September 8, 2025 • 42 mins
The John Lee Bishop story is almost too unbelievable to be true. He built a thriving megachurch of more than 5,000 people, spoke at Christian events across the globe, and published widely read Christian books. But when his life took a shocking turn that pulled him into the world of a drug cartel and ultimately landed him in federal prison, many assumed that would be the end of his story. Instead, it became the beginning of a powerful journey of redemption.
Through moments that read like fiction—backyard fight clubs, wild animals in sermons, and life-altering choices—Bishop discovered that failure does not have to be final. His HarperCollins book The Church of Living Dangerously captures that hard-won truth, and soon Hollywood star Christian Bale will bring this story of resilience to the big screen. In this episode of Stories Worth Hearing, host John Quick sits down with John Lee Bishop for a raw, hope-filled conversation about second chances, refusing to give up, and the faith that can transform even the darkest chapters into new beginnings.
In the end, you don’t fall out of grace—you fall into grace.
Check out his website here: https://www.johnleebishop.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Stories Worth hearing.
I'm your host, John Quick. For 30 years, John Lee Bishop
was the pastor of a mega Church of more than 5000 people.
He spoke at Christian events across the world, published
widely read books, and became a leading figure in ministry.
But his journey took a shocking turn.
John became entangled with a cartel, smuggled drugs and
served time in federal prison. His life has included everything
(00:22):
from backyard fight clubs to wild animals in his sermons to
dangerous encounters that sound more like a novel than real
life. He shared it all in his book The
Church of Living Dangerously, published by Harper Collins, one
of the largest publishers in America.
And today's guest has a story sounbelievable that Hollywood is
already bringing it to the big screen.
Actor Christian Bale has bought the rights to his life story and
(00:42):
is making a major motion pictureabout it.
This is John Lee Bishop, and this is a story worth hearing.
Well, John, welcome to the show.I'm super excited you're on
today. Thank you, Jonathan.
I'm excited to be on. Really appreciate you.
Well, this will be really fun. I think this will be very
interesting for my audience to hear.
Your story is one of the craziest, coolest stories that
(01:04):
I've come across. We were chatting yesterday and,
you know, I've done, I don't know, 450 podcasts where I'm the
host and I've produced another 500 episodes.
And this is one of those storiesthat is like top ten sticks out
to me like just in a inspirational way.
(01:24):
And we'll kind of unpack that here in the next 45 minutes.
But my first question to you is this, John, let's take people
back to kind of some of the origin of origins of this.
You were at one time a mega church pastor.
Talk to me about what led you tobecome a pastor in the first
place. Oh, great question.
So I was, I never went to churchgrowing up.
(01:47):
My wife was a, was a strong Christian and I wasn't, but I
was in love with her. So I was a typical guy to say
I'll go to church because she said to go to church.
And I, I was also then in the book of Matthew, it says there
are people that, that say Lord, Lord and they like, they like
they live their life thinking they knew God.
I would have been one of those guys because I went to church,
(02:08):
prayed a prayer and walked down an aisle.
And yet from 21 to 25, I never lived.
I never thought about it. I never questioned and I had a
martial arts accident that I almost died, lost 5 pints of
blood and that was the moment laying in the hospital when the
doctor told my wife I think he'sgoing to die to that.
(02:30):
That is literally the moment that got my attention to say
what what would happen after I died.
So I became I became a Christ follower as Jesus into my heart.
I hit the ground running. I was trying to go to Lewis and
Clark law school and I got a business bachelor's degree and I
really wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer and felt like I
(02:51):
could have done a good job. I mean, a lot of things I did
were along those lines. And I love to argue and debate.
So I thought perfect and I changed courses, man.
And I went to seminary, got ended up with a master's degree
in leadership and theology. And there was just like, no,
like I know a lot of people readthe book Burn the Boats.
And that was what happened to me.
(03:11):
Like when I realized that God was real, that Jesus was him,
that he died for me, I had like there was no turning back
Jonathan for me. I was all in.
So I was working out of church and the pastor was the one who
ended up in my book, Neil Curtisand we were great friends.
(03:31):
He led me to Christ. He was man, such a great guy.
He is a great guy. I don't want to say such.
He was like past tense. He is a great guy.
We don't necessarily talk a lot,but but at the end of the day,
I, I felt this leading. And what happened was my, I knew
that I was an evangelist and I sort of like was like, well,
(03:53):
I'll be the next Billy Graham. He's going to retire someday.
And this is in 95. I went to the Portland Crusade
and at that crusade, I shook hishand with like a flash rizzy
shaking 150 people's hands, you know, one of those.
And I felt like that was my destiny.
And and then I, I had to start achurch.
I just knew beyond any doubt, beyond any shadow of any doubt
(04:15):
that God, that was what I had todo.
So I, we started and we in my house grew and we were in a
little Grange of in the, in the northwest.
They have these, they call them a Grange, but it's like farmers
gather. So we met there for three years,
grew, went to a high school. We kept growing.
Then we ended up at a, we mergedwith a church that had 15 acres
(04:37):
and we at that point, that was in early 2000s, we exploded to
the point the bank said the church held 600 people and we
were doing at 1.6 services regularly for years.
And the church wouldn't loan US money because they called it
catastrophic growth that we had grown so fast.
(04:57):
So from there, we, I just wantedto see more people that were
like me. I would go to churches and sit
in the back row. I'd make fun of the pastor.
I would, you know, I'd say he's disingenuous.
There's a bunch of be whatever and it just was not into it at
all. I wanted to be the church that
was not like that. I wanted, I didn't want to wear
(05:19):
a suit on a, on a Sunday becauseI didn't wear a suit anytime of
the week. Why would I wear a suit on
Sunday? So I approached everything from
a complete different vantage point and perspective.
And the intent was not to compete with other churches.
The intent was not to have people from the community come
to our church. I asked people to leave or in
the earliest couple years if they were from another church.
(05:41):
I said, you know, we, we, we really go back.
And so God blessed us, Jonathan,and we were running thousands of
people at the what is called a Prairie Rush Prairie Church that
we merged with Living Hope. And then we ended up at a mall,
which was a fantastic location. We were in a Mervyn's and we
grew more there and we were, I don't know, man.
(06:05):
I mean, people don't go to church every weekend.
They used back then about every two to 3/4 weekends.
Now it's like 1 in every six weekends.
So we, we're running thousands, you know, and we would have with
the mall. A Mervyn's store was, man, we
just hit the jackpot. Had been empty for four years.
We ended up there for nine months and they sold to a movie
(06:28):
theater. So then we moved to the Kmart
and and, and at the same time, I'm burning the candle at both
ends, speaking in places around the world, friends in Australia,
friends in Korea, different places.
And I, I spoke at Hillsong, loved Brian, loved Bobby and
their whole team. And I'm just be honest, man.
(06:48):
I look back and yeah, I had an affair and I'm not proud of it.
And my wife is the one that suffered the most because of it.
And my kids and I, out of stressand for I had never drank a beer
until I was in my 40s. Not one time.
All of a sudden I'm drinking andit's sort of like it's numbing
(07:13):
me from the temptations of otherthings.
And it's with the with with knowing that emotionally I was
just too close to this person and drinking was my way out.
And it became, I would say drinking was more than mistress
to be just on it and I failed. And when I went to the church
(07:34):
and told them and the part that just it, it, it grieved my heart
until two months ago that we talked about, they fired me.
They locked the doors, they cut off everything, communication.
We couldn't come to the building, the very church I
started 20 years earlier, I couldn't even enter the building
without security escort. And they threw everything away,
(07:55):
my, you know, like research and just all that kind of stuff.
And I would say that I, to use aRambo term, I drew first blood,
man. I mean, I did, I made a mistake,
a big one, a really big one, butthere was no path of
restoration. And in the Bible it's, it's
clear. I I would say the Bible cover to
(08:16):
cover is all about restoration. Oh yeah, the whole thing is
about redemption. Yeah, and I didn't get it.
And we were the church man that everyone would bring their
friends to. Even if they went to the Baptist
Church down the road, they wouldcome to our church and say this
is a church you'll find faith inChrist in.
So we would do spontaneous baptisms.
At that time, no other church was doing them.
(08:37):
We would started it on Easter weekend and and and it was an
accident. The pastor lost the list and he
handwrote the list. I'm like, how do you handwrite a
list? You know, I have a computer and
he loses a list and so there's 60 people and I I feel God say
get in the pool. I get in the pool and we bet
save people got saved and in their clothes on that day 307 or
(09:00):
something people got baptized inone day.
That just started a trend of spontaneous baptisms and we
doing in the little the small church I'm at now and but that
that happened and something broken me and I don't know.
I don't know. I suppose I'll be in therapy the
rest of my life to find out like, what really broke, what
(09:20):
broken you to the point you needed to go now, Be with the
most dangerous criminal organization on the planet.
