they’ll run with it.
Calvin Hunter (16:37):
They’ll run. They don’t have any, they’re not gonna, they’re not out here trying to figure out all the theological doctrines and everything. But when they get it, they can take the simplicity of the word and run with it, with fire. And I see that, I see the younger people getting the word of God and running with it. They’re running with it. And even now I see young people gathering around me, young families, younger, the younger generation you could say, and, and we’re, we’re like, where do you wanna send us? God? Where do you want us to go? And so that’s what we’re believing. We’re believing like, God, wherever you want us to go, we’ll go. And we’re just out here. We’re just ready to run with the gospel.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:14):
That’s awesome. Because
Calvin Hunter (17:15):
That’s that, that’s everything to us. You know, the world is trying to offer so much. The world has so many different ideas and things that it tries to offer. And we’ve, we’re like, no, that, that stuff has no taste compared to the kingdom of God. It has no taste compared to the things of God, the video games, the TV stuff, the movies, all that stuff that is trying to cloud people. But, but the young people they’re sitting there and they’re not satisfied. The more social media, the Instagram, none of this is satisfying them. The only thing that can satisfy them and bring them true. Liberty and joy is Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:51):
Amen. That’s
Calvin Hunter (17:52):
We see it when they get Jesus. They’re they’re come. They’re getting they’re coming off. Everything.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:58):
Amen. Yeah. Well, I wanna say thank you, Calvin, for being on the evangelism podcast. If you’re listening and you want to help Calvin hunter to do his AMPED outreaches to the young people of America and to reach entire cities for Jesus all over America then I’d encourage you to support him. Your, your website is sword ministries.org. Is that the best place for people to go to support?
Calvin Hunter (18:30):
That is the best place. Yeah.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:31):
Yeah. So SwordMinistries.org go there and, and give a gift helped Calvin hunter to reach people for Jesus. He’s doing an amazing job going out and a reaching the, going after the, the hungry, spiritually, hungry young people of America. It’s so valuable what you’re doing, Calvin.
Calvin Hunter (18:59):
Thank you. Yeah. And you know, we’re believing I was sharing with you too. Like right now we’re believing to purchase a brand new camper, $40,000. My wife and I, cause we were wanna take that camper and go from like Maine to Florida and just go every two weeks to a new city, preaching the gospel. And so, you know, if there’s anyone that’s listening, that’s connected to any of those regions, we would love to help you. Or you’re like, you wanna go out soul winning. We would love to come and tag team together with you. You know, I never was a soul winning there until someone else went out with me, they said, come with me, I’ll show you how a soul win. Next thing I know, 40 people were saved. And so it’s always like that. Sometimes you just need someone to come alongside, you, walk with you. And next thing you know, your life will never be the same again. You’ll be become, you’ll see souls everywhere you go.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:48):
Amen. And that’s what
Calvin Hunter (19:48):
You did with me. I went to Belize with you. Like I came alongside of you. My life has changed. I can never look at evangelism the same way and I can’t do it the same way. I see it in a bigger picture that we can go further than ever before as well.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:02):
Amen. Well, I believe that God wants to bring revival to America and it’s going to take ministers and people like you, that will go after the lost go after revival and, and, and get people fired up. And so Calvin you’re doing exactly the, the right thing. You’re you’re right in the middle of God’s heartbeat for people.
Calvin Hunter (20:25):
Amen. Thank you. Yeah. You know, Jesus came as something I shared on Sunday is what did Jesus come to do this seek and save that which was lost. And that is, I feel like that that’s the father’s heartbeat seek and save, seek and save.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:42):
Amen.
Calvin Hunter (20:43):
Everyone is called to seek and save and be a part of that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:46):
Amen. Well, let’s finish up the, the podcast with a prayer Calvin for people that have a heart for evangelism. Could you just pray some holy spirit fire for, for anyone who’s listening that wants to be more on fire for sharing their faith with others?
Calvin Hunter (21:04):
Yes, Lord father. I just think you for everyone that is listening, I thank you for everyone that is connected to this podcast. Thank you father. God, they, they would be encouraged. So they would be uplifted father. I thank you, Lord, that you give them a passion for the lost and a hunger for the things of God father. I thank you, Lord, that you would ignite this passion even for a, in their region, that they would see that they don’t have to go overseas to Africa or go to Brazil or Belize the father, God, that they would see that the harvest is right there. Next door to them. The harvest is right there in Walmart. The harvest is all around them that you would open their eyes, that they would see the harvest that just as the Eagle lifts its eyes and looks into the sun and the oil drops over its eyes who can see the fish beneath the water father.
Calvin Hunter (21:53):
I think you Lord that their eyes would be open to see the fish beneath the water. I thank you Lord, that they would have a harvest of souls that Amos 9:13, that and the Plowman would overtake the Reaper that as they go and start sewing seed, they would see a super pre natural harvest of souls. And I thank you Lord, at that, those that are doing this, even now that Lord, you would encourage them that they would not grow weary and well doing, but father God, that they would know that they can continue to go, continue to go give them strength, father, God, give them a greater boldness to preach the word. And thank you, father God that they go, they go anointed. They go full the glory. They go full of the joy of the Lord this day in Jesus name. Amen.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:37):
Amen.
Evangelism Podcast Host (22:39):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit king ministries.com again, that’s king ministries.com.
Gary Grogan | Fathering a New Generation of Evangelists
Gary Grogan has been both a pastor and an evangelist. Today he tells a story about the first person he ever led to Jesus. It was a man who had a gun to his head about to kill himself. Gary was only 14 years old but God sent him to lead the man to Jesus.
Connect with Gary Grogan: https://twitter.com/papagrogan
Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast Today! With Evangelism Coach Daniel King
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Gary Grogan has been both a pastor and an evangelist. And today he tells a story about the first person he ever led to Jesus. It was a man who had a gun to his head about to kill himself. And then at the age of 14 or 15 of years of age had sent Gary to go and to lead him to Jesus. You’re gonna love this story. Keep listening. As we get started on today’s episode of the evangelism podcast,
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:41):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:06):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus today. I’m here with brother Gary Grogan. Thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast.
Gary Grogan (01:18):
Joy to be here. Thank you so much. God bless you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:21):
So let’s start at the beginning. How did you first get excited about evangelism?
Gary Grogan (01:27):
Well, when I was a freshman in high school, our home church got a new pastor, 10 years older than me. So he was 24. I was 14 and he taught us how to share our faith, a Romans road, steps of peace with God, four of laws. And you know, I’ve, I’ve noticed that churches don’t do that as much as they used to, you know, evangelism explosion with Dr. James Kennedy of coral Ridge Presbyterian church. Plus the Pentecostal charismatic church was known for teaching its people, personal evangelism, churches had prayer coordinators, evangelism coordinators, and now we have service project coordinators. So it was that pastor that got me excited about sharing my faith.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:13):
And so tell me some of what you’ve done since then.
