Iris After Hours - Episode 45 - Tony Kim

welcome to iris after hours casual conversations with inspirational speakers off the clock hi welcome back to iris after hours we are here at our studio in pasadena come on so good to have you guys back and today we have an amazing pastor an international speaker and future author tomorrow many books in this man that haven't come out yet yes and i believe that and a guy that's starting a network called the raw network that we're going to talk about later and that's not r-a-w that's r-o-a-r raw come on tony kim welcome to the show so i'm so glad to be here with you guys thanks for having me uh absolutely now tony we were just talking before you started off here in this on this property in pasadena tell us that story you you knew ralph winter who started this whole us seller for world missions here yeah dr ralph winner who is uh i mean he's a legend when it comes to messiology and he didn't he invented the 1040 window i think or he's part of the team yeah there's been uh different ones who helped coin the terminology to 1040 window but he was a key figure yeah in the missiology movement in terms of where we are today but my wife and i we used to live here in pasadena this is i still consider literally just literally right across the road right next door at neighbors facing the campus and i worked in the william carey library publishers department and so i did shipping and receiving we put on we had multiple hats i even helped edit a little bit met some authors and things and so i've always had a heart for missions growing up since my encounter with the lord so it's good to be back here brings back a lot of memories that's crazy and you were with cheyenne when harvest rock used to meet in the auditorium yeah auditorium with lou angle with lou who tried to disciple you [Laughter] what yes so yeah we ran with lou and there was a few of us through different seasons where they would uh disciple us or he would say try to disciple us this isn't my word this is news words and so uh but he was he was a great discipler because every time we got together he would try to share with us but we always ended up in this fiery intercession and the way that the way that luke prays in stadiums is literally the way he prayed in the house in the living room with just two of us feels wild and so the man we see upstage is the man behind closed doors which i love he's just real authenticity man how did that lead into you going to bakersfield that wow that's a little that's a long story so no no no but i just assume it's a long story because that's the early days you've been on a right long journey with god right well let me see if i could do this in a nutshell um it was through prophetic words really in dreams because we were home you know we were established we came to harvest rock church at the time now each rock that was our family it was the first time that someone embraced me because before i like a father as a father as a family even my calling on my life i had four pastors sit me down over different lunches and dinners just say you're not called you're not anointed you're not articulate so just pick another vocation and but i got some good meals out of it but the lord had called you but the lord called me and i knew how did that happen how did the call of the lord come on you to to be a minister to me the calling and my salvation came at the same time um tell us that story in the 80s uh the korean church in north america was going through a revival you know with uh with dr young he was going from coast to coast now almost a million in his church right and he was prophesying this revival that was coming to america and he just he was going from coast to coast to visiting different churches and during that time my mom got healed and called her out it's a long story but um this is before she was really walking with the lord so she gave her life to the lord this is before you were saved this is before i was saved and in front of how old were you oh i was a kid i was a child wow um i don't remember how old exactly but it's you know and then she began taking us to this place that i hated called church and where was that here in pasadena that was actually in san jose i was saying okay and she just took us long story short eighth grade it was a miracle that i graduated eighth grade because everyone that i was gonna drop out at the time so i was i was running the streets i was into drugs and gangs and things like that growing up and got into the wrong crowd early on i wasn't as deep as some people but it was part of what i was doing and yeah for eighth she sent me to this youth camp and the rest is history i got saved there but the way i got saved was it was two nights of dreams that the lord gave me at the retreat and then the third day so that's always been a part of your journey it has yeah and the supernatural has always been part even growing up in childhood we just have strange things happen that would just freak me out and uh and so that's a whole nother story in itself but it was undeniable it was undeniable undeniable we had you know even as a child had lights coming in into the room just flashing around we've had literally my brother and i we had lights literally perfectly uh just square and light up pictures of jesus in our house in the middle of the night and we would just go literally climb in the covers and just sit there and just sweat and i just you know wow just wild things like that who is this jesus somebody's highlighting jesus to me oh my god i see my mom intercede and the way she operated just i mean literally freaked me out i thought she was crazy wow but the first night in the dream it was a fascinating retreat fasting and prayer retreat for junior hires three days of fast wow fasting and prayer now where was your dad was your dad around at this stage my dad was around my uh my father's still i mean we're still praying for him uh he's gonna come to know he's a pre-christian as we say yep come on but i love that to him yeah free christian so we're just you know we're doing the best we could and he was he living with you at the time i don't remember all the timelines just because of my memory but yeah my parents were separated for a while yeah you know and and so just we just grew up in that type of household so did you go to this camp like kicking and screaming i did it was a gift from my mom to to me for you know i just that's not again it's a curse you just curse my life where you won't be eating right i didn't know it at the time though until we showed up and they handed out the booklets of the orientation literally got worse it got worse and so it's during that period and i don't remember it was my freshman year or eighth grade but i know it was right around that same period because my mom said it's a gift to you you know so i went kicking and screaming and i just thought i told my mom if you send me i'm gonna my goal is to see how many pastors i can make with the ministry because i will make his life a double you know hc double hockey stick you know and she said that's not my problem that's their problem amazing good attitude so right in mount hermon santa cruz mountains at a prayer uh prayer mountain we got there they shared it we're up at five o'clock in the morning praying drink car breakfast did the search did the whole thing you know but but at the end of day one i mean i was starving i was having dreams and visions but the end of jesus of food mcdonald's where are you that's tough yes so that night had a dream and in the dream i was preaching and i woke up and i was so angry i just said i'll never do this never ever put me in a coffin bury me i'll never do it but that dream haunted me that entire day so the sec that second night i just said okay god if you're real i dare you to give me another dream because i want to know if you're real so then that night i had another dream it was progressive from the night before no way and in this setting people were throwing crutches up on the stage people were walking out of wheelchairs you know i mean it was a big it was it was before the masses i just thought when i woke up there was no this is a nightmare because i had plans for my life you know i was very driven by money and fame and popularity even