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Dr. Paul Collins shares on "Unity. in Christ. through the Holy Spirit."
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dr paul collinsacts ministry
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Dr. Paul Collins shares on "Unity. in Christ. through the Holy Spirit."
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Dr. Paul Collins shares on "Unity. in Christ. through the Holy Spirit."
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Dr. Paul Collins discusses the importance of unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit. He explains that true unity can only be achieved through the guidance of the Holy Spirit and not just through cooperation or denominational labels. He emphasizes the need to focus on the Holy Spirit rather than differences in doctrine or interpretation of scripture. Dr. Collins shares his personal beliefs about baptism and how differing opinions on this issue should not hinder fellowship and unity among Christians. He highlights the importance of God's grace and acceptance of others despite their differing views. So I'm here with Dr. Paul Collins, Acts Ministry, and just sharing on unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit and wherever the Holy Spirit takes us. Welcome to our home. And to you viewing, welcome to our home. We're downstairs in front of the fireplace. It's a good place to be. Spring Bird USA is a little cold right now. Today's not as bad as it could be, but it could be worse. I'm from Wisconsin, so people say it's cold. I don't believe them too much. Well, that's like a few weeks ago on our happy hour broadcast, I've talked about some folks think that the times we're living in now because of COVID-19 are stressful and they're deprived of this and that and something else. And I said, you should have been living during World War II. I was. Then you'd know what it was like to have challenging times. My dad, until the day he died, didn't drink sugar in his coffee because he was used to the sugar ration. So he just didn't drink it then. And he just, why start? That's right. That's right. So you want to talk about unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit? Well, that was one topic I'd love to talk about, but I mean, whatever the Holy Spirit lays on your heart. Let me tell you how I saw that as the Holy Spirit revealed a plan to me for Acts Ministry. I saw it as unity, comma, in Christ, comma, through the Holy Spirit, because it was really three things. I noticed on the broadcast that you did with your interview with the man that represented a couple of ministries. I saw the bits and pieces of it yesterday. You brought up unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit, and you were right in that. But if you just talk about unity, that could include anything, everything, anybody, everybody. And that's not the kind of unity that we have in Christ. And if you just say in Christ, there are so many different opinions there, etc. So it has to be through the Holy Spirit. But I went a little step further with that, Dennis, in that I looked at it through the, maybe the lens of institutional Christianity. We have those that talk about the ecumenical movement, right? That type of unity, which is not real unity. That's just cooperation. And then the in Christ portion. And by the way, folks, I have a whistle. I mentioned this a couple of days on our broadcast. I was at the dentist the day before the broadcast, and between them having their hand in my mouth and me not having a list, I forgot to tell the dentist to fix the whistle. But I still have it. You'll just have to overlook it. Anyway, the in Christ part, I think back to the middle 1800s when we had a Presbyterian minister and a Baptist minister who decided to get together and form a tent big enough to hold all Christians, and they called it the Christian Church. Sounds like a good idea. But immediately, some of them broke away because they didn't want musical instruments. And we know them now as Church of Christ, and there's lots of them, especially in this part of the country. And some others, they wanted to hold to baptismal regeneration. That is, if you are immersed, I tell people you're saved whether you like it or not. And so they became the independent Christian Church, and that main tent is the disciples of Christ. So just having those two words in Christ doesn't mean you're really going to have unity. As I said, it sounds like a good idea. So you have to have, the only unity that you can have really is through the Holy Spirit, which means you can be of one denomination, I can be of another, but we can have genuine unity in the Spirit. As long as we are all Christians and open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, we will be in unity. And we don't all have to be Pentecostal nor even charismatic. We can be evangelicals, we can be reformed, and so forth. But we can be in unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit. What I love about the unity that comes through the Holy Spirit is the fact that, you know, it's the Holy Spirit that baptizes us into the body of Christ. You know, people don't even think about that aspect. And it's that Holy Spirit that makes us or gives us the power, the ability, the connection as being the body of Christ. So through the Holy Spirit, then we can unite together with other believers, not having to focus on our differences, focusing on the Holy Spirit. And we find that as we fellowship with other believers that, you know, I like, you know, kind of resonate with the Holy Spirit. There's a vibe that's there. And as you do that, then you find that there's areas in your life you go, you know what? Yeah, my doctrine, my ideas, my thoughts, they're all in this area. And the other person doing the same, I was talking to someone yesterday, he left the iron sharpening iron. That's right. You know, as we all have some sharpening that can be done. Right. Well, Dennis, all this goes even to the extent of how people interpret Scripture. And some interpret it contextually, that is, they'll keep it in context. Right. Others do not. Others will use proof texts. They'll take one verse here, one verse there. So there are all kinds of reasons for division. But they're only overcome as we are overcome by the Holy Spirit, you know, who is God with us. Right. And as counselor, as comforter, but as teacher. Right. And when we are, actually, we allow ourselves and our opinions be overtaken by God as Holy Spirit, then we become more open to the viewpoints of others. Doesn't mean we have to accept them. Right. But we accept the person. Yeah. I found that when my wife and I started Action Ministry back in 1993, when we wanted to have unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit reaching out trans-denominationally, that is, across denominational lines, and trans-doctrinally, that is, across doctrinal lines, we found that there was some pushback. There were some people who loved the idea of Action Ministry, loved the idea of unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit. However, they wanted everyone to be in unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit with them and their beliefs, their structure, and because we were willing, for instance, to accept others, and then they turned their back on us. So I found that, in fact, there was a man that came