Before we go there, let's go. I'd love to hear your thoughts
on, you know, most people have small circles of friends, even,
you know, small circles of influence.
You were at a place where you had, you know, 5000 people
coming to your church. You're getting invited to speak
(09:42):
all over the globe, you know, getting praise from lots of
folks, writing Christian books that were popular in the
leadership network. What was that like?
How was that to go from, you know, church in your living room
to all of a sudden you have thousands of people looking up
to you for answers? Was it too much?
Was it kind of fun? Was it?
(10:04):
Tell me, tell me a little bit about what that was like for
you. OK, sure.
So that season where I got askedto write the very first book
called Dangerous Church, it's still in publication today for
Zondervanis, now Harper Collins.We were studied by other
churches. We were in the least church part
of the country. I'm friends with Mark Driscoll
and we would do conferences together and between our two
(10:27):
churches. There was not a lot of what was
happening in our church was it was not happening anywhere else.
So there was a lot of interest. And I would say the the, the
sort of like people say celebrity, whatever, however you
want to word it. Yeah, it was intoxicating.
(10:47):
I'm not going to lie. It was exciting to to be asked
to speak and then flown first class and spoke.
One time I spoke 21 conferences in 2023 days and in Australia
and it was exciting. It was something that I look
back on and say, man, I don't, Idon't know if I'd ever even want
(11:11):
that kind of attention. You know what I mean?
Like now I'm I, I would say the the new, the John Bishop, John
Lee Bishop 2 point O is a different person than then.
But I was, I was intent focused,determined.
I mean, if it was drinking or growing a church or whatever I
(11:31):
did, it was all in, all in. But yeah, it was when you're
doing that many services, there's no time in between
because cars got to get out of the parking lot at figure big
box store like Kmart. So there was no time.
What what I lost, looking back that I now have is I lost the
connection with people. The very reason I started the
(11:52):
church was to be around people and to hear their stories and to
do the funerals that their family someone died or a
wedding. And I man, I was like the
sermonator, you know, like it was like seriously, man, like
you're just going Wham in an office and back in it.
And so I think I let some of it go to my head and I don't know
(12:19):
if that an abnormal thing or not.
Man to be honest I never heard the term mega church Johnson
before I was starting a church. So you go from everybody in the
country wanting to figure out how you're running a mega church
in one of the least church areasand the whole US to, you know,
(12:42):
kicked out, you know, leave the key as you leave, don't come
back. Talk to me a little bit about
that portion of your life. I know you wrote a book that
which we'll talk about here in asecond.
But that portion of your life, you know, wandering through the
desert or however you want to phrase it, what led you to do
some of the things that, you know, there's drugs and money
(13:04):
and all those things in your book?
Tell us a little bit about that time of your life.
OK. So you used the illustration
wilderness and I would say interestingly, I would, I would
say that the bondage that I experienced like the Israelites
in Egypt was when I was at the mega church when I was fired, it
(13:25):
was absolutely like the wilderness.
God provided for me just like hedid them.
But it was everyone. To this day, I'm back in the
same city I was in and I not onefriend, well, there's like 3
friends literally that went to the church.
But as far as paid staff pastors, not one in two years
(13:45):
have contacted me, not one time.The only guy that I talked to is
Pastor Glenn. And he's a, he's a, he's a good
friend. He's one of these guys.
He came to our church one time and he said, I just want to tell
the world, if you, if you love John Bishop, then I love you.
If you hate John Bishop, then I hate you.
And I'm like, whoa, I don't knowif he should have said that, but
(14:05):
but besides him, man, it's like it was shocking.
It was eye opening, it was sad. It was I was like F the church
not God. There was never in my point in
my life in prison and everythingelse.
Not one single time did I feel God has abandoned me or did I
(14:26):
feel I've lost my salvation. Even when I was running with
the, you know, even when I was having a BBQ with the sicarios,
literally 16 guys that kill people, I never felt like Jesus
was out of my life or I just wasrunning.
I was the prodigal son. I was the guy.
The prodigal son was still the son, but he ran, he left and
(14:49):
that was me. I was the prodigal.
And and I think part of it was part of the disenchantment I had
was, was it was disgusting to see the church respond, Not
church, not people leadership, whitewashed tombs empty hearts
open. They had mouths full of the
(15:11):
right words and hearts empty. Because if you have the gospel
in your heart and you will kick a pastor out of his own church
that he started, No, it's not mychurch, it's God.
But if you have the audacity to literally fire someone, change
the locks, cut them off. My daughter would had my middle
daughter had two kids and we were going to, you know, they
(15:32):
were living in a church owned mobile home and they kicked her
out two days before Christmas. So it was it was it was so
hateful that I felt like that woman messed up felt in John 8,
you know, pulled out naked and just a crowd gets around you
man. And they want to throw rocks and
and I I I I don't have any ill feelings in my heart.
(15:54):
I know where I'm at with God andI know that I'm forgiven.
And Jonathan, what happened two months ago, if you want to talk
about that at some point in thisconversation, that's where
freedom happened. Because I live with shame and
man, because they, the Colombianlocal paper lied about me.
They said stuff that was not true.
Nobody will recant the words. There was never money stolen,
(16:16):
never, never. The FBI, all these people were
involved and they were trying tofind a reason to to hem me up
before I put myself in prison. And there is nothing, man.
And so I asked the pastor, I said, why don't you make it
right? The pastor now of the charity.
And I said, why don't you just make it right?
He said, well, no one knows you.I'm like, you only have a few
100 people in the church now. I don't care if they know me.
(16:37):
The rest of the city knows me. And when they think of me, they
think that I was, you know, likeBernie Madoff's, Bernie Madoff's
like grandson or son or something.
And that is not the case, man. I struggled with a lot of
resentment, a lot of anger. I grew up because you read the
book you, you handle everything physically.
And I, I'm, I'll do it, man, toeto toe with.
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I don't care. Even if I'm going to beat up,
I'm still coming and it didn't matter to me.
And that's probably what helped me get through prison, to be
just honest. But I don't have that now.
I, I feel like God has freed me in a way that's unexplainable
and undeniable at the same time.Because shame, my guilt of what
I did. They've put pointed and pointed.
(17:21):
And for, for your audience, I would say if it's OK, one thing,
no one can make a person feel more guilty than they already
feel for what they've done wrong.
So the more stones you throw at me will not hurt me worse.
The words you say will not hurt me worse.
But the Bible says words are life and death.
And all I've heard is words bad about me.
(17:42):
People will say, I'll say onlineliterally on a message, I'll say
if you have a problem with me and you want to talk, I'm here.
2410 Grand Blvd. right here on the corner right downtown.
Come and talk. Yeah, but talk.
Talk to me, not talk about me because that's, that's just
being a chicken. That's just being immature.
(18:03):
And, and I have other words thatI won't say, but I just, I get
frustrated about it, man. Because if we're Christian,
we're called to a higher, we're not called a higher measurement
in the standards. We're called to love, to love
everyone like we love ourselves.We're called to be the Good
Samaritan. I mean, Jesus didn't, he died at
(18:23):
a time where women were treated so horribly and and children
were too. And in Rome especially, and
history tells us that Christians, the early Christians
literally change the fabric of the city of Rome especially.
And I'm like, why aren't we changing that?
Why is it that people don't go to church?
And it's exactly that because ofguys like me.
(18:45):
And I can go right down the listof mega church guys that have
just been thrown out, man. And I wish for different, but
it's going to take repentance onthe part of leaders and churches
because I don't know what else is going to change the church.
And I'm sorry, I got off on a preaching episode you can order.
So you go to federal prison. What?
(19:06):
And my guess is that was a hard thing to go through.
Talk to me a little bit about what it was like and coming out
of that and then deciding to write a book.
What spurred you on to wanting to kind of tell your story and
be the one to tell it as opposedto having somebody else tell for
you? Yeah, Can I, can I have one
pretext? So I did this road trip with my
(19:29):
son. And part of because of the movie
that's being that my life rightsare owned by Christian Bale.
And there's going to be a movie.But there's part of the story
that I was serving thousands of people in multiple a dozen or
more countries and my own son isaddicted to, at the time,
heroin. And there's something in me that
(19:52):
I walked out in the garage when we had like a third like in
library and he was there and I walked in and he was like half
a, you know, nodded, nodded off.And and I just felt this.
I felt an ache in my heart that I've never really talked about
(20:15):
that I have helped thousands of people, but I haven't helped my
own son. And when he was in between drug
usage, I said, David, let's go on a road trip.
And we went and then I met the cartel.
(20:35):
And then I worked for them. And I was, I was the guy that
was stupid enough to buy into all their dumb things that the
only good saving grace, bro, is I didn't know what they're
putting in the car. And they could have put anything
in the car before I was arrested.
