Welcome to healing the land with Kevin Mitschelen, brought to us by pure assembly.
Oh, this is Kevin Mitschelen with healing the land. And I am just really grateful that you're here with us for another time in which we can talk about, I think my favorite subject, and if you're listening this program, probably your favorite subject, and that is Jesus Christ. We're in how he desires. When you take a look at God the Father, how our Lord wants to heal us, he wants to heal the land. And so that's why the program is called healing the land. And so every now and then I'm able to just invite different people on the program and hear what God is doing in people's lives and programs and ministries and, and just to see the transformation and all that today, I have a unique opportunity to be able to have my oldest son with me, his name is Jacob, and the last name is the same. So Jacob, thank you. I'm glad you are on the program. Yeah, it's great to be here. Yeah. Very, it's not the normal thing to have you on on a radio program. But I know that one of the things that I've been able to see, now, as you've gotten older, your, your quickly, won't be long, you'll be approaching 20 here, which is, in my opinion, very crazy, the fact that you are so close to being 20 years of age, in just a few months, and to be able to see your growth. And not only just physically but which is great. You know, you've been doing well on that. But to be able to see your growth in the Lord. So the first question I usually ask of anybody that's on the program is Do you love Jesus Christ? My answer that is
yes. Just God's been so good, you know, in my life. Yeah, I can't think of a single second where it wasn't there and just washing over me. So the least I can do is love them, you know?
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's been evident, been able to see that as a dad, and not to be able to just, I'd never felt like I had to drag you to church. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. There's especially I think, when you got involved in youth and ministry, but even before that you were involved, like cambray bird and those types of things, too. Yeah. So in the course of going, you know, attend college, where is that?
Yeah, I attend the University of Akron. I'll be second year next year. Okay. Yeah. And
what are you studying there?
Uh, I switched from engineering to exercise science. Yeah,
it's you're very athletic. And you actually like working out is a good thing. Right. Yeah. Which is wonderful. That that you've taken that on, but you've also taken something else on at Akron and tell me a little bit about
Oh, yeah. So I'm involved with the campus ministry called h2o. It is an amazing church, in my opinion. I think everyone who goes there thinks it's an amazing church. But yeah, we're heavily involved there. And just, yeah, yeah. Well, so
tell me more about h2o. What? You meet more than once a week?
Very much. So. Yeah, it's just about every day, you know, except for maybe Tuesdays, sometimes Mondays. But yeah, it seems like we're constantly meeting up, we're constantly getting together. And even if it's not in a church setting, you know, we'll see each other pretty much every single day. So
what's good, this kind of slowed down just a little bit on that, because a lot of times, especially as a parent, when I my first thought was, oh, my son who have poured so much time into and, and tried to be a good dad and try to mentor, the first thing that kind of comes to my mind is seeing and hearing a bunch of other students who go into college, God bless all all the universities and everything out there. But a lot of times what I, I hear is a student will go to college, or university, and then the next thing you hear is, oh, well, my student or my, my, someone just lost their faith in Jesus Christ, or that's been shaken to the core. That's not what I've been getting from, you
know, in fact, I'd say my faith has grown stronger since being at college. Yeah, just great, you know, a group of believers there that just truly fall in love with you.
Yeah. Wouldn't it be great to be able to see that duplicated in universities across the country? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, one of the things we did before we we got onto the program I said, So Jacob, do you want to talk about it, obviously, we're getting we're talking about our love, and that's Jesus Christ. And, and so, but the one of the points that you put down which I love this, this point is the importance of meeting more than Just once a week,
so tell me a little bit about Aha, yeah, um, I'd say up until college, I didn't necessarily even see the just the importance, the true importance of meeting more than the twice a week, you know, just even putting three hours in a week. That seems like, you know, that's a big time commitment. It is, um, but, you know, the more that meet with the Christians there, Akron, just the more I realized the need to meet more than twice a week, and just how important having that community is of believers that truly just go beyond just teachings, you know, who are there for you every step of the way throughout your journey, who are constantly asking you how you're doing, how, how they can help you along your Christian journey. And yeah, and it's been great.
