Pivotal People
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Pivotal People
The God Who Still Moves Today: Extraordinary God Stories
Mark Ellis, journalist and founder of God Reports, joins us to discuss his new book "When Kingdom Light Shines," a collection of 60 extraordinary testimonies that showcase God's supernatural intervention in modern lives.
• Mark transitioned from commercial real estate to ministry and then to faith journalism after 25 years
• His website God Reports began in 2009 from his desire to share untold missionary stories
• Jesus was the ultimate storyteller, using narratives that remain impactful after thousands of years
• Stanley Premnath's survival on 9/11 as the only known survivor from the impact zone where Flight 175 hit Tower 2
• The transformation of a 27-year-old atheist professor who had a near-death experience that led him to faith and eventually becoming a pastor
• These documented stories serve as modern-day continuations of the miraculous works recorded in Acts
• Even seemingly ordinary lives contain extraordinary evidence of God's presence when viewed through a spiritual lens
You can learn more about Mark's work at godreports.com or email him directly at mark@godreports.com. His book "When Kingdom Light Shines" is available on Amazon.
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I would like to welcome Mark Ellis to the Pivotal People podcast. Mark is so interesting. He has a new book which I'm reading. It is called when Kingdom Light Shines and it is a collection of 60 amazing God stories and we're going to talk about that today. But let me tell you about Mark First of all. He's a journalist and he's a founder. He's the founder of a website called God Reports which has all kinds of amazing stories. Mark. I've been on it. I don't know how you write all of those. We'll talk about that. God Reports is a global platform dedicated to sharing impactful stories and testimonies from missionaries and mission organizations around the world. He used to work in commercial real estate and full-time ministry and then he transitioned into journalism, and he has spent more than two decades documenting these firsthand accounts of faith in action. He's been featured in all kinds of national publications, including the Christian Post, the Christian Examiner and other faith-based publications. So, mark, I want to thank you for taking a little bit of time to share your experience and your book with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1:Before we start, could you tell us a little bit? You said you used to be in full-time ministry. You transitioned to full-time journalism. Give us a little of the history on how that transition happened and why you felt called to do that.
Speaker 2:Well, after I left the business world, I answered a call into Christian ministry. I was assistant pastor at a small church in Laguna Beach, california, and at the time myself and another man went on. We sort of job shared and split the salary between the two of us, and that meant I needed to find something else to do, even though ministry is hardly ever a part-time job. I needed to find something else, and I'd always had a love of writing, and so I met a British journalist named Dan Wooding and approached him about contributing to. He had a website called Assist News and that started with covering persecution stories but then morphed into covering all kinds of areas of Christian concern around the world, and so I wrote with him for a number of years.
Speaker 2:And then I took my first overseas mission trip to the Southern Philippines to visit two Wycliffe Bible translators that our church had supported for over 40 years.
Speaker 2:They had just completed their second translation of the scripture into a tribal language called the Tagawa. Myself and another man flew down there to commemorate and celebrate this great achievement. It was their second translation, and I saw all these hardships they had to go through to bring this precious gift to the Tagabawa people, and that included the wife overcoming breast cancer, their son falling from a tree and becoming partially paralyzed. When they started their second translation project, they had to be evacuated from their home several times due to threats either from Muslim terrorists or communist terrorists. And so, anyway, I saw all that they went through and I was flying home and I thought, well, I can write a story about them for Assist News, but how many other stories are there out there like this that go unreported? And so that's when I got the idea of starting the God Reports website field that would help support and encourage Christian missions and get people excited about either giving to missions, praying for missions or actually going on their own short-term or long-term mission trips.
Speaker 1:And you've done that for 20 years. God Reports.
Speaker 2:Well, between the time that I started writing for Assist News and then I started God Reports. Well, between the time that I started writing for Assist News and then I started God Reports went live in 2009. It's a 25-year period where my very first assignment was covering promise keepers at the LA Coliseum. That was a special assignment for me because I had gotten involved in the Promise Keepers movement myself.