I didn't even think about it. I didn't even think about it
like how like woo smart. I was a dumb criminal.
(20:55):
But the day that I got stopped at the border at San Ysidro and
the day that the they took crowbars to the trunk, it was
like my life flashed before my eyes.
And a day that will stand in infamy, infamy for me because I
(21:17):
was like, what the hell was I doing?
And I was on my knees and I feltlike that guy on the show
Midnight Express, you know, thatold movie.
That's what it felt like, man. There were guys with that
probably 5-6 with trained automatic weapons, trained at
me, trained on me. And I was put in a cell and I
wouldn't talk. And they gave me for marijuana
(21:39):
was the only thing ever in the well, the only thing that time
for sure, but the only thing I believe ever.
And they put me in federal prison and gave me a mandatory
minimum sentence of five years. I served four of the five and
prison was an it was, I was in six spots.
(22:01):
I did OK. But you know, you got to, you
got to play that you got to, yougot to pay to play, man.
So I had to, you know, a couple fights and different, different
scenarios where you just things you just have to do in prison.
But, but you don't have to. But I'm, I'm not going to let
anybody. Respect was the only thing in
prison that you could keep because they take everything
(22:22):
else from you. And so the respect that I and
the one guy told me, it's like you kind of gave me the school
and I'll never forget. I think it's in the book about
Miss Rickey was transgender and she was in the middle of a
transition or whatever. And she was at San Quentin and
then sent to where I was at in San Diego.
(22:42):
This is in my first, like, 20 days in prison.
I was crying every day, bro, like, like sobbing, crying
everywhere. And I asked Miss Ricky to cut my
hair. And I'm talking a big black
person. I mean, yoked up, like you can't
believe. And she's cutting my hair.
And I said, can I? Do I I call you Miss Ricky.
(23:04):
She says, yeah, that's what I would call.
I'm like, OK, you got it. I'll call you anything you want,
you know, And she cut my hair and she said, can I talk to you
for a minute? I'm like, yeah.
And she said you got to stop crying.
And I, I don't remember what I said.
And she said, you put yourself here and you put your family on
(23:28):
the outside. You put them in as much pain and
suffering as you're going through.
So stop being so self-centered and crying about where you're at
and put your big boy pants on and do your time.
Stay in your lane and do your time.
And that day, I never cried again.
(23:48):
Never. To this day, I actually have a
hard time being honest with my emotions.
Prison was an experience that I would never trade for anything,
but it was also an experience that I would never wish on
anyone. And when I got out, I was on an
ankle monitor and I lived in Yuma.
I was in a halfway house and I lived in Yuma and I had to go
(24:12):
every two weeks and do AUA and that was about 6 months I think.
And then then I was then I went in was doing a diesel repair
business and that was going really good and mobile.
Not me as a mechanic, but I was like the middle, the middle guy
connecting all the dots and stuff.
And then we went on a camping trip and I ended up in Vancouver
(24:36):
and got an e-mail from a friend like a like a dad, like I told
you last night, Ron Webb, and hesaid would you come and meet
with me and another guy for lunch?
I did. And I came down to this church,
new life and the rest is history.
Here I am. So what was that?
What was the event or Person or Take Me Back to the Story, where
(25:01):
you contemplated writing your story down and making it into a
book? Thank you for getting me back on
track on ADHD so I can go off rabbit trails.
So when I got out of prison, I signed my life rights to New
Regency, and New Regency had a really strict contract.
And at the time I didn't. I had a lawyer, but we had never
(25:24):
met and I didn't know what I wasdoing.
So we signed it. But in the meantime, since then,
I've met with Christian and my wife and I, I'm going to say 80
hours two different times. We met for like a week, but like
10 hours a day and a super amazing guy.
And he asked me why I had not written a book.
(25:49):
And I said, well, I can't because the contract said I
couldn't. And he said, well, you can.
I own your life rights, you should write a book.
And I said, really? And he said, yeah, absolutely.
So he's been really cool about it.
And there's, so I wrote the bookwith Harper Collins and, and
it's it's my story. It's the one time.
(26:11):
If it never sells any copies, I got to be real, tell the truth,
and put it out there for anyone to read.
That's awesome. Tell me a little bit about
what's it been like meeting withChristian Bale?
You know, literally Batman, one of the biggest actors in the
world, to have him find an interest in your story.
(26:31):
What's that been like for you? Surreal.
Christian is so down to earth world like a white T-shirt and
normal jeans and when he come inI'm expecting a Batman outfit,
you know and he's going to be 7 foot tall and but he is just the
most down to earth person and hewe stayed in this hotel in Santa
(26:52):
Monica. And what was funny about
Christian is so he's watching everything I do the whole time.
Like I didn't notice this till the second or third day.
Our first time he's watching me like, and I'm like, why is he
watching me? Because he's, he doesn't even
call himself a method actor, buthe is.
(27:13):
And so he's watching how I do and he'll ask my wife like, how
does he do this? And what about this one?
So one time since I met with himthe very first time, I've lost
like almost 50 lbs and thank you.
But back then I'm leaning down and I'm tying my shoe, but my
fat gut is right there. Like I couldn't, couldn't get
over it. And I'm tying my shoe on the
(27:33):
side, right? And he's sitting there staring
at me, like looking at me like, you know, and I'm like, what is
he looking at? You know, I'm trying to do like,
Oh my gosh. It was like, like, I need, I've,
I've crossed the point, man. I need slip ONS.
You know, like, like when you'reyounger and your grandpa had
them and you're like, I'm not going to be my grandpa.
I'm like, I'm that guy now, you know, and I said, what are you
(27:56):
laughing about? And Christian said, mate, I'm
not laughing at you. I just, you know, I played Dick
Cheney and Veep. I said I had to gain like 4050
lbs or whatever it was. And I said, OK, he said.
And it wasn't until I gained allthat weight then I realized
people overweight have to tie their shoes sideways.
And I'm like, so from that pointon, man, I'm like, I would tie
(28:19):
my shoe in the front and I woulddo whatever I could to tie it.
I mean, hold my breath and suck it in.
And I'd send Christian a pictureof my shoelaces and just laugh
with it, you know? So but he it's been amazing,
amazing, amazing. He has just been the best.
And the second time he had my son David go, go and come to the
(28:41):
interview and David comes late. You remember the movie Risky
Business? My son comes late to be with
Christian Bale. Christian got him his own room
with a balcony because my son smokes.
My son walks in the door, knockson the door, comes in the room
with a robe on. That's from the hotel with no
shoes, like just in socks comes in and I'm like, you've got to
(29:06):
be joking me. What the hell are you doing?
And David, David just he said Christian couldn't not stop
laughing. Like it was like he David, David
is so funny. You know, he's he is so funny
and he's like, you know, and they were talking.
He's like, you know, I, I bet people, a lot of people are
impressed because you're Christian Bale, you know,
Batman. And he said, well, I don't know,
(29:28):
man, you know? And he's like, I'm not, yeah,
I'm not. I'm like, David, you don't have
to say everything that you're thinking.
You said the quiet part out loud.
You're not supposed to do that. Yeah, that was the part you
should have just not said. But he again, he laughed and
laughed and laughed about it. So it has been.
He was. So the first time we met with
him, it was just after our 40th anniversary and we hadn't
(29:51):
celebrated. And somehow in our text we were
just talking. We got there and there are two
dozen roses and he got us a couple's massage and all this
stuff. And I mean, it's been, it's been
been one of the best parts of our journey.
I'm not going to lie to you. There have been times where
Christian has, he's talked to all my kids and a couple times
(30:13):
he's almost been like a, a safe person to share with.
I mean, he's, he's the one that brought up to me how I was
fired. I was in Malibu, passages,
California, the stepchild version of Ventura, not the one
on the beach. And Christians like, I mean, he,
I think part of him can't, can'tbelieve that we were, we were
(30:35):
the church that would restore everyone.
And then it when it came to me, there was no grace.
Yeah, yeah. And I, I don't know.
I mean, it's not like we harp onit, you know, it's, it's part of
the journey and you have to cometo the place if you're kicked
out like I was. I had to reconcile and it was in
prison. I read this book called Trusting
God. Even with the seminary master's
(30:57):
degree, I still had to believe is God sovereign?
Is he God in control of everything?
Did this like slip through the crack or is God because and I
came to the conclusion he sent me to prison.
God that he's either in control of everything or absolutely
(31:19):
nothing. There's just no in between.
So I would ask myself, because Ihad a pretty good life, man.
You know, I had, I, I would say I had a pretty decent life.
We had a house in Cabo. And no, we weren't millionaires
by a long way, but I was doing good, making good money and
speaking. And I thought that I was doing
ministry with my friends. And then you know what, you know
(31:43):
you when you realize who really is your friend, it's when your
life, the shit comes into your life and falls apart and who's
standing with you, then that's who you.
