Breaking Barriers for Christ!

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Welcome back to It's Time to Man Up, real talk with real man, Nikita Kolov, the devil's worst nightmare. Let me ask you a question. Are you using your God-given talent for His glory? Each of us has been given unique gifts and talents, skills and abilities. On our show today, we have a special story how one man gathered together a group of athletes to perform unique feats of strength and share the gospel message. Christian athletes from the NFL, WWE, MMA, Olympians, football players, wrestlers, weightlifters, boxers and many more. In studio with me today, Jeff Terrell, founder of Faith Force.

This ministry launched in 1998, so they've been around for 22 years based in Burlington, North Carolina. Jeff is married to Rhonda. Jeff, just great to have you in the studio today, man. Thanks for coming in. Great to be here, brother.

Looking forward to it all week. Awesome. Well, you know what? We're just going to have a conversation. How's that sound?

Does that work for you? We're just going to talk about what you've been up to, what you've been doing, what Faith Force is doing. Let's just open up and give a little background on Faith Force. What have you been doing the last 22 years?

Give us a snapshot of what you've been doing. Right. Well, you mentioned the backgrounds and the sports that our athletes have. Our guys come from all different kinds of backgrounds in sports.

Some are professional athletes, some are collegiate athletes, some are amateur athletes, but the thing we all have in common is we all love Jesus Christ. And God has given us talents and abilities, and we want to use those strengths and those talents and abilities for His glory. So we come together and we'll do outreach events, we'll do school assemblies, we'll use the feats of strength as a bait, kind of a way to get attention and capture folks' attention long enough to go after their hearts. And then once we've got their attention, we share the gospel. We share in churches and in outreach events we do. But in schools, it's more of a character-based message, and we invite the kids back to another event where we can share the gospel, share our testimonies.

But it's powerful, brother, just to see how it touches these kids' lives. Okay, so a couple things you talked about there. So let's talk about the school assemblies. So you're going to schools, and you're not necessarily preaching the gospel in the school.

You're doing more feats of strength, like you said. Give an example. What are some of the things you guys would do that captures the attention of these kids? We'll break baseball bats. We'll take Louisville Slugger baseball bats and break them over our backs.

Not over your head. At times we do. There was a wrestler named Sting I think used to use a baseball bat too. Oh yeah, yeah. We'll blow up hot water bottles. We'll bust soda cans with our hands. We'll bend horseshoes, bend steel bars, all kinds of fun stuff. Roll up frying pans. Roll up frying pans, that's right. Tear license plates in our teeth. Hold on, tear license plates with your teeth.

With your teeth, yeah. Okay, well that might garner some attention from a student. Oh yeah, definitely. Okay, so you're going into these school assemblies and doing all these feats of strength, and then is there a message to go along with the feats of strength?

Oh yeah. We get real with these kids. I mean, we talk about the things that they're dealing with, social media, bullying, drugs, the things that these kids are dealing with on a daily basis. Of course, our messages are geared towards the age group that we're in. If we're in elementary schools, we're talking about more character-based messages. But it's always about respecting others and being the best we can be, just going in there, studying hard, working hard. But it's interesting how even when we're sharing these messages, the Holy Spirit is still working in these schools.

I mean, we're not even talking about Jesus in the schools, but yet the Holy Spirit's working. And we had an event, in fact, gosh, it's probably been a couple years ago, where we were in the high school assembly. At the end of the assembly, we had three young girls come down. They were just in tears.

They said, what do we need to do to get saved? At the school assembly? At the school assembly, yeah. What do you do in a situation like that? I mean, obviously we're in the Bible Belt, but some schools get real maybe weird about that, right?

In a way? Well, one-on-one, you can share Christ one-on-one. If they come up and they ask you about your faith, we can share Christ one-on-one. Which happens a lot of times at the end of assemblies.

Kids will come down, they want to talk to us, they want to shake our hands, get an autograph. That's a perfect opportunity to share Christ. And so these three girls come down, they said, what do we need to do to get saved?

Well, we weren't even talking about getting saved. We were talking about bullying and social media and all this stuff. So we said, well, here's what you need to do. And so we introduced them to Christ right there in that school assembly at the end. And all these other kids started gathering around, listening to what we were saying. At the end of that message, eight of those kids gave their lives to Christ. Oh, that's amazing. You know, I can relate to that, Jeff, because I've done school assemblies as well.

