Jesus Changes Everything- a discussion with Pastor James McMenis.

Founder and Senior Pastor James McMenis has been preaching the Word of God since the age of 17. Word of God Ministries began as a weekly Bible study in 1994. Since then, it has become a national out-reach ministry. Pastor James joins Brad Jurkovich to discuss the power of the Gospel in changing lives, leading through change and the priority of family. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Well, welcome to the Brad Jerkovich Podcast. Thank you for joining us today. I'm very, very excited to have uh uh as our guest today, Pastor James McMinnis of Word of God Ministries. And Pastor James, thank you for being with us today, my friend.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I I was honored, honored that you invited me. Blessed to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Well, you know, we have a lot of different conversations on our podcast, and just the fact that you're a pastor, the fact that you're a leader, the fact that you're a warrior for the for the gospel and for the faith. So many people respect you. And so for you to take some time to join us today on the podcast, it just means a lot to us. Um, there's gonna be people listening, they may not know your background. Did you grow up in northwest Louisiana? Or where are you from, buddy?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Yes, sir. Born and raised here in Shreeport, Louisiana. Really? My home and my mission field. Oh my goodness. Yes, sir. That's awesome. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

So your family like deep roots here in Louisiana, or maybe all over the country, or are you just settled here? No, deep roots here.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah. Uh yes, sir. Wow. So, what like what high school did you go to? Graduated Woodlawn High School. Just don't ask me the year.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Don't ask me. I love it. So, did you sense a call to ministry early on in your life? Or wait, kind of tell us a little bit about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Well, when I uh I was 17 years old when I graduated. Yeah. I was torn between two options. I was either going to go into the Air Force, um, and the thought was I was gonna be an attorney.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

But on the other side, I was really torn about being an architect. My dad was involved in construction. I love construction, and I I just had I struggled to make my mind up. I get saved right after graduation, 17 years old. Yeah. And that summer I just knew that God was calling me to ministry. I preached my first sermon at the age of 17 on August 20th, that same summer, and became, in essence, the enter and pastor of the church that I was saved and baptized at the following January, right after my 18th birthday.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

So I've been in ministry all of my adult life. Yes. That's better than five years now. You know, I'm curious.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

You missed that joke, but no, I got you, buddy. I got you. What I'm just curious, I was thinking though, you know, when you when you sensed that call at a young age, were there some people early on that just believed in you and really encouraged you in that call, or was it something where you like had to convince your parents and say, no, God's calling me to do this, or were there some people in the church that helped you, you know?

SPEAKER_00 2:19

I I'd have to say my mom and dad. Okay, yeah. Foremost. Yeah. Because I just remember a lot of conversations that was going around that time, and my dad one day just basically silencing the room, saying, No, the boy feels like this is what God's calling to do, we're gonna get behind it. Wow. And so, uh, but I I was blessed to have the support of my mom and my dad. I I think that's important.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Do you I feel like James, there's there's um, there's not as many surrendering to that call in our generation, or maybe even challenging for that call uh in church life, and we need more of that. We need more uh guys surrender to that call to preach and minister, don't you think?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, I mean it's a desperate need. So that's what I'm saying. I'm encouraged that you sense that call at a young age and your parents uh affirm that for you.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

I think that's awesome. Well, it had to be in the Lord. I uh I was not raised in church, even though my parents were believers. Okay. As a matter of fact, on on when I accepted Christ, there were like 11 of my family members that all got saved at the same time. Wow. It was a little revival that broke out in our family. And my mom and dad, who were saved, both rededicated, recommitted their life to Christ. Wow. And so it was a revival that that hit our family. But for me, I you know, I may have been in church two or three times. Um I visited the Catholic Church, visited the Baptist church a few times, but it wasn't like I had this church history or not. I didn't know how to read a hymn book. I got lost in the hymn book. You know, I didn't know how to follow the lines and it was all confusing to me. So the for the Lord to be tugging on my heart to preach when this was all foreign to me. Yes. I was I wasn't uh uh you know privy to church culture.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Yeah, yeah, totally new. Yes, sir. That's amazing. And you so your pastor, basically the interim pastor of that church, what what launched Word of God ministries? Because that man, that's just such a powerhouse, you know, instrument for the Lord to use, man. Thank you for being faithful with that. But I'm just kind of curious, you know, was that something we're like, okay, God, really? You're calling me to this, or was it something that was already in place and you stepped in? Maybe some of that journey, because that's a great ministry, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

