Vision Week Radio Special - Part A

Today, we will connect with Skip Heitzig in the studio as we begin Vision Week, where Skip will look back, look around at the state of this media outreach, and look forward to projects planned for the future.

Stay with us today. You will hear Skip talk about his experience in the Jesus movement, give advice for young married couples, and explain his hopes for a next spiritual awakening. I'm praying for an outpouring of God's Spirit in a new and a fresh way. And I think culturally, societally, especially post-COVID, we're ripe for it. And I think the Lord could give that to us.

I'm praying for that kind of revival. Now, let's join Skip Heitzig in the studio for a conversation with Chip Lusko on Vision Week. Well, Skip, it's good to have you in studio for annual Vision Week. We are going to spend time looking back, looking around, and then looking forward to see what's on your heart for the future. Well, I'm excited to be in the studio. I'm excited to talk about what God has done.

Truly, he has done incredible work. And I'm really grateful to be sharing the studio with you, because you and I go back to the early days, not only in Calvary Chapel in California, but in the inception of this church. Skip, so we have many new friends over the past couple of years.

We've seen terrific growth in our contacts with Connection and Connect with Skip listeners. So not everybody, though, is familiar with your story, which is a remarkable one. I mean, technically, every testimony of coming to Christ is remarkable, but yours really has some interesting facets. Would you go back to Southern California and just bring our audience into those days when you were coming to Christ?

Chip, I'd love to do that. In fact, I was just there the last couple of days with a childhood friend, the one who introduced me to Christ, or at least a relationship with Jesus on a personal level. And I was raised in a traditional Catholic home in Southern California. I went to church every week. I did not have a personal relationship with Jesus.

That never was stressed. But in 1973, during kind of the beginning and moving to the height of the Jesus movement in Southern California, I was introduced to this crazy group of young kids called Calvary Chapel, run by Chuck Smith. And I was scared of them because I had never seen Christians so vocal, and they were like giddy happy all the time, and I thought, nobody can really do that without drugs.

You know, you can't legitimately be that happy in reality unless you have a mind-altering substance. So I got away from them. I was living with my brother in San Jose, and when I was all alone in his apartment, I was turning on the television, just kind of flipping through the channels. He wasn't in the house.

I was alone. I had been looking for a job. I had applied to San Jose State University.

I was hoping to get accepted, so I was moving from Southern California to Northern California. And then I ended up on a channel where Billy Graham was preaching, and my father always told me that there's a few things you should do in life. You should be a good public speaker. You should play golf. You should go to college.

Those are the three value system things you have to do. So I had learned to play golf. I wanted to go to college, so I signed up for it, and Billy Graham I knew was a good public speaker, so I thought, what the heck, I'll listen to Billy Graham. Well, during that period of watching him on television, and I went to the refrigerator.

I was underage, but I went to the refrigerator and grabbed a beer because I was alone in the apartment. And I opened it up and I thought, I'm going to watch Billy Graham and have a beer. Well, the Holy Spirit really broke through, and I started feeling what I had never felt before, and it was conviction. It was conviction of my sin, and it was a desire for a real relationship with the Lord. I knew I didn't have it.

I knew my friends down South in this Jesus movement thing had it, but I kind of for the first time understood where they were coming from because somebody like Billy was explaining it. And I just remember listening, and then at the end, when he gave an invitation and asked people to come down, and people were flooding from the grandstands onto the field, praying to receive Christ, I remember thinking, if I was in that stadium, I would get up, and I would probably do the same thing. That's how I felt.

I knew it was right. And then I had another thought. You know how your mind kind of competes with itself? And I grabbed my thought and said, it's a good thing you're not in that stadium.

You can escape this. And I was about ready to turn off the television, and Billy Graham turns right into the camera, and he says, if you're watching by television, you can know Christ right now. You might be lonely. And I thought, ah, he just read my mind.

He read my thoughts. And I was feeling lonely. I was feeling isolated.