though i had none of that yeah right all the things that i wanted typically exactly and that afternoon uh during the prayer time they actually called it free time but it was you could pray anywhere you want for three hours that was free time so it's kind of manipulative if you ask me so if my youth pastor is listening to me right now you manipulated us just for the record that's not titled correctly but all right so i just walked into one of the prayer rooms and there was a picture of jesus you know the picture was praying over the rock and the light shines on us yes the classic classic jesus praying picture you know and so i just sat underneath that and i said okay let's do business if you're real i said why haven't i seen anything that i've read you know why have i not experienced you why haven't i seen people healed and i just started asking these questions from a genuine place in my heart had it computed for you that your mom had been healed i didn't care we're we're in so much pain just because of our life journey yeah um you know it just i just i was like why do are we going through exactly yeah right you know and i said if you're real i said i don't i want to stop hearing about you i don't want to hear another message i said i want to see you i want to see you like you did with saul on the road to damascus so that was my cry and then just literally maybe 10 20 seconds later every just only i could explain it everything around the room melted like wax and i was in a different dimension and i saw this silhouette of a light figure of a man coming towards me and i knew jesus was real i i just knew that i knew so i just laid prostrate i was face down and my first thought was i'm dead he's gonna kill me wow the fear of the lord because the pers you know yeah exactly i thought if i was god i would kill me and so god is going to kill me and in that moment all these flashes of all the things i've done wrong just and i just began weeping yes classic repentance yeah it was like peter you know get away from me lord i'm a sinful man right oh you know and so heidi had the same experience she preached on it just the other night at the torrance conference she ran down the front at this church which was 16. i'm a sinner they're going no no you can't yell out she goes like i have to i'm a sinner i need to repent that's why yeah but you're in eighth grade when this is happening yeah i was 13 years old and with this that's so powerful and from there and then hang on just come back all the sins are coming in front of you then what happened i just began weeping all i could do is just just weep and weep and weep and i just bawled like a baby i don't know how long but i just i just wept and wept and wept and the anger inside me i could feel dissipating i mean i was i could literally feel myself changing oh my god you know and and then i just knew to stand up to look at him so i looked at him face to face totally unexpected you know because jesus always had brown eyes and pictures he had the deepest eternal blue eyes that i've ever seen and all i could feel was eternity in his eyes and the love he had for me and i was just broken and he just said follow me and then he began to share with me some things he said you know what follow me and i said yes of course what was i supposed to say right so from there he just began to share with me some things that he had called me to do in the future gosh and the rest is history i came out of that went to my youth pastor he knew i changed because i stopped i stopped cussing you know i would make a sailor look innocent you know my language and i was very bright for my language [Laughter] so did people at the camp might see the difference as well they knew right away yeah i mean i mean you know as a joke i just say even the ugly people became beautiful to me you know i mean everything literally changed and then that night there was a girl in a wheelchair and my youth pastor said won't you pray for her and see what happens and i didn't know how to pray i just said yes to jesus and so he told me just in the name of jesus i just followed a prayer and laid hands on her in a room and she stood up she was paraplegic and she stood up and that night at night but she sat back down so i was totally confused because i expected total healing total restoration you know just complete you know wholeness yeah but it didn't happen so i went to bed she stood up but i didn't i couldn't fathom that she stood up i just knew that she wasn't completely healed so i just thought i couldn't deny my encounter with jesus because i know he's real but what happened you know so the next morning we were packing and she's walking around saying jesus healed me jesus healed me she was just walking around and i mean as as young people we just we just started shouting and just oh my god that is so crazy so then from there when she started walking i looked over i heard a voice for the first time and the voice was what do you think of that and i thought what am i hearing now you know and and that began my journey with jesus and then came home and what did mom say oh my gosh mom was concerned because i lost my appetite for literally two three weeks i did not eat i hardly came out of my room because i was so whack and wasted with jesus i couldn't get enough of him so i was listening to the most cutting-edge worship songs at the time i was just you know that's super natural for a 13 year old so we were using you know i just popped in tapes you know of certain songs and worship and i just read the bible old and she would say you have to eat i said i'm not hungry you know you know so i feel like supernatural so full of jesus literally my spirit man took over for that season oh my god and i experienced all kinds of supernatural stuff in the bedroom and so i always tell people listen you want to see the supernatural publicly it starts in your bedroom it starts with intimacy with jesus and and then from there one of the nights if i could share this absolutely you know one of the nights um i was just praying just connecting with jesus we didn't have terminology back then yeah i was going to a solid amazing bible teaching southern baptist church i love that church yeah right and but in terms of language and being able to have a paradigm and see your experience right you know i mean what do you do with this kid now exactly i mean that was the question it's like okay what do we do with that out of the box it is on fire and we don't know what to do oh my gosh you know yeah but they loved it because i was totally connected i was serving as much as i could at that point but one night i was spending time with the lord and my whole body was electrified and i didn't know what was happening so i freaked out went to the kitchen turned on the light to get a glass of water i picked up the glass cup and the glass cup exploded in my hand and i felt all the energy leave my body oh my god i was trying to rational because i'm pretty rational in the way that i just who i am and i i try to ratchet i squeeze the cup too hard you know nah that's not it i banged no that's not it and in my rationality the lord began to speak to me saying tony this is a generation you're a part of whoa they're marked with intimacy and they're going to move in great power and i was i mean after that was done you know you started off your walk with the bangs like literally amazing so that's how i came to know jesus i guess that's a long long you know oh my gosh so you know from 13 that you would be in full-time ministry and preaching and there was no going back there was no going back even though i wanted to be a professional athlete nice i mean look at this how could you not be a professional people which sport um i played soccer and baseball and then i played volleyball years later but mainly i was focused on soccer oh really i want to get the boys into soccer yeah do it come on yeah i can live vicariously to your kids what age what age did you start soccer practice um i started fifth grade but we were part of an awesome team you're undefeated for six years oh my gosh one tournament we beat a team 31-2 soccer 31 goals championship tournament i've never heard about scoring i've never heard of the second game we scored two for them because the coach yelled out if