'My Big Fat Greek Outreach'-J.John, a Greek-Cypriot by birth, shares his astonishing story
by Dan Wooding
July 12, 2007
NEWPORT BEACH, CA (ANS) -- J.John, a Greek-Cypriot by birth, is possibly the most well-known evangelist in the UK. He lives in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire, UK and is married to Killy and they have 3 sons, Michael, Simeon and Benjamin. He became a Christian in 1975 and J.John has been described as refreshing, humorous, passionate, earthy, accessible and dynamic, and to date, he has completed thousands of speaking engagements at conferences, towns, cities and universities in 54 countries on 6 continents. J.John has authored 21 titles, and there are over million copies of his books in print in thirteen languages and he recently paid a short visit to Southern California to speak in some local churches and I caught up with him just hours before he was leaving for the UK to interview him for my Front Page Radio program.
I began by asking J.John to describe his early years.
"I lived in Cyprus as a child but I grew up in London, England," he said. "It was a very Greek sort of family. If you've seen the movie, 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding,' well that's like my family. When that movie came out a lot of friends said to me, 'Is that true? I said, "No, it's not true. It's worse than that."
"In fact my mother is a travel agent for guilt trips so I come from a very cultural Mediterranean family that's full of all sorts of innuendos and loud voices and food and fun."
I asked him why his family had moved to England.
"Cyprus has always been an island of conflict so they went over to England and hence I grew up in London," he explained. "Interestingly, there are a lot of ethnic communities that live in London. They are people that came years and years ago tried to retain the culture that they once left. So you can find that in London the Greek community is really Greek and the Italian community is really Italian."
J.John then described how he became a Christian.
"I was a cultural Greek Orthodox, but really I was an agnostic," he said, ". I didn't really believe in God. When I was a student in London in 1974, I met a Christian called Andy Economides and he gave me a Bible and told me to read the Gospels. Then, over a period of time, he began to explain it all to me, and one day, I had an epiphany and I realized that this was true and I needed Jesus in my life. I was nearly 18 at the time and the date was February 9th, 1975."
I asked J.John what his mother made of his conversion.
"My mom thought I was brainwashed and I said, 'Mum, my brain has been washed. Mum if you only knew what was in my brain before, you'd be pleased that it got washed."
He said it was his friend Andy who discipled him in his new-found faith.
"Andy was amazing; he nurtured me, encouraged me, discipled me and I just became active as a Christian both visually and verbally --- well I tried to be," he said.
After going through seminary, he went to Northern Ireland to work in the area of reconciliation. After three years on the staff of a Church, he became an itinerant evangelist .
One of the hallmarks of J.John's ministry today is that it features a ten week series on the Ten Commandments.
"Back in 1999, many people were thinking, 'we're going into a new year and a new millennium and we should we be re-thinking how we do things.' I was praying through 1999 and I just had this you know great sense that I should preach the Ten Commandments when we got into the new millennium. I knew that this was a 'God idea' rather than a 'good idea'. I've got lots of good ideas, but I don't think I would have thought of that one. I started to think, pray and read about it, and then I was watching the pop charts on television and they had them in reverse order, so I thought, 'I'll teach the Ten Commandments in reverse order.'"
J.John said that he read all the "though shalt not" phrases contained in the Ten Commandments and began searching for a way to teach them positively.
"So I took coveting and used the title, 'How to find true contentment.' Then with lying, I called it, 'How to hold to the truth' and with stealing he called it, 'How to prosper with a clear conscience.' With adultery, I called it, 'How to affair-proof your relationship.'
"Everyone in the whole world needs a new heart; we know that," he said. "Now if you're already a follower of Jesus then you don't need a new heart, but what many followers of Jesus have got is that they've got blocked arteries. And I found that this series was unblocking people's arteries and also giving people an opportunity to have a new heart; and the effects been amazing.
The stealing talk became quite a sensation.
"When I got to the stealing one halfway through my talk, I had another idea and I said to everyone, 'Listen, why don't we all return our stolen goods?' There was a moment of silence and I said, 'Yes, let's all return our stolen goods and, if we can't return them to the rightful owner, we'll have amnesty trash cans. I want you to bring your stolen goods.'
"Well, one man put one-hundred-two thousand pounds cash into the dustbin we had jewelry, money, antiques, computers, hotel bathrobes, library books and all of it went to homeless shelters, hospices and hospitals and I've done this series now twenty-three times and the attendants has exceed half a million and three quarters of a million pounds has been put into the dust bins and that's all gone to hospitals."
Many of J.John's outreaches take place in huge cathedrals.
"I've done it in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, Chester Cathedral, Liverpool, Lincoln, York Minster and some of the largest venues that are available in the UK cities," he said.
I asked him to give his comments on the recent terror threat in the UK.
"It's always disturbing when you have any form of terrorism as is any form of aggression," said J.John. "Many people are endeavoring to alleviate symptoms, but if you only try and alleviate the symptoms, you're always going to have the symptoms because you've got to deal with the root cause. We know that the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart and that's why what we're doing as evangelists is so important because what we're actually doing is we're dealing with the root cause of what's wrong.
"Therefore that's why I'm passionate in what I'm doing because I believe that what we're doing is helping to make a difference. When you've got peace with God you can bring harmony to the rest of the world."
I then asked J.John for his assessment of the spiritual situation in the UK at this time.
"Having ministered for twenty-seven years, I personally believe that Britain is more fertile today than I've ever known it over the years that I've been ministering," he said. "I think people are very receptive and responsive. It is the responsibility of the church to communicate clearly and effectively what the message of Christianity is, but I don't think the church has always been very good at communicating the message simply and clearly."
I then asked J.John for some highlights of his recent travels.
"In India, we've been to some very poor regions and seen not just amazing attendance at rallies and meetings -- in the region of a hundred or two-hundred-thousand people at the meetings -- but we've certainly seen the power of the gospel of Christ impact people's lives and we've seen Indian people ransomed, healed, restored and forgiven and that's been amazing.
"My friend Canon Andrew White [the Vicar of Baghdad] and I run a relief work in the Middle East. Not so long ago in Gaza. We interacted with both members of Fatah and the leaders of Hamas and met with the Christians and being in these hostile situations you actually see the agony and the ecstasy of their life in Gaza. You actually experience joy and you also cry because you see so much terrible awful situations. We went into one house when we were in Gaza recently and this whole family slept there's about ten of them in two rooms and the kitchen was also the toilet but that day they only had one tomato to eat and obviously seeing that is heart breaking, heart wrenching. But we did what we could and went and bought them some sacks of flour, rice and oil but also shared something about the love of Jesus."
I concluded the interview by asking J.John how people could pray for him and he replied, "Well thank you for asking," he said. "There are not many people that do what I do. Most pastors are like general practitioners and we need Pastors. But I'm an obstetrician. I deal in the area of obstetrics spiritual birth. We certainly need a lot more evangelists, a lot more people doing the work of the evangelist. So to pray for my well being because sometimes people say, 'How are you? And I reply, 'There's nothing wrong with the model but it's the mileage.' So if you could pray for well being for health and wholeness and for wisdom and for the continued anointing of God to keep proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ to millions of people who are still in the dark about him."
If you would like more information on the ministry of J.John, you can go to www.Philotrust.com and you can also download some of his talks and sign up for his weekly free devotional letter.
* I would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.
© 2007 ASSIST News Service, used with permission.
