Welcome to healing the land with Kevin Mitschelen brought to us by pure assembly.
This is Kevin Mitschelen with pure assemblies healing the land and I am so grateful that you've decided to have another moment in time with this conversation of, of healing the land how God desperately wants to do that. We have a guest with us His name is Terry Lang and I'm I'm we're gonna get to Terry in just a little bit because he has a fascinating, wonderful story and he has a passion for Jesus Christ. Before we do that, I want to just share with you for a few seconds that pure assembly, we believe in the power of prayer, we believe that it actually you may take a look in the in in the Webster's dictionary, he'll say now and it's a noun. And I would agree I'm not trying to somehow say that it's it's not a thing. But I look at it as a verb, it is an action word it is we're going to the one that created the universe, we are going to that God, and we're going to his throne, going to his inaction. And he's coming to us. Because he's that kind of God that desperately He loves us. He wants to connect with us. And so saying all those things, that we believe that prayer is a verb, where we are promoting prayer. And that is an area where God said what Jesus Christ also said, he said, My house should be a house of prayer. And so we want to bring that God's house, God's people to prayer. And so and it's insane, this, we have something with pure assembly called 180 days of prayer. We're going to talk about that Psalm, also on the program today. But in light of the 180 days of prayer, I like to present this to you if you are a pastor or a ministry leader, get in contact with us go to pure assembly calm. And we are we now have a date with Notre Dame, in which we have are working with Notre Dame to have a prayer me for pastors and ministry leaders at the Basilica on January 19. And at 7pm. And that is something that it's it's a geographic location, location where we can come and we can pray to living God. And so if you have more questions or information that you'd like to have on that, please just get a hold of us at pure assembly comm or go to our Facebook page, pure assembly, or if you want to go to info at pure assembly calm, that's info at pure assembly comm we'd love to be able to hear from you now saying all of that I would like to be able to introduce. He's been a friend for for quite some time. But I really appreciate his love for the Lord. And Terry, glad you're here.
Thank you very much. Yeah,
I always ask this question. And I present this question to you prior. And that is that. Do you love Jesus Christ?
Oh, what's on my heart? Absolutely.
It just just kind of oozes out of you. And even when you're not even say anything about Jesus Christ. So that's what I love about you. Can you lot of people, we have some things in common. One is you love to work with your hands, or right. And you are that that guy that that everyone needs to have you in their house, because you're a DIY guy, you can fix just about anything. But you also have this incredible testimony, I'd love to be able to hear your, your wisdom that you have.
Thank you very much for having me today. Basically, about my background is that I grew up in a very stable home. My parents loved me it was everything was great. But I grew up in the 60s, and it went wild and so did I and a lot of drugs and alcohol. And again a lot of well actually I buried seven of my friends before ever graduated high school. So I knew the fruit and the results of living in darkness all around me. And so I came and then went to Marine Corps for a couple of years I came out and I I went into construction and started working actually did power lines and linemen for quite a long time. But in the midst of that when I was 20 years old, I thought well you know I'm a little sharper than the average krama so I thought and so I was going to, you know, make money in real estate Well, I I quit my job at 28 and I no no paycheck no money in the bank. Within three and a half years I had bought 42 rental units land, had a management company I started was managing 300 Reynolds. Oh three and a half years, and life was great. It was all about me and money and but the world promises the same thing God does but the truth of matter. It never fulfills. And so in the midst of all that I, there was an empty place in my heart. And so still working power lines and buying properties and doing all those kinds of things. And I just started reading the Bible and looking for, you know, success principles. And then at 35, after reading to the end of the book of john, it's like the truth was, I didn't want to jump the chasm until I saw the ground behind me sinking. There was too much truth, I knew I couldn't go back and I had to make a choice. And if so, by reading the Bible, and conviction, the Holy Spirit accepted the Lord and at 35. And I've never looked back, it's been the greatest decision that I've ever made.
So what what, what's, what brought you to that decision? Because life is good. It sounds like, What what?