you could score two goals just two i'll take you all the pizza and so our whole team shifted and it was 18 on one you know oh my goodness that's incredible oh gosh it's so funny i was my football team in australia we lost every game for six years did you really and he was the opposite that's awesome that's awesome where i learned my positivity yeah i'm defeat sorry i got you so after high school did you end up in bible college i did you know i had a yeah what was the journey from i had a season you know some people they're like i was completely freed up from addiction gangs all this it was a journey for me yeah you know even though i had those encounters you know and i still had to fight to get out of some of the lifestyle yeah yeah i'm always fascinated by how that's different for some people because it really truly is some people are like cold turkey right it's gone yeah but it was a process for you it was and i was still fighting ministry because i didn't want to be in ministry right you're right yeah and so i'm going okay this is awesome jesus has told me to this but i really don't want to do it and i told my youth pastor i said i want to be poor like you and i said that to him i said look at your cards it's the dumps you know [Music] i said i want to live life yeah and he said well this is the life of a minister i said not for me you know so so i kind of so that was my own process yeah you know and my youth my leaders were phenomenal really i mean they literally pray for me every day visit my home tutor me come and cook me dinner take me out when we have family issues i mean phenomenal leaders i would cuss them out whenever i saw them they still come get me you know take me to arcades as a youth and i mean they just love me to a place of just uh i mean i look back undeniable incredible so i'm forever dead indebted to them wow so you're definitely a believer in the local church oh huge huge i believe that the local church is i mean it's how god moves yeah you know and it's just not it's not the end all but it's the beginning you know god puts us as a puts us in family come on puts us in local community not for community's sake but to chase after jesus and for what god has yeah for the place you know as a community so and that and i'm assuming was you you it was your father around this stage was because your father wasn't there that they felt like you were fathered by these by the guys in the church and my dad tried to father us the best he could yes in and out yeah you know and so we don't cast any blame on him because of his own life journey you know he's a hiroshima bomb survivor from japan born in hiroshima so he's he japanese you know he's korean but through the occupation of the japanese they were he was living in hiroshima he was born in hiroshima because when the japanese took over korea they immigrated his family to work in japan and so did you know that did you know japan took over korea what i like don't don't quiz me right now please i didn't know that i've got some faint memory of it but wow so he was like brought over almost as a prisoner right right like as a slave almost i don't know exactly the context but he was born there and uh i just found this out you know recently just over the last couple years and so um so look at all that so he went through that he did and survived hiroshima forty years so that and i would be born 45 wouldn't it yes 45 i think 45 he was five years old jesus oh oh my gosh yeah it's pretty wild pretty wild he's never never spoken about it he doesn't talk too much about the past does he remember that experience what that's is he's not is he is he's his age five their five-year-old's fully alive right functioning right they're still alive they're very alive right more of a [Laughter] oh my gosh we're gonna pray for your dad yeah what's his name uh sam sam come on sam wow so so you're walking through this journey through high school of like i know this is what the lord's called me to i'm also kind of fighting it or wrestling with it in my inside like just like i don't really want to do this and so when did that switch happen does that come like my freshman year of uh college i was going to a community college for another reason i'll tell you why i went there off there yeah okay san jose in san jose yeah santa clara and you know i just felt all in the crossroads you know i just i needed to figure out what i was going to do i had some soccer scholarships available to me but i blew up my knee so i lost that so a lot of the dreams i had in my heart that i was pursuing you know just due to life circumstance you know it's just kind of lost it in that sense so i just finally said okay so kind of went back revisiting my journey with jesus and i decided if i'm going to do this let's do this if i'm not let's not so you sort of had one foot in the world one foot in the church exactly the pastors were coming to look after you and stuff but you were still interested in the sex drugs rock and roll right right but yeah and i was preaching wow in that which is horrible yeah right i mean it's so i couldn't figure out what i wanted yeah i just wanted it all that's the problem yeah and finally i just said let's do this wow how old were you about 18. i was uh 19 19 19 20 at the time yeah and getting invitations to speak speaking at my church the youth group you were anointed because things happened right but i was operating apart from god really right but you were seeing healings and miracles healings miracles prophetic words coming so to tell us just a little sailor moment here tell us about that journey so when you first started moving in the giftings of like healing and that how did that happen from when you were 13 in europe and that you prayed for the girl on the wheelchair to when you were 19. was there a progression through you ministering to people in those years tell us about that journey mom you know for me it's i think it's generational because we in our family history we had a lot of spiritualist shamanists you know and so we had a lot of the supernatural there would be palm readers and all my aunts would look at my palm and so it's interesting then that you were so like that's how you experience god early on like it was just like very apparent right and like the spirit realm was like right there kind of mm-hmm so i mean things strange things like my grandmother or grandfather passed away one day and i just looked at my mom and said grandpa just died and she said don't say that and then within a minute we get a phone call saying that grandpa just passed away so things like that you know but my mom operated like that also right so i think it's a generational thing that god redeemed you know from way back um and so that's at least my theory yeah yeah i like it i believe that so the prophetic words were flowing i just prophesy with my friends prophesy over different people i just get words of knowledge about things and unfortunately one of the downfall was that i had no training so i would just say everything yes you didn't know what i would literally i say hey you you have drugs in your right pocket take it out and repent like i mean stuff like that i would call out the good bad and the ugly and it wasn't good yes and the more that happened the more i'm you know knowledge is a weapon isn't it you know my price is going up because there's no one in my world that's doing this so i've become really special yeah gosh how did you deal with that pride did you deal with it or did the lord deal with the pride what did you realize i like myself to deal with my own pride you know my mom she would just say gotta love people be humble wow love jesus love people it's so true that's the trap trap of success is pride isn't it right and and they say that success is more of a test than failure right that's so good so good so even till this day my mom will call to say what did god do someone got healed of aids hiv cancer and she'll say did you love them oh come on mama i'm an adult i know this stuff i know this you've been saying this to me for 40 years you know and she said you know she said you're always my child did you love them did they see you or did they see jesus so so my mom's not only my biological she's a spiritual mom to me you know literally so amazing gosh and