to my office right after I began Action Ministry, and he said, Paul, God has given you a very hard job. And he was right. It's amazing. It's one of the hardest things for people to understand, unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit. You'd think on the surface it'd be the easiest, but it's extremely hard for people to catch that vision. Well, for instance, just to narrow the gauge down a little bit, concerning baptism, personally, I do not believe in baptismal regeneration, that is. I don't believe you're saved by water baptism. Personally, I know historically that when Jesus was baptized, he was probably being initiated into the role of rabbi, which you had to be about 30 years old, which was a very mature person in Bible days. And history tells us that at that point in time where he was baptized, River Jordan really wasn't very deep. And the way they did it in those days was they would actually sit down in the stream, and they would ceremonially wash themselves and a priest would pour water over their heads while they were washing. And it was a cleansing. Right. Well, somewhere along the line then, because he walked into the water and came walk out of the water, they said he went in the water. And then they, uh, I'm live recording right now. Sorry, but I'm, I'm on duty 24 seven. I can edit it out. I don't know what I'll do with it. But when they then they came up with the idea, well, Jesus went in and then up and then it became immersion. And if there was any immersion done, it would have been because he he actually squatted down into the water. Yeah, well, I think part of it, too, is, you know, because of the Greek word baptism, which means immersion. So then a lot of means to die. Yeah. And then they came up with, you know, buried with Christ in water and yes, in baptism. But since there's so many differing opinions and historically and otherwise out there, I don't believe personally that God is making that a requirement for entrance into heaven. I only leave room for God's grace. Yeah. Yeah. So because I won't take a strong position that they agree with about baptism, and they can't fellowship with me. I find that ridiculous. There's a, I went to a church. One time when I, in my retirement years to talk with the, their board about doing, being an interim, they needed someone right away. And it's a small town. And in that meeting with their, whatever their group was called, that happened to be a church that believed in baptismal regeneration. And they asked me about it. I said, they loved everything about me. Right. Until they asked that question. I said, no, I don't believe in baptismal regeneration. And they, they wanted, they said, well, maybe we'll have you back sometime and you can explain why. They never had me back. You see, they didn't want to know why. Right. They're standing in front of their own background. That becomes a linchpin in their idea of how a church should be organized and everything else. So everything depended on that one doctrine. I always wanted to ask individuals that hold to that strongly. If someone repents and gives their whole life to the Lord, and they walk out of the room to get ready to go to a baptismal, and they get hit by a car and killed, does that mean they can't get in? I mean, because they weren't baptized. That's right. You know, you know, and that's what I'm saying, you know, I want to be in a room for God's grace. I, you know, working in used books, Christian books, you know, I have a lot of people come and show me what was right. And I had one guy that was, you know, it was all about the name, you know, because there's no other name. So you had to know the right name in order to be saved. I'm like, well, still like a Spanish person can't say Jesus. They got to say Yeshua or Joshua. They got to pronounce it for you. And that's, you know, well, rude. And there's those who say that when you're baptized, it's not correct unless you're baptized in the name of Jesus only. And third people have to do it. And there's about three denominations that grew out of one verse of Scripture in the book of Acts that was suddenly discovered by a Pentecostal preacher. So everything for them hinges on that one verse of Scripture. Everything else rises or falls on that. I'm just not built that way. I have no difficulty loving somebody who believes in the name Jesus only. I have no problem loving somebody who has maybe what we would call a completed Jew outlook where they want to refer to Jesus as Yeshua. I can say Yeshua Hamashiach with the best of them. I don't mind. And I have had no difficulty. In fact, they have never been willing to relate to us at all, those that do not believe in the Trinity. They never have been willing to relate to Acts ministry. Because if you believe in the Trinity, you are so wrong. It's like you are condemned to hell. Even though I've studied a lot of psychologies, you know, I still don't understand. Yeah, I've not had much luck in that area as well. I did meet an individual just recently in February that is definitely more open to it, but I haven't had a chance to develop that. But it's the first individual, especially as a minister, that would actually be open to even dialoguing. And I think when we talk about unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit, one of the things we're talking about is the ability to have different points of views and we can talk about it, or we can fellowship in other areas and do what we're doing for Christ and walk in the Holy Spirit. I love the idea of, you know, Apostle John, gospel writer, when he writes, you know, I can't even write everything that Jesus said and did. And that was the idea of the Holy Spirit coming. Jesus even saying, you know, I've got more to teach you, but you guys are not ready. The Holy Spirit's going to come and teach you. And so, even with the strongest and most important influence of the Scripture as being our foundation, you know, being that rule of authority for our lives, we also know that the Holy Spirit teaches us. It's going to be in there. But there's, in a way, even hidden things in the Word that the Holy Spirit brings out. You know, I guess there's been some that would talk about, you know, the rainbow word, you know, use that as an influence. And I met an individual when I was down in Biloxi right after the Hurricane Katrina and helping with the cleanup there. His organization was called Christ Central. It's over in South Carolina. And he's got a college over there. And what he does is he teaches, it's real similar to Acts Ministry, as far as he teaches the different denominations, what their main emphasis are, what their strengths are, and focuses on the positive of each one. So, you know, like in the Roman Catholic Church tradition. Now, there's a lot of people who say, well, tradition's bad. Well, there's traditions that are good. And look at some of the things they have told through even the worst times, the Dark Ages and stuff, that they were to preserve. You know, the Baptists, you know, a lot of whom are really strong in witnessing, you know, bringing believers, conversion, you know, and looking at all the different ones and saying, you know, let's look at the positive. Look at what we can pull out of this. And I think that's a really neat focus. When you mentioned the Dark Ages, it occurred to me that as dark as the Dark Ages may have been in