Can Christians Have Demons? — The Truth Churches Avoid

Can Christians be affected by demons? Pastor Chris Misciagna, a Free Methodist minister, joins The Blind Exorcist to challenge the belief that believers are immune to demonic oppression. As a pioneer in deliverance ministry within his denomination, Pastor Chris is bringing exorcism back into the church—where it belongs.

📌 What you’ll discover in this episode:

✅ Why Christians can still experience demonic oppression
 ✅ How exorcisms are performed at conversion in other cultures
 ✅ The importance of theological oversight in deliverance ministry
 ✅ What the Wesleyan quadrilateral teaches about spiritual warfare
 ✅ How to integrate exorcism into discipleship and pastoral care
 ✅ Why megachurches often overlook spiritual warfare—and what to do about it

Spiritual warfare is real, and today’s church must be equipped to handle it with biblical truth, wisdom, and structure. Pastor Chris’s insights offer a road map for restoring true deliverance ministry in modern Christianity.

🔗 Learn more:
 Pastor Chris’s Church Website: https://www.newlifecny.org/
Pastor Chris’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@newlifecny4327

Transcript

Introduction & Welcome

Speaker 1 0:37

Welcome to episode 25 of the Blind Exorcist podcast. I'm thrilled to have you join me. I'm Justin D, your host. Don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with your family, friends and on social media. Your support helps spread the message of freedom far and wide. Consider partnering with me by tapping support the show in the show notes. Your contributions go directly towards producing the podcast and bringing you amazing interviews on exorcism. Thank you for your support. I greatly appreciate it.

Introducing Pastor Chris Misciagna

Speaker 1 1:17

In today's episode I have a fascinating discussion with Pastor Chris Mishagana, a Free Methodist pastor who is pioneering the integration of exorcism into the ecclesiastical directives of his denomination. He is one of the few pastors who recognize the importance of deliverance ministry for his members and the entire Free Methodist community. He is spearheading an effort to make exorcism training a standard church decree for all pastors within the denomination, emphasizing the crucial role of discipleship in this process. This conversation challenges the belief that Christians cannot have demons. Chris firmly believes that not only can Christians be afflicted by demons and require exorcism, but he also sees this understanding as essential for addressing deep-rooted struggles that Christians often find insurmountable. He highlights that addressing the sinful nature and counseling alone are not enough. Pastors must be trained to perform exorcisms to truly help their congregation members. I invite you to share this episode with your local pastor and church leadership to challenge their thinking. Join me now, as Pastor Chris and I delve into this critical topic. Let's listen in, chris. Welcome to the Blind Exorcist.

Speaker 2 3:01

Hey, justin, great to be here, pleasure to be with you today.

Speaker 1 3:05

It's a sincere pleasure to have you here with me today, chris, and for my audience, chris is, as I mentioned in the intro, a free Methodist minister and I am so excited to jump into this because it's what I've been telling you guys listening for a while now. Pastors, reverends, ministers, are starting to come into the realization that they have been lied to in seminary in all of their theological studies that somehow Christians in America or Western culture could never have demons. It's impossible. And yet Christians in China, Singapore, japan, india, pakistan, south America, not even a question. Literally as soon as they become a Christian, the majority of these people immediately go through an exorcism and they are 100% comfortable with it because they know that generationally there has been occultic practices in their countries. I just spoke with a friend in Singapore recently and she attends a church there where they believe in deliverance. So she said, every Sunday at the altar she's hearing her minister say and the elders in the church come out. And so Singapore has an ancestry of worship of false deities, as do many other countries. It baffles me, it actually frustrates me, that I have to spend an entire ministry convincing Christians in America and Western cultures that Christians can have demons. It's insane. But I really think this does go back to the theological training coming out of these seminaries.

Speaker 1 5:20

I heard a minister say recently that he was taught in his seminary that Christians cannot have demons. But maybe people on the other side of the border, like in Mexico or South America, they might have demons, but Christians here in America we don't have demons, and so they taught him why that they could not have demons. But Christians here in America we don't have demons, and so they taught him why that they could not have demons. Meanwhile, we see it all the time Christian ministers of very large churches and denominations fall, oftentimes to sexual sin because of demons, oftentimes to sexual sin because of demons. If ministers would believe that Christians could have demons, you would not see this happen too often.

Speaker 1 6:09

That's my personal opinion, because they would go through exorcism and get these issues dealt with, but they minimize everything to the sinful nature and psychology. That's it. And when that doesn't work, what do you do? The people in those churches come to us exorcists because they know it's not their sinful nature, it's not psychology, it's not helping. It is important to be in counseling and therapy, absolutely. But a key ingredient's missing Exorcism, deliverance, demons. Chris has came to this understanding, to this realization. As a free Methodist minister, he became aware that not only can Christians have demons, but he wanted to learn about it. This is awesome people. This is where it's at. Trust me, christians can have demons. Chris, let me come over to you now and I'd like to ask you how did you initially become aware of that? Christians could have demons?

