The God Of The Second Chance

Don't I messed up Walked away from my life Did I stray too far Lost within a wandering crowd Pray she walked in Asked me for a dance With the shattered pieces You call me home again Powered by the Truth Network This is kind of a great thing and I'll tell you why Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together Speak your mind And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. You thought that there was—like, this was just it. You thought things were completely falling apart, as they say, and God had them falling together, because he knew that you needed to unload some of that stuff you thought you needed to carry. Anyway, we have been down that road. How about you? I would love to hear your story.

It's a live show. We would love for you to call in today. 866-348-7884. Of course, we do have a very, very, very big treat for you today, a very special guest. We have John James. He was a former newsboy and co-founder, actually, and the lead singer of the Newsboys for over 16 years.

And that had a whole turn, I'm sure, that you're going to hear about on today's show, but now he and his wife, they run a ministry across the United States, kind of iReachUSA.com. So what an honor, really, John, to have you with us today. G'day, mate.

How are you today? I'm so glad you started with that, because—so you guys definitely came from Australia, right? We did a—crikey—a lifetime ago, about 35 years ago, maybe longer.

We started in Australia in a garage in Maloolaba, annoying the heck out of the neighbors every Saturday. A bunch of young guys with a crazy dream and belief that God is passionate about using everyday ordinary people to be vehicles to bring a message of hope. And we started the band with, you know, that dream and that vision to use music as a platform to capture people's attention. And then when we had their attention, what a wonderful opportunity to preach the gospel. And so that people can respond to this incredible God, like you spoke about at the top of the segment, you know, this incredible God of not only the first chance of repentance at the foot of the cross, but he's God of the second chance made. And so what it was—little did we know, you know, that lifetime ago in that garage, annoying the neighbors, actually what God had installed and planned. It was the most incredible journey. Yeah, you know, just going from, you know, this meteoric success and all of a sudden you're in the United States and you're living a lifestyle you never thought of. And the 700 Club did a really awesome video, by the way, on this idea of the God of the second chance and kind of what you're working on now. And a couple different initiatives.

There's a new album out. There's a book release and even perhaps a movie. But this story is compelling because to me, Jon, as I actually watched the video, I'd be shocked if everybody doesn't see their own story in this story. Well, you know, it's a funny thing, the journey when we came to America and then after, you know, much years of hard work and the commitment and the discipline and the vision to grow something and to see God's blessing, you know, who doesn't want success? You know, we pray for God's blessing and favor and everything we do. We pray that our children would be successful and honor the Lord and whatever they put their hand to their endeavors in life, that God would bless them.

You know, we all want that, but not a lot of people, I guess, always talk about, well, we want that. But if you do start to walk the journey of success and all the blessings, whether they're monetary, financial blessings, the position, the status, the stage, the influence, the career, what sort of pressure does success put on your marriage, on your character, on your ego, on your sexuality, on your foundations? I guess I say I can testify at the heights of success, figuratively speaking, gaining the world, mate, I got an education and I found out what success can do to you when you lose your foundation and what I call your spiritual equilibrium to stay grounded and humble and connected to Christ. Yeah, and what a mercy when you really think about it, as I watched your story, John, that, you know, God disrupts our lives. Like, it was complete mercy that he came in and kind of grabbed hold of you.

And so for our listeners to kind of know what's going on, kind of tell them, you know, a little bit of what happened. You were at the top and then all of a sudden it came undone. Well, it did, my friend, but I got to be honest and look back and realize it never happened overnight. It was a gradual journey of little compromises along the way, a little compromise there.

Oh my gosh, that's such a small thing that might really make a difference or matter, you know, no one will see or know. But I didn't appreciate at the time when you begin to erode the foundations of your life, though they may seem small at the time, eventually it's going to take its toll on every area of your life. You know, so often in life, you know, we can find ourselves in an absolute mess and we're like, my God, how did I get here?

