On The Road with The Holy Spirit! Featuring Ken Fish

0:00 Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to this edition of the Strang Report. I'm so glad today to be able to have my longtime friend Ken Fish talk about his exciting book, Full Disclosure. I'm the publisher of this. I'm very proud of this. In fact, I had a small hand in twisting Ken's arm for how long to get you to write this because you have an incredible story and incredible ministry and you were able to get it down in writing.

0:40 This book is called On the Road with the Holy Spirit, a modern day diary of signs and wonders. So first of all, let me welcome you and I'm glad we were able to work out all the logistics to get you on. It was a bit of an ordeal getting in here, but here I am finally. Here you are and we're glad to have you. I know because I was involved some and now I'm listening to the book, it's very interesting to listen to the book and the staff gave me some material and here's a quote, Christianity is more than religion. It's more than a belief system. It's more than a worldview.

1:22 It's an invitation to go on an adventure with our Father both in this life and into eternity. I pray that this book will kindle a hunger in your heart to join that adventure and to experience life and a lifestyle marked by signs and wonders. You know, I just thought that struck me. It is just so well said and I had the privilege of knowing John Wimber fairly well and considered him a great man of God and of course you knew him better because you traveled with him, but how much did John Wimber influence you and also tell us about the Odyssey that you went through personally where you were in the corporate world and now you're in the ministry world seeing all these incredible things happen all over the world.

2:12 Well John was a huge influence on me. I actually interned underneath him when I was in seminary and his thinking was, I don't know, formative for me. For a period of time I was his ghostwriter and put together a lot of the materials that he utilized in the 1980s. Of course that's a long time ago now, but anyway I was a young man and so I guess in some ways you'd say I was his amanuensis. And I don't know, I didn't just travel with him. I worked alongside of him in the BMI offices for quite a few years. I was with him all in about 13 years and then shortly before his death I moved to the East Coast and I was involved in my corporate career for a number of years after that.

3:06 You know the things that I learned, saw and did when I was a young man with John never really left me. Even when I was a corporate executive I would do a lot of church retreats, special invitation events, things like that. And so I was often engaged on weekends or I would use my vacation time to go here and there, lead events, whatever it was. But anyway I stayed busy with ministry. And then in the last really big recession that the United States had things got pretty rough and rocky and a couple of my companies were acquired and so there's always layoffs when there's acquisitions.

3:50 So I went through a couple of transitions and it all just sort of folded up at the tail end of the 2008 recession. And so I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do. I just assumed I was going to find another corporate job. And all of a sudden I started getting, and I literally mean this as I'm saying it, there was no effort made on my part at all. I started getting invitations from everywhere and they were coming in on Facebook Messenger and texting. And back then I still had a fax machine in my house so I got a few faxes, got some physical letters, got email. But however it was coming in I was getting invitations to come here, speak on this or help us think about what we want to do with our church or our movement going forward because I had a background from my corporate life in strategic planning.

4:47 And I knew from talking with people who help executives in transition it's always better to be busy doing something. And so I thought, well, I will start doing some of that and that will tide me over not necessarily financially but at least in terms of being busy and not looking like I'm on the bench for good. That will tide me over until the next thing comes along and then I'll return to my corporate life. It's interesting how the Lord uses those things. I mean, look at all the tremendous things that have happened since then. And it wasn't that people were just looking for someone to speak at a weekend retreat at their church, you know, and they couldn't come up with anyone else.

5:30 It was because of the incredible things that were happening with your ministry because even though we talk about signs and wonders, especially in the, you know, what we call the spirit-filled or sometimes spirit-empowered community, it happens way too infrequently, which was the whole message of John Wimber. It needed to be super, the supernatural needed to be natural. And that was his appeal. And he wasn't really the typical minister. He wasn't a rock and roller originally. He had quite an interesting story. And I had occasion, I was pretty young when I knew him, but I had occasion to meet with him, go to his conferences, interact with his ministry in lots of ways.

6:18 In fact, he did some articles, I remember, for Charisma Magazine. You probably ghost-wrote it for him. I didn't even know it. But the first time I ever knew about you was Eric Metaxas. Eric Metaxas is one of your biggest fans, if I can say it that way. And he has incredible influence himself. He's one of the greatest thinkers. That he was so impressed with your ministry, I can remember, I mean, and I watch his show with some regularity, he always has interesting guests. Always. Yeah. But there was just something about it. You had such insight, I would say.

6:59 But other than the fact I twisted your arm, I say that tongue-in-cheek, what motivated you to write this book and to finally put in writing, because it's remarkably detailed. You must have kept an incredible journal. And it was very honest, too. You would talk about some of these things and then say, I haven't been able to track these people down. They just kind of disappeared. But this is an accurate retelling of what I saw with my own eyes. So how did all that happen?

