Learn more about the ministry of Zac Linton: https://www.overflow.global/

Key Verses on Taking a Ministry Sabbatical:

Exodus 20:8-10 (Fourth Commandment – Sabbath):
”Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it, you shall do no work…”

Genesis 2:2-3 (God’s Rest After Creation):
”And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

Mark 6:31 (Jesus’ Invitation to Rest):
”And he said to them, ‘Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”

Matthew 11:28-30 (Jesus’ Call to Rest):
”Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Psalm 23:1-3 (The Lord as Our Shepherd):
”The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul.”

Isaiah 40:31 (Renewed Strength):
”But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

Psalm 46:10 (Be Still and Know):
”Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth.”

Leviticus 25:4-5 (Sabbatical Year):
”But in the seventh year, there shall be a Sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a Sabbath to the Lord. You shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.”

Jeremiah 31:25 (Refresh the Weary Soul):
”For I will satisfy the weary soul, and every languishing soul I will replenish.”

Psalm 34:8 (Taste and See):
 “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!”

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:11):
Welcome to the Evangelism Podcast. I’m Daniel King and I’m excited to tell people about Jesus Today. I have a very special guest with me. Zac Linton, thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Zac Linton (00:27):
Yeah, great to be here. Thank you Daniel.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:29):
All right, Zach, you lead overflow ministries and you have a great heart for evangelism. Tell me a little bit about how you got started in evangelism.

Zac Linton (00:43):
Well, there’s a much very long story, but the brief version is I gave my life to the Lord at age 21 after growing up Christian, but backsliding from the Lord for quite a number of years. I was involved in a car accident, which was a very serious situation at the time, and God used that to wake me up spiritually. And so from age 21 until now, and I’m 42 now, so it’s been actually exactly 21 years since then I’ve been walking with the Lord. I was a part of a vineyard church for a number of years in northern California, which is where I’ve spent most of my life in my ministry. And then I spent a couple of years up at Bethel Church in Redding getting some ministry training and equipping. And then I was a part of a church in San Francisco from 2008 into 2013.

(01:29):
So I would be a part of the team that would lead outreaches across the city of San Francisco. I’ve done a lot of street ministry and so on and so forth. But even from a young age, I’ve always had a heart for Jesus. And even when I was much younger, I remember telling some of my friends about the Lord. So I guess you could say it’s always been a part of my d n a and I believe who the Lord’s called me to be. And then in 2013, about a decade ago, I felt the Lord called me to begin my own ministry, which is called Overflow Ministries. And I’ve been doing this now for a decade, an independent evangelistic ministry, traveling and speaking around the world, winning people to Christ. And so that’s how it basically all happened.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:10):
So tell me about the name of your ministry Overflow ministries. Talk to me about the overflow.

Zac Linton (02:18):
Well, John 10 says that the thief comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. But Jesus says, I have come that you would have life and life abundant. That word abundant can also be translated as overflow or as more than enough. One of my favorite scriptures, two of my favorite scriptures that are still life scriptures for me to this day are Psalm 23, 5 and John 15, five, Psalm 23, 5 says, thou anoints my head with oil, my cup runneth over and John 15, five, Jesus says, I am the vine. You are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him will bear much fruit for apart from me. You can do nothing. And so I really felt from an early age that the Lord, those are very foundational scriptures for me, not only for the ministry, but really for my own personal walk with Jesus Christ.

(03:10):
I believe that religion, check this revelation. Religion tells people to try to bear fruit in order to abide, but relationship with Jesus. And the gospel says, first you abide that you’ll bear much fruit. And so what I learned was a lot of people are stuck in trying to do all these things for God. And that’s really what Paul addresses in some of his epistles of you who began in the spirit are you now being perfected by the law or by the flesh? And I feel like some people, depending on your background, maybe you really want to be a good Christian or you really want to follow the Lord or you really have a value for holiness. And all those things are wonderful and those things are from the Lord. But what the revelation that really set me free in my own personal walk is that God wants us to have an overflow of the Holy Spirit that begins with our faith in Christ and what he has done for us on the cross, which none of us deserved and none of us could ever earn, but it’s a life empowered by the Holy Spirit that truly is a glorious and a joyful and a victorious one.

(04:06):
And so I just named my ministry that so I could constantly remind myself to never get into striving, to never try and do it in my own strength, my own thinking, my own human ability to always rely on the overflow of the Holy Spirit. And I really try to impart that whether I’m preaching in churches or mentoring or whatever, that’s really a core value that I want people to understand from my ministry as well.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:28):
Now, you’ve done a lot of ministry in California. You started out preaching on the University of California, Berkeley campus, and there is a real mission field there, a lot of people that really need Jesus. What are some of the questions that people are asking these days and how do you answer them?

Zac Linton (04:53):
Wow, that’s a whole podcast in and of itself. Yeah, it’s funny. So let me tell a little bit of this story and I’ll answer your question as well. So I mean, I began the ministry by going to uc, Berkeley. That’s kind of the target that I felt the Lord called me to in the very inception of the ministry. So I would go out into the center of campus, I’d bring my Bible with me, and I would just begin preaching the word of God, open air. And it definitely stirred up some feathers, a lot of demons manifested. I mean, I was cursed at, I was yelled at. I had people hiss at me a few times and I definitely had some people listening. So it was sort of a little bit of everything that you found. And it’s funny because I think no matter how much we prepare, and there’s nothing wrong with apologetics, we absolutely I think should study certain questions and certain people are called more specifically to those kinds of ministries.

(05:44):
But what I really found worked for me was just saying, you know what, Lord, I don’t have all the answers to all the questions. I know you’ve given all of us to mind, but Jesus said to his apostles that when you’re brought before kings and governors, don’t worry about what you’re going to say because it will be given to you in that hour what to speak because it will not be you speaking, but it will be the spirit of your father. And so my prayer literally, I mean this sounds simple and sorry to give you guys an answer that isn’t a formula, but it’s just reliance on the Holy Spirit and literally saying, Lord, would you give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that when these people come to ask me these questions that I have some sort of an answer that’s of you?

(06:21):
Now, a few of the questions that I did encounter regularly or objections you might say. The other thing to encourage anyone who’s just getting started in evangelism or college ministry or whatever is that Solomon writes in Ecclesiastes that there’s nothing new under the sun. And I think what you’ll find is after I’ve been doing street ministry and preaching in churches in various places around the world for a long time, and after a little while it becomes like this well-worn path where you’re like, okay, I’ve heard that objection before. Okay, I’ve heard that excuse before. Okay, I’ve heard that problem before. So one of them is, well, what do I need God for? I’ll just find my own path. I’ll find my own truth. I believe in Buddhism, I was raised Muslim, I was raised Catholic. I don’t believe in the Bible because of X, Y and Z.

(07:07):
And so it’s sort of this, I feel like at the core of a lot of objections nowadays, Daniel, is this what I would call war on just truth in and of itself that this idea that there is no one truth, that there are many different truths, and really truth is subjective, it’s no longer absolute. And when you look at the laws of the universe, it says in Romans one that since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities have been made known. So that man is without excuse and no serious common sense person would argue with gravity or with all these things in the universe that are so consistent, that are so absolute that we know we can rely on these things. And yet when it comes to God or it comes to the path of salvation, it’s just amazing to me how people are so self-deceived into thinking that I can just, I use this example all the time.

(07:53):
I say, okay, if I’m in northern California and I want to get to la, are you telling me I can just point my car in any direction I want to go in and I could just drive as hard as I want and I’m eventually going to get to la? And they would say, well, that’s ridiculous. I’ll say, well then it’s literally that’s no more ridiculous than you telling me that you can just find your own path to God or you can just do whatever you want and that’s going to be good enough to get you into heaven. So that’s a big objection. The other thing I noticed too, a lot, Daniel, is that when people are offended or upset at you for preaching the word of God, there’s usually a root issue. I’m sure you’ve seen this as well. You have a lot of experiences in the ministry.

(08:28):
And usually what I try to discern when I’m speaking with somebody is what’s really going on with this person? Sometimes they’ll be giving me this philosophical argument of if God is so true, then why is there suffering in the world? Why did this happen or why would he allow? Those are very common types of objections, but often what I find is that’s not even the real objection. The real objection is I’m angry at God because my sister has cancer or my sister has down syndrome. I’m angry at God because my parents are divorced or I’m angry at God because my boyfriend left me or hurt me, or my girlfriend left me. And so it’s like people project onto God, all the pain they’ve been through in life for whatever reason, God gets blamed for that, and then that becomes a wound inside of them, and then that sort of becomes a barrier to God.

(09:12):
And so a lot of times when I’m speaking with people, I think there’s a place for intellectually answering their questions, but we need to go deeper. And that goes back to what I said earlier about wisdom and listening to the Holy Spirit. You have to say, okay, holy Spirit, what does this man or woman really need? Number one, are they even open to your gospel or am I just having an argument with somebody? Because one of my rules is the moment I feel like I’m just getting into some argument with somebody who really isn’t open at all to the gospel, they just want to argue and debate with me, I’ll usually exit that conversation pretty quickly and I’ll tell you why. First of all, it’s generally not fruitful at all. And number two, the more time I spend with Joe argumentative over here, the less time I have to keep reaching out to other people on the campus. And so all I can say is, I mean, there’s so many other questions and objections probably that I could talk about, but I’d say the biggest ones are, I’ll find my own truth, or I think I’m a good person, so therefore I don’t really need God. I think I’m good enough to go to heaven. And again, these are not new objections.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:14):
Now you’re doing something very unique this year. You are taking a ministry sabbatical. Talk to me about why you’re doing that and why you think it’s important for ministers to take sabbaticals from time to time and to have a time for spiritual renewal.

Zac Linton (10:37):
Yeah. Well, first of all, I’m from the western world in America, and for all of America’s great qualities, I would say that there’s definitely kind of a workaholism that’s pretty inbred into our culture. And so really, God kind of brought this sabbatical upon me. I’ve read through the scriptures a number of times, so I know that God rested on the seventh day, but I hadn’t really dug deeply into what I would call a deeper, more extended sabbatical. And frankly, I’d never heard anybody teach on the subject ever. I mean, I never heard a sermon on a Sunday about you need to take a year off to seek the Lord and to rest. And so the way it came about for me was at the end of last year, which was going on my ninth year in ministry with Overflow Ministries, I was at my parents’ church in northern California just visiting around the Christmas holiday season.

(11:29):
And I ran into an old friend of our family and we were talking, and she just asked me a simple question during our conversation. She said, Zach, I really focus on helping minister to ministers because oftentimes ministers themselves are very neglected, they’re burned out and they’re always giving, but most people are blind to the fact that those folks need ministry as well. She said all that to me. And then she asked me this question, she said, when was the last time you took a sabbatical? And as soon as she said that, it was like I knew it was the Holy Spirit talking to me like a ton of bricks just kind of hit me right in my chest. And I paused and I said, I haven’t. And it was like the Lord used that conversation and the woman was so nice, she wasn’t scolding me or, oh man, you’re going to burn out you.

(12:12):
This is wrong. You need to hurry up and repent and do. I mean, she didn’t say any of that. She just asked me one simple question and the Lord used that. And so after that I just realized like, wow, Lord, the more I thought about it, I realized if the biblical rhythm is once every seven years, and where that comes from is if you study the Old Testament, the Lord actually tells Israel to rest, to allow the land to rest for an entire year. And what’s amazing is when you study that, Israel freaks out because they say, well, wait a minute, God, are you kidding me? If we rest for a whole year, if we don’t plant crops and plow and do all this work and do all this stuff that we usually do, we’re going to starve to death. And the Lord says, no, you’re not.

(12:51):
I’m going to provide for you. I’m going to bless you. I’m going to bless you double. And we also see that in the wilderness when the children of Israel are going through the wilderness for 40 years, that the Lord began to send the manna every day, and on the sixth day he sent them a double portion so they could rest on the seventh day. And so we see this principle, this is part of who God is and who his character is. And so as I began preparing for this, I started praying and saying, Lord, I don’t even know how to do this. What do I even do? Am I just supposed to hang out and watch Netflix for a year? And I was like, of course. That’s not what I’m supposed to do. And as I prayed into it, and again, I hesitate to give a formula. I want to give principles. I do believe the Lord can uniquely tailor it for each and every person, but I think that the principle is God is a God of rest. And that when we go through ministry, I don’t know about anyone watching this podcast, but somebody needs to hear this. I’ve been through betrayals, I’ve been through heartbreaks, I’ve been through hard times, I’ve been through persecutions. I’ve seen God do amazing things like salvations and miracles and healings, but I’ve also been through a lot. And I feel like in other

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:52):
Words, you’re doing real ministry. I mean, that’s the story. If you’re in ministry long enough, you are going to experience some of those things. It it’s never easy. And if yout, and it takes an emotional toil on people.

Zac Linton (14:07):
Yeah. Amen. And so I think I remember also right around the time I was having this conversation with this lady, a friend of mine who’s a pastor out of Chicago. He said, Zach, I just heard some recent big church-wide study that was done in America that 40% of pastors are thinking of quitting the ministry. And when I heard that statistic, I said, wow, Lord, something is really wrong with that. And I’m not saying that there’s just one simple answer to that, but I would argue that one of the big, big reasons for that is I really believe in our American culture. We have neglected the command and the gift I will add of Sabbath that the Lord has given us. And so as I was praying about it getting ready, this is what I felt like the Lord said to me, he, Zach, pull back from public ministry for the most part.

(14:54):
Okay, obviously we’re doing this podcast, but for the most part I canceled. I had an international trip invitation to Pakistan this year that I had to call the gentleman and say, you know what? I’m so grateful for this opportunity, but I think we’re going to have to put it off till another year or a couple years from now. And I said, I’m not really looking to preach or teach in any churches. I’m not going to be doing any street evangelism, at least not leading a bunch of teams in street. And so it was like just pulling back from the public ministry in order to focus on the private ministry. And so the Lord gave me six goals for this year, and I’m going to share them briefly. My first goal, and I believe this is for anyone who takes a sabbatical, is that Jesus Christ has to be your first love and he has to be my first love.

(15:38):
In Revelation we see that, that there’s churches that are doing so amazing and they’re winning the loss and they’re resisting false teachers and they’re doing all this hardcore stuff and even resisting persecution. And Jesus literally says, but this one thing I have against you, you’ve forgotten your first love. And I want to tell you something that is so grievous that when you read that passage further, he says, if you do not repent, I will come and remove your lampstand. That’s how serious our relationship and our intimacy with Jesus should be to all of us. And so I think one of the dangers is we get so focused on ministry that ministry can actually become an idol, and we can be so focused on ministry and Oh, I got to do this event and I got to raise money and I got to mentor my team and disciple this and get a building and do this and dah, dah, dah.

(16:20):
And again, nothing wrong with those things in their proper places. So that’s the first thing is that Jesus would always be our first love. Secondly, and thirdly, the Lord told me to read through the whole Bible this year, which isn’t really even that big of a goal. But the third one that he said was, Zach, I want you to memorize scripture a lot more intentionally this year than you have previously. And just sharing this to whoever may see this around the world in America and the Western world, at least up until now, we’re so blessed with the fact that we have very easy access to the word of God and to Bibles. But I’m sure that Daniel has seen this in some of his ministry. I mean, you go into some nations and you don’t get easy access to the scriptures. A matter of fact, some people, if they’re caught with the Bible, they can be put in prison or arrested for it.

(17:03):
And it was like the Holy Spirit was convicted me like, Zach, you take the Bible for granted because you think you’re always going to have it. What if you didn’t have it like a year from now? What if you didn’t have it five years from now? How much of it would you actually have within you memorized? And so I’ve really felt convicted this year to really press in more to memorizing the word of God. So those are my three first three goals. The last three is just kind of going through inner healing. I call it healing and wisdom, just processing the stuff that we all go through in ministry and life and not just feeling better about it, but really looking at it through the lens of Jesus Christ, looking at it through the lens of God’s redemption and the cross. And even being able to say, like Joseph said, though, maybe that person or that situation was meant for evil against me.

(17:45):
The Lord can turn all those things into good. And that’s a process, and I just want to encourage somebody watching this. I have spent time in nature, I’ve spent time praying and worshiping, and the Lord will just kind of peel back a layer. Sometimes when I’m in those places, I’ve spent time talking to pastors and friends like Daniel or many others that I’ve had the privilege to know around the United States. And God just, he’s so amazing. He weaves it all together where he brings healing in those places that we need it. But I feel like you have to make room for it. And that’s the purpose of Sabbath is you’re taking a step back in order to listen more to the Lord, in order to allow the Lord to do those deep works, those deep surgeries within us that we need. And then my fifth and sixth goal is number five.

(18:24):
God would establish me. I feel like I’m in a transitional phase right now where I’m really seeking the Lord about where he wants me to be located for the next 10 years of ministry. I’m feeling like my hour in California is coming to an end, so I’m just praying into that. I’m asking for the Lord also to just connect me with the right team and the right people that I need to run with for this next decade of life. And then my last goal is to finish writing my book. So that’s what my sabbatical has looked like. And I’ve had the privilege to travel across the us. I’ve stayed in homes, I’ve stayed in Airbnbs, I’ve even been homeless a couple days this year. But to God be the glory, and for me, I feel like it’s just been this incredible adventure with the Lord where he has shown me his faithfulness again and again, this is the other crazy thing.

(19:07):
When I was getting ready for my journey, I was getting ready and I was packing everything and I grabbed one of my credit cards. I thought, what if some crazy emergency happens? What if my car blows up? Or what if some unexpected thing happens? I need this credit card as a backup just to take care of everything. And as soon as I put my finger on that card, I felt a check in my spirit. And the Holy Spirit said to me, Zach, are you going to trust in debt or are you going to trust in me?

(19:36):
And that just wrecked me. And so I said, okay, Lord. So I put the credit card back in the desk and I just said, I’m not going to bring it. I’m not going to have a plan B. Now that seems really foolish and reckless if you don’t have faith and if the Lord has not spoken to you, but when the Lord has told you to do something, he will supply everything that you and I need in order to accomplish that. The day before I left on my sabbatical at the beginning of the year, I got together with a gentleman who’s a friend of our family for coffee. He wanted to meet with me. We had a great time of prayer fellowship. And right before we were ending, he said, I have something for you. Don’t go anywhere. He goes to his car, he comes back and he hands me an envelope with over $5,000 cash in it.

(20:16):
And he said, this is manna for your journey. And I just sat in my car, Daniel, and I just wept for probably 15 minutes after that because I just thought, Lord, why would I doubt you? I feel like the Lord wants to challenge all of us, and I’m just sharing this testimony to stir all of our faith up. God is so much bigger. God has a better way than our way. God has a better way if we’ll actually trust him. And I feel like one of the words of the Lord to the American church is that we’ve trusted too much in marketing schemes and fundraising schemes and man’s plans and programs instead of really listening and depending on the Holy Spirit and doing what he has told us to do. And so anyway, I could continue on for another half an hour, but this sabbatical has changed my life, Daniel, seriously, I feel like a young child again in my spirit, I can feel the Lord peeling back layers of my heart healing me.

(21:06):
I feel more in love with Jesus now than I have been in so many years. And so I want to encourage you, if you feel burned out, I would argue you need to take a sabbatical. If you have the faith, take a whole year off and watch God do miracles for you, but at least get away for a couple of months and say, Lord, help me to be re-centered. Help me to remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. Fall back in love with Jesus. Spend time with your family. If you’re married and you have kids, get out into nature. Just slow down because like I said, when we’re so busy, we don’t have room in our spirits to just listen to God. I think a lot of people are busy doing stuff, and I liken it to a car stuck in the mud. You can be busy but not moving anywhere.

(21:46):
A car in the mud is running and spinning its wheels and it’s trying really hard. And maybe that’s you right now watching this podcast. Maybe you feel that way. I want to encourage you get unstuck by just getting on the mountain with the Lord like Moses to get away with God. Like Samuel in the prophets. And this is the last thing I’ll say about it, Daniel, when Jesus was at this beautiful moment of his ministry just preached the sermon on the Mount, thousands of people are listening to him multiplying the loaves and the fish, and everybody’s looking for Jesus. And then he says to his disciple, let’s go away for a little while. Let’s just go on the mountain side and be all by ourselves in America. We’d be like, wait a minute. You mean you’re not going to do another conference? You’re not going to go do another outreach. You’re not going to go preach another big. It’s like, no, we’re going to do that in its proper time and place, but we need that time to rest. So anyway, I pray that ministers to you, whoever you are watching.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:37):
So if you meet a minister who is on the verge of burning out and just been overwhelmed by the stress and strain of ministry, what advice would you give them as they consider going on a sabbatical?

Zac Linton (22:54):
Yeah, I would say number one is probably do a one to a three day water fast and just really ask the Lord to speak to you concerning what he wants your sabbatical to look like. I can’t overemphasize how important that is. I have a lot to say on this subject, Daniel. I really believe. So one of the key scriptures for me this year, and I would argue for all of us as we press more into the heart of God, I call it running at the pace of grace, and Jesus said that my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That’s Matthew chapter 11. Now, one of the theme verses for this year is Isaiah 40 31, and it says this, but those that wait upon the Lord will what? Will renew their strength, they will mount up with wings like eagles that will run and not be weary and they will walk and not faint.

(23:42):
I literally believe, I’m not saying we don’t go through persecutions. I’m not saying we don’t go through difficulties and hardships. All of us do, but I don’t believe the will of God for you or me is to be in a place of extended discouragement or weariness. I absolutely do not believe that’s from the Lord. That’s why we have the comforter. That’s why we have the advocate. That’s why we have the fire of the God in our spirits. And I believe that people get into that place of discouragement and weariness and wanting to give up for two reasons. One, they’ve allowed willful sin into their life somehow, whatever that might be. Okay? And there’s a very simple solution to that. You need to repent, amen. If you’re doing drugs, if you’re doing anything behind the scenes that the Lord has said that’s wrong, you need to repent and let me encourage you to find a brother or two in Christ that you can be accountable to.

(24:28):
I think a lot of people in ministry feel alone. They feel two things. One, they feel alone. Two, they feel like if I actually get open and confess, it’s going to ruin my ministry, it’s going to ruin my marriage. And not to say there aren’t any consequences to sin depending on what it is that’s been going on behind closed doors, but I want to say, I think it’s a lot better to just come out and just be upfront with it and say, you know what, Lord, whatever it is, whatever issue’s been going on, just confess it. Get it in the open, and God, I believe God will have a path of restoration. I’m not saying it’s always going to be easy, but the alternative is you’re going to die anyways. If you stay in that sin, God’s eventually going to bring judgment on you and your ministry and trust me, it’s going to be way, way, way worse in the end.

(25:09):
And so that’s number one. But the other one is that I think people become weary and discouraged because they’ve disconnected from the source. And that’s why it goes right back to the whole idea of this overflow ministries, John 15, five, Psalm 23, we can’t bear fruit by ourselves. And I feel like a lot of people are branches that have disconnected from intimacy with the vine, and they’re striving and struggling to try to keep their ministry going and their marriage going and win the loss and do this. And it’s like, guys, that’s insanity. Please, Lee, stop. Don’t do that anymore. Just get alone with Jesus. Allow him to restore your soul and restore your heart. And I really believe Sabbath is God’s methodology. It’s kind of like a honeymoon. It’s like an anniversary. You’re married to your wife and you want to renew that intimacy. Guess what?

(25:52):
You’re not going to do it if you’re both just crazy busy all the time just missing each other like ships in the night. You have to be intentional. Amen. You have to pause. You have to say, wait a minute, where did we disconnect? When did that happen? Oh, a year ago. Oh my gosh. We need to look at this. And because my conviction, I already shared when we wait on the Lord, when we seek his face, when Jesus truly is the thing that I’m after more than even my ministry. And I feel too, like somebody watching this might need to hear that our ministry is not our identity. Okay? I’m not Zach the evangelist or Zach the prophet. I’m Zach, the child of the living God because of his great mercy, because of the blood of the lamb. Amen. And you’re a son or you’re a daughter of the most high God you see.

(26:33):
And when we understand that that’s our identity, we’re no longer performing for acceptance. We’re not performing in order to feel good about ourselves in order to prove anything to anybody. We’re simply overflowing with the love of Christ, with the gospel, with the good news and with the truth that a dying world desperately needs to hear. And I’ll be the first to confess that no matter how much you think, you’re never going to somehow stray back into some sort of weird performance mindset. I feel like it’s just part of, sadly, the fleshly human nature. And so it’s good to have these rhythms of saying, you know what? Let me pause. Let me have an intentional time of checking in with the Lord and allowing him to renew my soul, to answer that question and recap fast and pray and ask the Lord what your sabbatical should look like, and then address one of the two issues and really try to identify, is there sin in my life I need to deal with and or have I disconnected from the vine? Have I let ministry or the stresses of life or other things literally become God to me instead of making sure that Jesus is God?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:32):
As you come out of this sabbatical, I believe your ministry is going to be stronger and more powerful than ever before. More nations, more preaching, more people reach than you ever have before because there will be a new strength that is coming. If someone is interested in learning more about your ministry, what is your website? How can they get in touch with you?

Zac Linton (28:02):
You can just go to overflow.global is the website address. I also have a YouTube channel, and you can reach that by going to zach linson.com, or you can look me up on YouTube by just typing my name in. But you just put zach linson.com, your browser, it’ll forward you to my YouTube, and that’s spelled Z A C L I N T O n.com, and then overflow Do global. There’s not a.com on it. It’s global. So those are my two websites. I mean, I am honored to connect with other people. If you feel called by the Lord, you have a question. If you want to somehow participate in Global Missions or join our pro team or do whatever, then I’m happy to be a resource to you. But please check out Daniel’s ministry as well. He’s doing an incredible work, and you guys, Jesus is coming back soon, and so I just feel like, you know what?

(28:53):
If I could say this last word to all of us, man, we’re all on the same team, and I really do believe that as we get closer and closer to the coming of Christ, and I do believe we’re starting to see a lot more and more and more of what we would call birth pains in the earth and in the nations leading up to that, I feel like let’s be more unified if we can agree on Jesus Christ crucified and raised, the Bible’s, the word of God, and that everybody needs his salvation, otherwise you going to heaven or Hell. I feel like if we can unite around those essentials, we can lovingly maybe have discussions about the other peripheral doctrinal disagreements perhaps we may have, but let’s do it in love and let’s do our best to pray for believe in speak well of encourage and labor together in the harvest of God.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:38):
Now, you told me earlier that one of the things that you’re praying for is a spouse to join you in ministry, and so if there is a cute girl who’s listening, what’s the best phone number for her to reach you at?

Zac Linton (29:53):
You know what? I don’t know if I want to give out my phone number on

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:55):
This podcast,

Zac Linton (29:57):
But you can. I mean, if you want to send me an email and just say, hi, I’m more than happy to meet you. Yeah, I mean, just send me an email. My email is Zach Zac c@divineoverflow.org, or you can send me a message to my website and say, I saw the podcast. I’d love to talk to you sometime. So I’m open to some of those conversations if you’re so bold as you want to send me that message.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:20):
I was totally joking, but I actually met my wife on the mission field, on the border of Rwanda in Congo, and so when you’re doing what God has called you to do and running after him, if you find someone who’s running in the same direction, that could be the right person for you. So amen. I know there’s a lot of godly women out there that are just praying that God’s in them, a godly spouse too.

Zac Linton (30:46):
Yeah, and I’ll be honest with you on that note, anybody who’s single men or women, it’s like a vast wasteland out there, to be honest with you. I mean, I tried the online dating thing a couple of times, really, really didn’t like it at all. And so maybe there’s people like me that you just feel like, man, I would like to meet somebody amazing who I feel like is a good compliment to who I am without compromising your values and your beliefs. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I think I’ve, I’m still single at this point. It’s not the only one, which is a whole separate podcast in and of itself, but I want to encourage you that, yeah, I mean, just stay true to the faith. And like Daniel said, I believe that if you pray and you wait on the Lord, whether you meet ’em at church, you meet ’em through a podcast, you meet ’em on some conference, you meet ’em, go door to door evangelism with a group or something, that God has those people out there and yeah, I wish it was a little bit easier though just to connect people.