That's when you know who your friend is or who your friends
are. And that's been a probably
because I grew up with such a dysfunctional family.
(32:04):
My friends became my family. And I think it was a harder blow
because of that. So I'm still a little bit like
dealing with, you know, some of that, but I'm happy where life
is at right now, happier than I ever was back then.
And I say that and Christian onetime asked me is like, what,
what does it feel like to be a church?
(32:24):
You know, like what you said, what thousands of people and all
this and all this, you know, sort of popularity or whatever.
How does it feel that now you'rein a Church of hundreds?
And I said, no, that's not true.We we have not even hit 100 yet.
We're. Not to the 100 mark yet, yeah.
(32:45):
Yeah, I said we're 100 if I count all the kids, the little
tiny infants or if someone's pregnant give, you know, an
extra but and so, but it's it's back to, you know, there's a
verse in the Bible that says don't despise the small
beginnings. The Lord rejoices when the work
begins. Zechariah chapter 4, verse four.
That verse held my, held me together when I first got to the
(33:07):
church I'm at now where God is not a respecter of numbers.
And I, I don't know how to explain it without sounding
disingenuous, except to say I feel like I've got real friends
now. You know, it's a different,
different feeling. That's great.
Can you give us without, you know, selling off any of the,
(33:30):
you know, ideas or whatever wantto keep whatever you need to
keep secret? But can you tell us a little bit
about kind of where the movies at in the process, What, you
know, peek behind the curtain ofkind of what that looks like and
what somebody could, you know, what we could be looking for
down the future? Is this like 10 years out, two
years out? Where you at kind of in the
process? If you can share with us what
you can share. Yeah, I, I, I, I think I won't
(33:54):
get in trouble for sharing a fewthings.
Christian. Christian told my wife and I
that he believes that this is going to be 1 of he he believed.
So he bought the rights to my movie.
He is rewriting the screenplay. So it'll be him and Charles
Randolph, who's an Oscar writingscreenwriter, Oscar winning
(34:15):
screenwriter. So he's re he's rewriting the
screenplay. He's going to produce and he's
only, I think produce 1 movie actually not Co produced.
And I believe I've heard not from him.
But Christian doesn't talk a lot.
It's like things you hear. But it's possible he this could
be his directorial debut. He said to us this, this could
(34:37):
be the most important movie I'veever done, ever made in my life.
That's awesome. And I don't know why I I mean I
really don't man like the. Story's phenomenal.
It's like for folks listening in, we're going to put the link
to the book into John's website,into the description.
Like for folks listening, go by the book.
(34:58):
It's like one of the most epic stories that you ever read.
And it's like we were talking yesterday, John, This is how I
phrase it. This is not your words, but it's
like the pursuit of happiness meets Wolf of Wall Street.
And and I think it's just a crazy story of somebody that is
(35:22):
can be kicked down but not destroyed and get back up again.
And I think, you know, for folkslistening in, our 30 minutes
here has gone by in a flash. There's going to be folks
listening in. Maybe they're discouraged or
maybe they're entrepreneurs and they've started a business that
failed. What kind of encouragement would
you give to them? Because you literally went from
federal prison that like real federal prison to Christian
(35:46):
Bale, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, buying your
script, becoming friends of you,making it into a movie.
So what would you tell the folksthat you know, maybe discouraged
their own life right now and need some encouragement?
I, well, I had to come to a place that I said I'm not going
(36:07):
to quit no matter what. Like I believe, you know, I
always tell people chapter 12 iscoming.
In Chapter 11 of the book of John, we see Lazarus, who Jesus
was friends with, dies and he's put in a tomb.
And in that climate in the desert, he's put in a basically
(36:28):
a cave. And Mary and Martha, his
sisters, they're like, why didn't you come earlier?
And the Bible says Jesus waited to come.
He waited because he wanted to create that that realization.
You're human and you've got to trust me more.
(36:48):
So when he comes finally, the inthe King James, it says in, I
forget the exact verse, but in Chapter 11 it says about Lazarus
after his four days, it says he stinketh.
And I just like, it's kind of a funny statement, but Jesus
raises it from the dead. And then he says he tells the
rest of everyone go take the grave cloth off of him.
(37:10):
And this is what I believe. Like one of my new favorite
animals is elephants because they can't lay down.
If they lay down their organs, if they lay down, they will
eventually die. So when they're sick animals,
other elephants or animals will come in and they're hurt and
they'll stand next to them and they'll hold them up.
And you've got a number one, have an attitude that you're
(37:33):
just never going to quit becausein chapter 12, your chapter 12's
coming. If you're watching this chapter
12, if you won't quit is he's sitting with Jesus eating a meal
with his two sisters. And we will never know the end
of the story if we quit after failure.
(37:53):
Failure should not and cannot define me.
I I just refused to let failure be the final word.
I want to just one day at a time, reach one person that I
can encourage one person. We feed hundreds and hundreds of
homeless people here. I want my life to make a
difference in the simplest of ways.
And in order to do that, I've got to get up out of bed.
(38:16):
I've got to put my feet on the ground and I've got to do what I
got to do to get in the car, youknow, and go one quick.
Can I share? Elijah quit on God.
Elijah was the most famous prophet in the world, probably
in the Old Testament. Even Orthodox Jews would say
this. Elijah saw miracles, unlike
(38:37):
probably most of the prophets, but it was because of someone's
words. Jezebel's.
If by this time tomorrow you're not dead, may the gods strike me
dead. In First Kings chapter 18, it
says Elijah ran first to Beersheba and then he ran all
the way to what we know is MountSinai.
(39:00):
He runs the equivalent of about two runs, not runs.
He walks, goes away. I say run because he's going
from God. So two things about this.
One is he's running because of fear.
And most of the time people quit.
Right now, you're quitting on your marriage, you're quitting
at your job, you're quitting at you have a dream like we, we
(39:20):
have these dreams when we're kids and then life beats the
hell out of the dream and we quit.
And Elijah is quitting in the middle, Jonathan in the middle.
He's sitting under a broom tree,the Bible says, and an Angel
comes and feeds him, wakes him up and says, hey, hey, hey, hey,
you got a long journey ahead, bud.
You got to give, you need some nourishment.
(39:40):
And he feeds him. And I, I say, I always tell
people this, when you're runningfrom God, when you're running,
when you're quitting, God never will quit on you.
In fact, he'll make your lunch for you.
He'll give you nourishment whileyou're quitting on him.
But he gets to The Cave and at the mouth of The Cave, he's used
to the fire and wind and earthquakes.
(40:00):
And the Lord, the Bible says, wasn't in those things.
The Bible says he was in the still whisper and he says
Elijah. What are you doing here?
And I would ask someone that's quitting right now watching
this, maybe we'll never meet. What are you doing here?
What are you doing here? You've quit on your marriage,
(40:20):
you've quit on your kids. You've given up because
someone's words. Why?
And then God says to him, go back the way you came.
And I would say that to your audience.
Just go back the way you came. I, I preached this message one
time and a guy named Leonard, I'll never forget him till the
day I die. Old man comes walking out to me
(40:41):
20 years ago, 15 years ago. And he said, Pastor, I've never
been here before. I'm, I said, it's nice to meet
you, Leonard. And he said I'm going back the
way I came. I said, well, tell me what that
means for you. He said, I'm going back like you
said, out the doors. I came in.
I'm going back to the car that you said that I drove in.
(41:02):
I'm going to get in that car anddrive back the opposite way, the
way I came in. I'm going to go back to my house
the way I came and I'm going to get walk in my house and I'm
going to love. And he's a crying older guy.
Crying really gets your attention.
He's crying tears in his eyes. He said I'm going back to love
the woman that I said I will love her till death do you part.
(41:25):
But until today I wanted to quiton her because she doesn't know
who I am. She's forgotten who I am, but
I'm going back because I remember who I am and I remember
who she is, and I'm going to go back and love her until death do
us part. So we never know what the rest
of the book will say if we quit.That's good.
(41:48):
Well, your story is a very fascinating John.
I appreciate you hanging out with us here for 45 minutes.
Before we go real quick, tell folks where they can find you,
where they can buy the book. Give us all those details.
We're going to put it in the description, but just for folks
listening in that want to jot itdown as a mental note.
Sure. So you go to Amazon.
The book is Church of Living Dangerously.
(42:09):
It's you can go to Amazon or anyBarnes and Noble anywhere or the
best thing is I do a weekly devotional and I talk like I'm
just talking with work with us. Just real simple.
And if you go to John Bishop, John Lee bishop.com and sign up,
there's nothing, there's nothingmore than we'll send you this
devotional every week. And I would love to have some
people sign up and be blessed. It's it's just, you know,
(42:34):
sharing my heart like I've done with with you just now.
