Chris Mikkelson has had the opportunity to preach to huge crowds of people in Pakistan but now God has put a burden on his heart for America. Today we talk about a new innovative way he is working on to reach people for Jesus in the United States.
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Show Notes:
What are some of the miracles you have seen God do in Pakistan?
How did you go from being a student at Christ for the Nations in Dallas, Texas to doing enormous evangelistic crusades?
Hear the story of a man who was crippled with polio from the age of 3 to the age of 33 and how Jesus touched him.
Learn about the innovative idea of doing a survey in order to do personal evangelism. The survey is one question, “What do you know about Jesus?”
Learn about Chris’ TV program called “Salvation Today” and how it reaches people who may never come to church.
Listen to Daniel King, the Evangelism Coach, on The Evangelism Podcast
Transcription
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (00:00):
Chris Mikkelson has had the opportunity to preach to huge crowds of people in the nation of Pakistan. But now God has put a burden on his heart for America. Today, we talk about a new, innovative way. He is working on to reach people for Jesus right here in the United States.
Evangelism Podcast Host (00:22):
Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be welcome to the evangelism podcast with dr. Daniel King we’re 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 (00:58):
Praise the Lord. It’s good to talk about Jesus. I’m here with a special guest, Chris Michaelson. Great evangelists. Welcome to the podcast. Hey, it’s great to be here, Daniel. So brother Chris, you’ve been doing some amazing crusades in many different parts of the world, but most recently focused on Pakistan. Tell me what Jesus has been doing through your work.
Chris Mikkelson (01:21):
Yeah. Pakistan has been amazing. We’ve been seeing thousands of people receive Jesus as their Lord and savior. In fact, over the last two years, 2018 and 2019 combined, we saw just over 1 million people received Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior in Pakistan. So we give God all the praise for what he’s doing there, but the harvest is ripe in the nation of Pakistan. Uthe world is ripe really for the harvest. And,uI feel like we’re in exciting times right now to be an event,uto be evangelists.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (01:53):
Tell me some of the miracles that you’ve seen in Pakistan.
Chris Mikkelson (01:55):
Yeah. We’ve seen so many miracles. In fact, the last time we were there, we had to shut the miracle testimony line down because there were thousands of people in line trying to push each other to get on stage to testify. We were away. We were afraid we were going to have to pray for people who had already been healed, who are going through the testimony line because there was so excited to tell about Jesus and how he had healed them. But we see incredible miracles. We’ve seen blind eyes, opening, deaf ears hearing. Uone of them, one of my favorite stories is of, u, a guy who contracted polio at age three. He came to our crusade at the age 33. And for the last 30 years, he had been completely crippled. He couldn’t walk at all. So we send out buses to the surrounding villages to bring in the poor people.
Chris Mikkelson (02:48):
So somebody had carried him onto the bus. Then when it got to the crusade field, they put him on their back. He was a very small frail men crippled and they, him to the crusade field, Jesus touched him that night and he started walking for the very first time in 30 years. It was absolutely amazing. And w you know, it was a really special night. One of the other amazing testimonies was of a woman. And,ushe had contracted some sort of disease in her body. And for a year, she was going to the doctors trying to figure out what the problem was. She was a, a wealthier woman. And so she had enough money to go to multiple doctors, but no one could fix the issue that she had. I think it sounds like it was some kind of like rheumatory arthritis or lupus or something like that.
Chris Mikkelson (03:39):
Just constant pain throughout her body, really difficulty in moving. And she came to the crusade because some of her friends, she was a Muslim. Some of her friends told her that she should go see the witch doctors. Maybe the witch doctors can heal her. And about the same time that they told her to go to the witch doctors, she saw an advertisement on television for our crusade. She said, I’m going to go to that crusade because they say Jesus can heal me. She came to the crusade, she heard me preach the gospel. She got saved born again at the crusade. We began praying for the sick. She got completely healed, came up on stage and testified of how Jesus not only saved her that night, but also healed her and set her completely free from all the pain she had had.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (04:30):
What a tremendous testimony. Now, you and I first met when I was teaching at Christ for the nations in Dallas, Texas. I came to do a week of chapels. And I think at that time you were a student. Yeah, that’s right. I was. And so tell us, how did you go from being a student at Christ for the nations to now doing these massive crusades?
Chris Mikkelson (04:54):
Yeah. Well, when I was a student at Christ for the nations, I remember reading Gordon Lindsey’s autobiography and Gordon Lindsay was the founder of Christ for the nations Institute. And I remember him talking in his autobiography about how a lot of evangelists when he was on the evangelism circuit, how there were so many evangelists that were getting started, but were having struggles in their ministry. They were struggling to raise money. They were struggling to, you know, run a ministry and all of these different things. Some of them had seen issues and they fell and their ministries collapsed. And he made a statement in his autobiography. He said, if a young man feels called to be an evangelist, he should consider serving an evangelist for a season to learn from them so that he doesn’t make the same mistakes everyone else makes when they start.
