“A Daring Faith in a Cowardly World” Ken Harrison AlongTheWay 129

Well, Ken Harrison, it is great to have you on along the way. We've connected a few times in the past, once while you were a guest on the TV show that I produced back in Pittsburgh, called real life. And then recently, I did I had to do on the charisma news podcast to talk about your book, daring faith in a cowardly world, live a life without waste, regret, or anything unfinished. And we had a great conversation, and I knew that I wanted to have a longer bit of time to talk with you about your story. And So Ken, welcome to the along the way podcast. Oh, thanks, John. Ken is the Chairman and CEO of Promise Keepers, as well as a lot of other things that we're going to talk about today? And kind of just like you to talk about your story, like, how did you come to know Jesus? How did God lead you to where you are today? I know, it's kind of an open ended question, but I just kind of want to hear your story.

No, I appreciate it. Because mine, I think my backgrounds maybe it's very unique and different, but also so that might really help a lot of people out there. My dad was on the Los Angeles Police Department had been shot in the Watts riots and retired our family up to Oregon when I was a kid and become a Christian. When once he first got to Oregon, and so did I at five, you know, five years old. I really got saved. I mean, like filled the Spirit loves the Lord would preach to everybody wherever I could go. I used to go with all the people from tri city Baptist Temple and put on my little clip on tie and my white patent leather shoes and go knock on doors and handout tracks. And one day I chased Ricky Nelson. Down the corridor of the airport, my mom said he was a famous rock star. So I chased him down I witness to that guy for five minutes. And he sat there and listened to me.

Wow, how old were you? I was six. You were six. At that six years. It's

amazing to remember how gracious he was listening to me, I handed him a track and said, I hope I'd see my church on Sunday, you know. But, you know, I say often, I was still the spirit. And it took the church about 10 years to beat the spirit out of me. Because you you really, really loving the Lord, that's such an early age, it dominated everything in my worldview, how I saw things. And I went to a Christian school, it was very legalistic. And so this was the 1970s. You know, everybody had long hair and listen to rock and roll and all that stuff. I couldn't do anything. I had a buzz cut. And so I got the target out of me constantly. I mean, I was bullied viciously. I would say that, you know, I've gotten a lot of fist fights, but they were really fistfights. They were maybe getting beat up. So all that, you know, just but just still love Jesus. Man. I used to listen to like Keith green cassette tapes and all that stuff. But then, when I was 15, I should say I should say, actually, when I was 12. I realized that the Jesus that the church was teaching me was not that Jesus that I knew. I mean, I really had 12 New Christ. And everything they talked about was how bad everybody was. You know, you couldn't listen to rock'n'roll music, you couldn't gamble, you couldn't drink. You couldn't play cards. I don't know what's wrong with cards. If it was fun, it was a sin. And that's the church I went to right. And I just like, confused, because I love Jesus. And I had a huge respect for authority. I was a very obedient kid. And so I started reading scripture every day at 12. Like, every day, three chapters, the Bible, no matter what I would say, by the time I was about 15, I knew the Bible really well. And I didn't know it in a way to argue I just knew it because I wanted to know Jesus. Before my, my school had had it with me knowing the Bible, because legalists don't like people who know the Bible. That's true. They want people who just listen to them and feel bad. So I was just asking us the questions. Teacher, you said this, but this versus that. And so finally, this threw me out of school.

Wow, you got thrown out of a Christian school? Because you're asking biblical based questions,

was asking questions that teachers couldn't be asked their way through. And I would just naive enough to continue while you say this, but what about that, and I was constantly getting attention thrown out of class. And after a while, I mean, I guess my little 15 year old mind was starting to think maybe these people are full of crap. You know, I wasn't I wasn't sure yet. But it was starting to set up that way. Right. So then I got thrown into huge, my my I had gone to school from the time of fifth grade with the same like, eight kids that were my age. And then suddenly, I'm thrown into high school, 2000 kids public high school, in my junior high school. So the only thing that really saved me in that regard was I became the basketball star of the school. But otherwise, I still didn't know what was going on, you know, very naive

and tall Were you in high school? Six, three, okay.

And I had just really high jumping ability and things and discovered all kinds of things about my athletic ability, which, of course, I didn't know what this little tiny school because there were no sports, you know, so but I suddenly realized I could dominate in a basketball court. And so I did all that and then got a basketball scholarship to a Christian college. And I was, you know, had been preceded by some bigger schools, but still at that mentality of, well, I need to go to a Christian school. So I went to Christian college and got kicked out of there. This time, what did you get kicked out or for, for being a punk? Okay, I started, I started to realize this whole world was just filled with liars and cowards, you know, and I really started realizing even my college professors, they didn't really know the Bible. And now, you know, now I'm 18 years old, and I'm just getting disgusted with everything I'm seeing around me. I'm trying to look for Christ. But everywhere else I look, it's a bunch of fakers and hypocrites. And that's when I finally started to go on enough of this, you know, it wasn't sin. And it wasn't like, I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was still in a sense of driven snow. It was just like, disgust with what was supposed to be the church around me, you know, you want to be a part of that institution. And then I went away to the Marine Corps. And, and came back really kind of filled with all the anger of there's a bunch of stuff that happened, but all the anger of sort of this whole world I knew, I felt like I knew Christ really well. And I did. I really did know Christ. But where was this church thing? And I was angry. My brothers was kind of a same. My two younger brothers, they were stood athletes, and they were kind of on that same path with me. So it just started getting a lot of fistfights. I mean, I got a job as a doorman at like the really the roughest bar in town. It was in fistfights every night, you know, drunks and all this kind of stuff. So it's just kind of a rough street fighting life of just trying to figure it all out. Like I love Jesus, here's the deal. But where are the Christians? Like where, everywhere I turn, it's just flyers and all that stuff. So then I went off and joined the Los Angeles Police Department. And then around that time, after about a year on the LAPD, that's when God called me back, I was actually, again, not living a terribly sinful lifestyle, but it's living an angry lifestyle, you know, just a violent lifestyle. But I was running. And I had my little Walkman and I had listened to pirate, heavy metal radio and went too far on my little dial channel. People are older, remember what those were like? Yeah. And I ended up on the viola with David Hawking. And by the time I got done with my run, I came back and it fell on my knees to get my life back to Christ and walk with him ever since. That's my

Wow. Five Minute background. Wow. That's you covered a lot there, Ken. So if I understand this correctly, your dad was a police officer in LA, then moves away to Oregon. Is that what you said, Oregon, right. But then you become a police officer back in the same area that he left. What made you go to LA?