Why Exorcism Matters When Therapy Falls Short

Speaker 2 7:21

Christians could have demons. Justin, I appreciate the question and I think the question is quite comprehensive in its scope. I think the big problem we're running into as a church in America is defining actually what a Christian is. When you're looking at a church that's in decline or in a siloing into kind of the megachurch movement, what the church refers to as a Christian wouldn't have passed mustard in the early church. Our you know approach towards catechesis or taking someone who's a non-Christian to a Christian, is very lean. So when we use the term a Christian being demonized, the biggest problem I think we have is defining actually what a Christian is, and because of that it depends what church you go to, which segment of Protestantism you go to. You're going to get many different definitions for that. The large answer is yes. We're seeing all kinds of demonic activity inside people who claim to be Christians, whether full Christian or quasi-Christian, however you want to put it.

Pastor Chris's Perspective on Christianity in the American Church

Speaker 1 8:23

Wow, you bring up an interesting point here about the megachurches. There's not a whole lot of room in that corporate culture, like Christianity in America and around the world has been for lack of a better word brought into a corporate culture. They do market research in the surrounding areas to see what would these people like to hear and they bring that data back to the church leadership of who's going to build this large mega church. This is what the people want to hear around you and guaranteed preaching about hell's not in there. Preaching about turning from sin not in there. What's in there? God loves you. You can do whatever you want. God loves you. Come to church and, chris, you bring out a valid point.

The Corporate Culture of Megachurches: Why There's No Room for Demons

Speaker 1 9:13

Our early church founders would shudder at what we call Christianity. Today we have lost the core concept of dying to self, understanding that we are sinful, broken people in desperate need of salvation, and the concept of resisting sin Gone. It's all about God loves you. Whatever you want from God, you can have Very Americanized right. You need money. Pray to God, you'll get it. You want to have the best house? You can have the best house. Try telling that to the Apostle Paul who was beheaded in Rome. We've lost a lot of the concept of going through trials to develop our faith. We lost a concept of endurance. Endurance is something that you have to develop by going through things, so a lot of these core concepts don't fit into that corporate American culture where everybody's smiling, everybody's happy, everybody's singing songs about how they're special and how God loves them. Yes, this is true, but I think you're getting my point here. We've lost our way. That's my personal opinion and, chris, I think you'd feel the same. Let me come over to you and get your take on some of this here.

Speaker 2 10:42

Yeah, I think it's as I was raised Roman Catholic, became a Christian, a Protestant Christian in a Pentecostal church, and now I've been serving as a pastor in the pre-Methodist church for 26 years and was in an independent church prior for about six years. Yeah, what with in the church is a huge push towards growth, which isn't a bad thing. But often when we embrace that as the primary driver of what we do as pastors, we begin to distance ourselves from the parish model and we become distant from our people. And, as in the early 80s when I attended them in Spring Valley, new York, not far from where I grew up, I remember in a church with 3,500 members I didn't know anybody. If something happened to me I would be like who's going to tell the church? I was just one of several thousand people that walked through the door and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But the connectional model where people were actually living life together, it wasn't happening in that body. And I know there are a lot of large churches that do well with small groups and growth groups and things like that, and I don't want to knock everybody, but I think there is a problem when the churches become very large and the pastor becomes very distant to the people. I think it directly affects the spiritual formation of the believers and the biggest thing I think we lose is the ideal of oversight, accountability and therefore discipleship. And one of the things that we saw is the ideal of oversight, accountability and therefore discipleship.

Speaker 2 12:04

And one of the things that we saw in the Free Methodist Church was, if we're going to take a comprehensive approach to the idea of demon possession or demonization inside a believer, we need to start at the very basics of the idea of how we approach discipleship.

Speaker 2 12:20

Are we truly discipling believers into Christian spiritual formation and Christlike living?

Pastoral Disconnection in Large Churches

Speaker 2 12:28

And we had to look at our very basic material and realize that, because we've embraced some of the church growth models that we see in America out of necessity to live, we need to grow our church to keep it going and keep the lights on and things like that We've drifted away from some of our free Methodist heritage, some of our theology, and have adapted that idea of an evangelical self-help idea where the gospel is there to make a good person better and God is just part of a resume or repertoire of our life, versus the very axis mundi or the very center of our life. And so we are beginning in the idea of helping people get to deliverance by beginning to develop discipleship tools. And are these people truly Christian? Do they believe the tenets of our faith? Do they understand Trinitarian doctrine? So these are things that we had to go right back to and start to build up this fabric that, when people become part of our societies or churches, that we are discipling them into a true relationship with Jesus Christ.