Because it doesn't fulfill it. Yeah,
you
have you everything you want. I mean, why do you know? super rich people and movie stars, I have it all, you know, and your life because it doesn't fulfill and when you're on the top or the bottom, there is no purpose. There is no fulfillment. Like Jesus Christ, amen.
Amen. Yeah. And was a part of your life, too. That you, you were you, you get this testimony, you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior. So how does that look then? For you? Because I know you've you've been involved in a lot of different things that that has been this out, put of Jesus in you. And one of those that you had mentioned at different times when we talk is your involvement with the kids in jail, the JJC and things of that nature? Can you tell me a little bit about some of that? And because there's a testimony in that, right.
There's testimony and everything. God is glorified. Yeah, yeah. Dale divine has been so faithful for years to take go to the JJC with a group of guys, it's a small group and I was involved for quite a long time. And like, I just talked to him about three weeks ago, and he said, they're opening it back up after COVID. Now to go back in. But I because of my background, I go in there and I see all the kids sitting there, their butchers are all my friends, you know, when I was growing up that aren't here anymore, and I just see it in their faces and, and they're all you know, sitting there smug, and your arms crossed and, and I talked to him and i and i, one of my first questions, I start giving my testimony, I see him start leaning in and leaning in and leaning in, because, you know, you've heard living the life I am now. So and I said, but I know where that's going. And it's not good. So I tell him, I said, Really don't read scripture you really need in the Bible as john 1010. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I've come to give you life to the fullest, said Jesus. So I say, how many people know anything about kill, steal and destroy? every hand goes up? Then I say how many people know about life to the fullest or the abundance? Not hand just a cold stare? Because they haven't seen that. And I said, Well, that's what Jesus offers you.
What an honesty from those kids to recognize that too.
Yeah. Even when I was a reboot, I was on staff at Camp raver for seven years. I love. I was a youth pastor for a while, and then I end up in in rainbird. Because God said, I'm taking out of this church and Minister I loved what I was doing. And kids are coming to the Lord and things are good. And then I go to raybert. And because of my background, I love inner city ministry I've been doing for 35 years, I've led tons of kids to the Lord and other people when and what I like about inner city, they're honest, you know, straight up, you know.
They'll say the F word ta at least you know where they're at. Yeah.
Yeah, I remember one of my kids run it first year I was there. And he comes up to me and I said, Okay, we're gonna do this, you know, and you're the counselor needs your balls. Oh, man, you can't tell me what to do. Like, oh, this is
not your norm. But becoming more of a norm, unfortunately. But yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. So
then he becomes one of my leaders. In a couple years, and then we had a lot of leadership kids. So Life was good. Life was good. And we, you know, did a lot of rebored.
So tell us real quickly, because some people may not know anything about Robert Wood in a 32nd synopsis of what they do. Yes, out there. A little plug in. So
yeah, wonderful, managed a wonderful ministry, powerful ministry. I used to go to camping conferences, and it's still the most powerful ministry I've run into. But so in 1919 rainbird, who got saved by Mel Trotter in Grand Rapids who got saved by son, Billy Sunday who used to be a baseball player who became a firecracker. evangelist yeah rebored got saved became and was living in South Bend as a pastor, he was walking down this alleys in South Bend and he saw starving, dying children in the streets and alleys and I'm thinking what's gone like tonight was right after World War One. Yeah, probably economy, you know, Dom and everything. And so they the studebakers and, and the cunninghams gave them their retreat is I have mile on Lake on bass lake and Jan lieksa, and Westside South Bend. And he started doing ministry. And it's it's a powerful it's a it's an inner city. very vague basis, Jesus Christ only ministry and they've been doing things since 1919. Wonderful ministry has
been amazing over 100 years, obviously. And it is exciting to see that the conversion of the transformation of so many young that that come out to that camp. It's been fun. Yeah, I
ran a crew program for seven years there, right? And those, many of those, those kids that I had are now you know, 35 or 40. And loving Jesus, kids are loving Jesus, they're doing ministry I mean, you know, some kids get it, some don't. It's just law of averages when you're dealing with the Lord. But, you know, a lot of powerful people that are still walking with Jesus today. And that's that's the exciting thing.