many respects, it was during the Dark Ages, so-called, that the concept of public schools originated. Great art came out of that period. Great music came out of that period. And guess what? Great theological insights came out of that time. Your words are really vast. A thousand years of darkness wasn't so dark after all, really. I'll have to research that a little bit to find out exactly why they wanted them to be the Dark Ages. I think it may be, I'm just guessing, it might have been after the rise of Protestantism that they look back on that as maybe... Yeah, and it may have been on whom you reference, too. You know how that goes with history. Sure, sure. Well, let me share a little bit with you on my first understanding and vision, and just when you shared with me about Acts ministry when I first met you, it was at Redeemed Music and Books. We were at the trade window. I remember the day. Don't know what the day was, but I do remember speaking to you. There's events in your life that stand out because the Holy Spirit makes them. And when you shared the unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit and what you were doing, immediately my first thought was, that's what the Holy Spirit was doing with the charismatic movement years ago, was raising up His work within these mainline denominations, Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist, all these different ones. The ones that a lot of Protestants might even, you know, there's a lot of groups that wouldn't accept them, but the Holy Spirit moving there to bring a unity that only He could bring. And that's what I saw. And then, you know, as I came to the services and saw how you did, you know, the two to four on Sundays and thought, I said, yeah, this is the way to do it because individuals can be in their church wherever they're at. You know, you're a Baptist, be a great Baptist. Church of Christ, wherever you are, be where you're at. But then come with others that are full of the Holy Spirit, be ministered to by the Holy Spirit, find out what the Holy Spirit's doing, go back to your church and share it. And I think that was really right in line with what your vision was. And I thought, man, that's exactly what the Holy Spirit ought to do. Yes, I found after beginning Acts ministry, doing a lot of traveling and connecting with other organizations, they were predominantly Pentecostal. Some were Charismatic. Began to notice the differentiation between classical Pentecostals and Charismatics. Classical Pentecostals believing in people being slain in the Spirit and then speaking in tongues as the first evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit. And my response to them when we'd sit around a visit like this, because they would ask, you know, they'd talk about somebody being spirit-filled and so forth. And I'd say, all of them I've ever seen, so-called spirit-full, spirit-filled people, they leap. They all leap. And I had a friend who was an assembly of God by ordination, pastoring an independent church. And I would meet with him, and he was an older than me, older guy. And some of his friends, all of his friends were Pentecostal. We'd be sitting around the restaurant table having coffee. And he would say, he took pride in introducing me, I could tell, you know, this is Dr. Collins. And then he would say, he's a Methodist. Then he'd grab me by the arm and he'd say, it's okay, he's spirit-filled. And so, one time we were in a group like that, and I took the initiative. I said, this is my friend, Reverend so-and-so. And I said, he's assembly of God, and I grabbed his arm and I said, it's okay, he's spirit-filled. So we make so much of a problem sometimes between classical Pentecostals and Charismatic, and then we have such a blending that's taking place that some people don't know the difference. Right. Charismatics, these were people who were mainline, to say the least, denominations. Yes. Who, somehow, we'll edit this. Yes. Hi, this is Dr. Apollo. So, where's Paul? I'm busy. I'm in a TV studio recording. Anyway, as I recall the history of the Charismatic movement, there was a Catholic nun in the Northeast part of the country that experienced a baptism of some sort, some experience with the Holy Spirit. She began speaking in tongues. There was the Episcopal priest on the West Coast, about the same time, who had the same experience. He went up into the state of Washington. His last name was Bennett, as I recall. But I found it significant that God was doing something in the Northeast part of the United States, in the Northwest part of the United States, almost simultaneously. That's one of the ways you know what the guy's doing. Right. And then those two movements, they just kind of merged in the center of the country, like the Mississippi River. And then that flow started, and they began to touch Presbyterians, and Methodists, and Lutherans, and a few Baptists, and so forth. Many, many different mainline denominations were touched by that movement. And they were not all that big on the necessity of speaking in tongues. But instead, they were concentrating on the first seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, as recorded in 1 Corinthians 12. The last two, speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues, they weren't really big on that. It was fine. But they were being, instead, they focused more in the early days on being Spirit-led, rather than Spirit-filled, which I found significant. In those days, it was easy to tell the players without a program. The Pentecostals were, classical Pentecostals, were believing in an experience with the Holy Spirit. And the first evidence of it, just very quickly, would be speaking in tongues. Charismatics, in those early days, were heavily vested in those first seven gifts. Prophecy, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, very big. And miracles, and discernment of spirits. But when it came to gift number nine, speaking in tongues, fine. Any of those. Because they said, and rightly, I believe, if the scripture is right, the Holy Spirit gave those gifts to people according to His selection. He selected, so someone could have the gift of prophecy and never speak in tongues. Someone could have the gift of discernment and never interpret tongues, and so forth. But somewhere along the line, then, those Pentecostals and Charismatics became, I think... And the reason they chose the term Charismatic to distinguish themselves from Pentecostals, has to do with grace. So, somewhere along the line, though, they fellowshiped enough together, visited enough of each other's churches, and one thing or another. And I, quite frankly, also think classical Pentecostals were not content to see another group having tremendous influence concerning the Holy Spirit, but mainline denominations. And so, out of necessity, they began to intermingle a little bit. And after a while, you couldn't tell the Pentecostal from the Charismatic without a program. And I think this is a significant part of what God is doing. Now, I noticed in the last couple of years, some who have been heavily vested in what we call the grace message, they started rubbing elbows with the people who have the faith message. You know, prosperity ended it. And then, tucked in between, there was this idea of hope. So, pretty soon, there's this merger, I'm seeing, of messages, where in their messages, you have