7:39 Because I want to motivate people to read this book. This is not just a book is a book is a book. This is a book that will change people's lives, especially to understand more about the supernatural. Well, you know, the way this book came about, I was keeping a journal, as you say, and that happened really because a friend of mine in Australia gave me a prophetic word and he said, you should be writing down a lot of these accounts and things that are going on. Someday you'll probably want to write a book out of all this. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, at the same time, I try to honor prophetic words.

8:22 And so I started keeping that journal. And for a number of years, nothing really came of it at all. And in fact, there's a lot more there than what ended up in the book, because anyone who's ever written anything knows you have to edit. And so a lot of things had to come out because they were maybe too long, or they made the book too long, or, you know, for whatever reason, the the substantiation we wanted was not readily available at the time. We had one story in there about a visit to a corporate headquarters in Taiwan. And we held a meeting with all the senior executives of the of the corporation.

9:04 One of them got healed of a knee injury. And that resulted in a breakout of the Holy Spirit in the whole place. And basically, everybody got smacked in a good way. But but we were trying to get a media authorization from them. And they have actually what they call a chief spiritual officer. So you think of a chief financial officer, chief technical officer, chief information officer, whatever chief marketing officer, they have a chief spiritual officer. And so we were writing there. And we wrote to the CEO, but we didn't get a we didn't get a release back in time. So we took it out, didn't make it into the book. You know, things like that kind of got in the way. But there were a lot of things left, as they say, on the cutting room floor.

9:46 And then, you know, eventually, I guess it was about two years ago, when I started pulling all this together, I had a friend help me. And I decided it was time to do this in part because I was seeing a lot of things going on in the charismatic world that didn't look to me to be authentically supernatural. I mean, I think people want them to be but but somehow it was almost like fake it till you make it. And I didn't want that to be going on. And I thought we need to put some of this stuff on record. And the other reason I wrote the book candidly is because I wanted to write another book. And I thought this would introduce people a bit to some of my background.

10:26 Otherwise, they'd say, Well, who is this guy? And why should we read his book? So So this is kind of my calling card that precedes the next book that I'm going to be working on. Well, because I was involved in the process, I know that you wanted to call the book, a diary of signs and wonders, which is the title that Maria Woodworth, editor, did a book and it had to be early 1900s or maybe the late 1800s that she did this book. And those who are history buffs, like my wife and I, we know that she was one of the maybe the first major female leader that came out of the holiness movement, early Pentecostal movement.

11:18 But we landed on on the road with the Holy Spirit, a modern day diary of signs and wonders, which I think is a much more contemporary name, but tell me about Maria's influence on you and your thinking. Well, when I was writing for John Wimber and researching for him, he was of course known for being a modern science and wonders guy. And he taught a course at Fuller Theological Seminary back in those years, for which I was a teaching assistant. And it was called MC 510. And I can't remember what the subtitle or the actual course name was, something to the effect of signs and wonders in the world mission movement or something kind of like that.

12:04 Anyway, MC 510 has been discontinued. It's no longer in the course catalog, but he taught that with C. Peter Wagner. And as part of preparing materials for that course, one of the source documents that he was drawn to, that I got drawn even deeper into, was Maria Woodworth Etter. And there were some others as well. John Alexander Dowie, John Lake, the writings of Amy Semple MacPherson, Catherine Kuhlman. There were a number of the prominent healing evangelists from the 1950s, Branham and others. And so anyway, I started reading all this, but I was particularly drawn to Maria Woodworth Etter because she lived in a time when there wasn't really anything that we would consider modern.

12:56 She rode around on a buckboard, a wagon pulled by a horse, and there were no electric lights. Everything was still done by kerosene lamps or candles. And she would talk about the things that went on in her meetings. And she really considered herself more of an evangelist than somebody who was a healing minister. And at various points, she wanted to shut down the healing ministry because she felt that it was getting in the way of her evangelistic ministry. That's not a well-known fact about her, but it is true. And so I was just very drawn to this woman who was more interested in evangelism, even than in this very dramatic healing ministry that she had.

13:39 And I mean, she had some tremendous healings in a time when virtually nobody was even talking about healing. And so maybe she was a product of her age, and that's why she had this singular focus on evangelism. But there was something about her and what she did. It really shifted my thinking. And I think in part, that's because she was around in the time... My grandparents were just right after her. They were born in the years after she really was at her prime. But my great-grandparents would have known something of her. And so there was something about the fact that she was a contemporary of family members of mine that kind of drew me to her.