I wonder, before we go to heartbreak here, we got coming up in the next couple minutes, I want to just we talked about the power of off Mike, we talked about your quest, and your your passion is obviously for Jesus Christ, but your passion is also for prayer. And you mentioned I love this line, you said the status quo has to change. Yes. What do you mean by that?
I think everybody got a wake up, call it COVID when they said, Okay, can go to church and blah, blah, blah, and everything else that was going on in the culture. God is not satisfied with the church. We have got, we have gotten complacent. And God just a wake up call for God to call the church back to their first love. That's him and call the culture back to his order. And I I believe that's what's going on at this point.
Yeah, I would totally agree with that. I believe that the 2020 year was probably one of the people are going to disagree with me on this. But it was a tough, tough year that I didn't expect. But I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for because it It changed my perspective. Where this is God's in control. And Kevin's not
exactly where every destroyed that sort of, I hear across the church. Yeah, you know, it's a wake up call for us to get back to him. And he's in charge. And we need to be taking orders from him on his agenda
in a while when we come back from the other side here. And you've got you also I blow I love the fact of the Terry, what you mentioned, again, when we were doing for the show prep, and that was to slow down. We'll talk about that. What that looks like, waiting on the Lord in that slowing down process and what is prayer for? Why do we pray? And those are some questions i think that you know what they have great answers to So if you'll stay with us here, we're going to have a little advertisement from pure assembly. And we'll be right back. Thanks.
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 pure 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, again, I'm so glad that you were able to stick with us to the second half of the program. My name is Kevin Mitschelen says pure assembly and you're with a program called healing the land. And just a quick reminder again, we are in the midst of 180 180 days of prayer. If you'd like to learn a little bit more about that feel free to go to pure assembly COMM And you'll see all kinds of information regarding that these programs are also downloaded and recorded on that website as well. So pure assembly comm also too we do just a reminder, we have an opportunity where if you're a pastor or ministry leader, we love to be able to connect with you. And also in regards to that we are looking to have a community wide prayer meeting. We have some things that we're trying to work on right now where it would be a substantial amount of people That would be coming to that. Looking possibly in the spring, so not just once, once on in January at the University of Notre Dame, but possibly having something later on the spring of what we're looking at, hopefully in the National Day of Prayer, and, but all that also will require funding to make that happen. So if you could pray about that, we would love to love to talk to you as well. So I'm saying all of that. I like to it because all this involves prayer. And so what we're going to do is we're going to talk much more about prayer and the importance of prayer. Before we left the last, we're talking about slowing down a little bit. I've got Terry here. And, Terry, I'm so glad that you're on the program because you have a heart and a passion for prayer. And so what does what does waiting on the Lord look like? To you, Terry? And and what does slowing down look like?
In your Thank you, Kevin. So basically, almost a year to the day before COVID hit, God said, terror, because I spent almost an hour almost every day, for last 35 years almost time with the Lord and ninjas. Other times I do prayer retreats, I've done, you know, fasting long fasts and as I said, but God said, I need to start slowing down and take more time and some real deep prayer and extended prayer. And I said, Okay, and while I was flipping houses, and I had I was finishing up the last one, and almost to the last day that I was done with the house COVID here. And I said, Okay, I know you're up something else. Or you want me slow down. And so basically, what I've heard since dad is that a lot of people are saying, where's the power in the church? You know, Where's it at? And it's in the presence of the Lord. The power of the Lord is in the presence of the Lord. And if we don't wait upon the Lord, and and take some extended time to pray, God, God's not my microwave, not McDonald's. Yes. You know, he's a slow cooker and his, his stuff moves slowly, but it moves steady. Yeah. And also when we slow down and pray we find out I used to go on prayer retreats, like three days to take my Bible and journal and here I go, I'm gonna have fun with God in a bridge. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. So you understand. But first day and a half, I'm on my face confessing, confessing and repenting of my worldliness and whatever else I've got going on in my life. Then God says, oh, not I got I got the pipes cleaned out. Now, let me know, let me let me share some things with you. Prayer is about listening. I there was a famous pastor years ago, and I know he was he was very famous. And he said, that guy said, what's the best part of prayer? He said, five minutes after I say amen.