Well, and that's, that is exciting to hear, because I have, I'm sure, and I'm gonna repeat this now. Because this you, Dad repeats a lot of things. But if you recall, what is it that I said maybe five, six years ago to you about your generation? Do you remember that and put you on the spot? But do you remember that?
Yeah. You said that my generation is going to be one of the greatest generations?
Yeah, this country's ever seen. I truly believe that. And to be able to see that not only you but you have classmates that are on fire for the Lord that would that be an accurate statement?
Absolutely. Um, it seems like every single day, we're talking about someone who you can reach out to who aren't Christians, and just trying to very actively get them in our church, because we love God that much. Wow. Yeah.
That's exciting. Yeah. You know, it just you just pause for a minute. Yes. You put the pause button on for a second because that right there that the lives are being transformed?
Yeah. Yeah. It's just been so cool to see just all the conversations that we've had with Christians, non Christians, and just how much their lives have changed over the course of a year and gotten closer to God. Even if they haven't fully accepted Christ. They have gotten so close over the past year, and it's just been so cool to see that.
So what's the secret? What's the secret sauce? Is there a secret sauce?
Well, it's you know, community, but it's also deeply getting involved with prayer. You have to fall in love with it. fall in love with Jesus and let him totally transform your life. Yeah.
Well, you know what the joke your your mom and I have when we we kept hearing like, oh, Jacob's meeting, meeting again, Jacobs meeting again, check with me again, because it is out of the box. And the joke that we would have, would be I think he's in a cult. Because you're meeting more than just twice a week, right? And there are a lot of churches, God bless them. Love, right? Love the big teachers. We want to see the big c church grow and become just a wonderful bride right for Christ. by a lot of times, we just kind of regulate ourselves to two hours at the most Yeah, per week. And you're you're telling me you're blown that out of the water?
Oh, yeah. It's a it's not even close. Yeah, like, it's just that when I read, you know, in the Bible, and x and any of Paul's letters, you know, and it's just the two hours a week is not the church that I read, you know, it's nowhere to be found in there. I don't know how the American church has gotten the concept that we only need to put in two hours a week.
Yeah. I love that. I love the hearts. Because if Christ consumes you, as a believer in two hours, I spend more time at McDonald's. Pretty close, you know? Not really, but Yeah, boy. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. I'd probably spend more time at Lowe's in the course of a week. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Cuz I do construction stuff. And not for hire, by the way, but I do. I do. You know, I do that. And so get going to Lowe's or whatever. I spend time you know, trying to get materials, right. Yeah. Two hours, boom, click off really fast. Yeah. And we're supposed to spend two hours learning about Jesus Christ and loving on correct.
Yeah. It's such a, I'm sure that'd be such a foreign concept of Paul, you know, like, what do you think of that?
Yeah, yeah. And it consumed him. Right. Yeah. And I would, I mean, you take a look at the course of the Bible, how many letters he wrote, right to the churches that were being developed. It's majority of the New Testament. Yeah. Yeah. And, and then Peter, I mean, you know, take a look at what It can see one when Jesus during the ministry of Jesus, he says, See the disciples are constantly with Jesus. Yes, instantly. And then after his death and resurrection, and in His ascension, that was their life. Yeah. Wow. That's you mentioned prayer. And we got a few minutes in this segment here. This is just whipping by here really fast. But you mentioned prayer, and I think it'd be good again to, we could skip right over that. But But how is your prayer life changed in the last year? Especially?
Yeah, in the last couple of years? Yeah. Um, a couple ways. The first thing that I can think of is just praying a lot more for the people around me. I'm praying for especially non Christians to come and see Christ, praying for God to use me every single day of my life. Yeah, that God will do amazing things. But then, secondly, just even Akron. I'm in a prayer group, where we just pray with the people in our church, and really just let the Holy Spirit move in that time. Yeah, yeah.