The LAPD for those who don't know, it's sort of it's always been considered the best police department in the world. You know, there's, you'll never hear a Los Angeles policeman say I was a cop. He'll always say I was a Los Angeles police. Kind of like, you know, Army, Navy Air Force, those guys will say I was in the military, you'll never hear a marine say he was in the military. A Marine will say, I'm a Marine. Right? That's kind of how the LAPD is. It's, there's no overweight cops, there's no corruption. The training is brutal. Almost everyone in the police academy with me was either ex Marine, Special Forces Navy SEAL. It was a stud department. And it's still pretty even despite all of the stuff that's going on, it's still a pretty darn good department. But that's why it was it was the best of the best, at least as far as I understood.

So the same thing that attracted you to the Marines attracted you to the LAPD?

They just wanted to be the best. Yeah. And so that

desire to be the best really has kind of led you on your, on your journey with the Lord. You know, that desire to be close to him? It despite the surroundings and despite not being able to really find that connection with the local church or, you know, just as you were talking about you were you were angry about what was, you know, you were angry. You love Jesus, but you didn't like Christians, I guess. Is that a good way to say that?

Yeah, yeah, it was. Yeah, of course, I had had a lot of experience with them. Right? You know, so my whole life revolved around Christians.

So tell me about that moment when you turn that dial too far and turned on the Biola Bible hour or The whatever that whatever that program was called, because that obviously made a big impact in your life.

Yeah. I mean, David Hawking was a great preacher. Well known back in those days. And, you know, I think I was probably a precursor. Now this we're talking 33 years ago, to a lot of the generation of today, I was looking for authenticity, I was looking for real. And I just found that Christians weren't real. They're all trying to play a game. They're all performing for each other. And especially on the LAPD, you know, life was real. Maybe I mean, you hold on, you hold people in their arms, or they're dying. You know, you get in shootings, you get your your friends blown up with their intestines hanging out of them, and you're calling for an ambulance. It's real. There's no junk. And then you go to church, and you find these people with their fake smiles, and they're being fake, nice in the parking lot. And there's just something about it that kind of brings it all to fruition. And I suppose that's why my calling I think is so intensely to bring Christians into true discipleship with Christ to realize, let's be who we are, you know, we teach a real falsehood in the church today. I think it's taken root deeply, especially in the Evangelical Church, which is that you're a bad person, John, you're really, really bad. But Jesus loves you anyway. So congratulations, John. I try not to be bad. But if you are, Jesus still loves you. Now, that is actually 99%. Accurate, right? Yeah. But what does it miss? What's it miss? and Mrs. Identity? Because what I did was I just put an identity on you if you're a bad person. And that's what you heard, right? Yeah. And if you're in bed, he just loves you. So try to do bad, but I mean, what's the purpose of merely being good? You said the prayer here on The Club. And that was really the the fakeness, I was seeing people try to not be who they really are. Here's the real real message of the gospel, John, you're a bad person. Jesus loves you anyway. And he died for your sins so that you could become a Son of the Most High God. That is now your identity. Now you can choose to take that identity or not, you can choose to revel in your identity of being a senator. What's so much of the New Testament is about is put on the new identity that Jesus Christ has given you be a prince be a son of living God. And Jesus says to the overcomer, I will allow to sit on my throne at my Father's right hand. Are you kidding me? So for those of us who are overcomers, or victorious, the Greek word would be the one who won the race. We can actually sit on the throne with Jesus Christ next to the Fathers right here. Yeah, but only the overcomers. Now we get to a reason for being real, being authentic, no need to put on my little face. I want to be who I really am authentic. As a stress, Son of the living God, who will struggle who will make mistakes. But boy, when I make a mistake, Repent, get up and keep going. Because there's work to be done. And that's the message I think, that we want to get out there. It's why I wrote this book.

Yeah. And with your involvement with Promise Keepers, I'm sure. I mean, as a man, what you're talking about dealing with identity and calling men up to a higher standard, you know, to a higher identity. I'm sure that really resonates and has been very effective in your ministry. How have you gone from a police officer, you know, kind of an identity change into ministry? Like what what were some of the steps that happened there?

Well, there was a big step of business in between. So yeah, after all the Rodney King stuff in Los Angeles. I left my uncle was a captain on the LAPD. He was really one of the most famous La cops ever. And for those of the guys who know he was a commanding officer vest is which is a very elite group on the LAPD and he was kind of attached to the hat squad that fought them off you out of Los Angeles in the early 60s, you know, and he called me up to his, his house in San Clemente, you know, doing all the Rodney King stuff. And he used to sit there and it's when he retired, just like 1992. And he'd sit there with his folding chair in front of his house by the beach with his 44 Magnum minute, listening to Rush Limbaugh. It sounds quite a picture. Oh, yeah. He is sit there with his coffee from nine to 12 every morning with a big grin. And I remember walking up there to see Gordon. And he looks at me and says, Look, Kenny, that the feds are gonna get involved in the LAPD and they're gonna destroy it. And I don't want you to be around to see it. It's not going to be the great department that it was for you, your dad and me and your great uncle. So once you go and run a company or something, and so I did. I left the LAPD and got into business. And God really blessed that I was able to be able to build a new a really large business. I sold that 2006 2006 Then I took over and run the international business. So across the world until two 2012 steered this big commercial real estate firm through the biggest commercial real estate meltdown in history. Yeah, and we did really well, thanks to the law. I mean, it was really the night. I don't say that, as a mighty lay, it's a longer story. But literally, it was God's grace that caused our company to do so well, when everybody else is doing terribly. So then I retired in 2012, I'd made enough money and life for me had been a really intense, hard and fast road. And now I was 45 years old, and really said, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna retire now 45 I've made some money, and raise my kids and, and live the rest of my life for myself. That was really how I got to there. Yeah. So the next step is,

hold on. Before we go to that next step. I want to talk about that that conversation you had with your uncle? Like, how did you receive that? Because you're about to make a huge life change right there. And I think for me, that's something that I'm always interested in. Whenever somebody comes to a place where they know that they you have to make a life change, or it's presented to you. Because I think for myself, and I think a lot of guys deal with this, our identity is often wrapped up in what we do. And so you're going from being a police officer to being a business man. Can you just talk a little bit about that before we move on to your retirement?