what about the healings did you see healings in this period until you're 192. like you did what kids asked you to pray for him or would you minister a youth group or what yeah we would just pray for people who are sick and my mom would take me to the hospitals pray for people no different leaders did your mum realize that you had a gift of healing and take you specifically or just you'd go together and pray just generally well she would hear the stories from other parents where i would pray for them or i would prophesy over them on how accurate it was the parents would tell her but she never told me that they told her because she knew she knew her son too well because it would just puff me up more you know so she would just take me along and teach me gosh i'm taking parental notes here okay so take your kids to the hospitals to pray for people right yes and don't relive too many of the testimonies of the great things they're doing so you don't puff them up as well right right it's the balance between really getting them proud and entitled but you wanted to be royalty but it's that they got to learn it to have that servant heart and to you know be humble as well so it's right gosh his son like me so so tell us about the hospital so your mum would take you to hospital she would not so that i would have prayed but that so i could watch her minister and love people oh and she had a gift of healing so we would see you know her pray for people and they get touched by the lord and healed and it was just growing up i just look back now because that's what an amazing amazing journey the lord you know had me on not so now fast back back to 19 and this is where you went okay i'm all in tell us about this what happened then so 19 again i just said i'm either gonna do this or not i gotta you know i better shape up yeah and so uh you've had a similar experience at 21 was for me when i went yeah okay i've really got a right make a decision here do this or that's right not do this yeah yeah that's why you're my brother right so from there i just started applying to different bible colleges now i was so innocent or so i call it innocent people because some people call ignorant yeah and it's just it sounds like there's a fine line there sometimes it's an innocence ignorance yeah absolutely fine so from there i just started applying and you know you have to write a letter of why they should accept you i'm begging i'm like i slept around i've done drugs i've been in gangs i've stole i've you know had all this please please please accept me you know because i'm just like okay so if anyone accepts me it's gonna be a miracle right so i had that mentality and so the first place i accept you know put in my application i got acceptance letter and i was like there is a jesus you know but i didn't know at the time they accepted everybody all right yeah so just formalities so i don't feel so special now but back then i felt really really good so i went in and uh where did you go i went to back then it was called sounds like christian college now it's william jessup university okay and when close to home or a long way it was close to home okay yeah went through got my biblical theology and pastoral study degree wow the degree goes awesome yeah so and then from there i came out today i graduated the next day i moved to pasadena no way and that's where you joined up with h rock harvest right uh correct wow right but before that i helped plant some churches once i turn my you know once the lord got a hold of my heart again yeah you know he'll plan a southern baptist church presbyterian church um san jose in the san jose area and those assemblies of god church that really brought me in and i interned with them during my course with uh with the school as well and then and then the vineyard church really gave me language the pastor of san jose vineyard at the time just said here's what's going on with you no way and and just really cute this is called prophetic what prophetic this is called miracles what's it called again miracles you know this one this happens it's called deliverance and so they gave me the language for everything that was going on which i thought was going crazy and others because they would send me to see psychologists because i was hearing voices you know so they didn't know what to do with me and so i would see counselors and they would come talk to me and things and so you dreamed this and you heard this and you know so they're trying to analyze me from a psychological perspective yeah yeah and then from from here we moved the bakersfield wow which is the first time you pastored a church is that or you've been ministering and planning churches and everything but you felt called to go and start start a church i've right exactly i was a social pastor at a number of different various places but as far as pioneering our own uh the lord gave us during 2006 and it was confirmed through other prophetic voices more dreams and come on and uh and the prophetics always been such a core just expression of how god led us you know as you you all understand very well yes and your church's renaissance it's called renaissance tell us about that name renaissance was a dream yeah wow that was the 2006 dream oh really you knew in the dream the lord spoke to me and just said stop trying to build big ministry build me big people whoa because i was always big you know the church i was a part of was mega church everything that i was a part of was always mega you know and als and i was very numerically driven i still am right you know you know i'm always numerically yeah you know i care about numbers you know it's not the end all now but you know i still care about that but back then everything was just driven numerically statistics numbers and and so the lord just i want you to start building any big people build me some leaders because i was praying god sent some leaders if we're gonna do anything and he says stop asking for me to send you leaders it's time for you to raise up leaders yes of course that's what he did that's what jesus did right i wish he actually yeah i wish he would have modeled some other way but a lot of work being in the trenches with people and so in the dream he said tony you're going to start a new renaissance and it's going to go to the nations whoa he said it's going to be a new work and i woke up and i thought renaissance so i told my wife and my wife's got the prophetic worldview she's like the you know the prophet you know in that sense the way she thinks i don't understand prophets at all i'm like okay a plus b equals c you know yes and so from there when we felt like the lord said now um i was thinking of trying to think of a cool name yeah you know and my wife says what's wrong with you it's renaissance obviously and right and i was like no it's not you know and because i never felt like a renaissance man yeah right you know so i wanted i wanted to plan something that depicted who i felt i was you know and then i realized we actually planted who god said i was come on not who i thought i was and that was a that was a confirmation itself too that's a whole other story but yeah that's crazy because the renaissance was really so many different things wasn't it and being able to specialize not specializing in one area but people were getting into lots of different aspects of life and area so it was a diversification of of your focus right so when the reformation was taking place up north the renaissance was taking place down south of southern europe yes and so and i'm you know i've always focused on this whole reformation let's transform people that impact cities you know and disciples nations so but i wanted a cool name but we got renaissance i love it oh i think it's a really cool yeah you know i thought how are we going to brand this [Laughter] i don't even know how to spell it i know i don't know if i know how to spell it there's a lot of artists you know it's a very creative community yeah spoke that out yes yeah yeah and they have me as your leader my wife now my wife's a creative one so it kind of fits around i feel like more her but and then did you meet at broadway college i mean bible college you know what that is a whole nother pun ever dead jack so zai went to i mean that's what we call