It's John, John Lee bishop.com. That's it.
Awesome. Well folks, I'll put that link
in the description and I'll linkto the book to the Amazon as
well. John, I want to thank you so
much for joining us. And it'll be fun to watch your
story and get that movie out andwatch it with my kids in my
living room. So we wish you nothing but
success, and you're welcome backanytime.
(42:55):
Thank you brother. Take care.
Welcome to Stories Worth hearing.
I'm your host, John Quick. For 30 years, John Lee Bishop
was the pastor of a mega Church of more than 5000 people.
He spoke at Christian events across the world, published
widely read books, and became a leading figure in ministry.
But his journey took a shocking turn.
John became entangled with a cartel, smuggled drugs and
served time in federal prison. His life has included everything
(00:22):
from backyard fight clubs to wild animals in his sermons to
dangerous encounters that sound more like a novel than real
life. He shared it all in his book The
Church of Living Dangerously, published by Harper Collins, one
of the largest publishers in America.
And today's guest has a story sounbelievable that Hollywood is
already bringing it to the big screen.
Actor Christian Bale has bought the rights to his life story and
(00:42):
is making a major motion pictureabout it.
This is John Lee Bishop, and this is a story worth hearing.
Well, John, welcome to the show.I'm super excited you're on
today. Thank you, Jonathan.
I'm excited to be on. Really appreciate you.
Well, this will be really fun. I think this will be very
interesting for my audience to hear.
Your story is one of the craziest, coolest stories that
(01:04):
I've come across. We were chatting yesterday and,
you know, I've done, I don't know, 450 podcasts where I'm the
host and I've produced another 500 episodes.
And this is one of those storiesthat is like top ten sticks out
to me like just in a inspirational way.
(01:24):
And we'll kind of unpack that here in the next 45 minutes.
But my first question to you is this, John, let's take people
back to kind of some of the origin of origins of this.
You were at one time a mega church pastor.
Talk to me about what led you tobecome a pastor in the first
place. Oh, great question.
So I was, I never went to churchgrowing up.
(01:47):
My wife was a, was a strong Christian and I wasn't, but I
was in love with her. So I was a typical guy to say
I'll go to church because she said to go to church.
And I, I was also then in the book of Matthew, it says there
are people that, that say Lord, Lord and they like, they like
they live their life thinking they knew God.
I would have been one of those guys because I went to church,
(02:08):
prayed a prayer and walked down an aisle.
And yet from 21 to 25, I never lived.
I never thought about it. I never questioned and I had a
martial arts accident that I almost died, lost 5 pints of
blood and that was the moment laying in the hospital when the
doctor told my wife I think he'sgoing to die to that.
(02:30):
That is literally the moment that got my attention to say
what what would happen after I died.
So I became I became a Christ follower as Jesus into my heart.
I hit the ground running. I was trying to go to Lewis and
Clark law school and I got a business bachelor's degree and I
really wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer and felt like I
(02:51):
could have done a good job. I mean, a lot of things I did
were along those lines. And I love to argue and debate.
So I thought perfect and I changed courses, man.
And I went to seminary, got ended up with a master's degree
in leadership and theology. And there was just like, no,
like I know a lot of people readthe book Burn the Boats.
And that was what happened to me.
(03:11):
Like when I realized that God was real, that Jesus was him,
that he died for me, I had like there was no turning back
Jonathan for me. I was all in.
So I was working out of church and the pastor was the one who
ended up in my book, Neil Curtisand we were great friends.
(03:31):
He led me to Christ. He was man, such a great guy.
He is a great guy. I don't want to say such.
He was like past tense. He is a great guy.
We don't necessarily talk a lot,but but at the end of the day,
I, I felt this leading. And what happened was my, I knew
that I was an evangelist and I sort of like was like, well,
(03:53):
I'll be the next Billy Graham. He's going to retire someday.
And this is in 95. I went to the Portland Crusade
and at that crusade, I shook hishand with like a flash rizzy
shaking 150 people's hands, you know, one of those.
And I felt like that was my destiny.
And and then I, I had to start achurch.
I just knew beyond any doubt, beyond any shadow of any doubt
(04:15):
that God, that was what I had todo.
So I, we started and we in my house grew and we were in a
little Grange of in the, in the northwest.
They have these, they call them a Grange, but it's like farmers
gather. So we met there for three years,
grew, went to a high school. We kept growing.
Then we ended up at a, we mergedwith a church that had 15 acres
(04:37):
and we at that point, that was in early 2000s, we exploded to
the point the bank said the church held 600 people and we
were doing at 1.6 services regularly for years.
And the church wouldn't loan US money because they called it
catastrophic growth that we had grown so fast.
(04:57):
So from there, we, I just wantedto see more people that were
like me. I would go to churches and sit
in the back row. I'd make fun of the pastor.
I would, you know, I'd say he's disingenuous.
There's a bunch of be whatever and it just was not into it at
all. I wanted to be the church that
was not like that. I wanted, I didn't want to wear
(05:19):
a suit on a, on a Sunday becauseI didn't wear a suit anytime of
the week. Why would I wear a suit on
Sunday? So I approached everything from
a complete different vantage point and perspective.
And the intent was not to compete with other churches.
The intent was not to have people from the community come
to our church. I asked people to leave or in
the earliest couple years if they were from another church.
(05:41):
I said, you know, we, we, we really go back.
And so God blessed us, Jonathan,and we were running thousands of
people at the what is called a Prairie Rush Prairie Church that
we merged with Living Hope. And then we ended up at a mall,
which was a fantastic location. We were in a Mervyn's and we
grew more there and we were, I don't know, man.
(06:05):
I mean, people don't go to church every weekend.
They used back then about every two to 3/4 weekends.
Now it's like 1 in every six weekends.
So we, we're running thousands, you know, and we would have with
the mall. A Mervyn's store was, man, we
just hit the jackpot. Had been empty for four years.
We ended up there for nine months and they sold to a movie
(06:28):
theater. So then we moved to the Kmart
and and, and at the same time, I'm burning the candle at both
ends, speaking in places around the world, friends in Australia,
friends in Korea, different places.
And I, I spoke at Hillsong, loved Brian, loved Bobby and
their whole team. And I'm just be honest, man.
(06:48):
I look back and yeah, I had an affair and I'm not proud of it.
And my wife is the one that suffered the most because of it.
And my kids and I, out of stressand for I had never drank a beer
until I was in my 40s. Not one time.
All of a sudden I'm drinking andit's sort of like it's numbing
(07:13):
me from the temptations of otherthings.
And it's with the with with knowing that emotionally I was
just too close to this person and drinking was my way out.
And it became, I would say drinking was more than mistress
to be just on it and I failed. And when I went to the church
(07:34):
and told them and the part that just it, it, it grieved my heart
until two months ago that we talked about, they fired me.
They locked the doors, they cut off everything, communication.
We couldn't come to the building, the very church I
started 20 years earlier, I couldn't even enter the building
without security escort. And they threw everything away,
(07:55):
my, you know, like research and just all that kind of stuff.
And I would say that I, to use aRambo term, I drew first blood,
man. I mean, I did, I made a mistake,
a big one, a really big one, butthere was no path of
restoration. And in the Bible it's, it's
clear. I I would say the Bible cover to
(08:16):
cover is all about restoration. Oh yeah, the whole thing is
about redemption. Yeah, and I didn't get it.
And we were the church man that everyone would bring their
friends to. Even if they went to the Baptist
Church down the road, they wouldcome to our church and say this
is a church you'll find faith inChrist in.
So we would do spontaneous baptisms.
At that time, no other church was doing them.
(08:37):
We would started it on Easter weekend and and and it was an
accident. The pastor lost the list and he
handwrote the list. I'm like, how do you handwrite a
list? You know, I have a computer and
he loses a list and so there's 60 people and I I feel God say
get in the pool. I get in the pool and we bet
save people got saved and in their clothes on that day 307 or
(09:00):
something people got baptized inone day.
That just started a trend of spontaneous baptisms and we
doing in the little the small church I'm at now and but that
that happened and something broken me and I don't know.
I don't know. I suppose I'll be in therapy the
rest of my life to find out like, what really broke, what
(09:20):
broken you to the point you needed to go now, Be with the
most dangerous criminal organization on the planet.
Before we go there, let's go. I'd love to hear your thoughts
on, you know, most people have small circles of friends, even,
you know, small circles of influence.
You were at a place where you had, you know, 5000 people
coming to your church. You're getting invited to speak
(09:42):
all over the globe, you know, getting praise from lots of
folks, writing Christian books that were popular in the
leadership network. What was that like?
How was that to go from, you know, church in your living room
to all of a sudden you have thousands of people looking up
to you for answers? Was it too much?