grace, you have hope, and you have faith. And so, they all get into the power of speaking the Word and speaking a positive confession. And it's just a cycle. It goes back then to a Methodist who was Norman Vincent Peale. A lot of people didn't know he was a Methodist, because he was pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York, which was Dutch Reformed. But he was there for years. A very famous pulpit and a very famous pastor. And he wrote a book on the power of positive thinking. And the Methodists and some others, not generally speaking, but many of them, almost branded him a heretic. But he had sitting under his ministry, someone named Robert Shuler, who loaded up his family in a cart and had a little trailer pulled behind it, headed for California, and set up shop at a drive-in theater. And then started to build something called the Crystal Cathedral. But he wrote a book early on in his ministry, The Power of Possibility Thinking. And he was, as a Dutch Reformed clergyman, which by the way, Dutch Reformed is the oldest denomination in the United States, other than Catholic. And Robert Shuler, as Dutch Reformed, sat under the teaching of Norman Vincent Peale, the Methodist, in a Dutch Reformed church. And from The Power of Possibility Thinking came the idea of one's personal ego. It's like a theology of the ego. How important the self is. Well, that fit right in with the power of saying positive things, true, speaking what you want. That fit in with a movement that came out of the Charismatic Movement called the Word of Faith Movement. And the Word of Faith people, they speak the Word. If you want a new automobile, you need to move it, you clam it, you blab it, you call and haul it, and so on. You've got to speak it. And now, that fits in with The Power of Possibility Thinking, The Power of Possibility Thinking, and The Power of Speaking. You know, what you want. Because in fact, Robert Shuler wrote a book, and I've forgotten the exact title of it, but it had to do with, basically, the theology of self and one's personal ego. Self-esteem, it was, he asked that. Something self-esteem. Yeah, I can see the title, but I can't read it. It might have been The Theology of Self-Esteem. I don't think it was. No, I don't think so. Yeah, but yeah, I think it was The Power of Self-Esteem, something. Yeah. You know, when you're sharing all that, you know, one of the things that really came to mind as I'm thinking about the Holy Spirit is, that's not how the Holy Spirit works. That's, you know, when people start taking something and running with it, and they get their own little group and their own little thing going, that's not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works in a consistent, because I've seen so much in my life. You know, I can go and share a human's bill, go talk to someone over here, I'll come here for the service, you're being led by the Holy Spirit, we're going to get some of the same things. Look at it from a different point of view, maybe word of it or whatever, but it's going to be in line with what the Holy Spirit's saying. And so, as you are walking in the Holy Spirit, and you're looking for the individual with the Holy Spirit, you'll find similar things. So when someone's taking a message and going down this road and taking people with them, I don't see that as the Holy Spirit. I see that more as a man's way of doing things. And a lot of times, too, I want to say that is, there'll be a lot of truth within some of the things they're doing. There'll be some positive things within, but it's unbalanced. And I think one thing the Holy Spirit is, is very balanced. You know, he really keeps us grounded in a way, which is kind of ironic, because he's definitely ungrounded, but connected. Connected in the body of Christ, connected with others. Because if you have to take this new teaching or this new idea, and you've got to separate from other people, because they don't have that teaching, that's, I think, where some of that error comes in. My background was liberal arts college, mainline denomination. Probably, if not the oldest, one of the oldest colleges west of the Mississippi. Very highly accredited. And even though it was a church-related college, I had one semester of Old Testament, one semester of New Testament. And that was the only thing that bordered on religion. Everything else, you know, was strictly secular. After graduating from there, I attended, for one semester, an independent seminary that was owned by the disciples of Christ, at least controlled by them. And it was an interesting experience, but it was very oriented toward the rural community. In fact, I had a class entitled, The Church and Agriculture. And in that class, I really appreciated it. I learned about strip farming. I learned about contour plowing. I learned how to read the numbers on a bag of fertilizer. Yeah, you know, it helped to fill in the gaps. Especially, when you, as a denominational preacher, you may start in the rural area, and you have farmers, and you need to be able to at least understand a little bit of their language. But from there, and then I went to the seminary operated by my own denomination. And it was kind of the new kid on the block. It was accredited. And it was accredited because they made it so tough. Absolutely, people would not believe the workload that we had. And it took three years, 90 graduate hours to get a master's degree. That'll tell you something. Most master's degrees give them 30 hours. This is graduate level study. And that's where I continued my interest in psychology. Right. And did some field work for studies, like at the Menninger Clinic, when it was located in Topeka, Kansas, in psychiatry and religion, and so forth. But I did not do a whole lot of biblical studies, only what was required. And I did quite a bit in theology, and systematic theology, and then got into the study of certain important theologians in history, especially during the rise of Neo-Orthodoxy, it was called. But I'm getting to this. The closest I came to any studies regarding the Holy Spirit was in a class that had to do with the history of the world from a church perspective. It was called the Church in History. And when they got to the portion about John Wesley and the Methodists, they dealt with sanctification. And I look back on it, and I'm thinking, why didn't they express the Holy Spirit? Because Wesley was as strong on the Holy Spirit as he was on sanctification. So consequently, I came out with a 90-hour master's degree in divinity, and I still didn't know anything to speak of about the Holy Spirit. You know, here I'm at five, eight years after high school, and I still don't know anything really about the Holy Spirit. And even though I grew up in a neighborhood that had little storefront churches that were all Pentecostal, we avoided them like the plague when I was a kid, you know. We made fun of them. Yeah, they were people you mocked. Yeah, that's right. And they were all poor, and we were all poor. Right. But we didn't call them Pentecostals, we called them Pentecostals. Right. Because they didn't have two pennies to rub together, let alone two nickels. And they were seen as uneducated as well. Oh no, they were. They were, and we all were. Yeah. But I, so I didn't, there I was in a Pentecostal neighborhood, and I didn't know anything about the Holy Spirit. So I go through