the san jose bridal college i think every bible college calls themselves that something something bridal college [Music] i love it all right she's just shaking her head don't ever say that again says it where you met no no tell us the story how you really want to know the story yes absolutely all right how many listeners are listening to this or will um i don't know anywhere between like ten and twenty thousand oh my goodness okay i don't care maybe a hundred thousand if it's you i don't condone or endorse this in any way fashion or form that's my preface i like this i already like it so yeah you love this story already so um back in 97 98 actually um it was 97 until end of 97 i went on a 14-day water fest for the gift of celibacy i did so i was done with girls i'm like okay i could do this i don't need any girl in my life i don't know why that's just not really what i was thinking i was fasting and praying for the gift of celibacy because i thought i had i had my enough time with you know that part part of life you didn't want distraction i didn't want distractions and i was going to go die in a third world nation that was my plan be moderate i was going to be a martyr you know but a painless martyr that's what i prayed for quickly quick one right and so i just went on this thing of okay what would have take away my desire and you know just this worldview in terms of women so the 14th day just water just water and so i'm always radical then right well they give the celibacy i dare someone to do this i actually tell people if you want to get married just go on a 14 day water fast for the gift of celibacy yes and see what god does and so i don't even know how much i should share with this but let's just go for it come on and then you guys could edit out if we need to never heard of someone doing this so ever on the 14th day i was on my way to actually speak at a conference in san francisco i was living in san jose at the time i get this open vision of a woman pregnant and i see the woman's face and the lord says this is your son this is your family and he starts telling me the destiny of my son and he told me the name to name him and that and i came out of there and i was rebuking the devil i'm like i'm supposed to be single for i rebuke this in jesus name it's not my plan this is you know this is not i'm gonna die somewhere you know north korea or pakistan or you know something like that and i just said let's just you know so then not too long after that um do you i don't know if you're old enough for this but there was this thing called america online yeah well aol yeah oh yeah aol aol yeah right i never said so aol and i was checking emails after i got back that night and it was the same night and in that time frame you have to you know be active in order for it to not bump you off because it'll bump you off after after five minutes of not having any activity but checking email was not an activity so you have to open up a chat room so as a good pastor at the time i had a theological chat room that was opened up and i was just kind of doing my revival apologetics right in that room okay and i'm checking email and i get this instant message do you speak in tongues right i'm like i respond yes i do at the time i was pastoring at a presbyterian church yeah and she says how could you speak in tongues you're presbyterian i said i'm really not presbyterian i'm just helping plant this church right and so my here's my profile online right what uh occupation pastor slash you know presbyterian church soon-to-be world healing evangelist so that was my profile yes and confident and so then and i say so who are you where do you go she says i go to harvest rock church well i had two prophetic words that i was going to go to this place called harvest rock church i didn't know where it no one was the first person that i ever met say that so i said that's crazy i said i had two prophetic words that said i'm gonna go to a harvest rock church i didn't even know what that was or where it was and she said that's my church and we're in revival wow and this is here in my auditorium right here at mod auditorium that's where it's happening i know and she says hey listen can i call you i'm like yeah you know so i gave her my number i thought the phone bill on her would be better than on me you know great think about the numbers just thinking about them that's right statistics right thinking practically yes you know put the bill on a woman i don't know perfectly that's romantic gentlemen and we ended up talking for eight hours eight hours eight hours oh my gosh on her bill on her bill but she could afford it also i won't mention how much money oh it's been paid monthly didn't have a great car that's right exactly and uh and then from there i mean the rest is history wow wow and then crazy 14 day water fast and you have a son and then we have a son and a daughter and a daughter we have three kids 16 13 and 10. and wow and with the prophetic word that encounter i had with god regarding my son pulled us through because the doctor said he was going to die so he was in his death bed see your firstborn he's her second in uteroy um yes wow yeah that's so scary yeah so the lord healed him and we're continuing to see healing which is awesome come on so tony so now i want to get on what god is doing today through you and through your ministry like there's so much happening um where do you want to start what do you want international let's talk about what's happening internationally there's a few places we cut there's a few semi-closed nations that we can't talk about right right can you tell us some some exciting stuff that's happening there where you're meeting with pastors and encouraging what percentage of your time do you travel oh that's a great question um i think i travel too much if that makes sense yeah i think that about myself and so most years but i pulled back this year just because the season of life and things like that i want to be with my kids my family my wife you know so yes nice and then with our church it's good to be at church when you're the pastor of it you know that's it that's right i was i used to complain god why isn't the church growing my wife says you don't need to ask god that asked me it's because you're never here you know yeah it means a lot to the people in the church wow but are you a very missions minded church is that big we are we are uh we're very extremely focused uh you know for me our message is everyone's a missionary is just to where and who wow that's great so we commissioned everybody as a missionary if you're part of our church you're a missionary well that's the way we see it that's awesome so you do itinerant ministry around the world yes yes i you know i go where there's relationship and i go where i feel like god's asking me to build with people and so i see it from more of a longevity perspective um nothing wrong with itinerary ministry just for me i'm more of a builder right you're partnering with me exactly i like to get my hands dirty you know i love the i love sleeping in five star hotels and i don't mind uh mud huts on the ground either yeah you know so i just i just love it all so good so awesome what's one of the the most impactful testimonies you have from this year 2017. come on 2017. which i feel like just started but it's halfway through you know what i'm doing it's so true that's so true i need to recalibrate my mind just thinking about that now i know it's been the last six months yeah it's crazy you know what i've noticed is whether even locally in bakersfield um local expression and international just travels people are getting saved left and right come on you know and i mean for me i i love the miracle science i mean i i love that stuff anyone that knows me i love the manifestations and all that stuff but it's all got a point to jesus yeah you know and and so it's just it just seems like right now people are waiting for the great harvest the harvest has begun wow you know and and people are saying yeah i believe it's gonna start no it's already begun you know and so even in renaissance we're not a large community but we've seen more people saved in the last two months than we have last two years wow and it's so easy it's not it's not like pulling teeth