DONNA: Hello everyone. Welcome to Something More. I’m Donna Chavis, your host. And our guest today is pastor of Gateway Church in Austin, Texas. And we’re going to talk to him a little bit about God’s Unshockable Love. Please welcome John Burke. Hi John.

JOHN: Donna, thanks for having me here today.

DONNA: Absolutely. Thanks for being here. Now, John, you pastor Gateway Church in Austin, Texas, but you’ve told us that there was, actually, a supernatural encounter that led you to Austin.

JOHN: That’s right. Twenty years ago, or a little more, my wife and I were living in Chicago. Two little babies. And I was on the way to a retreat that I was hosting for about three hundred people, and a friend of mine was in the car and asked me, You know. How long do you think you’ll be in Chicago – and at this church, I was working at? And I said, I don’t know. I know God clearly led me here. And when He gives me a vision and tells me its time, I’ll go. But I know I’ll be here through the year 2000. I confidently said. That was 1997. And that day in worship I had this overwhelming, clear, Its time, from the Lord. And it wasn’t just two words. It was this complete communication of reminding me of all the times we had stepped out in faith

DONNA: Mm. Yes. Yes.

JOHN: And followed Him into the unknown, and how He had come through. And He was saying its time again. And I went home, and I told my wife. And she said, Did you forget we just had a baby? [Laughs]

DONNA: [Laughs]

JOHN: Like three months ago. And I was like, If this is from the Lord, He’ll show you, too. And we started to pray and realized that what was on Gods heart was a generation of people who were hurting, addicted, broken, far from God and didn’t know that God cared, didn’t know that He had compassion and mercy and that He wanted us to start a church, and, actually, churches, that would go into the world with His compassion and mercy for a hurting world.

DONNA: Uh-huh

JOHN: And that led us to Austin, and to start gateway Church in Austin.

DONNA: And, as you said, as you were getting this download from God speaking to you about moving, it sounds like He was birthing that compassion for this group of people in your heart. I mean, you were already feeling it.

JOHN: Yeah. He, I would be driving along, and I would hear secular songs on the radio, and through every lyric, He was showing me the cries of a generation.

DONNA: Ah.

JOHN: It was like I could feel what He felt. And I’d be driving along, listening, in tears. And I’m like, What’s going on with me?

DONNA: Yeah. Yeah.

JOHN: But He had compassion for people I didn’t even know. And, you know, Donna, what is so amazing is, we just celebrated twenty years. And we filled up one of the biggest event centers in Austin. And I asked people to, you know, light up their phone if they had found faith, or overcome an addiction, or seen a marriage healed, and the whole place lit up.

DONNA: Wow. Wow.

SID:  that first meeting.

RANDY:  Ooooh!

SID:  Uh tell me what you remember at that first meeting in Toronto.

RANDY:  I’m praying for the HEAT to come upon the leaders –

RANDY:  Well there wasn’t very many people there; between 120 and 160.

RANDY:  evangelists, and the missionaries, as a sign of the healing anointing.  Lord, the electricity, as Paul, the Apostle Paul said,

SID:  It was a storefront, as I understand, which then became the – the Air- – Toronto Airport Church.

RANDY:  “[When we] labor [with all of] His [energy], -“

RANDY:  Yes.

RANDY:  “which [works so] mightily … within [us].”

RANDY:  Uh when I first went there, the sanctuary – it seats 400 – 300 in the overflow.

RANDY:  And so God, I’m asking, arms up toward Heaven; let the Holy Spirit fall on them.

RANDY:  Uh, a few months later they built a – bought a place that seats 5,000.

RANDY:  Release the angels of God.

RANDY:  They had explosive growth.  Uh, –

RANDY:  Release the anointing for the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Release them with rivers that flow!

RANDY:  but I remember one woman in p- –

RANDY:  Let the power upon these pastors, I pray God, for FIRE, and POWER, –

RANDY:  uh the first guy, the very first man that go so touched – he’s shaking all over –

RANDY:  and ANOINTING to come upon us.

