Latest / The OneCry Podcast / #255 - Campus Fire: Prayer, Healing, and a New Generation at Baylor

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#255 - Campus Fire: Prayer, Healing, and a New Generation at Baylor · The OneCry Podcast

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All of a sudden, the Word just exploded, and God would wake me up in the middle of the
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night, or early morning, and take me to our closet we had in our dorm room, and He would
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just explain Scripture to me.
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Our witnessing just exploded.
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Welcome to the One Cry Podcast, a nationwide call for spiritual awakening.
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The goal—accelerating the movement of God through sharing Revival truth, stories, and
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reports.
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Well, I'm Bill Eliff for the One Cry Podcast, and I am so excited about this series of interviews
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that we're doing with men and women that I love, and I just get the privilege of doing
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this as we're talking about how Revival and spiritual awakening has shaped someone's life.
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And I've got one of my favorite guys on today, James Poole.
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James, welcome.
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It's great to have you here.
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Thank you, Bill.
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It's a privilege to be here with you, Mona.
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James, let me just give a little introduction quickly.
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James was a pastor for like 200 years, I don't know, a long, long time, and then has
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always had a great interest in Revival, and particularly in prayer.
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And James, God has used you to mobilize intercessors in an extraordinary way.
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I remember when I first came to know you, you were mobilizing intercessors in Texas
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and had built quite a database of these intercessors and trained them and all of that.
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How many did you have in that particular group at that time?
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You know, it's hard to tell, Bill.
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We spread it out.
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I had a really good friend who was my Bible study teacher when I was in seminary, and
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he had a heart for prayer as well.
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And so we just sort of pulled together and started networking people we knew.
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And probably when you met me, we probably had about 400 who were, you know, in our database.
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But they were people who were just close friends, but who had a passion to pray for churches
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and ministries other than their own.
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And that's what we were looking for.
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People who would pray outside of the realm of their normal location.
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And really prayed, not just talked about it or read the prayer requests, but would really
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pray.
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And I know that was your desire.
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And also, so when you began to work with the OneCry initiative, which is how we really
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got connected, James came on to really mobilize a prayer team.
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That was one of our great desires, was just to find the intercessors across the nation
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who had a heart for revival and awakening and mobilize them and resource them.
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And so you've done that for, you did that for many years with OneCry.
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And then I'm kind of jumping real quick here because the Lord led you to return to your
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college alma mater, to Baylor University in Waco.
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And we're going to get to that story in a minute.
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So I don't want to tell that story yet.
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But it's just an extraordinary thing that God has done at Baylor.
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And the timing of you being there was just so God initiated.
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But I want to ask you what I've been asking each person, and that's this, where did you
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first encounter just the whole concept and understanding of revival, the extraordinary
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movements of God that produce extraordinary results?
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When did that happen for you?
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I think I know, but tell our listeners about that and how that happened.
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Bill, I feel so wonderfully blessed just being born in the time frame that God brought me
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into this world because I actually graduated from high school right when the Jesus movement
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was beginning in the mid 70s or so going into the 80s.
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And I was very blessed to be even in high school.
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I was called by my former youth minister who became a pastor in Waco.
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I was called to do music and youth for him when I was still in high school.
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And so I was in a church position during days where we just saw God begin to do phenomenal
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things in this little church on the north side of Waco.
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We just exploded during the Jesus movement.
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We became the fastest growing church in Waco, doubled in size in a year, built a building,
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had more baptisms than any other church in town.
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And we were literally, during the Jesus movement days, we were seeing people walk off the street
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to be saved.
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Wow.
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And I remember one night I was leading worship, Bill, and it was a time of hippies and there
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are all kinds of people roaming around during those days in our country.
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And a guy with big bushy hair and he had dirty jeans with holes in his jeans and the t-shirt
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on barefooted.
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He came walking down the center aisle and he said, I mean, he just interrupted everything.
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He said, can somebody tell me how to get saved?
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During the service?
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I mean, not at the end of the response time or something.
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No, it was just in the middle.
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It seems like people were just being driven by their desperation to know God.
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And so I got to see some of that at the very beginning of my ministry days and I just felt
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so blessed because God planted me in that season of time to experience that.
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Not everybody had that opportunity.
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And you know, you and I are almost identical in age and had almost identical experience
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of working in churches in high school and during the Jesus movement.
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And you know, if you're like me, James, we didn't know it was the Jesus movement.