(31:37):
I wish there was a Holy Spirit sort of matchmaking service that wasn’t creepy or weird or awkward where they could help people get matched up. I’m sure there’s a lot of other people out. We

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:47):
Should start a website though. Holy Spirit hookup. In fact, if you get any emails out of this podcast, I’m going to change the name to the Evangelism and Christian Dating Podcast. That’d be great.

Zac Linton (32:01):
Yeah, there we go. That’ll be awesome.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:03):
Hey, Zach, thank you so much for joining me on the Evangelism Podcast. So good to hear about your ministry. I know God has big things in store for you, and thank you for sharing some of these really important thoughts about the power of taking a sabbatical.

Zac Linton (32:18):
Yeah, amen. God bless you. Can we close with the word of prayer?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:22):
Please go for it.

Zac Linton (32:23):
Yeah. Father, I just thank you for those who are watching. If somehow you’re watching this and you’re either on the fence or a churchgoer, but you haven’t given your life to Christ, just say yes to him right now. Say, Jesus, I want to make you my Lord and Savior. I believe you died for me and Rose again. I repent and put my life into your hands, and God will guide you. Find a church, get a Bible. If you need resources, please reach out to Daniel’s ministry, or if you’d like to reach out to mine, we’d love to help you. And Father, for everyone else, God, we just release encouragement specifically to anybody in ministry, Lord, any leaders, any associate pastors, worship leaders, pastors, evangelists, missionaries, whoever, business leaders, God who just feel discouraged, who feel like they’ve been fighting an uphill battle with little support.

(33:07):
God, I just pray in the name of Jesus for a breaking to take place for a wave of encouragement. God, I pray you will show them where and if they may have gotten stuck somewhere, Lord, release this revelation that you are the God of rest. Lord, your word says that you give rest to your beloved Lord. Your word says that as we wait upon you, we will renew our strength. So we just speak a renewing of strength. We rebuke discouragement, we rebuke fear. We rebuke every lie. The devil that would try to take you out because you are needed in the end time. Army of God, you are important and you’re not important because of your performance. You’re important because you’re a son, because you’re a daughter of the most high God. So Father, we give you the honor and the praise, Lord, we say, let your work continue throughout America, throughout the nation. Scott, thank you for Daniel and his ministry as well. Lord, I pray for an overflow. God, I pray for the funding, the resources, the team, and the expansion, Lord, in the years ahead of souls, and we give you the honor and the praise, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:03):
Amen. Thank you, Zac. Appreciate it.

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The post Zac Linton | The Power of a Ministry Sabbatical appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Learn more about Chagy the Clown: http://www.chagy.com/ 

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. I’ve never had a guest like this on the podcast before. Chagy the Clown. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast!

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (00:15):
Yeah, baby. We’re excited. We’re just like, excited to, to do what God want us to do, you know? So we are here, what, what, what we need to learn today.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:25):
Now, I love meeting you and love hearing about what you do because I got started in ministry doing clown ministry. Okay. My parents were missionaries in Mexico, and we were going out on the streets trying to get the kids to come to the church. And we found that a great way to attract the kids was to put on a clown suit, put on horrible looking makeup, and we would run through the streets and, and the kids would come, and then we would be dressed up at clowns at the church, and, and the kids expected us to do something. So me and, and my brother, we started being funny and entertaining the kids. Yes. And so the whole first 10 years of my ministry dressing up like a clown. And so we learned to juggle ride unicycles, ventriloquism. And you’ve been doing that, but at a very high level, kind of talk to me about your experience. Okay. In, in doing clowning. Well,

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (01:15):
First you need to understand that the Bible talks about clowns.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:19):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (01:20):
Why did you say that? In first Corinthian 1 27, it says, for God has chosen the foolish things of this world to confound the wises. So yeah. With the foolish <laugh>, so, no. But we just started, I started 30 years ago actually in Puerto Rico. It was, I was trying to find a way to reach people in the streets. And I was a missionary for Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. And I, I saw all these evangelists in the streets doing evangelists the old way, which in some places it works. But in my country back then the people will not stop. We had this evangelist in the street, were screaming to the people and saying, you gonna go to hell If you’re not, you don’t, you don’t receive Christ. It, it was this kind of aggressive way to reach people that I don’t remember Jesus being aggressive that way.

(02:13):
And so I said, how can I stand in the middle of the street and do something and have everybody come? And so from there, I said, I started exploring different ways, juggling illusion. And then I saw somebody doing clowning. I remember somebody doing clowning, and I asked that person, I said, can you teach me how to do a little bit clowning? And he said, yeah, yeah. So he just got all this stuff and put me in clowning. And then something happened inside of me. It’s like it was a click. I went out there, and when I started doing clowning, people went crazy. And people will stop from, from 30.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:48):
So you make ’em laugh, then tell them they’re going to hell. What?

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (02:51):
No. Yeah. But I will make a bridge Yeah. To get to their heart. So I build a bridge to get to their heart with all this stuff, and then I will tell ’em and say, you know we have sin. We separated from God. But I, it was an easier way to bring the gospel. And that year, immediately I received a flyer and said, Hey, here, there’s a flyer. Because for me, it was important. I said, like, if I’m gonna do this, I have to be professional because I’m trying to reach the people, and I need to compete with what the evil is providing for, for the people, the social media, everything out there. The professional people are doing so good. They, they are attracting people. So I said, how can I be so professional? And then I found this training where I learned how to do clowning with people, retired staff from ringing brothers.

(03:44):
There were seven of them were in the clown Hall of Fame. And I got there, and the Lord just gave me favor with them. They were not Christian, only one of them was Christian, but they, they, I got favored in the way that they disciple me as a clown, as a professional clown. I learned the trade. They taught me how to be a, a very effective clown, because I wanted to be a clown first. And then being able to, with that, I will do the ministry because some people said, I’m gonna do ministry as a clown, and then you become a preacher dressed as a clown. I want to be a clown bringing the message, which is studying.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:25):
I was, I was totally a preacher, dressed as a clown, because I was always called to be an evangelist. Like I, that was my heart. Yeah. And so I was the straight man. Yeah. And then my brother, he was the, the, the funny clown. And so I would come out and try to preach to the kids. Yeah. Yeah. And then he’d start goofing off behind me. Yes. And he would make all the kids laugh. And I would turn around, and then I’d go back to preach, and then he’d come back out. Yeah. And it turns into a pretty good routine.

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (04:52):
Yes. But in clowning, you need to understand is you need to learn movement, facial inspiration, everything of what is to become a character. Because through the clowning, you become a juggler of emotions because you express everything you wanna express through sometimes emotion. I go to countries that nobody speak my language, and I can do 30 minute show. And I have not spoken, spoken the language, but I, I conveying the message, and without speaking, but that happened because I, I don’t need to speak. I can do all this movement and show them, express it. When I, I’m, I feel sad when I feel painful, when I feel all this stuff. So I convey that message with my emotions and everything, and then the, they understand what I’m trying to bring until the moment they, they really get the gospel. At the end, at the end, I, I start talking. I had a translator, and they received a message, but I had to do it as a clown, not as a preacher, because if not, take off their makeup and become a, you see, that’s what I tell people. I said, don’t be somebody dressed as a clown. Be a clown. Bringing the message. So that’s why I learned the trade. I learned how to do juggling, illusion all this other stuff, how to perform on stage in order to bring the message. And so that’s how I, everything started.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:18):
I think that’s actually very valuable experience for an evangelist, because as a a clown, you learn how to capture the attention of the, the crowd. Keep their attention, make them laugh. Make them cry. Yeah. Bring emotion. Yeah. And if you can keep a big crowd of hyperactive seven year olds attention, then you can do the same thing for any crowd anywhere around the world. And so, I actually think more evangelists should start out by doing children’s ministry, whether it’s clown ministry or not. And they should do children’s ministry to learn how to communicate.

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (06:55):
Yeah. And, and I didn’t do it to do it for children. My ministry never, never is labeled for child. I never labeled for children. I label it for the whole family, children of all ages. So I never, I never started because I wanted to children ministry or this group. No, I, I actually, I’ve been invited many churches on Sunday morning to do clowning and Sunday service, and they bring out the children to their classes, and I do the service for the adults. You’ll be surprised, because at the end, I take off my makeup and it becomes this very amazing experience, spiritual experience, because it is, the adults need laughter a lot children, it’s easy to bring laughter to that. But as also at the same, I’ve been in, in, in places in basketball court with 5,000 children. And when I get there, everybody is screaming.

(07:50):
You hear so many people talking and all that stuff. And I come out as a character, I started, and everybody sh and I, I don’t have to say anything. And I just start doing things as a character at the station. People just, and children are like, and I start doing little things that start giggling, getting the giggling of them and the families and all that stuff. And it gets to point that you have such a powerful tool to control the crowd so they can listen and hear the gospel in, in a, maybe in a silent way, way, because I do it sometimes in a silent way. Or, or just speaking, but with comedy. So that’s why they need to learn all these art. The experience of being trained with Ringling, that was Ringling Brothers was one. And then also I learned, I, I learned more when also when I work for CER sole I had the opportunity to work for them. And I never signed contract with Ringling Brothers because they wanted me for two years contract. And I said, this is, I, it is no negotiable me because I need to spend my time in ministry. If I go there, yeah, I will learn, but I, I wanna spend my time in ministry and c sole. It was just a small time where, not even months that I worked for them. And it was good for me as an experience and to bring it translated into the Christian world.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:15):
And so you’ve operated as a clown at a, the highest professional level, and now you have a heart for passing that skill onto others. Yes. Yes. And so talk to me about that. How are you training other people to use the art of clowning and illusion to reach people for Jesus?

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (09:35):
Well, first thing I did to do that, I, I’ve been teaching and have some disciples in some countries, but it’s not enough. I learned in ministry that what we do is not enough. It’s not enough what we do. So one thing I did, I did a whole training DVD session where I teach how to do clowning, how to do illusion, how to do balloons, how to do all this outreach with drama, how to operate a puppet. All that in how to juggle. I teach that in that dvd, which sometimes some countries, I go I go and give it to some people that I see that, oh, these people, this, I can feel that, you know, this is creative enough, they can do that. So I give it to people. Sometimes I, we sell it in some conventions sometimes because well, every proceed, everything that I make is just for doing more mission work in the field. And so, but, but yeah, I did that. And now I’m tr planning a mission missionary clown camp in in Guatemala next year where people will come, we will train them, and at the end of the week, we send it out to orphanage, to churches to do mission in the clown camp. Training never done before. Most of the training that you get in the States is like a one week. You pay for it, and that’s it. No, I, I want them to get an experience and live an experience as, as they get trained.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:11):
I think that’s a wonderful idea. A missionary clown camp. There’s a lot of people that should go learn how to be a clown. And some missionaries are already clowns. They should they should stop being clowned <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah.

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (11:27):
And, and the idea out of the camp is just to make professionals.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:31):
Yeah.

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (11:32):
Because that’s the idea, is how you become a character. How you become this powerful character that you made. The people fall in love with you, and they will listen. Because that’s what I do in the Muslim world. I go into the Muslim world. I’ve been in 53 countries, in some countries I’ve been over a hundred times. And with the Muslims, I, with the character, you’ll be surprised. I go to the Muslim world and they don’t bring me for the children. They bring me to do evangelism with the clowning for the adults. Wow. And, and I do this stuff, and, and they fall in love with the character, because that’s what I try to do, is made them fall with love, in, love with the character. And then they will listen. You see, they go like, oh my gosh, I love this guy. I enjoy this guy.

(12:19):
But then I go and I bring the message at the end, I, they go like, oh, what happened here? I have one guy from Baghdad in in Iraq. This is a testimony. It was amazing for me. Before I go on stage to do clowning, they reserve this hall in, in Iraq. And they tell me, the pastor said, Hey, I tried to keep it simple at the end. Don’t make a big invitation or something, because last week they killed a Christian here. And I go like, oh, okay. You tell me right before I gonna go on stage. So I did my thing over 31, Muslim came to Christ that day, after I did my thing backstage, I go backstage and this, this guy that look like salam hue, he appeared over there and said, shaggy, can I talk to you? And he would speak English.

(13:07):
I said, like, yeah, well, immediately my head is like, I’m looking. I, I, it is survival. I’m from the street. I came out from the street. So my thing is survival. I gotta look like Hannah. I’m not going down here. I’m not going down. But then I go to him and say, how can I help you? And he go like, you know, I’m from Baghdad. I came to this, and today your message got into my heart. And I go like, wow. And he go like, can I give you a, ah, he said, I’m from Badda and I’m Muslim. And I was, and he said, can I give you a hug? And I, he hugged me, and in my ear, he whispered, he said, you’re welcome in my country. And this is a Muslim. So how powerful this clown where people evangelists, and many other people always say like, oh, you know, how come a clown and this, well, you know, with this clown, thousands of people have come to Christ, people who are Muslim world.

(14:03):
It’s amazing what God can do through, through laughter. You know, we clowns bring laughter. This is a, this is my, my slogan. I always say, clown bring laughter, but only God brings joy. So yeah, it’s it’s an amazing thing. I seen that so many times. And you know, I will not stop. I’ve been doing it for 30 years. I, I encountered an a mission in a evangelist conference. Conference. I saw these evangelists and these beautiful evangelists. They dress, you know, sharp, and they’re sitting in the corner and says, shaggy. But they laughing. And I see, you know, how are they doing it? He said, shaggy, can you come here? I’m backstage right before I go to go up dress as a clown. And they said, they dress like flashy. They said to me, I said, do you think that Jesus would dress as a, as you dress as a clown?

(14:57):
And I said, I’m not sure, but I’m sure that he will not dress the way you dress <laugh>. And I go like <laugh>. I said, so bye-bye. I no time for you <laugh>. So yeah, it just, you, you can count so many people out there. So religious people that, you know, we need to understand that Jesus was creative. We just need, we are fisher of men. And I tell people, I said, as a fisher of men, you need to understand that you need to have a bait. So I’m here shark fishing for shark and killer whales. And if you don’t use the right bait, you will not fish. So sometimes we need to study where we gonna go, how it is, and see what is the best strategy to get to those people.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:47):
Tell me about how you communicate the gospel. What is one of your favorite stories or ways of sharing the gospel that you found to be really effective?

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (15:59):
Okay. if you see my show, when I do a clown show I start all the way from the beginning making simple stuff. I do, I do a, a bell routine where I play with people in on stage. Jesus love me, and I finish. And I don’t say not much, but I say Jesus love. And we do the funny thing of saying, Jesus love me, and all that stuff with bells, and people laugh and they see everything, and I finish and that’s it, Joe. I leave it there. So I go from the love of g Jesus that he died for, for us. But then I go all the way to do other ads. I include in my show, different act that has different message all the way to him, to the end. But the other message is about sin, how disobedient we are, and how disobedient you know, destroy our relationship with God and things like that.

(16:54):
So I use different things, elements on the end. Then I do a mind as a clown with the music that says, allow Jesus to come, make your heart his home. And then I finish saying to the people, I say like, you know what your heart is like, like a house, like a home. And, and you know, when you have a home, when you have a house, sometimes you have guests and you bring guests inside, inside your home. But sometimes you don’t invite the guests to the rooms to see the rooms. Why? Because sometimes we have a mess in the other rooms. We only allow other people to be guests and, and stay in the living room in the kitchen. But Jesus wants to come to your home, to your house and has the key to have the key to be the one that goes and clean all your room or the rooms of your house. Even those little drawers that have all the mess that we have over there,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:51):
Even the one room in the back that you keep locked with the

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (17:53):
Key. Yes, yes. That you, you know, that if you open the dark, everything will come down out. So I, I explain all that through all the series of stuff that I do in the show. I can do a whole hour show with all this stuff. And, and during the show, people laugh, people cry, and people think because the idea of a clown, I know it is that we clowns our jugglers of different emotion. We guide them to feel pain, to feel, to understand their, their condition. We help them to understand their condition all the way to the end where they said, wow, I need this. Jesus, this friend of mine who is on stage is a friend of mine, because the way he spoke to me as a friend made me understand that I am a sinner. But he showed me that as a friend, as Jesus did as a friend. And he took me all the way to the process that I know now that I need this. Jesus.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:01):
Well, I so love how you are using your gifts and talents for the kingdom of God. Yeah. You found a unique way to share the gospel. We need many different expressions of the gospel.

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (19:13):
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:14):
And, and so if someone is interested in being a clown or getting in contact with you, maybe inviting you to come to their church, what’s your website? You have an

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (19:23):
Egg here? Yes. Yes. You say, Hey, look, this is some of the stuff I used to explain. I don’t do magic because I know magic in the Bible is about doing witchcraft and all, you know, Santa, all, all the dark spirit, there’s no dark spirit here. Only the Holy Spirit. So what I showed with this little egg is that the hands are quicker than the ice. That I don’t do magic. I toss it up in the air, then got go like this, toss it up, but it’s gone. But actually, I left it here. This is what I did. I just did this. I kept it here. And then I went like this, and everybody go up looking like this. But actually I kept it here because the hands are quicker than the ice. You know, I can be deceiver, go like this, it’s gone. But actually it is guy right here because the hands are quicker than the eyes.

(20:09):
So it’s a deceiving art. And what I do is I tell people is that, you know what the devil is a deceiver. It is, it is the father of all the lies. So the first lie that he want to lie to you is about who God is and then who you are. So we had to be, so this is how I use things like that. But if they wanna seek for, for my ministry, and they can go to chk.com, C h a g y.com. That’s one place. Chuggy.Com. All my social media is simple. I am Chuggy I am, you know, h a g y, shaggy. So those are the places you can find me. And you know, you can look over there, the ministry, what we do. And it’s amazing. And I hope many of you just will become creative as you do ministry.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:02):
Well, thank you for showing us a little trick there with an egg. I don’t know how the people listening to the podcast will be impressed by it, but certainly the video people will. And it was an excellent trick. Oh very exciting <laugh>. So thank you. And thank you so much for being on The Evangelism Podcast.

Chagy – the Clown for Christ (21:22):
Nice to meet you and hope you be, you become successful in bringing people to Christ.

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The Evangelism Podcast is also available on iHeartRadio

The post Clown for Christ | Chagy the Clown appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Learn more about the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada: https://paoc.org/ 

Connect with John Albiston: https://albiston.com/

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 special guest with me, John Albertson. And you are with the Pentecostal Assemblies here in Canada, and you are a church coach. And so I love coaching, I especially love coaching evangelists, but you’re going into churches, helping churches to grow, helping them to think strategically about how to reach their community. So how did you get started doing that?

John Albiston (00:32):
Well, my story was my last church our church grew from 300 to 1500 people in the span of five years. And the last we were there, we saw over 700 salvations. That’s when I got a phone call from the Pentecostal Assemblies just saying, John, would you like to show other churches how to do that? And I was like, yes, I would love to show other churches how to do that. And that’s when we got started. I got started doing that in 2017. And when we started here in our district, we’ve got about 120 churches. We ran the numbers and we found that only 18% of our churches were growing. 82% of our churches were either plateaued or in decline. We’re happy to say that within a couple of years, by 2019, we had doubled the number of growing churches and doubled the number of annual reported salvations.

(01:26):
So we, our churches weren’t growing because we were trying to convince Baptists to come to our church instead. But no, we were genuinely reaching unchurched people in our community. Now Covid hit that threw our numbers right out the window. But now that we’re coming out of C O V and started re getting our, our bearings, it’s looking like we’ve got pretty close to 50% of our churches growing. And by the end of the year, we think we might be able to get 60% of our churches are growing, accomplishing real great commission salvation growth.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:54):
And so what are some of the things that you are helping churches with when you are encouraging them to reach out to their community?

John Albiston (02:05):
Well, one of the first things is just to understand their own purpose as a church and what they need to do in order to grow by reaching lost people. Because if you want your church to grow, what you need to do is you need to reach people in your community, bring them in, introduce them to Jesus, and then have them stay and learn how to follow him. Now, when I have conversations with pastors, like, are you doing that? Are you reaching people, introducing them to Jesus and then teaching them to follow him? The answer is, oddly enough, no. You know, we’ve been trained in Bible school and seminary, how to run services. You know, I was trained on how to be an ec eal preacher. I wasn’t taught how to speak to non-Christians. I wasn’t taught how to disciple non-Christians. You know, when when someone accepts Jesus their savior, what’s the first five things I’m supposed to teach ’em? I don’t know that that was never a class. So organizing our Church of War, actually accomplishing our mission is just something that most of us as pastors were never trained to do. And before we were too eager to blame our professors. Nobody trained those guys how to do that either. So if we want our churches to grow, that’s what we need to focus on doing.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:22):
I think one of the challenges is that everyone who pastors a church has been around churches for a very long time, and so they don’t look through the eyes of a visitor or a first time guest or someone who is seeking spiritual enlightenment, who just wanders into the church. What would you tell a church to help them to make that person feel welcome?

John Albiston (03:52):
Well, I’d tell ’em a few things. One, just the importance of it. As a general rule of thumb, on any given Sunday, 96% of the people in the room are your own people. And it’s so easy and so comfortable just to focus on that. 96%, only 4% of the people in the room are first time visitors. So if I focus on my 96%, I, I know they’re vocabulary, we’re comfortable through vocabulary. When I use churchy vocabulary words, they like it. We all know what

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:23):
The rows of Sharon

John Albiston (04:24):
Is. Oh, that’s right. Like it, it just like home. Feels like home. The problem is 100% of your growth comes from the 4% and just put yourself in in, in their shoes for a second. I mean, it’s a golden rule. Like Jesus teaches us to do this. Say you’re, you know, Larry from across the street you come home from a business trip and your wife is gone. You thought you had a good marriage, but now the house is empty and you realize everything that I’ve believed about the success of my life is falling apart. And all of a sudden God is speaking to them. And if they’re like, you know what? I’m gonna try something crazy. Maybe I can find hope at church. And so I go in my desperation and need for God, I go to the church across the street and what do I hear is a sermon about Calvinism versus Arminianism?

(05:13):
And then I realize, yeah, you know what? It was a really stupid idea to come here. Okay? We we’re not talking to the people who need the gospel the most. We’re not sharing the gospel. Most churches don’t preach the gospel. Yeah, maybe if you’ve been there for a couple years, you’ll pick it up a bit. But we’re just not focusing on our job, on how we reach our community. We’re just focusing on our frozen chosen. And that’s not good for our people either, because quite frankly, they’re gonna be living kind of a weak and limp Christian life. If you’re living the Christian life where I go to a church where people are getting saved all the time, where I can invite my non-Christian friends in and I know they’re gonna have a fantastic time in their encounter. God, that’s very exciting for me. And even if I’m an introvert, it’s easy for me to invite <laugh> somebody, somebody to something I know they’re gonna love. So if I know that you’re a fanatical football fan and I’ve got two tickets to the game, it’s easy for me to invite you cuz I know you’re gonna love it. And when our churches are places where I know when you come, you’re gonna feel welcome. You’re gonna understand what’s gonna go on, and you’re gonna meet Jesus. It’s easy and exciting for me to invite you to that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:35):
And even to create that culture of people inviting their friends, I, I’m amazed as I travel the churches all over North America, every weekend I, I minister in a different place and I walk into a bunch of churches and there’s no signs showing where the children’s ministry is. There’s no sign saying whether the coffee is free or you’re supposed to throw a dollar in the, the cup there, there’s no sign showing where the bathrooms are. Like you can wander around the church for a long time just trying to find the bathroom. And I’m like, this isn’t friendly for visitors. Like, you’re not even thinking about visitors coming to the church.

John Albiston (07:17):
Oh, absolutely. That, that is a major problem. And it’s, again, we’re focusing on the 96%, we’re ignoring the four. And it, it’s such a tragedy of opportunity. So here’s the math of it. 4% of the people in your church on any given Sunday are first time visitors. Next Sunday it’s a different 4%, and next Sunday it’s a different 4% different 4%. And when you add that up over 52 weeks, you get a 200%. So you take the average attendance of your church, say it’s a hundred, over the next 12 months, you’re gonna have 201st time visitors. What would happen to your church if you kept half of them? You know? But we’re losing them because we’re ignoring them. We’re not putting ourself in their shoes. Yeah. That includes signage

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:06):
Or even know where to park. You come into the parking lot and where’s a visitor supposed to park? Or Absolut? Is there even a parking place for them?

John Albiston (08:13):
Absolutely. And when someone comes in, does anybody talk to me? Does anybody engage? Now a lot of our churches will have greeters, you know, who’ll say, hi, welcome. But I’ve, my local Walmart has greeters who say, hi, welcome. When I walk in, and I’ve been going to Walmart for I think 40 years, and in all those years, you know how many Walmart employees have gotten to know my name? Like Zero. Do you know how many friends I’ve ever made at Walmart? Zero. being friendly, whoopie, doof, we can find friendly anywhere. What we can’t find anywhere is friends. And so we need to actually love and care for those people that God are sending us because they’re already coming to our church. They’re coming in droves, people that God is calling them. And it’s hard for them to get here. Like we need to understand their journey.

(09:07):
I’ve, I’ve heard so many stories of people who would tell me that it took them three or four attempts to come to our church because they drive in, they were parked in the parking stall, white knuckling the steering wheel for 20 minutes before driving away in tears because they were too scared to come in the door. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. We don’t know the journey that they’re going through, and when they come in and we just ignore them and we’re blind to them and we don’t care for them. If you come into my church and nobody cares for you, you don’t feel loved. I can be on the stage standing on my head, juggling fire, talking about the love of God, and you will

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:48):
Not believe I’ve tried that before. I’ve tried to juggle fire

John Albiston (09:51):
<Laugh>. You won’t believe me.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:53):
Yeah.

John Albiston (09:53):
But if you come in here and you feel welcome and you feel loved and you feel part of the family and like, you’re not getting just like a fake Walmart greeting that No, I feel included. I’ve never been in a place like this. I’ve never met people like, here, what is going on here? And then I talk about the love of God. You are gonna believe me because you’ve already experienced it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:16):
So walk me through the process as you’re coaching a church, what recommendations do you give them for the, for the ushers, for the song service, for the offering time, for the message, for the altar call, for the follow up process. Kinda walk me through what an ideal process would look like for a visitor.

John Albiston (10:40):
So if a church is at that stage that like, hey, they actually wanna reach people, because sometimes I have to deal with stuff like, we don’t care about a lost people <laugh>, so we have to,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:48):
So that’s a theological and a heart issue. That’s

John Albiston (10:50):
Right. So sometimes, you know, when I’m going into coaching church, that’s what we need to do the work. But they’re ought that if they’re at this stage where no, no, we wanna reach our community, what do we do? The fundamental principle is the golden rule. Put yourself in somebody else’s shoes. When I walk in here, do I know what to do when the service starts? Are you speaking in plain English? So just talk about like, choosing lyrics for your songs. There’s a, a song that’s popular in a number of churches called Reckless Love. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it or not, but if you look at the lyrics of that song, 95% of that song’s gonna make sense to anybody in your community. Like, there’s one line about he leaves the 99, okay? They’re not gonna get the reference, but most of that song makes perfect sense. They’re gonna understand what we’re talking about. There’s another song that are, that is popular. Our God is the lion. The lion of Judah. Our God is the lamb. The lamb. Who is slain? Who’s Judah? Well, he’s one of the 12 patriarchs. Why are we singing about him? What’s

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:48):
Patriarch? Well, because

John Albiston (11:50):
The messianic lion goes through the lion of Judah. Why are we talking about lions? Oh, that’s symbolic. It refers to the Davidic kingdom. Who’s kingdom, okay. You see? So David was one of the descendants of Judah. Messianic line not only goes through Judah, but also goes through through David. Now Lamb saying you need not understand the sacrificial system and the Old Testament, how that pre prefigures Christ and Leviticus and the Lan of course, and Nasco logical figure, we’ve seen a book of revelation. Okay? That’s what you need to know for the song to make any sense. Okay? Did we have to make the climb that steep like half the time when people come in to our churches and don’t encounter Christ? It’s not that they rejected what we were saying, they just didn’t even understand what we were saying. It was just confusing. Gobbly good.