Now, I'm not rolling up frying pans and I'm not putting anybody in headlocks. Mine is more of just a message, a positive message. And what's interesting though is the way, and I'm sure I know you can relate to this, the way the Lord gave it to me to deliver the message. You might say there's scripture in there without scripture being in there. You know what I'm saying?

So I'm not referencing John 3.16 or some other scripture. But invariably, every single time, whether it's students like that, or even teachers, or in some cases, even the principal, they'll come up, they'll go, hey, you're a... they'll kind of whisper, you know, you're a Christian, aren't you? And I go, yeah, now, you know, I'm like, I'm not going to hide it. Yeah, as a matter of fact, I knew it. I knew you were like, those were like scriptures you were like, you know.

So it's almost like God has a way of just working into the hearts of people, as you said, by the Holy Spirit, right? Well, people will say to me, man, I really appreciate what you're doing in our schools. Don't ever stop doing that. You know, we just really appreciate what you're telling these kids about. And I'll say, you know, well, you know, we're not going to. And they'll say, well, we just need God back in our schools. We need God back in our schools. And I'll look at them and say, can I tell you a secret?

And they're like, yeah. I'll say, he never lived. He's still in these schools.

He still loves these kids. He's omnipotent, right? Omniscient, omnipresent.

He's right. He's everywhere at all times. Oh, yeah.

Whether we realize it or not, he's there. That's right. So, well, that's pretty amazing. So, OK, so you're doing the school assemblies. And so from there, then you invite those kids and say, hey, if you want to hear more, the Paul Harvey, rest of the story. Hey, come on out to like to a church or where do you invite him to? It can be a church or it could actually be at that same school. OK. And at nighttime, we may do a nighttime event there at the school using their auditorium or their gym.

Sometimes it's in a church, but we'll invite them and their families to come back. And that's where we get to share the gospel testimonies. And all these guys, they've got such powerful testimonies. They're from different backgrounds. But the cool thing is, with most of these guys, they don't talk about their sports very much. When we get together, some of these guys have belts and rings and titles and trophies.

But when we get together, they don't talk about this stuff, man. They talk about Jesus. And it's so cool because they're hardest to see these kids and their families come to Christ. And so they share the very same things that they've dealt with in life, the same fears, the same problems they've gone through in life. They share these things with kids and families. And people are like, well, wow, if this guy is an Olympic athlete or if he's a professional football player and he's dealt with the same things I have and he can make it through this, then I can make it through this. Yeah, a lot of times people in general will look up to someone like yourself or, like you said, a professional athlete or something without realizing, look, they put their pants on one leg at a time.

They've got some of the same issues, some of the same struggles, some of the same challenges that anybody else has. And so I imagine 22 years of ministry with faith force that you've seen, I mean, you've seen a lot of things happen over the years. Let me ask you this. What would you say might be the, let's just say the biggest wow moment? Like, you know, God showed up and it was obvious, but like for you guys, you were like, wow, did you guys just see that?

Did you just see what God did? Is there anything like immediately that maybe comes to mind, a memory, an event? There's so many, but one that really sticks out in my mind is we were given an opportunity to go to Russia, which I know you've been the Russian nightmare. I've been the Russian nightmare, but I've never been to Russia just for the record. One day I hope to go, Red Square, Moscow.

It's beautiful. People ask us all the time, they say, well, what are people like in Russia or Cuba, these other countries that you go to? And I always tell them, man, people are just people. Wherever you go, they've got jobs, they've got families, they've got problems with their government.

They have issues. Wherever you go, people are people. But we had an incredible time there. We spent a lot of time going into ministry centers where kids who had aged out of orphanage systems, basically they had nowhere to go. And so a lot of times they get sucked up into human trafficking.

Yeah, they're a real target for that, aren't they? Oh, yeah. And so we were doing ministry centers one night. We were actually traveling, doing back and forth to different centers and went to one in particular. And during the event, I noticed that I was sharing a message. We'd done a few feats of strength. We were having a good time.