I didn't have a lot of friends up in the area. And the fact that he turned to the camera, it was like the Lord used him to speak directly to me. And he said, just like all these people have prayed to receive Christ, I'm following this whole UltraCall thing, you can do it right now at home. So I turned the television off, went into my room, and I prayed a simple prayer. And it wasn't really a great prayer. It was sort of like a dumb post-high school, like, hi, God, I don't know why you'd want me.

You're getting a bad deal if you get me, but I'm getting a great deal if I get this. You know, it was one of those kind of prayers. But it was from the heart. I asked Jesus into my life. I knew something had changed. I didn't hear a voice, didn't see bright lights. I felt clean. I felt like the guilt was removed.

I felt like a weight had lifted off my shoulder. I knew something was different, didn't quite know what, didn't know how to explain it, did not know any of the Bible. And I left there, went back down to Southern California, because I knew there was a church that was a growing church that I had to be a part of. And it was a Bible-teaching church.

And I remember going back down south, I rode my Honda 450 double overhead cam motorcycle from San Jose straight down to Southern California in one day, and a friend of mine saw me. And I had gone to high school with him, and he wanted a witness to me, because he knew that I needed to be saved, but he didn't know what had happened to me. And he said, Skip, have you been born again? And I said, What did you just say to me? He said, Have you been born again? I go, Where did you get that phrase? Where did you get that word?

I've never heard that before. And the reason I wanted him to explain it is because that's how I felt. I was looking for a way to describe how I felt in my salvation. And the term born again perfectly described what happened to me, but I had never heard the term until then. And then he explained, Jesus said, You must be born again. It's right here in the Bible. And it was like, wow, that's a perfect way to describe the Christian experience.

It's a brand new start. So, in short, that's what happened to me. I prayed by watching a television broadcast, then I got plugged into a local church. We came to the Lord in the same era, under the same ministry. And at that time, that was normal to us. In retrospect, these years later, what happened during that Jesus movement was not, it was abnormal, wouldn't you say? It could happen again, however. It could, and I'm praying it does. I'm praying for an outpouring of God's Spirit in a new and a fresh way.

And I think culturally, societally, especially post-COVID, we're ripe for it. And I think the Lord could give that to us. I'm praying for that kind of revival. It really was revival.

It wasn't just a bandwagon effect. I mean, lives were changed that remained, the fruit remains to this day. There's countless people that I know whose life had been changed, including my friend that I talked about, that I was in Southern California with, who, by the way, went to that church. The reason I went to San Jose is because he had gotten saved at a Saturday night concert. His life was transformed. On a Saturday, we were smoking marijuana in his home. His mom was gone.

We were getting high. That night, he went to the concert, got saved, gave his life to Christ. The next day, he's preaching to me in that same house that I'm a sinner, I need to repent, I need to come to Christ. And I got so angry with him, I grabbed him, put him up against the wall, and I said, Don't you ever talk to me like that again.

You're not even a good Catholic, let alone a Christian. So I didn't think anybody could change that quickly. I thought it was impossible. And I took umbrage at it. So I left after that incident and said, I'm getting away from these people.

And then God chased me and got a hold of me. I'd like your thought on this, Skip. It seems to me that that generation, our generation, was actively seeking. They had rejected, in large part, capitalism, in some ways Americanism, and they were actively looking. I'm not sure that's true now. There's a great dissatisfaction. I hope it turns into a spiritual hunger, don't you?

Yes, I do. And we're seeing a troubling trend with people classifying themselves as nones. N-O-N-E-S. They're none of the above. They're not affiliated with the church or tradition. And as time goes on, you find less and less people even willing to come to anything organized. Listen, churches, ministers have gotten a bad rap for some good reasons. I mean, there's a lot of hypocrisy that turns a lot of people off. But there are great pockets of authentic believers. And really what it takes is a real converted person, a life change, and you get to hear it and see it.