(12:28):
Our sermons are no better. And for our churches who actually do attempt to preach the gospel, we’re preaching the gospel in Christianese gobbly book, and they just don’t understand the words that are coming out of our mouth. So the first thing you want your church to have an impact on, people preach and sing with clarity, not to water things down. And we’re not trying to avoid offending people. I mean, we’re not gonna poke people in the eye, but okay, that’s not what we’re focusing on, is inoffensive sermons. We’re focusing on clear sermons that anybody coming in is gonna understand what we’re saying. So when it comes to the gospel, for example, I understand theologically that repentance and faith kind of a big deal when it comes to accepting Christ. But I also know that the people I’m trying to reach have never heard those words and don’t know what they mean.

(13:19):
Now, I know from studying Hebrew that the word repent, that the Hebrew route is make a u-turn. It’s how you give directions. Like go down fourth Street in repent <laugh>. So I will be on the stage walking one direction saying, I’ve been going down my own road. I’ve been the master of my fate captain of my destiny living my life the way I want to. Well, that ends here. Jesus talking about making a U-turn and following him, even when it’s scary, even when I don’t understand, I’m putting my whole life in his hands. Everything that I am, my hopes, my dreams, my sorrows, my shame, you know, my anger, my hurts. I’m putting everything I am in his hands and trusting him to make me to someone new as I follow him in a new life, in a new direction. So I explained both repentance and faith without necessarily using those words.

(14:13):
Okay? That’s a skillset we have to develop because I was raised in a church. Christianese is my mother tongue. I speak English as a second language <laugh>. So are we preaching with clarity? Are we singing with clarity? When you preach, you know, when you, for your own people, when you preach clearly in plain English, guess what your people learn in plain English. Because if I preach in gobbly G your congregation learns it in gobbly G. And then when they go out to the workforce, when they go out to the baseball game, when they go out to anything else, the only thing they know is gobbly go. Why would we be surprised that our people in our congregation are so ineffective at reaching their friends? But if we preach in plain English and explain the gospel in plain English, we’re equipping our people in plain English to reach their friends and neighbors in plain English.

(15:08):
So you wanna make the biggest difference in your congregation in being able to reach newcomers and actually seeing your own people be more effective at evangelism and discipleship. Learn how to speak in plain, ordinary English. It’s a discipline. It’s hard. People don’t know what discernment means. You, if you have to use the word, take 10 seconds, explain it to explain it. Don’t make a casual reference. Hey, just like Joseph, you know, okay, who’s Joseph? Okay, take 10 seconds to explain, give people on-ramps to what you’re talking about. And that is probably gonna make the biggest difference.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:47):
What about the follow up process for that 4%? How do we close the back door so they don’t just come in and leave, but we can retain some of the 4% that are visiting every Sunday? Well, I think

John Albiston (15:59):
The key is gonna be developing relationships of friendship. So sometimes you know, I talk about, you know, we, in order to have someone follow Jesus, they need to make f make friends with us. Because if you read your gospels, Jesus discipled the disciples within the context of relationship. So when someone say they, they raised that hand When I made that gospel call, I’ve already trained my ushers, they’re already at the back. Everybody else’s head is bowed, eyes are close, not my ushers <laugh>. They’re already at the back and they see who raised their hands, and they’ve already been trained to come up and approach them after the service. Introduce ’em. Hey, my name’s Tom, da da da, da, how you doing? Da da da da da. You know, how long have you been coming here? Da Hey, I would really like to introduce you to my pastor.

(16:47):
Is that okay now? Because I saw their hands, like when they’re my ushers, bring somebody to me. I know this is a new believer. Well then I can have a conversation with them. I can give them a new believer’s Bible and say, Hey, you know what? We’ve got this small group program called Alpha, it’s a free meal. Why don’t you come out? It’s a fantastic way to, you know, to get started. But we want to get them in relationship as fast as possible. So follow up is crucial, crucial, crucial. And we want to connect with them as soon as we, we possibly can. We don’t wanna let that get cold. And again, it comes down to the, the whole love of God experience. If they don’t f experience the love of God from us, they’re not gonna believe in the love of God.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:35):
Let’s talk about the, the Canadian context here. Most of the churches that you’re, you’re working with here are in Canada. Is there anything unique to Canada that might be different than say the United States or other? Or are these principles, do they work everywhere?

John Albiston (17:52):
So I’ve used these principles in, in other countries and like, like Canada, the United States are fairly culturally adjacent. So if you’re an American coming to Canada, like the least foreign country you could possibly visit is this one. And vice versa. But I’ve seen this work very effectively in Thailand, which is a completely different culture. And that’s because we’re talking about some basic human principles. People need to be known. People need to experience love, people need to experience acceptance. And none of us feel that way when we’re being ignored. So we wanna be certainly culturally sensitive. So if you’re going to Thailand and you’ve got a habit of touching people’s heads, don’t do that in Thailand. That’s considered very rude. Mind you, seriously, dude, that’s weird here too. <Laugh>, you know, but you know, sometimes our own, we have got

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:49):
Little, let’s bring all the visitors up and I’m gonna pray for you right now.

John Albiston (18:53):
<Laugh>, sometimes in our church we develop weird microcultures. Like I remember my, my last church if you were sick, the only way to heal you was to bring you out to the front of the service in front of everybody. We would hit you in the head to try to make you fall over. And that’s how healing happens. Is there anything in the Bible says we have to do it that way? No. And we kind of realized, you know what? That’s actually kind of weird. And people coming in here are kind of terrified by what we’re doing. Maybe we should find like non terrifying ways of doing things. So there’s ways where we can think about, well, things happen in context. So you look at the Apostle Paul apostle Paul said, I am all things to all people. So by all possible means, some might be saved to the Greeks, unlike a Greek to the Jews unlike a Jew.

(19:42):
Well, that wasn’t just words for Paul. If you look at the book of Acts on how he behaves, when Paul’s in a Jewish setting, man, he turns into super Jew, Hey, I’m a Pharisee and you know, I studied on a gamma meal and he’s quoting the Old Testament left, right and center. Like, I mean, he, he puts it on really thick with the Jewish stuff. But when he is talking to a Gentile lobby audience, he doesn’t talk about any of that. In fact at Mars Hill, he starts quoting their poets and using their cultural references to bring them to Jesus. So he adjusts the way he talks depending on who he’s talking to. And I mean, we understand this when it comes to age group. You know, I’m not gonna talk about substitutionary atonement when I’m talking to preschoolers. Okay? So we, we’ve got some kind of understanding of that. Well, we need to know who we’re talking to and then adjust our vocabulary and how we explain and how we act compared to who we’re talking to.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:37):
Well, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. If someone has some questions about how their church can be more effective at reaching their community, what’s a good way to get in touch with you? What, what’s, what’s your email?

John Albiston (20:50):
They can reach me@justjohnalbertin.com. My last name is A L B I S T O n.com. And there’s some free resources on there, but yeah, anybody can get in touch with me and I am more than happy to help.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:05):
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much and I love what you’re doing. I, I love coaching evangelists and people who are excited about reaching the lost, and I think so many churches need to have that heart for their community and, and, and for the lost, and, and not just talk about it, but take tangible steps to make it happen.

John Albiston (21:28):
Absolutely.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:28):
And so, just so much love what you do and so valuable.

John Albiston (21:32):
Well, thanks for having me on here. Thank you.

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The post John Albiston | Coaching Churches for Growth appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Check out the Light Quest Media website: https://www.lightquestmedia.com/ 

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Chris Bush is the leader of light quests media, which specializes in media buying and advertising. Today we talk about how a media agency can help a ministry to reach people for Jesus. As a special bonus, Chris Bush shares some miracle testimonies from the life of Kathryn Kuhlman and insights from the ministry of Oral Roberts.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:37):
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 (01:01):
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, Chris Bush. Thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Chris Busch (01:12):
You’re welcome, Daniel. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:15):
And so you are leading a media agency called Light Quests Media. Can you tell me what does a media agency do for ministries? Sure.

Chris Busch (01:30):
A media agency they could do a number of things. What we do is we help people multiply their message through media, and that can be through broadcast television and radio. That can be through print books, magazines, et cetera. Or that can be through the internet, which has opened up a whole new realm of possibilities for, for people to multiply through media.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:52):
And so how did you get started doing all of this work in media?

Chris Busch (01:57):
Oh, man. So I like to think that my start in media was when I was around four or five years old and a guy named Earl Roberts would come on our black and white Zenith television at home. And I would see him on Sunday mornings, and I would just spellbound not only by his preaching, but when he would pray for the sick and people would get healed and you’d see it right there, you know, on, on television. And I had little idea that later I would actually wind up a student at Oral Roberts University, and then after my student years working for Oral Roberts University and being involved in their, their television production to some extent. So that’s kind of how I got my, my start in media was largely through through Oral Roberts who was a, you know, he, he was one of the, the people that was on in the 1950s actually, that back in the day when there were three TV stations, you know, if you had a television, you had nbc, cbs, and abc, you had three choices of channels to watch and or was there on Sunday morning on one of those channels.

(02:58):
And so he became well known and very popular through television in the day.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:03):
And or Roberts was very innovative in his use of media. He absolutely, he was one of the first ones to go on television. He was the, the first to have a, a national show. And it’s amazing how many people used to watch, or Roberts

Chris Busch (03:20):
Yeah. Used to be in the millions. And so when I was a student there, he, he, first, he started out on Sunday mornings, but then he started doing primetime specials, four primetime specials a year in in the evenings, which he would syndicate across the country, one hour specials. And he would have special guests stars on to kind of attract an audience, but then he would always give a, a sermon, you know, a 10 to 12 minute sermon that was embedded in the program. And that’s how he reached people. After I graduated from o u I worked at the Evangelistic Association, oral Roberts Evangelistic Association for a while. And it was not uncommon that the, the Monday after one of those specials would air, we would get over 100,000 pieces of mail.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:01):
Wow.

Chris Busch (04:02):
This was in the seventies.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:04):
Yeah. That’s amazing.

Chris Busch (04:06):
So it was amazing.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:07):
Now, the media landscape has changed a lot in the last few years. It’s actually a much lower bar for entering media, which, which is actually wonderful. Like even right here, I’ve got a little studio set up right here in my home. And to do this 15, 20 years ago would’ve cost a lot of money. Now you can do it pretty inexpensively and you can use media to reach people. And then you used oral use to have to buy television time to go on television all over the, the United States. But now someone can film a video on TikTok and instantly get millions of views if it goes viral and, and it doesn’t cost anything. Oh, yeah.

Chris Busch (04:56):
The whole landscape has changed. Back when I worked for Oral A, a single camera cost over a hundred thousand dollars. Wow. That was in dollars of those days. So equivalent today would probably be, you know, $300,000 for a camera, a studio quality camera. So today, you know, the cost of production of come down, and then with the internet, and especially now with broadband being as fast as it is where you can transmit video very, very efficiently over the internet, the, the the bar as you say has, has really been lowered for people to be able to get into media. And so it’s, it’s really, it’s the, the shifts in media. We, we like to say that mass media has lost its mass because it used to be media was controlled by a few giant corporations, and they kind of decided what everybody got to see.

(05:42):
And now as, as the bar has been lowered, and more and more people have gotten into it, people can choose what they want to see. And and somebody who has a message and wants to get that message out, the ability to do that now, the, the financial bar to get over is not nearly as steep as it was back in the, in the day. So it’s an exciting time. I mean, media has, everything has changed rapidly with technology. Media has probably changed faster than anything. And I think it’s the most exciting time to be involved in media, in the history of media, perhaps in the history of history. I don’t know.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:16):
Yeah. And, and so what has your organization done to adapt to the change and help ministries to, to reach people for Jew? Because I think ultimately the goal of a very evangelist is to lead more people to Jesus. Yes. Whether it’s through television or TikTok or through doing Facebook posts, I mean, people as evangelists, we want to lead people to, to Jesus. And so what have you done to, to help ministries, and then how have you adapted to the changing times?

Chris Busch (06:47):
No, as you know, as an O R U grad one of oral’s premises was going into every person’s world. And so media just provides us with that ability to really, truly go into every person’s world without having to physically be there and in their presence in, in order to do that. So what we’ve done, we, we really started out more as a traditional media agency broadcast. So tell

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:11):
Us what, what would a traditional media

Chris Busch (07:13):
Yeah, traditional media, legacy media would be more like television, radio you know, broadcasting what we call linear television. Linear television is where you have a set schedule and you had to tune in at that time on that channel, or you missed it. Then DVRs came along in that loud time shifted viewing so people could actually record your show. And we find that, that for a lot of our clients that are on television, as much as 15% of their viewership is, is DVR people that are recording it and watching it their own time. And that’s really what’s shifted is the, the, the power as it were of media has shifted to the viewer as opposed to the broadcaster. The viewer has a lot more control now over what they watch when they wanna watch it. So the legacy media, television, radio is still alive.

(08:05):
It’s still reaching people, but so many other options have come along in the world of media, especially with the internet and the, and the large availability of, of, of broadband now. And I didn’t quite believe that as many people would be watching video on their telephones when smartphones came out, you know, some years back, I thought, that’s a little bit of a stretch that somebody’s gonna go from watching on a big screen like this to this thing. But it’s amazing how people have adapted, and especially the younger generation and, you know, now they can watch what they want when they want, and it’s right there in their hand and they’ve got the earbuds in. And that’s the new face of, of media.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:47):
And now people call Generation Z digital natives. They were born with a cell phone in their hand almost. Right. And they, it is part of their life. They watch all kinds of content, and it’s much shorter, where oral, I think did hour long po broadcast. Yeah. And now you bring it down to about 30 seconds, which means, yeah, you have to really shorten your message, but then you can put out a lot of right short, 30 seconds short content

Chris Busch (09:18):
And reels and things like that. Yeah. Short, short content, whether it’s YouTube TikTok, whatever. Those have gotten to be super popular. And what we find is that people who are able to produce some of that, in fact, a lot of times people will take, you know, a pastor will take his sermon and have somebody go through it, and they can find those little, you know, clips of, of 30 to 60 seconds or something that they can put up his shorts and then have links to the full message. And so it gives you a chance to begin to develop a relationship with somebody through those short messages. And then you always want to have the ability for them to go beyond that. You don’t wanna just stop there. You know, you want to have links for them to follow with from that short message. If you like this, there’s more, you know, you can hear more here. And, and you can kind of grow the, the interest and grow the relationship that way.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:10):
Now you represent a variety of different ministries. Some very large ministries. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, w w what are you advising them to do and and how are you helping them right now?

Chris Busch (10:22):
Well, we’re advi well, Jesus said go into all the world, right? Yeah. And oral said, go into every person’s world. So our thing is that okay, just every available platform that you can be on and afford to be on, try to be on there, you know, with, with your message. So everything from, from the the big tech platforms, you know, like Facebook, YouTube, and that we also are cautioning our clients not to, not to depend on those platforms being there tomorrow. That ultimately you wanna really have your own website, your own app, and you wanna develop a relationship with people where they can get to your content without having to go through an intermediary like, like Facebook or YouTube. Because the reality is, is is that someday Facebook or YouTube could pull the plug on religious programming.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:15):
Very, yeah. And I, I know that some ministries are very curtailed in what they can say on TikTok, for example. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, there are some of my friends are on there and they’ll get thousands of views, but then if they talk about a certain subject, suddenly it drops to zero views. They, they can push a button shadow completely turn you off, and basically controlling the message of what can be said, which is very dangerous from a, a free speech viewpoint. Yeah. But as Christians, we have to be wise in how we talk to people, how we communicate, and, and then we can grab people, hook them, and then bring them over to our website where you said we can have, right? Yeah. Bring additional content to help bring them,

Chris Busch (12:02):
Bring them up to your platform, you know, where, where you can, and then, you know, where they can sign up for an email list. Because you really want to, if you have that person’s email, that’s so much more valuable in terms of the relationship than just having that connection through a social media platform. Because like I said, it could, it could disappear. The message could get suppressed. You could get blocked. You know, we, we know all the stories that are coming out now since Elon Musk bought Twitter, you know, all the stories that are coming out. Or

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:32):
Even the FBI was trying to block some of the messages.

Chris Busch (12:34):
Yeah, yeah. And, and so but the thing is, people are there, it’s like the public square in a way, you know, that you know, Paul went up Mars Hill and there were all these people and he just stood up and began to, to preach there. Well, that’s kind of where, where our people now, well, they’re, you know, they’re Facebook, their Twitter, their TikTok their YouTube, you know, all these different platforms. I mean, YouTube is the number two search engine. And people don’t realize that. Cause they think Google Yeah, Google’s number one, well, what’s number two? Well, is it Bing? Is it duck, duck Go? No, it’s YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. So that just massive amounts of people there. So, so what we recommend to clients is, is you’ve gotta be where the people are, and you’ve gotta make, you know, contact there.

(13:18):
And you’ve gotta have it’s gotta be good content. You know, it’s gotta be well done. It’s gotta be, be well produced. People have become more sophisticated about media. So the quality of the video, the quality of the audio needs to be good. Now, it doesn’t need to be perfect especially if you’re shooting something that’s this kind of live type of thing and you’re using a phone or something, people will give you grace for something like that. But if if they, if the audio is bad, or if the video is just, you know, hard to watch, people are sophisticated one or two, three seconds, you know, and they’re gonna to be onto something else. So you’ve gotta be sure that you put the message out there with, with enough quality so that, that the lack of quality won’t drive somebody away.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:04):
So if someone’s listening and they have a, a small to to medium size ministry, and they came to you and, and said, I need some help with my media, what are some of the things that, that light Quests would do to, to help a, a, a ministry like that? What advice would you give them? Or, or how can you help them out? Well, first

Chris Busch (14:26):
Thing we wanna do is understand what they’re calling is and, and what it is they’re trying to do and, and what, what their purpose, what their mission is. And then we try to, to work within that. I mean, we don’t have like a cookie cutter thing where, okay, here’s what everybody else does, and so therefore you should do this. So it’s really important to understand somebody’s mission, who they’re trying to reach. For instance, we have a, we have a number of clients who really focus more on the United States as their mission field. We have other clients who do, who are in the United States that don’t do any media in the United States. They spend all of their media budget in, in certain foreign countries. And, and they may even have a particular country that they feel a calling toward. You know, we’re where things are focused.

(15:11):
So understanding that type of thing, understanding the, the, the mission and the calling is really important. And then it’s just a matter of developing a strategy. And this is where I also see, whether it’s in ministry, business, whatever, a lot of times people can be a little bit helter skelter and, well, let’s try this, let’s try this. You know, it’s really important, I think, to have a strategy. And that strategy can and will change over time. We’ve seen how technology, you know, advancements in technology, you better change your strategy as technology advances. But you still need a strategy. You still need to, to kind of an idea, okay, we’re doing this, we’re doing it for this reason, and be very purposeful and intentional about it.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:52):
And so you really help people to develop that strategy Yes. And then to implement it. Right. That’s extremely valuable. So if someone’s listening and they want to find out more about you and, and what you, you do, what’s your website? How’s

Chris Busch (16:06):
They Our, our website is light quest media.com. So L i G H T Q U E S T M E D I a, <laugh> like quest media.com.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:15):
Yeah. So if you’re interested in finding out more about media and how to be effective at reaching people and encourage you to, to reach out to Chris Bush and like Quest Media and they’ll be able to help you out. And earlier we were talking a little bit about Kathryn Kuhlman. You, you went to her church when you were young. Yes, she was. And you were telling me after growing up a story about how you saw some miracles happen through her ministry. Can you tell us about that?

Chris Busch (16:42):
Well, I had there were a couple of ’em. One, a friend of mine that I grew up with in, in the ministry there, he was born with club feet and his feet were like, just turned almost completely upside down. And my parents were there. They saw his mother bring him to one of Kathryn Kuhlman’s services and they saw his feet and how deformed they were. And then she prayed for him during that service, and his feet became to totally normal. And they saw him afterwards. And I grew up with the guy and, you know, his feet, I’m not saying mine or normal, but his words normal as mine. Anyway, <laugh>. And then another time, my dad had had a really bad back injury from work, and he, we did not think we would be able to even go to church. Cause we drove 40 miles from New Brighton, Pennsylvania to Youngstown, Ohio for Kathryn Kuhlman’s Sunday services.

(17:26):
And so we did, just figured we wouldn’t be going, cuz dad couldn’t. And he wanted to go. He was determined to go. So my, my brother who’s 12 and a half months older than I, we, we helped him get up off the couch and, and get, you know, into the car. And he, he was stubborn German, you know, so he was gonna drive, and he got there and he was standing at the back of the auditorium. And he was one of Katherine Kuhlman’s ushers. And so somebody had told her, you know, that he had been injured. And at one point during the service, she called him to come forward, she says, is Al Busch here? And from the back, my brother and I were sitting down on the first couple of rows with what was called junior ushers. And, and we could hear from the back.

(18:04):
He goes, yes. And she said, come down here. And he came down the aisle right to the side of where we were sitting. And when he got to about the first couple rows, she said, stop. And he stopped and she said bend over and touch your toes. Well, I mean, we knew that he could maybe bend a little bit, you know, maybe 10 or 15 degrees. And that was about it. And he put his two hands up in the air and bent down, touched his toes, and was immediately healed and had no back issues from that day. He went to the doctor the next day, and the doctor, he walked in and the doctor said, what happened to you? And dad told him, you know, and the doctor was kind of skeptical and all of that, but he said, well, he said, you don’t need me anymore.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:48):
Well, what a wonderful story about what God did through Kathryn Kuhlman. What a great woman of God she was. And then you went to Oral Roberts University, and right as you graduated, oral hired you mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And you, you advanced very rapidly by the age of 26, you were a vice president at, at oru, which is pretty amazing. What was it like being around Oral Roberts? What made him effective as an evangelist?

Chris Busch (19:16):
I think what made oral so effective was that he was determined to obey God. And if he believed that God called him to do a certain thing, he was gonna do it. And we were all gonna help him do it. You know, and, and that was the thing there. He would, he was open to hear other people’s opinions and everything, but when the decision got made, then it’s like, okay, we’re all, we’re all pulling the same sled here and we’re all pulling in the same direction. And so he was really a great inspirational leader in that way. He had a great vision you know, for back when he had the healing ministry and the tents, and then to carry that forward into the university and for the Holy Spirit and healing and, and the whole Pentecostal experience as it were, to be a part of a university. You have to remember, oral came out of a, of a Pentecostal background. It was very anti-education. They believed after high school you could go to Bible school and that was okay, but don’t, you know, don’t go to university or a college or something like that because they’ll corrupt you.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:24):
Well, he started a college, so I know somehow

Chris Busch (20:27):
He, he was amazing.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:28):
He got over that. He got over. But thank God he did, because O R U is such a huge blessing to so many people.

Chris Busch (20:33):
And he did it, you know, coming out of a background, it would say he, he would be a very unlikely person to do it. And, and actually had to fight the leaders of his denomination, you know, who really wanted him to make it a Bible school. And he said, no, God’s called me to build a university where the students will go into every man’s world. And so yeah, he was an, an amazing visionary. And like I said, if, if once he knew that God had told him to do something, that that was it. You know, and he was, he was gonna do it, and he was gonna fight and, and overcome whatever it took to do that and stand. So we can look back on some of those people like Oral Roberts, like Kathryn Kuhlman and others, and, and look at their examples and, you know, they weren’t perfect people and we’re not perfect. And, but look at the impact that they had because they were obedient to the calling that God put on their lives. And they just said yes.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:31):
Right toward the end of a Robert’s life, I got to go to his house out in California, and I was very young, and I asked him for his advice for me as a young minister. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And he said, Daniel, obey guy. There you go. And so now anytime someone asks me for advice, I just tell ’em, obey God. Yes. You can’t go wrong doing that. No.

Chris Busch (21:52):
No. And, and I think what, what a great thing to have is your life’s legacy. You know, that he obeyed God. And what else could we, you know, what we’re looking for is that when we stand before Jesus, you know, we get that well done, good and faithful servant. And I am just absolutely convinced Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts people like that, that, that walked a walk, you know, through their whole life of, of being obedient to God in spite of flaws, in spite of mistakes and everything else, that when they arrived, you know, that’s what they were greeted with. Well done. Good and faithful servant.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:30):
Amen. Well, I pray that all of us would Yes. Hear the same thing well done. Good and faithful servant. That’s our goal. Amen. Well, Mr. Chris, thank you so much for being on the Evangelism Podcast. Awesome. I appreciate it.

Chris Busch (22:43):
Be great to be with you.

Evangelism Podcast Host (22:44):
Are you called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna 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 has 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 anar call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna 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 (23:46):
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 (25:07):
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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Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Do you wanna be an influencer for Jesus? Frankie Cortez is a graduate of Christ for All Nations evangelism. Bootcamp. God has given him a vision to raise up social media influencers who can share the gospel with a sight and sound generation. On today’s podcast, we talk about why it’s important to evangelize online, and we give you some tips for maximizing the impact of your social media. Plus, Frankie is going to share some stories from the different countries that he’s been working on, and you’ll hear about what God is doing in Egypt, in Pakistan, in Brazil, and in Ukraine. Let’s listen.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:54):
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 (01:19):
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, Frankie Cortez. Thank you for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Frankie Cortez (01:30):
Thank you for having me.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:32):
So let’s talk about how we first met you were a student at the Christ for All Nations Evangelism Bootcamp in Orlando, Florida. And tell me, what did you learn going through the Evangelism Bootcamp?

Frankie Cortez (01:48):
Yeah, so I had the amazing opportunity to be part of the Evangelism Bootcamp at Christ for All Nations. Danielle King was actually one of my teachers. I learned how to organize crusades, how to plan them, how to preach at them, and then ultimately how to roll that out.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:02):
Well, I love pouring into other evangelists and helping people who have a passion for the great commission and going to nations all over the world. And so, do you remember some of what I taught in, in the sessions that we were together?

Frankie Cortez (02:18):
I yes. I remember you had systematic plans on how we can actually do this. I remember you had 300, I think it was 316 steps to be an effective evangelist. And I specifically remem I think it was number 17, is Find a Wife. I still haven’t found that one yet. <laugh>,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:33):
Absolutely. Well, when I found my wife, it really helped me out as an evangelist. Just gave me more credibility. But, uh, that, that plan that you’re, you’re talking about, I have, uh, a list of how to start a ministry and it’s because people kept coming to me and asking me questions like, well, how do I start a ministry? What do I do in, in order to start taking donations from, you know, how do I share my vision? And, and I kept getting the same questions over and over again. And especially like, like, how do I write a book, Daniel, you’ve written like 25 different books. How do I write my first book and how do I raise money for my ministry and how do I book speaking engagements at churches? And, and I kept getting all of these questions and, and so finally I decided I’m just gonna put one spreadsheet, all the answers to every question I get.

(03:23):
And so now if people ask me a question, I just send them a link to their spreadsheet and I have resources there. And I love coaching people that gives me a place to, to start coaching them in evangelism and helping them to become more effective in the ministry that God has called them to. And so if you’re listening and you’re interested in being coached in evangelism or being coached in how to start a ministry, uh, reach out to me and, and we’ll talk about doing that. All right. So Frankie, since you graduated from the the Evangelism Bootcamp, you’ve gone to a bunch of different places around the world and you’ve seen God do some amazing things. Kind of walk me through that journey and what you’ve seen God do.

Frankie Cortez (04:04):
Yeah, so it was amazing. The Evangelism Bootcamp showed me how practical it is to just duke Mass Gospel campaigns for right after our, our bootcamp, we had the opportunity to go to Tanzania. We were able to kind of apply what we learned by going to gospel outreaches on trucks where basically we would preach on trailers of semi trucks and we would go to different places around. I was in Moto Godo in Tanzania, and we would share the gospel and we would in marketplaces and on the streets, and we would see many people come to Jesus. We would go into schools and we would share the gospel to many thousands of children. We would give her that to Jesus. I also, within the last year, had the opportunity to travel to many different countries, um, like Pakistan and Brazil and Poland, uh, Mexico, Egypt, where I was able to have these big giant campaigns and bring in just the harvest of thousands of souls.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:55):
Yeah. Tell me about the details of, of some of these events. You went to Egypt, what did you do in Egypt?