Yeah, I mean, it's actually a pretty interesting story, because I'm actually skating over obviously, a lot of drama. It's never as easy as it sounds in a story, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my identity, I mean, my whole life, all I wanted to do was be in LA cop. And now the LAPD you know, in 92, nobody knew what was going to happen. And again, the LAPD was the best of the best. There was no corruption. There was no, you know, you hear about cops in Philadelphia or something, you know, getting $20 for the ticket. It didn't happen in Los Angeles. So it was it was kind of a mourning of gosh, you know, people screwed this thing up. Before I you know, now I'm, I don't get to go and, and be a part of have a whole career this. But there was another side of it, too, that my wife was really, she was my highschool sweetheart, I I saw her in a carload full of girls who's pulled over and asked me directions to a party. I looked in the backseat, went home and told my mom I just saw there go, I'm gonna marry, you know, I mean, it was out. Yeah. And my mom said, Well, who is she? I don't know. But she was in a bunch of Karla girls from my high school. So I'll find out who it was. And it's pretty funny because that next Monday, I was walking down the hall telling my friend Dwayne Dickey, by the way, and my friend Dwayne Dickey married a woman named Nikki. Oh, so his poor wife's name is Nikki dickey. You know, telling him that, you know, and then there's she walks by us in the hallway, I'm like, that's her. And so, Elliot was a mirror into who I was. And I was definitely becoming a big city cop. I was a cop in south central i, which is watts Compton, very high crime. And I was becoming a mean, bitter cop. I mean, I was already naturally angry from all the stuff I'd seen as we went through already. Yeah. So pre conditioned to being angered at the lack of justice. You know, what you saw in the LAPD? Wasn't like a lot of people make out the community of South Central LA and the only people were very close. You know, I mean, probably half the cops were black or Latino and the other half were white, in that area. And on Sundays, everyone would fight to see who got to work on Sunday afternoons, because Sunday afternoon was the best. Everybody that I went to church. Everybody came home and everybody barbecued. And so on Sunday afternoon, literally people would just run out stop your black and white officers. You got to come back and have some barbecue, you know, really? The car walked in the backyard. Oh, yeah, it was you know when Rodney King happened in the press is talking about the community mad at the cops. It was such garbage. None of that was true. It was all a massive pent up anger between Koreans and and blacks and had nothing to do with white people or the cops or any of that stuff. It was all press created. So I was seeing just lies everywhere disingenuousness. And so I did leave the LAPD with sadness. But then I didn't know what to do. It wasn't like I just started a great business right away. It took a couple of years. And in fact, that actually is pretty funny because it's interesting story, but actually gave up and I knew I was doing what God did not want me to do, but I actually applied for a smaller Police Department. Because I'm like, Well, I don't I don't know how to make it. So I applied for the Vancouver Washington Police Department, which is a suburb of Portland, Oregon. Because we got back there and wow, LAPD holy cow, you know, they put me to the front of the line said you're as good as hired. We just have to go through the formalities with so we went through everything. And the last thing was an interview with the community. Okay, so I sit there with the community and there's a bunch of people there, the chief of police, and this woman asked me, How many felony arrests did you make? And so I was like, ah, about 40. And so, the Chief of Police is what Wait a minute, you said you made 40 felony arrests? I said, Yeah, he goes, that seems like so many the last officer here, I've only made 10 felony arrests in 10 years is a lot of you police wrote and I said no, no, not 40, total 40 per month. And I remember, there was like a, like a gas in the audience. I said, Yeah, I mean, I took over 25 guns off the street per month, I made over 40 rally restaurants. It was Compton. What do you think? So I got a letter from them saying no, thank you. So many arrests, because all of the violence and the all that they were afraid that I'd be way too aggressive. And they were right. I mean, you get programmed. You know, when somebody's in South Central US centuries, for the waistband, they're reaching for a gun. Somebody in Vancouver, Washington reaches for the waistband, they're probably reaching down to tighten their belt, you know, and how you've been programmed to react could cause really something bad to happen. And so yeah, there's no way a cop from South Central Los Angeles had any business being a cop in suburban Portland, Oregon, right? So at a bottom point that I really had to get on my knees and pray to the Lord. And so in 94, that's when I really it took me two years to really get it all figured out. That's when I got into business. And the experiences as a police officer, and knowing scripture really well, really led me to be very successful in business.

Okay, how does knowing scripture really well actually apply to business? I mean, I know that it does. But I just want to hear your stories about that. Because that that's such a good lead in to this next to this next segment.

Because it teaches you how to think, yeah, here's the thing with scripture, if you're really studying God's word, and you get through things, you have to deeply think your way through things. And you have to think your way through things that you actually can't comprehend. Totally. Right, especially when you're 12, like I was when I first started reading it. so deeply thinking through Scripture and praying through it and making make it It all makes sense. When you're reading the whole Bible in its entirety. You have to learn how to critically think and make things make sense. So having such a deep, self taught, scriptural study habit, when it came to getting into business and analyzing strategy, being in rooms and trying to figure out who was full of crap and who was telling me the truth. I was pretty darn equipped from learning how to think by reading the Bible.

That's so good. That is so good. What are some of your favorite stories in the Bible about critical thinking?