Speaker 1:Give us a few examples Now. I told Mark before we started that I have read several of his stories. The book is 60 Stories. It's kind of like eating potato chips Once you finish the story, you have to go to the next one, you have to go to the next one. What I appreciate about your stories, mark and you can tell a professional journalist is that they are not drawn out. They are easy to read, they're very entertaining, but they're all awe-inspiring. All of them are like okay, this is really amazing, how could? And when you hear the stories, when you read the stories, you're like okay, that could only be a God thing, that could only be a God thing, that could only be a God thing. And he's a journalist. So these are, you know, factual things that happened, although I do appreciate how you talk about. Jesus was the storyteller.
Speaker 1:That's right, talk about that. I thought that was a neat way to think of stories. Think of stories.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, I mean, maybe the book of Romans is the most theological, doctrinally rich book in the New Testament. But if you look at the life of Jesus himself, he was telling stories that were compelling and to a culture that maybe not everybody was a reader. They were stories that were memorable and of course, the Holy Spirit helped imprint these stories in people's hearts. But we're telling those stories today, a couple thousand years later, because we remember the story of the Good Samaritan and the story of the prodigal son and these stories that are so rich in the human experience.
Speaker 2:I have a men's group where we go through we're going through the New Testament. This year. We just finished the book of Acts and one thing that struck me in finishing chapter 28 of the book of Acts is gee, I don't want this to end Paul's under house arrest in Rome. But then what happens after that? And I feel like my stories are a continuation, historically, of what happens after that I'm not going to say they're in any way shape or form part of the canon of Scripture or anything, but we're documenting, chronicling what God was doing in Jesus, in these greater works since he gave us the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:And what I liked, your point being that it's easy for us to read scripture and think well, those kinds of things happened back then. Those kinds of things happened when Jesus was walking the earth, or whatever prophet, and you kind of point out in this book. If we pay attention, you can see God working right here.
Speaker 1:And it's not always. I mean, your 60 stories certainly bring what I consider very dramatic and interesting stories to light. But if someone hadn't read your story as a journalist, where you put all the pieces together and I'm just thinking like me in my everyday life, I might see a glimpse of someone's life, but I don't know the whole entire story and I might see the amazing God in their whole entire story. If I knew it, what you're doing for us in these stories is you're pulling together the whole entire story of each of these and then it's very evident that God is there. But I think your 60 stories are really just pointing all of us to the truth that these stories are happening around us all the time.
Speaker 2:if we pay attention.
Speaker 2:Exactly and I feel like I'm covering this really tiny, tiny percentage of these greater works that God is doing around the world and I have the privilege of recording some of them, but there's so many out there I can't possibly cover. And I think John at the end of his gospel says all the libraries in the world couldn't be filled with all the stories of what Jesus really did just in his own lifetime. So he's promised that there would be greater works after he left because he was sending the Holy Spirit. So the scope is incredible around the world.
Speaker 1:Just for fun. I would love it if you would relate a couple of the stories and I'm going to. Oh wow, the one that really hit me was the only known survivor of the impact zone on 9-11 shares. How God protected him. Now, most people, we don't know what the impact zone is, so I'll just let you start at the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you wouldn't mind.
Speaker 2:Sure, sure. Well, stanley Premnath worked for Fuji Bank and he was assistant vice president, oversaw all their operations on the 81st floor of Tower 2 at the World Trade Center, this huge, massive office that would be the equivalent of one acre, basically the office that he oversaw. He had worked his way up. He was one of the few Christians who worked at Fuji Bank and his practice every day was to eat his lunch at his desk. He had his Bible on his desk. He would read the Bible, he'd have a super salad.
Speaker 2:On the morning of 9-11, he didn't realize the first plane had hit Tower One and he started getting these phone calls Stan, are you OK? Are you OK? He didn't really know what happened. And then he looked out his window and he sees these chunks of fiery debris raining down from Tower One and I think his mother called him and said Stan, you got to get out.
Speaker 2:So he's standing there talking on the phone, looking out toward the Statue of Liberty, and he sees a plane, a jet, coming straight at his office eye level contact and it was United Flight 175. And it was United Flight 175. And even though it was a soundproof building, as the plane got closer he could hear the revving of the engines and he didn't know what to do. So he said Lord, I can't do this.
