Sid: I recently spoke at a conference with my friend David Hertzog in a place called Sedona, Arizona and that is a real New Age capital. It is an amazing city, absolute beauty; we were on top of a mountain in a tent. It was probably one of the most glorious natural settings I have ever seen in my life. And one of the other speakers was Bill Johnson and for the first time I saw a full service with Bill Johnson. And I have to say I saw more instant miracles than I could recall ever seeing anywhere. And I was pretty taken by Bill Johnson’s ministry although I know Bill Johnson and although I’ve interviewed him several times, I’d never really seen such a demonstration, such an awesome demonstration of God’s power. And then Bill Johnson said, Kevin Dedmon, who is on staff at Bethel Church with him had one of the strongest miracle anointings that he knew.” So I wanted to get in touch with Kevin and I have him on the telephone right now from Redding, California. And Kevin I want to take you back so it will kind of unfold because what God did for you I know your passion is He wants to do for everyone. When you were eighteen you had been into drugs and you got saved at a concert and you just radically believed God’s Word and healings started almost immediately. As a matter of fact you had, it’s a Hebrew word it’s called chutzpa that means nerve. You had a lot of chutzpa because according to my notes you walked up to some people where one guy had a wrist problem and tell me about that.
Kevin: Well, he had a broken wrist and it was in a soft cast and it had just been broken and there were about twelve guys standing around and they were teenagers like myself and I walked into the group and I said, “Listen, if God doesn’t heal that guy’s wrist you can all beat me up, but if God heals that guys wrist then you guys have to get saved.”
Sid: You must have been really confident his wrist would be healed, I hope.
Kevin: I was so ignorant when I became a Christian; I thought the Old Testament was written in the 1960’s.
Sid: Well, a lot of Christians feel the same way unfortunately.
Kevin: So when I started reading the New Testament I just assumed that everything that was in there was true and was real and was something I was suppose to experience. So I just went about healing people and…
Sid: So tell me about the person with the broken wrist.
Kevin: Well, he got totally healed right on the spot, he’s moving it all around and so I turned to each one of them and I said, “Okay now you got to give your life to Jesus right now because He’s real and he has a plan and purpose for your life.” And four of them actually received Jesus right there on the spot.
Sid: That is so wonderful, but someone poured cold water on your parade. In 1977 someone died from cancer that you prayed for and why did you stop praying for the sick pretty much after that?
Kevin: Well, actually I poured cold water on myself because, by the time I was two years into Jesus you know as a Christian the pastors in the city where I lived in Reno Nevada, they started calling me asking me to come and pray for people; and I thought that it was a little odd that they would have me come and pray, why they wouldn’t just do it. But I would go and pray for people and we were invited to go pray for a woman who was dying of cancer and my fiancée, now my wife at the time she was my fiancée we went and prayed for this woman and we prayed for probably two hours. And when we got home and hour later they called and said that she had died and I thought I had killed her because I didn’t have enough faith; that I wasn’t gifted enough. That I should had somebody come over there who was better equipped and more empowered than I was and so for twenty some years I never would pray for the sick again because I use to tell people you don’t want me to pray for you because you’ll either get worse or you may die. And I believed in healing, but I didn’t think I had what it takes and the enemy stole from me just that child like faith that I started with; because of that failure so to speak.
Sid: And then it was almost like history repeated itself because your son Chad started having a drug problem like you had and your wife forced him to go to the Brownsville Church in Pensacola, Florida and how did she force him to go?
Kevin: Well, he was sixteen at the time and it was really an issue of either we were going to emancipate him out of our home or he was going to go to this Brownville youth conference with another church in our city. And he decided he would go and he got absolutely just transformed at this youth conference in Brownsville at the Revival there in Florida.
Sid: Well, he actually called your wife from there but what did you think when you heard he was on the phone?
Kevin: Well, actually the youth pastor called and my wife then called me and said that the youth pastor had called and my heart just sunk down to the floor and I said, “Okay that’s it.” He’s out of here, there sending him home and she’s crying on the phone, Chad, it’s Chad our son, Chad; and what, tell me what? The youth pastor called and said that he’s never seen anything like this before, that Chad has repented, that he’s been crying for twenty-four straight hours and then he’s laughing for twenty-four straight hours. And he’s totally transformed, he’s up on the stage and everybody here knows him all 1,000 of the kids know him and he’s the hit of the whole conference’ I’ve never seen anything like it. And sure enough Chad came home and he was absolutely transformed and he hasn’t stopped since. So twelve years later and now he’s traveling all over the world preaching and doing miracles and equipping and empowering and activating Christians to do the same thing. It’s amazing!
Sid: But as a result of that, that almost brought your first love back and there was a touch biker that was living in your home and he started yelling, “What was he yelling about?”
Kevin: Well, he was like 6’4” biker and we were helping him out, he had herniated his disk and he had had surgery and it didn’t work, he was just writhing in pain for six months. He was staying in one of our guest rooms and we were just kind of taking care of him and one night he just called form his room as we were having a leaders meeting and he just asked if we could carry him out to the living room so he could just be with some people. He was just in so much pain and lonely and just didn’t know what was going to happen in his life. And so at the end of the meeting he looks at me and he’s crying and he’s saying “Kevin, please, please can you pray for me.” And up to this point for twenty some years I would just say no, I’m sorry I just don’t have the gift; even though I had written papers in college and gotten A’s on them on healing. I had the theology, but I didn’t believe that I had the gift or what it takes to heal people. And so I was looking around for somebody else on the leadership that might have a gift of healing, because I did believe in it. And nobody there had a gift either so out of compassion I just said, “Okay, just stand him up and this was after I had come back from Brownsville. My wife and I had been wrecked out in Brownsville, just the Spirit of God came on us and we were totally renewed and now we were revived and we were ready to go after the supernatural in a whole new way. Even though we had been part of the Vineyard in the past and we had been taught about the supernatural, we had seen it we weren’t doing it ourselves. So I had our roommate, he stood up and I put my hand on him and as I did, at the same I felt fire on my hand, he jumps up in the air. And says my backs on fire, my backs on fire and this guy could not walk let alone jump. He was jumping in the air, running all around, he was crying, he was laughing and just saying I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it I’m healed, I’m healed and I finally said, “Believe it obviously your healed. And he was totally healed and that was what launched me into believing now that I really could lay hand on the sick and they would recover or the injured or the dead even you know.
Sid: And the thing that I love about your ministry as opposed to many others, your ministry is not to make Kevin Dedmon the superstar. Your ministry is to empower people so that everyone can do what Kevin Dedmon does by having the realization that Jesus is in them.
Kevin: That’s exactly right, the same Jesus that’s in me in you is in everyone out there and you know I’m no different than anyone else. We all have the Spirit of God inside of us and we’ve all been commissioned to heal the sick, to raise the dead, to cleanse lepers and to set people free. So that’s what I teach, I try to equip, to empower and to activate people into the supernatural lifestyle that they have been called to that’s a natural lifestyle.
Sid: I have a copy of your brand new book “Unlocking Heaven” and the Subtitle is Key’s to living naturally supernatural. And of course on my Television Show I say, “Welcome to my world where it’s naturally supernatural.” So you use that same terminology, but you’ve been involved in training so many young people, “Why is it the young people seem to get it quicker than those that have been in the church for fifty years?”
Kevin: Well, in actuality I’m seeing, I’m seeing young, old, men, women, leaders, non-leaders, every kind of person now being activated into the supernatural lifestyle. But it is true the younger person is in the Lord, or in life they just tend to be more accepting of something new.