So think about this guy in the Bible named Jay who? Jay Who is this is a little throwaway story. He's anointed to be the next king of of Israel. But he's not the king. Ahab is the king. Ahab, very evil, passive guy dominated by his wife, Jezebel gets killed. So Jezebel takes over and usurps the throne. She puts a puppet in her place, but she's really in charge. So Jay, who is a soldier in the army? He's just hanging out one day. When he Alicia says, somebody go tell Jay who, why are you hanging out doing that you're supposed to be the king, go become the king. So prophet is dispatched from from Elashi comes to Jehu. And he says that God wants to know why you're sitting here doing nothing. Go kill that woman Jezebel. So the Prophet leaves. Yeah, he walks into all the other men are and they're like, Who is that freak? I mean, it's literally what the Bible says, Who was that freak, you know? And he goes out here to what, nothing? And I'm like, Oh, we could tell you what, it's something. And Jamie says, I need to go kill Jezebel. I'm gonna miss it. We're with you. So J, who gets on a horse and starts writing right to where both the kings of both Judah and Israel are both hiding because they've been in battle, and they both got wounded. He's riding out there and the watchman up on the tower looks out and sees a guy coming. And the king says, Who's that coming so fast? And the watchman says, He rides like a madman. He writes, like, he writes like Jay who. So Jay was given this this task. Now he's riding like a wild man to accomplish it. So the kings of Judah and Israel come out and they're curious to see what he wants to Javed kills both of them and tells all the men with him. We're going to kill Jezebel. They keeps writing in a town. He gets to town and they're just about walks out and says Abell, for those who don't know or remember, had basically emasculated the Men of Israel, the men of Israel had let this woman dominate them through a weak husband. She had slaughtered all the prophets of God. She'd promoted the horrible practices of the God but all and now she's done through sensuousness and all this kind of thing. She comes out on the balcony, and she looks down and she says to Jay, who some insulting thing she basically says to him, you know, you and I can roll together. What do you think you're doing? And Jay who looked points up and he says to the two units next to her, throw that woman down, so they pick up Jezebel to throw her off the balcony and she hits the ground, and the Bible says that her blood splattered all over the walls. So Jay, who coldly steps over her dead body, walks in and has a meal. When he walks back out the eat dogs have eaten her entire body and left nothing but a few body parts her hands and wish fulfilled the prophecy they've been told. Yeah. So that's Jehu. So you've got a guy who is a nobody. But God annoys, and then once he's anointed, he still doesn't do anything with it. And he got asked to say, Hey, I told you that you're supposed to be the king, are you gonna go do it or not. And once he's given that sense of confidence, not only does he does, he does it like a wild man, the Bible says, like with everything in him, and he finds that may 1, he tells these other soldiers, he didn't want anything, he doesn't think they're gonna believe him. But when he, when he tells him his mission from God, he realizes there's a lot more people on his side than that he knew. Now, here's the rest of the story on Jay, who he liked what he did so much that he goes and keep slaughtering people. And he goes into some really horrific things. And they're all people who are supposedly enemies of God, but he ends up killing a lot of people. And God says, later on in the day, he went too far, and he cursed his generation down to the fourth generation. So when God gives the mission, we can either choose to accept it or not, we can either choose to walk in the identity he has for us or not. The second thing is, when we choose to do it, are we going to do it with everything in us? Third, though, when we've accomplished God's task, we don't keep going in our own will. Wow, so many of us get addicted to that glory, or that mountaintop experience of giving God's will. And then Jay, he wants so far the other way that he ends up becoming a curse to his people. So he asked me for a story that I find you critically think your way through. And that whole story I just gave you from the Bible is probably like seven verses. But when you really stop and think your way, all the way through that and what it all meant. It really begins to have some profound truths. The dangers of weak men, Jezebel, was able to be this one of the most evil people in Scripture. Why? Because of weak men, passive men. And then it took one man to stand up. You know, there's another passage of Scripture is very short, but horrible, horrible moment, where Israel is under siege. And the king comes up and finds these two women squabbling. So the armies are camped outside of Israel. Normally, when an army would come and surround a city, that city however long the water lasted, was how long the people would last. Israel actually had a spring inside the city so that they had national water. So rather, they could survive a long time, but they weren't starving to death. So all the people were starving to death. And so the King comes up. And he's women are arguing, he says what you guys are arguing about, and a woman says, Well, you know, we agreed that yesterday we had boil my baby and eat it. If we could boil her baby need it tomorrow, but we ate my baby yesterday. And now she won't give me her baby to eat today. And the king is so angry, and he rips his robes and he's so angry, and he screams he's angry at God. And eventually the Babylonians break in and they slaughter everybody. God is giving a description of that whole thing in a different book of the Bible and says, regarding that moment, I looked for one man to stand on the gap. And I could find no one. God, look for one man who would show leadership and ambition is diverse word, and he couldn't find a single person. And that's what resulted in such evil, which again, then the people immediately all blamed God for. So another tiny little story from the Bible, the importance of us standing up being strong, accomplishing the mission that God's given us. And that's why you had a 12 year old, very angry Ken Harrison, because I was like, Where are the real men, I just see a frickin fake nerdy church people running around with their fake nerdy stuff, and hiding in their little culture, where the men who are standing up and saying this is what God's Word says. And I'm gonna stand up for what's right. And I think that's what the world is waiting for godly man to stand up and be counted and be strong.

Yeah, and I'm getting convicted, but encouraged all at the same time by you telling these stories. And I knew by asking that question that you weren't gonna give me some, some little story. I knew you were gonna go deep, and it was gonna be something very manly. And I appreciate that. Because I'm I love Old Testament stories. I get so much out of it, just looking at these people. That, you know, God used broken people all throughout the Bible, but I love that. You just you explained about Jay who that, you know, when we've accomplished what God calls us to do, we need to not get caught up in our own glory. I mean, that's really convicting, because it's super easy to just say, well, this is how I've always done it or, you know, look at me and get prideful and arrogant, you know, especially I think as guys, again, we get caught up in our in our identity. And even whenever God gives us something to do, sometimes he says, Okay, that's that that season's over. You got to move on to the next thing I've got for you. Wow, thank you so much for for for going in depth with that. That was wonderful. But as you went from one season in the police to a season and beyond This and now you're writing and you're in ministry. How did you go from business to ministry?