Chris Mikkelson (05:46):
And I remember hearing that word and the Holy spirit spoke to me. So clearly he said, Chris, that’s what I’m going to do in your life. You’re going to serve someone for a season before you start doing crusades. Well, I said, okay, God, the praise, God, that’s awesome. I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you want me to do. But I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know. I know I knew of a lot of evangelists, but I didn’t have any connections with them. I went all the way through Bible school. And I was following another evangelist. Somebody that you’re friends with, I was following him on Facebook. He’s was also somebody that came and preached at CF and I, and as a graduate of CF and I, his name’s Bernie more evangelists, Bernie Moore.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (06:26):
Yeah. He’s a great evangelist. Yeah.
Chris Mikkelson (06:27):
And so Bernie Moore, I was following him on Facebook and he put a post up one day and said, I can’t wait to come to Dallas this week. So I reached out to him and I said, where are you going to be ministering this week? I’d like to come. And he replied. And he said, I’m going to be at Christ for the nations on Tuesday, let’s have coffee. And I remember being so excited feeling like, wow, maybe this is the evangelist that God is going to connect me with. You know? And I, of course I knew about Reinhardt Bunky. I knew about Daniel Kolenda. I knew about, you know, Benny Hinn and a lot of the really well known evangelists. I just didn’t have any connection with any of them, but I thought maybe Bernie Moore is the guy. Well then,uw I went and had coffee with him.
Chris Mikkelson (07:07):
And at the end of my meeting with him, he said, you know, a friend of mine called me this morning. He’s an evangelist. And he’s looking for a personal assistant. And I think you’d be great for the job. His name is Daniel Kolenda. And I was just as static. I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of his mouth. I was so excited. And so he connected me with Daniel. I got the job to be his personal assistant. And while I was there, Daniel train me, he began to tell me things like, Hey, I want you to work on this project because when you have your own evangelistic ministry, you’re going to have to know how to do this when you have your own ministry. And so of course, Daniel,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (07:49):
Melinda, is that the head of Christ for all nations in Orlando, the ministry that was started by Reinhardt Bunky. And so he does massive crusades all over the world. Yeah, yeah,
Chris Mikkelson (08:02):
Yeah. And seeing millions of people receive Jesus as their Lord and savior. So it was such an honor for me to learn from Daniel and to serve him and to serve the ministry that evangelists around her bunkie started and to learn from them. And so that was a, it was an amazing experience of learning how to be an evangelist do crusades. And so then in 2015, after being there three and a half years I felt like the Lord said, it’s time to launch your ministry, take what you’ve learned from them. And so we did, we started our evangelistic ministry Daniel and I are so close. He serves on our board, but we started doing crusades and we just started simply by saying, okay, God, we know you’ve called us to do crusades. We know there’s lots of people out there. How do we start with where we’re at?
Chris Mikkelson (08:48):
And I think a lot of young evangelists, they see these massive crowds and they think, how do I get from here to there? But the reality is there’s a process that we all go through and, and Jesus said he was faithful in the little, he’ll make ruler over much. And so if you’ll just take with whatever you have and begin being faithful with it, God will give you more and more and more when he sees you faithful. And that’s what we did. We had small budgets back in those days, we started doing, you know, smaller crusades. And I even remember reaching out to you kind of early on and getting some advice from you and how to start, you know, doing crusades. And so all of that really impacted me greatly. And as we started being faithful, God said, okay, I’m gonna cause you to go to this nation to go to that nation. And he started opening up nations to us. And we’ve been seeing millions, you know, over a million. Now come to now,
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (09:43):
Recently I saw that you have developed a heart for this nation, for the United States of America. And you’re actually planning to do a crusade here in America. Tell me about that and what you’re planning to do.
Chris Mikkelson (09:59):
Yeah. We’re really, really excited about this. You know, I feel like it’s time for America. American needs the gospel, like never before we’re in a crucial time right now in the nation of America. And so we’re going to continue to do our international crusades, but on, in addition to that, we feel like it’s time, we’ve got to start taking the gospel out of the four walls of the church and bringing it out to where the loss people are. So we’re really excited. We’re going to, we’re using a new strategy. We’ve never implemented before. We’re still working with area churches. Like we always would for our crusade, but now we’re going to be doing a lot of giveaways to the poor community where our crusade is, and we’re going to be helping people pay their bills. You know, people are struggling financially right now. So we want to help pay people’s bills.
Chris Mikkelson (10:48):
We’re going to give away groceries. We’re going to help people get jobs from local Christian businesses in Orlando that we think is going to attract the loss to come to the crusade. And then we’re going to preach the crystal clear gospel like we always would. And I believe we’re going to see thousands of people from the community come out and receive Jesus as our Lord and savior. And so I’m really excited about it. We’ve got Eddie James coming to lead worship, and we’re working with area pastors and area leaders to put this on. And I just, I couldn’t be more excited.