The folks were really enjoying the program. They'd never seen anything like this before. And I looked in the back of the room and I could see this girl in the very back. And she had the saddest look on her face of anybody I've ever seen. And I remember thinking, I've got to go talk to this girl. And the Holy Spirit said, get you a translator and go back there.

So I grabbed one of the translators and we walked back there after the program was over. And I said, I introduced myself. And she introduced herself as Natasha. And I said, Natasha, you look so sad.

What's wrong? She said, I have nothing to be happy about. She was an orphan. She had been sucked up into the sex slave trade.

She had a one-year-old little boy with her and she was pregnant at the time. And she had managed to escape from her captors. She'd managed to escape and get away and get to this ministry center. And so we just talked to her and ministered to her. And I just said, Lord, what do I do here?

I need to help her. And so I started praying for her and I said, Lord, please help Natasha. And as clear as I'm talking to you right now, Nikita, he said to me, that's why I sent you here.

And so that was one of the most powerful moments. The funny thing is, before that even happened, we had came there with a team of medical missionaries. And they were doing medical missions in Russia. And so they asked us to come. They wanted to do some evangelistic outreach while we were there. And so they told us, they said, it's going to cost probably about $12,000 for three of you guys to come.

And so at the time we had about maybe $2,000 in our bank account for this. And so I was praying about it. And I said, well, we don't have the money right now, but we'll pray about it.

God will make a way if he wants us to come. I was watching James Robinson on TV, and I love their ministry life outreach. And so Lord put on my heart to give them $1,250. And so I said, Lord, we need $12,000. And he said, give them $1,250. So I wrote a check out, sent it in to him.

And the next week I get a call from the medical missions team that we were going with. And he said, you're not going to believe this. He said, I just got a call from a businessman from North Korea who wants to give us $10,000 to help with an evangelistic outreach in Russia.

Now, what's the odds of a North Korean businessman calling to give $10,000 to do evangelistic outreach in Russia? Right, right. Imagine that, right? And so he said, man, we're going to give it to you guys. Yeah. The power of God.

Oh my goodness. It was just incredible. And so God had a plan.

He knew what was going to happen. And while we were there, I mean, we saw so many kids come to Christ. And we went into some detention facilities. We went into ministry centers.

We went into orphanages. And God just moved in such a powerful way the whole week. If you feel you're receiving value from this show, it's time to man up. And you'd like to support the show along with Koloff for Christ Ministries, go to koloff.org.

koloff.org and make a donation of any amount, a note, you want my latest book, and you'll receive a personalized copy of Nikita, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. But part of that story, what resonates with me is your obedience, though. You were obedient to sell the $1,250. And then in return, God says, okay, let me multiply. He sees your heart.

And he says, okay, let me multiply. Let me bless the giver. God loves a cheerful giver.

So he blesses you with a Korean businessman who strokes a $10,000 check to get you over to where you need to be so that you can proclaim the good news to the world. And the other thing, Jeff, I'm reminded of too, even as you're saying about the one girl and God saying, hey, I sent you here for this, is I'm reminded of God will leave the 99 to go find the one. That's right.

You know, he may have a big fold, but he'll leave the 99 to go find the one. And he directs your path over there to talk to this young lady and speak hope into her life, right? That's right.

That's right. I mean, we'd love to see thousands come to Christ at one event. But I tell people all the time, if it's just one person, God wants us to go after just one person. So every day I wake up, I'm like, Lord, who's the one today?

Who do you want to send to me today? That's good. Well, and I find that's a great point, because even for myself, and I've never personally never really been a numbers guy. I mean, I've been predominantly out of all the, you know, 1200 plus or minus churches I've ministered in and preached in. I mean, I'm not in mega churches and I'm okay with that. Apparently God doesn't need me in the mega church. Apparently there's enough megas already in the church.

They don't need the Russian nightmare in the mega church. And so, you know, I mean, I've been up in the foothills of Kentucky and heard some of the most miraculous stories, right? And met some of the most wonderful people, little tiny churches who just love Jesus, right?

And so, you know, the doors of opportunity open. We just have to be, have our eyes open and then be willing to, or to be obedient to when he calls us, whether it's to write a check or go to a country, you know, to minister the gospel, right? That's right.