college, go through seminary, and I still don't know anything about the Holy Spirit. I'm a pastor of large churches, denominational churches, and I became aware of Oral Roberts because of his old black-and-white TV shows where he was under the tent. So I actually recorded those on movie film, you know, and put them on TV. And so I watched Oral Roberts on Sundays after church, but I never heard of some of the others like Katherine Kuhlman. Right. I never heard of her until many years after she was deceased. So there was, I had to go back and study Oral Roberts and Kenneth E. Hagan and Katherine Kuhlman and Jack Cole and so many other youngers. A. A. Allen. Oh yeah, and Miracle Valley, so forth, and T. L. Osborne. Osborne, Grant, all different ones. Yes. And, but even doing that, you still don't get a clear picture of the Holy Spirit. You're looking at people who had some experience with the Holy Spirit. Each one of them a little bit unique, right? But there was something they had in common, but you still did not have the right kind of direct information. Yeah. And there was, again, even in that, a lack of balance. That's right. Oh yeah, there was, definitely. And a lot of division. A lot of fighting, you know, this group, that group, so they'd attack that one, you know. Well, in fact, those guys I just talked about mainly, Oral Roberts, T. L. Osborne, Kenneth Hagan, they were the big three in an organization that the man who founded Christ for the Nations in Dallas had put together. And he had been the field man for William Branham, who was over near, just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky, on the Indiana side, across the Ohio River. Small town. He was a pastor of a small Baptist church. And William Branham held a great deal in meetings. In fact, they took a picture of him on a big auditorium someplace on stage, and they, black and white picture, of course, and there was this halo over his head. And he had a life after death experience. There are still some Pentecostal churches that call themselves Branham churches. They go strictly in his teachings. I didn't know that. But Branham, his field man, started Christ for the Nations there in Dallas. But before he did, he put together a magazine called the Healing Magazine. He had an organization and Oral Roberts and T.L. Osborne, and Kenneth Hagan belonged to that. He was the big three. And Osborne decided to go to India and Africa. His work was overseas. Oral Roberts was under the tent, as many were in those days. He became known because he got on TV with it. And Kenneth Hagan settled in in the suburb of Tulsa at Broken Arrow and operated a healing ministry out of there. But he put together Rima Bible Training Center, which is still there to this day. But see, Kenneth Hagan is viewed as the grandfather of the Word of Faith movement. As a Pentecostal, he's one who plugged into the charismatic movement. And out of that came the Word of Faith movement, which now numbers in the millions of people. And Kenyon was a big influence in that. Kenyon was not even a Pentecostal. But Kenyon studied with his cousin, who happened to be one of the founders of Church of Christ scientists. And he was a very educated man, I believe. Oh, yes. Yes. And Kenyon prolifically wrote books. And Kenneth Hagan studied Kenyon's books. And was suited by the Kenyon family, the heirs. Yeah. Yeah. Because you could find word for word stuff. Yeah. So he made up, I think, nine million dollars or something. Of course, Hagan died when he was 86. He's been dead a number of years now. And he had his followers who somehow managed to pick it up and go with it. Fred Price out on West Coast in California. Frederick Casey Price, African-American. He's now retired. His son's taken over his work. But Hagan apparently was very fond of him and was there and helped him get started. And of course, Hagan's son, Jr., Hagan Jr., he heads up Ramah Bible Training Center in Ramah Church over there that's on the campus. I think he's still on television. But he wasn't able to take that mantle of leadership that his dad had. Right. It really fell on Kenneth Coulthoven. And Coulthoven had, he became acquainted with that Word of Faith message while he was a student at Oral Roberts University in his 30s, getting his undergraduate liberal arts degree. And at night, him and his wife were running over to Broken Arrow, sitting in on Hagan meetings, you know. That's history. You know, so somewhere along the line, all these things began to merge. And just, I am still fascinated by the fact that on that area, like even when we go back to classical Pentecostals, they have an international organization the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America or something like that, that many Pentecostal denominations belong to, including the Assemblies. They are the largest. And then there are, there, I knew of two Word of Faith organizations that got along with each other very nicely. And there are some Pentecostals who are a part of the Word of Faith movement now, so they can have unity. But when it comes to the unity of unity in Christ with the Holy Spirit, the Acts Ministry offers, it's different than what we're talking about there. Because, well, it was a miracle. Every time we had a Sunday afternoon service, and I would look out there, and I would see Southern Baptists sitting next to Assemblies of God, sitting next to a Presbyterian, sitting next to a Christian church. And we're not having to leave that to be part of the Acts Ministry. And that's, I think, the key to what we're talking about. You know, let's fellowship as believers in the Holy Spirit, and then go. Well, we have our churches. We have Roman Catholics attending services. They drove all the way up from Branson. They drove 45 miles to get up here to be in that service on Sunday afternoon. And they came up for prayer at the end. I had Roman Catholic priests speak at the Acts Ministry service. I had Southern Baptists. I had a Church of Christ guide that belonged to a little splinter group. I mean, they were so narrow, they couldn't get along with the Church of Christ that you see on every corner. I mean, they were really a very, very small splinter group. I had him. I had a Presbyterian. The best Bible teacher I ever had was a Presbyterian layman that went to a church. He didn't even know if his pastor was saved or not. But he was there ministering, and he had a Bible study in his home. Spirit led, powerful Bible study. Just amazing teacher. Loved that guy. There's something to be grabbed from many different sources that become very enriching. I think of an example, a local example that I can use that I equate to Acts Ministry, and that's the stained glass theater. You know, it's a theater where volunteers pretty much all from all different denominations, and they come together to minister through the arts to people. And, you know, we leave the denomination out. We all go to our own churches, you know, that volunteer there. But then we work together, you know, in that way, in unity with the script and all those types of things, in sharing a message through the theater, through the arts. And that's really, I think, the same focus, the same idea of Acts Ministry. It's not a substitute for a church. It's not a ministry to replace some ministry that people are doing. It's a filling station, you know, a place to find other like-minded believers