Frankie Cortez (05:02):
Yeah, so in Egypt, Egypt was very special in history. They’ve never actually had a mass gospel campaign in, in the Egypt history. I can’t say the C word cuz that one’s actually a bad word over there. But it was amazing. Two weeks before, um, our crusades started, we’ve been planning for an entire year and the biggest church in the city is actually set on fire. 40 people dying over 50 people are injured. And it was like, what do we do? God, is this something that we move forward or is it something that you want to maybe push ahead or something like that? God said, we want you to push forward, I want you to go and I want you to do this crusade. So we had to find a brand new location in a different part of the city in Cairo. And we found actually a Muslim military base in the middle of the hood in Cairo, Egypt.

(05:41):
And God poured out his spirit. So Daniel, you know, the marketing budgets for some of these, sometimes the marketing budgets are 10, 20, 30, $50,000, depending, you know, where you are. I remember in Cairo, Egypt, an event like that has never been done. So we put in about a thousand dollars of marketing. Day one, we had 5,000 people on the field, and by day five we had over 50,000 people on the field because God’s glory showed up, miracles, signs and wonders happened. People were literally coming up to us saying that they had dreams of Jesus and they were leading ’em to our event.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:11):
Wow. Well, when you have the Holy Spirit working with you, you don’t need much of a budget. And so that’s amazing. Did, did you know the, the first evangelist to ever go to Egypt was Mark who wrote the Gospel of Mark. And the story is that he went to Alexandria, which was founded by Alexandria the Great. And when Mark went into Alexandria, um, his shoe was, uh, it, it was a leather sandal and it had fallen apart as he traveled. So he went and found a shoemaker, and the shoemaker was, was fixing his shoe. And as he was working on it, the owl that he was working on, the leather slipped and went right through his hand. And right then Mark laid hands on him, prayed for him, and the shoemaker was healed. And so the mark became the first bishop of Alexandria. And then when he was martyred, they tied him some to some chariots and dragged him through the streets. And that’s how he died for Jesus. Uh, the, the shoemaker who got saved that day, when he was healed, he became the second bi bishop of Alexandria. And to this day, the Coptic Christians in al in Egypt, they traced their spiritual heritage back to Mark the writer of the Gospel of Mark. And so what a great thing that you got to go and be an evangelist in the footsteps of Mark. Yeah. And then you also went to Brazil. What’d you do in Brazil?

Frankie Cortez (07:43):
Yeah, so in Brazil we, we taught and trained on evangelism. We had a fire con a fire camp. So basically what that is, it’s a week long evangelistic training where we take a small group of 50 to 60 young people or old people, but they’re very interested in going forward in evangelism within their local country. So we trained about 50 evangelists there and we, and then we sent them out to the streets to apply what they learned. And we were raising people up out there.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:05):
And you also went to Pakistan. What’d you do in Pakistan?

Frankie Cortez (08:08):
Yep. I, um, total in Pakistan, I’ve done four gospel campaigns where we saw tens of thousands of people come to Jesus crowds of 20 to 30,000 people, uh, miracles, signs and wonders happen. And we’re really seeing just God descend on some of these countries that people are like, is not possible. We’re, we’re still gonna go.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:25):
That’s absolutely amazing. Now how old are you?

Frankie Cortez (08:28):
I’m 25 years

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:29):
Old. So 25 years old. You’ve already been to a bunch of different countries. You’ve been seeing God to amazing miracles. And then, uh, you also recently worked in Ukraine. The, the, the war that’s been going on in Ukraine is absolutely horrible. Uh, what were you doing when you went there?

Frankie Cortez (08:47):
Yeah, so I went with my friends, uh, Slavik down, he has a ministry in Ukraine. So what basically what we were doing is we have, we, we had teams that were coming in from the United States, from Seattle, Florida, different parts of the United States. And they were going into Ukraine from both Poland and Romania. And they were going in and they were sharing the gospel, providing humanitarian aid help for the people cuz it’s just a very sad situation that’s happening. So what we were doing, we were actually raising teams up and teaching them how to evangelize in these places, how are we gonna roll out the humanitarian aid work? So we’re we’re also, we went to go shoot a documentary to kind of document what’s actually happening and what God is doing within the country. And that’s coming out pretty soon as well.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:26):
Wow, that’s amazing. Alright, just a few days ago I was on a Zoom call with you, with a bunch of other evangelists who had graduated from the Evangelism Bootcamp and they were all coming together to talk about how to be kingdom influencers on social media. So we’re talking about Instagram, we’re talking about TikTok, we’re talking about Facebook, YouTube, and any other social media platform that people are on. And your vision was to activate these evangelists to go and share the gospel on these different platforms. So, so talk to me a little bit about what God has put on your heart in this area of raising up kingdom influencers for social media.

Frankie Cortez (10:21):
Yeah, it’s amazing. So the Lord kind of put this, um, desire on my heart to see people reached online. So there’s 8 billion people on the earth and 5.8 billion of those are internet users. About four, a little over 4.5 billion of those are social media users. So the biggest people group in the world are internet users. So it’s now how are we gonna actually use the internet to reach people for the kingdom of God, because that’s where the people are. Many times we want to reach people in, in the way that we’ve always done things and now we’re living in a generation and a time where maybe those things are, are not as effective as what as when, how it was long time ago or some of those things we can keep doing. But we can also add social media to that. So the Lord gave me a vision about going on social media and really sharing the gospel, but not just sharing the gospel, but raising up a team to share the gospel online as a unit and creating some type of alliance or some type of collaboration of a group of us to make our own individualistic channels, but then kind of come together, collaborate, give each other feedback so that we can be effective in reaching people on social media.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:26):
So God’s given you this vision to reach out on social media and, and I think this really is a, a vision that that comes from God because like you said, we need to go to where the people are. And so sometimes people think about missions as going on a missionary trip. You, you go over to Africa, people are in Africa, you go to Asia. But nowadays, so many people are spending so much time on social media. I have two kids, they love spending time on the screen. And so we have to limit how much screen time they have cuz they’ll just sit and scroll through different things and watch YouTube videos. And, and so as a parent, it’s kind of, it is kind of scary because who knows what they’re watching, but I think that Christians need to be a voice in those places where, where people are.

(12:13):
And, and so frequently you see people there spending time just watching videos on their pH their phone, and they’re, they’re listening to content and we have to go to where they are and then we have to present the, the gospel message. Now something that you said earlier really stood out to me. We were talking about how there are a lot of Christian influencers that talk about good Christian topics, but there’s very few people that preach the gospel. So talk to me about the difference between an influencer and someone who is intentionally trying to lead people to Jesus.

Frankie Cortez (12:51):
Yeah, so there, there’s many amazing Christian influencers out there. Um, um, many with very good doc and many with amazing heart. They’re reaching out to the church, they’re building up the saints, which is amazing. Keep doing that. But what I don’t, I don’t see many, um, influencers that are Christian that are actually going out to reach the loss. Specifically, I’m going to do social media because I want people to know Jesus. I want people to come to the place of repentance. I want people to come into I don’t know Christ, who I know Jesus now.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:22):
And so one of the things that the Christ for All nations Evangelism Bootcamp really does well is teaching people how to present the gospel. And so just give me a nutshell, what is the gospel, Frankie?

Frankie Cortez (13:37):
Yeah, so this is the gospel. Many times we, we, we know the gospel mentally, but we leave out some parts. So this is the gospel. Sin separates us from God. There’s no way we can get to God because of our sin. That’s the problem. But this is the answer. Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God, came down to this earth lived life, look every single one of us, but was without sin. And you know, the, the religious people at the time, they hated him. They killed him, they mocked him, and they hung him on a cross. And Jesus died. But the story doesn’t end there. The Bible says that Jesus rose from the dead and now he’s alive and he’s living and he’s wanting to give us eternal life. Jesus prayed an ultimate price for us that we couldn’t pay ourselves. There’s nothing we can do to earn our salvation. But Jesus came, died, rose again to give us eternal life. And the Bible says, if we repent and believe the gospel, we can have eternal life today.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:27):
Amen. Well, I hope if you’re listening, you don’t know Jesus right now, you’d cry out to Jesus and ask him to save you. And if you will call on Jesus, he will save you from every sin and give you a brand new start. All right, Frankie, let’s talk about some of the, the different platforms that are available for, for social media influencers and just kind of talk me through some of how people be effective on these different platforms. Cuz every platform has a slightly different nuance, different things that they’re looking for, different algorithms. And so let’s start with Instagram. How do you think someone could use Instagram to share the gospel?

Frankie Cortez (15:04):
Yeah, so Instagram seems to really want to be competing against TikTok right now with reels. Reels is what they’re pushing in the past, um, they pushed a lot of graphics, a lot of photos and stuff like that, but it seems like we’re in a place where they’re really pushing Instagram reels. And for those of you that don’t know what Instagram reels is, their short form videos just like TikTok, where you basically have 60 seconds or less to get your messes across. And if it’s anything longer than that, you lost them. And you have about five to 10 seconds in the beginning to grab their attention. And if you don’t grab their attention within five to 10 seconds, you’re pretty much gone. So it’s how do we effectively grab someone’s attention, the five to 10 seconds, and then keep their attention for the rest of the, the remaining time, which is 50 seconds longer.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:44):
All right, so now let’s, you mentioned TikTok. Talk to me about TikTok. How can we reach people on TikTok?

Frankie Cortez (15:48):
So I think TikTok is honestly the greatest vi uh, social media. It’s just so as far as virality, it’s just so easy to go viral. What I, what I’ve seen when I’ve talked to major influencers, they, they tell me that if I post three times a day every single day for a month, you pretty much blow up. And TikTok is short form content just like Instagram reel. So everything needs to be under 60 seconds. You need to grab people’s attention within the first five to 10 seconds, and then you need to keep them for the rest of the 50 seconds.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:17):
Alright, give me a hook for a a TikTok video. If you want to tell someone about Jesus on TikTok, what is the first sentence that you’re gonna use to hook them? Gi Give me two or three hooks.

Frankie Cortez (16:29):
Just say something super crazy. Did you know that Jesus is not the Savior of the world? And you’d be like, what? That doesn’t make sense. And then you hooked him and then you kind of say, he’s not the savior of the world. If you don’t, if you don’t receive it, it’s like I give you a check. And if, and if you don’t actually cash the check, you don’t actually have salvation.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:45):
Yeah, that sounded like heresy there for a second. It did. It did. Oh, and, but it definitely got my attention. Okay. <laugh>, I was about ready. Kick you off the, the Evangelism podcast for heresy. Alright, so, so TikTok and then YouTube. Talk to me a little bit about who YouTube.

Frankie Cortez (17:01):
So YouTube is very interesting because they’re both long, there’s long form content, and they’re short form content. So YouTube actually started shorts, which they’re competing against Instagram reels and TikTok, but then they have the long form content and what they’re known for, which is amazing. So long form content is maybe 10 minutes of video. Short form content again is like 60 seconds. Now,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:22):
Who would you say is the most famous YouTuber right now,

Frankie Cortez (17:26):
Mr. Beast.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (17:28):
And what did Mr. Beast do in order to become famous on YouTube?

Frankie Cortez (17:34):
Yeah, so what Mr. Beast did is he looked up the algorithms. He, he really studied what worked, what didn’t work. He looked up what the people wanted, and as he looked up what the people wanted, he began to do trial and error. Okay, if I try this, let’s see if this works, because like statistically it should, but if it doesn’t, let’s kind of tweak, tweak, tweak, tweak. And then he just found his niche, he found his, his kind of vein, and he moved forward with it. And now he’s the greatest YouTuber out there right now.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:02):
And so you’re thinking about this from a, a gospel standpoint or an evangelistic standpoint. And what I really like about your idea of bringing together kingdom influencers is that by working together, we could replicate some of the success that Mr. Beast has had by doing the same thing in the, the kingdom realm. And so what he did, he had a group of friends, a mastermind group, and every day they would talk together, they would critique one another’s videos, they would see what was working, what wasn’t working, what was good at getting views. And he was obsessive about it, tweaking every single little video until it was perfect and looking for creative ideas, creative ways. He loves giving away money. And, and so what Mr. Beast saw is that his early videos didn’t get many views, but as he got better and better, they got more and more views. And so I think if we had a Christian Mastermind group, we could achieve amazing success and, and really catch the attention of people that need Jesus.

Frankie Cortez (19:12):
100%. And this is the point of the group that we created, is that we are creating a group where we can build each other up. We can kind of talk to each other, what worked, what didn’t work. We can kind of give constructive criticism for one another. We can say, this is what we think would reach the most amount of people. And it’s really thinking outside the box. It’s like, let’s do something that we haven’t done before. Let’s try to, you know, look outside of the box and maybe do some of the Mr. Beast type content, but bring it into the gospel and see people saved.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:38):
Hey. Amen. Well, if you’re interested in being part of a group of Christian influencers who are sharing the gospel, uh, reach out to us. Let me know, or, or you can contact, uh, Frankie, uh, what is your website if someone wants to donate to your ministry or find out more about you? Frankie, what, what’s your website?

Frankie Cortez (19:58):
Yeah, if you want to contact me, you can go to promises international.org. Again, promises international.org.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:05):
So I’d encourage you go support Frankie, help him go and preach the gospel around the world. And if you want to communicate the gospel on social media, I encourage you to start making videos. Start using your voice to reach out. Today’s generation is a sight and sound generation. They’re on all the social media, media platforms. So if we wanna reach them, we need to start thinking strategically about how to use social media to present the gospel. God bless you. And thank you so much, Frankie, for being on the Evangelism Podcast.

Frankie Cortez (20:42):
Thank you for having me. Are

Evangelism Podcast Host (20:43):
You called by God to be an evangelist? Do you wanna lead millions of 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 has 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 given ultra call, how to organize a crusade, how to raise money for your ministry, and much more. If you wanna 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 (21:44):
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 (23:05):
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.

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Apple iTunes

Listen to The Evangelism Podcast on Spotify

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Google Podcasts

Find The Evangelism Podcast on Stitcher 

Listen to The Evangelism Podcast on Amazon Audible

The Evangelism Podcast is also available on iHeartRadio

The post Frankie Cortez | Raising Up Influencers for Jesus appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Learn More: https://africanenterprise.org/

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Emmanuel Kwizera is from Rwanda and he is the mission director for African enterprise. A ministry started by Michael Cassidy in 1963. Now the ministry has been handed over to a new generation and they are actively leading people to Jesus all over Africa today. Emmanuel talks about what God is doing through African evangelists who have a heart for evangelism in Africa.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:42):
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 have a very special guest brother, Emmanuel Kwizera from Rwanda. Thank you for being with me today.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (01:20):
Yeah. Thank you so much. My brother king. Thank you so

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:23):
Much now, can you tell me your last name? How do you pronounce

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (01:26):
It? So my last name is QRA. K w I Z E R a QRA.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:32):
And you are with African enterprises, which is a great organization, which is doing evangelism all over Africa. Tell us what you do with them.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (01:42):
Yeah. Thank you so much. As you said I work with African enterprise. Our vision is evangelism it’s proclamation evangelism. So we have teams in 12 African countries. We do evangelistic missions every year. So my role I’m the international missions director, which is like international evangelism director. So I’m overseeing all our 12 offices, but also we also do other evangelistic outreaches in other countries in addition to those 12 countries in Africa.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:11):
So tell us some of the countries that you’re involved in.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (02:14):
Yeah, we involved in South Africa in Zimbabwe, in Zambia, in Malawi, in Kenya, in Uganda, Tanzania South Sudan at DRC Congo in Rwanda, my country also Ghana, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ethiopia,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:29):
And as the, the missions director, what is your role? What are you doing to mobilize people to do evangelism? Yeah,

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (02:36):
First of all, I’m an evangelist by coding. It’s not about what I do in organization. I’m an evangelist. I was born in a family of an evangelist. My dad was a pastor, but an evangelist and then God called me to be an evangelist. So my role, first of all, we train evangelist, local evangelists like in those 12 countries, we also engage the church to partner with the, a local evangelist to reach their cities. So the other thing I do, I, I develop materials. I mostly work on making sure that we have good materials with Bible teaching or evangelism and discipleship. The other thing I also am in charge of strategic partnership because we cannot reach Africa alone. We have been in Africa for 60 years, 60. My organization started 1962 with a micro acid who was an, a evangelist from South Africa. We are now 60 years, but still there are so many places. There are so many people who really needs to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s why part of my role is to make sure that we have strategic partners like ministry.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (03:40):
That is so wonderful. And I think it’s so beautiful to see that God is raising up evangelists all over Africa. You know, for many years, people here in the United States, in Europe, they considered that Africa was a mission field in missionaries would go from north America or from Europe to Africa in, in order to, to do evangelism. But you know, God spoke to me and said, Daniel, the mission field shall become a mission force. Yes. And now when you go to Africa, the churches are on fire for God. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. They are excited about sharing their faith in many African nations are actually more saved than America. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, and there’s more Christians there on fire for God than even here. And, and so now God is raising up African evangelists that are bold in sharing their faith. Tell me some of, of what you feel that that God is doing in Africa.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (04:41):
Wow. That’s a good question. King. Yeah. First of all in 2018 Louanne movement a ministry started by Billy Roham. They just published a research done, and they saying that in 2018, Africa has the biggest number of Christians worldwide. So like since 2018, the most Christians live in Africa. So Africa is no longer what people used to think is at that continent, which I don’t even agree on that. But in terms of number statistics from 2018, we have the biggest number of Christianity. Like the Christianity is growing in Africa. That’s number one, number two, we know that by 2050 half of evangelical born again, Christian, when you say evangelicals in Africa means born again, charismatic those people who really believe in the gospel. So I don’t want to go into details about who’s an evangelical, but it means it’s a born again. So we, Africa will be having half of evangelicals worldwide will be Africans.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (05:35):
So those statistics, it’s just a confirmation that actually Africa is the hope of the global mission. So we are ready. We are, we are getting ready to send missionaries. In fact, it started, if you come here in the us, you hear so many Africans who are planting churches, evangelists, who are in diaspora. So that, that’s why for us, we feel like as evangelistic ministry, we need to train the church in Africa to be effective in evangelism. Yes, Christianity is growing, but we have to make sure that the pro the gospel is where are proclaimed or, or, or, or shared. So that’s why we are training evangelist. Number two, we are also, we believe that there’s a revival in Africa. Cause if you come to Kenya to Rwanda, to kegar to South Africa, to, to Zimbabwe, you hear so many people coming for crusade for one on one evangelism, home based evangelism, radio evangelism, internet evangelism, we are using all different ways of evangelism to make sure that everyone Africa is hearing the gospel. Why? Because also Islam is growing very fast in Africa. So we, we have some good side, but also we still have challenges. We still have unreachable groups, but still Africa is the hope of the future of the global mission.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:47):
Amen. And, and it’s so vital to be proclaiming the gospel in Africa, because you mentioned Islam. There is a, a line across the middle of Africa. Yes. Where many of the Northern African nations have a very high percentage of, of Muslim. And if we are going to lead the world to Christ, we have to start thinking and strategizing about how are we going to, to reach them. And it is very difficult. Sometimes the, the churches are burned down. Pastors are persecuted, they’re run out of town. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And, and so I, I think God will raise up mighty African evangelists that are going to do great things that, that when the, the history is written in heaven, yeah. There are going to be many great Africans that are, their stories will be written of, of all the people that can

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (07:40):
Say. Yeah, yeah. Maybe I can just make, make, make some comment. One. I have a friend of mine, he write a book called Africa to the rest. So first of all, we believe that AF God is really using the church in Africa to send missionaries. But when you are saying to send missionaries, also, we have some part of Africa that needs to hear the gospel. Yeah. Now we are changing our understanding of, of who is an evangelist, because we used to say that there’s some, some are evangelist and others are missionaries for us. We believe that evangelist, he’s a proclaimer, he’s a trainer. He can also be a missionary because if you go to any, any, any other culture, you are still an evangelist, but also you are preaching the gospel to people from other culture. That’s why, for example, in west Africa and north Africa, we feel like at the church, from, from Subara African the region, which has so many churches, we feel like those churches have a responsibility to reach those places as part of us, as part of Africa.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (08:34):
That’s number one. The other thing that I can mention on that, we are using different ways of evangelism. Yes. Sometimes people say, oh, in north Africa, crusade, we not work. Or maybe in west Africa, crusade, we not work, but there’s a different ways we can do evangelism. For example, TV, evangelism, like a television evangelism. We are now coming up with another model called homebased evangelism, how you use the available social media platform in those communities. And then you train people in homes either to invite people, to come, to hear an evangelistic message. And then you connect with a discipleship and also church planting. The other story, which I can share with so beautiful. We are now thinking about engaging the whole church to do evangelism because we believe that evangelist is a trainer. Most of the time in Africa, we see that evangelist, they are revived.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (09:21):
They bring revival, but that revival it’s, it’s not only to get money or buying because it’s actually to have a passion in the passion in the heart to preach the gospel. So we are now engaging the whole church to be involved in evangelism. We are reviving our people to reach their neighbors. We are, we are engaging for example, in leadership, like how believers, who are the business or in leadership, how they can share the gospel with their colleagues, because they’re the same setup. Everything we do, it’s about promming the gospel, but ensuring discipleship and the church growth in different communities

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:59):
Right now, you are actually living in Chicago, Illinois, because you are going to Wheaten college working on your master’s in evangelism. What has that experience been? Like? What have you been learning about evangelism in the, the academic context?

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (10:17):
Yeah. Oh, that’s, that’s very good. So in terms of academic, let me, first of all, quickly say that I, the reason why I made a decision to come and do a master’s in evangelism, we didn’t courage here in Chicago. It’s because I, we realized that we need to influence also the thinking of the church, the theological thinking. So we need to have some evangelists who are also engaging the church on the theological understanding, because one of the biggest problems, especially in the us, you don’t hear much evangelism in the churches. You don’t see Christians really engaging in the community in evangelism. So that’s why I said, let me come in the study, but also have a group of perspective. So I’m trying now to understand how people like at the global perspective of evangelism, but also making sure that me to be there. It’s African voice, it’s a voice of the global south to the global north. I’m sure that there’s so many things that we can learn from the global north, from United States of America, churches with the experience, but also there’s also our contribution to the global church. For example, in my studies, I write all my papers, my research, my academic research on Africa, how the church is going in Africa, challenges of evangelism in Africa, like opportunities of evangelism in Africa. I think now evangelism or missions is from everywhere to everywhere. That’s why I’m learning something with a global perspective, but also I’m contributing as an African evangelist for the global church.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:38):
And your voice is so valuable. It’s so needed because every community, every country is going to be different. There’s different challenges. And in what works in north America may not necessarily work in parts of Africa. And, and so I, I think you’re absolutely right that the voice of the Africans must be heard both theologically and academically. And it, you know, it’s so important to, to have the learning. But I think that the thing that Africa brings is the burning. You are on fire for God. Yes. Which is so valuable. And we need it here. And, and also you are working with Luan. Tell me what you’re doing with them.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (12:19):
Oh, thank you so much. Part of the things I do, I’m also working with the Luanne movement. It’s a movement is started by Billy Roham in 1974. It is starting Luanne. The vision of Billy Roham was to mobilize the church again for proclamation evangelism for the, the Evangel evangelization of the world. So I’m part of that movement. I’m, I’m, I’m in charge of proclamation evangelism issue network, because proclamation evangelism, again, is another thing that most of the time, this time you don’t hear much about proclamation evangelism, which is more encouraging proclamation, evangelism, training, networking, and also bring together some ideas, how we can continue proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:59):
So let’s imagine that you are in Africa and you are on a, a platform and you have the opportunity to proclaim the gospel. What is your message?

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (13:09):
Oh yeah. That’s a very good one. That’s a good question. So normally I focus my message on the five things. One, it’s a God’s plan for human being. So God created us in a, in, in his own image. Number two is the problem of human beings. It’s seen. It’s not about where I live. Like in Africa. It’s not about poverty. Yes. Those are also problems. And we need also to respond the community need. But the biggest problem of human being is seen. Number three, I proclaim about God’s answer to the man’s problem, which the cross of Jesus Christ, there is no evangelism without the message of the cross. So Jesus died on a cross so that we can reconcile with God. Number four. I also proclaim, I also, I put my message into trying to make sure that there is a response of human beings, some God’s response, which means if God Jesus died on the cross, it’s not only enough.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (13:59):
We have to respond. How do we reform? We respond to God’s response. We respond through faith and repentance, which is salvation. And then number three of my message. I always tell people that we are here, but we are, we are waiting the second coming of Jesus Christ. So we are here because we know that very sure one day Jesus will come back. And unfortunately, the, the last point that Jesus coming back, you don’t hear much. But we said, yes, the gospel is really full. When we tell people that actually Jesus is coming back, not to die for our sins, but to come, just to, to reward to just for the end, just to reward those who have been putting their faith in him. So those are the five key things. Again, quickly. My, my God’s plan man’s problem, which sin God’s answer the cross of Jesus Christ, man’s response, faith, salvation, and then also waiting the second coming of Jesus crust.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:56):
Wow. What a great message. And I can see that that message will work in every culture. It’s very simple and easy, but every person on earth needs to know that Jesus is the answer. Yes. Well, brother Emmanuel, I love your heart for evangelism. I love everything that you are doing for Jesus. And if someone is listening and they want to get connected with African enterprises and find out more about what you are doing, what is the website or that they could find out more about African enterprise.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (15:27):
Yeah. Thank you so much. You can go to www dot African enterprise in one, one African enterprise.com. If you go to WW dot African enterprise.com, you will get some of the information that I have been sharing.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:42):
Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (15:45):
Oh, thank you. So for coming and partnering with us, we’ll have you so much. We’ll have your ministry. We are very encouraged to see you coming, doing evangelism together. Evangelism is a, a gods mission together.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:58):
Amen. Thank you brother.

Emmanuel Kwizera – African Enterprise (15:59):
Thank you so much.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:00):
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 (17:19):
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.

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Apple iTunes

Listen to The Evangelism Podcast on Spotify

Subscribe to The Evangelism Podcast on Google Podcasts

Find The Evangelism Podcast on Stitcher 

Listen to The Evangelism Podcast on Amazon Audible

The Evangelism Podcast is also available on iHeartRadio

The post Emmanuel Kwizera | Mission Director for African Enterprise appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Website: https://www.thedayinthepark.com/

Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Alpha Hayward loves reaching people for Jesus in a park, right in the middle of a neighborhood. His ministry has developed an innovative plan for organizing an outreach day at your local park. On today’s evangelism podcast. We will talk about park ministry and about how to activate your local church. In evangelism.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:33):
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 (00:57):
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 Alpha Hayward. Thank you so much for being with me today.

Alpha Hayward (01:08):
Hey, thank you, Daniel. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:12):
Now you are doing days in the park in, so you have put together a manual that helps people that want to do an evangelistic activity in a park. Tell me how did you get started doing that?

Alpha Hayward (01:29):
Yeah, so years ago, I’d say back in 2006, when I was still a youth pastor the Lord gave me a vision at a park with doing music and providing food and games for children and also doing a three on three basketball tournament. And so that’s where it got birthed. And just ever since then each year we just kept doing it. We just kept doing an annual park event based off of the scripture out of Luke chapter 14 where Jesus talks about the parable of the great banquet.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:05):
Give me just a second here.

Speaker 5 (02:09):
Yeah. All right. Looking good, looking good.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:17):
So you had a vision of the, this great banquet. Yeah. And you decided to start reaching out in the park. Tell me what does one of these park outreaches look like?

Alpha Hayward (02:28):
So it basically looks like a, a party at the park, like a, like a festival or even, even you, you could say, like, it looks like a really huge birthday party, you know? It’s a barbecue it’s music. The difference is, is that it’s like live music, different artists coming out. There’s people who are speakers that come out there’s professional athletes that come out. And when we started this, it was pretty basic, you know, it was, was just using resources from the relationships we had of people who were willing to come for free so that we could do it on a budget of 500 bucks. And so that’s, that’s how we started. So share with me some of the testimonies of what God has done through these outreaches. So it started with me talking with my church. So I was a youth pastor and the only real evangelism type ministry that was happening in our church was happening through our ministry because my wife and I have been evangelistic ever since we were involved in ministry.

Alpha Hayward (03:37):
So, and so what we thought was we would talk to a couple folks that we knew around the neighborhood that had like, like one guy had a skateboard shop. And so we asked him, Hey sorry, we haven’t met before, but I see you have a skateboard shop. It was called skate Legion with Greg Maxwell, me and I said, Hey, Greg would you like to help us reach some teenagers by coming over and setting up some ramps and you can promote your business if you want to, but there’s, you know, there’s teenagers that like skateboarding. So would you like to come join us and help us with this once in a while? Maybe like whenever you’re available. And, and he said, you know, that sounds like a good idea. I think I would want to do that.