As if it just happened overnight. But, you know, I look at me, I'm like, well, look at over the last year or two, the choices that you have made, choices that unfortunately took you in a direction away from the kingdom of God, took you away from walking in the light of being an authentic representation of Christ. So it was a journey, mate. And at the height of success, everything came crashing down, you know, I lost my marriage, my first marriage, I lost my family, I lost the ministry and I, you know, I almost lost my life, mate. And you hit the nail on the head, man, the unmerited favor, the undeserved mercy and the grace of God, man, was I lavished with grace, but not grace to have a license to just keep living that lifestyle.

The grace I experienced brought me to the foot of the cross in repentance. Yeah, you hear that music and you know, we got a break coming, but oh man, you want to stay tuned. Plus, you know, I bet you got a story and feel free to call us. We would love to talk to you.

866-348-7884. We'll be right back. God of the Second Chance today on True Talk Live. Actually, you are the first radio audience to get a chance to listen to this new album coming from John and Tanya James. God of the Second Chance, how cool. I'm so honored, really, that we get to play that, John.

Thank you. Well, I appreciate you playing it. You know, if you'd said to me a year ago, we'd be having this conversation and talking about music and a new album, I would have laughed and said never in a million years. You know, when my career with the Newsboys came to an end and I guess God was on a rescue mission with my life, walking that journey of repentance and restoration, and even though for the last 27 years I've been a missionary, music was never a part of that.

When I left the band, I passionately said, I will never, ever, ever sing again. But I guess God had another plan, mate. Isn't that, it's, you know, we have our plans and God, you know, he gave you those gifts. And it's interesting how he brings you back to that point. Before we go much further, I do want to remind our audience that for some of you, you only get to hear the first half hour of Truth Talk Live in certain markets. And so if you want to hear the rest of this interview with John James, by all means, you can go back later and get the podcast. You know, just at thetruthnetwork.com, you know where you get all our podcasts, obviously Truth Talk Live today will be there, The God of the Second Chance. So I just want to remind you that before we got too far into it, but it's interesting that we make these vows like this, and we don't want to get too many stories going at the same time, so we'll come back to that one.

But let's go back to what happened with the newsboys. I mean, how was it that God disrupted your life in such a way to reveal that we have work to do with your character, right? Yeah, you know, at the end of the day, you know, the success and that incredible journey of prosperity and blessing, which were wonderful, but they exposed the defects in my character. And, you know, sometimes people may say to me when my wife and I, they hear us speak, you know, are you anti-fame, wealth, success, career, influence, platform to reach people? Are you anti all those things now?

And I say, no, absolutely not. Those things can be incredible blessings from the Lord to reach people for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Those things weren't the problem. The problem was my foundation, my character. And for me, I began to remove vital anchors from my life. You know, I began to neglect the importance of my daily devotion and intimacy with God. I began to neglect the importance of my marriage.

And the greatest testimony we have is that of our marriage in our family. I neglected that. And I neglected the importance of staying accountable, plugged in, grounded and serving in a local church family. And I don't care who you are, when you begin to remove those sort of anchors, those sort of foundational stones in your life, it's just a matter of time until everything starts to unravel. And unfortunately, that's what happened to me at the heights of success with The News Voice. Yeah, and so they actually ask you to step down. That had to be, you know, coming from these guys, literally, you kind of grew up with them. Well, that's what I mean. I was with the band for over 16 years, you know.

Day one in the garage is young guys with a dream and a vision and coming to America and seeing the incredible blessing of God and that. And so, you know what, when that happened, my world fell apart. But something devastating was revealed to me at that moment. And it was a shocking thing that I realised that my sense of worth, my sense of value, my sense of validation wasn't in Christ and who I am in Christ. In Him, it was at that, unfortunately by that time, it was in my career. My sense of value, my sense of worth, my sense of getting up out of bed each day was in my ministry, my career, the platform.