to fellowship with it, iron sharpening iron, you know, be strengthened and courage fills the spirit, and then go into the ministry that you're in, into the church that you're in, into the place that you're working. Stained glass theater is a great ministry. I enjoyed it very much. It brings to mind about the filling station. I have promoted the idea that people need to stop at a filling station, get full, and then stay and be a part of the service station. Yeah, the church needs to be a filling station and a service station. Absolutely. We need, once in a while, to go out and buy somebody's windshields. Yes, spiritually speaking, socially speaking. Air up their tires. Yeah. And so forth. Check their oil. Serving where needed. So, you're coming to be filled, but then you see, you know, there's somebody there, they can't get out of their car and wash their windshield. You go wash it. You know, there's someone over there that has a loaded air tire, and they don't even know how to work an air car. You go fill it up. That's right. Serving in that, that's a beautiful illustration. By the way, we are facing now new challenges about unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit. And I'm thankful that six years ago, I turned the reins of leadership over to Jim Winan. And it wasn't because of age at all. It's because there comes a time when you take another step. And if I had been, if they'd been relying on me, my experience, et cetera, Ax Media Group as a department of Ax Newsreel would not exist, because that's not what I do. I am, first and foremost, a clergyman. Secondly, a businessman. Jim Winan, it's the reverse. He's first and foremost a businessman. He's an anointed administrator. And you look up administrator in gifts of the Spirit, gifts for the church, and end up on the top of the list. That's right. And people have no idea how important an administrator is. That's right. Praise God for it. And that's why we have Ax Media Group. But we are, I'm so thankful for that because I've been convinced since 1993, when Ax Ministry began, that Ax Ministry was a key, one of the keys, to the return of Jesus. Because there has to be some type of unity. I believe that. It's so difficult to achieve. Like when it's done, say, when it's done, oh, it's finally done. That could be one of the major keys to the return of Jesus. Because I don't believe he is coming for a separated church. I think he's coming for a body. He's coming for a bride. Yeah. And not just a little bride. Yeah. And a body that's connected. Yeah. Because otherwise it doesn't function. So anyway. Yeah. I wouldn't want to take my bride up in pieces. I thought for a long time that once we got people with their doctrine agreeable, or we got their church organizational style agreeable. There are some, for instance, we have congregational government. We have the Presbyterian style of government. We have the Episcopal style of government. And so forth. Once we could get that resolved and so forth. Of course, that's what the ecumenical movement was trying to do. Then all of a sudden, there's about the time when you're seeing a little daylight, there's a new challenge. And it may be a bigger challenge to unity. And Christ is always here. And if it is, as I think it is, then the only resolution will be unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit. We are socially and culturally and politically so divided. Not just in America. Right. But the globe. To the extent that the world is working at trying to get a global economy, which they just about have, as the solution. But it's not. It wouldn't work out too good for Europe. No. And right now, China is barely in second place, almost first place economically. Their ability to take it all over. And they have such a huge military. And they have a huge economy. And a lot of their economy is based on making stuff for us, consumer items. And someone brought up the thought, well, if the United States could get Russia to cooperate, and the other nuclear powers to cooperate, you could put the, you know, you could put the, you know, you could, well, you could destroy the government of China. And then, but I said, if you do, who's going to run all those factories that they own and operate to produce all the consumer goods that we now want? Yeah. So it's an interconnected global economy. And it has not solved the world peace issue. We have people who are promoting political correctness. If we just all be politically correct, then we'll all be one big happy family. You know, the whole cancel culture and all that. Yeah. But you see, it's not happening. It's very divisive. All these things that the world offers are as much to divide as all the divisions that we've had in the church. What I see them do is they'll say their goal is one thing, but they do the absolute opposite. Like they'll say we need to be tolerant. And so they don't tolerate certain people. You know, we need freedom. And so you can't say that you can't do that. And it's the total opposite of what they're saying. It's, you know, that kind of a double speaker. Well, for instance, I know that with Action Media Group, we pretty much temper what we're going to say. Absolutely. Because we are dependent upon sources right now that could shut us down. But the other people, certain segments of our society, can say anything, use any kind of language, and it's okay. It's okay. So we have to recognize that's reality. It's like back in the early days of Action Industry. I soon recognized the reality that as long as I had an open mind about baptism, then somebody would not fellowship with me because they didn't want me to have an open mind. You learn to live with these things and work through them. And that has brought me to say that over the years, when I was developing Action Industry with the help of my wife, Nancy, we drove a lot of miles, spent a lot of money, and met with all kinds of people who loved the idea of the Holy Spirit and learned a lot. And one time we were leaving Ottawa, Kansas. Nancy usually did all the driving, and I'd ride along and study and make notes. And we left Ottawa, Kansas, and I said, well, mama, this is a pretty good trip. This trip only cost us $36 because we didn't receive it all. But usually, we'd drop a grand here and a grand there, you know, in Lewis County. And glad that we could do it and try to bring some folks together. And it was a very enriching experience for us. And so we developed a monthly newsletter. Thankfully, Margaret Comer donated her time to do all that and to help and put it in the mail. And this was back before I was really into computers. Not very many people were. I used a typewriter that, as long as I stayed away from the keys on the right-hand side, it was okay. Because it had a computer belt in it. If I stayed over here on a regular typewriter, it was all right. Margaret lived probably 20, 25 miles from us. And she would drive and come in and pick up my hard copy of the newsletter, take it home, work on it, bring it back. And then I would make changes, corrections, send it home with her. She'd bring it back. Is this what you want? Yeah. She'd take it back home. And then she'd go and get it printed here. She'd drive in the spring and get it printed. And then she would put it together and she'd mail it. Well, she brought me a computer. And it was one of those that stood pretty tall, not so wide. It had a