it's not you know people are hungry yeah you know for jesus and so you know it could sound like this hyper spiritual answer for me to say souls baptisms and people getting discipled i mean that's that's what i'm seeing over the last six months yeah where if you would ask me six months ago it would have been all miracle signs and wonders yeah you know but i'm really i mean i'm we're seeing souls over the last couple of months just traveling you know a little bit here and there i mean i've probably seen just personally you know it's all relative but probably over 200 souls saved just the last couple months you know locally and i mean one-on-one to to groups to conferences to pastors getting saved in certain places i go really yeah wow because some places you don't have to be safe to be a pastor yeah right you know and so i did an altar call one one time and 25 pastors got saved can you imagine your pastor getting saved first time decision you know i'm like now we have to disciple you pastors come on you know i mean it's it's incredible that's awesome yes i love it if people want to find out more about what you're doing around the world or check out your church how can they do that is it renaissance dot i'm guessing website it's uh i letter i renaissance dot o-r-g okay i renaissance.org come on amazing so glad you're here thanks for having me this is so much fun man one more thing i wanted to ask um tony is in the context of all this stuff and happening and going what is your i don't know what's your advice for just continuing that walk with the lord of staying close to him staying in purity staying you know with the success or the failures you know what what what advice have you got for our listeners in their walk with the lord how do you do it right right i think for me it's it's this embrace weakness wow you know don't just focus on your strength you know and i love all that appreciative inquiry approach to self-development things like that but that's for me a very humanistic way of approaching you know looking at fulfilling destiny and purpose but from a spiritual perspective it's we develop by focusing on our strength which causes us to rely and create a greater dependency on the holy spirit and one another you know we're so strength focused that we don't we feel like we don't need anybody yeah so we create this independency in terms of our walk with christ and our walk with jesus has always been plurality the blessing that was four camp that came forth was actually done in a plural setting not just an individual and so i would say you have to have your own personal intimacy with god you know um stay connected and we have to get over this hyper you know hyper religious religiosity about being religious yeah you know i you know it concerns me you know honestly but it's read the bible read the word you know be grounded in the word you know develop you know uh your relationship with holy spirit come on you know keep focus on jesus you know and it's always word in spirit that god always moves yeah and so stay connected personally but then also stay connected corporately yeah you know and that's one of the shifts i believe god is doing today because revivalists many of them throughout history have died alone with only a few at the bedside but this whole thing about reformation transformation the reformers of history always ran together in community wow and so there's power and connectivity in community not just for community's sake but to fulfill god's purpose which is really to love god and love one another come on i mean that's the essence i think of our mandate yeah and that's the greatest right that is the greatest that's the cake that's the icing it's the meat it's the barbecue come on that's my language korean bbq i'm a foodie so yes but that's so good because your dad's roland's the same roland is all about those things you know and those things don't change you know that's right and you don't it's not really just to focus on those things that's not religiosity i mean they can get religious or whatever but those are the tenets of our faith that don't change and that that they're simple but they're the powerful foundation for your faith right the word is just like amazing it's right leaps off the page at you and then when you're listening to the spirit and the word it's like that's the deadliest combo ever right i mean matthew 3 jesus is the word and the holy spirit fell on jesus the word and spirit came together and that's when jesus began his ministry you know and so uh yeah i mean yeah emphasize the word absolutely emphasize the spirit absolutely we need absolutely yeah yeah so we need to be balanced into two and so the way that i tell people okay keep balance is be as extreme as you can in the word and extreme as you can in your spirit i was thinking both extremities cause balance exactly yeah just go for it just go in the world that's right in the word and go for it in the spirit right yeah you can't get enough of either can you try it's like the extreme on both sides and what about the the the intimacy how does that what any more insight into that area like the purity because we're in such a saturated world with so much so much stuff coming at us in terms of you know physical possessions and the latest and greatest gadgets and devices but also sex is just like thrown at us all the time and this whole seductive world and and and then money and all the lures of comfort you know especially in our western world so much comfort how do you how do you is it just focusing on jesus that is the key for you in that yeah i mean for me the word is really key for me yeah you know because we're trying to be culturally relevant that we become totally irrelevant exactly that's a that's a trap isn't it it is the danger for the church it really is and so i think coming into wholeness healing of our soul because a lot of times we'll define christianity by our own brokenness and it will create theology out of that and then that's the basis and the foundation of the church but because it's just what's going on inside of us that where we need healing right oh my gosh that's scary so the world inside of us right it's always the world created around us which is uh hebrews 12 talks or first corinthians 12 talks about that and wow i love that though so the world around us is created from the world inside of us right gosh and so the kingdom is because we're people of the kingdom that's the place we have to live from and so for me it's whenever whenever i get a chance to hang out with people who love jesus i do it you know not being afraid to go out into places where jesus is not fully accepted yeah or he's even rejected you know and i think it's just coming to a place of i mean it really is maturity isn't it yeah that's a that's a huge part it's it's going from romans six to seven to becoming the sons of romans eight oh yeah that's right the house of god [Music] and so wow yeah maturity that's a lot of parts i say if i could uh find a fast track for maturity for my belief for my right parishioners yeah that's what i tell people too you know you could you could impart gifts but you can impart maturity yeah you can impart intimacy yeah so wow i love it love the journey that god has has us on and yeah the eternal truths that never change right and every journey is equally powerful if it ends with jesus yeah you know people come and say your journey is so powerful well so is yours because we met the same person that actually changed all of us exactly you know god just knows the individual journey we need to encounter him that's just his goodness i know and it's it's almost like that the significance of your journey is beckoning every everyone right now because god's right there to say come with me and let's let's do something very significant with your life right your life could be incredible you know just by coming with me and following my plan and exactly and so if i was to say one sentence to answer your question i would say don't just be in his presence stay connected with his presence because you could be around people but never connect that's true you know and i've had encounters with god everyone would just die over but i still walked away from jesus at moments i know that's the crazy thing that is people