And that was a shocking wake up call. But I remember after giving your life to something for, you know, over 16 years, almost 18 years, and to now have that taken from you. Mate, you talk about being lost in the wilderness and feeling like you have no sense of value and purpose. But the greatest tragedy wasn't that I lost my career, it's that I shipwrecked my faith and my dependency and my intimacy with the Lord. That was the greatest tragedy. Right, and I can't even imagine that there you are, you know, facing that in the depths of not having, you know, that critical relationship that kind of, you know, keeps everything together. But I love the part, I gotta just tell you, you know, to cruise ahead, that God sends a messenger, right?

And he comes right up to your lap and kind of points at you. Oh, yeah, God took me back to Australia to the middle of nowhere, like going back to the outback. God took me to the desert to die, because that John James had to die.

My life was me, me, me and me. And I remember one day, you know, I was staying with family and I felt because I was staying with them for free that I felt obligated that I had to go to church. And it was really, I was so broken at the time and wounded and angry and bleeding, so to speak, that, you know, that was the last place I wanted to be.

But to make the family happy, I would go to church, but I'd get there late so I didn't have to talk to anyone and I'd leave early, before anyone had a chance to talk to me. But one particular date, it was a visiting ministry there from South Africa, an evangelist, a wonderful man, and man, he got in my face. And I believe that through his words of encouragement, it was as if the Lord himself was speaking to me.

And the things he said to me just broke me to my corner. I remember in that church, I didn't care who was there, who was watching, I remember I just fell to my knees and began to weep and weep like a baby. And to me it was like that damn breaking finally and experiencing repentance at the foot of the cross and experiencing this God who is relentless, who pursues us. And that was wooing me, you know, I take no credit, hey I'm a great man, I came back, you know, no one comes unto the Father except that he draws them.

And I was so humbled that God drew me that day to the foot of the cross in repentance, and it was life changing. Oh, it's so beautiful, you know, and I've experienced, but the thing that I don't want anybody to miss, I sure don't want to miss it myself, is you had the initial repentance, but then here was the second one. And I imagine as you're listening today, you had a second one, and we really would love to talk to you, we've got another half the show coming for those in the markets that carry the whole show, others can go get the podcast at TruthNetwork.com.

We're going to be back with a whole lot more, you're going to want to stay tuned, and you want to call us, 866-348-7884. If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under God. God of the second chance today on Truth Talk Live.

When did you experience that? I bet you have, I know I have. We've got so wonderfully John James and former newsboy, but man, has he got, God has given him an amazing chance to go after the hearts of others by comforting them with the comfort he was comforted with, as we find out in 2 Corinthians 1. We would love your story, we got Jamal is in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Jamal, you're on with John James and me, and how are you today? I'm doing fine, Robert, thank you for taking my call, good to talk to you as usual, and to Mr. John James, good day, mate. Yes, g'day it is. I think that's my first time ever saying that, so I'm glad to have the opportunity. It felt good to say it, didn't it? It sounded very good, I got to work on my accent. I think that's what God said, you know, when he finished creating everything, he said, good day, mate.

There you go, that's right. That's a very good day, yeah. I wanted to ask Mr. James about the Christian scene in Australia, and also for a follow-up question which is a little different. In case I'm ever in Australia, what would be the one place, or maybe one, two, three places that I should go visit? Okay, the Christian scene in Australia, it's amazing how many influential ministries over the years that God has raised up and brought out of that little nation. You know, people I guess can appreciate the size of Australia, basically land mass, it's almost the size of America. We only have 24, 26 million people, and primarily Australia had no in-God-we-trust, no Christian heritage, no Christian background, no Christian forefathers. Made Australian was about as pagan as pagan can get, but in the midst of that paganistic culture, the churches thrived down there, and if you're going to grow the church in Australia, you're reaching the lost, you're reaching the broken. So in the midst of the darkness, it's amazing how God has used that faraway country to do an incredible work for the Gospel there, but also used many ministries out of Australia to inspire the world, and to reach the world with a message of hope found in Christ and Christ alone. To answer your question, where to go, it's kind of like if you came to America on a holiday for the first time, it's like, alright, I've got a week, where do I go? Australia's so diverse, like America is, depending if you want the Great Barrier Reef and beautiful tropical rainforests, or you want to go to the outback and have extreme outback. So Australia's very diverse. My state, I was from Queensland, that's primarily like our version of Florida, but a lot more rainforests than the Great Barrier Reef and beautiful beaches.