little screen on it. It sat on my desk. So, was it a word processor? No, it was a computer. That's like prompting an apple. Oh, yeah. On the early apples. Well, I don't know. 30, 60 days later, she was in my office and she said, you're not going to use that computer, are you? And I said, no. So, she took it home. Well, I was babysitting a computer and some other stuff a couple of years later for a guy that went off prison. And he told me to use whatever he wanted to use. I thought, well, maybe I ought to try that. So, I took it to a computer shop, had them check it out. They said, well, that was the and I didn't know what they were talking about. Said it was the last motherboard of that model, could not be upgraded. So, it's going to be slow. Well, I didn't know what they were talking about. Make it work, you know. So, anyway, I took that home. Dennis, I really got blessed because in about 30 minutes, I sent and received email. And then I knew, here's a tool. Well, I use that tool every day. I have two of them on my desk upstairs. But Axe Ministry now, back in those days, Nancy and I, we were building relationships by driving a lot of miles and attending conventions of other groups. And I was ordaining ministers, and I was helping covering for churches. That was the bulk of the ministry. Now, computers and the internet and all that, that's much bigger than anything we ever did. Right. So, it makes me wonder, as the word carries, as they say, what's next? Yeah. And you're doing a lot of media work for Axe Ministry. No, I was at the mall on Friday. I don't know, the other day, I was at the mall with my wife and she wanted to run into the store. You know, I kind of sat outside the store. I updated our YouTube videos and I updated our webpage on my phone while she was in the store shopping at the mall. I tell people my smartphone is a stupid phone. It's slow and it's kind of old. I'm not yet, I'm still working with monitors on my desk. I have one computer sitting there that I use primarily for email. I process like 200 email a day. And you realize if I was doing that by letters, it'd be 55 cents for a stamp, cost of the envelope, and et cetera, in the paper. So, about 200 of them a day. And then the other computer is the one that I do my research on. And I also follow Facebook on it because that's one way that I can have a window into a part of the world. And that's where if I want to watch a YouTube presentation, it's there. And I can get that while I'm working. So, I'm not yet at the point of having a newer phone to carry with me to do a lot of stuff remotely like you're able to do. And I may not need to as long as I have guys like you around and as long as I can do what I do. I've always thought with Axe Ministry, it was not a one-man show. I didn't have to be everything and do everything. I did what I did and other people did what they did. And it brought us to this point now where soon, well, this next month, the month of January of 2021, Axe will be in a new rented facility, but new to them, new to us. Even though I'm not on the board, I'm part of Axe as a volunteer. But a nice one-story brick structure, three studios, a nice reception area that can double as a chapel, a nice lunchroom and restroom facilities. Very nice. And offices. That's a major upgrade. And we've always done all these things now since 1993 with very little money. In fact, even to this day, I think the budget is $30,000 per year. And this last year, because of a couple of reversals of one kind or another, fell about $4,000 short of meeting that budget. And that's a major hit when you're on a small budget. If you had a budget of $2 million, $4,000 would be nothing. And I know one ministry that I'm well acquainted with. They take in a minimum of a million dollars a week. And they don't accomplish what Axe Ministry accomplishes. But what they do, obviously they do very well. But it isn't what Axe Ministry does. Axe Ministry is the only one I know of to promote actively, in every way, unity in Christ, through the Holy Spirit, serving where needed by doing the right thing. And it is an example. And there may be, I've always said, there may be others out there someplace doing that. If so, I don't know of their existence. I know that Axe exists. And I know that Axe Ministry has changed lives, many lives, over these years. See, it's 27 years old. And I'm looking forward to, same time that we're moving into new offices, I'll be in Topeka, Kansas, at the birthplace of Pentecost, where the classic Pentecostals get their tongue to the initial physical evidence and started in Topeka and what's called Stone's Folly with Parham and Agnes Osborne in 1900-1901, where they had studied, saw that they believed that when the Holy Spirit came in baptism that you'd speak in tongues. That was the initial physical evidence. It's a cardinal doctrine of the Assemblies of God. And it started right there. And now, for the 120 year anniversary, which, you know, 120 is definitely a significant number, especially when it comes to the Holy Spirit, 120 in the upper room. You know, it's a Roman Catholic Church that owns it with a charismatic group that's in it. The main person that's really brought this through the finish line is a charismatic Catholic. And there's going to be, I don't know, Church of God in Christ, Assembly of God, independent Pentecostals, charismatic Catholics, I don't even know how many other groups, you know, that are going to be there to see where the Holy Spirit's taking us for this new day that is ahead. And so it's really exciting to be able to be there to represent unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit and to just see how, as you're walking with the Holy Spirit and you're staying in touch with Him, you get to a point where you're just in the right place at the right time. Windows open up, doors open up, and then you just walk through. You know, it's kind of interesting to see because right now, you know, the Word's getting out. And so the individual that's setting this all up is getting calls all the time, you know, Oh, I want to come and speak. I want to come and do this. I want, you know, all these people know they want to be part of it. And it was something that, you know, by just walking with the Holy Spirit, I'm not only going to be there, but I'm basically kind of the secondhand man to do my role. He calls me his assistant. We have some video reports from that. So it'll be live streamed from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. New Year's Eve. And then from, what is it, I think, two or seven to two on New Year's Day. I forget the hours on New Year's Day. But yeah, it'll be live streamed. There'll be a prayer room set up with ministers that will be praying and anointing people. There'll be praise and worship going on, you know, and so we'll be live streaming different parts of it going around. There'll be live interviews. I'll be doing some of the interviews either with the guy or individually with different ones. And it's just, I know it's where the Holy Spirit was. That's good. That's a good place to be. That's right. Exactly. It wasn't that movement that started in Kansas. Wasn't it sort of African-American oriented? Well, in his Bible school, it was not. It led to a healing revival in Houston, Texas that then led to a school that he started down there where William Seymour came in. And he was open to