Alpha Hayward (04:25):
And so that’s kind of what got the ball rolling. That’s what kind of got things started. And then I came outside one day and I just, boom, just had this vision and, and I called a friend. I said, Hey, I think God just gave me this vision of doing like a concert outreach event at this park with food and stuff. And so I just started sharing it with people that I know. So with Greg Maxwell me with some pastors at my church with some friends that I knew, and then that’s how I started making connections because I met Tim burn through Greg Maxwell mirror through one of my friends. I heard about the Louis plow association. And so I just started wherever there was an opportunity to meet someone. I just took it. And I just started talking with people and just started sharing with people with no no agenda of like, I gotta get money, I gotta get money.

Alpha Hayward (05:19):
My focus wasn’t on getting money. My focus was on Lord, put me in touch with people that would like to do something like this. And through the years of building relationship, the, the ministry of day in the park grew because of the relationships, not because of the money, the money came as the ministry grew so completely different mindset or, or even model of doing outreach. And what’s different is this is like neighborhood outreach. So the focus isn’t a huge citywide event. It’s focused on a specific neighborhood. So instead of maybe thinking 2050 or a hundred thousand people, you’re thinking maybe a thousand people, 500 people, maybe, maybe even 5,000 people.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:10):
So now if someone drives past a park, they see your event going on, mm-hmm <affirmative> what are they going to see? What’s going to attract them to stop and say, Hey, I wanna see what’s happening. Right?

Alpha Hayward (06:23):
So of course we do our mailers. We do some door to door. We do some talking to some business owners and stuff. And what we do is we put up the flyers the posters, and it says the day in the park, it doesn’t advertise any specific person. There’s not even an image of a person’s face on it or anything. It just says the day in the park, and then underneath it, it says something like community event or family friendly event, something like that. So that the neighborhood knows, Hey, this is something that perhaps me and my kids can check out. And so they’ll also see things on their like games and prizes and or cotton candy, snow cones, or they’ll, they’ll see stuff like that, all, all over the banner and poster.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:13):
And so not only are you doing day in the park, but you’re also pastoring a church, right. And you are by vocational because you also have a business that you run. Right. So how do you juggle all these different balls?

Alpha Hayward (07:29):
It’s it’s difficult at times, but one thing that helps me for sure is that my, my wife is side by side with me through all this. Another thing is my business is at the stage where I have a good manager. That’s able to run the business when I’m not there. And at the church, there are several elders and leaders that do a great job at taking their role and serving and doing what they’re supposed to do. So it gives me the freedom to be able to move around a little more and, and to be able to kind of put on the different hats at the different seasons. So when it’s time to get ready for day in the park, I can put on that hat when it’s time to be pastor alpha, I can put on that hat. And when it’s time to run, Alpha’s auto detail, I can also put on that hat.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:17):
Do you think that there’s different skills that are needed for each of these different areas?

Alpha Hayward (08:23):
Well, certainly there are some skills, right? Because auto detailing, you you’ve gotta know how to run a buffer in shampoo carpets correctly. But for the most part, what it takes is having absolute faith in the Lord, having a good work ethic and having vision and being willing to be the kind of person who can train up some other leaders and then release them to do things so that you don’t feel like you have to be a hundred percent here and a hundred percent there and a hundred percent there so that you can kind of spread it out.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:53):
Let’s talk about your church. I have a lot of pastors that listen to the evangelism podcast and they’re looking for ways to get their church involved in reaching out to the community. How do you create an atmosphere of evangelism within a local church,

Alpha Hayward (09:13):
Pastors that wanna see more evangelists in their church have to lead as an evangelist. Your approach to ministry needs to shift to being very missional. So you have to be thinking more like a missionary than you are a American church planter and your agenda and focus becomes different. You’re, you’re not focused so much on getting people in the seats. You’re Mo you’re, you’re more focused on reaching the lost, and then having them have a love for Jesus to where they want to be discipled. So you, you just do a little bit of focus and, and shifting of how, how you think and just make sure that your heart’s in the right place, which is being very kingdom and being very mission based.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:01):
Now, I, I know that you put together a manual for how to have a day in a, in the park. Yes. And so people who want to take this idea and run with it, maybe do it in their neighborhood or, or, or their community. And I understand that the manual is on the, the website of the global network of evangelists. And so I’ll put a link to where, so people can download the manual, but kind of just give us a breakdown what’s in that manual. And, and what secrets does it share for doing one of these outreaches?

Alpha Hayward (10:32):
Sure. So what the manual will do is the manual will give you at, at, at the very least a starting place. And it’ll also encourage you so that you would know that you can do outreach and not have money, be the hangup some, so many times we think, man, I don’t have the money for that. Or, or we think that it has to be humongous in order for it to be good, but that’s not true. I would just encourage you to, to peruse it, kind of look at it a little bit, download it because it is free take from it, what you can use and then add to it. What fits your neighborhood? What fits your church, your community, or your missions trip that you’re doing take from it and use it the best that you can. You might even find some things that you would be able to modify to make it better.

Alpha Hayward (11:19):
So I would just encourage you to check it out and see it as a good, at anything else, a good starting place. And just also re just also remember this, that food and music are universal languages. You can go to any country and if you’re gonna offer food to bless people, and you’re gonna have some music there, that’s gonna help you attract some attention. And at even if it attracted 10 people, a hundred people, whatever, you’ll be able to use that opportunity then to be able to share the love of Jesus with anybody who would come for at least some free food and to hear some music.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:55):
That’s awesome. Well, I so love what you are doing day in the park, alpha Hayward. If someone wants to find out more about your ministry and about what you do. Sure. Do you have a website or a way that people can connect with you?

Alpha Hayward (12:08):
We do it is called the day in the park.com.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:12):
Awesome. Well, if you’re listening and you have a heart to do evangelism in your neighbor, your neighborhood they, they have some great resources to help you out. Brother alpha. Thank you for being on the evangelism podcast.

Alpha Hayward (12:23):
You bet, brother, thank you so much. And if anyone needs help, just reach out to me. God

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:27):
Bless you 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 (13:47):
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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The post Alpha Hayward | A Ministry Day in the Park appeared first on King Ministries | Evangelist Daniel King | Our Goal? Every Soul!.

Website: http://www.prophesyandheal.com

Transcript: 

Matthew Helland (00:03):
Hello. My name is Matthew Helen, and together with my wife, we are pastors to the men and women who work in Amsterdam, red light district sex industry. Well my wife and I, we planted our church in Amsterdam. And last year we handed that over to our associate pastors. And now we’re focusing primarily on, on working with people who work in the red light district there in Amsterdam, primarily Spanish speaking, men and women who are there in that industry. And aside from that, I do a lot of training. I do a lot of training and I do a lot of traveling training churches and individuals, how to grow in prophetic ministry, how to grow in words of knowledge, how to grow in, in healing and what I like to call power of evangelism. In fact, recently I just published my first book, which is prophecy and heal, the sick, how to grow in prophecy, words of knowledge, healing, and power of evangelism.

Matthew Helland (00:56):
So this is about seven years that I’ve been experiencing growing and training in this. This is, these are testimonies about how God has used me in Europe, how God has used me in different parts of the world, but also stories about how God’s power has, has, has changed my life. Beginning with my, my testimony, my birth, I, I was born with cerebral palsy. I was never supposed to walk or talk. I should be sitting in a wheelchair, but when I was six months old, my aunt in California sent to prayer cloth from California to Chile, the country where I was born in, and my mother sewed it to my pajamas in a, within a one month’s time, I was totally healed cerebral palsy. So the, the story of, of divine healing and that God heals begins with my birth. And I can only say with great gratefulness to God that he healed me and that I’m alive is, is simply a miracle sign and wonder, I, I am a sign and wonder, and I, I really believe that signs and wonders should always always follow.

Matthew Helland (02:01):
Whenever we preach and teach about knowing Jesus, you call it prophetic evangelism. I like to call it power evangelism because it’s using not just the prophetic, but also words of knowledge healing using the gifts of the spirit to be, to be able to initiate an encounter with somebody in, in Holland most people on the street do not believe in God. I think that’s pretty general. Most people in Europe do not believe in God, specifically in Western Europe because they are so well off and they think they do not need God. So this leads me that many times when I go to the street, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll ask people and I’ll say, Hey, can I tell you what I see in you? Or do you have any pain in your body? And being able to initiate a conversation with a word of knowledge that’s accurate, or with a, with a healing, just makes it a lot more easy to talk about Jesus Christ, to individuals who otherwise think they don’t need Jesus Christ and are not interested in him.

Matthew Helland (02:59):
I think one of the best examples of this is going to psychic fairs. What I’ve seen in the last 10 to 15 years is that there’s been a huge change in Europe. And I think this is, I know this is the United States as well, is that there are people who want some people call ’em secular mystics or, or spiritual atheists. They don’t believe in God, but they believe in something. And the, the whole thing about atheism has kind of lost its luster because now there’s, there’s a huge generation of young people in Holland, for example, who are, have a good education, good jobs, but are burnt out because they have no purpose for their lives. And so what I’ve seen is that many times when, when I talk to strangers on the street and I’m able to use a healing or a word of knowledge for their life than it, just so much easier to be able to share more about Jesus because and, and I think what’s real important here also is just to define a few, a few terms.

Matthew Helland (04:01):
When you say prophecy prophecy, a lot of people don’t understand prophecy. They have an old Testament paradigm of prophecy that prophecy is, is, is an old Testament profit with a big sticks and you repent or, or, or, or you’re good to hell. That is not a new Testament paradigm for prophetic ministry or evangelistic ministry. Instead new Testament prophecy, according to first Corinthians 14, three is strengthening, encouraging and comforting people. According to revelations, 1910 prophecies all about worshiping God for the, the spirit or the heart of, of, of prophecy is testifying or the testimony of Jesus. So when I speak about doing prophetic ministry, I’m, I’m speaking about reflecting Jesus to people and, and listening to Jesus and listening to them and, and seeing how God can open doors and open hearts to be able to demonstrate, not just talk about, but demonstrate the reality of Jesus Christ, old Testament, prophecy the, the prophet, it was only certain individuals who could hear the voice of God only at certain moments.

Matthew Helland (05:10):
And again, the old Testament was a lot more bringing judgment such as Jonah saying, you’ve got, you know, a month or, or more to repent. And then destruction is coming. Also in the old Testament, if a profit ever made a mistake, he needed to be stoned. Fortunately, the new Testament, we find that everybody can prophesy. And when I say prophecy prophesy, I’m not just talking about telling the future because foretelling is a legitimate part of the prophetic ministry, but also forthtelling or telling what the heart or the mind of God is. So in the new Testament, we see that whenever someone stands up to, to prophesy, according to first Corinthians 14, it says that everybody should test and judge first Teston five, 19 through 21 speaks about testing, prophetic words and holding onto what’s from God or holding onto what is good and whatever we don’t understand, we leave on the side.

Matthew Helland (06:03):
So once again, there there’s a total different paradigm that we have between the old Testament and new Testament prophecy, just like there is a totally different paradigm between the old covenant and the new covenant. And what we find is according to acts two 17 and 18, Peter stands up and says that in the last days, God will pour out his spirit upon all flesh and all sons and daughters, everybody servants. So the wealthy, the poor, they can all prophesy. They can all hear God’s voice and give other people messages from God. So it’s real important that everybody realize that hearing God’s voice is not just for certain individuals, but everybody who is a son or daughter of God can hear God’s voice. Because Jesus said that he is our good shepherd and that the sheep hear his voice. He calls us by name.

Matthew Helland (06:53):
So this ability to hear the voice of God is something that’s very important for everybody to cultivate and everybody to, to, to learn. If they truly want to be able to follow Jesus, I, I understand that people are, couldn’t be afraid of false prophets. But just like there’s false profits. There are real profits. And there are also false teachers. There’s also false pastors. There’s, there’s all kinds of false things, but so what’s important to realize is that the, if there’s a false, that means that there’s also a real in each, in these ego chapter 13, verse five, we read a very important differentiation between false profits and real profits. And here he’s actually condemning the false profits. And this is what he says. You have not gone up to the breaches in the wall to repair it for the people of Israel, so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the Lord.

Matthew Helland (07:45):
So here we see three things that false prophets we’re not doing that all true profits are called to do the first thing that says you have not gone up to the breaches in the wall. That’s a picture of standing in the gap or being an intercessor. That’s a person who stands in, in a wall and says the enemy’s not gonna come in. And if they come in, they come over my dead body. So a true prophet is somebody who’s gonna pray. I I’ve heard it said that every, every prophet is an intercessor. Not every intercesor is a prophet, but every prophet is an intercessor. And it’s, it’s truly through prayer. In fact, all mature prophets that I know are, are men and women who are, are great men and women of, of, of prayer. And this means that we’re not interested in, in, in, in raising up our own ego.

Matthew Helland (08:32):
In fact, the greatest prophet of the new Testament, John, the Baptist said, Jesus must become greater and I must become less. So it’s not about making ourselves greater. It’s about making Jesus great. And because I spend time with Jesus, I get to hear his voice just like I spend time with my wife or with my children. I know when it’s their voice. I know when it’s them talking. So it’s, it’s normal to hear the voice of Jesus. And, and even like, for example, the pastel, John, what was he known for? He was known for laying his head on the chest of Jesus. And that’s where we find our authority. It’s an intimacy with God. It’s the intimacy with God, hearing his voice, studying the Bible, fasting, praying. These are all things that we develop the, our intimacy with Lord in order to develop our identity, that we are sons and daughters of God.

Matthew Helland (09:24):
And through developing that identity, we grown spiritual authority. So that it’s, it’s something that’s rooted and grounded in a love relationship with God. In fact, no one should prophesy if they don’t love God and love people and also love themselves. So the first mark of a true prophet is that their, their ancestors, secondly, it says stand in the wall to repair it for the people of Israel. It’s real important that the, the prophetic ministry has to do with, with restoration and repairing and healing healing in the body of Christ. In fact, it’s very clear in, in first Corinthians 14 that the prophetic ministries and ministry that builds up. And if there’s anything that the church needs today is we need individuals who build up the church, who, who love the church. And a true pro true prophet will bring restoration, will bring love.

Matthew Helland (10:18):
In fact, I, I even know true prophets, one of a friend of mine, his name’s on Beto. When he first began his prophetic ministry, he used to pick people out in the audience and say, you there, you’re committing adultery, come repent. You there you’re on drugs, come repent. God wants to change your life. And God really told him he had to stop that because the new Testament ministry of prophecy is not to bring condemnation, but it’s to bring mercy and it’s to bring love. It’s the ring healing. And, and this is why people that perhaps have a prophetic gift who have not been mentored, who have not been trained. They make big mistakes, but, but the Bibles seriously says here that a true prophet will, will stand in the breach for other people will bring reparation healing restoration so that, so that it will stand firm in the battle on the day of the Lord.

Matthew Helland (11:09):
The third thing that they do is is that they prepare people and they create a safe place where they can be nurtured, where they can grow, but also so that they can fight the battles. Where do we find this? We find this also in first Timothy one 18 that says Timothy, my son fight the, the good battle that was given to you. In fact, let me take a moment and just read that so we can see the context of this. What’s so amazing about this is that the Bible, the new Testament is full of references to, to the prophetic ministry and full of scriptures that a lot of people have read over or never seen because because this is a ministry that unfortunately is not well understood today. This is what it says, Timothy, my son, I’m giving you this command and keeping what the prophecies once made about you, so that by recalling them, you may fight the battle.

Matthew Helland (12:06):
Well, and to be honest with you, every one of us have had moments in our lives where we’ve had difficulties and we had not known what to do. And it’s been somebody that’s called us or prayed for us that have, has given us a strength to continue to, to battle, to, to, to fight the good fight. One of my favorite examples is, is a young woman who is in Amsterdam. And I, I told her, God says, Europe welcomes you. You are welcome to Europe. And the next week she was in London in the airport and they said, sorry, you don’t have the right visa. You can’t come into Europe. And she was taken to a little back room in the back and she started taking her fist and started saying, Europe welcomes me, Europe welcomes me, Europe welcomes me, Europe welcomes me. And five minutes later, somebody from immigration comes and says, you don’t have the right visa, but welcome to Europe.

Matthew Helland (12:55):
And that’s just a, a great example of how a true prophetic word, a word from God enables us and not only brings healing but it also gives us a strength to fight the good fights the, the battles that God has for us. Yeah. I, along with many other people differentiate different levels of the prophetic ministry. And we can find this, first of all, that the spirit of prophecy, we find this in revelations chapter 19 verse 10, where it speaks about that the, the, the, the heart of ministry worship God for the, the, the, the, the spirit of prophecy is testimony of Jesus. And we find in places such as in first Samuel chapter 10, first, Samuel, I believe is 19 where Saul would come into a, a school of prophets or a group of profits. And he would begin to prophesy.

Matthew Helland (13:47):
Well, in fact, in one of those accounts, three soldiers who wanna come get David, they run into that group and they start prophesying. And so at this level, this, this basic level, the spirit of prophecy, anybody can prophesy again. Another biblical example is first Corinthians 14, where it says, when everybody in the church is prophesying, somebody will come in from the street that’s that doesn’t know Christ. They will prophesy the, the, the secrets of their hearts. Then they will fall on their knees and say, God is truly among you. And the way that the spirit of prophecy is activated, and I’ve seen this many times is whenever there is like just a strong spirit of worship, where everybody just feels like the presence of God is tangible, and it’s easy for everybody to get a picture or a word from God.

Matthew Helland (14:35):
But the second place where I’ve seen the spirit of prophecy be activated is whenever you have someone like me or someone who has a strong, prophetic gift and they say, okay, guys, we are, we are gonna ask God for a picture. We’re gonna ask God for a word. I think the classic example I like to tell is, is I went to youth group once in Holland is when I was looking at all of them. I came to speak about prophecy, and everybody kind of looked at me as if I had a, like a third eye on my forehead, like pro what’s wrong with him. So anyways, I, I tried to explain prophecy and, and before I, I even started one young woman, I brought with me she had her arms crossed like this, and she said, I want to know if God really exists.

Matthew Helland (15:18):
You know, so I I saw that there was no faith in the room, but as there was no faith in the room, I just stepped out and I started prophesying. And I, I pre that over everybody in the room and eyes in the room popped open as God began to speak to me, give words from their past their president and their future. And that the faith level in that room shot up. So high that by the end of the evening, the woman who, who was saying, I wanna know if God really exists. She was getting pictures and words from God. And she had tears running down her face and she was experiencing God. And like a week or two later, I got to baptize her in water, which, which is wonderful. But the, the crazy thing about this is that there were even people there that, that were were Muslims were from other faiths and Jesus was speaking to him as well.

Matthew Helland (16:06):
And so this is what is so cool. God is always speaking, but we’re not always listening. And whenever there is a, a strong pro anointing or presence of God, then it’s very possible that the, the spirit of prophecy can be there so that everybody there can hear God’s voice. The second level of prophecy is, is, is the gift of prophecy. Now this is found in first Corinthians 12, where it speaks about nine different gifts of the holy spirit. And what’s real important to hear also to realize that it’s not, that we own a gift or have a gift. It’s more, that God is a generous God who likes to give gifts through us. And the, the cool thing about this is that if, if you have a gift of prophecy which by the way, many times, all of these different gifts run together, one with the other, because I never know when I’m necessarily giving a word of knowledge or a word about the future or a healing or discernment of spirits.

Matthew Helland (17:01):
But what what’s cool about this is that I don’t need worship music to give a prophetic word. I can be on the street at a supermarket Walmart at a quick trip at a, at, at a brothel in the red light district. I can be at a psychic fair among people doing a bunch of witchcraft and things. And I can deliver a word from God to people, and I don’t need a special anointing or, or, or anything special like that. So that’s, that’s the gift of the prophecy is that you, you can deliver a word from God at any moment at any time, and you don’t need a special set of conditions. Now, just because you may have a gift of prophecy does not make you a profit. In fact, there are many people that have that God uses with a gift of prophecy, but they’re, they’re not primarily called to be a prophet.

Matthew Helland (17:49):
They’re called to be a teacher or a pastor or a businessman because these are not limited just to people in, in full-time ministry. What is a profit? A profit is someone who can operate at a higher level of authority. It’s important here. And, and this is really important that I say this right now, is that when you first start stepping out and growing in the gift of prophecy, you need to just focus on first Corinthians 14, three, which says strengthening, encouraging, and comforting people just strengthen, encouraging comfort people. Don’t tell them who they’re gonna marry. Don’t tell ’em when they’re gonna die. Don’t tell them how many kids they’re gonna have don’t. And especially, don’t say, God told me you’ve gotta marry me, because that can be very manipulative. And that could be God, but it also could be your own desire.

Matthew Helland (18:37):
But back to the, the difference, the levels there has been much manipulation. And in fact, I, I write in my book about charismatic witchcraft. When people try to get their own will done by using God’s name, we wanna avoid this. And how do we avoid this? Just have people focus on, on strengthening, encouraging comforting people. God says, I love you. God says, you’re my dearly beloved son. That’s a word that’s always right. That’s a word that you can always give to people. And I’ve seen people in, in Budapest and Barcelona and Amsterdam and Kiev and major cities of Europe begin to cry because people are not used to hearing the love of God. And the ministry of prophet is a ministry of loving people. It’s a ministry of, of, of, of giving God’s truth in his words, in, in a way that’s loving.

Matthew Helland (19:24):
Now back to the ministry of, of, of, of the prophet there are many prophets who do not call themselves prophets, and that’s okay, because all a prophet is, is a friend of God. But whoever is called to the ministry of a prophet will be able to function at high levels of, of telling the future that can happen. Spiritual warfare, bringing breakthrough. In fact, this is one of the things that the ministry of the prophet does. The ministry of the prophet brings breakthrough into a place. We planted many churches in this region of, of Oklahoma, Missouri of Arkansas. And I remember my brother would get a prophet to come and travel with him. And that prophet would bring breakthrough and the supernatural would breakthrough mightily. And, and I have seen how, when I deliver a word from God to somebody, and I don’t know anything about him, a great example of this, I just found out about this last week.

Matthew Helland (20:20):
But last year I was here briefly and I walked to a man and I started telling him all about his business and what God was gonna use him for. And what I did not know was that God had given an idea for a business and he’d lined up all of the financing, but that weekend he’d prayed and said, God, I need to know if you want me to do this or not. And then he happened to meet me. And I happened to turn to him and start, describe to him exactly what his business was, what he was planning and what God was gonna do. And he has since then launched that business. And again, I knew nothing about that business, but I allowed God to use me as a mouthpiece because that is what a prophet is. He’s a mouthpiece, he’s the hands and feet of, of God to the world.

Matthew Helland (21:09):
And actually this is something that, that God caused all of us to be his friends and, and being able to share his words and his power to the people around us. I, I believe with all my heart and, and the way that I define prophecy, not just telling the future, but strengthening, encouraging comforting people. I believe with all my heart, that everybody who’s a follower of Christ can hear God’s voice and everybody can can prophesy. I think that the, the best way to explain it, or, or give an example of it is my own children. Last week where at IHOP and house of pancakes, and I had everybody in IHOP go ahead and sing happy birthday to my son. And he just wanted to climb under the table like, oh, they’re singing happy birthday to me. And then two people came and gave him $20 bills.

Matthew Helland (21:53):
And he looked at me and said, dad, let’s go prophesy over ’em. And, and for my kids, it’s very normal to be, to, to, to get a word from God or a picture from God to people and go strength and encourage and comfort them. And so the way that, that, that I break down in fact, why don’t I just do it now, if you open up your Bible to the book of Proverbs chapter four here we see three classic ways that you can hear God’s voice and that you can deliver a word to somebody else. Proverbs chapter four verse 20 says my son pay attention to what I say, turn your ear to my words. The first way that we prophesy is knowing God’s word is scripture. In fact, I say to everybody, you wanna prophesy, read your Bible, pray every day, growing that intimacy with the Lord, don’t be a lazy person who just needs to go to a prophet to get a word from God every day, God speaks to me through his word.

Matthew Helland (22:48):
So the first way that we prophesy is someone is we ask God for a scripture. We ask God for a Bible story or a worship song. So like the cameraman behind me, I don’t even know him, but I’ll just go and ask God for a word for him. So God will you just gimme a scripture for this man. And immediately what it, what I just, I think of that scripture that says those who believe in me will have rivers of living water flowing out of them. And what’s your name? Shane Shane Shane the Lord has called you to a ministry of, of, of being not only filled with the holy spirit, but of flowing out of the holy spirit. And I see you just like, even in the future training people in holy spirit and empowered ministry. And I see you not only working with media as you’re doing now, but I also see you communicating and speaking things to the lives of people, because you just said everyone who believes in me, they will have rivers of living water flowing out of them.

Matthew Helland (23:43):
And, and again, I see the Lord using you, not only here in, in this area, but I also see him using you internationally. And that the Lord is just gonna, he he’s, he’s cultivating and he’s forming things inside of you. And you’re learning from other people such as Daniel King. But I, I see you just grabbing your, your, your Eagles wings and, and soaring, and that the Lord’s gonna use you mildly to equip other people in spirit empowered ministry. Now, what, what I often do when I, when I give a word to someone I say, does that make any sense to you now realized I, I could be relaxed in delivering that word. I didn’t have to say, so says the Lord thou my child, you can speak in king James’s version, but God doesn’t always speak in king James’s version. We can be very relaxed about when we prophesy.

Matthew Helland (24:29):
And, and so what I just did to him is, is I gave him a scripture and I encourage, I strengthened. I comforted him. And then the next verse do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart. The second way that God speaks to us is through visions or, or pictures or dreams. And, and you don’t have to be weird about this. Just ask God for a picture. If I were to say, do you see three yellow bananas? And, and the knife going through these three yellow bananas, you’d say, yeah, I can imagine that. And so God can speak to us through our imagination. Now I realize the evangelical Protestant church has, has kind of thrown the baby out with a bathwater when it comes to dreams and visions and the supernatural because of abuses. Let’s not do that.

Matthew Helland (25:17):
<Laugh> in fact, a, a huge percentage of the Bible is prophetic words is visions and dreams. And God did not stop speaking to us 2000 years ago, just because we got the Canon scripture. No, he continues to speak to us this way. And, and I can tell you stories. Oh, about three weeks ago, I was in Orlando in the airport. And I I’d spent some time just waiting for my family. And I was just silent, silent, just waiting before the Lord. And I walked into the Sam night store and I started talking to the guy there. And all of a sudden, I just looked at him and said I see you as an engineer. And I, I started telling more things that I saw on him, and I asked him, so, so what are you studying? And he looked at and he said, oh, I’m studying to be an engineer.

Matthew Helland (25:58):
And so what happened was God was giving me information about him not to misuse it or abuse it, but to show him that God loved him. So the second way that God speaks to us is through pictures. So if you’re watching this right now, why don’t you go ahead and pause this if you can. And why don’t you go ahead and ask God, God, speak to me through a picture. Give me a picture, give me a word, go ahead and, and speak to me right now. And, and you might see something saying, well, what does that mean? That’s half the fun, because when God starts giving you pictures or dreams, you’ll see many times prophets in the Bible said, what does that mean? Then you begin the, the, the, the process of hermeneutics and what is hermeneutics that’s interpreting and applying a word, just like you, you, you do a scripture.

Matthew Helland (26:46):
So you do it with, with dreams and visions. You, you, you take a picture. You God, what does it mean? And Lord, how do I apply this to my life? And it’s not always simple. That’s why I’ve written a whole book. So in, in my book, I, I describe 10 guidelines for developing prophetic ministry. And it’s really important that we have guidelines whenever someone wants to grow in prophetic ministry. The first one is, is always prophesy lovingly. I learned from my parents that the most important thing that you you can do is not how good you can prophesy or teach or preach or, or, or heal the sick. The most important thing that you can do is love people. And the Bible says that that prophecy, new Testament, prophecies is strength and encouraging comfort people. So even when I may have a word, that’s a word to bring correction or a word that could it possibly be a warning, I’m still gonna bring it in a way that’s gonna strengthen and encourage and comfort people.