So yeah, just do a bit of research, but it's quite a wonderful place to go to, but a very large country like America. Wonderful. Thank you, thank you, I appreciate that. Very good answer, Mr. James, and you take care, y'all, God bless. God bless you, thank you, Jamal, for coming. Thanks, Mike, you too. Yes, if you've got a question for Jon, or, you know, you've got a testimony similar, we would love to hear it. 866-348-7884, that's the advantage of live programming, right? You get to take part in the show when we want you to.

I mean, that's what we're here for. So, Jon, getting back to the story, you know, part of the story that always warms my heart is you made your way back into your relationship with God through that interchange there, and then other things started to come back to your life that apparently had kind of been a walk in the outback, sort of like your 40 years in the wilderness. Exactly, and to be honest, mate, I had no desire to come back to America or be on a platform or a mic in my hand.

It's like, you know, I was walking in that incredible redemption and mercy and grace, like the prodigal that had lived in the Father's home through sin in his life, went astray, but then came home to the Father's house. So, being an evangelist again and being on a mission field, you talk about that wasn't on my radar, and it was a real journey that God was doing in my life, with healing of my life, and in my wildest dreams I never ever thought that the day would come when again he would call me back to America as a missionary. Yeah, and we don't think of a lot of missionaries coming to America from Australia. I think more than ever, mate, in this great nation, we're needing missionaries.

Oh yes, we are, I'm with you. Local churches, I think more than ever, this nation needs to hear an authentic gospel message, and an authentic message that there is hope, but it's found in Christ and Christ alone. So, I look at America as one of the greatest mission fields on the face of the planet today.

Absolutely, yeah, I couldn't agree with you more, and what a neat opportunity. Again, you and your wife both, you travel the country, you do conferences, you come into churches, and so just give us a sense of what that's like, were you to come to our church and that kind of thing. Yeah, it's been a real blessing. We have the privilege, my wife and I are wearing a few hats, we speak in drug and alcohol recovery facilities in communities. A lot of times that recovery arm can be with wonderful organisations like Celebrate Recovery. We're passionate about, we do a lot in recovery, we speak a lot in public schools, God has given us great favour getting into the public school system. We speak with the military, we've had the Lord open up the most humbling and one of the most incredible experiences of my life, to be able to work with the military, on military bases around the country, working with the troops, bringing a message of hope in Christ. Just recently we've got our qualifications and the Lord's given us favour, we've been trying for several years, we're going into our first big prison in Florida, bringing the ministry into a prison with about 4000 inmates. And the prisoners said, so I appreciate the listeners prayers, not only for the funding because we're funding that whole thing out of our own pocket, the prison doesn't have money for that, but they said if the program goes well, that they will give us six opportunities this year over the course of 2003. Six times we can bring our program in to do outreach in the prison, so we are just praying for God's favour, but when we come to a local church, I guess just about serving the church. As an evangelist, I really got one message, get saved, fall in love with Jesus and then tell other people about Jesus and allow the Lord to use you to lead them to Christ. But not only sharing our testimonies for my wife and I, who she also has a powerful testimony of redemption, but she's a wonderful recording artist and worship leader herself, sharing my story of brokenness and redemption, but also inspiring the local church with their intimacy and love for the Lord, and how that intimacy is reflected by us willing to tell others about Christ and to be proactive in growing the local church where God has it planted.