And when you do, it's powerful. Let's go back to the fact that you were one of the probably millions who responded to the voice of Billy Graham when he made the altar call. You've become personal friends with Franklin Graham, his son, and you had a significant relationship with Billy himself. How surprised were you by that?

Very surprised. And I got to know Franklin through a mutual friend, Dennis Aghajanian. And Franklin came here after a meeting we were both at, and we just became friends.

We liked many of the same things, motorcycles, things like that. And I had Franklin speak at the church. Franklin eventually asked me on his board, and we have been friends for decades. But in those early years, I had the privilege of going to his childhood home, meeting his mom, Ruth, and his father, Billy, and having dinner there a few times, and speaking back there where Billy would come and listen.

They were always so gracious and so sweet and would reach out, and Ruth would call. And with Billy, with Dr. Graham, just the opportunity to sit in his home and ask him questions about the Kennedy era and the presidents he met and theologians he talked to. And what I was struck with is the humility, not fake, genuine humility that God was still using him, to the point where when he did his first worldwide outreach from Puerto Rico, it was the first time technologically they could reach the world simultaneously. That afternoon, he was kind of pacing out in front of his little hotel room, saying, I just hope people come tonight. I'm thinking, you're Billy Graham. Somebody needs to tell this man, he's Billy Graham.

People are going to come tonight. And of course, it was an incredible success. Well, since we're in the look-back phase, we have to note that of all the places in the world that Billy and his son could choose to preach the first time jointly, they picked Albuquerque, New Mexico. And that's cool. And you know how it happened. I invited Franklin to come and do an event here, and he agreed to do it. Well, Dr. Graham heard about it, and he was the one who goes, well, I'd like to come. He said that to his son. Well, I'd like to be a part of that. And he said, well, daddy, because that's what he called him. Are you sure you want to do that?

I go, I am. So then he called me and goes, almost like, is this okay if my dad comes? So it just brought it to a whole new level. And you're right, you had it right. It was historic. It was the first time they shared together. So in passing the baton of the Billy Graham Evangelistic organization around to Franklin, it wasn't like I do crusades and eventually you will, but let's do it together. So it was sort of a public hand toss of the baton. Beautiful to watch.

Well, we're glad you worked him into the schedule. Well, Skip, you are a church planter, and I'm not sure the exact ratio of success, but it's not high. What would you say to someone who is church planning or thinking about it, and maybe struggling with the whole concept these days?

I've called church planning the extreme sports of the Christian world. You sort of have to be a maverick, sort of be a cowboy. You have to be willing to take risks, have to be willing to be uncomfortable, take your family through the paces, get a job. I remember when I wanted to be a pastor, a church planner, the best advice my pastor gave me is get a job, get a life, have a career, do something you can do with your hands that you can go anywhere and get a job in. That's why I went to radiology training.

Human body is pretty much the same worldwide, so if you know about that and you can apply the skills in the medical community, you can work anywhere. So that motivated me to get that education and use that as my tent making. So I would recommend that to people. First of all, it's fun. It's adventurous.

It is putting your faith on the edge, on the line. I mean, if you want to kind of live an exciting life, take a risk. Do something big. Go big. Go daring.

Be daring and try it. Chip, you've done it, so you know exactly what I'm talking about. Well, Skip, for the sake of our new friends in the audience, let's hit the highlights now. You could have stayed in Southern California and had, let's face it, a terrific career. Lots of opportunities. I was there and I know what could have and would have happened.

You chose to get in the, I think, well, the car was burning oil. We know that much about it. That's true. And you and your wife, Lenya, your new wife, Lenya, had just gotten married and chugged off to Albuquerque, New Mexico.

That's right. You were at the wedding. So you saw us off. We took a brief honeymoon up to Santa Barbara, said goodbye to the coast, and then we moved east.

That's what I tell people. I moved east. So for people listening in the eastern part of the United States, I'm out west in Albuquerque.