That's the interesting story. It's, it's when I go into the book a little bit, but I really want to impress on a lot of people, because I have a feeling. You know, every time I go into interview, I pray, Lord, give me what people need to hear in this particular interview. And I sort of feel like this is where the message I want to get across. Because people look at someone who, you know, has written books, who runs a big ministry, or as it has a big church, and they just they go somehow, he just got there. It's certainly my case, that wasn't how it went down. So I retired 2012 45. And I really had a really great plan to do nothing for the rest of my life. And I did nothing for about a year. And people will tell me, how can you're so type A, you'll be miserable. Let me tell you, John, I was not miserable. I live in Colorado. So the time of my life, I was skiing and hiking and rafting and coaching my son's football teams and getting my daughter into Liberty University. And it was just great time. And I was shopping for a ranch to buy a ranch and settle down. And during that time, I was really good able to read some of the really great books that I've always wanted to read, but they're way too long, like, you know, institutes of the Christian religion by Calvin, bunch of the will by Luther. And then you know, like, like other works that aren't Christian like Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I mean, who has time read Atlas Shrugged, right. So I got to do all that stuff. I was having a great time. And that was in my my closet. I literally have a prayer closet, and the dark, just praying and really having one of those incredibly close moments of the Lord that you wish every prayer could be like, but only some of them are right. And all of a sudden I heard his voice. And I'd he'd never talked to him like this before. And all of a sudden, he said, Can I did not put you through everything I did, and teach you everything I did. So you could ski and hike for the rest of your life. And I said, What do you want me to do Lord? It through the shock that he just talked to me like that? And he said, Are you willing to be as ambitious for my kingdom, as you were for your kingdom? Wow. And I was stunned. And I sat there for a minute. And then I got this warning. It said, Be careful of your answer. It's going to cost you your life. So I started to whine at God, in my lesser fine moments. I said, Lord, I'm tired. I'm tired of conflict and tired of confrontation. I'm just tired of firing people and being sued and having all this stuff of leading and leadership. I mean, I ran a huge company, I'm just I just want to be alone for a while. And God said, that's okay. But she'll miss my full blessing. And I had a vision. And I'm like, I'm not somebody gets vision. So this is like, I'm a Baptist. So I had a vision of the judgment seat of Christ, where he showed me the life I lived the next 50 years on my little ranch somewhere in Colorado. And it was a nice, happy life. And then I had a vision of what I would have accomplished had I given all for Christ. But didn't it but never happened. And I had this weeping and gnashing of teeth over my wasted life because I chose comfort over Christ. And I still wrestled for two hours with God, I thought I don't I don't know what lay down my whole life means but it doesn't sound good. And even though as what Christ demands of us and the Sermon on the Mount, you know, what does that mean? Does that mean I get sick for the rest of my life? Does that mean I ended up in Nairobi, you know, straight saving street children, or what is it lay down my whole life means that of course, God doesn't give you the menu before you choose. You choose to lay down your life first. And then he shows you. So after two hours of struggling with him, I finally said, you know, Lord, you know me, and whatever you want, my life is yours. My reputation is yours. My money is yours. Whatever you have for me, I want to have your best. And he said, I'll tell you what I have for you when you're ready. And that was it. So his final pronouncement on me at that moment is you're not even ready to accomplish my task yet. And then he was silent for three years. Three years, three years. I didn't hear anything. So for three years now I was free to do what exactly I said I wanted to do read and ski and hike and all these things and wondering what was that all about? What is this call? Why am I sitting here now doing nothing. And of course, I realized that God was preparing me for what the call would be. There was at one point my wife is very prophetic, very godly woman. And so I said to her Look, I I keep praying whatever this call is it's God gave me What is this? And she said, you know can I've been praying and the only word I keep getting is Wait Huh, wait, wait, wait. Like I don't like that word. No, I want to definitely not tell God to give you a different word. So I finally, like a kid, you know, I grabbed a thermos full of coffee. I grabbed my little New Testament with the Psalms and Proverbs climbed up in the mountains to watch the sun come up. But I told God, I'm gonna sit here and tell you give me an answer about what that conversation we had three years ago was like, This is ridiculous. And so I just opened up the Bible. The first person I open to was Psalm 2714. Wait and Lord, be patient and strong away to the Lord. So, I guess he's laughing at me like, Yeah, I told you to wait, and I mean, wait. So finally, when waterstone, the foundation, I run came up, somebody said, Waterstones looking for a new CEO. And I walked in and showed my wife my iPhone and said, Hey, this is my next job. And she said, Well, who's waterstone? I said, I don't know. So what do they do? I don't know. But it was my next job. And I knew immediately when God called me and then a year later, the Promise Keepers thing came about and I've been running both waterstone and Promise Keepers ever since.

So, God called you to run waterstone. Can you tell us a bit about what you do there?

Yeah, Waterstones is an unbelievable thing. It's a foundation. And what it does is it helps people to give away money to Christian causes. That massively saves them tax taxes and all that. So you take complicated assets. So as an example, really easy example would be if if somebody had $100 worth of Amazon stock they bought six years ago, and that$100 Apple stock is now worth$500. Right? Because it went up so much. Most people if they were going to give would say, Well, let me sell I'm gonna give my church $100 I'll sell $100 for the Amazon stock and give it to my church. Right? Yeah, if they did that, they would pay capital gains on that. And then they would give it to the church and get an income tax write off. If you don't go through waterstone, you don't pay capital gains, and you get the full tax write off so you you save more money taxes, your church gets more money. So waterstone does that times about 1000, as far as complicated, people give oil and gas wells and parts of their business and all these different things that fund all kinds of amazing Christian ministries. So Watterson gives away about two and a half million dollars per week.

Week. Wow. per week. Yeah, fine. Sounds like fun, is a blessing away money.

And what's really great man is I get to, you know, we don't deny a lot of grants. But I get to sometimes we just had somebody who wanted to give to a Christian organization. And they asked us to give a grant of a million dollars. I won't say who it was. So we always check out the Christian organization this Christian organization has in their bylaws that they will defend and support gay marriage. So we called the people up and said, Are you aware that this is in there? No, we weren't, we did not give that Christian organization. And the Christian group called us and want to know where their money was. We told to go pound sand and try to go read their Bible. You know, so that's fun, too.

Oh, my goodness. So you get to be generous, but then you get to call people out for not being biblical. And, you know, not just pound sand is a great analogy.

That's I don't know what pound sand means. But I hope it's not something bad. I've been saying that cliche for 30 years.