Was it kind of fun? Was it?
(10:04):
Tell me, tell me a little bit about what that was like for
you. OK, sure.
So that season where I got askedto write the very first book
called Dangerous Church, it's still in publication today for
Zondervanis, now Harper Collins.We were studied by other
churches. We were in the least church part
of the country. I'm friends with Mark Driscoll
and we would do conferences together and between our two
(10:27):
churches. There was not a lot of what was
happening in our church was it was not happening anywhere else.
So there was a lot of interest. And I would say the the, the
sort of like people say celebrity, whatever, however you
want to word it. Yeah, it was intoxicating.
(10:47):
I'm not going to lie. It was exciting to to be asked
to speak and then flown first class and spoke.
One time I spoke 21 conferences in 2023 days and in Australia
and it was exciting. It was something that I look
back on and say, man, I don't, Idon't know if I'd ever even want
(11:11):
that kind of attention. You know what I mean?
Like now I'm I, I would say the the new, the John Bishop, John
Lee Bishop 2 point O is a different person than then.
But I was, I was intent focused,determined.
I mean, if it was drinking or growing a church or whatever I
(11:31):
did, it was all in, all in. But yeah, it was when you're
doing that many services, there's no time in between
because cars got to get out of the parking lot at figure big
box store like Kmart. So there was no time.
What what I lost, looking back that I now have is I lost the
connection with people. The very reason I started the
(11:52):
church was to be around people and to hear their stories and to
do the funerals that their family someone died or a
wedding. And I man, I was like the
sermonator, you know, like it was like seriously, man, like
you're just going Wham in an office and back in it.
And so I think I let some of it go to my head and I don't know
(12:19):
if that an abnormal thing or not.
Man to be honest I never heard the term mega church Johnson
before I was starting a church. So you go from everybody in the
country wanting to figure out how you're running a mega church
in one of the least church areasand the whole US to, you know,
(12:42):
kicked out, you know, leave the key as you leave, don't come
back. Talk to me a little bit about
that portion of your life. I know you wrote a book that
which we'll talk about here in asecond.
But that portion of your life, you know, wandering through the
desert or however you want to phrase it, what led you to do
some of the things that, you know, there's drugs and money
(13:04):
and all those things in your book?
Tell us a little bit about that time of your life.
OK. So you used the illustration
wilderness and I would say interestingly, I would, I would
say that the bondage that I experienced like the Israelites
in Egypt was when I was at the mega church when I was fired, it
(13:25):
was absolutely like the wilderness.
God provided for me just like hedid them.
But it was everyone. To this day, I'm back in the
same city I was in and I not onefriend, well, there's like 3
friends literally that went to the church.
But as far as paid staff pastors, not one in two years
(13:45):
have contacted me, not one time.The only guy that I talked to is
Pastor Glenn. And he's a, he's a, he's a good
friend. He's one of these guys.
He came to our church one time and he said, I just want to tell
the world, if you, if you love John Bishop, then I love you.
If you hate John Bishop, then I hate you.
And I'm like, whoa, I don't knowif he should have said that, but
(14:05):
but besides him, man, it's like it was shocking.
It was eye opening, it was sad. It was I was like F the church
not God. There was never in my point in
my life in prison and everythingelse.
Not one single time did I feel God has abandoned me or did I
(14:26):
feel I've lost my salvation. Even when I was running with
the, you know, even when I was having a BBQ with the sicarios,
literally 16 guys that kill people, I never felt like Jesus
was out of my life or I just wasrunning.
I was the prodigal son. I was the guy.
The prodigal son was still the son, but he ran, he left and
(14:49):
that was me. I was the prodigal.
And and I think part of it was part of the disenchantment I had
was, was it was disgusting to see the church respond, Not
church, not people leadership, whitewashed tombs empty hearts
open. They had mouths full of the
(15:11):
right words and hearts empty. Because if you have the gospel
in your heart and you will kick a pastor out of his own church
that he started, No, it's not mychurch, it's God.
But if you have the audacity to literally fire someone, change
the locks, cut them off. My daughter would had my middle
daughter had two kids and we were going to, you know, they
(15:32):
were living in a church owned mobile home and they kicked her
out two days before Christmas. So it was it was it was so
hateful that I felt like that woman messed up felt in John 8,
you know, pulled out naked and just a crowd gets around you
man. And they want to throw rocks and
and I I I I don't have any ill feelings in my heart.
(15:54):
I know where I'm at with God andI know that I'm forgiven.
And Jonathan, what happened two months ago, if you want to talk
about that at some point in thisconversation, that's where
freedom happened. Because I live with shame and
man, because they, the Colombianlocal paper lied about me.
They said stuff that was not true.
Nobody will recant the words. There was never money stolen,
(16:16):
never, never. The FBI, all these people were
involved and they were trying tofind a reason to to hem me up
before I put myself in prison. And there is nothing, man.
And so I asked the pastor, I said, why don't you make it
right? The pastor now of the charity.
And I said, why don't you just make it right?
He said, well, no one knows you.I'm like, you only have a few
100 people in the church now. I don't care if they know me.
(16:37):
The rest of the city knows me. And when they think of me, they
think that I was, you know, likeBernie Madoff's, Bernie Madoff's
like grandson or son or something.
And that is not the case, man. I struggled with a lot of
resentment, a lot of anger. I grew up because you read the
book you, you handle everything physically.
And I, I'm, I'll do it, man, toeto toe with.
(16:59):
I don't care. Even if I'm going to beat up,
I'm still coming and it didn't matter to me.
And that's probably what helped me get through prison, to be
just honest. But I don't have that now.
I, I feel like God has freed me in a way that's unexplainable
and undeniable at the same time.Because shame, my guilt of what
I did. They've put pointed and pointed.
(17:21):
And for, for your audience, I would say if it's OK, one thing,
no one can make a person feel more guilty than they already
feel for what they've done wrong.
So the more stones you throw at me will not hurt me worse.
The words you say will not hurt me worse.
But the Bible says words are life and death.
And all I've heard is words bad about me.
(17:42):
People will say, I'll say onlineliterally on a message, I'll say
if you have a problem with me and you want to talk, I'm here.
2410 Grand Blvd. right here on the corner right downtown.
Come and talk. Yeah, but talk.
Talk to me, not talk about me because that's, that's just
being a chicken. That's just being immature.
(18:03):
And, and I have other words thatI won't say, but I just, I get
frustrated about it, man. Because if we're Christian,
we're called to a higher, we're not called a higher measurement
in the standards. We're called to love, to love
everyone like we love ourselves.We're called to be the Good
Samaritan. I mean, Jesus didn't, he died at
(18:23):
a time where women were treated so horribly and and children
were too. And in Rome especially, and
history tells us that Christians, the early Christians
literally change the fabric of the city of Rome especially.
And I'm like, why aren't we changing that?
Why is it that people don't go to church?
And it's exactly that because ofguys like me.
(18:45):
And I can go right down the listof mega church guys that have
just been thrown out, man. And I wish for different, but
it's going to take repentance onthe part of leaders and churches
because I don't know what else is going to change the church.
And I'm sorry, I got off on a preaching episode you can order.
So you go to federal prison. What?
(19:06):
And my guess is that was a hard thing to go through.
Talk to me a little bit about what it was like and coming out
of that and then deciding to write a book.
What spurred you on to wanting to kind of tell your story and
be the one to tell it as opposedto having somebody else tell for
you? Yeah, Can I, can I have one
pretext? So I did this road trip with my
(19:29):
son. And part of because of the movie
that's being that my life rightsare owned by Christian Bale.
And there's going to be a movie.But there's part of the story
that I was serving thousands of people in multiple a dozen or
more countries and my own son isaddicted to, at the time,
heroin. And there's something in me that
(19:52):
I walked out in the garage when we had like a third like in
library and he was there and I walked in and he was like half
a, you know, nodded, nodded off.And and I just felt this.
I felt an ache in my heart that I've never really talked about
(20:15):
that I have helped thousands of people, but I haven't helped my
own son. And when he was in between drug
usage, I said, David, let's go on a road trip.
And we went and then I met the cartel.
(20:35):
And then I worked for them. And I was, I was the guy that
was stupid enough to buy into all their dumb things that the
only good saving grace, bro, is I didn't know what they're
putting in the car. And they could have put anything
in the car before I was arrested.
I didn't even think about it. I didn't even think about it
like how like woo smart. I was a dumb criminal.
(20:55):
But the day that I got stopped at the border at San Ysidro and
the day that the they took crowbars to the trunk, it was
like my life flashed before my eyes.
And a day that will stand in infamy, infamy for me because I
(21:17):
was like, what the hell was I doing?
And I was on my knees and I feltlike that guy on the show
Midnight Express, you know, thatold movie.