Gary Grogan (02:18):
Well I’ve been a pastor. I’ve been a youth pastor. I’ve been a statewide and college director. Did the Chicago outreach with David Wilkerson. Some of you have heard the name, David Wilkerson and times square church and way before that, the cross and the switch blade. And then I became a state and college leader, like I said, then I took O what we call in the church world, a burnt Overfield and small group of people and developed it into the third largest church in our tribe in the state of Illinois five years ago, I turned it over to one of my sons in the faith. And so I, I switched my credential from pastor category to evangelist category. And I, I think every pastor should have the heart of an evangelist and every evangelist should have the heart of a pastor. I think everybody should be involved in telling somebody about Jesus.
Gary Grogan (03:14):
That’s a real, you know, Paul told Timothy and he Timothy had trouble with shyness timidity, you know, Paul of all the people in the new Testament that Paul mentored and coached and discipled, he only told Timothy God has not given us the spirit of timid of fear, but of power and love and a sound mine. But he also told Timothy do the work of an evangelist. It was a command, it was an imperative sheep reproduce sheep. So some of my heroes in the faith you know, TL, Osborne, I’ve preached in his churches in democratic Republic of Congo. Amazing pastor Tommy Barnett used to be up in the well, what we call the quad cities in Iowa and, and great work in Phoenix, Arizona. He told me one time, he said, Gary, if you do not go out of your way to be a soul winner, you’ll never be a soul winner. So I’m very passionate about this personal Evangel evangelism, corporate evangelism, creative evangelism power, our invent evangelism, anyway, that we
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:23):
Prophetic evangelism miracle Evangel,
Gary Grogan (04:26):
Come on, come on. You’ve written about all that kind of stuff. Anyway, we can reach people for Jesus. That’s what I want to do. That is true. Spirit filled living.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:36):
Now, sometimes when people hear about the evangelist, they think, well, it’s the Evangel job to evangelize, but really the great commission is given to everyone in the whole church by Jesus. Every believer is called to go and preach the gospel. And so how can a normal everyday believer get involved in sharing their faith?
Gary Grogan (05:00):
Well, first of all, they have to learn how to share their faith. I teach the prayer care share approach. So we’ve gotta get our people praying for the lost fellow students, neighbors, my wife and I have a list of all of our neighbors. We’ve met all of our neighbors. We pray for them by name. We share with them and I’ve led some of my neighbors to Christ. That’s the prayer approach, praying for the lost, and then you care for the lost. So we’ve done a million things for our neighbors at the beginning of the pandemic and older neighbor, who’s a retired CIA agent, by the way,
Gary Grogan (05:43):
They were so afraid to go out of their house. They did not go out of their house for it was either five months in one week or six months in one week. I can’t remember. I wish my wife was here to remind me, but so we bought their groceries. We did everything for them. So you’re, you’re caring for your neighbors. You take ’em cookies, you take ’em pies. You, somebody in the family passes away. You go prayer care share approach. But also you have to be taught how to share your faith. This is what changed my life as a 14, 15 year old freshman in secondary school. In high school, I had a pastor that taught me how to share my faith. So I, I want to tell that story, but to answer your question, evangelism is not just for the evangelist are exactly right.
Gary Grogan (06:39):
Sheep reproduce sheep. Otherwise they’re sterile. I’ve never met a board soul winner. I’ve met a lot of board Christians. I said earlier, this is true spirit filled living. I pray in a prayer language that I never learned every day. I love it. I, I love the spirit baptism, but I believe the lifelong evidence to the spirit baptism is a life of soul winning a life of witnessing. That’s not just for the evangelist. The people we work with, we’re supposed to be salt and light. There are a enough Christians in the world that if every Christian would begin to pray for the lost care, for the lost and share with the lost in one week, we could evangelize the 7.8 some say 8.1 billion people on planet earth. We could do that in one week, but it’s the leader’s jobs. The apostles prophets, pastors, teachers, and evangelists, to equip the saints, to pray for the lost care for the lost and share with the lost.
Gary Grogan (07:51):
So you, you can’t fake soul winning. You can fake worship. You can fake devotion. You can fake spirituality. You can fake a lot of things, but you cannot fake true spirit filled living that is spirit filled living, just walking by somebody and not being concerned about their soul. That’s not spirit filled living. I’m not trying to motivate anybody through guilt. I would never do that, but hearing the voice of the spirit many times, I’ve, I’ve done it here, where we are right now, brother king. And I’ve just said, what’s one thing I can pray with you about. I, I just prayed with the manager. We’re actually at a hotel right now. And I prayed with the manager of food services and his name was Gabriel Angel’s name by the way. And he was so appreciative. And so thankful. I said, what’s one thing I can pray with you about. And he told me, and it was just a wonderful experience together. So but my life changed when I led my first soul to Christ. And I’d like to tell you this.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:57):
Yeah. How did you lead your first soul to Christ?
Gary Grogan (09:01):
It’s a miraculous story. This doesn’t happen to everybody. I mean, I’ve had a lot of failures, you know, Jesus was awkward and there was a moment of awkwardness in Jesus’s conversation with the woman at the well in John chapter four. So if Jesus is going to have a moment of awkwardness in his conversation in trying to reach a soul, we are too it’s okay. But we push through it. That’s where the gifts of the spirit came through. Go tell your husband, well, I don’t have a husband. You’re right. In fact, the man you live with is not your husband. And you’ve had five husbands. He had a word of knowledge in that nanosecond. But my point in that story is it’s okay to feel awkward. You know, some people are this far from Christ and you may not win him to Christ, but you may bring, ’em a step closer to Christ. You may bring ’em two steps closer to Christ, or you may be the person that actually gets to reap the harvest of somebody’s prayer of somebody’s seed sewing, and you get to be the one to lead them to Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:12):
I think having this perspective is, is really valuable and help helps people to avoid the trap of discouragement, because you’re not necessarily the one who’s gonna bring everyone to Christ, but you can bring everyone a little bit closer to Christ and advertisers know that it takes about seven positive contacts with a new product before someone is even willing to try out the product. And so people need at least seven positive contacts with a on fire believer, telling them about Jesus before they might be ready to receive Christ. And so our job as evangelists is to sow seeds. We don’t always reap a harvest, but every single day we can be sowing seeds.
Gary Grogan (10:57):
One of the things I teach it takes seven to 10 contacts for a person to really make a commitment to Christ. It’s very common, fuller, theological seminary has done tons of interviews about this over the decades. And that’s what they say, seven to 10 contacts. So here’s the first person I ever led to Jesus. I can’t remember if I was 14 or 15. It was the summer in between my freshman and sophomore year in high school. And my birthday is July 23rd. So I might have been 14 into my 14th year, beginning of my 15th year, but I was just a kid, a teenager. You don’t have to be a theologian to win somebody to the Lord. Solomon said in Proverbs 1130, he, that wins souls is wise. If you wanna be known for something noble, if you wanna leave a legacy, be a soul winner, lead people to Jesus. Our pastor, as I said earlier in the podcast, if you’re just tuning in taught me as a, as a teenager, how to witness. So we would practice on each other in Sunday school and youth group. And I would be the person witnessing and you would be the person listening. And I would go through the whole thing. And I would say, do you wanna receive Jesus? And you’d say no.