Well, look, this is all all the Lord. It's I am who I am by the grace of God that He would write such a script that I get to follow out. But what happened early on is as I'm stepping in the pulpit, because the pastor resigned, the associate pastor immediately resigned thereafter because there was the thought that he was trying to take the church, and yeah, to make sure that that wasn't true, he stepped down. Okay. And so one of the deacons comes to me. I literally had just turned 18 and said, You're up.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

And so here I am preaching on Sundays, teaching Sunday school, midweek service, uh, the Baptist training union that evening. I'm I'm doing just about everything. And uh I remember one day I was at I was at Woodlawn High School picking up a friend of mine and uh from school after practice, football practice. And there's this young man walking down the street as a teenage boy, a young teenager, and I had never talked to anybody about Christ. And there I am on Wingate Drive, and I step out and I speak to him, and he had not accepted Christ, and I led him to Jesus right there in front of Woodlawn. Wow. Well, he lived like right across the street. So we go to his house to meet his mom. She was a nurse at what was then LSU Hospital.

SPEAKER_01 5:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

And I step into their living room, and uh uh she starts celebrating. She says, you know, I'm a single mom, I work on Sundays. Would you uh baptize my son, get him baptized, and enroll him in Sunday school? Now, this is a black family. Wow. And so I'm ecstatic. This is my first convert. Yes. And so I go by the following Saturday to make sure, you know, you're still coming. I was so excited. I pick him up that Sunday morning, take him to church, I pull in, the deacon was standing out front, I introduce him, he goes on inside, and the deacon says, Hey, I need to have a word with you, Brother James. And so we step in the Sunday school uh superintendent office, and he says, Uh, you can't baptize him here. What?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

He can attend here, but you can't baptize him.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

And I said, Why? He said, Well, you just need to take him to uh, you know, his church. I said, Well, he doesn't have a church. Ultimately, he he was rejected because of the color of his skin. So that broke me. Yeah. And um I resigned there that night.

unknown 6:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

And I feel like in that moment, Word of God was born.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

But that was something that I would have never foreseen.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

You know, that's just the Lord and his and uh leading me in into something that only he knew he what he was up to. Because I didn't know even at that moment what was what was gonna come of that.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

But there are a few times that I'm in a baptismal pool that um we baptized over 600 last year. My goodness. Over 600 the year before. I don't, I mean, I know I've baptized thousands, but there's probably not one time that I see a young black teenage boy that I don't think back to where that's probably where it all started. Wow. Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Wow, bless you. What an incredible moment for you, man. Yeah, God really gave you a moment to step up, and brother, you did. Thank you for leading the way in that that is amazing. God's blessed your church in phenomenal ways. You preach the Bible, you believe the word, you stand in our generation. Um what do you what do you say to pastors and leaders out there? I mean, I feel like a lot of them are scared to speak up and speak boldly. Do you do you sense some of that, or do you see there's a new wave of guys that are just out there preaching the word boldly, or is there a greater need for it today? Maybe you just speak to that a little bit, just as a pastor yourself. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Well, the name of Jesus has always been under attack. Even in Acts chapter 4, when the disciples are out preaching, yeah, the hierarchy of the day, the authorities of the day, religious authorities, they weren't opposed to the teaching of the Torah, the law, uh, teaching from the prophets. It was to say that Jesus is the fulfillment, that he was the Messiah, that he is the Son of God. That's where the line was crossed. And that's where the threats came in in Acts chapter 4, where they said, Hey, no more teaching in this name. No more teaching in the name of Jesus. That's right. But instead of retreating, they went into prayer. And they said, Lord, grant us boldness that we may preach your word. And they they you know, they quote the Psalm of David and Why do the heathen rage? And so in Acts 4.31, they're filled with the with the Holy Spirit. Right. And the Bible says they spake the word of God with boldness. And so instead of retreating, God just gave them power and authority and conviction to preach his name, to preach his word. And so when you when you go through the book of Acts, the message is clear. It's the word of God, it's scripture that's being taught, and that Jesus is the fulfillment of Scripture. And when you think about where the church started, we we don't build a house from the roof down, you build it from the ground up. It all started in in Matthew 16 when Jesus asked two very simple questions. Who does the world say I am? And the disciples gave all the wrong answers, nobody had it right. And he said, Okay, who do you say I am? Yeah. You don't reconcile what the world thinks about him until the church knows who he is. Wow, there you go. And so from the moment that Jesus starts his ministry in Luke 4 to his resurrection in Luke 24 when he reached when he meets the disciples on the road to Emmaus, in both cases, start and finish of his ministry, he's opening up scriptures and showing his followers who he is through the scriptures. Just as he he told the religious crowd in John chapter 5, search the scriptures. You think you see this there, but they speak of me. And so when Jesus asked those two questions, who does the world say I am? Who do you say I am? Peter, Simon, gets the revelation, oh no, you are the Christ, you are the Son of the Living God. And Jesus said, Hey, flesh and blood didn't give you this, my father gave you this, and on this I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Come on. So, and and it my conviction is that the purpose and the foundation of the church is to preach Jesus through the scripture.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Not just my interpretation of who he is or my idea of who he is. You know, I had someone join our church years ago, and they had they had come from a church, um, not this one, that uh where they were taught that Jesus could be a tree, that Jesus takes on many forms. That you can't say who Jesus is. He could take on the form of a tree to someone. That's just not accurate. No. He is the manifested word of the living God. So I feel like the church cannot compromise the written word, and we cannot compromise the name of Jesus. Wow. It's so true, man.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, it's a battle, it's a spiritual battle, we know that, but we need boldness. Paul was praying, pray that I be bold. I just think we need just a fresh touch on all of our preachers today and and uh and a calling for that. You also are not afraid, James, to tackle what someone might say cultural issues. I would say they're biblical issues, whether it's life of the unborn, you know, God's design for marriage, etc. Why are you so courageous with that? What's your burden with that? In other words, you're not just trying to say, I'm gonna stay in my little church and we're gonna, you know, teach the word and this and that, but you're not afraid to speak up and speak out. And God's honored that and he's used you in some great ways. Um, I've been on the march for life and seen you out there speaking boldly for those types of moments. What motivates you as a pastor and a leader for the Lord in in those issues and how we address that? Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