Discipleship and Exorcism in the Free Methodist Church

Speaker 1 14:01

This is absolutely mission critical. How many times has a client come to me and other exorcists in our network and we have an intake form? We do an analysis up front, looking for entry points of demons. It's called a spiritual profile and on there people will mark that they are Christians and for 10 plus years or 20 plus years, 30 plus years. And when I sit across from them and I asked them, if you died right now, why would God let you into heaven? They always answer something along the lines of this that's a really good question.

Developing Discipleship Tools

The Need for Foundational Christian Doctrine

Speaker 1 14:39

And then most of them now these are Christians who have been raised in the American church. Most of them say something along the lines of this I'm a good person, I help people, I do the best I can in life, I stay out of things like drugs and drinking and things like that. So they've missed it. And why have they missed it? We enter God lets us into heaven because we have turned from a sinful lifestyle. We've confessed him as Lord over our life and it is only through the blood of Jesus Christ covering our lives that we are able to go to heaven. The Bible even teaches us that good works do not get us into heaven. How can somebody be a Christian for 30-plus years? And when they're asked, why would God let you into heaven if you died right now? And they say things like that, why is that lack of discipleship, lost in a congregation of thousands of people not discipled? We've even talked about this as leaders in our exorcism network. Should we start discipling people that come to us? And the end of that discussion was we got to stay in our lane. We're exorcists, so the pastors need to be discipling them. So we try to encourage them to find a church that has a discipleship program where they can actually learn the core foundational concepts of our Christianity, and part of that is exorcism, demon possession. It's all through the Bible. A third of Christ's ministry was exorcism.

Speaker 1 16:37

Oh, amazing conversation here, chris. This is so essential People. It's so sad to me. They go to church, they hear sermons of self-improvement and they love Jesus Christ with their whole heart, but they're not even connected to understanding what the Trinity is. What does it mean to be sinful? What does baptism mean? There's so much that they've lost because of fun times singing songs all about themselves, that God loves you, you're special, and yada, yada, and on it goes, and I echo Chris's statement about. We're not bashing megachurches. There's a lot of them that do this right. They do have discipleship programs in place. They have small groups that work good. It's a well-oiled machine that's running well, but a lot of them don't. I guess that's my point in saying all this.

Speaker 1 17:34

Now, chris, coming back to you, you became interested as a minister in studying demon possession. I know that you met one of our exorcists in Rome. Believe it or not, we have had two of our exorcists go to Rome to go through the Catholic training on exorcism. They wanted to understand what are they doing differently than what Protestants are doing, and there are a lot of key differences. But I know you met one of our exorcists there, chris. What was it that made you decide to go to Rome? What made you decide to really do that deep dive into this as a minister so you can begin to gather information, be it from the Roman Catholic Church, which has been doing this for hundreds of years? What made you decide to really do the deep dive and get into this man and start gaining an understanding onto how to help people in your congregation?

Speaker 2 18:41

Yeah, it was about a year and a half ago. We had a baptismal service at our church and usually when you have a baptismal service we're fortunate we had I don't know half a dozen 10 candidates and they invite their family members. So you usually get people at church who sometimes only come to church when there's an event. And one of the folks while we had cake afterwards congratulating all the baptismal candidates, someone said during your ritual there, you asked them to forsake the devil and all of his works. What's that mean? And I'm a seminarian, I could answer that question to the best of my training.

Introduction of Exorcism in Church Practices

Speaker 2 19:20

But I remember going back to our baptismal rite as a Free Methodist and there was not a lot of supporting material for that, and I started to say this looks like to me I'm performing a minor exorcism in that which it is. And so I began to look into our material, which, in the Free Methodist Church, is a book of discipline, and it's this incredible work that we have that helps us with our polity, how we function as a church, helps us with historical things and also doctrine and ritual. When I began to investigate that, there was not a lot of supporting material defining the terms that I was actually using. So I began to investigate that. And once you get outside of the normal purview of pastoral care and theology, you usually end up in the Catholic camp. So I began to read Steven Rossetti's books, chad Ritberger's books and, of course, bumping into them in podcasts and things like that. That that encouraged me, when I started hearing their statistical analysis about the upswing that they've seen over the last 30 years in exorcism, to realize that this is coming to a church soon that I pastor. So I thought I better get out ahead of this. And of course, once you start investigating this, god begins to send opportunities your way to help people get delivered.