Gary Grogan (12:24):
So I’d have to figure out what to say. And then it’d be your turn to practice on me. And I would say, well, maybe yeah, tell me more. So one Saturday, he took us to a little town in what we call the Midwest here in the United States. And we just thought we were going on a youth trip with the youth group, cuz he used to do that with us. And we loaded into some vans or a bus. I don’t remember exactly. And we went into this little church and they had mapped out the city and they gave us a partner. And so I went with a guy named Steve and the first door I knocked on, I was so nervous. His name is Steve, my name’s Gary. And I said, hi, my name’s Steve. This is my friend, Gary. We started laughing. You forgot your own name.
Gary Grogan (13:17):
I forgot my own name. And the lady slammed the door in our face and I’m like, Hey, I blew that one, man. I’ll do better next time. So the next door we went to, hi my name’s Gary. This is my friend Steve and our approach. Wasn’t very good. And I said, we’re out around the neighborhood talking to people about God. I’d like to talk to you about God. She goes, yeah, come on in. She had us reading out of the new world translation, which in particular, the new Testament is very inaccurate by dishonest so-called Greek scholars. It’s actually the Bible that the Jehovah witnesses use. And she’s in revelation talking about the 144,000. I’m like, I don’t know, maybe you’re right and I’m wrong. I mean, my pastor talked me into coming out here and I was so confused. We went back to that church for a late lunch and some of my friends that I’d gone to youth camp with convention, with revivals rallies, wonderful church services, they had led their first soul to Christ and there was a fire in them that I’d never seen before.
Gary Grogan (14:29):
And Steve and I wanted that and Steve said, let’s fast lunch. Well for a 14, 15 year old, a 13, 14 year old, he was a year younger than me to fast lunch dude. That was a big thing, man. Yeah, but we did Jesus. We wanna win a soul to you. I would encourage you to ask the Lord, Lord help me to be a witness today. I did it this morning in my devotions. And I’ve already been able to share with somebody here, even though I’m at a Christian conference, help me to witness to somebody. Lord help me to thank
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:04):
God. There’s at least one Christian here. That’s willing to witness to other people.
Gary Grogan (15:08):
Well, hallelujah. So you know, you pray, pray, prayer care share approach. So we skipped lunch. We prayed, we fasted, we went to a little trailer court in this little town of Rushville, Illinois, right by the Illinois river in the Midwestern part of the United States. And we’re knocking on trail our doors. It was my turn to talk. This is a true story. Knocked on the door. I said, hi, my name’s Gary. This is my friend, Steve. We are out around the neighborhood talking to people about God. We’d like to talk to you. The guy that answered the door, he goes just a minute. And he came back with a revolver, a pistol, a gun. He said, sit down here on the front step boys. It was warm time of the year. I don’t, it was summer. And I’m like coming home, coming home, never or more to Rome.
Gary Grogan (16:15):
I wasn’t really too worried because the cylinder was not in the pistol. But then he pulled the cylinder out of his pocket and he put it in the gun. And he said, boys, see that mirror in there on the wall said, yes, sir. He said, I’ve been standing in front of that mirror for 30, 45 minutes. I don’t know how long our child died. In what we used to call crib death. My wife couldn’t handle it. Had a nervous breakdown. She’s in a psych ward, in a nearby hospital, in a larger city. The transmission fell out of my car. I haven’t been able to get to work. I’ve lost my job. They’re going to reap the bank’s going to reposess my trailer that I live in, my relatives have helped me all that they can help me. And I’ve been standing in front of that mirror, boys. I don’t know, 30, 45 minutes with that gun up to my head, ready to take my life. And I said seconds before you knocked on the door. God, if there is a God, send somebody here to talk to me about you
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:25):
And you knocked on the door. 14, 15 years old teenager sent by God to help rescue this man.
Gary Grogan (17:33):
Hi, my name Gary. This is my friend, Steve we’re out around the neighborhood talking to people about God. We’d like to talk. The very thing that he had just prayed brother king. The very thing that he had just prayed. I said, gimme the gun. And I used my little new Testament and I let him through what we call the Romans road. All of Sinon come short of the glory of God. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. Our Lord, to as many as received him, he gives the power, the authority, the he to become the sons of God. I led him in the longest what we call sinners, prayer and history. I mean, I was so excited that I was leading somebody to Jesus. I had him make all kind of commitments to the Lord in his prayer. He didn’t even know what I was talking about, but he knew that God had heard his prayer, that Anne served the Lord in a church in Rushville, Illinois, for years and years and years.
Gary Grogan (18:34):
And every Christmas I would get a card from him. He’s gone on home to be with the Lord. Now that experience changed my life. And I knew from that point to this, it didn’t matter what I did in life. I wanted be a soul winner. I wanted to introduce people to the person and work of Jesus Christ. That’s what evangelism, that’s what soul winning. That’s what witnessing is all about. Now. The evangelist is part of the fivefold ministry, Ascension gifts of Christ in Ephesians chapter four and a true evangelist missionary evangelist. Like this one knows how to equip us, equip the body of Christ. If you go to his website, you can look at all of his materials that he’s prepared as an equipping evangelist to teach you. And I how to share our faith in Jesus prayer care share approach. So I, I don’t want to be critical of any part of the body of Christ.
Gary Grogan (19:38):
I love the body of Christ. I preach in every kind of church you can imagine. I used to do teens encounter Christ tech rallies for the Catholic church, way back in CA at charismatic renewal days, I’ve done holy spirit things for the Methodist church all over the Midwest and had some wonderful experiences was in a Methodist church, not too long ago, about 40 people got holy spirit baptized. It was awesome. Prayer meeting at the end of the service was just amazing. Mainly young people responding, but evangelicalism we’re part of the charismatic Pentecostal part of evangelicalism. They have taught the gift of evangelism. I just don’t see it in scripture. I see the gift of an evangelist and Ascension gift of Christ. I believe every healthy sheep reproduces sheep. So yes, there are some people that are perhaps more gregarious in their personality, a type, a personality. If you’re into the Igram, some of you know what I’m talking about, a type eight, but I just don’t see the gift of evangelism. That’s what the evangelical church teaches. They literally teach people only 5% of a church has the gift of evangelism,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:04):
Which is sad because if only 5% are actively doing evangelism, the church is not growing very fast. We need everyone in the church out there telling people about Jesus, even if they might be introverted in their nature.
Gary Grogan (21:20):
Yes. You know, God uses introverts. I mean, there’s a lot of books out on that. Now. Some of the most successful pastors I know would be introverted in their personality. I think it’s sinful to use our personality types to hide behind. If we’re an extreme extrovert type, a personality, I don’t believe that gives you an excuse to be obnoxious and rude and plow over people, run over people. If you’re an extreme introvert, I don’t believe that gives you an excuse to hide behind your personality, to not engage with people. The holy spirit leads us, guides us direct us. The father sent the son, the son sent the spirit. This is the responsibility of the holy spirit to lead guide, teach and direct to, to transform, to make the love of the father, the heart of the father, real the forgiveness of the son, real and to help us do what we cannot do in our own strength.