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No, it was just I just thought this is the way church was, you know, and it was always
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going to be.
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And yeah, I know about that, you know, but it was extraordinary.
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What I like to remember is that the closest we came to knowing it was a Jesus movement
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was that there was the one way sign, right, came out of California or somewhere and that
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sort of marked that season because people were not saying we're number one.
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Yeah, they were just pointing to Jesus and saying Jesus is Lord and Jesus is number one
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in our lives.
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And yeah, and so I think that's where that came from, is the Jesus movement.
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Yeah, totally.
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You know, my brother Jim, you'll love this story, who's a little older than us.
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He was working in a church in the Dallas area and everybody was doing that Jesus sign,
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you know, it was all over everything.
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And he had this idea to make a little pin so you could just put it on your lapel, you
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know, and people would ask you about it, you could witness.
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And there was a guy that in his church who said, hey, I'll design that.
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Jim had designed it.
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And the guy started making those and started a whole company and made sacks of money and
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never gave Jim a dime, by the way, but anyway, those were everywhere, you know, they were
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just everywhere.
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And then Jesus's portrait on the Time magazine, you know, it was very famous.
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Yeah, they would be driving down the highway and we would just make this sign out the window.
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And if there were Christians in the car going by, they would make that same sign back.
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And we would instantly have a sense of fellowship and rapport because we knew they're believers
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as well.
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And it was just an exciting time.
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And the big focus for me, Bill, was that I had not heard much about who the Holy Spirit
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was.
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That's it.
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Yeah.
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Growing up in churches in this locale, except at baptism, you know, I baptize you in the
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name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
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And that was the only mention of the Holy Spirit.
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But during that period, God began to open my eyes to Scripture to understand who the
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Holy Spirit was and how I could not walk without being filled with Him.
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Yeah.
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And I remember I was experiencing up and down like so many people and I actually led a bunch
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of young people to a summer camp and we would have our church devotional, you know, after
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the service at night.
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And then I'd send them, I just sent them out one night and I stayed in the prayer garden
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where we were meeting.
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And Bill, I just cried out to God saying, God, I'm just so tired of this up and down.
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And if you don't fill me up right now in this prayer garden, would you just take me home?
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Wow.
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I was so tired of life, even as a young man.
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And Bill, that was the revival moment that changed my life.
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Wow.
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Where I just, I reckon myself as dead.
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I think that was the key, like out of Romans 6.
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Right.
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I was, I didn't even know it, but I was experiencing that in my spirit where I just wanted to be
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rid of self.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Be filled with Jesus.
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And Bill, my life changed immediately.
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When I walked out of that prayer garden, I was a different young man.
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Isn't that something?
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All of a sudden the word just exploded and God would wake me up in the middle of the
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night or early morning and take me to our closet we had in our dorm room and he would
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just explain scripture to me.
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And our witnessing just exploded.
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I would go out to a technical school, witnessing, and I remember one day if I could share this
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experience because it changed me.
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We're just going from room to room sharing the gospel.
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And back then there were a lot of drugs that were going around and there was one of the
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three guys in this particular dorm room, I think he was on drugs, because he said he
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could see my words and they were coming out, it was pretty psychedelic.
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He said my words were coming out of my mouth and going over to another guy and going in
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his ears.
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Now, oddly enough, Bill, that was the guy who really was responding to the gospel.
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And so we left, went out and sat in my car and he opened his life up to Jesus, gave his
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life to the Lord.
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And now what was special about that is that while we were talking about Jesus in the car,
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one of the other guys in that dorm room rounded up 30 or 40 guys out of the dorm.
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And when we came back around the dorm room, 30 or 40 guys were lined up on a stairwell
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and they said, preach to us, preacher.
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Wow.
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You know, I wasn't a preacher, but that was what the Holy Spirit was doing as people were
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open to hear the gospel of Jesus.
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Yeah.
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And I think, you know, that all of us who were in that movement would say there was
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this atmosphere of gospel receptivity that was just uncanny.
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Everybody wanted to hear about the gospel.
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And what's fascinating is that's exactly what we're seeing right now, particularly among
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college students, is this gospel boldness to just share the gospel with everybody.
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And you know, during the Jesus movement, we would just talk to everybody about Christ,
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but everybody wanted to hear about it.
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There was no, very little resistance to the gospel and everybody was being saved in record
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numbers.