RANDY:  he became a missionary in Russia.

SID:  Hm.

RANDY:  Uh, o-one of the first women that was uh, laughing, and on the floor; and I – I walked away from; the Lord said, “Go back and tell her she’s been sad too long.”  Well I found out later that she well – well had a terminal illness, and had been fighting a terminal illness for years.  And that moment, the joy of the Lord came on her, and she laughed for hours!  She got totally healed of her terminal condition, and now she has a ministry uh going particularly into Scandinavia.  And it was actually – she actually laid hands on – I didn’t know it, but the – a 9-month w- – m- – a woman, 9-month pregnant, had just been told her baby had died in the womb, and was going to have to have a stillbirth.  She doesn’t know that; walked up to the woman in the meeting, lays her hands on her abdomen; prays, just blessing this baby, not knowing it’s dead.  Two years later when she went back to that church in that city, the little miracle boy came and jumped in her arms, that came to life while dead in the womb.  And it’s – that’s the second uh person in Toronto that – that uh was – was powerfully touched!

SID:  Well I – I have to believe the most AMAZED person, n-now you had had several meetings before that where the same things were going on; but you had no guarantee that it would continue going on.  Did you think it would just stop after a few meetings?

RANDY:  Well I actually did.  When I – I mean, I had a prophetic word that gave me courage it was going to be very powerful, but I had no idea how powerful.  I mean, just – I just thought of, while you were asking questions –

SID:  I mean MILLIONS of people went to that little storefront church, except it wasn’t storefront anymore; they expanded.  I think –

RANDY:  Yeah.

RANDY:  including the most prestigious hospital in Ontario, Canada, the province.  And – and so, the girl comes in – who’s been incommunicative – and had not – not basically not getting out of bed – and she said, “Mom, why are you crying?  Why are you sad?  Isn’t my brother coming home next week?  Shouldn’t we go to the grocery store and get some stuff to prepare things for him, and for his visit?”  And her mother w-was telling me this on Saturday night, because it happened on Friday night, and she came to church on Saturday night and was telling me.

RANDY:  And she was crying, and she was showing me in the book, “This is what I read!  This is what I read!

RANDY:  This – and this has so helped me!”  And – and -and then she said, “I got my daughter back!”, and she just starts weeping, weeping.  So Sunday morning, –

RANDY:  the daughter comes with her to church.

RANDY:  I’m getting ready to go to catch an airplane; and just as we’re leaving, I – I just get to spend 2 minutes with her, but I’d – I – I give the pastor the heads-up.  He followed-up to her that morning, and then the following week; and he’s had uh I think two; one of them was a half-hour, and another was an – over an half-hour dialogue.  And you know he’s not a psychiatrist, but if – if you’ve met with schizophrenic people, it doesn’t take long; you can – you don’t have to be psychiatrist [CHUCKLES] to know that they’re schizophrenic.  But anyway, he sees – he says, “Randy, she’s normal.  When I talked to her, she seemed normal.  She held a conversation; she didn’t have that look in her eyes”, you know.  And so this girl, and when – and Doug’s getting it now; he’s getting a video of it; gonna send it to me – is just normal!  She’s been healed of schizophrenia!

SID:  Well now what’s the poten- – what’s the potential of someone that has –

RANDY:  Well, let me tell ya.

SID:  severe schizophrenia being healed uh by a simple prayer?  [CHUCKLES]

RANDY:  Well this is a second one.  Several years ago, we had uh uh another person whose – whose dad was uh in a uh 5,- or 5,- or 6,000 member –

RANDY:  This is a pastor who’s on the team of a 6,000 member Southern Baptist Church [unintelligible].

RANDY:  Southern Baptist Church, and he was on staff there as a pastor – one of the pastors. 

RANDY:  And uh his daughter got healed in one of our meetings –

RANDY:  of severe paranoid schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and anorexia, and she got healed; so that’s two!  Well I was telling that first story down in Brazil, and I had a psychiatrist –