I don't know, I just imagined somebody you know, just on the beach, just angry and just, you know, not hurting anything except their own fist. I guess that's how I look at it. But I remember my mother used to say

when I was a little buttons on your underwear, buttons on your underwear, I guess how old are you my but that was her thing buttons on your underwear. You know a lot of these Christian colleges and we could get into all this stuff. It's amazing how many Christian colleges are teaching horrific content. And people don't know any better. And they're giving money to some of these Christian colleges. I would encourage anybody listening now, man before you send your kid off to a Christian school or you send money to a year old alumni or whatever. You might want to take a serious look at what they're teaching, because there's a lot of colleges now that they tell parents who want things. They still have this front of Christianity, but behind the scenes, they're teaching all kinds of horrible godlessness. We actually had a Christian college he was going to get an$8 million grant from waterstone to set up and it was all covert, a whole thing on evolution in the Christian College to teach evolution and Darwinism to the students and we were able to get on the way and make sure that that didn't happen. waterstone saved CS Lewis's house, so the kilns and Oxford they were going to tear his house down and we were able to come in and buy that. And now it's a museum that many people are blessed to go to. So Watson is always unbelievably cool, amazing things is such a blessing. Because it's like this Christian group with serious weight and power. And when I tell Christians all the time is don't just be generous. Be wise, in what you Give. There's a lot of Christians that give money to groups that are downright the enemy. And they don't realize it because these groups are good at selling. That's the thing about the enemy. The enemy is a liar. Yeah. So be careful before you give to something just because the Christians in the name or just because the coach used to be a Christian school, you know, this great Christian schools out there like colored a Christian, Hillsdale, liberty, Grove City Biola. There's some great ones. But there are some that are really bad that people don't realize, I would much rather send my kid to a secular college than some of these

Christian colleges. So you brought up the fact that you research and you figure out, like, do these people actually believe what the Bible says? And are they going to be faithful with this? I mean, the Bible talks a lot about being a good steward. And it's not just that you've been a good steward with your money, and now you're handing it off to somebody else, and you're blessing them. No, you're still being a good steward by making sure that is going to accomplish the kingdom purposes. What is some advice that you can give to people that are like, wow, I didn't realize that my money that I'm giving away might not be going where I think it is, how do people figure that stuff out?

Well, one of the best things to do start is to look at their statement of faith. What is their doctrinal statement on on certain things, like waterstone has one that was just made for by John Stott, for us back in 1980. We have to stay within our doctrinal statement. So that's one, you know, when it comes to colleges, obviously just just look at, well, what are they teaching as for copy of the curriculum? As for people who know no better, or Paul waterstone? If you're not sure, because we know a lot of these groups, and we have our 5500 ministries that we support every year, we have a pretty good idea of who's good. And we're not we're not parsing on theology, or any of that kind of stuff. We're just looking at, do you subscribe to the basic tenets of Scripture? So no, anti Israel? No pro Islam, no. pro gay marriage, no pro abortion, that kind of stuff. We're not real narrow in how we look at it. So we still give money to certain places that I would think would be better spent somewhere else, but we honor where someone wants it to go. But yeah, I would say inform yourself before you start giving. Don't just get sold.

Yeah. So tell me a little bit about the Promise Keepers Promise Keepers kind of went away for a number of years. And Gods used you to kind of bring it back to the forefront and you're doing things a little bit different than it was in the past.

Yeah, so I'm running waterstone, Promise Keepers pops up. I am asked to come on the board. I say no, I don't want to be part of it. And the CEO of pharmacies at the time is basically running out of group that was doing nothing says I desperately need your help. Can we just come to one board meeting, so I went to the one board meeting, saw the financials hit the ceiling. And so this is a mess. So they voted me Chairman of the Board. After I got done yelling at them all. And I told them all I become chairman to close it, because this is so bad. So I brought Promise Keepers into waterstone to close the doors on it. Pay off all the debt, it owed money. It was just a terrible thing. So in the process of waterstone paying off all the debt for Promise Keepers, and then getting ready to close the door. It takes a couple of months to close the doors on a 501 C three to protect the copyrights and whatnot. That's when God called me back. It's a longer story. But he basically said remember the conversation we had in your closet? This was it. Promise Keepers. I was like, oh, man, I don't want to Promise Keepers.

No wonder he wanted to get here. Yes. Before you told you what it was.

And he still knew COVID was going to come? Yeah, you know, we put together a big comeback at Dallas Cowboys Stadium in July of 2020. And I said, uh, we're not going to stop, we're gonna go, everybody else might close, but we're going to still do our event. And then the governor of Texas, his office called and said, You're not doing an event. So we were forced to cancel and then I got all this hate mail from people telling me I was a coward for closing. I'm like, I didn't we didn't close. We were you know, what do you want me to do charge the stadium with machine guns get in. So we had our event in July of 21, a Dallas Cowboys Stadium and it did really well for middle of all that COVID stuff. We had 30,000 guys there got a bunch of great press. But we've really frankly realized that we get way more traction and effectiveness out of doing virtual events, especially right now. People are not attending Christian conferences and stuff very well. Their concerts are doing okay, but really Christian conferences that people got really used to staying at home and seeing things virtually. So we did a virtual event. And we had 1.11 point 2 million people watch in 84 countries. Wow. Yeah. Crazy. So we've done a bunch of mini events, you can go to prosecutors.org and see those we did one on marriage when I father, one on sexual integrity. We have a really, really powerful one on mental health, dealing with depression and grief and guilt and bipolar and how to deal with it. And he's these are all about an hour long. And we generally get about 150,000 people who watch them live when we release them and then they're gonna stay on our on our YouTube channel and stuff so you can see him so Promise Keepers has a bunch of really great content. What we have coming out right now I was the mental health thing in November. But we have a 25 year standard, the gap documentary coming out on October 4, it's the 1.4 million men that met in DC 25 years ago. Huge, huge thing. So we're doing a documentary on it that comes out on October 4. And so I just encourage people you can get on promise keepers.org and register for everything we do is free. Yeah, that's not free. It's for you. Somebody's paid for it. Right. It's to get on there. And I would just say, you know, anybody listening to this, too, if you're saying, I really wish my son, you know, he needs help, or my husband or you know, whatever, there's a bunch of really amazing stuff on promise keepers.org that you can get them. And then as far as in person events, we'll still do them. From time to time, Dallas was a success. But it won't be our primary thing. Our primary thing is really, at this point, getting out really godly, authentic content to men, getting them onto our app, which is phenomenal. You get download the app, we're getting men into relationships and getting them biblical content that they can have a real men living for Christ in real ways, standing up for, like I said, the very thing that was making me so angry as a young man, now going, Okay, well, what would I have wanted back then I would have wanted, but Promise Keepers is putting out now real stuff, like guys who are fallen, but are still living for