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I remember studying one time that in 1970 and 71, right in that period in Southern Baptist
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life that more students were, came to Christ and were baptized than any other time before
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or since.
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Wow.
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And it was just this, it was harvest time.
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It was a great harvest time.
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And I ran into people, Bill, that had really, their lives had been so beat up, young men
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through the Vietnam War experience.
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One in particular and his wife at that same church I was talking about where the guy came
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down the center aisle.
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They came to the church just totally beat up by life and hungry for something new.
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And this guy had been a ranger during the Vietnam days.
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He was dropped in behind by parachuted in to the deep behind the demilitarized zone.
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So he was dropped into enemy territory and then had to fight his way out.
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And he had committed so many atrocities, Bill.
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Wow.
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He could not fathom how God could ever forgive him.
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And yet the Spirit of God touched this strong military man and just softened his heart to
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the point where he was open to receive forgiveness for all the atrocities that he had committed.
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I mean, he had done some horrible things.
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And in any book, people would say, oh, you did that because they were forced to even
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to survive.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And you had stories that would just make you cringe, but Jesus touched him and saved him.
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You know, I remember the three years ago, standing in the balcony at Asbury when the
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revival 16 days was going on of that chapel service.
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And it was a testimony time that lasted for two hours.
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And students were standing up and saying, I was raped.
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I was abused.
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I was this.
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I was that.
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God, yesterday at this altar, transformed me.
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And it was like I knew I knew exactly what they were talking about because it's not we
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have become so therapeutic in American Christianity that we think everything takes 20 years of
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counseling and and thousands of dollars to get over stuff.
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But in seasons of God's manifest presence, God just heals people, doesn't he?
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I mean, he just changes people.
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I'm not saying anything against discipling and and counseling and biblical and all that.
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But I think we've we just we just are relying on our words and ideas and not on the power
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of God and the presence of God in prayer.
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And I think we saw that in the Jesus movement and and we're seeing that now and extraordinary
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way.
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So fast forward a little bit and and you became a pastor and and and then how how did what
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happened to you in the 70s really impact the rest of your ministry?
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And in just a minute, I want I want to get to this these last few years when God has
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led you back to that very place at Baylor where you were years ago and God's using you
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in a really unique way.
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So how has it impacted you?
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How did revival change you?
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Bill, I think the biggest difference between pre revival in my life and now.
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Is the fact that God began to speak to me.
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Hmm.
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That makes sense.
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Yeah.
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I mean, you hear people say, oh, when I was young, Bill, my mother worked at the Bay Hospital
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and a lot of those people got locked up in the hospital, the mental ward, because they
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were hearing God.
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Mm hmm.
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Let's look in scripture and you see from Old Testament, New Testament, God spoke to his
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people and he gave them not just doctrine, but he gave them direction.
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Mm hmm.
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And I think coming out of my experience with the Lord, I began to just understand that
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the spirit was directing me when I was dead to self and there was no James left and it
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was Jesus living in me.
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There was confidence that the spirit could speak to me and guide me, giving me directional
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ministry opportunities.
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I remember even as a student at Baylor during that time, I woke up with this burden in my
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heart one day.
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This is when I was just beginning to learn how to listen to the voice of God.
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And I really wanted to be in a Bible study.
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That was something during the Jesus movement.
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They were just springing up all over the campus and I long to have that kind of fellowship
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around the word of God.
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And you know what God prompted me to do?
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He said, go to the lobby of the dorm.
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And so I went to the lobby of the dorm and here's what God did.
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There were five or six other guys who woke up that day and the spirit said the same thing
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to them that you need to be in a Bible study.
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And he told them all to go to the lobby.
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And so Bill, we arrived in the lobby of the dorm at the same time and began to talk to
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each other and realize that God had orchestrated that small group just by speaking to us in
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our being able to recognize this is God's spirit directing me to go to the lobby.
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Now that was a clear word from God and I probably could not have really even recognized it being
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from God before I experienced personal revival in him.
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But I knew enough to know this is God prompting me to go to the lobby.
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And out of that came a wonderful Bible study with fellow students.
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Wow.
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It was glorious.
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Yeah.
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Well, and that and that shapes you the rest of your life.
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It becomes a way that you live.
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And, you know, I've talked to so many people like you that say, you know, for the first
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time Christianity became really just real.
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It became personal.
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Jesus was personal.
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And I don't know if you were affected by this book, but about that time, former missionary
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Roslyn Rinker came out with a little book, Prayer Conversing with God.