Speaker 2 20:41

And reading the Catholic material, I was just impressed by their mature, professional and, most of all, comprehensive approach in the way that they approach the whole topic of exorcism the way I saw it in some non-denominational churches. They just don't talk about it. They're what you would call superstitious. Everything has got a scientific or medical explanation. Or when I was in the Pentecostal church it was superstitious. There was a demon behind every door and everything had a demonic problem issue with it.

Speaker 2 21:13

The Catholics tend to do it in a much more comprehensive way. The last thing they do to a person is perform an exorcism. They vet the person, they get the person in touch, they immediately assign them an intercessor and then they begin to put around that person a scaffolding of discipleship, of church membership. And 1% of people who come to a Catholic diocese looking for an exorcism actually have an exorcism. Most of the demonic issues get pushed out or dealt with through the process of discipleship, of catechesis, getting them involved in Christian teaching. Only 1% of those people who knock on the door actually need to be delivered.

Speaker 2 21:56

That kind of comprehensive approach I've never seen done before in a Protestant circle and that's what drew me to looking at their whole procedure and their training. Now again, as a free Methodist, we have huge doctrinal differences between the Roman Catholic Church. I don't want to pretend they're not there. What I find myself doing is going through the best I can you know, getting advice from some of my former professors or some of our seminary professors and saying, listen, can you help me vet the Roman Catholicism doctrine out of our Free Methodist doctrine so that we can present materials and an on-ramping for our pastors to more comprehensively approach the whole idea of demonization or exorcism or deliverance?

Speaker 1 22:41

Yeah, that's great. And have you ever had an opportunity yet to go through Dr Larson's International School of Exorcism?

Speaker 2 22:50

yet I don't know if you've been through that yet meet one of your exorcists during the program and again, from what I hear, it's very comprehensive. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on some of that material in the near future.

Speaker 1 23:19

Yeah, it's very comprehensive. It's probably the most comprehensive logical methodology that you'll find in Protestant exorcism. I would say it's in a sense clinical. That's why I like it so much. I was a social work major for two and a half years. Then I changed to computer programming so I have that kind of clinical mindset and Dr Larson really is very clinical when he does the actual exorcism practice. It's got methodology to it but he definitely will move outside of that.

Speaker 1 23:50

So it's not a hundred percent structured process. There's room to move around based on how the Holy Spirit leads you. So it's wonderful, because a lot of deliverances that I've been around growing up in the independent churches have been like wild cowboys. You know. Nobody's trained, everybody has a word from God. And, quite interesting, it lacks professionalism, it lacks the use of analysis and intellect, and that's what Dr Larson pulls and brings to the table. It's a beautiful approach and I know Catholic exorcists use very similar analysis and logic when working with people, and so it's an important ingredient. So have you witnessed yet, as a minister, anybody in your local congregation that you either believed had demons or actually came to you requesting help over demons?

Speaker 2 25:09

Yeah, I think. Yes, Fairly recently, I do pastoral care. That's part of my job.

Speaker 2 25:20

A demonic feature to every event, whether it's a full-blown demonization, possession or a type of situation that just needs deliverance. There's usually I've heard a phrase that Satan is a, or the devil is a musician without an instrument and looking for an instrument to use, and just any human being. If we were to sing on key in front of a guitar or piano, whatever string we're singing to would reverberate what the key we're in. I think that's what Satan does with people in our lives. If there's an opening for him to come in, he uses what's there. Whether it's a certain leniency that we have towards a besetting sin or some kind of misdemeanor or disobedience, he will use that avenue to get into someone's life, whether that is on a more permanence or just a short term. That's really important for the pastor to be able to discern and help that person gain victory over that, and that is a very complex approach and I think we need to go through it now.

Speaker 2 26:28

As a Wesleyan, we use the Wesleyan quadrilateral, which deals with the idea of reason, history, experience and scripture. That's one of the things that drew me to. The Wesleyan tradition is coming from a Pentecostal background where, like you were saying, most people who are doing work in the demonic were shooting from the hip. We come, at every aspect of our faith, from that Wesleyan quadrilateral, so reason is always a part of that.

Speaker 2 26:55

Also, I think one of the big things which I liked and I saw in the Roman Catholic Church and I'm trying to figure out how to do it in a Protestant way is, in the Roman Catholic Church, exorcism is a sacramental which enables that person to become part of the sacraments. So it functions under the church, it's a function of the church. They're not functioning under their own power, they're functioning under the auspices and under the guidance of the church. I think that's very important and I didn't see that in my previous experiences as I work inside my denomination. What I'm looking to do is help pastors, when they're in this ministry or in this kind of pastoral care, to work under the auspices of their superintendent and their bishop. Demons are legalists and they know when you're flying solo and that's not a place that you want to be, you might turn into one of the seven sons of Sceva. If that's the situation, I think it's really important that we attach ourselves to our authority and we work inside of that, for accountability, for the idea of oversight and protection.