That's what it felt like, man. There were guys with that
probably 5-6 with trained automatic weapons, trained at
me, trained on me. And I was put in a cell and I
wouldn't talk. And they gave me for marijuana
(21:39):
was the only thing ever in the well, the only thing that time
for sure, but the only thing I believe ever.
And they put me in federal prison and gave me a mandatory
minimum sentence of five years. I served four of the five and
prison was an it was, I was in six spots.
(22:01):
I did OK. But you know, you got to, you
got to play that you got to, yougot to pay to play, man.
So I had to, you know, a couple fights and different, different
scenarios where you just things you just have to do in prison.
But, but you don't have to. But I'm, I'm not going to let
anybody. Respect was the only thing in
prison that you could keep because they take everything
(22:22):
else from you. And so the respect that I and
the one guy told me, it's like you kind of gave me the school
and I'll never forget. I think it's in the book about
Miss Rickey was transgender and she was in the middle of a
transition or whatever. And she was at San Quentin and
then sent to where I was at in San Diego.
(22:42):
This is in my first, like, 20 days in prison.
I was crying every day, bro, like, like sobbing, crying
everywhere. And I asked Miss Ricky to cut my
hair. And I'm talking a big black
person. I mean, yoked up, like you can't
believe. And she's cutting my hair.
And I said, can I? Do I I call you Miss Ricky.
(23:04):
She says, yeah, that's what I would call.
I'm like, OK, you got it. I'll call you anything you want,
you know, And she cut my hair and she said, can I talk to you
for a minute? I'm like, yeah.
And she said you got to stop crying.
And I, I don't remember what I said.
And she said, you put yourself here and you put your family on
(23:28):
the outside. You put them in as much pain and
suffering as you're going through.
So stop being so self-centered and crying about where you're at
and put your big boy pants on and do your time.
Stay in your lane and do your time.
And that day, I never cried again.
(23:48):
Never. To this day, I actually have a
hard time being honest with my emotions.
Prison was an experience that I would never trade for anything,
but it was also an experience that I would never wish on
anyone. And when I got out, I was on an
ankle monitor and I lived in Yuma.
I was in a halfway house and I lived in Yuma and I had to go
(24:12):
every two weeks and do AUA and that was about 6 months I think.
And then then I was then I went in was doing a diesel repair
business and that was going really good and mobile.
Not me as a mechanic, but I was like the middle, the middle guy
connecting all the dots and stuff.
And then we went on a camping trip and I ended up in Vancouver
(24:36):
and got an e-mail from a friend like a like a dad, like I told
you last night, Ron Webb, and hesaid would you come and meet
with me and another guy for lunch?
I did. And I came down to this church,
new life and the rest is history.
Here I am. So what was that?
What was the event or Person or Take Me Back to the Story, where
(25:01):
you contemplated writing your story down and making it into a
book? Thank you for getting me back on
track on ADHD so I can go off rabbit trails.
So when I got out of prison, I signed my life rights to New
Regency, and New Regency had a really strict contract.
And at the time I didn't. I had a lawyer, but we had never
(25:24):
met and I didn't know what I wasdoing.
So we signed it. But in the meantime, since then,
I've met with Christian and my wife and I, I'm going to say 80
hours two different times. We met for like a week, but like
10 hours a day and a super amazing guy.
And he asked me why I had not written a book.
(25:49):
And I said, well, I can't because the contract said I
couldn't. And he said, well, you can.
I own your life rights, you should write a book.
And I said, really? And he said, yeah, absolutely.
So he's been really cool about it.
And there's, so I wrote the bookwith Harper Collins and, and
it's it's my story. It's the one time.
(26:11):
If it never sells any copies, I got to be real, tell the truth,
and put it out there for anyone to read.
That's awesome. Tell me a little bit about
what's it been like meeting withChristian Bale?
You know, literally Batman, one of the biggest actors in the
world, to have him find an interest in your story.
(26:31):
What's that been like for you? Surreal.
Christian is so down to earth world like a white T-shirt and
normal jeans and when he come inI'm expecting a Batman outfit,
you know and he's going to be 7 foot tall and but he is just the
most down to earth person and hewe stayed in this hotel in Santa
(26:52):
Monica. And what was funny about
Christian is so he's watching everything I do the whole time.
Like I didn't notice this till the second or third day.
Our first time he's watching me like, and I'm like, why is he
watching me? Because he's, he doesn't even
call himself a method actor, buthe is.
(27:13):
And so he's watching how I do and he'll ask my wife like, how
does he do this? And what about this one?
So one time since I met with himthe very first time, I've lost
like almost 50 lbs and thank you.
But back then I'm leaning down and I'm tying my shoe, but my
fat gut is right there. Like I couldn't, couldn't get
over it. And I'm tying my shoe on the
(27:33):
side, right? And he's sitting there staring
at me, like looking at me like, you know, and I'm like, what is
he looking at? You know, I'm trying to do like,
Oh my gosh. It was like, like, I need, I've,
I've crossed the point, man. I need slip ONS.
You know, like, like when you'reyounger and your grandpa had
them and you're like, I'm not going to be my grandpa.
I'm like, I'm that guy now, you know, and I said, what are you
(27:56):
laughing about? And Christian said, mate, I'm
not laughing at you. I just, you know, I played Dick
Cheney and Veep. I said I had to gain like 4050
lbs or whatever it was. And I said, OK, he said.
And it wasn't until I gained allthat weight then I realized
people overweight have to tie their shoes sideways.
And I'm like, so from that pointon, man, I'm like, I would tie
(28:19):
my shoe in the front and I woulddo whatever I could to tie it.
I mean, hold my breath and suck it in.
And I'd send Christian a pictureof my shoelaces and just laugh
with it, you know? So but he it's been amazing,
amazing, amazing. He has just been the best.
And the second time he had my son David go, go and come to the
(28:41):
interview and David comes late. You remember the movie Risky
Business? My son comes late to be with
Christian Bale. Christian got him his own room
with a balcony because my son smokes.
My son walks in the door, knockson the door, comes in the room
with a robe on. That's from the hotel with no
shoes, like just in socks comes in and I'm like, you've got to
(29:06):
be joking me. What the hell are you doing?
And David, David just he said Christian couldn't not stop
laughing. Like it was like he David, David
is so funny. You know, he's he is so funny
and he's like, you know, and they were talking.
He's like, you know, I, I bet people, a lot of people are
impressed because you're Christian Bale, you know,
Batman. And he said, well, I don't know,
(29:28):
man, you know? And he's like, I'm not, yeah,
I'm not. I'm like, David, you don't have
to say everything that you're thinking.
You said the quiet part out loud.
You're not supposed to do that. Yeah, that was the part you
should have just not said. But he again, he laughed and
laughed and laughed about it. So it has been.
He was. So the first time we met with
him, it was just after our 40th anniversary and we hadn't
(29:51):
celebrated. And somehow in our text we were
just talking. We got there and there are two
dozen roses and he got us a couple's massage and all this
stuff. And I mean, it's been, it's been
been one of the best parts of our journey.
I'm not going to lie to you. There have been times where
Christian has, he's talked to all my kids and a couple times
(30:13):
he's almost been like a, a safe person to share with.
I mean, he's, he's the one that brought up to me how I was
fired. I was in Malibu, passages,
California, the stepchild version of Ventura, not the one
on the beach. And Christians like, I mean, he,
I think part of him can't, can'tbelieve that we were, we were
(30:35):
the church that would restore everyone.
And then it when it came to me, there was no grace.
Yeah, yeah. And I, I don't know.
I mean, it's not like we harp onit, you know, it's, it's part of
the journey and you have to cometo the place if you're kicked
out like I was. I had to reconcile and it was in
prison. I read this book called Trusting
God. Even with the seminary master's
(30:57):
degree, I still had to believe is God sovereign?
Is he God in control of everything?
Did this like slip through the crack or is God because and I
came to the conclusion he sent me to prison.
God that he's either in control of everything or absolutely
(31:19):
nothing. There's just no in between.
So I would ask myself, because Ihad a pretty good life, man.
You know, I had, I, I would say I had a pretty decent life.
We had a house in Cabo. And no, we weren't millionaires
by a long way, but I was doing good, making good money and
speaking. And I thought that I was doing
ministry with my friends. And then you know what, you know
(31:43):
you when you realize who really is your friend, it's when your
life, the shit comes into your life and falls apart and who's
standing with you, then that's who you.
That's when you know who your friend is or who your friends
are. And that's been a probably
because I grew up with such a dysfunctional family.
(32:04):
My friends became my family. And I think it was a harder blow
because of that. So I'm still a little bit like
dealing with, you know, some of that, but I'm happy where life
is at right now, happier than I ever was back then.
And I say that and Christian onetime asked me is like, what,
what does it feel like to be a church?