Matthew Helland (27:45):
In fact, the difference between condemnation, which is the, what the enemy does is that he brings truth. And then he tries to kill people with that. Whereas conviction will bring truth to somebody, but it will bring a way that gives them life and hope. In fact Jesus himself in the, in the first two chapters of revelation speaks to seven different churches in those churches. He all tells them a warning, but he always ends it with a promise and what rewards they can get if they obey him. So it’s really important that whenever we deliver a word from the Lord, whenever someone who’s prophetic sees something that they bring a word in a way that still is going to bring God’s love. And, and, and it’s important that, that you be wise when you do this. For example, I, I prophecy over a woman once I, I, I said something to the effect of, you know, I see like a hand and it’s like a spirit of fear that wants to control you.

Matthew Helland (28:40):
And in the name of Jesus, I just come against all fear and I speak life over you. She didn’t hear anything else. She only saw the hand and, and fear, and that stuck with her. And that, that was a problem. So that’s why it’s really important that you be very, very wise in what you say and how you say that so that you won’t make people scared, but that you will really bring God’s message in a way that that will build them up and, and, and do it in a way that, that, that truly is, is strengthening and encouraging and comforting. The second guideline is, do not isolate yourself, but work together in teams. This is probably one of the major problems I see with people that have a prophetic gift is that they they’re sensitive. They can get offended easily and they will isolate themselves.

Matthew Helland (29:29):
And that is not good for anybody. In fact, the example that we have in scripture is that profits always worked in teams or schools. And so I like to travel with other people so that we can, as iron sharpens iron so one man sharpens another, we can sharpen each other. We can grow in the gifts and there can be a transmitting of gifts of spiritual gifts from one person to another. There’s one profit from the UK that says that a self-made profit. It takes him about 20 years to develop the to his potential and the prophetic gift in the prophetic ministry. But if he’s trained, then it can take, instead of 20 years, it can take 12, 12 years. So there’s great acceleration, which takes place when you work together in teams, also great accountability, which is also incredibly important.

Matthew Helland (30:20):
Point number three, don’t be too dramatic when you prophesy. You don’t have to speak in king James version. Also smile, be relaxed. Don’t be unnecessarily weird guideline four, be sensitive for God and to people ask permission before you place your hand on someone, if you want to place for them pray for them. Be extremely sensitive regarding weddings, births, healings, and deaths be culturally sensitive when ministering in different culture than your own. As I, as I already said previously, if you’re in a, a cold culture where they don’t trust emotions tone your emotions down. But if you’re in a, in the south of the United States or in Africa, be as passionate as you want to, because that’s, that’s, that’s what those cultures appreciate, but be sensitive to people, to guide into people. Number five, never allow people to worship you the goal of prophecies to make Jesus great.

Matthew Helland (31:18):
And not yourself. Step guideline six, never give a prophetic word that is contrary to the Bible. The Bible is the word of God and prophecy does not come over scripture. No scripture is what we judge every prophetic word as Kenneth Hagen once said we do not live our lives according to prophecies. No, we live our lives according to scripture. So, so every prophetic word must be tested and must be submitted to what is in scripture. Someone once told me that it was God’s will that he was living together with his girlfriend and out, and, and, and not being married. That does not line up with scripture. We, we submit to scripture and not to the feelings that we may or may not have. Number seven, learn to give a prophetic word at the right moment in the right time. The Bible says that a prophet has control of him or herself in first Corinthians 1432.

Matthew Helland (32:15):
It’s important to learn, to give a word from God at the right moment. And at the right time, in fact, one prophet who trained me told me that 90% of what God shows you, you don’t necessarily need to say, instead of write in your journal, in fact, pray about it. Not everything that you know, or that the Lord gives you, do you need to say, and there are many words that sometimes I’ll receive from, from, from the Lord. And I will not give that publicly, but I’ll just pull somebody aside and share that in a private way. A, a classic way of this. I was in a church in, in Eastern Europe and all of a sudden I felt an evil spirit RO walk into the room. Now, the last thing I should do at that moment, say everybody, listen, an evil spirit just walked into the room.

Matthew Helland (33:05):
No, that was information for me to know at that time. And I just continued to focus on the holy spirit, focus on Jesus and kept doing what we’re doing. I took authority over that spirit and I, I prayed at that moment. And at the end of the service, I took the pastor aside and I just said, Hey, I feel like this spirit was here. And I really feel like this and this and this, and this was, was taking place. And he said, that’s true. What, what you’re saying? That’s true. That’s something that we have to deal with. And so it’s really important that you have wisdom to give a prophetic word at the right moment and the right time to the right person. Number eight, every prophetic word must be tested. Welcome feedback. When you minister in a church, you submit the authority to the local church.

Matthew Helland (33:50):
Prophets are servant leaders who help build up the church. Once again, we don’t compete against each other. We complete each other apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers should work together to equip the saints so that they can do the work of the ministry. Number nine, record, every prophetic word possible. I had a, a pastor who, who told everybody that I met some of his people and I, I prophesied told them that it was God’s time for them to leave his church. And I said, pastor, did you listen to the recording? Because I never said that. And I would never say that now, thanks that I, that was recorded. There was proof that I never prophesied. I never said that that was something that they interpreted in their own way. Again, people can say things that you said, something that you never said. So for the sake of your own safety, but also for the ability of later listening to what the prophetic message has been record, write it down or put it on your, on your smartphone and number 10, prophesy from faith.

Matthew Helland (34:50):
And not only from feeling sensations or emotions, the key scripture here is Romans 12 six, which is you as a gift of prophecy, does it, according to their level of their faith, you do not need an angel to sit on your head. You do not need to feel anointing. I’m all for feeling anointing, but we walk by faith and not by feeling. So I prophesy not by how I feel, but by faith, I believe that as I opened my mouth, God is going to speak Smith. Wigglesworth was once at a meeting where he was praying. And then he started speaking and prophesying over people. And it was like liquid fire coming out of his mouth. And they said, how do you do that? And his response was I, I begin in the flesh and I end in the spirit and that’s just like speaking in tongues.

Matthew Helland (35:43):
That’s just like praying for healing. That’s just like prophesying. Many times, we by faith step out and begin to speak. As it says in Psalms, open your mouth and I will fill it in Luke 10 and 12. It says that that when we’re before Kings and, and priests, when we don’t know what to say, don’t worry because the holy spirit will give you at that moment. What to say? It says that when we speak it’s, it’s not just us speaking, but it’s God speaking. First, Peter four 11 says that whoever speaks, speaks as if God himself is speaking through you. So the Bible clearly instructs us that we can speak words of God, to other people, but when we do it, we do need to do it in a way that’s, that’s humble in a way that honors people in a way that’s loving.

Matthew Helland (36:31):
And, and ultimately remember faith is spelled R I S K. You have to get out of your comfort zone. You have to say something which might look you may, may, may, may look, may seem like you’re really stupid. A beautiful example of this is, is Gary Best book. It’s naturally supernatural, where he tells about a vision where he had was where he was on diving board. And he looked down and there was no water in the swimming pool. And God says, jump. He’s like God, there’s no water in the swimming pool. That’s gonna hurt. God says jump. God, I don’t like pain. I don’t wanna jump. And finally he jumps and the moment he jumps, the swimming pool gets full of water. And that’s, it is that’s the same way it is with the supernatural first time I had a word of knowledge on television.

Matthew Helland (37:25):
All of a sudden I got pain right here. And I thought, oh no, this is the word of knowledge. What am I gonna do? Finally, with two minutes left on the, on the video or on the, on the camera. I said, okay, someone there has pain right here. And I believe God’s healing you when I was done. I was like, what did I just do? I mean, if you take a step of faith, you’re gonna feel stupid. But that, that that’s okay because it was actually the cameraman that at that moment got healed from his pain that he had right there. So if you wanna operate in the prophetic, if you wanna operate in the healing, in these things, that means that you will have to get out of your comfort zone. I know for example Daniel King is here with me. And every time that you stand up to say, God is going to heal.

Matthew Helland (38:13):
Now you’re taking a risk. You’re doing it by faith. And I’ve been in churches. For example, this last Sunday, I was in a church here in Tolson. I said, I believe God is going to heal 30 people in the next five minutes. And we started praying. And the first time we prayed, 12 people were healed. And I said, now we’re going for 30. Let’s do it again. We started praying again, that time 18 people raised their hand. I said, okay, we’re gonna do it one more time. And I believe that God’s gonna heal 30 people. And we prayed one more time. I said, okay, let’s do it again. And I counted. And there was 30 people waving their hands. If they had experienced a healing in their body, what did that take? It took faith. It took me taking a step of faith. Now, let me be real honest with you.

Matthew Helland (38:59):
Not every time I pray for healing, does everybody get healed? I’ve had meetings where it seemed like everybody got healed that I pray for. I’ve had meetings, maybe one, or nobody gets healed, but that’s okay because I can’t heal anybody. It’s God that heals. And my job is to step out and to love and to pray for people. So whether or not people get healed, whether or not all the words I give to people are accurate or not. It’s not about the signs and the wonders. It’s about Jesus. It’s about knowing Jesus, because Jesus said there will be people who will say, have we not prophesied? Have we not healed the sick? Have we not cast that demon? And you’ll look at them and say away from me, I never knew you. So if you want to grow in the prophetic, don’t focus on the prophetic, focus on Jesus, focus on loving him on speaking his word on strength and encouraging on comforting other people’s. And you’ll see how the, the, the supernatural can begin to become very natural and normal for you.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
Do you have any testimonies of how you use the gift of prophecy or word of knowledge, of course. And witnessing the people? Of

Matthew Helland (40:15):
Course. Yeah, let me, let me share a few testimonies here regarding using words of knowledge and, and using prophetic words. One of my favorite places do this, I don’t know if I’ve talked about it already, but is, is psychic fairs as psychic fairs, people are coming there looking for for information. And so what I’ll do is I’ll set up a table and I’ll set up a menu board. And on that menu board, I’ll write things like I offer healing, I offer spiritual advice. I offer dream and tattoo and name interpretation a workshop on how you can hear from my source. And I make it look as if I’m just another psychic, which I’m not a psychic I’m, I’m a, I’m a man of God. I call myself a seer. And in front of myself, I put a bunch of scripture cards and people ask are those terror cards.

Matthew Helland (41:12):
And I’ll say, ah, there’s something like that. But all it is is it’s God’s word. And so I’ll, I’ll tell people, well, go ahead. You know, this is my menu. And I operate from out my source and my source is Jesus Christ. And so what happens is, is just different examples. One little girl says, nah, I wanna know my future. And I said, Ooh, grab a grabs, a card, Jeremiah 29 11. I know the plans that I have for you to give you hope in the future. Another man from a radio program came to interview me and see if I was the real thing or not. And he said, I wanna know my future. And I said, well, grab a card. And there said, and you will be, and I will be your father. And you will be, my son says the Lord, God almighty.

Matthew Helland (41:54):
And this just opened the door for me to be able to share the gospel with him. I will give a presentation. And again, I do not use any churchy words or Christianity words, the Christian words, because that would scare people away because they think that the church does not have anything to offer them in a spiritual sense. One woman I baptized said, I knew the church had the father, the son, but I did not know you had the spirit. So what I’ll do is I’ll begin and I’ll tell stories about healing. And then I’ll say my source is gonna heal people now. And sometimes I’ll use the word of knowledge by saying, who has pain here, or who has pain there or who, whose name is possibly this. And then people will come forward. And, and as I begin to pray for people, people get healed.

Matthew Helland (42:38):
And then I’ll say, who would want to know who my source is? And then everybody in the room raises their hand. And then I start saying his name is Jesus Christ. And then I share the gospel about how God loved the world and we’re broken and came to heal it and how Jesus was broken on the cross. And he wants to take all our brokenness hurt pain and sin, and he wants to give us a new life. And I end by saying, who would like a personal word from Jesus Christ and everybody in the room raises their hands. Everybody wants prayer. Everybody wants a personal word from Jesus Christ. Whereas if I go to a psychic fair with a big black Bible and preach at people, nobody’s gonna want to talk to me. But if I become a Jew to the Jew or a, a Gentile or the Gentile, or, or reaching people in psychic affairs, the way that other people are doing it.

Matthew Helland (43:27):
And the cool thing is, is what I say is the way that I treat witches in psychics is I give em a hug. And many times Jesus heals them. And many times they send people to our table. And many times we have higher percentage of, of healings taking place, but what are we doing there? We’re simply loving people. And the other thing that I, that I, that I, where I work weekly in the red light district, and I love to be in the red light district when it’s dark and there’s lots of busyness and nearly every week, well, every week I get to pray with, with men or women in the prostitution. And, but what’s normal is that that I’ll come in and, and everybody will close their window and we’ll grab hands and I’ll start praying for him. And I’ll start prophesying over him.

Matthew Helland (44:12):
And I’ll who has pain and I’ll start praying for him and God will heal them there. And what is my message? My message is God loves you. He has a hope and a future for you. You are his dearly beloved daughter. And by the grace of God, we’ve been able to help some get out, but every week there’s there’s women or, or even some men that say, can you help me get out? Can you help me? Like one woman looked at me and said, you’re the pastor. And you’re gonna help all of us get outta here. And by the grace of God I don’t mean to be pretentious or arrogant in any way, but we want to continue to help serve these men and women in that place. But again, evangelism and prophecy is really not that hard. It’s all about loving people and loving God and trusting God that for a picture for a, a word, a scripture or something that when you look at somebody, you can say, you know, I see this or this, or, or I feel this or this.

Matthew Helland (45:11):
And, and, and if that word is accurate, which many times it is, then now you have instead of a small door to op talk about Jesus. You have a much larger door and opportunity to share about Jesus. One of my some of the people that I really enjoy ING to are, are people that are, are transgenders. And I’ve, I I’ve seen when I, when I go to their places of work, I, I don’t go there to condemn them or, or, or tell ’em off and I just go there to pray for them. And as I pray for someone, I can tell you stories about how all of a sudden, they’ll just start feeling like a warmth that goes over their body, or a pain that God heals them, or, or, or, or I might interpret a dream or, you know, something happens.

Matthew Helland (46:00):
And they’ll start asking me the hard questions. And I can’t always answer all the hard questions, but one thing I can do is tell them that God loves them and that he has a future for them and a purpose for them, for anybody that would say that that prophecy is not necessary. Because we have the Bible, I would say, read the Bible. The Bible says for Corinthians 14, one follow the way of love and eagerly desire, spiritual gifts, especially prophecy. The Bible says that we are to desire to prophesy that we are desire to heal the sick. He says again, in, in 1439, therefore my brothers and sisters be eager to prophesy and do not forbid speaking in tongues, but everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way. Whoever believes. And I, and I respect many, many wonderful men and women of God who have great respect for them, but the, the, the, the teaching of cessationism is a teaching that is based upon man’s experience and not upon scripture, because everywhere that we see that the scripture is preached, we see that lives are changed.

Matthew Helland (47:09):
We see that signs and wonders are normal. Let’s go to the ministry of Paul real quick. He says, for example, for Corinthians two my message in my preacher, where we’re not with wise and persuasive words, but with the demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power, all he knew was Jesus Christ, crucified, resurrected. And he was not going with wise words, but with power. And, and again, we turned to the book of Romans chapter, chapter 15, and here he says verse 17, through, through 20, it says, I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God, I will not venture to speak of anything, except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done, what did he do by the power of signs and wonders through the power of the spirit of God? So from Jerusalem, all the way around to lyric, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.

Matthew Helland (48:07):
The Bible speaks about us preaching the gospel with demonstrations. Jesus told us to heal the sick, to cleanse the dead lepers to, to, to, to raise the dead freely. We have received freely. Give that we say that miracles and signs and wonders have stopped because of the can of scription scripture is, is not only unscriptural. It is buying into the culture and the times of modernism, because modernism says that you’ve gotta be rationally, be able to explain everything the, the world that we live in. It’s, it’s actually a problem of, of, of, of worldview. John Wimber, he was the one who always spoke about worldview, and he said, the four things that Western culture teach us are, are, are, first of all, that we are actually deist or atheist. We believe that basically God created the world like a clock maker, and then let the world just continue to run without his daily involvement that, that, that we need to do things in our own strength, individualism that, that we have to have nobody tell us what we can do or not do materialism and rational that you shouldn’t be able, you shouldn’t trust anything that you don’t understand fully, but that is not the Bible of scripture.

Matthew Helland (49:29):
That is not the teaching of scripture. It says that he’s a God who does more than we could ever ask, think or imagine. And when we read the book of acts, when, when we read not just the book of acts and, and, but we read the pistols, we read the, the book of revelation. We read all of the Bible. We find a God who, who speaks through scripture, but he also speaks through dreams through visions. He speaks through prophets, he speaks through apostles. And so this whole idea of throwing out because of legitimate abuses, there are false profits, they’re all FARs teachers, but there’s also real profits. And there’s also real teachers. And there’s real apostles, many of who won’t call themselves a prophet or an apostle, but we need as much as we needed signs and wonders back then we need signs and wonders today.

Matthew Helland (50:28):
Why is it that people are going to psychics? And they’re going to, to, to, to other sources, because they believe that the church is, is only about teaching moral teachings and that they have no power. One woman came to me and said, I believe I have the gift of healing in my hand, but my church says that that doesn’t work. That, that, that, that, that’s not of God. And I said, well, come to my church because that’s what scripture says, that everybody who believes in Jesus can lay their hands on the sick and that they will recover. And so it’s really important that we do not base our doctrine upon our experience. If you have never experienced a healing that does not mean that God does not heal. In fact, he commands us to, he heal the sick by laying our hands on them. So I would, I would respectfully disagree with my brothers and sisters who believe that that in cessationism that God does no, no longer does healings and signs and wonders.

Matthew Helland (51:32):
And again, part of that reason is because I am a sign in wonder, I was never supposed to walk or touch, but by the Walker or talk, but by the, the power of God, God healed me of cerebral palsy. And the list can go on and on. There are many false teachers and false prophets and false pastors, but don’t throw away the baby with a bath water, because God still wants to heal. Still wants to do mighty things through his church, through his people today. If, if you wanna grow in the supernatural, let me just encourage you to grow on three things. The first thing is love. The second thing is faith, take risks, go find people who, who are doing this stuff. Go learn, go, go buy my book, prophesy and heal the sick. You can get that on my, on my website, prophesy, heal.com or, or on Amazon.

Matthew Helland (52:19):
There’s other good books. But third, stay humble. Please stay humble. And let me break down humility. Real quick. Humility is four things. According to Jonathan Edwards, a famous preacher, he said first humility is being content. If you’re prideful, that means you’re driven by fear or driven by emptiness, trying to prove yourself, be content as, as, as, as Paul said whether I’m rich or poor, I can do all things to Christ strengthens me. Second of all, humility is, is being friendly and kind and respectful to people who disagree with you. That’s being humble. Prideful means that you’re, you’re you’re disrespectful. You, you you’re mean to people that that don’t agree with you spend time with people that, that don’t believe like you that are of a different faith that are a different political opinion. Number three humility is, is is being teachable is being correctable.

Matthew Helland (53:18):
But if, if you’re, if you’re prideful, then you know it all, then no one can teach you anything. So, so remain, remain teachable and fourth, someone who is humble is, is someone who is, is secure. Whereas someone who’s prideful is highly insecure. And why, where is our source of, of security? It’s that we know that we are not what we do. We’re not what we have. We’re not what people think of us is that we hear the voice of Papa guy that says you are my dearly beloved son. You’re my dearly beloved daughter. I love you. And I please with you and learning to connect with that voice every day enables us that we can be that voice to other people. And to let them know that the gospel is about a God who loved the world so much, that he gave his son to, to die on the cross for us.

Matthew Helland (54:14):
And that, that is not just something from 2000 years ago, but that’s something of now that he wants to take our brokenness, our hurt and our pains and that because of the incarnation, because of what he did the, the, the, the son of God became a son of man, so that the sons of men could be sons of God. We can know God, because ultimately all prophecies about it’s about knowing God, knowing God and being his hands and feet to many people. So please remain full of love, remain full of faith and remain very humble whenever you operate in prophecy and any gifts of the spirit. Thank you. And God bless.

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Learn more about James Burkett and Apologetics on Fire: https://apologeticsonfire.com/

Transcript:

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Dr. Jim Burkett is an apologist on fire for Jesus on today’s program. We’re gonna be talking about the intersection between apologetics and evangelism. You’re going to learn why apologetics is so important. And you’re also going to learn some practical ways that you can defend your faith.

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:25):
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 Danielle King.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:00):
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, Dr. Jim Burkette. He is an expert in apologetics brother, Jim, thank you for being with me today.

Dr. Jim Burkett (01:18):
Well thank you for having me, and it’s very exciting to be with you and gosh, all the great things that God has and is doing through you and your family. And God’s using you to ignite a, a spiritual chain reaction through so many parts of the world. And I praise God for that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:34):
Now I’ve had the opportunity to go to several of your meetings here in the Tulsa area at different churches, where you were talking about apologetics, and you are really passionate about equipping the body of Christ to defend their faith through the use of apologetics. Why is apologetics so important to you?

Dr. Jim Burkett (01:58):
That’s a great question. You know, I receive the Lord Jesus watching Billy Gray am on TV back in the ninth grade, and didn’t grow up in a Christian family. And eventually the Lord called me into the ministry when I was a senior in high school, went to our denominational university. And my junior year, I just about lost my faith in a Christian university. And it got to the point where I’m, I’m preaching almost every weekend in a revival, but gosh, I thought if have all these doubts. So I prayed the agnostics prayer, which basically is, I don’t know if God, if you’re really there or, or if I’m am I speaking to air. So I really said, God, if you’re there, I need an intellectual stake, something that is immovable and meant that if I didn’t get any answers by the end of the semester, well, I’m changing universities.

Dr. Jim Burkett (02:49):
I’m changing my major. So two nights later to ask God to gimme an intellectual stake, two nights later, I’m at our university library. Why am I at the university library? Cuz I had a term paper due the next morning and I thought I should start on it. I had the gift of procrastination, some have said, but as I was going through the periodical section, I see this magazine called Christianity today. And as I stopped looked at it, I was stunned to see that the lead article was the historical evidence for the resurrection Jesus Christ ice. And I thought this is probably written by a pastor or a missionary or a theologian. I was stunned to find out that it was written by the, the Dean of the law college at the university of London, who was also the director for advanced legal studies and considered one of the world’s leading authorities on evidence.

Dr. Jim Burkett (03:36):
Then I found out it was not even an article. It was a trans of an address he gave to the Harvard Christian university fellowship. And I was stunned because Dr. Anderson basically says, I’m gonna act like an attorney and we’re just gonna follow the evidence where it goes. We’re gonna look at the betrayal, the trial the crucifixion and the purported resurrection, Jesus Christ. So all of a sudden he’s quoting this scholar and he’s quoting up that philosopher, he’s quoting this historian, then I’m going, why haven’t I heard about this in my own class, in my own courses, I’m a theology major, never heard of any of this. And the next last paragraph, he basically said this, the only conclusion we could come to on the basis of the evidence is that somehow some way Jesus of Nazareth came back from the dead in history.

Dr. Jim Burkett (04:22):
And that’s when I heard that sh that, that, that intellectual stake. So I tell people, I met the Lord when I was 14, but apologetic saved my faith when I was 21. So that’s why I have such a passion because I’m finding out the great majority of Christians Lisa ones, I come in contact with if you ask ’em, why are you a Christian? Many times they trace it back to their family, or they trace it back to you know, certain relationships, but most do not give a rational reason why they put their trust in Jesus Christ. And yet Jesus used the first 40 days of his post resurrection, pre Pentecostal ministry doing apologetics and giving rational reasons and, and demonstrating

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:12):
Giving convincing proofs that he really was alive.

Dr. Jim Burkett (05:15):
And that word convincing proofs don’t mean to interrupt you here in the Greek is tech Maria, which always means when it’s used, whether it’s in the Bible or other Greek sources, it means what’s being shared, being reported. What’s being demonstrated can be factually seen or factually seen to be absolute factual and true. So what Jesus do for 40 days, I say he did apologetics, which of course impact the disciples. I tell my classes, Hey, was it, was it the faith of the disciples that produced the resurrection of Jesus? Or was it the resurrection of Jesus that produced the faith in the disciples?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:54):
I am first in evangelist and then have a curiosity in apologetics. My, my calling is to, to bring people to Jesus and, and in a quest to do that, I recently wrote a book called proof. God is real. And this came out of a church. I was ministering at, in Missouri. A mother came up to me and she was crying. She says, could you please pray for my son? And I thought maybe her son was sick or something. And so I said, what does he need prayer for? And she said, he’s grew up in church. He served God his whole life, but he got a whole of some atheist books. And now he says, he’s an atheist. And he has rejected all the story of Jonah and David and Goliath that he learned in Sunday school as a kid, she said, could you please pray for him?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:43):
So I grabbed her by the hand, we prayed for him. And then I said, give me his phone number. And I called him the next day. And we talked for a while and he had lots of, of questions and objections to Christianity. And to be honest, I didn’t know how to answer all the questions. So I, I started to study the, the works of, of great apologi and look for the answers. And out of that study came this book prove God is real. And in this book, I give the reasons why I believe that God really is real, that we can prove that God is real, beyond a reasonable, bold out. He is alive. He lives today. And so, as I was setting this, I, I came across your lectures on, on several occasions and learned a lot from you. But I, I, I found that, I think that apologetics is really vital to the process of evangelism. What do you think is the, the connection between evangelism and apologetics? Why, why are both important?

Dr. Jim Burkett (07:49):
Kind of a prelude to that? I tell, I tell whether it’s in a workshop or whether it’s in a class or whether it’s apologetics revival, I tell them there are four question that every Christian needs to be able to answer in the affirmative because he knows it’s factually true. Number one, does truth exist as objective truth exists. This is such a serious issue in our culture as you well know, because the the word of the year for the Oxford university dictionary in 2016 was, was P host truth basically means coming to conclusions on the basis of emotional impressions. So I tell them that Hey, if you don’t believe in objective truth, you can’t do science. You can’t do engineering, you can’t do technology. And so forth. Number two does God exist. And I, as I just happen to notice, and then there’s so many works out.

Dr. Jim Burkett (08:37):
Now, the, the confirmation of God’s exists since is literally overwhelming. And so that’s why I appreciate pastoring 34 years in university communities and, and having grad students and professors and so forth. Matter of fact one of my friends when I pastored in Athens, Georgia, our church was across street from university of Georgia. He, his special was quantum chemistry, which I had no idea what that was. And but I found out he was a devoted Christian. I looked at him and said Dr. Shaffer, tell me, how is it you as one of the great intellects of the world? How did you, how did you come to God? And, and he started laughing, says, well, God has a sense of self has a sense of humor. I said I thought, gosh, did I hear the wrong thing?

Dr. Jim Burkett (09:21):
And he said well, when I was on the, on the faculty at Berkeley, California, that stunned me, Berkeley is not oral Roberts university or John Brown university, long story short. He said I kept bumping into some of my colleagues. They were some of the best in their discipline, but they were also committed Christian. So I would ask them how’s this. So how, how, how, how did you mess this together from that standpoint? And they all looked at me and they said their discipline showed them. First of all, that Darwinian evolution cannot be scientifically supported. It just doesn’t happen. But number two, they challenge to me go and disprove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And Shaefer said, so I thought, well, that’ll be easy. I’m very analytical and so forth. Long story short Shaefer said he spent two years. He, he looked at every possible way. And finally he came to the realization. He said it was not just, I was not just convinced. I was compelled intellectually to lies somehow some way Jesus, as Evangel came back from the dead and then he started laughing and he said, you know, Jim, anytime a dead man comes back from the dead. He kind of puts him in a class by himself. So,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:28):
And you should probably listen to what he has to say.

Dr. Jim Burkett (10:30):
So the third question is do miracles happen? And of course oh my goodness industry is a living demonstration of this and, and other people. Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:40):
We’ve seen God do many great miracles. Oh, all over the world.