Yeah, that's absolutely beautiful. Again, their website, and they want opportunities in your church or your situation, you know, it's iReach, it's just the letter I, and then reachusa.com, all one word, iReachUSA.com, and you go there, there's a wonderful website, shows you all sorts of information, but I got to tell you that the thing that really, really, really just impressed me about John. I haven't even told you this, John, but I make a lot of calls to a lot of people as a pastor, you can imagine, and in this day and age, there are not many people that actually answer their phone, and there's even fewer people that answer their phone if they don't know your number. Now, John would have had no way in the world to know what my number was coming from North Carolina, because he doesn't live in North Carolina, and he, you know, he didn't know I was calling, and all of a sudden, you know, I called expecting to leave a message, something or other, and I get John, good day, mate. I was like, wow, is this cool, somebody that answers their phone, and then when I made the opportunity, I mean, just, that's real life, man, and I just think real people, you know, God has touched them, and they can touch, you know, your community, your church, whatever the situation is.

It's iReachUSA.com. We got one more segment with John. We would love, I mean, love to hear from you, 866-348-7884, 866-348-7884, God of the Second Chance.

We'll be right back. God of the Second Chance today on True Talk Live. How fun has this been with John James, formerly with the Newsboys, but now, what do you call in your new group, John?

John James. I like that. You know what, I have, we did the album, and we're obedient to the Lord with that, and like I said, the first music I've done in 27 years, you know, for 27 years, it's not like I've kept the foot in the music industry. I haven't sung a song, picked up an instrument, written a song, I have had nothing in that area, so it was such an incredible, surreal experience, but now we're finished. We're looking and talking to some different folks about getting it out there, but one thing we want to do, I've just felt the Lord so strongly in this area. We're going to believe, and if folks want to help with that, we're going to print up several thousand CDs of the album that we're going to give away for free everywhere we go as an evangelistic tool with the music, whether we're in schools or recovery or with the military or in the prison. So we're looking, hopefully soon, to start just printing up, like I said, thousands of those that we can give away everywhere we travel and minister. One thing we felt with the album that the Lord just kind of impressed, you know, freely you've been given, now freely give, and that's what we're going to do with this evangelistic tool of the music, God of the Second Chance.

That is so cool. But I just have, you know, I love to create myself and all sorts of different things we do here at the radio station. I create theater issues with Christian car guy theater and a bunch of things that I get a chance to do. So I'm always fascinated in the creative process, and clearly God has gifted you as a songwriter. Can you give our listeners any, or especially me, selfishly, a little insight into what does it feel like? Does God put a tune on your heart?

Does he put words on your heart? What is it that you sense when you begin that creative process? Yeah, for me, when this creative process started again, after a 27-year hiatus, it was just a sense of being inspired by life's journey, the good, the ups, downs, the triumphs, the defeats, the victories, the heartaches. And when I started this incredible sense of, it was like a dam burst and a desire to write music, mate, I didn't even own any instruments. I had to go out and buy instruments to sit down and just start writing. And it was just the most, it was for me, the time of writing the album for me was another facet of just intimacy and worship with God.

Because when I, the whole process of writing the songs, I wrote all the music, there's 11 songs on the new album. To me, it was an act of worship, and I really had the most wonderful fellowship with the Lord. And it was just every day, it was just the whole writing process and then in the studio was just the most intimate time of worship to the Lord. It was so overwhelming for me, this experience. My wife would tell you every day when we walked out of the studio after the day's recording, mate, I would sit in my car and just break down and ball like a baby. And it wasn't because, look out world, John James is back, how amazing I am.

It had nothing to do with that. It was just this incredible sense of the bigness of God and what God can do with just simple, ordinary, flawed individuals that will humble themselves under the mighty hand of God and allow God to have his way in and through our lives. It was the most incredible experience of me doing the album, mate. I can just relate, I have to tell you. I mean, I was sitting there and I had this same kind of conversation with, which also came out of Australia, right?

The, their names, of king and country. Uh-huh, yep, yep. And I was talking to them about the same process. And I said, you know, it is completely a worship thing where you're interacting with God.

It's working with him and sensing his pleasure when he gives you something and you begin to work within it. Yeah. But I can always tell when I'm on track when the tears come. Yeah, come on. It can be very moving, can't it?

Right. If the tears come, then I know, okay, this is me and you. If the tears aren't there, I don't feel like I've really got it. I'm still getting the tears now, mate. I have no idea what God, you know, we're looking now at putting a band together.