That's right. I'm like you, I mean, we've been in small churches, the smallest of churches in West Virginia to the biggest of even coliseums, you know, like you've been in coliseums in front of thousands of people. You weren't doing ministry at the time, but, you know, to see that many people, you think, wow, you know, someday we're going to stand before the Lord and there's going to be billions before the Lord, you know?

And so, I mean, I like numbers. I like to see lots of people get saved because I want everybody to get saved. Sure. At the same time, I know that even in the smallest of churches, you know, there may be one person, like you said, we got to go after that one person. Yeah. I mean, again, you know, God's heart is, you know, is for everyone. His heart is that everyone gets saved, right?

Yeah. So, I mean, that's, and that's a powerful, and I'm guessing over 22 years you have, you mentioned you'd love to see thousands come to Christ. You've probably never totaled it up and again, cause you're not about numbers like me, but I mean, I know for me, whether it's been a wrestling outreach or service I'm preaching at or, or, or, you know, facilitating a man camp or all the different things that I've done over the years, I mean, I, I feel as though, well, I can confidently say that I've seen, witnessed thousands. I mean, I can think one time, a quick story, one time where Lex, no, not Lex, Lex Luger and I do a lot of ministry together, but in this particular time with Sting, the Million Dollar Man, Ted DiBiase and myself, we were in the Indianapolis at a, at a youth event with over 43,000 teenagers. And, you know, we did a dramatization and then from the dramatization, we shared our stories and our testimonies and, and we saw that night over 10,000 youth, young people respond to the altar and which is an incredible, incredible time.

And then the one other real quick story is, is in Jamaica. And now Lex was with me on that one and he and I shared our story. There were over 73,000 standing all day long in pouring rain, wanted to see this wrestling exhibition that we put on. And then we shared our stories and again, just thousands that filled out a, you know, a card indicating that they wanted to give their life to Jesus.

So, so you guys, you do these school assemblies, you do these feats of strength and you use that kind of as a launching pad, if you will, to get them sometimes to, to your evening events. I mean, if, if there's, let's say there's a church out there, a pastor out there or, or even a school that would want to bring faith force in at some point in the future. I mean, how, how would they get ahold of you?

What, what would they do? They can just go to our website, faithforce.com or they can look us up on Facebook or on Facebook, faith force. They can also contact me, Jeff Terrell at faithforce.com. You know, I'd be glad to talk to them about what it takes to put together an event. It could even be a prison. We're going to do a lot of prison outreach.

You know, right now, because of COVID, things have changed a lot. And you know, of course, it's more difficult, but I had a great call this morning with a warden from prison in this area. And he's going to allow us to actually come in and do a Zoom conference meeting with these inmates and their children. And so we're going to do a faith force program for their kids at a church and then have food and games and music, have a great time. And we pray that some of these kids will come to Christ and they're in their guardian. But we're going to present that video to the inmates because these inmates haven't seen their kids since March.

They haven't seen their families. So, you know, it could be any of the, anybody really, anybody who wants to contact faith force, go through our website. Okay.

Schools, churches, prisons. There's a lot, a lot of different ways that you guys do outreaches to the community. Tell me, we've just got just really a few minutes left here. Give me, give me a, give me an elevator version of your story.

I mean, just like for real, like, you know, just a short version of how you came to Christ. What happened? You know, like a lot of kids, you know, when I was young, I was overweight and I got bullied and picked on a lot in school. So I started playing sports to kind of help me lose weight. And then I got involved in bodybuilding. And as a teenager, you know, my goal was to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He was my hero. I wanted to be just like Arnold and compete in bodybuilding. And so I started competing and actually won the Teenage Mr. North Carolina and a few other shows. And so my dream was to go on to be a pro bodybuilder. And of course, you know, in order to reach the heights of that sport and in a lot of sports, there's a temptation to do drugs.

You know, there's steroids. And so, unfortunately, I made a bad choice and I got involved with drugs and, you know, I started getting bigger, started getting stronger. But at the same time, I started having some health problems. And so I went to the doctor and he ran some blood tests on me. He said, Jeff, he said, your liver looks like it's in somebody who's an alcoholic.