But if you're living on the coast of California, anything's east, right? So I moved east, came two states away to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and didn't know much about it other than a friend of mine was doing radio in the area. I was looking for a place that there wasn't a church like what we have here that had started, and I just thought, I'm going to go. Let's go.

Let's take an adventure. And Lenya, fortunately, my wife, had been with Youth with a Mission, so they were kind of, she was used to that risk-taking, and she was young and wanted to be involved in that kind of adventure, too. So, yeah, we got married, and then two weeks later, we were living here. Now, we're sitting at the other end of that now, and it's been much success, and it seems like immediate growth, but it wasn't easy. No, it wasn't easy. It wasn't overnight either.

And it wasn't immediate. I mean, it was, yeah, you plow the ground, and you come to an area, and you go through marriage trials, and it was difficult. That first year was horrible in terms of just understanding each other relationally and living with another person, not having any friends here at all, no family here at all.

We just picked up and left and planted in a whole new area, so it was very lonely. But what was good about that, and I had a good friend who was also a mentor, Chuck Missler, who said to me, it's one of the best things you could do in a marriage, because you are forced to get along. You are forced to talk things out. You don't have friends.

You don't have family. Therefore, you're going to be spending lots of time working through big issues together. And that ended up to be true. I mean, we became inseparable, as you know. We've married a long time, so 40 years. So as long as we've been going as a church just about, we've been married.

We've married a little bit longer than that. But yeah, so it's been quite a ride. And to be frank, Skip, you kind of put a fleece before the Lord and said, I'll give you so much time here, I'm headed back to the ocean.

That's right. I came out here, and I remember being struck by the passage of our Lord saying to his disciples, you are fishers of men. So I thought, I've got to think about that concept. So my dad was a fisherman. And one thing I remember is that you don't stay in a place that you keep throwing the line in the water and never catch anything.

So I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to throw the net out or throw the line in, like month after month after month after month, year after year, and catch nothing. So I want to see fruit. I want to see fish. I want to see results. So I told the Lord, I'm going to fish in this pond for a year. And if nothing develops after a year, and I'll give it my all, I'm leaving.

I'm going to go somewhere else. I'll never forget the time up at Twin Peaks, Skip, where Pastor Chuck opened up Ephesians 4 and explained God giving the gifts of pastors, teachers, and evangelists. Now, you're one of those somewhat rare creatures with several gifts. I mean, it's not for me to say which is primary, but you're both an evangelist and, of course, a Bible teacher. Can you tell us about some of the first times you gave that altar call, not knowing if anybody was going to respond?

Yeah, it was difficult. But, you know, I was young in the ministry, and I was teaching through the Scriptures, but I just would see in the Scriptures perfect texts that lend themselves to throwing the net out, right? It's a perfect message. So when a pastor is giving a message like that and people are listening, if they're engaged and he does it right, when he gives a natural opportunity, not a force, but a natural opportunity for people to make a decision, like simply, like, you guys have read this, we've read this, this would be a perfect time for you, just like we read in this text, to make a life change and see forgiveness, just like this man found forgiveness, or just like this man found hope. You could have that hope now, just like Jesus walked into his life, you could do it.

So it was just something simple like that. And I remember just, I had people raise their hand or come forward, and when you see people respond, and you see them respond with deep emotion many times, tears in their eyes, sometimes shaking, you know, you know that they're in touch with some reality of sinfulness that they want to break free from, forgiveness they've longed for, hope they're trying to grab a hold of, that's a powerful moment. And when you see it, you want to keep doing it. It's sort of like street witnessing, you know, when you go out on the street, it's the most fearful thing to walk up to a person, just without meeting them almost, and getting into a conversation about spiritual things and leading them to Christ. I had a little bit of a background with my wife in doing that, and anybody who has done street evangelism knows that you begin the day or the evening very much in fear, but you end it very bold, because you see results.

