Sid: One of the men that has the key to reach the heart of the Jew is Kevin Dedmon who I interviewed last week; who is the Father of Chad Dedmon and I am overwhelmed. You see the way to reach the Jew and the way to reach any person from another religion is not mental apologetics, but through a demonstration of the kingdom of God which they cannot deny. And Chad you started early, I mean I have a little difficulty comprehending this, if I had been your father I think I would have spanked the people that had you do this, but when you were nine years of age there was a dumpster. What did it look like?
Chad: Yeah, this is the way that we did evangelism at our church and what we would do we would just go and find people and we would go find those that were down and out; those that needed Jesus and really needed a supernatural Jesus. And so we approached this dumpster, it was me and a guy that was living that we took in; a guy that was living at my parents’ house and he picked me up and put me in this dumpster that was a blue dumpster, it was very big and it was behind a liquor store. And we would find people that would actually live there, they would drink the night before and then they would sleep in the dumpster. I guess that was the most comfortable place, compared to maybe the asphalt they would sleep in the trash can.
Sid: So these were homeless people that were looking for a place out of the rain and the wind and the cold and everything.
Chad: Exactly, so we would go out to the people and so this particular time I get dropped into the dumpster, I’m nine years old and I don’t even know if I could crawl out. So I’m dumped in and there’s this man that drank himself, drank so much the night before he was sleeping and I woke him up and I began to tell him about Jesus. And so we bring him to church and he ends up getting saved and delivered supernaturally, where the alcohol, the desire for alcohol that void that was in his life that he was trying to fill with alcohol completely left and was filled with the love of Jesus. And so we took him to a rehab and he later sent us a letter two years later to tell us that he reconnected, that he got remarried with his wife, reconnected with his kids, got his old job back and is now buying a house.
Sid: Now, just out of curiosity why did someone, who was it that dumped you into the dumpster at age nine?
Chad: Yeah, his name was Laguna, that was not his real name, but we gave him that name because we called him the goonster. And he was 6’4” he was a body builder, he was an X bouncer.
Sid: I mean, why didn’t he get in the dumpster, why did he put you in the dumpster?
Chad: I guess I was the smaller one so I think him jumping in there, for some reason I got the short end of the stick.
Sid: Ha, you obviously did. Let’s progress a little bit, and you’re a pastor’s kid and we find out about your father, Kevin who wrote the book that were offering this week called, “Unlocking Heaven.” And Kevin Dedmon it said about your Dad by Bill Johnson who has one of the neatest miracle ministries I personally know of; that he said, “That your Dad had the strongest miracle anointing of anyone he ever heard of.” So you’re raised by a pastor and you resented, as many pastor’s kids do. Actually you did what your Dad did when he was younger you got into drugs at age thirteen; it was sort of like there was a generational curse or something.
Chad: Yes, it really was and so there was a generational curse, then also just being raised in a ministry, being born into the ministry I felt that false responsibility. And so I really got angry at God, I got angry at my parents where I was mad that I was born, this is not my decision; and so I decided to rebel and I started doing drugs. And I would see, that was probably the most demonic stuff, time in my life.
Sid: Now you were very gifted, you had what the Bible refers to as the gift of discernment, you could see what was going on in the visible world and you could literally see evil, you could see demons and you could literally see Jesus at the time.
Chad: Yes, yes I would see Jesus probably at a monthly; I would see Him in my room in the corner. I would be doing drugs and He would be weeping and He’d be looking at me and He’d be crying and my heart was so hardened I said, “I know that you are the way, but you know what this is what I’m doing.”
Sid: And one day though it was a very turning point in your life, Jesus entered your room and he said something to you, what did He say?
Chad: He said to me, He said, “Chad, you’re either going to be my best friend or I’m going to had you over to Satan.” And I knew what that meant, I had many close encounters to death, I knew that there was a hedge of protection over my life and I almost od, my friend almost od on crack, I got shot at, I almost got stabbed. A number of different things happened or I knew that Jesus was protecting me and I knew that when Jesus was saying “I’m going to hand you over to Satan that it wasn’t going to be that I was going to be a drug addict for the rest of my life; that I would actually be killed by Satan. And so I knew that this was an ultimatum that had serious consequences and looked at Jesus and I said, “I know that You are the only way that You are the truth; and so I said, “I want you to be my best friend.” And He gave me this big hug and right when He hugged me, right when He touched me, all the drug addiction, the desire for drugs just completely left and I really became whole, I felt that peace that surpasses all understanding, it was amazing.
Sid: Okay, so that’s around thirteen, fourteen and at fifteen you get interested in girls and you develop and unhealthy relationship; then by the time you’re seventeen she breaks up with you and you’re depressed and now you turn to alcohol and drinking. “How could you that after being hugged by Jesus””
Chad: I know, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick and desire realized is the tree of life.” So that’s why it’s so important to grab a hold of your destiny and the promises that are over your life and do not let other people take that place in your life; that Jesus has to be that place. And I let a girl into my heart that I shouldn’t have and when she broke up with me, it was probably the only time in my life that I was depressed and so I drank a few times and I got caught drinking and I got the end of my rope.
Sid: Now you didn’t have a Jewish mother, but you had a mother that acted just like a Jewish mothers are suppose to act, she forced you to go to a revival meeting in Pensacola, Florida at the Brownsville, Assembly of God with I guess a youth group and you had no choice. She forced you to go so you went on this kicking and screaming so to speak; what happened to you there?
Chad: I got radically touched! I mean again, I had no idea about this revival that was happening on the other side of our nation in Florida and so I was kind of going blind. I didn’t know what was going on and I went there and I felt the Presence of God and I felt the tangible Presence of God and I knew that this was different; that this was not just church; this wasn’t just somebody speaking that God was present and God was tangible. And so I responded by going to the altar and just saying, “God, I need to get my life right, I need to get it in order and I ended up just on my face and I was just begin to weep in a real deep just the Spirit of Repentance came and I just wept. I wept so hard, I mean I had, you know snot, I was crying, I didn’t care who was around me, and I ended up starting to wail, I started screaming, “God, I need You, I need You, I need You” And there was another young man that was with me at the time and he was kind of going through the same experience and we were a good two hours weeping and then something just clicked without looking at each other, we began to laugh. We began to just get filled with the Spirit of God where we just began to fill this overwhelming joy where we begin to laugh from that point all the way into our hotel room, throughout the whole night and for the next two days we could not stop laughing.
Sid: Two says! That a long time to laugh, you know “A merry heart is good medicine,” but this is ridiculous!
Chad: Yeah, it was amazing you can’t get too much of a good thing.
Sid: Then you get back at high school; you are radically changed, “What happened at your high school?”
Chad: Yeah, we started like a Bible study prayer meeting at our lunch for our High School and we had, it just started growing more and more; there was just a definite hunger in the High School. And we ended up getting about 150 people that were just going after God where we would just be in our just during the hours of our High School and we would meet at different other times as well where we would just get together and we would pray, “God we want more of You.” So there was this desperation and this hunger of about 150 people that just cried out for more of God.
Sid: How many got saved at your High School?
Chad: Oh, there was probably about 100 to 150 people.
Sid: Now that is normal, how would you like to be normal, well one thing that would make you normal would be if you had the same Dad as Chad had, Kevin Dedmon…