Gary Grogan (22:21):
It’s we call it the anointing, you know Hebrews one eight, the, the Lord anointed Jesus with the oil of gladness. I love the king James here above all of his fellows because he loved righteousness and hated iniquity. That’s the secret to the anointing. We love righteousness. We want to live for the Lord. We want to win souls and we hate iniquity. We don’t want to go way of the flesh. We want to go the way of the spirit, which is soul winning. So anyhow, his arms getting tired. You know, I love what you’re doing. I love the fact that you have a heart for missions. You have a heart for evangelism. You are called to be an evangelist. One of the fivefold. I think every evangelist needs to have the understanding of a pastor and every pastor needs to have the understanding of an evangelist and we need to work together. So let’s get people to come to Jesus. That’s what I say. And you can do it. You can do it. It doesn’t matter. Your personality temperament type. The first evangelist in the new Testament was not Philip. It was the woman at the, the, well in John chapter four Jesus through personal evangelism and a word of knowledge, a gift to the holy spirit won her. And she went back and said, Hey, come and see this man that he told me everything I’ve ever done.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:54):
And the whole village came, the
Gary Grogan (23:56):
Whole village came. So I, I mean, some of the most awesome soul winners, I know are contemplative, quiet thinking people. So anyhow, I don’t know if your, your viewers send you emails and stuff like that, but if they wanted to contact me, they could do that.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:16):
What would be a good way to get in touch with you? If someone wanted to learn more about evangelism,
Gary Grogan (24:22):
My Facebook page is full, but you can to my public Facebook page, Gary Grogan, G a R Y G R O G a N. Or you can go to my Twitter at Papa Grogan, or you can go to my Instagram, Papa underscore Grogan, G R O G a N, my primary gifting, spiritual fathering. It’s my job to come alongside the younger generation and encourage you to fulfill what God’s called you to do. So my passion is the emergent up and coming, developing generation of local church workers and min. That’s what I’m giving the last third, third of my life to, to set alongside you and encourage you. That’s it? I don’t need anymore opportunities, but the next generation I can open up doors of opportunities for them. That’s my primary calling. That’s what I love doing. Paul said you have many teachers, but few fathers. So that’s probably the easiest way initially to get in touch with me. And then of course they can find me on messenger and send me a message. And usually I get back to people within 24 hours. You know, if I’m in a conference like this, you get pretty busy. And we’re actually in Jacksonville, Florida in the Southeastern part of the United States. And it’s a winter time in the Midwest. So I’m really happy to be here. That’s why I’m wearing this wild shirt, cuz I can’t wear it right now in the Midwest.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:02):
Well, I’ve heard several people call you Papaji, Papa, Gary. And so thank for mentoring and fathering young ministers in the faith that’s so needed and so valuable. And thank you Papaji for being on the evangelism podcast.
Gary Grogan (26:19):
Thank you so much. I never gave myself that nickname. You guys did. Your generation gave me that and I, I really love it. It really, I wouldn’t be where I am today. If it wasn’t for generations who had gone before me, that invested in my life. And now it’s my turn. So you, you know, I’d say if you’re my age, if you’re a baby boomer, okay, I’m all for retirement, but you can’t just sit on the beach forever. You, you, you can’t just fish every day. You have lots of wisdom, lots of experience. And especially these gen Zers, they want to hear from you, but let’s not throw the millennials under the bus. Either. God is not done with any generation. He still calls people every generation to serve him and to be a witness. And so that’s, you know what I’m all about?
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:11):
Well, thank you,
Gary Grogan (27:13):
God bless you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:15):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and we could not preach the gospel without your help. Over our years of ministry, we found that we’re able to reach one person for Jesus, for every dollar that people give us. And so that means that if you would give us $1, we could start a party in heaven. In fact, I’m asking people to a join our partnership program and give at least $1 every single month to help us to lead more people to Jesus. This is the greatest investment of your dollar that you can make. It’s the only investment that’s gonna matter 10,000 years from now. So if you would like to help us lead people to Jesus, please visit king ministries.com K I N G king ministries.com and help us lead people to Jesus today. God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (28:16):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches. Visit king ministries.com. Again that’s king ministries.com.
Joel Crumpton | Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me
Joel Crumpton carries a 10 foot cross across America and he has seen God do tremendous miracles. On today’s podcast he’s going to talk about how you can walk in the miraculous as you step out in evangelism.
Connect with Joel Crumpton: https://www.facebook.com/Evangelist-Joel-Crumpton-106564374333141
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Joel Crumpton carries a 10 foot cross across America and he has seen God do tremendous miracles. On today’s podcast he’s going to talk about how you can walk in the miraculous as you step out in evangelism.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:30):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast with Dr. Daniel King as Daniel interviews full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to this discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:55):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited to tell people about Jesus today. I’m here with a special guest Joel Crumpton. Great evangelist. Thank you for being with me today. It’s gonna be with you. Well, tell me a little bit about you and your ministry and what you do
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (01:13):
Well, I’ve I’ve been in ministry for many years. I, one of the things I do that I, I guess most people know me for is I carry a big 10 foot cross. I’ll go to different cities. I’ve been across America a few times. I, I, I did several major cities where I carried the cross and people come out and ask me, why are you doing this? And then I can minister to them on the street. And we see a lot of people saved, healed baptized in the holy spirit, right out in public, on the street. I’ve also been in other countries doing it. I have a cross that they built for me in the Netherlands have another one in the Philippines, another one a couple of them in Africa, different countries in Africa.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:51):
And so as you carry this 10 foot tall cross, what response do you get from people? What are they saying to you? The,
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (02:00):
The, the biggest response and the most common response is people say, why are you doing this? And my response to that question is I came out here to find you, God sent me out here to find you and many times I know that if an unsafe person comes up and asks me, why are you doing this? They’re wanting me to talk to ’em about Jesus, because they, they’re not, they’re not gonna be surprised if I bring up heaven or hell or God or G use this because I’m carrying a 10 foot cross for crying out loud. So they’re asking, so
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:27):
It’s a conversation opener.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (02:29):
It is. And it separates, you know, the hardest thing for Christians is and when it comes to evangelism is finding someone to talk to, who’s willing to listen. If you’ve got a 10 foot cross and someone approaches you, they’re asking you to talk to ’em. So it, it narrows it down tremendously. It’s like, I mean, you’ll see most, if I go down by busy street, for instance, in Atlanta and people see me coming, the ones that don’t wanna hear what I have to say, they’ll, they’re like the parting of the red sea. They’ll just kind of move away. And then the, the few people that do want to talk to me will, will come up to me and ask me why I’m doing it. So it’s the perfect, it’s the perfect opportunity for me to talk to somebody who wants to hear what I have to share
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:10):
And share with me some of the testimonies. What response have you received from people?