I remember your age long time ago. I remember thinking that, Oh, these people are going to pray for like 20 minutes. That's a long time. I get the sense that you're just kind of ramping things up and 20 minutes, because of your love for communicating with the one true God.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, like, at our prayer time, we usually only spend about five minutes, you know, run down in progress, whatever. But then after that, it's just 55 minutes of just constant prayer. have anything less than that? almost seems mundane, you know? Yeah.
Wow, you know, I, one of my favorite stories, and we were Wrapping things up here pretty fast in this segment. And we'll get back to the to this, about the power of prayer and the importance of prayer in the next next segment, and we got a couple of items we want to address. But the, the one thing that I want to just, you know, hang on to is that with through prayer, one, we were designed to communicate with God, that was the original design with Adam and Eve, and then sin gets in play and then, but we have prayer, we have the opportunity to go before the king of kings, the Lord of lords and pay what before asking you another question. Let me let me go ahead and just share that we're going to hit a hard break here real quick, and we'll come back with Jacob. But I just want to if you have to click out from the program, just understand that God loves you and that if you're young too, that he has a desire for you. And he has a desire that you get to know him better. If you're old, he has the same thing. But once you once you continue to listen to to the program. The next section, we have just a few seconds of a commercial for pure sound like thanks. We'll be right back.
I am dawn board member of pure and healing the land is brought to you by pure assembly. Pure assembly is a nonprofit with a mission to heal the wounds of A divided and injured nation through prayer, unity, repentance, and edification. To learn more about us, check us out at www dot payoor. Assembly calm or find us on Facebook. Just search for pure assembly. While you're there, we'd love you to like us to thanks for listening to healing the land.
Well, welcome back to pure assembly's healing land. I'm Kevin Mitschelen. I happen to be your host today. And I just again have a great opportunity to be able to interview my oldest son, Jacob Mitschelen, Jordan Mitschelen, the My other son, twos have two sons, the Jordan right now is actually in Mexico. And so he's on a missions trip down there. But today, I have the pleasure of opportunity and opportunity to be able to, to hear from Jacob Mitschelen, my eldest son, and before we go back into the interview really quick, I want to just mention to you pure assembly and healing land, we are really looking at this this year, as a year of prayer, and we want to step into, because 2020 is kind of rough if you remembered that. And and we're I think there's some lessons that we need to learn from 2020. And that is when you strip everything away when you strip the programs when you strip all these other things away. What do we have? We have God and the best way to communicate with God that God has given to us his prayer. And so we have that ability to communicate with the one that created the universe, the one that could breathe life into existence. Literally breathe Life into existence, he needs you in your mother's womb, especially for a purpose. And so insane all that, where we're looking at going is starting in the month of July of this coming of this year, which is not, we're already right there in the month of July. And so what I'd like to be able to do is present to you an opportunity where if you can find and get a prayer journal, we'll have some prayer journal recommendations, we're not making any money on this. And this is not something where, you know, affiliate program or anything else like that, this is just simply, we're going to post a couple things on our website, but find your own, I don't, it doesn't matter to me, but start writing your prayers down. If you're not doing that, go ahead and write them down. Pray in the morning. And as it's an exercise, Jacob, my my son, he does exercise all the time. Okay, physical exercise, and also now spiritual exercise was one of the things that, that erecta I would recommend pray in the morning. And then you know, what, write those things down, write those requests down, right, those Thanksgiving times up to the Lord. But then also, then in the evening, write something down as well. give praise to the Lord as to what God has been doing free. I used to have this gentleman who would would was our Sunday school teacher, and he would come up to me and go, are you giving thanks. And that was a good question. And so that's also part of your prayer life too. So saying all that I want to just kind of really encourage you will have more information as time goes on when it comes to the opportunity to pray, and and to take that individually. And pastors, I would encourage you, and if you're a pastor, and you're listening this program, encourage your your your ministry, encourage people in your congregation to pray, you know, to pray, and so that that is really, when you remember when everything was stripped away in 2020. What did you do? Where did you go? You went to prayer. And so let's not forget that as things begin to open back up again, that prayer is essential, is what keeps things going. So anyways, that's my, that's my flag. And I just wanted to, there's really no plug for me except for communicating with God. Right. So as we were leaving the program, this last segment, we were talking about prayer, and in the change in how you pray for people, what's happening, how was that experience for you of actually starting to say, I'm going to, I'm going to go beyond the five minute prayer, or even the 10 minute per
Yeah, after you know, even the first time you do that, like just pray and sit with God for, you know, 10 plus minutes, you know, you just feel God's presence every single time. And that's really how you start knowing Okay, this is this is what I need to be doing, like daily.