It's important. Well, I feel like in our in our cities, in our twin cities, Shreeport Bozier, uh, which is probably like so many other places around the world, yeah, we're in bondage to racism, we're in bondage to religion. And when you pull back all the layers of so much of what we face socially and culturally, I feel like that is the foundation of it. But the answer to all of that is through a relationship. Until the church realizes what was lost through sin. And when you look at what happened in the beginning when man sinned, God's first recorded words after man sinned was where art thou? So man was distant. Adam ran from the presence of God. So when you look at those first recorded words, where art thou? Jesus came to restore what was lost. And what was lost was not religion. What was lost was a relationship. And a relationship with the Father is what heals us from the division of racism, the brokenness of religion. And so much of what, in my opinion, we're facing that's divisive in our relationship is restored through a relationship with the Father. Now, when the Father reveals himself to me, when Jesus reveals himself to me, and I now have this testimony of who he has been to me, my my responsibility now is to testify. My my responsibility is now and go represent what was presented to me. There you go. This God of truth, this God of love, this God of life. And so when you look on the authority of God's word from creation through the fall to redemption, the full canon of scripture, the full volume, and how Jesus is the Aleph, He's the Tov, He's the first, the last, He's the author, He's the finisher, He's the fulfillment of the of the whole canon of Scripture. When when I go out, or when we go out as a church, our job is to represent, represent, to represent what's been presented to us. And I feel like we've gotten weak where we allow the world to paint this picture that's not our Father, it's not our God. You know, you hear people say, well, you know, well, God doesn't see color, and we shouldn't see color. And I think we've said amen to that, but it's not accurate. God made color. In the book of Ephesians, when the Bible speaks of God's wisdom through his kingdom, the word, the word is used manifold, speaking of the manifold wisdom of God, which literally means many are diverse. And so there is a way that we can represent the heart of God when it comes to racism, when it comes to life, when it can, when it comes to marriage. But how can I represent what's not been presented to me? How can I speak the truth if I don't know the truth? And so when you think about, just for an example, um life itself, to know that God authored life. Yes. That and it that that life begins in the womb. Yes. To know that he tells Jeremiah, before I formed you in the belly, I knew you. Before you came out of the womb, I had already ordained and had a purpose for your life. To know that 2 Timothy 1.9 teaches not only did Jesus come to give us salvation, but he came to give us purpose. That every life is significant. It doesn't matter what where you come from, it doesn't matter where you live, your skin color, none of that mattered. Every life has a purpose. So once I gained these truths and these convictions about life and identity and purpose, no, my responsibility is to go represent that to the world. Not to be embarrassed by it, but to represent it. But not in a not in an ugly way, not in a condemning way. You know, when Jesus talked about our going out in Luke chapter 6 and giving and it being given back to us, good measure pressed down, shaken together, and run over, the things that he listed that we should be giving is love and goodness and mercy, and that we should be giving forgiveness and not condemnation and judgment. So I believe there's a way we can represent the heart of the Father without being condemning and judgmental. For Jesus said in Matthew 6.35 that when we do that, we become children of the highest, who is kind to the evil and kind to the unthankful. I guess the point I'm getting at is that we can do what Ephesians called us to do, and that speak the truth and do it in love, so that I'm representing the truth and the heart of God as it relates to life, as it relates to identity and purpose. I can speak the truth, but at the same time, I can be respectful and I can be kind and not be you know angry and judgmental and condemning as if I have it all right and you have it all wrong. And um I think we have to find that that place where I don't have to be embarrassed by truth. And I can speak the truth and I can do it in love. And walking in love doesn't mean I compromise truth, or walking in truth doesn't mean I compromise love. That's a long answer to the truth.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