can have lots of people have these in crazy encounters but then it doesn't necessarily reap the fruit yeah that's right you can and people can walk away from god even after crazy encounters it's that faithfulness in the heart right how do you engage yeah so it's that connectivity in the hearts of hearts i i like to say we need to live face to face with god and let everything be you know byproduct of that wow what about suffering nathan's just in he's like i am this do you know what i mean when it says you know jesus learned what obedience was when he you know and he overcame sin because he suffered in his body yeah he suffers in the body he's done with sin i hate it i hate suffering my life models no pain no pain you know right and so i mean no one likes suffering but i think you know being a follower of jesus it's not about the suffering it's not about the glory it's not you know in that sense but it's about obedience wow yeah you know and jesus won back and took back the keys of authority through ultimate obedience yeah and i had that's a hard lesson i had to learn this past year you know when i caught my accident yeah tell us you had this crazy accident yeah um last may 1st of 2016 um had a head-on collision and i was pretty messed up um our minivan was total but even in that can i share this yeah yeah absolutely i was picking up my daughter i got in my car my wife has a minivan and i hate driving the minivan right understandably i mean i'm too cool to drive a minute right i'm too young for that right so no offense to anyone who had that no my wife won't even allow us to buy it is that right see we're family i got in my car and the holy spirit spoke to me and said turn your car off and take the minivan i said why should i take that i hate the minivan but i thought what do i have to lose right and so i got in the car but before that i said kids daddy's going to asia tomorrow so i'd like to spend time with you i want you go with me to go pick up your sister and they always jump at it but this time they looked and said can we just stay home today never ever have they done that and i said yeah can i ask why my daughters i just feel like we need to stay home i said okay we'll spend time when i come back so i got out of my car so that led me into my car i heard a voice i could i didn't know if it was god or not at the time i just i thought okay maybe it is god so i got in the minivan left gone a headlong head-on collision which if i got in my car and that took place it would have been a different story yeah and so through that i both fractured knees fractured ribs i broke two fingers one of my fingers mangled um i had you know i could i didn't know everything that was wrong with me but i knew i was messed up i knew i was in shock because i was still walking you know i jumped out of my car and so i called it's a long story short i go to the hospital er that night i went home and uh went to the er because they forced me to and so they just said well this is all the things that happened and i thought i have to go to asia tomorrow so i was going to three nations you know for the next two weeks i thought this you know my first thought was there's no way i'm going to make it so i go home from the er and we're getting texts because we send out prayer requests to different people and our spiritual mothers and fathers are saying cancel your trip so you know and look after yourself i'll just i'll just cancel it my kids come to me say daddy you feel like you're supposed to go no way you know my my kids are prophets to to my wife and i they've seen our behind so many times come on like yourself yeah i'm sorry yourself so when my kids told me not to go to certain places i'll cancel wow i won't go and people get upset about that but my my kids hear god's voice and every time so far they've been spot on wow you know i said we feel like you're supposed to go i'm thinking yeah you feel this pain you know and then my mom calls and says now this is weird for me to say but i feel like you're supposed to go no she said as a mom i want you to stay home and heal of course but she said but i feel you know as god's son god's telling you to go wow you know so i'm going okay so all my revival friends all my you know just all my friends who they're like cancel stay home and i knew i needed surgery too because they said you need surgery so i asked the doctor called her back and i said would i will i die if i go and she said go where i said i have trips to asia planned and i have to go and register and she says i think you've gone a little crazy from your accident and i said seriously doctor am i gonna die and can you give me enough pain medication to last me two weeks and she said you may lose two fingers you may and she said you're not gonna even you can't even walk and i said well they'll pick me up curbside they'll get me in a wheelchair i could get carried on the plane and carried off you know it's a long story short we prayed about it and the holy spirit said go so i went and i let me tell you it i was in pain i cried myself to sleep at night you know some of the nights there ministering and here's here's the paradox of all this cancer surgeries reports of cancer surgeries reports of massive miracles and healings tumors broken bones healed and things like that yet i'm not i'm not healed i'm sitting in a chair barely mumbling all drugged up wow and the holy spirit's just breaking the holy spirit's breaking out they wanted impartations so we went so everyone walked by me you know i'm just laying here and the power of god is falling the fire is falling you know so we've broken into another literally broken literally literally and then before i go to the next nation there was a doctor there and she said you need surgery now because my finger was pretty bad and uh so they got surgery while you were there god gave me the best doctor in taiwan uh for this type of procedure and no way he said i've only seen this break like this two times and he's been inserted he was a surgeon for over 40 years you know so but he put my finger back together and he said don't go to this other place tomorrow i said i'm going someone over there tons of miracles people saved and i'll tell you this here's the most powerful testimony through all this the church began repenting just you know there was no altar call it was just they began repenting for their apathy and for their for being complacent sitting in their own comfort zone and so i feel like even in the place of my suffering and i don't even consider that suffering compared to what other people go through people that i know which is real suffering yeah you know that god used the suffering as a sign and wonder and people came to jesus because of it they said we've never seen anyone make a sacrifice like this and people are asking why do you do this how do you do this i say because of jesus and they would say well i want jesus and so even through that god uses suffering powerfully yeah and he lets him know that it's not man it's him because in this other nation the power was falling enough where it got the government's attention and there's no wow roundtable discussion on what to do with tony kim i mean it wasn't me i couldn't even walk you know which is incredible so you know it's through suffering that i really believe that his glory is manifested wow even in the midst of our own pain and our perseverance and faithfulness in our journey our sacrifice if we could call it that yeah you know that god loves to display who he is in suffering come on whoa i don't like it i don't ask for it no but i am willing to suffer for jesus whoa that's amazing i feel like that's questions that come up just being spending so much time in africa and seeing so much of it and experiencing so much of it on the mission field yeah and then coming here and kind of encountering movements that are more like don't really have much of a theology around it yeah right because we kind of know why that's in your head yeah like it's just yeah because yeah you see you read the chapter in in roland's book about the suffering and yeah because we because heidi and roland had to experience so much of it in terms of the people around them not just themselves but the communities around them have been working so that they're right