Yeah. So someone will come up to you and say, there is no God, what's your response?
I mean, I could go into an hour long.
But you probably had some of those college.
Yeah. I've had many discussions with a couple people on on that, but yeah, but my response would just be, you know, God's done so many amazing things in my life, you know, just all the prayers, you know, they've had just, even if they can't see it in their life, they've gotten closer to God, whether they realize it or not, which I hope they realized it someday, but and I'm still continuing to pray for them. But it's just, yeah. It's been so rewarding. Just seeing how the prayers have come into fruition. Yeah. But
just just to kind of give you something. Let me ask you, how have you. How have you seen that? How is it? How has God? How has God changed you?
Yeah, he's done a lot. done a lot of working with me. The first thing I'd say is like, I I can remember, especially as a middle schooler, and quite prideful. And even through high school, I know I had some pride and mean. But yeah, over even especially this past year, just God's been really working on me with that and just really shown me No, I'm nothing. You know, God's so much greater than I am I I'm a worm, you know, the bed. Yeah, and, yeah,
yeah. Alright, as Paul would put it, a righteousness is nothing but filthy rags. Thanks for the grace of God. And it's unmerited favor. And you can't, you can't buy that you can't work for it. It's grace. So, the one thing I want to make sure that we get to you is you have on here and we could talk about prayer. I think for the next hour, I have absolutely no problem. And we may go back to that. But I wanted to make sure and have enough time where we can talk about your last point would you want to make sure and get across and that is how great God is. I love the fact that you wrote that down that you made sure this Okay, this can nice dad needs to be part of the program. How great God is. So tell me about that. Yeah.
God so great. I don't know if there's a better way to put it but like he is just so much in my life. You know, I just think of a year and a half ago, I didn't know where I was gonna go, you know, in college, but then God steered me and led me towards Akron and I couldn't think of another better place and then Akron, you know, I found all these great believers, and he's been slowly leading me down this path. I never thought I'd be taken on. Um, you know, I just think of, you know, when I got denied to go to Purdue, I was like, heartbroken over that. But then he just, yeah, started taking me down this path and but then also seeing God move in other people's lives, especially to Akron, the non Christians, the Christians, and just what God's been able to do there.
Yeah, yeah. And just so everyone knows you're not getting paid by acronym for most will offer the tuition or something. That's not acid. We're more than welcome to do. But that's not the case. But but it has been and be honest with you. I never heard of Akron until you've you blip that up on my radar screens that hey, what do you think about Akron? Yeah. And so to see God actually move us to somewhere to it was an engineering school. That's primarily known for engineering. Yeah. And then to hear that there's a program in this church, is it on campus? Do they have other churches in across the country? Or is it just primarily Akron?
Um, so yeah, their main campus is Bowling Green. That's where it started. So that's the biggest church, they do have other HMOs across the country? I have a couple in Indiana. It's mostly based in Ohio. Oh, yeah.
Well, that's, that's wonderful to hear that there's a Christian ministry that's very active on on campus. So how they set their structure just real quickly, because then we'll get back to this question here pretty quick. But how do they set their structure? Because I think there's a lot of parents and people that might want to know, you know, like, how does that duplicate maybe at a Purdue, right, or something like that?