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And she, it's hard to think about this, but back in that day, prayer that you'd hear at
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church was full of these and those and very kind of formal.
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And she said, no, it's just a conversation between two people who love each other.
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And she taught us her experience on the mission field of conversing with God all day long
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about everything.
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And I taught our youth group how to do that.
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And our little youth group of 20 people went to 40 people and then more.
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And then we started learning how to pray.
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And on Saturday nights, we pray two and three hours.
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And God, you know, that was normal.
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And I've done that the rest of my life.
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You know, the rest of my life, I've prayed conversationally, realizing I can step into
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the throne room of heaven and have a conversation with the Lord.
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Tell us, James, you were living in Michigan where the headquarters for OneCry was.
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And one day you startled all of us because you said, I believe the Lord is calling me
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back to Waco, Texas.
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And it was so unusual.
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Tell us just kind of a brief how you got there.
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And then what has happened since you've been working on the campus there at Baylor?
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What I did not know, Bill, was that there were there was a group of pastors here in
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Waco that had been praying for years that God would bring revival to Waco.
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And I so appreciate the heart and the commitment that these pastors had, because it was a long
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running prayer meeting.
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And all of a sudden, God began to bring different people to Waco, myself included.
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And what he did in my heart, he just put in my heart a desire to take what he had given
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me in my life experience and pass it on to the next generation.
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And there are so many wonderful experiences in revival, I mean, a lifetime of God answering
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prayer specifically and showing me truth out of the word.
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And I just I just had this compulsion to want to share it with a generation other than my
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own.
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And so since Baylor was home, I'd grown up in Waco.
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We came back to Waco, my wife and I did.
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And I remember I was on campus, Bill.
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In the fall semester, they had what they call a church fair where all the churches in town
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go to campus.
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And they set up a table where freshmen students can meet church leaders and find out about
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the churches.
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And I was in that setting praying over the different churches and praying that God would
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bless them as they connected with students.
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And a man walked up and stood beside me.
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And I hadn't met him before.
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He just walked up and stood beside me.
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And I realized immediately that he was an answer to one of my prayers.
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Well, I've been praying for Baylor University that the Baptist student ministry would get
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a solid leader over that over that ministry on campus, somebody that that really had a
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zeal for revival and a zeal for the work of God.
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And that was my answer to prayer.
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His name was Charlie Ramsey.
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He became the Baptist student ministry director coming off of the mission field.
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He'd been in Pakistan for 17 years.
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And so he just he just walked in.
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It's like God put us together at Baylor University.
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And I knew that there was something special in that connection.
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He took out his phone and began to show me all these things on his phone about prayer
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and revival.
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Wow.
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Hallelujah.
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And so what God was doing, he just bringing people to Waco who had a passion and a desire
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to see revival take place, especially at Baylor University.
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And there were others.
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Same testimony.
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God brought them to Waco at that time to experience Jesus in a powerful new way.
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So it was fun.
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Yeah.
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And since that time, Baylor has really become a one of the bright hubs of spiritual activity
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in the nation.
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I mean, honestly, we had the collegiate prayer broadcast from there three or four years ago,
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I think, and this FM 72 they've been doing, putting up a big tent that you can tell us
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about that.
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It started with just a very small kind of a deal.
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And then it's just grown to be an extraordinary week every year on that campus.
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Yeah.
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Through Charlie's influence, he began to unite all the campus ministries as well as the local
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church college ministries.
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And I remember we came together at a cafe.
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It's the World Cup Cafe.
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Table number three is the name of our group still exists.
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And we met and talked about the idea of some type of revival focus on campus.
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And out of that came FM 72, which is Fountain Mall, 72 hours of continuous prayer.
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Fountain Mall is kind of a gathering place on campus.
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It's the center of the university.
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It's an open green space between a fountain, which is in the center of the campus, and
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the main library on campus at the other end of the mall.
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And so that led to our setting up a stage and having evening services from Sunday night
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to Wednesday night, where students just began to come.
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And then a huge, well, huge tent now, when we started, it had about a 10 by 10 foot prayer
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tent.
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Wow.
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And this last, just this past year, we had 10,000 square foot prayer tent.
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Wow.
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And it's so neat to see students in this generation, Gen Z is passionate for Jesus.
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I'm not sure if, you know, the Jesus movement was birthed out of troubled times.