Evangelism Coach Daniel King (11:20):
Marilyn Hickey once told me that every nation has a key that opens the hearts of people. And she told me, Daniel, you need to pray and ask God to give you the key that would open the door in each nation. So the different nations are different. And in some nations, it’s music, having famous musicians attracts lots of people. Other times it’s miracles. There’s no local doctors. There’s no one to, to help those who are sick. So when you advertise miracles, lots of people come. But I think your strategy of helping people here in America is a wonderful strategy because especially with everything that’s going on economically, right now, there’s a lot of people that are hurting. There’s a lot of people that are struggling to pay their bills. So this is the right strategy for right now.
Chris Mikkelson (12:10):
Yeah. We’re, we’re really excited. I’ve never used a strategy like this before, but I really felt like God was saying to, to that, we have to start thinking outside the box, how are we going to reach people who would never walk through the front doors of a local church? How do we get, how do we get them to hear the gospel? And, you know, I think this is one of those things where,uyou know, God gave me a strategy back when I was in Bible school,uwe were going door to door in an apartment complex. And we were in a very impoverished neighborhood. There was a lot of gang activity and people were very hesitant of answering the door. They didn’t know if they didn’t know who you were. They weren’t sure you know why you were there and that sort of thing.
Chris Mikkelson (12:51):
And so we were going and knocking on doors and we could hear people on the inside, but they wouldn’t answer the door. And then some people would yell from the other side of the door and and just say, go away. So we were having a hard time trying to reach people with the gospel door to door in that particular neighborhood. And I remember praying and saying, God, how do we get people to open the door? And God gave me a strategy that has forever changed how I do personal evangelism. God said, do a survey. And I said, a survey. He said, do a survey. So I said, okay, I’ll go. I’ll do a survey. So I went to the next door. I knocked on the door, a lady yelled from the other side of the door. She wouldn’t open the door. She said, who is it?
Chris Mikkelson (13:34):
I said, I’m Chris I’m I’m here. I’m here to do a survey. And all of a sudden she opened the door wide open and she said, what’s the survey. And all of a sudden, I went, Lord, you didn’t tell me what the survey was. And so I started panicking. And then all of a sudden, God said, it’s one question. And so I said to her, I said, Oh, the, the survey is just one question, Mike, the question is, what do you know about Jesus? And she goes, you know, I don’t really know a whole lot about Jesus. And I said, well, can I tell you what I know about him? And she said, sure. And right there at our doorstep, I started sharing the gospel with her shared about how we’re all sinners in need of a savior shared about Jesus made a call for salvation.
Chris Mikkelson (14:21):
She repented of her sin with tears running down. Her eyes asked Jesus to save her right there at her doorstep. And that model we started using at all the other doors. And I still use it to this day. I don’t really ask anyone about a survey anymore, but I asked those same questions. What do you know about Jesus? Can I tell you what I know about him? Do you want to receive him? And that’s been our model. And so yet God will give you keys to different areas to reach different people. And I’m excited about you utilizing this key of bringing people to something where we can help them economically. But more importantly, we can help them spiritually in jesus’ name. Yeah. The survey says that a hundred percent of respondents need to know Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. And a hundred percent of us are all going to die.
Chris Mikkelson (15:13):
Right. So we all need Jesus. Absolutely. That’s right. And you’ve also been doing a television program. Tell me the impact that that TV program has had. Yeah, it’s been amazing. We have a TV show called salvation today. It’s a, it was a 30 minute program. We’ve just added another 30 minutes. So it’s a one hour program. We tape it live every Wednesday at 11:00 AM Eastern time,uon our social media platforms. But it’s also going into 72 countries worldwide. We’re reaching millions and millions of homes and we’re utilizing the television program to specifically share the gospel in, get, get the gospel into homes of people who may never come to a church who may never go to a crusade. And so that’s another model. It’s another Avenue of reaching the loss. We need to reach the loss at all costs right now. And so I think as evangelists, it’s an exciting time.
Chris Mikkelson (16:11):
We’re seeing people getting saved. We have Muslims getting saved, Hindu’s getting saved. They write to us regularly saying, you know, I want to know like, how do I, how do I follow Jesus? You know, how do I become a Christian? And so we’re really excited about the impact, excited about the impact that the TV show is making worldwide. That’s awesome. Chris, I love what God is doing through your ministry. It’s so encouraging to see. And the, the acceleration of the harvest that God is allowing you to preach to these massive crowds of people is just so beautiful to see. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Yeah. Thank you, Daniel. It’s an honor
Evangelism Podcast Host (16:49):
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.