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (03:16):
Well, there’s been so many, I’ve been doing this since the mid nineties. And so there’s a lot of interesting stories. I mean, I can tell you stories of people approaching me. Like for instance, during the pandemic, you know, everybody was, most Christians were at home hiding into the bed, afraid, afraid they might get something. If they went out in public. And I, I, I was just, it was driving me nuts. I thought I can’t in the house. People are going shopping. And that means they’re driving and they’re going shopping where there’s Walmarts. And I always say, you know, joking, Walmart is the saving place.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:49):
Walmart is the saving
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (03:51):
Place. Walmart’s the saving place. I’m gonna go near Walmart. So
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:54):
You have an opportunity to go to Walmart and tell people about Jesus and save it for their sins and maybe save a few cents when you buy a thing of cereal at the
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (04:02):
Same time. Right? Right. So I’m walking past Walmart. And I had gone down maybe a mile past Walmart, on marketplace Boulevard in the city where I lived at the time. And we just moved since then. But a car pulls over and, and a it’s a man and his son and son, he says, Hey man, why are you carrying this cross? And I said, I came out here to find you. He said what? I said, yes. And then I got a word of knowledge. I said, which one of you guys has back pain? He said, we both do. How did you know that? I said, I don’t know anything about you, but God knows everything. I said, I’ve got good news for you. The kingdom of heaven has come near as today. I said, if you’ll just get outta the car and let my sh cause you know, they were, everybody was concerned about the social distancing thing.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (04:48):
I said, if you guys will just get outta the car and I don’t have to touch you anything, just get in the shadow of me and the cross. And God’s power will heal both of you right now. So the guy said, well, my sons is worse. I’ll let him go first. So I said, just get over to move over to your right a little bit. And, and so that the shadow of me and the cross falls on you and Jesus will completely hear your back. So he, he gets in the shadow. He looks at his dad and says, dad, I feel heat going through my back right now. He said, I feel the pain going, dad, I’m serious. He said, I said, is there any pain? I said, do something you couldn’t do without pain. And he starts bending and twisting. He says, I don’t feel any pain. He said, probably if I picked something up, I would feel pain. I said, pick my cross up. And it’s a 10 foot wooden cross. So he picks up my cross and he says, I don’t feel anything. I said, you just got held. His dad saw that and jumped in front of the cross and was instantly heal. I didn’t even pray for him.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (05:41):
Jesus just heal them.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:42):
What a great miracle. Tell me some of the other testimonies that you experienced.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (05:48):
Well, I mean, I have, I’ve had a lot of people during the pandemic pull over and ask me and, and very similar to, to the one I just mentioned to you about the man and his son. Son’s another one that did that. But sometimes I’ll be carrying the cross and God will just set up a divine appointment. In other ways, for instance, one time I was on I think it was Barrett Parkway in north of Atlanta, which is an interesting name of a street where you’re gonna be carrying a cross Barrett Parkway. I dunno if you called that Barrett.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:18):
Okay. Barrett Parkway. And you’re bearing the cross.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (06:20):
I’m bearing the cross. So somebody asked me why, why did you go on Barrett Parkway? I said, until you asked me, I never thought about it. Anyway, I’m walking down Barrett Parkway and I’m passing by a restaurant. I think it was Chili’s. I’m not sure. I don’t remember, but as I’m passing it, I look and I see, and there’s a, I’m a sidewalk way up at, up a bank from the restaurant parking lot to the main street there, Barrett Parkway. And as I look to my right, it’s about it’s right at dinnertime. So sun hasn’t quite gone down yet, but there’s a lot of people waiting for a table sitting outside on the, in, in the, this little area, outside the restaurant. So I looked down there and the holy spirit speaks to me and says, stop and stand the cross up. So I thought, okay.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (07:02):
So I stopped, stopped and stood the cross up. And then he says, preach to these people. And I said, Lord, they can’t hear me from here. And he said, ask ’em. I said, excuse me, folks, can you guys hear me down there? And they all, they all, noded their head. And I said, oh no, they can hear me. I thought Lord, I don’t have a message. He said, just open your mouth wide and I’ll fill it. So I thought, well, I just thought of a scripture. I thought, well, the Bible, I said, ladies and gentlemen, get, let me get your attention for just a minute. I said, the Bible says that the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to us who are saved, it’s the power of God, which one is it to you? And I began to preach as I’m preaching.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (07:43):
The holy spirit speaks to me again, says, give an alter call. And I thought, Lord, how am I gonna give an alter call? I’m on the sidewalk. Way up here on top of a bank. And they’re down there across the parking lot for me. How am I gonna do that? He said, call ’em to come up to the base of the bank, to the bottom of that, of this bank down here at the edge of the, so I did, I gave an ultra call, nobody responded. And I said, Lord, nobody responded. He said, bind the devil out loud and watch what happens. I said, Lord, they don’t wanna think I’m crazy. If I do that, he said, they already think you’re crazy. Just go ahead and do it. Just obey me and do it. So I, about that time, a whole table full of people, a big family was called in their table was ready.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (08:22):
So they went inside and, and, and after they got inside, I, I took a, I said, folks, I’m gonna bond the devil. And when I do, you’re gonna have a split second to get out, to get up and come up here and show God you’re not ashamed to follow his son. Jesus. So when I did that, I bound the devil in Jesus name and the front door burst saw open. And a young man comes almost sprinting out to the edge of the, of the bank where I was at the, on the sidewalk, points up at me and said, sir, if you’ll come in here and let me buy your dinner, I won’t drink anything else. I pointed back at him. And I said, sir, if you’ll come up here on the sidewalk and knee down with me and surrender your life into Jesus right now in front of all these people, you’ll never drink anything else that that’s alcoholic.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (09:05):
And he paced and he was waring. You know, the holy spirit was working him. The devil was working on him. And finally he climbed the bang and got down on his knees and surrendered his life to Jesus. So he said, come on in and I’ll buy your dinner. I said, well, first I gotta put this cross back in my truck. So he followed me to the truck. We went back and went inside the, the restaurant. And he told me what his experience was, why he came out like that. He said, I’m listening to you preach. And it was like, you were talking directly to me. He said, when you said, man, some of you, your hearts just pounding in your chest. He said, my heart was pounding in my chest. He said, when you said some of you feel strange, you feel something drawn on you.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (09:42):
He said, I felt strange. And I felt something tugging on me. He said when you said you got a split second to come out here in front of all these people. He said, I’m, I’m inside the restaurant with my family. And I couldn’t stay in my seat. He said, I kept up getting up and pacing. And he said, my girlfriend and my kids were at the table and my, and my wife’s parents or my girlfriend’s parents. He said, my girlfriend looked at me and said, why you what’s wrong with you? He said, I’ve gotta go back out there. And she said, well, do whatever you think you have to do. And that was when he came bursting through the door and, and came walking up. Yeah. So that was just one of him. He, he got saved. I’ve seen many people get saved.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (10:21):
One time. I’m carrying the cross down the street from there. And I, I noticed, as I turned around to come back, I’d gone about maybe two miles turned around to come back. I noticed a woman and her son were walking up a side street and they were gonna arrive at the corner. I was headed toward the same time that I was. So I saw them coming. I thought, man, we’re gonna get there at the same moment. And I just said out loud, this is interesting timing. And they both look shocked that when I said that and the woman says, what did you call him? And I looked at him and I knew what she thought. I said, I said, your name is Tommy. Isn’t it? And they freaked out. How did you know his name was Tommy? And I said, I didn’t, but God did she thought, I said, this is interesting Tommy. But I said, this match my Southern accent. I said, this is interesting timing. I said, God knows everything about you, Tommy. And he knows about you too, mommy. I said, this is your son. She goes, yes. And they just hung on every word. I said, both of ’em prayed with me, rented their life to Jesus right there in the corner.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:20):
How did you get started as an evangelist? How did this passion for evangelism develop in you?