Dr. Jim Burkett (10:44):
And then the fourth question I said is the Bible historically reliable? So I, I tell folks when you answer these four questions, one of the things that will happen, you’ll see the first result is that all of a sudden ignite something in you, excuse me, you begin to realize, oh my goodness this is true. Christianity is fact a factual faith. The second result of apologetics is it will build, it will provide you a bridge to non-Christian to answer the questions. Many of people, they, they have such misrepresentations in their mind about the de to Christ and the Bible, and so and so forth. And then third apologetics impacts culture. Now, how does that relate to evangelism? Oh my goodness. Wanna tell you a quick story. Professor Dr. Gentry, when I was working on the faculty with a a school in Bartlesville he came and he was speaking at to the to the professors.

Dr. Jim Burkett (11:46):
And he said, now I had a class in a small college in Kansas. And everyone in the class were ministry majors and they were going into the ministry. So I took a survey and the class was of evangelism and Christian apologetics. So I took a survey the first day, and I wanted to find out how many of you are actively sharing your faith. Second question is, if you’re not sharing your faith, why not? He was stunned to find out well over or 90%, 95% were not sharing their faith on a regular basis. Second question, why not? If you’re not. And he was stunned because the great majority of ’em said, I’m afraid somebody who asked me a question that I don’t have the answer. And, and number two, I’m not sure Christianity is true. So the next 16 weeks he focused on apologetics.

Dr. Jim Burkett (12:35):
He said, I, he said, I could see a very perceptible change in attitude in heart. And he said, by the end of the semester, I gave the same survey. Now, instead of 95% saying, I don’t share my faith, or I don’t know if Christianity’s true. He said, it was just like it reversed. Now they were sharing their faith on a reg their basis. Now they believe that Christianity was true based on the facts. And then six weeks later, he asked a follow up. He had a follow up survey. They were not just stagnant. They were continuing to grow in the Lord because when you know, that’s true, you really, it really hits you in your mind and your heart that lends right into evangelism you. And that’s why I tell folks if you are involved in a, an apologetics methodology that just tries to make you an intellectual egghead and it doesn’t flow into practical theology, evangelism, discipleship, and so forth. Then you look in the Bible and you just don’t see that kind of connection. Apologetics always brings you to the play where you’re ready to proclaim and minister. I hope that makes sense. What I said.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:39):
Yeah. Another really important use of apologetics is preparing young people to defend their faith. Oh, yes. I think sometimes young people, they, they, they grow up in the church and, and they believe the by Bible cuz their parents told them to believe the Bible, but then they go to college in the first philosophy professor that they run into or, or atheist that they run into manages to convince them that you’re an idiot if you believe the Bible. Yeah. And, and we need to prepare people, really inoculate them again. This attack of the devil that comes after people’s minds. Yes. And so by using apologetics and training apologetics during the teenage years, we can prepare young people to go out into the world and defend their faith and, and live for Christ.

Dr. Jim Burkett (14:34):
Amen. Matter of fact, you touched on two points. One is you’re absolutely right. I’m sure you’ve seen some of the surveys. I think I’ve looked at least 30, which basically they wanted to find out why were quote unquote Christian Church kids leaving the faith, the great majority of them. And so they were saying, and the average percentage was 75%, some as high as 80, 85%. Even one survey by the director for America’s research group. He, he was shocked because they wanted to find out why were they leaving the Christian faith? They got the normal answers, but they were shocked by when they were leaving in their heart and mind. He said 45% of church kids between the ages of 12 and 14. They start leaving the Christian faith by the time they reach the ninth grade and then the another 45% by the time they’re seniors.

Dr. Jim Burkett (15:29):
But on the other hand, as, as that stat is, I was sharing with a bunch of with a group of youth pastors. I was sharing these stats and you could just, you know, you could see ’em slouching down. What are we ever gonna do? Yeah. So I said, would you like to hear some good news and two or three of ’em said yes, please, please. And so I said, couple of surveys have come out. And it’s very interesting. The, this one survey in particular said if pastors and church leaders actually understand, and they are mentally grip with the realization, we’re not in a spiritual war because that’s what we’re supposed to say. They see it, they see it in our culture. They see what our kids are being bombarded by. They see it with the announcements, they see that it’s no longer a political issue. This is a spiritual warfare between, you know, evil and righteousness. And, and then those leaders take the steps to equip their young people. Keyword equip their young people logically through a biblical worldview based on the facts of apologetics 90% plus will go on with God. Oh my goodness. I’m thinking

Speaker 5 (16:45):
That is good

Dr. Jim Burkett (16:46):
News. It, it, it is. And this is what this is. I’ll be honest with you. This is what vexes me. I, I was, I was at a conference. It was a youth evangelism conference for training. I was asked to do three breakout sessions on apologetics. And, and so they put me in this auditorium that seated 7,000 people. We didn’t have 7,000 there, but it was the largest one they could have for the conference. And so did three sessions afterwards. I I’m on this platform and I have one of the, the leaders of the conference. And I know him and we’re good friends. And, and I said, you know, every summer this auditorium is filled up with 7,000 teenager. Every summer, they’ll be close to 50,000 teenagers from our you know, our, our denominational fellowship that will come here. And you at the stats from our own publishing and research indicate 75% plus of them will leave the Christian faith. What are we doing to change that now? Here’s and I’m, I’m not complaining. I’m just explaining what grieved me was. There was no answer. And this is why apologetics is such a necessity. This is why I can’t tell you how I, how excited I am that you’re not only prepared to give an answer, but you’re prepared to equip Christian leaders to do the same. I hope that made sense. What I shared.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:08):
Thank you. Let’s talk about the Bible. How can we know that the Bible really is true and that it’s the word of God.

Dr. Jim Burkett (18:18):
That’s a great answer. Matter of fact that’s one of the key issues I really try to, to hit on. The thing I try to, to deal with first, if I’m dealing with a non-Christian, I try to bring him or her to the place of realizing that the Bible is the most reliable historical document from, from antiquity. I start there because if I begin to try to talk to them about you know, it is the word of God is, well, they they’ve been old that anyone who believes the Bible’s the word of God, their faith is like wishful thinking. So what I do is I begin to share some of the key qualities, for example, I share with them that we can say now that we have 99.9% of what the original old new Testament actually said, and why, why can we do that?

Dr. Jim Burkett (19:13):
Because we have copies, manuscript, copies, both the old and new Testament, like just the new Testament alone. I know you’ve probably heard this, but if we were to bring them together, those copies we are looking at almost 30,000 copies show oh my goodness. Th this is what, this is what the original said. Dan Wallace, who is a professor at Dallas theological seminary said if we were to go to every library, every seminary, every museum, and we were able to get the new Testament copies of the originals. And he said, if we were to actually physically them on top of one another, he said that stack would be a mile high. Now I’m, I’m stunned by that,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:58):
But that’s a phenomenal number of manuscripts. And using those manuscripts, we can establish very clearly what the original manuscripts. Oh,

Dr. Jim Burkett (20:10):
Exactly. And, and then by, by the way, we haven’t even talked about the old Testament manuscripts. And you said, you get the old Testament manuscripts put on top of the new Testament manuscripts. Now that pile is not just a mile high. Now it’s two and a half miles high. And so the, the odds are so astronomical. That’s why I really appreciate the, the statement that Dr. AE Wilder Smith made three earned doctorates great scientists to spoke seven languages he’s in heaven now, but he said the thing that that I noticed is that when Christians, or even particularly non-Christians or agnostics or atheists say, well, you really can’t trust the Bible. He said, what I’ve noticed is that those scientists, those agnostics who actually search the scripture and look for the evidences, and then they come to the realization, this is not just a ordinary book.

Dr. Jim Burkett (21:03):
And so that’s why I, I tell a lot of, of a lot of skeptics. Well, listen, let’s sit down and show me, what’s the evidences that you have. And of course, we haven’t even talked about the prophetic, oh my goodness, 2000 plus prophecies. And the old Testament, the only ones not fulfilled are the second coming of Christ and the end of the age you you’ve got the prescience statements in the Bible. UHI McMillan. He wrote a book called none of these diseases. And he basically said, listen, the hygienic and medical principles that we see in the, in the fi first five books of Moses, he said, we know that it was God who told him there there’s nothing like in, in ancient history. And he said, it took modern science in the 20th century to verify those principles are medically sound and whoever follows them will have a healthy lifestyle. So you got statements like this over and over again.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:02):
Let’s talk about objective truth. How, how do we know that there really is objective truth. This is a big issue in our society right now. I think many people in our society are, are confused about,

Dr. Jim Burkett (22:16):
Oh

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:16):
Yeah, just very basic things like what is a man or a woman? I mean, that’s a, a very contentious issue right now. And, and, and it used to be that people would say objectively well that’s, and that’s a woman based on physical characteristics. And now they’re saying, no, you can’t say that anymore. And so even that objective scientific truth that’s in the DNA has in our society become a subjective truth, that you can be any gender or no gender at all that, that you want to be. And, and so God is a God of objective truth. How can we know what is objective truth?

Dr. Jim Burkett (22:57):
Well, that is you are right. That is a most significant question. I believe it’s a question that needs to be answered before we even asked as God exists, because you know, here, heres the evidences I have that God exists and somebody will try to deconstruct that. But the thing about truth, objective truth always relates to reality. It can always be, it can always be discovered and examined. And when people ask me particularly parents, what do I say to my young people? I tell them you have one of the strongest allies besides the holy spirit and that, and, and the ally are the allies happen to be called facts. And so that’s why when I start sharing I, I, I, I start, first of all we, we ask that question then when I get, does God exist? Oh my goodness Daniel, I’m telling you, it, it amazes me.

Dr. Jim Burkett (23:59):
I mean, a new book just came out called the return of the God hypothesis by Steven Meyer. This is one of our top scholars and he talks about three three discoveries in science. He said, even agnostics and atheists has to knowledge these discoveries. And he said all of a sudden, they can’t say well, the university of eternal science won’t lap them. And when you begin to extrapolate that in other areas historically like you know, liberal archeologists used to say, you can’t trust the, the history in both the old new Testament. And then what happens here, come these archeologists with their spate. Oh my goodness. Like sir, William Ramsey he was taught that the go gospel of Luke and the book of acts cannot be trusted. So he decided he was going to further that discovery. So he was very disappointed because he wasn’t finding what he was looking for long story short when he began to look at the archeological evidence for both the gospel of Luke, as well as the book of acts.

Dr. Jim Burkett (25:04):
He said every, every place every inscription concerning Luke or ax, he found out Luke and ax were always historically accurate to the point that he said there was never any mistake. And he it’s so convinced him well, if the Bible is historically accurate, it must be accurate spiritually. And he shocked his colleagues by putting his faith in Jesus Christ. When you match that with other discoveries. Oh my goodness. Used to be by 19 1958, we had over 25,000 archeological sites and discoveries. I honestly don’t know what it is now. It has to be well over 50,000. And, and that’s why we say to, to the agnostic and atheists. Okay. You know, it was not it was not the vice president came up this phrase, we’ve heard this for years, but you’re entitled to your opinion, but you’re not entitled to your facts. And that’s why several leading archeologists, some of ’em are not even Christians, they’re Jewish, but they basically said there has never, ever please let me please hear me. There has never, ever been an archeological discovery that has contradicted the Hyster of the old or the new Testament. That’s staggering. That’s absolutely staggering.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (26:26):
And if the Bible can be trusted in the places where we can test it archeologically, or historically, then that means it can also be trusted in areas that we maybe haven’t discovered the evidence yet. We can know that we trust those areas. So let’s talk about the word fact. You said we have lots of facts that back up the Christian worldview, and of course, facts are very important to atheists. They, they often say, show me the evidence where where’s the evidence. Do you have evidence for God? Can you, can you touch? ’em Take and feel him weigh him in a laboratory reproduce miracles in a laboratory setting. And so they’re looking for facts. They’re looking for evidence. What are some of the facts that could lead someone who has a scientific viewpoint to the idea that there really is a God

Dr. Jim Burkett (27:20):
That’s, that’s an excellent question. By fact I share, and this is part of our equipping phase. We say the very first thing you’ve got to understand when you talk to somebody, whether it’s a Christian that has doubts or an athe agnostic, you must define your terms. You must, you must let them know you’re defining terms. That match reality. So when we talk about facts, we’re talking about those propositions or those statements, which match the reality of what’s being shared. Like you mentioned gender, you know, I think most people know there’s a difference between a male and a female. I remember a Rick Warren was asked by a TV interviewer Larry King and kind of the same question he says, well, why can’t people basically just determine who they are and, and and how can they show the difference?

Dr. Jim Burkett (28:20):
And, and now this is Rick Warren. He wasn’t trying to be obscene or anything like this, but he said, well, I think we could show you a difference where there are some facts not determined by the people he said you put a naked man and naked woman next to each other, and you see there’s a difference and it’s not based on their feelings. It’s the same way in terms of laws, pH physical loss there’s gravity, there’s all the fine tuning issues that we look at. And, and we can’t say it’s something that’s guessing. It is a fact, matter of fact the fine tuning issue. Again, it’s one of those things that’s overwhelming Daniel. I I’m telling you what I believe it’s

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:00):
Explain what fine tuning is. Okay.

Dr. Jim Burkett (29:03):
For example when we see a fine tuning Hugh Ross has made the comment there’s 102 variables about that we see in the universe, like if gravity was to just even 1% stronger or 1% less, the universe would not have expanded, would not have kept together. If certain elements were not completely, he balanced the way they were the same thing would happen, but he said these 122 variables. They’re so finely tuned that if, if you, if you had a universe creating machine and you took one dial, just one of the 122 variables, and you just kind of turn it maybe a half a degree, right. Or half degree left, it would collapse the entire universe or life would not be able to exist as we know it. And,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:55):
And the odds of a universe existing where human can exist are so astronomically enormous to be impossible. It just small minute changes in any one of these fine tuning elements would make it impossible for us to exist. And, and the fact that we do exist is really strong evidence that someone tuned these different elements and set everything perfectly so that we could exist. Yeah. Matter fact, it’s not by chance if it was by chance, it, it couldn’t happen.

Dr. Jim Burkett (30:33):
That’s right. Matter of fact, there was one agnostic who I don’t know if he’s come to God or Christ yet, but he, he said, every time I look at the the variables, I, he said, it’s almost like some, some superior mind has monkeyed with the with the facts or with the

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:51):
Creation this superior mind we call God.

Dr. Jim Burkett (30:53):
Yes, yes. Now there’s a, there’s a great story. When we talk about facts, here’s what I hope Christians understand and insists. You not know all the answers, but if you can, if you can put in someone’s hand kind of a, a bridge to the facts, for example, I dunno if you heard of vio Osen and he was considered the youngest medical student to ever graduate. And so when he was working as a, you know, in his research years he and his wife they weren’t accosted, but her parents became radical Christians. And so when the parents came up to where he was doing his residency they said, we really want you to go to church. We want you to stay this out. And so to just get them to, to leave them alone, they say, okay, listen, when I, when I don’t have a Sunday, I’m not working, then we will go to church.

Dr. Jim Burkett (31:49):
And, and of course, when they got together he and his wife, they thought, well, we’ll just, we’ll just look at all the atheistic classics and study that. And they were, they were shocked because nothing everything was so shallow in his thinking. And then one Sunday morning that they were at this church, this young man he’s, I think he was like a, a, a junior in college. He comes up to them and he says, Hey, doc, I’ve got this book. I don’t have time to read it, but I think you’d enjoy it. And the book was titled something like the scientific enterprise and Christianity, and they were stunned because it was a book in which each chapter had a different scientist who had a PhD in a certain field that talked about how the evidence not only showed them the existence of God, but why Jesus Christ is the son of God. And it’s so impacted their lives that not only 12 months later, did they become Christians, but God led them to be medical missionaries for 35 years in Bangladesh. And matter of fact VI Osen even has a little booklet called the agnostic air to search. And so when people say, oh, listen no, I’m not gonna believe that. I just challenge ’em and say, well, listen, just disprove it. Just, just examine. Are, are you openminded enough to just look at what the evidence just might say,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:17):
According to the apostle Paul Christianity rises and falls based on the resurrection. In fact, he says that if Christ has not been resurrected, then your, your faith is in vain. And so that really is the core issue for Christianity. How can we know, know that Jesus really rose from the dead? How, how do we even know Jesus existed? Some atheists say there there’s, there was no Jesus. So how can we know that Jesus existed, that he really lived, that he was crucified and that he rose from the dead.

Dr. Jim Burkett (33:56):
Very good question again you know, it’s so comforting to have, have facts and God on your side because you know, when, when I hear somebody say, well, Jesus couldn’t have lived. I think it’s very interesting, even some of the most liberal quote unquote theologians that, that don’t claim be Christians have openly acknowledged the, that if there’s one thing, we can be certain of that Jesus Christ exists in history. Now what about the resurrection? Now? This is where it gets very interesting. I I’ll, I’ll take a different slant than I normally do, but Dr. Gary hemos, oh my goodness. He’s considered, as you know, the, world’s leading a thought on the history of the resurrection and when he was studying his PhD, matter of fact, he got his PhD studying the resurrection of Jesus from Michigan state university, which is not known as a seminary or a graduate school, long story short the chairman of his committee said, well, it can’t be a devotional study.

Dr. Jim Burkett (34:59):
It’s gotta be an analytical study and, and it’s gotta be 350 pages. So here’s what, here’s what Dr. Hyper miss did. He studied everything written on the resurrection in English, French and German, over a period of about 25 to 30 years. And here’s what he noticed. He noticed even atheist agnostics acknowledged that there were certain elements that even they had to agree with. One was the empty tomb and, and he was shocked. Even atheists now acknowledged the empty tomb. So he built off that and he, and he calls it the minimalist approach to the resurrection things like, okay, the empty tomb, you have eyewitness reports people can’t say, well, it’s mass hallucination because you can’t share somebody else’s hallucination with anybody else. The change in the disciples these men, they, they died for what they believe was truth.

Dr. Jim Burkett (35:56):
And plus there was no perks in declaring Jesus was the Lord of your life. Number two, the impact that it had on a radical opponent by the name of Saul of Tarsus, who became the great missionary, the apostle Paul, even the brother of Jesus James who also died for his faith and then the radical impact on culture. It’s very interesting that there’s a book in which the, the, the growth of the early church, Michael Green, British theologian made this comment. And he said, there’s three reasons why the early church exploded in growth. He said, the number one reason is persuasive apologetics and the ability to outthink her critics. That was the first thing about the church. Number two, the dramatic conversion of these pagans and how that filtered in compassion ministry. I mean, here, you had people, they didn’t care.

Dr. Jim Burkett (36:53):
I mean, if they had a baby that was born, they didn’t want it. Well, they would throw it away. They’d put on the Ashe, whatever, but they’d see these changes out of that compassion ministry. Some of the church fathers actually instituted the hospitals and so on and so forth. And then number three, the dramatic miracles, exorcisms, and prop prophecies, clearly from another realm, it was so impacting that historians have said even non-Christians most modern folks are not aware of the dramatic impact that Christianity had on any culture that allows the gospel to be released. And we see that not only in, in ancient history, but we see it, you know, down through church history. I dunno if that makes sense or not, but as you can tell, I have a low excitement level on these things. So anyway,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (37:49):
Yeah. Calm down a little bit. Yes. Right. Yeah. All these issues are covered in my book, proof. God is real. And if you want to help educate yourself or, or become more informed on how to defend your faith, I’d encourage you to get a copy of the book proof. God is real on Amazon. And Dr. Jim, you were kind enough to do a little blurb for the, for the front of it. And, and actually, I don’t know if you knew this, but, but I, I quote from the great scholar, Dr. Jim Burkett several times in this book I took notes and I, I was careful to give you credit for your ideas in there. Praise God,

Dr. Jim Burkett (38:33):
You are a wise man.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (38:35):
And, and so, so I really have a heart to, to reach atheists here in the United States. You know, we go over to different nations around the world and we’ll do large evangelistic crusades, big gatherings of people we’ll have 30 or 40, 50,000 people at a time. And they come and they, they see God do miracles and they give their lives to Jesus. I mean, we’ve had Muslims come to Jesus and Hindus and Buddhist, and, you know, but I, I have a heart for the, this atheist spirit that is attacking America right now. The atheists are, are very aggressive on YouTube and Twitter. Some of the other social media platforms a couple of years ago the, the American atheist came here to Oklahoma and had their, their conference, their yearly conference. What, what was really in, I, I went to the conference that the atheist had, and they had it in the same ballroom at a hotel in downtown Oklahoma city that I had been in once before the previous time I’d been, there was in a crusade planning meeting with Reinhard Bonnke.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (39:53):
Oh, wow. And the, the me with Reinhard Bonnke was full of pastors from all over Oklahoma. And he came and he said, Jesus saves people from their sins. All of a America shall be safe. That’s right. And there was just such an electricity and excitement in the room when Jesus was being talked about. And then I went to atheist conference in the same room and they all seemed depressed and bored and, and, and they were, were just angry. And I said, wow, Jesus really does make a difference in people’s lives. That’s right. And so I think as a church, we need to, to go after atheist, because really it’s a, it’s a spiritual condition. We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood that’s right. We are in a spiritual battle for the hearts and minds of America. And, and in order to reach people, we have to be ready to engage with them on social media, at the university level in schools, you know, for teenagers and in every level. And, and you are really leading that fight particularly here in Oklahoma. Tell me about some of the, the different programs and, and things that you do to help educate people in the area of apologetics.

Dr. Jim Burkett (41:18):
Well, you’ve hit the right button. You know, the, the admission statement of apologetics on fire is

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (41:27):
And that’s the name of your, your ministry apologetics on fire, on fire. And if you hadn’t thought of it, I would’ve taken it. Cuz that was a, that’s a great,

Dr. Jim Burkett (41:37):
Well, you can title, you can thank your friend and my friend, Dr. David Sheley for that title. You know, I can’t believe I, I was chairman of his board for 20 years and so forth, but you know, the, the thing about it is I, I go to most not most, but a lot of apologetics conferences. And here’s what I believe hits most layman and it’s this and, and the, and the evidence is overwhelming. Lee trouble said, this is like the golden age of apologetics in terms of information, but most people hear this and if there’s not a practical to it, they, they walk away feeling like, oh, goodness, I have to have a master’s degree or PhD, whereas that’s not the case apologetics, if it does not lead into practical theology, evangelism, discipleship impacting the kingdom then it, it short changes everything.

Dr. Jim Burkett (42:32):
So my, my heart is well, you talked about naming different ministries. Of course we have apologetics on fire workshops and ministries. I also teach at colleges and universities oil Roberts graduate school theology the global school of supernatural ministry up in Harrisburg. I’ve been at Oklahoma west in true at McConnell university and so on and so forth. You have those those areas, but then in our workshop I have a dream now I don’t know how I may look to you age wise, but I’m really a 50 year old man trapped into 75 year old body. So with that in mind I, I really believe and I know others that are looking at this, we need to mobilize, I mean, acts 19 is a favorite chapter of mine. And so what did Paul do?

Dr. Jim Burkett (43:24):
I mean, for at least two years, he trained you know, the disciples every day, they said in the school of Italian reus. And then it said in the next two years, all of Asia mine had heard the word of God and the church historians tell us it became a center for the spread of the gospel. And E E even ESUs I mean, it was so impacted by what happened that my friend, John Vaughn said that by the end of the first century, there were well over 30,000 Christians just in ESUs alone because are so dramatic. So what would happen if like you have ratio Christi, RA Christi, which they basically, it’s a, an apologetics evangelism group and they basically try to have chapters in universities and beginning high school, I think last count they had 160 chapters whoever sponsors it they have to have a little bit of training and apologetics, and then the students come together and the idea is not just to come and sing kumbaya, but it’s the idea to learn how to grow in the Lord, how to share their faith.

Dr. Jim Burkett (44:29):
How do you answer the questions that maybe that science professor is an agnostic atheist you know puts out there? You’ve got so many great ministries, Jay Warner, Wallace. Oh my goodness. Here’s

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (44:43):
Cold case Christianity. Great. Yes. Book and great ministry.

Dr. Jim Burkett (44:46):
Definitely. I mean, former atheistic police investigator his his procedures on investigating cold case crimes was so significant that they say his procedures as they are shown on 48 hours and, and Fox news are continued the high marks. And when he came to Christ he was challenged, well, use your, for forensic skills to disprove Christianity. He couldn’t, and now he’s probably one of the most prominent, of course you have Lee Strobel. You’ve got to Josh, Maddo his son, Sean McDowell. There’s so many in the, in the science arena, of course. You’ve got John Lennox. Now this guy bless his heart. He only has three doctorates. And he’s a Welchman and, and, and what’s interesting is he is so gracious that I’ve read where atheists don’t like to debate him. And he’s not, he’s not mean he just, but he just puts the facts out there in such a, a, a winsome way. Of course you have a William Lane, Craig JP, Moreland’s one of my favorites. He’s just come out with a book called a simple guide to miracles. He, oh, he’s tremendous. There are just so many that are really coming up. And then we’ve got a, a younger group that are really beginning to come to the surface, but my prayer is,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (46:09):
Have you heard of Dr. Daniel King? He’s one of my favorites. Listen, he’s my wife’s favorite apologist.

Dr. Jim Burkett (46:16):
I, I heard that, I heard that was, you know, that was the word on the street. Matter of fact I’ve even, I’ve even prayed positively for him. So anyway, but well, you’re absolutely right. And here’s, here’s why I I’m appreciative that you you’ve focused in apologetics and that is you see it. I mean, really see it, believe it as being a, a crucial part of evangelism and connecting with our world, our nation and our world. I heard from a missionary, he said could we talk about your coming over an apologetics conference? And in our country, he said really? Why is that? He said, well, what’s happening on the American campuses are, is starting to hit here. And the old you know, the old ways where we just get up and preach the gospel. Now these college students, even here, I want to know how can I know that what you’re saying is true. So I’m so excited for the coming days of your ministry. God has, and is using you to ignite significant, significant spirit empowered motions and not motions, but movements of revival and an awakening. And I’m very excited for you.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (47:33):
Well, thank you. If a church wanted to invite you to come and do a, a multi-day workshop, or if a school wanted to invite you to come teach or do a seminar, how can they find out more information about you and your ministry? What, what’s your website?

Dr. Jim Burkett (47:51):
If you’ll go to apologizes on fire.com and then you can find a couple of emails or you can text me at the number and I’d be glad to come. Like like there’s one church it just so happens. I have eight wins days open. And so I’ll be meeting with them for two hours and we develop a certificate course, and most of the church want to go through a certificate course, which means they can audit. They can just come, but in the certificate course they come, they have a couple of books, they need to read, they have some assignments. And and there’s, there’s some universities that might even use that certificate and use it for college credit if they decide to transfer it. But churches we’re talking about conferences with groups of, of churches the key thing, and I just, I just can’t say this strong enough right now, you must, and I hope this comes across the right way.

Dr. Jim Burkett (48:54):
You must fight for the heart. And so, and the minds of your young people, this is not something that’s on the sideline. They’re dealing with issues that you, you, you cannot imagine most high school students will have, at least I, I understand. And it’s like 70 to 80% heard one that was 85% of them ha have some kind of involvement with science or technology. And yet most youth pastors, maybe they might have five to 8% of familiarity with that. And so what do a lot of church kids, unless you have apologetics, they think, well, you know, it’s just a generational thing. He does this because of this or that, but not because he’s staying relevant to the world. And I hope that made sense, but apologetics on fire.com and love to come to your fellowship or your church, your conference, and, and I’m an equal opportunity blesser in a term that whether it’s a, a Baptist Baptist decos, Pentecostals, charismatics and or

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (49:55):
You like

Dr. Jim Burkett (49:56):
Everybody. Yes. in Jesus name. Amen.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (49:59):
Well, thank you so much for being on the evangelism podcast, Dr. Jim Burkett.