Um, yeah, so it's very similar to Campus Crusade if people are familiar with that, but yeah, like as far as what we do on a daily basis kind of thing? Well, yeah. But
I think they're already putting you up as kind of in more of a leadership role and the Democrats.
Yeah, they are excited for next year. And you know, even this past semester has been great. But, um, yeah, as far as the layout goes, you know, usually there will be a day where so Sunday's obviously, we go to church have a mean session. And then Wednesdays are very similar with that. But Thursdays, we, we try to meet with people who aren't Christians, and bring them into a space where they have like games and stuff like that. And there's usually going to be a week or a day in there, where we just pray as a fellow body of believers, we usually try to get together, you know, most days. And there's also another day where we do like a Bible study and stuff like that. So yeah, but there have been times where I've made more than once a day, you know, so it's,
yeah, yeah. And what I've been intrigued is it even you have different sessions and things during the summer, while you're away, as well. So that's encouraging. So let me get back. I wanted to highlight that a little bit, it really did. Because I think that's something that can be won at duplicate that in other universities as well, you do see Campus Crusade, obviously. But that hey, the more the more the better. Yeah, you know, this is not just, you know, one organization owns the whole thing. This is the kingdom. And so to be able to see, duplication is wonderful in the kingdom of God, and why not see the greatest generation, in my opinion, all right, and what God has given to me is that this can and will be the greatest generation, but boy, there has to be a surrender to Jesus Christ. So we were talking about the power of prayer was also talking about and again, two minutes, I think we got a couple more minutes before the program ends, but I'm excited about your generation that's coming up. And that's the reasons why I wanted to have you on the program. And I'm excited about you, especially as my son. I'm grateful to see this and I'm grateful so to see that you have a love for God. Can you tell me Little bit more about when you when that first started to come into your life where you said, you know what I think I will I keep hearing about this God and I love him.
I can think I can think of several different moments in my life where God's really shown me that with my church, you know, NMC, I've gone Chicago trip, that would be a major milestone in that going to the Dominican Republic. Even bigger step in that I can. There's one day in particular, we got just hit me like a freight truck, you know? Yeah, that was crazy. But then can you pause and just
tell me a little bit about that?
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'm in. It was one of our last days that we're actually near the place where we go and go to the town and do like a VBS and go door to door and stuff like that. So Dominican, yeah, independent. And it was getting closer to be nighttime. And the pastor there, he gave, you know, a quick sermon about just how we are a warrior and God. And I, you know, we all then sit down, and then we pray. And just, we're asked to then stand up and just say how we're warrior and God, and like, how, what we're defeating, you know, in our life, and and then I just remember sitting down praying very hard. Just, you know, I did all the hand motions, because the Holy Spirit was moving in that place. And yeah, the pay pastor then saw me doing that. And he said, Jacob, you got something to say. I remember standing up and then I just remember God, just like speaking through me. And just, yeah, I just I don't remember all what I said. But just how great God actually is. Yeah, just that just yeah, him today.
Yeah. I love how God moves. Yeah. And sometimes when you least expect it. And I'm encouraged by you. Unfortunately, we're going to wrap this thing up. But I just wanted to say, I love the fact that you love God. And I love the fact that it's not just you and your generation, I've seen many hundreds, if not 1000s say that they have their desire, their boldface desire to love the Lord. And so I'd asked the same for you as well as your listeners program, to, to go in and into a deeper relationship with with Jesus Christ. No matter where you are, go deeper. So we love you guys and hope you're having a good day. Take care.
Second Chronicles 714. If my people who are called by my name, humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal
their land. Healing the land is brought to you by pure assembly. Pure assembly is a nonprofit with a mission to heal the wounds of A divided and injured nation through prayer, unity, repentance, and edification. For more ways to get involved and to be a part of their ministry. You can reach them at WWW dot pure assembly.com. That's p u r e assembly.com. Or look for pure assembly on Facebook.