Christ. That's so good. You know, Ken, I appreciate you telling your story. And just how God has led you to where you are right now. And, you know, the whole purpose of this podcast is, you know, these conversations, you know, our life is, is a journey with Christ, whether we realize it or not, you know, just like the disciples that were walking on the road to Emmaus, you know, here comes Jesus, but they had no clue that it's him. And he's walking with them for hours. And they don't realize that it's him until they sit down at the table, Jesus blesses the food and breaks the bread, their eyes are opened, and then poof, he's gone. And in Luke 2432, they say, weren't our hearts burning within us along the way as he was revealing the Scriptures to us? You know, I want to learn from those moments in other people's lives, where you look back, and you see that Jesus really was there, but I didn't see it in that moment. So that we don't miss those moments now. So can you tell me about a time where you can look back now and you can see Jesus, where you might have not felt him? In that moment?

Why is he that question coming from what from the setup? Well, the Promise Keepers thing was definitely, it was a just a big chore that I took on felt like, you know, I was jealous for the name of my Lord, I'm gonna take this thing on and close it down and pay off all that debt, because I'm jealous for the name of God, I had no idea. It was going to turn out dominating my life in such a way. You know, I would just say to, as we talked about realness and authenticity, you know, I mean, that's what so much of the Bible is, you know, the Bible is God's story of what works. And we tried to put all his holiness on it. But basically, he said, you know, here's how you got here. Here's why you have all these screwed up desires. Now, let me give you a bunch of stories about people screwing up. And then let me tell you how I came to die for you. So you could live for me, and then here's some instructions on how to live that life out to the fullest. That's it. That's That's what Scripture is. Then we've seen the Old Testament over and over and over again, is these deeply flawed people. you'd asked me stories earlier about thinking things through, think about Moses for a minute, because one of my messages to people time is God's favorite. We have voices in our head all the time that are competing for space, right? We have our own voice, right? We have the devil's voice. And we're really good to hear the devil's voice because we were born with the ability to hear his voice because we were born as slaves to the devil for years. And when we got saved, now we are able to hear the Holy Spirit's voice but the Holy Spirit's voice is harder to hear the Holy Spirit's voice his favorite word is Wait, wait, wait, wait. And he always glorifies Jesus. Nothing else. The devil his favorite word is hurry. You gotta go you gotta go. You gotta go. He loves to fill us with anxiousness and worry. And he always glorify self. Right? You can often tell it well, whose voice Am I hearing? And boy, I feel strong motivation, while just does that motivation bringing you peace, patience, and is it bringing glory to Christ? Or is it bringing you anxious? You gotta really go, go go. And somehow you're getting the glory. I no different. Yeah. So you have Moses. Moses is like, really? You think about it one of the most amazing people in history of the world biblical or not? This dude took 2 million people out into the desert with no food, no water, no plan. There's a guy with a serious, serious spine, right? Yeah. How did you get there? You know, Moses is raised in luxury as a son of the king, right Pharaoh. He would have had the best training in the world best hand to hand combat bait training all those guys in those days. Were all trained to be fighters from the time they were born because they had to be Moses would have been the best education possible everything that goes with it. And he feels like is called that he's supposed to do something great around his people, the Israelites. And finally he gets tired of waiting on God. So he goes out and beats Amanda death, which is always a great way to start your new ministry, right? He goes out and he beats this Egyptian to death. And what does he do the next day he goes out, he's expecting the Israelites to rise up and grab him and say, Oh, our leader, he's going to lead a rebellion. Instead, they condemn him. And he's humiliated. So he runs off and hides in the desert, it gets out to the desert. And there's these girls that are they're getting water and a bunch of Land Pirates come up, who have really been attentive to these girls. And Moses shows up and kicks the butts of all of them. He's a tough dude, he is ready to go, man, he saves these girls. And they run off until their father dropped Jethro about what just happened. And he's like, well go get this guy because we live out in the middle of the desert. And he sounds like good husband material for one of my daughters, which is Sharon. Sure enough, he is. So Moses now goes from this incredible position and feeling like he has this amazing call on his life to being a fricking sheep herder, which is the lowest of the low back in those days. For 40 years, he tends his father in law, sheep, he imagined any more humiliating than now you're tending sheep, not even your own sheep, your father unless she like even everything you have comes from your father in law. Imagine his son, you know, son would have been 3536 years old. And Moses going, you know, your dad back in the day was quite the guy for Pharaoh. And it sounds like dead, you've always just smelled like sheep for ever since I've known you, I think maybe you're full of crap. Right? So finally, God calls Moses when he's 80 years old, and an ad. For two chapters, God goes on about all the amazing things he's going to do through Moses. This is exactly what the 40 year old Moses wanted so badly, was to be the man to lead his people to lead a rebellion. Now, when Moses hears all of this, what's he say to God? Pick somebody else. Yeah. Now Moses is where God can use them for 40 years of humiliation, and going around the desert, until God had honed him down to the humility level where God could truly use him. So we tend to worship people in our American culture. And we look at people who've made it big and Oh, Pastor, so and so did compare yourself to Christ and Him only. And I'm deeply suspect to these Christian leaders who have not gone through times like Moses who have not gone through severe times of waiting. God just, he loves to perfect people in the fire. So anyway, I guess one of the messages I felt like the Lord wanted me to get out to whoever's listening to this now is, it's so very important to wait on the Lord, He is putting out a plan. And in that plan, he has many, many moving parts. And you are simply one of those parts. And in my case, I wasn't ready yet. Either God had to work on my level humility, because he knew I was gonna be getting hate mail someday, and I need to be prepared for it. My ego in 2012 would not have been able to handle the letters I see it 2022 Or, you know, I'm saying, I gotta give one last analogy on that. When I was a policeman, we used to have these police helicopters everywhere. And you know, we were always in foot pursuits. I mean, all day long. You've chased these gangsters to these neighborhoods, and they're going over different walls, and you're trying to chase them. It's all you know, gunpoint and all this kind of stuff, and a helicopter come up, and you call it an air unit, and come down and the air unit would give instructions, you know, officer, you know, take 10 steps forward and turn right climb over that fancy, because the air, you could see every piece that was going on from the sky. Yeah. But you as a policeman on the ground could only see your own perspective. And from your own perspective, what the telega and helicopters told me to do sometimes seems really dumb, because he's telling you to turn to the right, you're like, Well, it'd be a lot easier for me to go to the left, like, Why do I want to go to the right, because he's trying to move everybody to a perimeter to catch the bad guy. And a lot of times, cops just wouldn't do it the area and told him because they were sure that he was wrong in the pack that would then be able to slip out because it didn't come together. No, one day, I went up in the area, and I actually got to see their perspective. Now that I see all the pieces in play, boy, does that make things a lot clearer. Well, that's what it's like in our life. We only see you, John B. We see our own perspective. We don't know everybody else's perspective. We don't know a God is moving around and making happen. And so it's very important that we play our part and one of the most important things we can do in our part is to wait on the Lord. waiting on the Lord means being on our knees in prayer. It means being in Scripture means contemplating scripture deeply so that when our time to come, comes, we're ready. But don't run ahead of the Lord. We have a saying here Promise Keepers don't see your shadow. Meaning don't run ahead of gospel Wherever you start to see a shadow, because you're in front of the Lord,