Dr. Jim Burkett (50:03):
Thank you for having me. God bless you. Bless

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (50:05):
You. 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 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 (51:06):
For more, for 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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Transcript: 

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
What are the differences between Islam and Christianity? What do Muslims believe about Jesus? Where can we agree with one another? And where do we disagree today? I speak to a Muslim from Afghanistan and we talk about the five pillars of Islam, the Christmas story in the Quran, and about what Muslims really think about Jesus Christ. Jesus

Evangelism Podcast Host (00:28):
Said go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls in the name of the Lord shall be say, Welcome to the evangelism podcast, 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 (01:02):
Welcome to the evangelism podcast. I’m Daniel King, and I’m excited about telling people about Jesus. And I go to many different Muslim nations around the world and nations that have many Muslims in them. And I always love meeting Muslims. Muslim love me, and I love Muslims. And so often when we go to a different country, I will have a meal with the local imams. We will invite the, the imams from the local mosques together and have a meal together and I’ll sit down and talk with them and they will talk about what they believe as Muslims. And I will talk about what I believe as a Christian, and it’s always a wonderful time of, of, of fellowship and, and talking together. And so today on this podcast I have with me, a friend who happens to be a Muslim. His name is Tayyab, but he’s known as T. He is from the nation of Afghanistan. And if you want to hear the story of how he arrived here in America, you can listen to the previous podcast that we put out yesterday. But Tyab thank you so much for joining me today. Hello, Mr.

Tayyab (02:22):
Daniel King. It’s been and honor to be on this podcast once again.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:26):
Well thank you for, for being here and you are a Muslim, is that true?

Tayyab (02:31):
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (02:32):
Am Muslim by faith. You’re a Muslim by faith. And so many of the people who are listening to this podcast maybe they don’t really know that much about Muslims or about Islam. Could you just start at the very beginning and kind of tell us, like, what is Islam, what does it mean to be a Muslim? What does the word Islam mean? So

Tayyab (02:53):
As a quick overview of the Islamic faith, the word Islam means peace and Muslims are followers of prophet Mohammed who we believe is the most important individual in our faith. We believe in one, God, our God is a law and the Muslims are okay. Devout Muslim would be known for following the five pillars, pillars of Islam. The first being Profession of Faith (shahada), which is basically saying there is no God with a law and prophet Muhammad, this messenger, the second being Prayer (salat). So, which is prayer. We pray five times a day, third being Alms (zakat), which is arms as in, we give charity to different individuals, people of need at a specific amount of a person’s income and fourth, Pilgrimage (hajj), which is our pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia, in the city of Mecca. We have a house that we believe is a holy place known as Kaaba and a Muslim is required.

Tayyab (03:49):
This pilgrimage throughout his entire life and fifth. And lastly is Fasting (sawm). We have the holy month of Ramadan. That’s a 30 day fast and Muslims try to be the best version of themselves. And just to remind them what is important about life. And we fast from mourn, from sunrise to sunset, and it’s just a spiritual month where we connect with one another and help try to help people around us. And it’s just being a Muslim is just an individual that to meet the principles of Islam as the five pillar of Islam mentioned, it just tries to be a good human being.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:27):
So explain to me the profession of faith it’s there is no God but Allah…

Tayyab (04:36):
Prophet Mohamed is, is his messenger.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:38):
Okay. So kind of explain that and why saying that is what makes you a Muslim? So

Tayyab (04:46):
A, it’s almost like a acceptance of faith. It’s a statement of faith where you say, which means there is no God, it is your acknowledgement of that. There is only one God, and his name is Allah and Moham. It is prophet Mohamed. That is his messenger. As in he’s the individual, the prophet that gifted us with our holy book, which is the Holyoke Quran. And so we believe that prophet Mohamed was gifted with the Holyoke Quran through a period of think 20 years, believe don’t quote me. I might be wrong <laugh> but he was our messenger and he was gifted. The, the holy words that are divine words of God at Mount HIRA through the angel Gabriel.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (05:33):
So how has being Muslim influenced your personal beliefs? Like what does that mean to you on a personal level?

Tayyab (05:42):
On a personal level? Faith has been a fundamental of who I am as an individual. As an Afghan have lived a very unique life per se. It’s been a very difficult life, but I’m grateful for what I have today. And by having faith and being a person of faith, I found purpose in my life purpose in helping other people purpose in following the path that God ha that God has for me finding my purpose within God. And within this life, it’s made life meaningful, made family meaningful, made each interaction meaningful. It’s given me a purpose in my life, Mr. Daniel, and I’m very grateful for faith. It’s a point where I have been able to always return to, to God, no matter what the circumstances have

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:24):
Been. And so how are you doing at being a Muslim? Would you say that you’re a good Muslim? Would, will you go to heaven when you die? That’s

Tayyab (06:34):
An interesting question. The answer for this question, it is up to God. I believe God is a very graceful, loving being, and he cares for all his creations, including me. I believe that he knows my name. He knows my fate. He knows what I do on a daily basis. He knows who I, who I am, what I stand for. He knows the purpose that he has for my life. And I believe that I am trying my best at being a good Muslim. And the actual determination of this response would be up to God himself. Not me.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:08):
Let’s talk a little bit about the differences between Islam in Christianity. I’m a Christian. I believe that that G Jesus is God. And Muslims do not believe that they believe that Jesus is a prophet. Yes, sir. And of course in the, the Muslim religion Jesus is known as the prophet Issa. Yes, sir. And, and so let’s begin by kind of talking about kind of where we agree and then we can look at where maybe we, we disagree. Okay. So I think there’s some facts that both the Quran and the Bible can, can agree on. Okay. And the first one is that Jesus was a prophet. Yes. The, the, the Bible, the holy book of Christians mm-hmm, <affirmative> says that Jesus was a prophet. Okay. And also the Quran, the holy book of the mother. Yes, sir. Says that Jesus was a prophet. So on that we can agree. Yes. Jesus was a

Tayyab (08:04):
Prophet and something I would like to point out is we believe that he was one of the most important prophets, the second most important prophet. If I am not incorrect, prophet Muhammad had mentioned it. If I wasn’t the messenger of God, it would’ve been prophet

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:18):
ESA or Jesus in, in, so Muslims because of that would have deep respect and honor for Jesus. Is

Tayyab (08:24):
That we correct? Yes. As a Muslim, this is a statement that will shock almost every single listener to this podcast, but I am Muslim and I love Jesus. I feel like most people don’t understand this, but prophet Jesus is a big, big part of the, of the Muslim faith. And we do love Jesus. We might not believe that he is God, but we believe he was one of the beautiful creations of God. And that we have deep, deep respect for prophet Jesus. And we also believe that during judgment day he will come back and that he will fight the battle during judgment day.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (08:57):
Another area that we can have agreement is that Jesus was born of a Virgin. Yes. Named Mary. Yes. So we find the story in the Bible and the story is also found in the Quran. Another thing we can agree on is that is Jesus performed miracles. Yes. Actually in the Quran, there’s a story of a miracle that Jesus did. That’s not even found in the Bible. But in the Bible, there are many, many stories of what Jesus did about how Jesus healed the blind, the crippled, the lame, they brought so many sick people to Jesus and Jesus touched them in instantly. Yes, they were healed. And, and so the Quran affirms that that Jesus does miracles. Yes. We also can agree that Jesus is coming again. And will judge the dead. You just mentioned that on the, on

Tayyab (09:48):
The judgment date. Yes. One thing I’d like to point out is about the miracles. We do not believe that Jesus himself does the miracles. We believe that it’s a divine in powers of God, himself. That Jesus was just a a medium through which the divine powers of God were

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:01):
Demonstrated. That’s a really interesting distinction as Christians. You know, we believe that Jesus is God. And so, because he is deity, he has the, the ability mm-hmm <affirmative> to, to do miracles. I and so we believe that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, that Jesus is alive today in that Jesus, the one who did miracles 2000 years ago is still alive. We believe that as well is able to do miracles today.

Tayyab (10:30):
We believe that he was also, he’s still alive. Yes. We do believe that as well.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:33):
Do, do you believe that Jesus can do miracles today for people

Tayyab (10:37):
That I I could not give a pause, a response on that? I, I’m not

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (10:41):
Sure. I was. I’ve actually had the experience of, of talking about Jesus with, with many Muslims. So one time I was in Pakistan and we had a, a big event, a big festival thousands of people we’re there. And I was talking about Jesus and all the miracles that, that Jesus did. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. And so at the, the back of the crowd, there was an Imam who came from the local mosque, and he just wanted to see like, kind of what was happening Uhhuh. And so he was standing back there. And on that night, we, we prayed in the name of Jesus. And there was a, a woman who was crippled. She, she couldn’t walk for many years and suddenly she was healed and she stood up and began to run back and forth. And, and Jesus healed me, Jesus healed. And, and she came up on the, the stage and, and she told everyone in the microphone, Jesus says, I’m Muslim, but tonight I was healed.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:34):
And she says, you preached about Jesus. And, and I was healed. And so the IAM, he heard out it, or, I mean, he was standing in the back of the crowd and he was so excited about what happened. The next day was Friday. He went to the mosque and he at the mosque, he told all the Muslims that were there. He said, go to the festival. He said, and Jesus is healing people there. He says, go, and Jesus will touch you. And so many of them came and many of them were touched by Jesus. It was really amazing.

Tayyab (12:01):
I am not gonna disagree with this, but it’s just a point that I would like to, I’m very hesitant by nature to believe things like this. Yeah. Everyth think is like, I try to keep it as genuine and honest as possible is sure.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:17):
Why are you hesitant to

Tayyab (12:18):
No, no. A good way to say it is things like this can be easily performed and mm-hmm, <affirmative> people are easily deceived. Let’s just keep it at that.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (12:27):
And it’s easy. Are you saying that as a Muslim or from a, a scientific, modern viewpoint, that miracles are

Tayyab (12:34):
Difficult to happen? Not as a scientific viewpoint or as a Muslim, but more of a, the entire occurrence that an individual can get healed through an event and then starts preaching for a specific faith. It just sounds like a as a propaganda sorts, if that makes sense, I’m trying to be respectful about it as well, but it’s just something that human beings are very easily swayed in a direction. And they see something immediately where they cannot understand, or like in the past we could not understand magic, but we understand like the concept of sight of hand today. Sure.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:07):
If, you know, I think that would be kind of approaching it from a scientific viewpoint of demanding evidence of whether it’s

Tayyab (13:13):
True or not, not a scientific viewpoint, more of a, something can be made to look a certain way. If we want to look at a certain way mm-hmm <affirmative> and people are easy to be deceived.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (13:23):
Okay. Well, thank you for your honesty. The, the fifth and final thing that, that I find in both the, the Bible and the Quran is that Jesus was, was strengthened by the holy spirit. But I think it would actually be interesting to kind of show some of what the Bible says about Jesus, the prophet and what the Quran says about Jesus, the prophet. And so I would actually like to read a story I’ll read it first from the Bible mm-hmm <affirmative> and then let’s find it in the Quran. And if you would like to, to read it from the Quran. Yes. And this is the story of how Jesus was born. It’s a very important story in Christianity. In fact Christmas, which, which just celebrated yes. Is celebrating the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (14:24):
And so at Christmas time, this year, we had a large group of Afghans that came over. Yes. all Muslim and to celebrate the Christmas story. We first read the Christmas story in the Bible, the Christian Bible, and then we read it in the, the Muslim Quran. So the story is found in the book of Luke chapter one, verse 26. It says in the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth a town in Galilee to a Virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The Virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, greetings you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angels said to her, do not be afraid.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (15:17):
Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son and you are to give him the name. Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the most high the Lord. God will give him the throne of a, his father, David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. His kingdom will never end. How can this be? Mary asked the angel, since I am a version, the angel answered the holy spirit will come upon you. And the power of the most high will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the son of God, E and Elizabeth. Your relative is going to have a child in her old age. And she, who was said to be barren is in her six month for nothing is impossible with God.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (16:01):
I am the Lord’s servant. Mary answered. May it be to me, as you have said, and then the angel left her. And so there’s several things in that passage that Muslims could agree with. There’s, there’s one important thing in that passage that Muslims would not agree with. Yes. Where the angel says that he will be called the son of the most high. Yes. and so Muslims don’t agree that Jesus is the son of God, but we’ll talk about that in just a second. Let, lets start with at least where there’s agreement understand. And so can you find this in the, the Quran it’s in? Sir, how do you say it, sir, sir.

Tayyab (16:41):
So it ISS number three, number three and is number 42. Okay. And before begin resign the holy Quran, we say, I, it is something we say before reciting the whole, what, what does that mean? I’m beginning in the name of aah, basically, which that what it means behold, the Christians, the angel said, oh, Mary aah has chosen you and purified. You chosen you above the women of all nations. Oh, Mary worship, your Lord divide, prostate yourself and bow down in prayer with those who bow down. This is part of the TIS of the things unseen, which we reveal unto you own messenger by inspiration. You are not with them when they cast lots of arrows as to which of them should be charged with the care of Mary or were you with them when they disputed the point behold, the angels set, oh, Mary Allah gives you glad TIS of a word from him.

Tayyab (17:44):
His name will be Christ. Jesus. The son of Mary held in honor in this world and the hereafter and of the company of those nearest to a law. He shall speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. And he shall be of the company of the righteous. She said, oh my Lord, how shall I have a son with no, when no man has touched me. He said, even so a law creates what he wills when he has decreed a plan. He but says to it B and it is, and a law will teach him the book on book and wisdom, the law and the gospel. Something before we move on is a key thing point out is during translation specific words can be interpreted in a specific way or can be added and equal removed depending on the translation of the language. I would say the best version to read the Holyoke Quran is in Arabic itself because,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (18:46):
And so do you read the Quran in Arabic? I do. Yes. But and, and do you understand Arabic, like, do you speak Arabic? Arabic

Tayyab (18:53):
Is a language that I’m not proficient in personally myself. The holy Quran is lit written in classical Arabic, which is one of the forms of Arabic, very complicated version of Arabic. Most people even Arabs today cannot speak that language. But what I’m mentioning is no matter how much we try to get the best translation of a holy scripture the other language falls short, and we have humans that are able to change or manipulate the language as they will to make it seem a certain way. So it’s best to just read the language in the language that it was, it was presented and try to understand it from the different interpretations from different individuals.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (19:31):
Yeah. The old Testament was written in Hebrew and the new Testament was written in Greek. And so I actually studied both Greek and Hebrew to be able to read the scriptures in the, the original languages. And I, I heard that that Muslims believe that the, the Arabic of the Quran is the most beautiful sound that has ever yes. Been said, is that true?

Tayyab (19:57):
I would say it is one of the, be most beautiful languages, if not the most beautiful language in the world. Classical Arabic, it gives peace to my heart when I listen to it, something that for example, this is a call to prayer. The haz is when they, the mosques, when they call you to prayer during five times a day, it is a very beautiful song of sorts. It’s a melody calling you to come pray in the house of God.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:21):
Can you sing it?

Tayyab (20:22):
I will not sing it for you now.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:24):
<Laugh>, I’ve heard it many times in different nations and they always get on a loud speaker and, and sing it sometimes very loud early in the morning. It wakes everyone up.

Tayyab (20:35):
If I sing it, I think most people will just

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:38):
See, this is not so beautiful.

Tayyab (20:41):
<Laugh>, they’ll go deaf on the podcast. You’ll be like, what is this?

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (20:44):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Okay. So let’s, let’s talk about some things that Christianity and Islam do not agree on. So understand the first thing that, that Christians believe really the fundamental thing that we believe in our faith is that that Jesus is God. What do you, as a Muslim think when you hear someone say that this is

Tayyab (21:06):
God. I mean, number one, as Muslims, we’re taught to respect every other religion and not to make fun of it or do things that would be Blas for the other faith. So we, first of all, we respect it and respected individuals. Thank

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:21):
You for your respect. And, and in turn, I respect you and, and your

Tayyab (21:25):
Faith. And like we mentioned earlier as a Muslim, I love Jesus. He was the second most important prophet in our faith. So when you mention that Jesus is a son of God is a point of disagreement. We believe that Jesus was a prophet of God and that he was a very unique creation birth of a Virgin Mary, but he is not the son of God. We believe there’s one, God, he has no re relatives. You guys know sons or daughters. And we view humans as creations of God. Not, not, not sons of God.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (21:55):
So when you hear the term, son of God, what do you think of? I, I, I heard I, I spoke to one Muslim and, and he told me that this was actually very offensive to him cuz when he heard son of God, what he was thinking was that God literally came down and had sex with the, the Virgin. Mary is, is that what is people think when they hear the son of God? No, because that’s not really what Christians mean when they say son of God, they’re not thinking that

Tayyab (22:26):
I understand I, that individual that you spoke to was just uninformed. Let’s put it out that way and does not represent the rest of the Muslim community and their view on this topic. But as in the topic of having a son of God is just, you guys still believe Christians believe that the Christ that Jesus was God, and then there’s a Trinity, right? There’s Jesus there’s as far. Yeah.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (22:48):
We haven’t gotten to the Trinity yet. That’s gonna be number four. Okay. But yeah, we believe that, that you have God, the father, God, the son, God, the holy spirit. Three in one there’s still one God. Yes sir. Yes sir. You know, in, in the, the Hebrew religion, the Jews, they believe that that God is one. And so Christians also believe God is one. But within that, we, we believe that there are three unique individuals in that called

Tayyab (23:15):
The Trinity. So when you mention the son of God, it just is something that I disagree with because it’s a part of a Trinity. And that is what it goes back to. That is a concept I disagree with.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (23:27):
Okay. Another foundational belief of Christian entity is that Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for our sins. The Bible says that all have sinned. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> that the price for sin is death. Okay. But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ. And so the Bible says that for God. So love the world that he gave. His only son mm-hmm <affirmative> that whoever would believe in him would not perish, but would have everlasting life. So we believe that that Jesus died on the cross. He was a perfect sacrifice. He never sin. He died on the cross to pay the price for our sins, but he didn’t stay dead. After three days, Jesus rose from the dead. And today Jesus is alive and everyone who calls on Jesus can be saved. And so when, when you hear someone say that, that Jesus died on the cross, do you agree with that? Or, or you disagree? We disagree with that as well. And so what was your perspective of, of what happened? We

Tayyab (24:20):
Believe that Jesus was rescued by God. Okay. And that he was not crucified on the cross. We

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:26):
Do believe so. It looked like he was crucified, but he didn’t really die.

Tayyab (24:28):
He was not crucified on the cross. Okay. Yes. We believe that he was rescued by God and that he will come back. He’s alive today. He’s in heaven right now. And he’ll come back on. So did

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:37):
Jesus die or not die? He never died. He never died. He just went to heaven. God took him.

Tayyab (24:42):
God. Yes, exactly. God rescued Jesus from

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (24:45):
He’s alive in heaven. Yes sir.

Tayyab (24:47):
Yes, sir. We believe that Jesus is alive in heaven and during judgment day he will come back and that it, it is a big, big part of our Islamic faith where like, as again, it is a huge honor and it shows how much love that we have for this prophet because God shows him as the individual to, to rescue and then bring back on judgment day to fight for Muslims. Again, we love Jesus. He is a big, big, big part of our faith.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (25:14):
So another thing that we would disagree on is that that Christians believe that that Jesus should be worshiped since he’s God. We worship him. We pray in the name of Jesus. We pray to Jesus because we believe he’s deity. He’s part of, of the Godhead. What do, what do Muslims believe? Should Jesus be worshiped or not?

Tayyab (25:35):
No, we do not believe that Jesus should be worshiped again. We, we view him as a human being. He was a human being. He was a prophet of God, but in, in his truest essence, we believe he was human. And that’s why prophet Mohammed is a very, very prominent part of prophet of Islam as well during his time when he introduced Islam to the rest of the world. And he did miracles again through the divine powers of God, it wasn’t miracles that he was channeling within himself when he died at the age of 60, roughly around that it proved to humans and to Muslims throughout the world, that it wasn’t prophet Mohamed doing this amazing powers. He wasn’t God. He was a merely human being, a messenger of God. The one only God. And he was a messenger and everyone before him was human and they were just prophets of God, specific individuals that chosen individuals or prophets of God, they’re human by nature.

Tayyab (26:31):
And as per Muhammad, when he died, it showed to us as in humans and Muslims and Muslims throughout the world, it was, Hey, remember that this individual was not your God. He was a human and that he passed away, but he gave the entire world the gift of Islam. And that’s what makes him special for us as human as, as Muslims. That’s why he’s the, the figure of Islam. When you think about Islam, think about prophet Mohammed, because he gifted us with the gift of the Holyoke Quran and that’s the fundamentals of what we follow as Muslims.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (27:05):
And then the, the final thing we already talked about a little bit is, is the Trinity. We Christians believe God, the father, God, the son, God, the holy spirit. What do Muslims think when they hear a Christian talk about the Trinity

Tayyab (27:21):
Again, in the beginning, we respect that. The fact that is a huge part of their belief. But we do, we disagree on this point because we do not believe that there is a, a father and a son and a holy spirit. We believe there’s one, God, one complete God. I understand that Trinity supports the existence of one God, but there’s, I wanna say parts to this one, God, but like Jesus is God. According to the Christian faith, and then you have father, who’s also God, and then you have the holy spirit. Who’s also God. And together they’re also God, but there’s one God. Right? But that’s right. Yeah. For the Muslim faith, there is just, it’s a simplified version of it. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, there’s one God, a lot. We do not have the father, the son or the holy spirit. There is just one God, most complete, most magnificent, most loving most, most would you

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (28:07):
Consider it? Bla for me to talk about there being God, the son, God, the holy spirit

Tayyab (28:14):
I would in my own opinion, again, it would, it would not be bla for me because it is your own faith and you follow your own faith and you, if you found perfect purpose in your own faith, you’ve every right to believe of what you, what you’re believing. That’s a big, big part of understanding. Religion in general is people try to find purpose in their faith. And when they do, we might disagree at certain points. But overall at a fundamental standpoint, religion was to make sure that people of have purpose in life and they’re good human beings. There’s incentive behind it. We might in my, we worship. We all worship the same. God. If you call him Jesus, if you call him father, if you call him a law, if you call him Buddha, whatever you follow in a humanistic level, we all worship the same. God. There is a higher being that gives us purpose in life.

Tayyab (29:01):
You see, we can easily divide ourselves based on different categories, faith cast, social class, but at the end of the day, Mr. Daniel King, we’re humans and we find purpose in different things based on our different situations. And if you’re a good person because of your faith, you’re a good person. Regardless if you’re, if for a Muslim, you’re a good person. If you’re a good person and for a Christian, you’re a good person. You’re a good person. I personally have to, to know you, you asked me what is your opinion on Christians? And I said, my perspective on Christians are people like yourself or your father or your sisters or your family. They represent the Christian faith for me. They represent America for me. And I, and I would say that you are an excellent ambassador of your faith for the rest of the world.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (29:53):
Well thank you for saying that. Thank you. I have one final question for you. You know, you talk about good deeds and, and bad deeds in Islam. If you have more good deeds than bad deeds, then you can spend eternity in heaven. Did I express that right?

Tayyab (30:18):
To a certain extent? Yes but no.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (30:20):
Okay. Explain the, that concept to be

Tayyab (30:23):
In Islam. The, the good deeds are promoted because you want to help the creations of God. And there’s bad deeds that aren’t discouraged. But if you have like God has made us humans, sinful by nature. And the concept of repentance is very, very critical in Islam. See, when you repent, when you repent wholeheartedly to God, God forgives all your sins, all your mistakes. It takes one moment, one pure deed, good deed out of your heart. Or just one moment of just being vulnerable to God. And God is so loving. So merciful. So caring. So forgiving that it is not, it’s not about quantity, Mr. King. It’s not. It’s about quality. See, he cares when you, when you surrender yourself to him, when you care about him, when that one moment of just being vulnerable and honest and asking for forgiveness from God, he forgives all your sins. Again, he’s very loving, very caring, very, very, it’s just an amazing, beautiful God. It’s not about quantity. As long as you’re, you try to be a person of God, you follow his faith, you follow his rules, you love his creations. You love him. And because of that, you love everything else. He, he, he has, he will. He will. I I’m. I’m sure of it that he will take us to heaven.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (31:49):
See Christians believe that everyone who calls on the name of Jesus will be saved. And so all of us, no matter how many good deeds that we’ve done, we are imperfect. And since God is perfect, if you have just committed one sin, you are not qualified in to, to be in God’s presence and trying to get to heaven through our own merit or through our own ability of all the, the good deeds that we have is, is impossible. And it’s it. It’s like if you imagine a cliff and you’re going to try to jump from one side of the grand canyon to the other side, and if you are overweight and have lots of body fat and, and you eat a donut and then Huff and puff and, and run and jump, as far as you, can you jump like one foot and then you fall to the bottom and you die.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (32:49):
Well, an Olympic runner who is really fast and good at jumping and, and is the fastest farthest jumping person in the whole world. And he gets a good running start. He’s at the peak of his condition. He runs as fast. He can jumps off the edge of the cliff. He can jump like 30 feet, you know, 10 meters out from the side of the cliff mm-hmm <affirmative>, but then he falls down to the bottom and he lands in the same place as the, the overweight man, because through our own ability, we can’t do it. Like we, we need help. And, and Christians believe that that help comes from Jesus. And Jesus said, I am the way the truth in the life. No one comes to God, the father except through me, mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so we believe that that at the judgment seat, that Jesus will judge us and Muslims also believe that that the day of judgment is coming and Jesus will judge us. And so I, I guess my final question for you,

Tayyab (33:45):
We do not believe that Jesus will

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (33:46):
Judge us or that Jesus will.

Tayyab (33:49):
What do you believe? So he will come back on the judgment day. Yes. Okay. And that he will fight a battle for, for against basically he’ll fight a battle for Muslim sets and he’ll come back in a, of fight for what is right. We do not believe that once again, he, we believe that he’s human in the prophet of God. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, he doesn’t have the right to judge us. He’s not God, in, in our beliefs only God can judge us. So,

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (34:12):
So God will judge us, but Jesus will be there at the day of

Tayyab (34:16):
Judgment. Yes, he will. Yes. And once again, we, we also believe as most that we are sinful by nature. The only weekend we can go to heaven is through the mercy and forgiveness of God. That’s why I mentioned the importance of repentance, because God has to forgive us to make, to allow us to go to heaven. We are sinful. God has made us this way, but because we are sinful, we have free will we, of the ability to, to, to when nothing else is working on, everything seems like it’s out of the world, like out of your re the entire world is out of your reach and all your goals and dreams are beyond you. Like, for example, in my, in my life where I had to go back to God, when nothing else was working out to, to get safety and to pray for myself and my family, I found purpose in God. I found hope God. And I believe personally that I, because, because I love God because I care for him. And because of that, I, I, I, I, because of his amazingness, I believe in him that I, I, I will also in the future. I’m hopeful that I might, if I’m, if I’m good enough, I’ll go to heaven.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:20):
And so what, what response do you think that God will give to you on that day of judgment?

Tayyab (35:30):
That’s a question that I wish I knew the answer to 22 years ago, but today we are still, we’re trying to find out it’s, it’s, it’s a divine question. Like we asked.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (35:40):
And so you leave it in the hands of

Tayyab (35:42):
ALA. Yes. And like, if we can, at, we can ask a lot of things about life, you know, questions that we not never get the answers to. Like, how does God look like? Or how do we know, okay, okay. Why isn’t God doing this? Or why is this like this? Or what is, is good and what is right. See, these are questions that we might never know the answer to, or how, like how many species are there in the universe. It’s like things that humans don’t know yet, but God knows everything. And just like this question about my life and my future, if I’m gonna heaven or hell, I’ve trusted it upon God, because I love God. And I’m, I’m sure he loves me as well.

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:16):
Well, I believe he does love you. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast with me. I think some of your answers will really help people to understand Islam more. So, so thank you so much for your insight. I

Tayyab (36:31):
Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on this podcast. It’s been an absolute pleasure. And once again out wanna give my greatest of gratitude from Mr. Daniel and the rest of his family for making us feel at home at safe here in the us. And just make sure that you take care of one, another guys, humans. We are social beings and we need each other and we find purpose and faith. And sometimes we’re reminded of the beauty of faith through one another. Just make sure you help one another byebye. Thank

Evangelism Coach Daniel King (36:58):
You time. Thanks so much for listening to the podcast today, our ministry is helping Afghan refugees resettle here in the United States. The Afghans need houses, transportation, education, and many other things in order to succeed in this nation. If you want to help an Afghan refugee, you can do by making a donation@wwwdotkingministries.com. Thank you so much for your generosity and thank you for helping us to help these beautiful Afghan people who have come to our nation

Evangelism Podcast Host (37:33):
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