Speaker 2:He dove under his desk and if you've ever seen a replay of when Flight 175 hit Tower 2, it's coming in pretty straight like this, but at the last moment it kind of tips its wing up like this when it hits the building, and that wing went right through the top of his office. Ok, a massive fireball erupts. Massive fireball erupts. And the story of how he escaped is to me it's like a modern day version of Meshach, shadrach and Abednego, who were thrown in the fiery furnace and God protected him. And I don't want to be a spoiler so I won't give away how all that happened, but it's quite a remarkable survivor story of him and there was another man involved who helped rescue him and God brought them together. So it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1:And just to point out, you said that floor, his office the size of an acre. They called that the impact zone because that's where the plane, his office the size of an acre.
Speaker 2:They called that the impact zone because that's where the plane. Well, the whole Fuji Bank's whole operations encompassed that entire floor, the 81st floor. His particular office would be much smaller, of course, but that's exactly where the plane hit. So the fact that he survived, that is a total miracle.
Speaker 1:And was he the only one?
Speaker 2:He's the only known survivor from what they call the impact zone on 9-11. So that would be the floors, you know, immediately adjacent to where the plane hit.
Speaker 1:Wow, and yes, that's a powerful story, because he really cried out to God. He cried out to God. You know, wouldn't we all Like dear Jesus please?
Speaker 2:save me, and at the last second the wing tipped.
Speaker 1:Had the wing not tipped, had the plane not tipped, it would have been a different story. But you know someone I can remember being in high school. There was kind of like a miracle story and so taken with it, and those of us 16-year-old girls in our Bible study with our older woman who's probably younger than I, am now the Bible study leader and we were also taken with this miracle story and we're telling her about it and she smiled and she said girls, I agree that's an amazing story, but why do you need to hold on to that? You know, geez, you know it's all true. You know it's all true. So this is just one little validation. That is true.
Speaker 1:But I'll tell you what Mark and I say this all the time on this podcast, every single day. I need to be reminded that this whole amazing thing is true. You know, I really do. It's just too amazing. You know the unconditional love and the grace and the forgiveness and eternal life and all of this is pretty amazing stuff and I would like to say that, oh, I always believed that, without a doubt. But I do like to have daily reminders and your book is so good for anyone who, whether you're a you know a pretty steady believer, or whether you're a person who has doubts. It's hard to read these stories and not think. Even if you're a person who's an atheist, not think. Wait a second, there's something here and you actually have an interesting story about an atheist professor. Do you mind sharing that one?
Speaker 2:Yes, this is a young man, 38. He had become a tenured professor at Northern Kentucky University when he was only 27 years old, Very full of himself, had no time for God in his world. He was leading a European art tour. They were in Paris and they had just spent the day visiting a famous artist's home studio and they came back to the hotel and he had this sharp pain that was so strong and so painful he just collapsed to the ground and it turned out he had a perforation of the small stomach, and what that means is it's kind of like a burst appendix. You need to have it dealt with right away or you're going to have bad things happen. You can go into septicemia, septic shock. It's just not a good situation. Well, this happened to happen on a Saturday, and France has socialized medicine and the doctors do a certain number of operations or surgeries during the week and then they usually take off the weekend. Okay, do the surgery for him. So meanwhile he's waiting in this room, he's on a gurney with no sheets, no pain relief, going south big time while they're trying to find somebody, and then at some point he has this sort of out of body experience where he feels himself leave his body, and he's standing in the room looking at himself, even though he couldn't quite comprehend what that meant. So he was standing there observing this, and some people showed up at the door, speaking perfect English, who'd said you need to come with us. And he thought this is strange, because everybody I met in the hospital speaks either French or heavily accented English, and these people speak perfect English. But they're inviting me to go with them. And he thought they were leading him to go to surgery. Okay, he thought they were leading him to go to surgery. Okay, In this state he's in. He's not feeling any pain, though, which is, you know, he's wondering about that. Well, they lead him down this kind of gray, dingy hallway and it just keeps going on, and they're going on and on and on, and it's getting darker and darker and darker in this hall, and finally, he believes that he was on the edge of hell. Okay, that's where he was being led.
Speaker 2:At a certain point, he said I don't want to go any further with you. Well, these people forced him to go with them, and at some point he even put up a fight. He started fighting with them, and there was this vicious, grueling fight that ensued. And during this whole time, after this fight, he heard a small voice in his head say pray to God. And as an atheist, he's not sure you know what is this about Pray to God, I don't even know how to pray. He's not sure you know what is this about Pray to God, I don't even know how to pray.