I'm like, oh, Lord, can I deal with this at my age now? A band, but we're getting, I've had to go back into the discipline of daily singing lessons to get my voice in shape and physically get in shape. So we're going to be looking initially, we'll be coming to church, when we do add a music event to a weekend when we're with the church, initially it's going to be just me with the backing tracks of the new music. But then eventually we may look, as the Lord leads, about doing it with a band. But mate, if you ask me what tomorrow holds, I have absolutely no idea. But it's going to be fun, I can tell you.

It's going to be, I'll tell you what, it's been a crazy experience now. And not only with the album, but, you know, we have, I did a book on my life story and my journey, the ups and downs, the highs, the lows, the redemption, my story with the Newsboys, but we're in process at the moment of getting the book finalized and that should be out later this year. Same, you know, God of the Second Chance. That's so awesome. And so we got Mike is in Dayton, Ohio. He's got something for us. So Mike, you're on Truth Talk Live with Jon. Hi Jon, thank you.

Thank you for taking my call. Real quickly, God is a God of Second Chance. You know, I was a Christian all my life and every day he quickens my heart and makes me closer to him when I allow him to. And on this Truth Network, Stu Everson said one time, let's not, what we can do for God, but let's do something with God.

You know, and it really, really hit my heart when he said that. And it made me change and want me to seek after God because we can do it with him and not just for him. And it really changed my outcome or my thought process with God. I always said, OK, I got to go to church or I got to go do this or I got to do that for God or, you know, I need to pray. I need to read my Bible. But when you start doing those things with God, it changes your life and it changes your whole surroundings and not just what's in front of you.

You know what I mean? I love it, Mike. It's just like Jon was saying that there's a part of Mike, there's part of Robbie that has to die, right?

In order to make room. Jon, your thoughts? Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, the greatest thing, I think we all know the scripture so well where Jesus said, I will never leave you or forsake you. But to know everything we do in life, we're not just walking that journey. Whatever we do, whatever we feel to put our hand to, whatever that endeavour we feel we're called to do for the kingdom of God. But it's not a solo show.

It's not the John James show or my show or my minute. It's that doing it in partnership with the Lord and his direction and his strength and his guiding. But thank you for sharing that, mate. Isn't it brilliant and comforting to know that we don't have to do it alone?

We don't have to do it in our own strength. But that intimacy and doing it with the Lord every step of the way, that's absolutely brilliant. Thank you for sharing your heart with that. You're welcome. Thank you, Mike. God bless. Thank you, sir.

All right. Bye-bye. So, John, we want to remind people again real quick, since we only got a couple more minutes, that all these things, your ministry, getting John and Tanya at your church and that kind of thing, is iReachUSA.com. Is there other ways that people should reach out to you, John? Yeah, just like you. Throw a boomerang in my direction.

But through the website, that's probably the easiest way, other than me putting my personal cell number on the phone now. But like you said, I'm a very warm, welcoming, hospitable person. You didn't have much trouble getting to me. No, I didn't.

It was awesome. Through the website, there's our contact information and that. But man, we don't have a booking agent or management. It's through word of mouth as the Lord leads and gives us favor. And if any folks would be interested in the ministry we do, coming to partner with local church and their community, we would be absolutely honored to be a part and serve the local church. Again, it's iReach, just the letter I, and then the word reach, USA, all one string.

iReachUSA.com. John and Tanya James and your wife is a real talent as well, right, John? Well, she's actually the gifted and talented one. I carry her bags everywhere, honestly. I'm her roadie mate. My wife, she was a great blessing with helping me on the album and doing a lot of the background singing.

And she's actually producing her brand new album at the moment also, her worship album from the Book of Psalms. Oh, that is so awesome, so awesome. Well, thank you so much for being with us today, John. Something I won't forget, I don't think ever. And certainly I'm so grateful for all of you listening today. Of course, we'll be back on Monday and we'll have a Best of tomorrow. And we're just so grateful for all of you. Take care.