(32:24):
You know, like what you said, what thousands of people and all
this and all this, you know, sort of popularity or whatever.
How does it feel that now you'rein a Church of hundreds?
And I said, no, that's not true.We we have not even hit 100 yet.
We're. Not to the 100 mark yet, yeah.
(32:45):
Yeah, I said we're 100 if I count all the kids, the little
tiny infants or if someone's pregnant give, you know, an
extra but and so, but it's it's back to, you know, there's a
verse in the Bible that says don't despise the small
beginnings. The Lord rejoices when the work
begins. Zechariah chapter 4, verse four.
That verse held my, held me together when I first got to the
(33:07):
church I'm at now where God is not a respecter of numbers.
And I, I don't know how to explain it without sounding
disingenuous, except to say I feel like I've got real friends
now. You know, it's a different,
different feeling. That's great.
Can you give us without, you know, selling off any of the,
(33:30):
you know, ideas or whatever wantto keep whatever you need to
keep secret? But can you tell us a little bit
about kind of where the movies at in the process, What, you
know, peek behind the curtain ofkind of what that looks like and
what somebody could, you know, what we could be looking for
down the future? Is this like 10 years out, two
years out? Where you at kind of in the
process? If you can share with us what
you can share. Yeah, I, I, I, I think I won't
(33:54):
get in trouble for sharing a fewthings.
Christian. Christian told my wife and I
that he believes that this is going to be 1 of he he believed.
So he bought the rights to my movie.
He is rewriting the screenplay. So it'll be him and Charles
Randolph, who's an Oscar writingscreenwriter, Oscar winning
(34:15):
screenwriter. So he's re he's rewriting the
screenplay. He's going to produce and he's
only, I think produce 1 movie actually not Co produced.
And I believe I've heard not from him.
But Christian doesn't talk a lot.
It's like things you hear. But it's possible he this could
be his directorial debut. He said to us this, this could
(34:37):
be the most important movie I'veever done, ever made in my life.
That's awesome. And I don't know why I I mean I
really don't man like the. Story's phenomenal.
It's like for folks listening in, we're going to put the link
to the book into John's website,into the description.
Like for folks listening, go by the book.
(34:58):
It's like one of the most epic stories that you ever read.
And it's like we were talking yesterday, John, This is how I
phrase it. This is not your words, but it's
like the pursuit of happiness meets Wolf of Wall Street.
And and I think it's just a crazy story of somebody that is
(35:22):
can be kicked down but not destroyed and get back up again.
And I think, you know, for folkslistening in, our 30 minutes
here has gone by in a flash. There's going to be folks
listening in. Maybe they're discouraged or
maybe they're entrepreneurs and they've started a business that
failed. What kind of encouragement would
you give to them? Because you literally went from
federal prison that like real federal prison to Christian
(35:46):
Bale, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, buying your
script, becoming friends of you,making it into a movie.
So what would you tell the folksthat you know, maybe discouraged
their own life right now and need some encouragement?
I, well, I had to come to a place that I said I'm not going
(36:07):
to quit no matter what. Like I believe, you know, I
always tell people chapter 12 iscoming.
In Chapter 11 of the book of John, we see Lazarus, who Jesus
was friends with, dies and he's put in a tomb.
And in that climate in the desert, he's put in a basically
(36:28):
a cave. And Mary and Martha, his
sisters, they're like, why didn't you come earlier?
And the Bible says Jesus waited to come.
He waited because he wanted to create that that realization.
You're human and you've got to trust me more.
(36:48):
So when he comes finally, the inthe King James, it says in, I
forget the exact verse, but in Chapter 11 it says about Lazarus
after his four days, it says he stinketh.
And I just like, it's kind of a funny statement, but Jesus
raises it from the dead. And then he says he tells the
rest of everyone go take the grave cloth off of him.
(37:10):
And this is what I believe. Like one of my new favorite
animals is elephants because they can't lay down.
If they lay down their organs, if they lay down, they will
eventually die. So when they're sick animals,
other elephants or animals will come in and they're hurt and
they'll stand next to them and they'll hold them up.
And you've got a number one, have an attitude that you're
(37:33):
just never going to quit becausein chapter 12, your chapter 12's
coming. If you're watching this chapter
12, if you won't quit is he's sitting with Jesus eating a meal
with his two sisters. And we will never know the end
of the story if we quit after failure.
(37:53):
Failure should not and cannot define me.
I I just refused to let failure be the final word.
I want to just one day at a time, reach one person that I
can encourage one person. We feed hundreds and hundreds of
homeless people here. I want my life to make a
difference in the simplest of ways.
And in order to do that, I've got to get up out of bed.
(38:16):
I've got to put my feet on the ground and I've got to do what I
got to do to get in the car, youknow, and go one quick.
Can I share? Elijah quit on God.
Elijah was the most famous prophet in the world, probably
in the Old Testament. Even Orthodox Jews would say
this. Elijah saw miracles, unlike
(38:37):
probably most of the prophets, but it was because of someone's
words. Jezebel's.
If by this time tomorrow you're not dead, may the gods strike me
dead. In First Kings chapter 18, it
says Elijah ran first to Beersheba and then he ran all
the way to what we know is MountSinai.
(39:00):
He runs the equivalent of about two runs, not runs.
He walks, goes away. I say run because he's going
from God. So two things about this.
One is he's running because of fear.
And most of the time people quit.
Right now, you're quitting on your marriage, you're quitting
at your job, you're quitting at you have a dream like we, we
(39:20):
have these dreams when we're kids and then life beats the
hell out of the dream and we quit.
And Elijah is quitting in the middle, Jonathan in the middle.
He's sitting under a broom tree,the Bible says, and an Angel
comes and feeds him, wakes him up and says, hey, hey, hey, hey,
you got a long journey ahead, bud.
You got to give, you need some nourishment.
(39:40):
And he feeds him. And I, I say, I always tell
people this, when you're runningfrom God, when you're running,
when you're quitting, God never will quit on you.
In fact, he'll make your lunch for you.
He'll give you nourishment whileyou're quitting on him.
But he gets to The Cave and at the mouth of The Cave, he's used
to the fire and wind and earthquakes.
(40:00):
And the Lord, the Bible says, wasn't in those things.
The Bible says he was in the still whisper and he says
Elijah. What are you doing here?
And I would ask someone that's quitting right now watching
this, maybe we'll never meet. What are you doing here?
What are you doing here? You've quit on your marriage,
(40:20):
you've quit on your kids. You've given up because
someone's words. Why?
And then God says to him, go back the way you came.
And I would say that to your audience.
Just go back the way you came. I, I preached this message one
time and a guy named Leonard, I'll never forget him till the
day I die. Old man comes walking out to me
(40:41):
20 years ago, 15 years ago. And he said, Pastor, I've never
been here before. I'm, I said, it's nice to meet
you, Leonard. And he said I'm going back the
way I came. I said, well, tell me what that
means for you. He said, I'm going back like you
said, out the doors. I came in.
I'm going back to the car that you said that I drove in.
(41:02):
I'm going to get in that car anddrive back the opposite way, the
way I came in. I'm going to go back to my house
the way I came and I'm going to get walk in my house and I'm
going to love. And he's a crying older guy.
Crying really gets your attention.
He's crying tears in his eyes. He said I'm going back to love
the woman that I said I will love her till death do you part.
(41:25):
But until today I wanted to quiton her because she doesn't know
who I am. She's forgotten who I am, but
I'm going back because I remember who I am and I remember
who she is, and I'm going to go back and love her until death do
us part. So we never know what the rest
of the book will say if we quit.That's good.
(41:48):
Well, your story is a very fascinating John.
I appreciate you hanging out with us here for 45 minutes.
Before we go real quick, tell folks where they can find you,
where they can buy the book. Give us all those details.
We're going to put it in the description, but just for folks
listening in that want to jot itdown as a mental note.
Sure. So you go to Amazon.
The book is Church of Living Dangerously.
(42:09):
It's you can go to Amazon or anyBarnes and Noble anywhere or the
best thing is I do a weekly devotional and I talk like I'm
just talking with work with us. Just real simple.
And if you go to John Bishop, John Lee bishop.com and sign up,
there's nothing, there's nothingmore than we'll send you this
devotional every week. And I would love to have some
people sign up and be blessed. It's it's just, you know,
(42:34):
sharing my heart like I've done with with you just now.
It's John, John Lee bishop.com. That's it.
Awesome. Well folks, I'll put that link
in the description and I'll linkto the book to the Amazon as
well. John, I want to thank you so
much for joining us. And it'll be fun to watch your
story and get that movie out andwatch it with my kids in my
living room. So we wish you nothing but
success, and you're welcome backanytime.
(42:55):
Thank you brother. Take care.
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It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.