No, I think well, I just think it's important. I just think a lot of people that, again, we know that presenting Christ and sharing his truth, it's going to be, quote, divisive. There's going to be people that receive it, people reject it. The Apostle Paul deal with it, the disciples dealt with it, the world, we live in this fallen world that needs Christ. So I just think that some of that just it silences so many, it scares so many, and yet we literally have the greatest relationship the world will ever know. And by his grace, we have experienced it, so why not share it? I think just one of the things that I have appreciated about you and your family is you do you do love your family. And again, we all have challenges, we all have you know trials that we all go through as families, but you said something to me recently, it's just very important about our kids and our families. Why is that so important to you as a husband, as a dad? Obviously as a pastor, but I think first being a husband and a dad, I'm just curious. I just think that's important. Uh it's a good word, good perspective, good priority you you share with me. Can you just unpack that a little bit? Because you got how many kids do you have? Three or four? Four. Four kids, yeah. So what what is that value to you and your in your wife?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Well, I I come from my wife and I both come from a strong family family, so we we grew up in a culture of that strength. However, for me, early in ministry, very young in ministry, uh, I witnessed how church became God. I saw it firsthand. Yeah. Where church is God, and if church is God, then it's first, and family falls second. I saw this firsthand, I saw the results of it firsthand. I remember, and I'm single, I'm young, yeah, uh younger, still young.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, of course you are.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

And so I'm younger, and I'm watching this, I'm I'm single, no children, early in ministry, and I'm seeing in the church, through leadership, unfortunately, yeah, that church is God, it's first, family falls second. And I just remember being convicted and uh and and and actually hurt. You know, it's hurt, it was hurtful to see what families went through. And it made sense why pre PK's preacher's kids got such a bad rap. And I just remember early on praying and committing to God that that would not be with me. Yeah. That church is not God, God is God. Church is church, and family is first after my relationship with God. Honor begins in the home. It's the first commandment of honor in the home that came with a promise in Exodus chapter 20, echoed in Ephesians 6. So and then when you look at the call of pastor and servant deacon, the two offices of the church both come with, you have to qualify. Yeah. And the qualification to be in those two ordained seats in ministry is that you lead your home well. Yeah. And yet we put our families on the altar so we can go do church. Wow. God says if you don't have your family together, you don't qualify for ministry. That's right. So I've I've been blessed and would not have known early on because uh the the word of God wasn't the scale it is now when Christian and I marry and we we start our our our journey and have our first child. Um you know, I uh things look different then, but the conviction was there. Yeah, and the Lord's blessed in that we've been able to be intentional about our children, and um, that's my first ministry. Yeah and I'm so grateful. And to know that you may judge the fruit of the ministry, you may judge the fruit of me as a pastor, this, that, and the other. Help yourself. But ultimately, you I cannot separate myself from the fruit that is my fruit. My wife and I, our fruit are our children. That's right. And so for me, that's first.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Man, that is, I just wanted you to be able to share that on this on this podcast today because I do think, and there's different pressure points with everybody with that, but I do, I love what you said. It was early on you saw that. Early on you set that tone for your family. I saw that mentored and modeled to me early on. And I grew up, you know, with three different dads and growing up with a lot of different dysfunction with that. And I think for Steph and I, it was like, no, come what may, no matter what scope of ministry the Lord allows us, we're gonna make sure family is our first ministry. And man, there's such a blessing in that. Not easy. Everybody has their challenges, of course, but I appreciate that perspective and for modeling that. Um, James, thank you for your friendship. Thank you for your boldness, thank you for your faithfulness. I'm praying God just continues to, man, just protect you, use you, uh, empower you, brother. Thanks for making a difference in our generation. We need it, bro. Yes, sir. Honor. Thank you. Well, thank you, thank you for the invitation invitation. You've been honored to visit with you. Well, we love you, man. Thank you guys for joining us today on the podcast. I pray that you've been encouraged, and I pray that you make a big time difference for Jesus this week. God bless you.