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (11:26):
Well, when I first got born again, I was, I was partying, you know, before I got saved and I was in a rock band and I was I was just a crazy person. And when I got saved in my office by myself, nobody was preaching to me. I gave my life to Jesus. The moment I got saved, I thought everybody needs to know what I just learned because I didn’t know. You know, I, I guess about two weeks after I got saved, I realized I don’t have any desire for, for the stuff I used to do. I thought that if I ever got saved, I would be miserable wanting to do the stuff. I enjoyed sinful things. And I thought it would be miserable wanting to do it and not be able to do it or what I got saved. I thought, man, I don’t even want it anymore.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (12:06):
Everybody needs to know this. So that’s what got me started doing Evangel. I didn’t know what I was doing at first. It took me what, how to finally learn how to do it correctly. So now what I do is I, I equip people on how to bring souls into the kingdom, through miracle evangelism, not just words, but per not just persuasive words of human wisdom as, as the apostle Paul said, but through the demonstration of the spirit and of power. So people, when they see miracles, they go, this is real. This is what I want. I want
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:34):
This. So your focus is on miracle evangelism. What are some of the miracles that you’ve seen God do? Wow,
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (12:40):
Well, I’ve, I’ve seen I’ve, I’ve lost count of, of the miracles in the last, you know, for the first 25 years before I got a revelation on healing, I had prayed for sick people and I’d maybe seen 20 to 25. People get healed in 25 years. Not you, maybe one a year. On average, after I got a revelation about 18 years ago now it’s it’s been almost 19 years ago of this month. I saw more people healed when I first got this revelation 18 years ago than I had seen. I, I saw more people healed than one month than I’ve seen in 25 years. And it it’s. I wrote a book about it. It’s called you can do the works of Jesus.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:16):
You can do the works of Jesus. You
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (13:18):
Can do the works of Jesus and people are reading it of all ages. I’m talking children up to grandpas and grandmas are reading the book, putting it into practice. And they’re seeing the same miracles that I see the same miracles that Jesus did because Jesus said that in mark or in John chapter 14 verse 12, he said, barely, barely I say to you, he, that believes on me will do the same works that I do. And greater works than these shall he do because I go to my father. So one time I wasn’t carrying the cross at the time, but I was at a men’s gr gathering and a young man who wasn’t saved was in a drug treatment program in this church where having the men’s gathering well, he wandered in while we were having the gatherings about midnight. It was on new year’s Eve, actually new year’s morning, very early about one o’clock in the morning.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (14:04):
So he’s standing over there with dark sunglasses on, at one o’clock in the morning. I thought, what’s he doing with some dark sunglasses on? Well, the gentleman that invited me there addressed him, his name was Brandon said, Brandon, how you doing on your drinking? He said, I haven’t had anything to drink all week. And my friend Wade, who was asking him about it said, I know you’re not telling the truth, but we’re not going to, we don’t want to condemn you. We wanna pray for you. We’ve been here all weekend praying. So he said, Joel, he turned to me and he said, Joel, I know you wanna leave. And I did. I was already dressed to go. He said, I know you you’re ready to, to go, but can you help us pray for this guy first? I thought, sure. I’ll help you.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (14:40):
So we began to pray and the Lord showed me something about him that he needed me to pray about specifically. So I asked my friend about it and he said, nobody’s ever prayed for him for that. I don’t think I said, can I pray for him? He said, sure. So he got his attention. He was already on his, on his knees. He said, it’s okay if brother Joel prays for you about something, he said, sure, that’s fine. So I said, just outta reverence, you still had his dark sunglasses on me. I said, you mind taking your sunglasses off outta reverence to God? He said, I don’t mind. So he takes his sunglasses off and his eyes lynched tightly shut. I said, what’s wrong with your eyes? He said, I’m blind. I said, I didn’t know you were blind. Cause that’s why you were wearing the glasses.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (15:18):
He said, yeah, I was, I was in a chemical explosion four years ago in a closed trailer with ammonium chloride exploded right in front of my face and burned four layers off of my eyeballs, bleached all the color outta my eye eyes. I ruin my tear ducts. So my eyes don’t make tears. And I can’t see. And before I could stop myself, I said, well, I’ve got good news for you. The kingdom of heaven has come to this. We were in a big gymnasium where we were, I said, the kingdom of heaven has come to this gymnasium. I said, if you’ll let me put my hands on your eyes, Jesus will completely heal your eyes. And you’ll be able to see again right now when I said that, I thought, what, what did I just say? I wanted to grab those words and put ’em back in my mouth.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (15:58):
I thought, oh no, I can’t believe I said that. And of course, everybody in the room was freaking out going, what did he say? He’s the guy that needed a healing said, well, I hope so. I said, just let me touch your eyes and you gonna have to hope so. So he said, okay, so I’ll just try it. I put my hands on his eyes. And I said in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ be healed. Eyes, be open vision, be restored. Thank you Lord for handing this man’s eyes. And I’m shaking. My hands are shaking. Not because I was anointed, but cause I was nervous. I was scared. I thought, what? If nothing happens, I’ll be embarrassed. But see, I’d learn something. Fear is of feeling, but it can’t cancel faith because faith is an act. If you act in faith, whether you’re afraid or not, God will honor and he’ll watch over his word and perform it.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (16:41):
If you tell him what’s gonna happen before you minister to him, that’s what I did. So I put my hand, I took my hands off his eyes. I said, now open your eyes. He opens his eyes and clenched him right back shirt. And he said, ah, I can’t, it’s two pain from my eyes are very sensitive to light. I said, man, you’ve been like in a dark room for four years. You gotta let your eyes adjust to the light. Give, give it some time. So he keeps trying to open his eyes and sure enough, he gets ’em halfway open and you see these black, these Milky looking gray eyeballs. I mean, no, no colors, a black guy. So as he had no color in his eyes at all, he said he was looking around. He goes, I can see a little bit. I can actually see a little bit.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (17:17):
My wife’s gonna freak out. I said, Hey, there was a guy in the Bible that Jesus prayed for who was born blind. And, and he could see men that looked like trees walking around. Now, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want somebody driving a car. And that I was in. If everybody looked like trees walking around, I would want to see than that. So Jesus, didn’t just say, man, that was the best I could do. Jesus prayed for him again. Laid hands on him a second time. And he could, then he could see clearly. I said, if it’s okay for Jesus to do that twice then before the person got completely healed, it’s okay for us too. He said, okay, do it again. Now I got this crowd of guys around me. It wasn’t a big crowd. It was maybe eight or 10 people, but they’re like freaking out and I’m, I’m starting to get excited cause I’d never seen a blind man heal.