Speaker 1 28:08

All excellent points and I agree with you. I think it's mission critical that there is policy for lack of a better word, procedures documented in place for pastors to use and go by from the top down. Spiritual submission, spiritual authority, is extremely important when it comes to dealing with demons. Again, in the Western culture they don't have any of this. There is no deliverance ministry in churches. There is no deliverance ministry in churches. There is no code of ethics for lack of a better word. There is no training.

Speaker 1 28:48

So it's very sad because there are so many Christians that come to us under Dr Larson's ministries that have demons and they can't get help in the church, so that's why they come here, and it doesn't need to be that way. I'm so excited, chris, that you're taking this under your wings, so to speak, and getting this in place. So you're going to be creating a for lack of a better word policy so that pastors can have guidance on how to do this. What does that process look like for you? Getting this kind of again my wording policy procedure in place for pastors that are going to be caring for people?

Speaker 2 29:36

Yeah, and what it basically does. It goes back to what we initially began to speak about. If you go even inside our own denomination and we have markers put out and Ordo Salutis' Order of Salvation put out through what it means to be a Christian, we have the doctrine of entire sanctification, which is unique to a Wesleyan holiness tradition. But in the pulpit, in the parish or the pastoral ministry, what a pastor even inside of our denomination would consider a Christian is usually very different. We're doing our best to grow our church, make it more effective in our community, and we have directives on that. So what happens? The first thing that we're trying to build is an entrance ramp where and I'll just say it real plainly most pastors would consider someone who faithfully attends their church, who attends a small group and is a faithful contributor to their church, a Christian. Now, there's a lot of things that are not said in that and there are a lot of things that are left out. There's not a mention of doctrine, there's not a mention of understanding creed. So what we're doing is we're creating a tool which would work and help getting people who are maybe in that situation, to give pastors tools to help them, bring them on board to see if, whether or not, they're truly Christian or not. So that's the first thing that we're creating is a tool where pastors can use for discipleship. They could use it on themselves. It would be like a daily devotional where they can be introduced to the creeds of the church. They could be introduced to a lot of the doctrines of the Christian church.

Speaker 2 31:30

I had a couple come to me. They attended my church on and off for about a year. They asked me to do their wedding and when I brought them through the premarital, I said to them I don't think you want me to do your wedding. And they said why? And I said because you're Buddhist. And they said how can you say that? And I said because you just told me what you believe and you've quoted Buddha more than you quoted Jesus. And they're like yeah, we like Jesus too. And I'm like yeah, but when I do a wedding, you're making a vow before God. And this is I'm representing a church when I'm doing this. And I said you might want to rethink this.

Speaker 2 32:09

And they were very insulted. But and they were, you know, of course it was. How can you dare say that to me? And I'm like well, if a pastor can't tell you that you're a Christian I don't know who really can but you're not, because you don't believe Christian doctrine. You don't believe in the virgin birth, you don't believe in the resurrection, you don't believe in Trinitarian doctrine.

Speaker 2 32:28

Those are huge problems, and I honestly think our faith has become so individualistic in America, it's become so void of doctrine that we need to go back into the basis, and most people are getting their doctrine from Oprah and Disney. That's where they're being enculturated from and that's where they're getting their catechesis from, and they think it's all good, it's not Christianity. So the first thing that we're doing is creating a tool to help pastors vet people into the idea are you a Christian or are you not? And it is a daily devotional that runs along with our book of discipline, but it's also a form of catechesis, and where it's got an educational component where people will understand yes, this is orthodoxy. And then it enculturates them against heterodoxy, which that's just the world we live in today, and so it gives them the positive, but it also inoculates them against the negative that they've already heard and been saturated in.

Speaker 1 33:32

That's great, and I would imagine part of this you're going to be starting to also begin to document is the exorcism and deliverance and demonization and that and I'm going to come back to that in a minute, but I just want to echo what you're saying because I'm in full agreement with it. I've not mentioned this before on the podcast, but the minister who really had a large impact in my life in my early 20s and through my 30s he was an ex-CIA agent. How cool is that? Very intelligent man and the first thing that he did this was a non-denominational church. And so you have people coming from all over the place, all kinds of different Christian doctrine, everything. The first thing he did was he started a catechism course and of course, all the Christians in the church were we're not Catholic, we're not in. Catechism just means basically instruction, and he brought I believe it was seven courses to the church and every course lasted a year, and so he took everybody back to the core, foundational Christian doctrine in the first course so that people could go through, like you're saying, chris, and understand what is true, authentic Christianity. And from there the second course was built on the foundation all the way up through six, seven, eight courses, whatever the total of them were, and these were big books. These were not small, thin books. They were instructed by pastors, by associate pastors, to train people coming into this non-denominational church of.