He said, if you don't come off these drugs, you're going to die. And so I left there that day. I was so discouraged. I was so just depressed because I thought, you know, and my dream is being taken away from me. And so I went home and my parents had gone out to dinner that night. And I remember I was sitting in my bedroom and I thought, my dad, my dad's got a pistol underneath his bed. So I walked back in my parents' bedroom. I grabbed the pistol and I walked back to my bedroom. I put the gun to my head and I was about to pull the trigger when I heard a voice say, Jeff, call me. I'll save you.

I'll set you free. And I'd heard that voice many times before, but I'd always pushed it aside. I grew up in church. My grandfather was a pastor and so I grew up in church.

I knew how to talk the talk, but I wasn't walking the walk. And so that night I remember I just cried out to the Lord. I said, Lord, please help me. Please set me free. I de-cocked the gun.

I set the gun down. I just started crying out to the Lord. I knew that he was in the room with me. I mean, I just, I felt his presence. You know, they said, you actually heard God, some people say, you actually heard God speak to you.

And I can't say it was an audible voice, but it was as clear as we're talking right now, Nikita. And so I knew that he, he was there with me and he saved me. He set me free. How old were you? 18 years old.

18 years old. Man, that's, and then the Lord's led you on this path of taking athletes from all kinds of sports and backgrounds and taking you around the world. And it's been great to have you in the studio today. Thank you, brother. I've enjoyed doing ministry with you.

You know, it was 20 years ago that you and I met. We did our first ministry event together and I love you. I pray for you all the time. I appreciate you.

I appreciate you and just want to encourage our listeners out there, man. Just, just be encouraged by that, that God is a God of hope. And so no matter how, what, where you're at, how desperate you might be, you might be in a place of desperation right now. Even listening to this show that if you just, as Jeff just said, cried out to God, God help.

If it's just something as simple as that, God help me. He will. He's there. He's only, he's only, he's, he's as far as far away as, as you reaching out and grabbing hold of him. So as always, I just want to end our show today with, with a short story and Jeff, you might actually relate to this story. It says, Nikita, you'll, you'll probably never know how grateful I am that God prompted you to challenge me to take a step towards him and join you at your camp. Your courage gave me courage. Your example gave me confidence and your heart gave me trust. I'm grateful for my new relationship with God and I rejoice daily in the fact that I no longer walk in fear. I'm saved by grace and now have a heart that is being filled with unconditional love. I'm truly amazed at what I thought I knew and the baggage I carried with those thoughts. Giving up what was in my head and opening up my heart to God.

Sounds like what you did. Opening up my heart to God has changed the way for me to begin my true quest. My walk in obedience and my walk towards freedom forever.

I love you brother, John D. Phillips. And that story was from a man, again, he can reach anyone, right? He can reach anyone. I mean, this particular man, a friend of mine was, was a multimillionaire and just challenged him and just understand it's, it's not all about money. Money doesn't solve, money can solve some difficulties, but, but it doesn't buy us our eternal life, right?

Only our salvation, our surrender in our heart and our life to Jesus can give us that. If you're out there today and I mean something, you heard a little bit of Jeff's story today, you know, how desperate he was. I just shared a story with you, John and, and, and really it's what he didn't know. It's not what he did know. It's what he didn't know. He thought he had everything, right?

He thought he had everything. He was successful and had the big house and the fancy cars and traveled around the world, but yet he came to camp and realized he had really had nothing without Jesus. And so if you're out there today, you're listening and maybe you've never surrendered your life to Jesus or given him a chance, then just call out to him right now, call out to him. And just remember this, life is not measured by duration. Life is measured by donation.

I mean, there's a point in time of birth, there's an appointed time of death. And then what are you going to do with that time in between? What are you doing with your life? What impact are you making?

You may not roll up frying pans. You may not put somebody in a headlock, you know, you may not fly in private jets around the world, but yet God has you here for a reason. God has you here for a purpose.

Search that out. Find the calling on your own life. And just know today, real talk with real men is what we're all about. Because it's time to man up. Men, I would like to challenge each of you to consider spending five days with Lex Luger and I at man camp, pursuing the heart of God. Ladies, if you're listening, we'll send your men home better equipped to be men of God, godly husbands and godly fathers. That appeals to you, give them your blessing and encourage them to sign up today at mancamp.info. Pastors, if you would like to bring Koloff for Christ Ministries and Man Up Conference to your community, go to koloff.org and email me. Remember this, it's time to man up. This is the Truth Network.