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This movement, I think, was birthed out of COVID, Bill, where a lot of these students
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were isolated and went through hard times with families and struggles.
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And then all of a sudden, there's this new passion and hunger for Jesus.
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And so it just began to explode, the presence of Jesus, the desire to see God move in power
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among these students began to explode.
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I can't tell you how many people's lives have been radically changed during these last few years.
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Excuse me, go ahead and say what?
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I mean, we've seen, here's a neat thing, Bill, when the Spirit of God is moving, then students
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are very alert to His prompting.
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I remember during one of the first ones that we had there, some students, they were saying
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Jesus is our healer, was the song.
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And they looked over and saw a guy that had bunged up his knee during winter break skiing
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in Colorado.
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I mean, he was on crutches, had a full leg cast.
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He had so much pain every night, he couldn't sleep through the night.
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And these guys didn't know him, but they said, Jesus is a powerful healer.
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Let's go pray for that guy.
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And Bill, they went over and prayed for this guy, not even knowing him, during the services.
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I mean, they were going on, they were worshiping.
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They went over and prayed for him, and God chose to supernaturally heal him right then.
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Wow.
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I mean, his cast came off, his crutches were laid aside.
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He started doing squats with no pain.
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And the neat thing, Bill, is he went back and all the guys in his dorm knew how much
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pain he'd been in and how he had torn up his knee.
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And when they saw him doing squats in the hallway, they wanted the Jesus who had healed
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him.
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And so his whole floor turned to Christ, because they saw the power of Jesus in touching his
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body.
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And so, it's just glorious.
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You know, the incredible thing about college students, and I think one of the reasons that
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God chooses most often in seasons of revival and awakening to start there, is because they
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don't have the inhibitions, they don't care, they're not bound up by traditions.
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And so if God gets a hold of them, and the Lord says, do this, they just do it.
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And it's an unhindered freedom that God can really use.
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And then God starts calling these guys to the mission field, because their heart starts
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beating in unison with the Lord.
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I don't know if you have any deed on this, but I know that there are multiple churches
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in Baylor, I'm sure many more than I know of, but I know of several really key churches
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in that city that are having, do you have any idea of the number, cumulative of students
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on an average Sunday that are attending church?
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I mean, it's in the hundreds and thousands, isn't it?
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I mean, it's just a lot.
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I'm sure across the nation it is, Baylor only has 20,000, and we've got some other colleges
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in town, a couple of other colleges, but we have a lot of students who are involved
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in a local church setting.
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In our church alone, we'll probably have probably around 1,400 every Sunday.
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College students?
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Yes.
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That's just amazing.
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It's wonderful to be in the midst of worship with all these students who are just loving
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Jesus and focused on Jesus.
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And it's just so exciting to see, and you know, the interesting thing is I've had the
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privilege of being around some of these Baylor students and other students from other campuses
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with the Collegiate Day of Prayer movement particularly.
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They are so hungry, and this is different than the Jesus movement, for mentors.
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I think it's because they're a fatherless generation, you know, and James, you would
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never say this, but these Baylor students look at James like he's just dad.
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He's granddad to them, you know, and you're mentoring these young men and ladies in such
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a magnificent way, and I have started a one-cry ministry there among the students, and it's
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just a beautiful thing.
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And I know it's just you're having more fun than anybody can imagine.
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And Bill, I'm so excited because we're seeing things that so reflect the manifest presence
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of God that we didn't even see during the Jesus movement when I was there 50 years ago.
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It's just, like you said, it's an adventure.
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It's exciting.
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I love to be with this generation, and you know, the scripture talks about one generation
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declaring to another the great works of God.
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Well, you and I would say, well, that's the old guys talking about what God did years
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ago, but you know, right now, the young generation, they're declaring to our generation the great
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works of God.
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Wow.
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They're leading us.
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And a lot of it's been reversed.
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So beautiful.
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Well, James, I just, we could go on all day, I'm just so grateful.
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I tell you, the other thing I love is that your shirt that you're wearing today, most
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people are just listening to this, but if you could see him on video, it's not a tie-dye,
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it's not a 70, but it's close.
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You're still carrying on the tradition, you know, a little bit, and that's wonderful.
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I guess it's stuck in my head somehow.
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Yeah.
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Anyway, we're just so grateful for you, and just the privilege of knowing you, and of
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letting all our listeners just hear your heart and be exposed to what God is doing there
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on the campus at Waco, and just among college students in general.