Speaker 1 35:19

This is what we believe and fortunately for me, part of that was deliverance, but they had no real formalized training in it, so it wasn't very effective. It's what I often call deliverance light on this, where they're just telling demons to come out and they're not really interrogating them like Christ did, they're not really breaking legal rights, doing renouncements, none of that kind of stuff. But at least it was something and so that's inspiring and I hope you guys listening if there are ministers or pastors listening that you're getting some of this. This is really good. I think it's important, especially culturally where we're at in Western culture, that we have some type of curricula to have people go through so that they can learn what it truly means to be a Christian. Chris, eventually you're going to get into outlining this in a sense of how to deal with exorcism, demonization, and right now you're in the research phase and gathering information and eventually you're going to be flushing that out and get it into your church curricula where people can learn about this also pastors, and today I was speaking with a pastor who believes in deliverance.

Speaker 1 36:48

He's been trained under Dr Larson's methodology and he said it's a very interesting dilemma because people come to his church that believe in deliverance, but he only wants that to be a function of the church, not the main emphasis of the church, which is a very balanced approach. He wants to teach the whole counsel of God's Word and part of that is deliverance. But he said, when he begins to teach on the core doctrine of Christianity, all the people the deliverance stop coming. They leave because they want the hype, they want to see the heads spinning, they want to see the demons manifesting. That's it. It's like they want to pop a bag of popcorn and watch this, and so he's really struggling with this because he wants to be able to introduce this to his church but also have people understand that this is just a part of Christianity. This is a part of ministry, just like worship, just like baptism, just preaching the gospel, just like witnessing. This is just part. Saying this is just part.

Speaker 1 38:06

People want the sensation of all of this paranormal stuff and they really don't want the Word of God. It's what this pastor said to me. He said Paul mentioned this in the Bible that in the end they will have itching ears. They just want to see the paranormal, the supernatural, and then, if it's not happening, boom out the door and go on.

Speaker 1 38:26

We have to get back to core Christian foundational teaching that our founders put in place. Man, oh, I get excited just thinking about this, so it's just really good. Excited just thinking about this, so it's just really good. Chris, can you share, as a minister, to other ministers, pastors who are listening, some words of advice, some encouragement around this on how to begin to bring this into the church in a logical way, about demonization, about possession, about deliverance, because there are people listening now that aren't where you're at. In other words, you're at least starting to get this in place. Can you share a little bit of advice with pastors or ministers on how might they start getting this in place, to begin to introduce this to their leadership and congregation?

Speaker 2 39:23

Oh yeah, definitely. One of the things that drew me to this ministry was I was listening to a podcast with Chad Ripperker. He's a Catholic exorcist out of Missouri and he said what drew him to the ministry and his testimony it's what God used to grab at me. He said exorcism is not what we see in the movies, it's hard work, and he was raised as a grinder, a hard worker, and exorcism is a lot less supernatural than it is just hard work. And that's what reached out to me because I was raised in that kind of upbringing. Before I was a pastor, I worked construction, so hard work was part of my DNA and even some of the work in the demonic I've done it is just arduous hard work. Yes, there are some supernatural things that do take place and there are some manifestations that if I had hair it would stand on end. But it's really hard work and I would encourage pastors. But it's really hard work and I would encourage pastors.

Hard Work in Exorcism Ministry

Speaker 2 40:23

The gospel in Scripture is known as the power of God and if our sermons most sermons that I come across whether it's I catch them on the Internet or I visit another church on a Sunday if I'm not preaching, they're at best for just talk about the forgiveness of Jesus. Most of them become how-to sermons how to become humble, how to become self-disciplined, how to become this and they leave the gospel out, no-transcript. And it's where we get our forgiveness from. It's also where we get our righteousness from. It's where we get our justification and sanctification from. It is the entirety of what we should be talking about. And the problem is we think it's just the ABCs and then we go on talking about stuff about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin or how many brass tacks there are in the tabernacle, and we use the gospel as either an add-on to the end of our sermon. It should be the entirety of what we're talking about, because revival in the Church of America it's only ever happened when we rediscover the gospel. That's why you don't see revivals in Mormonism, jehovah's Witnesses. You only see it when the church rediscovers the full intent of the gospel. And we are not there as a nation.