Amen to that, because
we give God is our grocery list. And thank you, man, take care of that. Take care of my agenda, and I'm gone. Prayer is not about God blessing your agenda. Prayer is you getting on God's agenda for his plans and his purposes, because he is always up to something. And right now, God is up to something. And so the question is, what are you doing God? And what do you want me to do in light of that? And so that was my, my quest. And all of a sudden, I get a invitation of some friends up in Niles that, hey, in light of everything that's going on, we just want to know, God, what are you up to what he wants to do? In light of that? I thought, Jessica, what you told me, I think I might want to join this group. So there's about a dozen people, there's like five different churches away from St. Joe to South Bend, and just a small group, and we just pray. And we asked God, you know, what do you want us to do? You know, and I think that's what God wants. Yes, for us to stop our agenda and stop and say, God, what do you want? Yes, and desperate prayers. It's just asking God, what he wants. And, you know, what's our next step? He, you know, he's a light into my path. You know, if you understand when this is written, it's a lantern. It's probably a candle Lantern, or coal lantern. And it's only good for the next couple of steps. Yeah, okay. He's not going to give you the 10 year plan, right? He's going to give us a two day plan. Yeah. Okay. And that's Yeah, best. And so then you got you've got to be listening, and open. One of the Scriptures that God has really impressed upon me to pray for my own personal life is second, Thessalonians 517 to 19. Rejoice always pray continuously and give thanks in every circumstances, because I'm a very self directed person I so appreciate in heaven doing 180 days on Lord's Prayer because God has convicted me, I'm too self directed to self interest.
buy into that. We run into that at all times.
Yeah, and I need a lot more humility. God doesn't use perfect people uses broken people. So many people I heard his testimony the other night. Well, I can't pray I guess I could do too much sooner I live in this this gallows, Jesus, okay. But she's looking into her imperfections. Every personal God use was ordinary, and the imperfect. Absolutely. But they had it even though they were ordinary and imperfect. They had an extraordinary God. Yes. And that's what they're the same years ago, don't seek to walk in the footsteps of the ones who went before us but secretly saw what they saw was God. I think I was thinking about the Scripture, you know, where Jesus gets rid of Saul, because he's, you know, he's handsome, tall, dark and handsome and all that kind of stuff. And, and, but that's the world's view. Yeah. And he was all by himself. He looks apart. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. He looked, then all of a sudden, God says a good man after my own heart. Now, for years, I thought, okay, so I gotta struggle hard. And you know, and get a heart of God and all that kind of stuff in order if he really meant I'm going to have a person that would seek my heart.
And you talked about earlier to about prayer is humbling. And I'll see what you're just talking about it everything just seems to run straight. The word humble. Yes. And you mentioned brokenness, and that because God opposes the proud Yes, as well. And if you can, can you speak into that? Just a little bit?