having African-Americans and teaching out of those African-Americans. Yeah. One blind guy. And then he went to California. Paul Ram paid for his tickets to go there. And he went to California and started the Azusa Street revival, which is where most of the Pentecostal groups came out of. Interesting to me, the fact that Azusa Street is in the Watts area of Los Angeles, that back in the late 60s, they burned it. Yeah. In riots. There was also a big one, where was it, in coastal Oklahoma, where they had what they called the Black Wall Street or something like that. Yeah. And there was a bunch of individuals murdered. Actually, one of the individuals, he died in 2012. He was 109 years old, was there during that time, then went to Azusa Street, carried that fire on. And then his daughter is one that's going to be there. That's one of the individuals I just connected with just the other day with that interview with that other gentleman. That's one of the ladies he works with. We're blessed in that we have people who were children during the rise of Pentecost, as it's called. I'm one of them, in that I saw it from my below-grade neighborhood, right alongside the tracks, looking in on it. But there are others my age, that their first memory of church was in the storefront Pentecostal church. Oh yeah. And back in my hometown, the church that was first assembly was a little frame building. And I was asked to speak there before I was ever a pastor. I was a 19-year-old evangelist. And I was amazed. I gave an invitation, everybody came forward. Everybody except an uncle of mine, who out of curiosity, I guess, came to hear me. And he was kind of a black sheep, and he had a huge drinking problem. He sat on the back pew. He didn't come forward. Everybody else, all the members of the church came up. I didn't know what to do with them. Thankfully, the pastor was there. But it was, that had to be in 1955. Back here in 2000, about 2000, what is, maybe 13, something like that. I was back in my hometown, and I preached in first assembly. And by then, they had a new facility out on the highway, and were building on. It was a big church. And those were the two times that I ever preached in the Assembly of God church. Now here I live in Springfield, Missouri, which on the radio and on our television broadcast, it's called the Springburn USA. Within the shadows of the international headquarters, the Assemblies of God. My wife was an employee of the Assemblies of God for 32 years. We belonged to their credit union almost since the day they started it. And the only time I preached in the Assembly of God church was in my hometown. In 1955, I was 19 years old. And then in about 2013, the same church, but a different building, that many years apart. That's just, you couldn't write, you couldn't make up a story like that. But we've always enjoyed a tremendously good relationship with the Assemblies and all Pentecostals. Because Acts ministry for, well, we were in our 23rd year of renting beautiful chapel at Marietta Village, which the Assemblies of God owned and operated. We ran our 23rd year of renting that chapel for Sunday afternoon services that we owned. And then coronavirus came along, COVID-19, and shut it down. And we haven't been there since. So we've always enjoyed a really good relationship with the Assembly people and their leadership. But I've only spoken twice in the Assembly church. Yeah, well, being that I was licensed with the Assembly of God for a number of years and went to the school, you know, they definitely believe in getting along with other believers, but a little bit at a distance. You don't run into pulpits and you don't go to their churches so much, but you can fellowship together, you know, and that's kind of, you know, what it was, it was a business kind of thing that came across to me. Well, I had an invitation with them, a request. An older man at that time, he's about the age that I am now. And he wanted to talk to me about that. I went to his home. We went out on his closed-in patio. And he said, well, the reason I got you here, he said, you, back then I was Methodist, you know, he said, probably you could get some Methodist pulpits open for me so I could go and speak. I said, I probably could for every Assembly pulpit you open. He was Assembly guy. Open for me, I'll get one for you. And that ended it. It was a short-lived visit. So this thing of unity gets to be a tremendous challenge, obviously always is, but it also has this amusing side too. When you see that through it all, people are still people. And as long as there's any focus on the person, of the person, other than Jesus the person, or any focus other than on Holy Spirit, then divisions will exist. But the big challenge coming up now for Acts ministry is to have a social voice in a world that's divided socially, a voice to the culture, and in its own way, a voice into what's going on with global economics, and a voice, what's going on in the geopolitical scene. It's more than just, not the politics of the United States, it's geopolitics. It's geoeconomic, it's geopolitical. And the social revolution that's happening. So I believe that Acts ministry will stand tall, as it has all these years, these 27 years. I believe Acts ministry will stand tall and be a leader, even when there are people who don't realize how much influence Acts ministry has, or how much leadership they're exerting. If you take everything and bring it down to a fine point, you will see everything back here, but the closer you get to the pinpoint, to the top, the less you see. And that's the way it is with Jesus. You see all these hundreds of denominations, see all these thousands of persuasions, that's easy to see. But what we need to see is the top of the pin. That's where the power is. That's it. And we're not going to look at that and try to figure out how many angels can dance. We're going to look for the point, and that point is Jesus. Amen. I've been having a good time here, Dennis. Can we do this again sometime? We'll do it again. I believe Acts ministry was created for such a time as this, and the best days are yet to come. So if you do it again, I promise I will be well armed with various points in the history of Acts ministry that I'll be able to throw in, and we'll do some replay on that. I will, in my memory of things that we've done with Acts ministry over these 27 years, and actually in April, it'll be 28 years, because the Holy Spirit spoke to me in the month of April, and I told Nancy what he had said, and I know exactly where we were. She was driving. We were on 65 Highway, getting ready to turn off onto what would be East Carney to go the back road back through, close to Stratford to go over to I-44 to head on toward Marshfield and Webster County. And it was on a Sunday morning, and I told her that I felt like we were going to call it Acts ministries. She said quickly, no, no, no, Acts ministry, because there's just one ministry, and so it was. Holy Spirit used her for input on the name. Acts ministry, singular, but there's still a lot of people who want to call it Acts ministries, and I correct. I still correct them. It's Acts ministry, and I still correct people that there has to be a comma after unity, and a comma after in Christ to make it work. Amen. All right, let's do it again, Dennis. Yep, we will.
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