The Power of the Gospel in Deliverance

Speaker 2 41:42

And if people are not enjoying what you're saying and they want to see people's heads spin and people spit pea soup out, I think the pastor needs to do a lot of self-reflection and say am I really preaching the gospel or am I just talking about forgiveness? The gospel is so much more than even that and until we rediscover that, I think, like you're saying, people are going to go to itching, have itching ears, and I know what it's like to minister for a number of years, teaching evangelical self-help sermons and how-to sermons. It wasn't up until about 10 or 15 years ago where I rediscovered the full power of the gospel, and it's not something I add on to my sermon, it is the very centrality of my sermon. And people are being set free, not through just outward morality or outward forms of self-discipline. They're being transformed by God, changing their idols in their hearts and the love in their hearts from these other things back to Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2 42:48

And until we as pastors get that, the church is still going to be bumping and sputtering along, doing all these manipulative things to try to get people in the door. But we just need to seek the Lord to rediscover the full intent of the gospel and I think what would happen in that is this idea of demon possession and demonization. We would go into that powered by the gospel and be able to execute that much more like we've seen in times past where the church had vitality and power. Exorcism in the Roman Catholic Church hundreds of years ago used to take days because the church has been so depleted of its power. It takes now years because the church doesn't have its power that it used to have, and I believe the same thing has happened in the Protestant church.

Speaker 2 43:37

Just look what's going on out in the Protestant church. Just look what's going on out in Dallas right now. We're seeing these monstrous ministries just crumbling because of crime, sin inside the pulpit, and it is heart-wrenching. As a pastor and I'm not saying I'm perfect and I'm totally above all this I'm not saying that at all. I say it with humility in my heart but we need to step back and go. Wait a minute. These are massive ministries that are just crumbling because of unreported sin and the power of Christ how can it be present in these kind of situations? What are people going to hear? What are they practicing or not practicing? Those are questions that we need to, as pastors, seriously ask ourselves, and I think the only answer to that in my prayer is that we rediscover the gospel and the churches begin to preach the full entirety of the gospel.

Speaker 1 44:35

This is good. This is good. There's a couple things I just want to touch on, and first of all, the amount of effort it takes in exorcism and then, second, I wanted to talk about the pastors who are falling that have large churches. The amount of effort that goes into exorcism under Dr Larson's ministry is very intense. Our sessions normally last between two to three hours each session, sometimes multiple times a week. Most clients on average are four to six months to work with them. We do a lot of inner healing in addition to exercising and expelling demons through the authority of Christ. This is a lot of time grinding and we do this because we love Jesus Christ. It's part of the function. It's part of the gospel that Chris is talking about. Jesus cast out demons. He said go out in my name and cast out demons and deal with it Hours.

Effort and Commitment in Exorcism Sessions

Speaker 1 45:39

I have been in exorcism sessions that have lasted seven hours and I don't say that arrogantly. That's how involved it can be. How is that possible? People have been through severe trauma. Some people we work with are satanic ritual abuse victims. A lot of the people we work with are disassociative, also called multiple personality disorder, very complex conditions. We just don't have somebody come down to the altar full of emotionalism and scream, come out and everyone claps and the music fires up and everyone dances all around. We're free. We're free Hours of time spent with every client through the compassion of Jesus Christ. There's nothing more rewarding than when I sit across from a client who's lost everything in life. They're completely suicidal. In every session, jesus Christ brings healing, restoration, discipleship and after four to six months, at the end the person is restored through the mercy and compassion of Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 46:54

When I first started this of Jesus Christ, when I first started this, the Lord made it very clear to me it's not the quantity, it's the quality. Yeah, it's not the quantity, justin, it's the quality. When you sit down with someone in a three-hour session, processing, using analysis and being led by the Holy Spirit, it's hard work. And to Chris's point, he's got that grit. He was in construction. I've got that grit. I was raised right outside of Youngstown Ohio. I was raised in Youngstown Ohio. It was a steel mill industry hard grinding, blue collar workers man, that's the culture I was raised in. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and get moving, boy. And that has been extremely beneficial in ministry.

Speaker 1 47:54

I encourage anybody listening who is currently doing deliverance or considering doing deliverance. Take the International School of Exorcism so you can gain understanding and be trained by someone who's credible. I've said it many times Dr Larson, I believe. He's over 80 years old now. He's been doing exorcisms, I think, for 50 years, 50,000 plus exorcisms in over 100 countries. He knows what he's doing through empirical evidence, through his experience. It's beautiful Now about the church's falling, churches falling.