14:25 And I was just fascinated by her book, A Diary of Signs and Wonders. So as you said, I initially was going to call this a modern-day diary of signs and wonders, basically trying to knock off what she had done. But it was also my way of paying homage or credit to her for the influence she had on my thinking about God and his ways and what evangelism in a, shall we say, a frontier type setting really looks like. And I don't think it looks anything like our modern megachurch format. And yet she had a profound influence on frontier America. And many people who probably never would have come to Christ did because of her ministry.

15:08 And so I don't know, there was something of that in me that I don't know, I wanted to reach out as it were and touch that. And it maybe somehow captures some portion of what she was or who she was and what she did. And that's really what the genesis of both the book's format and content as well as the title. Well, that's a good segue into my next question is, why did writing this book do to you and your ministry? Because I know that it took you quite a while. For one thing, you kept this journal over a period of time. But what happened to Ken Fish as a result of that book?

15:53 And maybe my follow-up question would be, what kind of response are you getting to the book now in the three months since it came out? Well, what did it do to me? I found that writing a book, and you'd know this, Steve, because you've written books, it's a bit like giving birth to an elephant. You get into it and you start thinking about, do I want to say it this way? Does this need to be here or there? But the other thing that it did for me, and this was actually unexpected, because I've seen so many signs and wonders.

16:35 And again, this is just a sub-segment or a sampling of what I had in my journals. But what it did to me was it sent me back in my mind, in my memory, to many of those moments. And I'd kind of forgotten about them. You say, how can you forget about those kinds of miracles? I mean, those are unbelievable miracles. But all I can say is, at the end of John's Gospel, he says there were many other things that Jesus did, and they're not all written down here. If the world itself couldn't contain the books that would hold them all, well, let's be clear here.

17:16 I'm not Jesus, and I think you could actually write enough books to capture everything that I saw in those years. But the point is, there were a lot of those things that I had completely and totally forgotten about. And on more than one occasion, I would stop and I would, if you will, drop into a reverie and kind of reflect back. And I'd think, oh, I was in that place. I remember that night. This was the woman who blah, blah, blah. Or that was the guy who came with that, you know, whatever. And I would find myself back in a scenario that I had not thought of in years. And if I tried to call it up in my memory, cold, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

17:58 And so this book kind of triggered in me a memory of things that had happened. And it made me hungry to go back into all of that all over again. And it's not like it stopped. But there was something about that era where I was freshly out of corporate life. And you know, everything was a brand new adventure. I was learning as I went. Jesus said, the Holy Spirit will be your teacher. He will be your guide. And he also said, there are many other things I would like to teach you, but I can't do it now. Essentially, my earthly ministry is coming to an end. There's no time for that anymore. But the Holy Spirit, he will teach you. And what I found was that many things I was learning, it sounds weird to the modern ear, but I was being taught by the Holy Spirit himself.

18:47 And sometimes it was out of passages of the Bible that I'd not looked at in a particular way prior to that. Maybe I'd have a dream or a vision or something would happen and it would like shift my understanding of something. But what I started to see was that there were these increasing levels of breakthrough. And I realized that there is so much more available than what most of us are experiencing. And it was like I was on this class five Rapids whitewater rafting trip with God. And every day was something new. That's an interesting way to put it. And why do you think that people get out of your book or why do you want people to buy your book and read it?

19:35 What is the one nugget, this takeaway that will motivate all these people who are watching to go to Amazon or wherever their favorite place to buy books to buy on the road with the Holy Spirit? You know, Steve, I have a Facebook group that's hidden, but it's called God is not a theory. I also have a podcast which is called God is not a theory. And I don't remember when I started saying this, but some many years back, I started saying in some of my sermons that for many Christians, God is a theory and an unproven one at that.

20:16 And so they cling to what they call faith, but it's really hope. It's not faith. There's a difference. And they really hope that God is real, that the Bible is true, that there's no, I don't know, shock and jive here, that, you know, that the things that are represented in the pages of scripture are truly and actually right. But for many people, they've never seen God do anything. They've never had any experience like this. And so for them, God is very theoretical. It's like somebody who maybe lives, I don't know, let's say in central Nebraska, and they've grown up on a farm and they're good people. They work hard and they live their lives well.

20:58 And they've heard of a place called China, but they've never been to China. They might have seen it on TV, maybe, but I mean, it's, they have no way of really gauging it and it has no direct impact on their lives. I think for many people who are Christians, that is a reasonable representation of their faith. And what I really hope that this book would do was to show people in huge letters that God is not a theory, that the things he says in his word are true and he can be experienced today. It'll be different stories, of course, mine are different from Bible stories, and yet there's a similarity to them as well.