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (18:01):
So I put my hands on his eyes again. Did it again. I said, now open your eyes. He opens his eyes and he starts screaming. I can see, I can see I almost fainted. I was actually looking for that. And I’m I turned my back to him cause I’m just, I was overwhelmed and I lifted my hands and began to praise God. And my friend that knew this guy, he’s bent over, looking right into his eyes. And I hear my friend behind me. That’s looking into his eyes scream. Yeah. I turn around to see why, what he was screaming about. And he’s leaping backwards because he saw something. He grabbed me by the shoulders and looking with intensity. He says to me, Joel, I just saw a miracle. I just watched the color, come back into the guy’s eyes right in front of me.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:42):
Wow. It
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (18:43):
Like crazy. Well, I was already peeked out in excitements, you know, just praising God. So I had to do something. I had to react. Cause that was like shocking. I just started running. I didn’t even know where I was going. And my friend that, that saw the miracle, he passed me. He was excited as I was the guy that was healed, ran home and, and it miracles just started popping like popcorn. Another guy got killed of a tumor on the back of his knee. It disappeared. Another man got killed of chronic, upper respiratory infection was slammed against the wall by the power of God and healed, stuck to the wall. Pastor. Another guy was healed of chronic what is it? Acid reflux. And he was instantly healed. I mean, miracles just started popping and they, they had that people kept getting healed and having experiences with God the rest of the evening. It was powerful.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:32):
That’s amazing. What a miracle ministry. Well, if someone wants to find out more information about your ministry, what is your website?
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (19:38):
The website is the B o.com. It’s T H E B P O m.com. And there’s, I’ve got a connection to Facebook PA my Facebook page where I’m always posting testimonies and you can get my book. You can do the works for Jesus on the, on the website as well. And some other there’s articles and videos. There’s some YouTube videos on there that are equipping videos or very short, maybe 30 minutes or less that people can watch and get equipped to, to walk in miracles and people can even be healed watching the videos or receive the baptism in the holy spirit. It
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:12):
That’s awesome. Well thank you for being on the evangelism podcast, brother. Joel,
Evangelist Joel Crumpton (20:16):
Thank you brother.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:17):
Thanks so much for listening to the evangelism podcast. I am excited about telling people about Jesus and we could not preach the gospel without your help. Over our years of ministry, we found the we’re able to reach one person for Jesus, for every dollar that people give us. And so that means that if you would give us $1, we could start a party in heaven. In fact, I’m asking people to join our partnership program and give at least $1 every single month to help us to lead more people to Jesus. This is the greatest investment of your dollar that you can make. It’s the only investment that’s gonna matter 10,000 years from now. So if you would like to help us lead people to Jesus, please visit king ministries.com K I N G king ministries.com and help us lead people to Jesus today. God bless you
Evangelism Podcast Host (21:19):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches visit K ministries.com. Again that’s king ministries.com.
Donna Schambach | All You Need is Faith in God
Donna Schambach is the daughter of R.W. Schambach, an evangelist who dedicated his life to reaching people for Jesus by doing tent crusades in the inner-cities of America. She has taken up his mantle and continues to preach the Gospel.
Website: https://www.schambachfoundation.org
Transcript:
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Donna Schambach is the daughter of RW. Schambach an evangelist who dedicated his life to reaching people for Jesus. By doing 10 crusades in the inner cities of America, she has taken up his mantle and continues to preach the gospel with boldness.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:21):
Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Welcome to the evangelism podcast with Dr. Daniel King, where Daniel interviews, full-time evangelists, pastors, missionaries, and normal everyday Christians to discover how they share their faith, their powerful testimonies, and amazing stories that will inspire you to reach people with the good news. And now here’s your host, missionary and evangelist Daniel King. Welcome to
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:58):
Evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I am excited about telling people about Jesus today. We have a very special guest with us, Ms. Donna Schambach. Thank you so much for joining us,
Donna Schambach (01:10):
Daniel. It’s so great to be asked. Thank you for having me. I’m glad to be.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:15):
Now. You are the daughter of a great evangelist RW Schambach, who just had a tremendous evangelistic fervor, and actually was one of my father’s heroes. My, my father, he went to one of your father’s meetings in Detroit, Michigan. He had the big tent set up and my dad went every night and volunteered and helped pray. And he learned so much watching your father RW Schambach preached the gospel that my father decided that he wanted a tent. And so he raised money and he went out and bought a tent. So he could do old-fashioned tent crusades, just like your dad.
Donna Schambach (01:59):
That’s pretty awesome. Yes. I grew up in the tent era.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:03):
So tell me some of your father’s ministry and what God did through his life.
Donna Schambach (02:11):
When he got out of Bible school, he had a real desire to see people get healed, and he believed in signs and wonders. My mother said his first pastorate, he spent more time in the hospital, praying for people to get healed than he did in the office. And it was around that time, I would say about 1954, something like that. TLS born came to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and my dad went to see him and a friend of my dad who had a blinded eye from it was an accident in a steel mill. He saw TL call him up in front of thousands of people to pray for him. And he couldn’t believe it. He said, why is this man praying for him in front of all these people? What if he doesn’t get healed? And when TL just very calmly laid his hands on the man’s eyes and just prayed in the name of Jesus and instantly that man received brand new eyes.
Donna Schambach (03:10):
And my dad ran up to see because he knew the man. And when he saw that wasn’t that he saw the miracle, but he saw Dr. TL put it on display. He said, that’s what I want to learn, how to do. And that sent him to an apprenticeship with another healing, evangelist, AA Allen for four and a half years. My dad pretty much ran his organization and preach the afternoon services, preached faith. And at night he saw so many miracles and God did so many things that about 1959, God told him. Now it’s time for you to go out on your own and how that started. God sent him to New York city. He did not have a tent. He did not have a crusade team. He went with my uncle, my mother’s brother. And they went and looked at a theater in Manhattan was a Lowe’s theater.
Donna Schambach (04:09):
And my dad watched the people who were coming in and he said, I bet you, I could rent that facility for more than that man’s making in a month. And he went and he approached the owner and he said, I want to rent this facility for a month. And he made up a flyer, signs, wonders, and miracles, Bible days are here again. And he and my uncle passed them out on the streets of Manhattan. They were their own advancement and they had their first service. There was like 30, 35 people that came. But so many miracles took place that by the end of the month, there are over 2000 people in that theater. And that began his ministry. It started in the inner city of New York from there and went to Newark, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chicago, New York. And he planted wheat Bible centers because there were so many converts coming to the Lord because of the miracles that they saw.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:07):
I remember one of the famous phrases that your father RW buck always said was you don’t have any problems. All you need is faith in God. Give me just a minute. I’m going to pull up that sermon. Let’s listen to a little bit. Yeah,
R.W. Schambach (05:20):
Right now, still the hope for the people of God, let them worship their false idols. I’m not bowing down to any false God. God is God. And he’s the same that day as he watched 2000 years ago. And he is the answer to every one of our problems. You don’t have any trouble. All you need is faith in God.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:50):
What are some of the things that, that you learned from him as a little girl?
Donna Schambach (05:55):
There’s so many things that I learned observing him. He believed that the Bible was the word of God that if God said it, he would do it. And if he spoke it, he would bring it to pass. He said that many, many times. And so he preached the word and he practiced the word. My dad was a very positive person. He lived by faith. Didn’t mean he didn’t have some struggles that he had to walk through some hurtful days. Some days when he had to believe God for money, like all evangelists, but he always kept his confession. His confession was the word of God. My dad also had a boldness to go out in on a limb and faith. You might say, I remember we were in the Czech Republic for the first time in the city of Bruneau and, and the Pentecostal church invited us, but they rented a big soccer facility.