Speaker 1 48:42

If what Chris is doing introducing demonization, deliverance, exorcism to his congregation, to his leadership, to his church denomination if that was the case in Western churches, these pastors would not fall because they could come for help and go through an exorcism. Pastors don't need to fall to sexual temptation or money or any of that. If they believed Christians could have demons, they could get those expelled and healed up through the compassion of Jesus Christ and never have to experience that. But because they don't believe Christians can have demons, they only approach it the sinful nature or counseling. That's it Leaving out a major ingredient there, a huge ingredient.

Falling Churches and the Lack of Deliverance Ministry

Speaker 1 49:31

I hope you guys have found this episode informative. I hope it challenges you as a Christian. Make sure you are saved, get discipled. Christianity is about discipline, understanding the core principles of our faith and sticking to it. It doesn't matter what's happening culturally. When you're a Christian, you don't change your doctrine. When you understand the Word of God, when you have been discipled, you are firm in your faith, firm in your beliefs. There is no room for compromise. That's why, a lot of times, people, when different cultural changes come through and there'll be more than what's going on right now they just fall right into it because they are not founded in the core doctrine of Christianity. They don't understand their Bible. They've not been discipled. I guess.

Speaker 1 50:30

A question for you, listening how often do you read your Bible? Have you ever studied the core foundational principles of Christianity? If not, I encourage you to. It's right at your fingertips. You can use ChatGPT to do all kinds of research. You can use Google. It's not hard at all Used to be. We'd have to buy all kinds of books and concordances and all that stuff, and not the case now. You can study all of this and get your head around it.

Speaker 1 51:00

I share your passion, chris, about discipleship and throughout sessions when I work with clients, I do disciple them because they don't know, and at the end of sessions oftentimes I am sending them information on things to study related to core foundational doctrine that are completely vacant in their life because they've only been taught God loves you and forgives you. So I hope you have found this challenging, informative. Again, I encourage you to share this out to your pastor, to share this out to your minister, your reverend, your bishop, so that they can hear this and be challenged in their thinking. Chris, I'm going to come back to you.

Speaker 1 51:47

At the end of every episode, I always ask my guests to share some encouragement with the audience and normally I ask my guests to share to the audience. But today I'm going to do something a little bit different. I'm going to ask, chris, if you would encourage pastors, ministers and reverends and bishops to be open to exorcism, to begin to research this logically and look through the literature. Historically, this is documented even past the crucifixion of Christ. Chris, if you can just take a minute and share some encouragement with pastors who are hearing this that are really wrestling with this. Some pastors really want to take this plunge and do this, but they're afraid of the establishment. Other pastors are listening, and reverends and ministers, but they're afraid of the establishment. Other pastors are listening and reverends and ministers listening because they're curious. They may not be close to taking that plunge, but can you take a minute and just share some encouragement with these pastors and ministers and reverends and bishops and leadership that might be listening to this? How should they approach the topic of their members having demons and exorcism?

Speaker 2 53:19

why there's such an upswing in exorcism and why has the demonic gone from being over to being just out there now? It used to be. The devil's best secret was he doesn't exist. Now it's flamboyantly out there and his response was maybe it's death pangs, Maybe they know the time's short and we're seeing this upsurge.

Encouragement for Pastors and Church Leaders on Embracing Exorcism Ministry

Speaker 2 53:37

So if you're superstitious and you don't believe in the supernatural, or you don't believe maybe a Christian can be demonized or have a demonic problem, I want to encourage you. This is coming to a church near you. It's just statistically, it's just going to happen. If you tend to be not superstitious, but superstitious, this is not about you. This is about the function of the gospel and the church. There isn't a demon behind every door, but there is an intelligent evil that's seeking to devour Christians and Christian leaders, and I would encourage you to work in concert with your authority, whatever kind of church setting you're in. If it's a community church, your board, if you're in a domination, with your leadership, your bishop and I would highly encourage you to take a comprehensive approach, whether it's using and getting involved in Dr Larson's ministry. I've had a privilege of observing some of their work. It's very extensive and I would encourage you to work in concert. The wolves pick off the lone sheep and I would encourage you to begin to work with other people who are in this ministry. If you haven't run into it, you will.

Speaker 2 54:51

It is going to become part of pastoral care and one of my seminary professors said as pastors, we need to run into the burning buildings in people's lives. We need to be a death watch when people go from this world into the hereafter. We need to talk to families who have lost somebody and we need to walk into people's lives when they are dealing and they're being overrun by the demonic. It's part of pastoral care. We'd like to make it neat and tidy, but no, we're called by our Lord to roll up our sleeves and to do the hard work of pastoral care. And dealing with exorcism, dealing with deliverance, is part of that. Calling it's messy, it's uncertain. At times it's even scary, but I would encourage you that when we do this, like I've always sensed, I've sensed the presence of Christ and I've sensed the power of God working through me in these situations. I just want to encourage you in that.