21:42 That they can experience that for themselves and that they would be drawn into that. And with it, that they would experience something of God that they've always longed to experience but maybe only dreamed of, maybe never actually encountered. That's what I want people to get out of the book. Boy, that's so well said. And I can testify that this book is very well written, very well researched, can't even refer to the lengths that you went to research the book and get permissions and all that kind of stuff.

22:24 This book will really change you because you're right, a lot of people don't really have faith, they just have hope. Or maybe they don't even have that. They were raised this way or this is how they think a good person should be. And so I think that through all this clutter that we have in our lives, a book like this can really make a difference. And we only have a few more minutes left. And I want to give you the last word, but let me encourage people that are watching to be sure to subscribe to The Strang Report on YouTube and Rumble and your favorite podcast. Ken, before you came on, I was in Greece, as you probably know, and I got a notice on my phone that The Strang Report podcast was coming up live.

23:13 So here it was, 11 o'clock at night, I was watching the 4 p.m. podcast live and I was somewhere in the Aegean Sea. It was just kind of surreal. And so when you subscribe, you're notified. That was my point in saying it. And also to get my Strang Report newsletter, which is delivered to your inbox every Tuesday. And you can find out more about me and my books at SteveStrangBooks.com. But having said that, which I say basically in every podcast, I'm here to encourage people to read your book.

23:54 This is one thing that I can do personally to encourage people to read what I believe is a very important book, in which I hope will become a Christian classic. I mean, only time will tell. But this book has, this is just a lot of nice thoughts. There is a gravitas to it, if I can say that, even in the spirit. Because you're a deeply spiritual man, but you're also a thinker. And you're also very bold. You're not afraid of people putting you down or making fun of you. You wouldn't have gotten to where you are. You wouldn't have survived. You wouldn't have all these stories if you were like that.

24:34 And I really think that you're a role model for other people. Partly like we've been talking about John Wimber. He was a role model for you, for me, for students in those classes in so many ways. I mean, he made a real lasting impact. And I believe that in a somewhat similar way, you are doing this with your book. So having said my piece, I want to now give you the last word. Well, you know, let me just say this. A few years back, the Lord spoke to me out of Isaiah chapter 40 verse 9. And most people know the first part of Isaiah 40, comfort, comfort my people says your God speak tenderly to Jerusalem and saying to her that her years of warfare are ended and her years of iniquity are pardoned.

25:23 And so, you know, this is a new phase in Isaiah's ministry. And he's gone from being kind of the classical dower prophet to the one who's an encourager, one who's bringing hope and restoration. And he's prophesying a new era, a new dawn, if you will. But it goes on in chapter 40. And in in verse nine, the Lord says to Isaiah, get the up to a high mountain and their proclaim, excuse me, unto the cities of Judah, behold your God. And you know, in Isaiah's time, of course, they didn't have modern communications. There were no podcasts. There was no there was no webcasting.

26:05 There was no broadcasting. There was nothing of the sort. I don't even know if they had newspapers, to be honest. But anyway, if you got up on a high mountain and you kept your hands to your mouth and you shouted, you could make your voice be heard and it could, you know, resound down the mountain and into the valleys. So basically what God was saying to Isaiah was that he should broadcast the goodness of God to the people of Judah, who had forgotten who their God was. And so the Lord spoke to me out of that. And he said, I want you to get up on a high mountain, which in our world means things like this, and say to the cities of Judah, which I would swap out the word Judah and say America, or we could say more broadly, Christendom.

26:52 So say whether it's in New York or Miami, whether it's in Orlando, where you live, Los Angeles, where I live, whether it's in Athens, Rome, London, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid, Moscow, say to the cities of Christendom, behold your God. And I hope this book in some way does that. I hope it brings back to people who God is. I hope it shows them how kind and gracious he is, how willing he is to intervene in the affairs of their lives, but also how very serious he is about wanting them to walk in integrity and fidelity with him.

27:38 This is not a one way deal. It's a, you know, we do our part and he does his part. That's what a covenant is. God wants to renew covenant with the whole of a civilization that has departed from him. And if this book in any way, you know, moves the needle a little bit towards that coming to be, then I will consider it to have been a great success. And I hope many people will read it and pass it on or buy copies for their friends and family. And that somehow it will stir again the flame of faith and confidence in God himself among the people of the Western world.

28:20 Thank you, Ken, for writing this book on a personal basis. Thank you for your friendship. Thank you for taking time out of a very busy schedule to be on my podcast today. I want to thank my viewers and listeners for tuning in. Leave your comments below. Share this with others. You know, there are those who don't believe in the supernatural, who almost say you're practicing medicine without a license when you talk about healing. You know, we are suppressed in a lot of ways, so we need your help to get out the message. And remember to like it, to subscribe, to comment and to share. Thank you for tuning in to the Strang Report today. God bless you.

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