And once you see the result of a person or a few persons receiving Christ, you want more and more and more of it. Now, Skip, these years later, you've given the invitation to the gospel, of course, here innumerable times around the country, around the world. But seeing you just a few weeks ago kneeling on the stage with people who came forward to your invitation, I sense you still get a thrill. I love it.

I love it. I love seeing them come forward. And I love, in our church, when people come forward, there's an immediate applause. Because people know. They know what it's like to have change. They know what it's like to be forgiven. And they want to be part of the encouragement process for those who are making this first-time decision.

So, at first, it's scary to get up out of your seat and come forward and stand in the front. I think it's important to do it. We always tell people, I think it's an important thing to do it publicly. Jesus often called people publicly. Billy Graham called people publicly. It's not the only way to be saved, and I know that some of our listeners may not be used to that or might even find fault with that, but I love what Moody said when somebody criticized his altar call. And he said, well, you know what?

I'll agree. My style isn't the best style, but tell me, how do you do evangelism? And the guy said, well, I don't really do evangelism. And Moody said, I like the way I do it better than the way you don't do it. And that's how I feel. I think I want to be part of the process of life change, so I love it. That's why, you know, our platform, I want to get down on my knees so I can be close to them and shake their hand as they're coming forward and get them together shorter than a huddle and be able to pray with them. Well, if D.L.

Moody had a mic at that point, he could have dropped it and walked off stage. You refer to finding evangelical passages in your Bible reading. Let's talk about your personal Bible study, Skip.

All right. And just let's guesstimate how many times you've read through the Bible. Dozens. I make it a point every day of reading through the Bible. Recently, I decided to go through the Scriptures, because somebody said that you can get on YouVersion app, download the Bible app, which I've used for years, and you can go through reading plans, which we have many of our reading plans. And people are following your reading plans.

On that platform. So I went on that platform and got to read through the Bible in 90 days. And I thought, well, that's fast, but I'll try it.

And I did it. So it's about 15 chapters a day. And I remember going through it in 90 days, and it struck me that I know the Bible, I've taught the Bible, I have commentaries on these books, on every book of the Bible. But the more you read it, it impacts you in a new way, in a different way.

So there's just nuances and emphases that you don't get until you do it again and again and again. So I did it, and it was so rewarding to go through the Scriptures that fast and get the big picture bird's eye. I decided I'm going to do it again. So as soon as it was done, I did it again. I went through the Bible again in 90 days. And then a friend of mine that I challenged to do with said, I'm going to do it in 45 days. So he's doing that.

I'm letting him do it on his own. But I've read through the Bible personally dozens of times. Since I've become a Christian, I've made it my point to read through the Scriptures over and over and over again.

That is Skip Heitzing in a conversation with Chip Lusko as we kick off Vision Week on Connect with Skip. Join us next time when Skip will suggest solutions when your Bible study gets stale and discuss his Bible study habits. Now, for regular listeners to this program, we want to thank you for your support.

This teaching ministry has continued its growth trend, as Skip mentioned. We want to do more, grow more, and reach more people with verse-by-verse Bible study. We invite you to help us do that during Vision Week. Please consider a one-time growth gift of $50 or more to support and expand this media outreach.

It's easy to do. Either call 1-800-922-1888 or go online to connectwithskip.com. And when you do give this week, we have a special resource package for you. Here are the details. We'd like to send you a signed copy of Skip's latest book, The Biography of God. You will also receive a hardcover copy of Joel Rosenberg's excellent new book, Enemies and Allies.

Skip plays a part in this story of seismic changes in the Middle East. Get your copy of both books with your gift of $50 or more to connect with Skip to support the growth of these Bible teachings. If you've been impacted by Skip's messages, your gift is your vote for growth. Either call 1-800-922-1888 or go online to connectwithskip.com and give your tax-deductible gift today. Time did not allow broadcasting of all the content of today's conversation with Skip, but we have posted it online at connectwithskip.com. You can hear it there. Don't miss our next program as Skip drills down on the need for expository Bible study. Connect with Skip Hyten is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.