yeah i get that they're not what they look like yeah yeah about the theology of suffering from america on what my view was on that yeah because the church the church in asia is different too totally different like the perspective your dad gives a lot is crazy like he in like the chinese church for example they they um that was a story about someone who married their life and everyone's weeping in the church and i don't know whether it was your dad or someone else said oh wow everyone's weeping because they're so sad that he was martyred they're going oh no no no they're not whipping because he was murdered they're weeping that that they weren't counted worthy enough for them to be martyred and someone else got the opportunity to be martyred like right like they wanted to die it's like oh my gosh that's right that's a different mentality of spirituality to our western mindset let's just do everything to preserve my life and save my life right i know it's almost embarrassing to say that was my suffering you know last year but yeah that's such an amazing journey though i mean and how powerful is when they see someone who's willing to do that and you're obedient and god used it and god wanted the family knew despite what they would have felt naturally right like stay home i know and your kids and god used it was a sign and a wonder to the people because you obviously were preaching out of a wheelchair right yeah and so then obviously we said yeah we had an accident car accident day before and you still came they went what who is this guy it's amazing how god just used it gotta listen gotta listen to god staying connected obedience it's that thing not just throughout the country's presence they're connected to his presence yeah everyone wants to see the manifested glory of the kingdom and jesus but very few are willing to step into obedience that releases it whoa that's a good word and that's where i feel like our generation we have this amazing invitation from heaven where if we would step into obedience as christ did come on you know that god god wants to release this thing across the globe yes you know and you know suffering really produces you know bibles of perseverance yeah you know and character but not only that produces a compassion that releases miracles because i forgot what it felt like to be broken in body because i was sick growing up and then jesus healed me and it gave me a great compassion for me to see the sick healed which is why i so earnestly asked for the gift of healing yes and suffered and then but i could say during time the aspect of compassion started fading yeah but this rebirth the whole level of compassion that i never felt before i'll just look at him and just say they need to just get over it don't hurt that bad yeah a few broken you know one broken rib you know but it's getting back to what you said before it's the weakness right embracing your weakness whether it's physically broken body weakness or some other sort of weakness that because it's you know it's scripture when you're weak i am strong that's right so yeah i got that word for my church in australia a couple years ago and just wow so good it's so our religion is so crazy embrace your weakness what right it doesn't make sense but that's what we're called to do and the other thing also i think is that often the the path to god's glory and that power is not often what we think it's not abcd god often takes us to z or to some other place and that's why we need to listen because it's it's not always rational and logical right the progression of the steps towards like who would think he would want you to go broken and in a wheelchair and a busted finger that needed surgery to go and minister you know yeah we can't put our god in a box you know we have to follow him you know how he determines obedience [Laughter] and that's what's so exciting about our faith and it's all by faith it's not a formula i mean that would be the worst if it was a formula can you imagine how scary christianity would be if it was a formula based thing it would be awful but thank god and that's why everyone's journey's so powerful and so specific because it's so unique like we were talking about before that anyone that is ready to step into the most powerful journey with god right like that you know it's just all those yeses to say yes to god and you believe and follow the lord yourself right who knows where anyone out you know any of our listeners can end up just being that mature believer right by being powerful with the lord because if there's an outpouring in this billion soul harvest is coming how many ministers of the gospel do we need that's right we need an endless number so be get prepared go training get training for reigning you know that's right yeah change remaining hashtag [Laughter] talk about this stuff okay very hard questions at the end here um favorite movie oh boy you know what i love the marvel movies come on i love you know just the uh you know iron man why not how cool is that you know that's a cool cat it's great it's great we had to do profiles at disneyland yes yesterday and zebby's profile matched up with iron man did it write two-year-olds because they do it they do a personally match to find your superhero it's a new thing in california eventually yeah so cool love it love it love it um if you could pursue any other profession what would it be or explore any other profession i'll probably go into uh business come on i totally can see that business or government i have a knife and drive a nice car strategy yeah forget the perfect just want a car perfect whatever we'll get you that okay yeah um sound do you have a favorite sound i mean my my favorite worship band is uh you too come on i've i mean they've always been just i know they opened up in washington the rose bowl just over here they played were you there did you get to the rose bowl um i was i missed it i was in depression at home i bet you were because we had we had a weekend uh gas at our place if i was smart like any other asian i would actually took him to that conference oh yes of course any other issue i was so bummed embrace your weakness come on that's right you did get to go no i didn't oh no oh man oh no i know we should have gone it was like crystal and we should have went no joshua i know i know i don't even stop talking when it's all said and done life on earth is wrapped up and through what do you want to hear jesus say to you when you get to heaven tony what do you want his first words to be to you attaboy that's my boy whoa i say that to my son every night i said you know you're my boy wow you're my son yeah i say that to all my kids you're not you're my daughter i'm proud of you why because it's just you you know that's beautiful too let me be spiritual and pastoral now no i want jesus to say well done good and faithful servant yes there's always a personal take on it though yeah i love it i'll just add a boy get over here yeah that's that says a lot just in that doesn't it absolutely wow because it's all less yeah there's relational things that mean so much wow tony man so good to meet such a general of god such a saint such a um a true minister of the gospel man thanks for saying yes to god and all these years and we're just look so excited to work together in the future yeah for sure for the billions this was a blast oh it's been amazing amazing to hear your journey and so inspiring and convicting i'm just like yes so good come on and thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in again you can find our podcast on itunes or youtube channel and you can leave your comments questions you'd like to hear us ask in the section below and until next time we'll see you then this podcast is presented by iris global for more information or to support the work of iris global please visit us online at iris global

Channel: Iris Global

Views: 3,575

Rating: 4.9402986 out of 5

Keywords: ris After Hours, Podcast, Iris Global, Heidi Baker, Rolland Baker, Nathan Kotzur, Crystalyn Human, Christian, Missions, Iris Ministries, NGO, Free, Encouraging, Inspiring, Testimony, Stop for the One, Africa, Tony Kim, renaissance International

Id: nkxtct1PA4g

Length: 73min 56sec (4436 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 01 2017