Yeah. So when you said a man after my own heart, I don't think it was necessarily like really unfair for God. I really think it was he was seeking the heart of the Father because he says, I think is Psalm 46 as the deer pants for water so my soul longs for your that's what David said. There's not a man seeking after God's heart as a man as the deer pants for water. So my soul longs after you. There's a man after God's own heart. He was after his heart, just hand knotted stuff, right? Okay, not his blessing. He was after his heart. And that's why God used him and and it's interesting because that's what Elijah said, you know, didn't want to take your take away from Saul and give it to man after his own heart. Then David says it and then because he commits adultery, commits murder, and Hebrews which is epitaph he was a man after God's own heart. So God saw Him in His perfection and eternity not in his present state and we kind of you know, it's all about me and my temporary stuff when we pray all my temporary stuff and God has really convicted me in this part is to the 180 Deer Park Yeah, what are you praying about eternal things? are you weeping for souls? Yeah, are you building the kingdom of God you know in that kingdom come right? Am I building the kingdom in my heart? Am I building the kingdom and other people's art? Yeah. Or are we just praying about uncle Louie and Aunt Sally? Yeah, you know,
yeah it as you talk about that reminds me that we've been asking people in 180 days a prayer to to take time with the Lord and we've been just using the the Lord's Prayer as a model. God Jesus gave it to us so I'm like okay, if I'm a simple guy if Jesus gave that to me then let me see what God has in that and so start out by going Lord God how will be thy name and there's different ways of saying that to give praise to the God that created everything we see laid the foundations of the earth we we've been building and so we understand what a foundation looks like right and so the lay the foundations of the earth you know I that's immense I can't imagine that and he's spoken he didn't even you know he spoke that thing and so for that kind of power but he's he loves us that's unmanageable and then to pray the the the kingdom the for his kingdom to expand and then the gates of hell will not prevail to spend time with that and then to go into then you start okay my daily bread but by the time I get to the Daily Bread part I've said a glory to God and and things change by the time I get Oh yeah. And let me pray for this person to come into the Lord Let me pray you know what, and then together to come to the forgiveness part I'm still Lord help me to forgive someone. You know because I still harbor something in in my in my thoughts and in those areas and then the area also of of just being teased by the world. Is is very powerful, but to see that dissipate as well. is amazing and of course to give thanks and we had talked about some things prior to the show I love the prep in this and and that, that prayer is humbling and bringing the church back to him through prayer. And we want to also talk a little bit about there was a thing down at Columbia and want to be able to talk up and bring that into the next few minutes that we have unfortunately, we just always race against the clock here. But if you could share some of those,
yeah, I saw a video. Can't remember the name of it now but it was documented video and cerca de Colombia is the second largest city in in Colombia and several million and the Cali Cartel was the second richest cocaine cartel in the world at that time. If you can imagine dollars and dollars back then they were making $100 million a month, and drug trafficking. And they had 1200 houses in a block and they hit a wall we rounded and downtown had everybody paid off. That's fairly we get that kind of stuff happening. And very a lot of corruption, obviously, locally. And so then the pastor's down there, really became broken and said, God, we have not done our job, we have fallen down. Tremendous have we given into the enemy, so pretty much in our hearts. And so they repented. They started praying, and they decided to take their city back. And then, you know, stuff started happening prayer groups, and blah, blah, blah. And the next thing you know, they feel this soccer stadium of over 100,000 people, by the sanction of this mayor of the city, and they gave it to them free to do this unheard of in that culture. And there you had an ordinary usually 54 killings, not shooting 54 killings a weekend in Cali. And that weekend, a three to four degree day prayer. They had none. Yeah, amen. And within months to less than a year, the entire cartel was arrested and busted and gone. Yeah. Because of the power prayer. And it says even in Hebrews it says, but the Israelites couldn't enter in because of their unbelief. And I'm sorry, church, how do we have unbelief? Do I have unbelief in my heart that God still can't do the things that he did? Absolutely, he can. Let us wake up and get in some deep prayer and allow God to be God again, let him do his thing, through us and in us. So he can, because his end goal was always restoration. He wants to restore the church back to himself. He wants to stir the culture back himself. Eventually, when it comes again, he's gonna restore everything. Even in God's disciplining the Israelites in his 70 years and 40 years in Egypt, it was always to bring them back, I will bring you before he signs him. But I will bring you back, I will bring the room it. There's always a way that God, everything will be completed in his time.
And to close the show. Unfortunately, we're running out of time, but I just want to thank you for being here. God desperately wants to heal the land. It is coming though to God understanding that he's the one that created everything that we see. He's the one that were to go to. He's the one that can heal you. But you got to come to him and be willing to be healed. Be to recognize that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God. Be willing to repent. And guess what? He's got great joy for you. He's got great peace. So we'll have to end the show there. Thank you for taking time with us with healing Lynn.
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 payoor assembly.com. That's p u r e assembly.com. Or look for pure assembly on Facebook.