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And I think our best days are ahead.
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I think I've been saying we're really in the foothills, I think, of the next great, I think
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it's going to be a worldwide awakening, because COVID was worldwide, and people are desperate.
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It created a desperation that is always the precursor to real movements of God, because
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we come back to the Lord with open hands and broken hearts.
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And Bill, can I share one more characteristic I've seen among students?
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Yeah.
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You know, almost every revival movement that has had fruit, lasting fruit, has involved
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some degree of brokenness over sin, repentance, and confession of sin.
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And this generation is not ashamed, or not so prideful, that they won't confess their
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sin to others.
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And so we've had major times, even during this movement, of seeing students convicted
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over sin in their lives, especially things like pornography, and just pride, and things
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like that.
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And they openly have repented, and even confessed that to their friends, and their peers, and
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sometimes big groups, asking not only God's forgiveness, forgiveness from their peers,
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for not being the light that God's called them to be.
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And so I'm just trusting that we'll see more and more moments where there's brokenness
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and confession of sin, private to God and public, that involves influencing others.
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And then a radical change, where they're empowered with the Spirit to be bold witnesses in some
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way.
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So we're seeing that, and I'm just longing for God to continue to just blow the winds
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of revival across every campus, more and more across the nation.
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Well, James, thanks so much.
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And we always like to take the last moment of our One Cry podcast and invite the people
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not to listen to a prayer, but to pray with us.
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And so I'm going to ask you, if you would, to just lead us in a prayer for these things
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that's on your heart, and we've talked about.
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And would you do that right now?
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And wherever you are, if you're going down the road, don't close your eyes, but join
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with us in prayer right now, as James leads us.
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Let's pray.
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Father, we just praise you and exalt you today.
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We want you to know that we have felt your love in such a tangible, real way, and Lord,
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we just want to love you back all the more.
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I thank you that Christianity is totally relational.
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Lord, for so long, it was just doctrinal, it seems, but thank you for breathing over
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our lives to help us understand that you've called us not just into a place of religion,
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but you've called us into a holy relationship with yourself through Jesus.
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And Lord, we're grateful.
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And I pray that even today, your spirit would continue to just prick hearts, maybe some
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of you have been Christians and in the church for a long time, to lay down just the focus
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on tradition to where they focus on relationship through your word.
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And Lord, even as you're changing Gen Z, as they focus on your word and believe biblical
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truth, Lord, would you continue to change this nation by taking us back to your word?
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And Lord, Bill and I know that when revival has come and it's word-centered, it's long-lasting.
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And Lord, that's what we're looking for.
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That's what we long for, is that so many people would look at your word and see the truth
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about who you are and the relationship you want to have with every individual and with
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groups of people.
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And the way you even hold groups accountable for their sin, Lord, would you help us to
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see all those things and be willing to apply it in our lives?
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Lord, thank you for allowing us to once again, just feel these fresh winds of revival blowing
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across our land.
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Lord, may it last a long time.
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May it be stirred up where every city is touched, every campus is touched by the powerful work
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of your spirit to where multitudes, multitudes of people are drawn into your kingdom during
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these days.
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And Lord, I thank you that you're sending Gen Z out to the nations.
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Lord, even at Miller, so many students just have a burden to go to the world with the
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truths of your kingdom.
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And I pray that you would raise up more.
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And for those who go, I pray that you'd protect them.
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I pray you'd provide for them.
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I pray that you would shield them from temptation and harm and evil.
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Allow them to be like mighty torches to go into places where the gospel has not been
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heard and light a fire that would bring revival to that locale, to those cities, those nations.
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Lord, thank you again for just raising up people like Bill and others.
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Lord, I thank you for the way you've made him a voice to this younger generation.
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And I pray you anoint him and so many others with just more opportunities to speak biblical
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truth into the lives of those who are so hungry to hear right now.
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And Lord, together, again, we just want you to know that we love you with all our heart.
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And we thank you for continually pulling our hearts unto yourself for your glory.
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We pray this in Jesus' holy name.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Thank you so much, James.
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And we want to thank all of our listeners for joining us today.
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I know this has thrilled your heart.
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And I want to encourage you to tell somebody about it and maybe send them a link.
40:32
And then join us next week.
40:35
We are interviewing about eight or ten really wonderful men and women that you will benefit
40:43
from and learn from.
40:46
And so thanks again for joining us and we'll see you next time.
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Amen.