Donna Schambach (06:54):
And when we got there, the man told us, he said, most of these people in this audience, they’re not saved. They never been saved. And I remember watching them, they had their arms folded and my dad preached a gospel message. I had never heard him preach before. And he just, almost like a lawyer laid out the message of the gospel, but I could see the people were still sitting there with their arms folded. And all of a sudden he spotted a deaf and mute young man and pulled him up in front of all those unbelieving people and put his fingers in his ear. Like you usually did commanded those deaf spirits to come out, had that young boy talking. And when they saw the power of God, put on display, over half of that audience came forward to receive Jesus that night. It just blew my mind. And I, I said, dad, how did you know he was going to get healed? How did you know it? And he was a man of few words, but now I understand it because of my own ministry. He said there was just that inner knowing that God was going to do it. And what we would understand to be a form of the word of knowledge, that’s just the spirit of God working with us. And, but he was willing to put God on display
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:13):
And you have a very strong evangelistic gifting on your life. In fact, I think that the, the anointing gets stronger from, from generation to generation. And so how old were you when you started in ministry? Did you grow up, participating in the ministry with him?
Donna Schambach (08:32):
Honestly, my dad would not push us in ministry known as very young. He might have me come and sing and I’m not a singer. And I let him know that I’m straight up, but no, I pursued education. That was, I felt like I was going to be in Christian school education, the rest of my life. In fact, I had been in the Bronx for nine years. I was in the middle of that assignment. When the pastors around me started to talk to me about speaking gifts. And they felt like I should pursue a minister’s license, which I didn’t feel called to preach at all. And I said, you’re not going to call me. My, my parents never pushed it, but I did get honest with the Lord. I said, I’m hearing this enough father, but if you want me to be a preacher, you’re going to have to call me.
Donna Schambach (09:21):
And I’m going to tell you Daniel four and a half years later, he answered that. And he woke me up at five o’clock in the morning, which I am not a morning person, but it felt like God’s hand grabbed me in the pit of my stomach and grabbed me out of bed. I was wide awake. He sent me to my chair. He had me open to Luke chapter one. And when I got to verse 17, I knew he was calling me to preach. He talked about the ministry of John the Baptist, and he said, I’m raising you up in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers, to the children, the disobedient, to the wisdom of the just and to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And then he said these three words, and I had never heard him use together missionary teacher evangelist.
Donna Schambach (10:12):
And I knew in my heart that everything that I had done with training children and their parents teaching the precepts of scripture, that all of that was formulating a call on my life. That would not just be in one local facility, but would it be global? And so how many years ago was that, that you received that call? That’s going back now almost 30 years. And honestly, even though I worked beside my dad for 25 years, I was his afternoon speaker. God was showing me how to work in the power gifts and do an altar call and run a ministry basically when he died. I remember the day that I had to go back into the studio to do the new openings and closings, to tell people that he was gone. And when I came out, I felt the weight of his ministry fall on my shoulders.
Donna Schambach (11:12):
And I said, Lord, I can’t carry this. I’m not RW Schambach. And he said so quickly to me, he said, I never told Joshua to go back and pick up Moses rod. He said, I told Joshua would he use his feet? And every bit of ground, the soles of his feet tread upon, I’d give it to him. And he said, if you will be obedient to me, he said, I’ll take you places that your father has never gone. And I it’s been a trust relationship since then, but 30 days from that day, I was in my first crusade call-in centers to Jesus and seeing miracles take place. And it’s been happening ever since.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:54):
And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. The same Jesus that worked in your father’s life works in your life. And your ministry now is multifaceted. You continue the passion for soul winning and even holding crusades in different parts of America. Also doing women’s meetings, which you are sharing with me some today. And also you have a school of ministry where you’re, you’re training the next generation. Tell, tell me about that.
Donna Schambach (12:24):
You know, when my dad was still alive, the last 10, 15 years of his life, he kept saying over and over again in his messages, God is raising up an end time army to do the works of Christ and the power of Christ. And I said to him, I said, dad, you know, there are so many young ministers that want to be the Elatia to you. And he says, I’m not a teacher. I said, I know you’re not a teacher, you’re a preacher, but I believe that we could put some teaching together. We could do a school of ministry and people would come here just to hear you talk and hear your experiences. And so we put together a school of ministry the last 10 years of his life. And when this year hit 2020, and we couldn’t travel, the Lord took me right to all of those notebooks and all of that curriculum.
Donna Schambach (13:16):
And I said, we’re going to put this online because that vision, that the Lord gave him about an end time army of evangelists that needs to come to fruition. And I know that there are a lot of people who’ll never go to seminary and there are things that evangelists need to know that seminaries don’t teach and there’s ministry in the spirit that comes through a tutor Lynch, you know, it comes through learning. And also, I believe two Mo more is caught than taught. And so I’ve put together some of my own teaching, some of the curriculum for that my dad used to teach. And then I’ve invited some of the evangelists that I know to come and be part of that school. And we launched shadowbox school of ministry this year online.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:03):
Wow. So if someone wanted to receive training in evangelism from the Schambach school of ministry, how would they,
Donna Schambach (14:10):
It’s so easy rather than trying to spell Schambach they just go to Donna global.com, Donna global.com. And it’ll take you right to our school of ministry
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:20):
And you’re continuing to, to do ministry. Can people donate to you at that place too?
Donna Schambach (14:26):
Absolutely. And go to the same place and become a partner or just give, as you feel led to do that. And we’re believing God that this next decade is going to be a decade of great harvest. So when you invest, you’re investing in soles, everything, every book we sell every course goes to winning souls to the Lord Christ.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:52):
Well, I’d encourage you if you’re listening and you have a heart for evangelism, go and support Donna Schambach in her ministry she has big vision and she needs all the resources she can get. And so go and, and, and, and help her out. What word would you give to someone who wants to be used by God in the area of evangelism? What would you say to them?
Donna Schambach (15:17):
My dad would say the first word of evangelism is go. And if you feel a call to the ministry, just begin telling people about Jesus right now, what a school that is, you’ll learn about the hearts of people and what they’re thinking, what their needs are and begin to pray with them. But you also need to think about some training, even if it is just a short-term training school. There’s so much to learn about the cultures and people of the world and how, how you go into an area and, and deal with the culture. It’s important to know that and also just knowing about the spiritual gifts and how you can be used in them and how you can flow and hearing the voice of the Holy spirit. These are all important things. So set aside some time to study, but don’t let anything hold you back. You can be used of God right now, be baptized in the Holy spirit. If you haven’t gotten that in yet. And Jesus said it this way, you shall receive power. When the Holy spirit comes upon you and you will be witnesses unto me, and then just let him do it through you.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:25):
Amen. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Miss Donna,
Evangelism Podcast Host (16:30):
For more information about how to share your faith or to financially support our worldwide evangelistic outreaches, visit King ministries.com. Again, that’s King ministries.com.