Speaker 2:And so he had to think back to his childhood, in Sunday school, and he started thinking of any little scraps of you know, a little bit of a prayer or a hymn that he remembered. Like Jesus loves me, this I know because the Bible tells me, so you know just little things like that, he said. He even recited the battle hymn of the Republic, which they used to sing in school when I was a kid. One thing he noticed is that when he would say these things, these people who were with him would back away and there seemed to be a power in him voicing something about God. Well, they were ridiculing him and saying oh, don't believe in God, you know he's not going to help you. And finally, at a certain point, he cries out three words that are the most powerful words that anybody could ever cry in any emergency and I'm not going to spoil the book, but that brought an incredible, dramatic change in his whole situation. The readers will have to read to find out what he cried out and then how he was rescued by Jesus himself.
Speaker 1:But he lived and he ended up changing his life incredibly.
Speaker 2:Well, as an atheist, he came back. All he wanted to talk about was Jesus, and his wife was also an atheist, and she ultimately divorced him and he became a pastor at the end of this whole thing.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow. And he, I do have to say, he did marry a nice Christian woman, and so he's happy. But, it is amazing, you know, when you think about that just makes me kind of think of Paul right the road to Damascus. God says here's a 27-year-old guy. Now listen. I don't know what God thinks. I'm only speculating. But here's a 27-year-old guy who's pretty successful you know 27 to be a tenured professor. He's got a lot of confidence. How could I redirect him? Be on my team and I loved the story that, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there is a lot more to that story, but that's what I meant about it, just as it was dramatic for Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus Road.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:I love some of those stories where the people, they're not necessarily even looking for God. No, he goes after them and they may even be rebels. They're reluctant, they put up a fight and if you're his child, he's going to find you and bring you home.
Speaker 1:And gives them a much better life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I guess the goal my son was educating me this. I don't know anything about sports. I guess the goal my son was educating me this I don't know anything about sports, but he loves sports.
Speaker 2:The goal is to be the first round draft pick for gut.
Speaker 1:Didn't even know. I think in your stories you have such a wide range of people that I think anyone who reads this book is going to see themselves in at least one of the stories, because that's what I think the beautiful. I don't know the purpose of your book, but I would guess the purpose is that this would speak to people, pull them in and maybe see their lives, see our lives, with a greater purpose.
Speaker 1:You know even the man who was successful at the bank. You know even the man who was successful at the bank. Well, I can't imagine what his life looked like as a warrior for God after his 9-11 experience. I can't imagine how many people decided to take a hard look at their faith or lack of faith after meeting and talking to him. So going through something so hard. And the 27-year-old professor same thing. How many people did he reach after that with his ministry and his life? And it kind of makes all of us want to be. We might not be in your book, but we all have an amazing story. If we wanted to look at that, we all have an amazing story where God is using us or he's calling out to us, even if we're not looking for him. So it kind of inspired me to think of my life in that way too. Even our little lives that we might think are ordinary. If we take a look at them, we might see the amazing God in our story and we might be willing to share that story with people.
Speaker 1:I doubt that the professor or the guy who worked at Fuji Bank can be quiet about their stories.
Speaker 2:Right, right. Well, I hope more people have that reaction. I love the fact that some people are buying the book, giving it to other people. I know that two atheists have read the book. You gave one to an atheist neighbor and he showed up at my front door unexpectedly with a whole list of questions about Christianity, which led to a wonderful, eternally-minded conversation between the two of us. So I think it can not only awaken faith but also bolster faith for those, maybe, whose faith is weak, maybe they're going through a tough time where God seems far away. And just to remind them, he's still moving, he's still powerful, he wants to have relationship with you.
Speaker 1:And I love that. So I've said the book you can find it on Amazon. It's called when Kingdom Light Shines. But, Mark, how can people get in touch with you If people would like to follow up with you?
Speaker 2:They can go to our website, godreportscom. They could email me through the website. It's mark at godreports with an s dot com, so if people wanted to get in touch, but yeah we'll put that in the show notes, but it's easy to remember.
Speaker 1:I just want to thank you so much for your time. I know you're busy with the book launch and I think this is going to help a lot of people, and I appreciate discovering a new book too. So, thank you very much and I'll look forward to talking to you with your next book.
Speaker 2:That would be wonderful.
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