that's so good. That is so good can I can listen to you telling stories all day long. You're just such an engaging storyteller, whether it's the Bible being retold, or your own personal stories, my kind of another question that I have to ask in this podcast is knowing what you know now, what advice would you give a younger version of yourself? And what's happening in your life that you would want to receive that?

Yeah, I think this is probably what a lot of people who have lived a lot of life and gain wisdom would tell their younger selves, which is learn to empathize with people, learn to put yourself in their shoes and walk around for a while. Because the only perspective we know is our own. You don't know what someone else has gone through what their struggles are. And so for me, to condemn somebody for having sinful desires around this area, or that area, and be self righteous about it. When I don't have those desires. It doesn't mean that we ever back off from telling people about sin and try to correct them. But I would just say, just being being empathizing, we really and I've learned as life as I've gone, as I'm 55 years old. Now, I often say, alright, what's coming out of my mouth at this moment? If I was my son, how would I be hearing that? If I was my wife? How would I process that or even more? So if my wife was saying to me what I'm saying to her right now? How would I receive that? It has a remarkable way of tempering what you do and say and think when you put yourself in the other person's shoes and walk around him for a while. So I think that's the thing, I think that can really keep people from being effective for Christ and in their relationships. And it can if there's one thing that could help anybody, be so much more effective at making peace, and having unity in the relationships and save for Christ. It's what would it be like if I was them? Before opened my mouth?

Yeah. Wow. That's so good. Ken. Thank you for that. I do want to talk just briefly about your book, a daring faith and a cowardly world, could you just briefly kind of give a summary because I don't want to miss an opportunity to promote this work? Because it's the things that we've talked about before in our previous conversation were so impactful, especially about how living a life without waste, regret, or anything unfinished. I mean, there's, that's, that's a big challenge.

Yeah, I start the book off with just a very brief story about being hit by a jetski. And being on a gurney in the emergency room, and the doctor tells me that I've ruptured my liver and if less than 40% is ruptured, they'll lifeflight me to a trauma center and cut it out and grow back. And if more than 40% is ruptured, then I'm going to die in five hours. At that time, it took them an hour to figure out what was what. So for an hour laid on the gurney thinking I may have only five hours to live. And I remember at that point, thinking, Okay, that was 30 years old at the time, I may be seeing Jesus in a few hours. And when I do, what am I gonna tell him I did with my life with what he gave me. And I thought, well, not much. I mean, I was a really nice guy was really nice Christian Agila nice Christian things. But really, who saved because of me, who was close because of me? And I thought my answer is gonna be really inadequate. And I thought, at that moment, I never want to end up in that situation again. So I asked myself the question all the time, why? If Jesus did it all on the cross, which he did, then why should I give away everything? Why does Jesus make all these tough commands and the Sermon on the Mount Matthew five through seven, he's, you know, blessed are those who mourn blessing of those hunger and thirst for righteousness? Bless it, are you when people persecute and say all kinds of evil things about you rejoice great as a reward in heaven? What does that mean? Because it's all about salvation. And so deeply critical thinking and going through all this, realizing that, yeah, we're saved by grace. But we were saved for the purpose of good worship Ephesians 210. And will be judged based on what we do with those works. And that was the person laying on the gurney, realizing that what I do with my life after my salvation matters greatly, that we will be judged for our good works, not for salvation, because that's only from Christ. But there'll be crowns and relationship with Christ, and all kinds of unbelievable promises that God gives us. If we give up all for him, there's a really good reason to be a strong Christian who gives all for Jesus Christ. And so that's what I go into the book is, what are the specific promises? Why should I be a good Christian? Why should I give to the poor wireless things? Because nobody ever seems to answer those questions.

Yeah. And from what I've been able to read, and what we've talked about before, I definitely want to recommend it to everybody. That's, that's listening. And I'll be putting a link in the Episode notes so that you can get your own copy of it as well. And I'm going to make that easy for people that are interested in that. So it can I just want to thank you so much for just sharing about your life and the journey that God has brought you on. And just what you're doing now. And thank you for as God told you to wait for those that for those few years, and then he finally revealed what that was for. That really encourages me. Because, you know, that's one of the hardest things for me is that waiting process because I want things to happen now. And so your story is really encouraged me, and I know it's going to encourage people that are listening right now. So, Ken, just thank you so much for allowing me to join you along your way. This John, appreciate it man.