Pastor John Kilpatrick did not grow up in a preacher’s home. He grew up surrounded by violence, spiritual conflict, and a father who openly mocked Pentecost, speaking in tongues, preachers, and the power of God.
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The Promised Holy Spirit | The Baptism in the Holy Spirit
His mother’s salvation transformed the atmosphere of their home, but it also intensified his father’s hostility. As a young boy, John found himself torn between the father he wanted to love and please and the mother whose faith introduced him to the presence of God.
His father’s ridicule wounded his faith, but it did not extinguish his hunger for God. He later described himself not as a doubting Thomas, but as “a believing Thomas” whose faith needed healing.
This is Pastor John Kilpatrick’s testimony of how God reached into a broken home, preserved a child’s hunger for His presence, and used undeniable demonstrations of His power to heal what an earthly father had damaged.
Video: Pastor John Kilpatrick’s Childhood
Five Things We Will Learn
- A father’s words and conduct can deeply affect his child’s understanding of God.
- One family member’s decision to follow Jesus can change the spiritual atmosphere of an entire home.
- Children can sincerely believe in God while carrying serious wounds and questions about their faith.
- God can use His presence, spiritual family, healing, and miracles to restore damaged faith.
- Churches must make room for people who arrive desperately searching for evidence that God is real.
God Reached Into a Family That Did Not Know Him
Many people assumed Pastor Kilpatrick came from a long line of preachers. The truth was very different. He described his family, before the salvation of his mother, Era Mae Kilpatrick, as a “heathen family.”
God’s work began when members of his family encountered Jesus through an old-fashioned tent ministry.
Pastor Kilpatrick explains:
“For God to reach into our home like He did when I was a young man, real young, as a boy, and save my family was really a miracle. A lot of people across America think I came from a preacher’s family. Nothing could be further from the truth. I came from a heathen family.
“My mother was saved when I was five years old. She got saved in Columbus, Georgia, under my brother-in-law’s tent. He and his brothers traveled America and preached the gospel under an old-fashioned tent all over America.
“My sister [Shirley] wasn’t even saved until she started dating him. She got saved in the church, then she met him and started dating him. Whenever she started dating him, the Lord filled her with the Holy Spirit.”
God began transforming the family through the salvation of Pastor Kilpatrick’s mother and sisters. Even as a young child, he recognized that something supernatural was taking place.
FACT: Did you know that Pastor John Kilpatrick holds an annual conference at Church of His Presence called the Summer Glory Celebration? It is held every July, the same month as the birthday of his sister, Shirley, who was the first person in his family to be born again.
When the Atmosphere of the Home Began to Change
“I remember the night she came home when she got filled with the Holy Spirit, she and my other sister Nita. I’ll never forget whenever they came home after being baptized in the Holy Ghost. What a ruckus it caused in our house.
“But for the first time as a young boy, a real young boy, my sister Shirley, as she started dating this young preacher, I heard tongues for the first time in my life. And when I heard it, it scared me. I never heard anything like that before. But I knew it was supernatural, and I knew that God was working in my family.
“Then my sister began to take piano lessons, and she began to play Christian songs on the piano. God would use her later to be a pianist in His ministry.
“I remember the house where I lived began to fill with melodious music of Pentecostal worship. As I began to hear those songs, a lot of them were out of the hymnal, I’ll never forget the feeling that began to overwhelm me, especially as she’d play late in the evening.
“She would play and sing to the Lord late in the evening as the sun was going down. The shadows would be cast across our living room. I remember it so real. And as she’d begin to sing about Jesus in heaven, I remember how our home took on a different atmosphere.”
Worship was doing more than filling the house with music. It was introducing a young boy to the presence of God. Pastor Kilpatrick had not yet developed a theological understanding of everything taking place, but he knew the atmosphere was changing.
He was hearing songs about Jesus. He was witnessing the work of the Holy Spirit. He could sense that God was reaching into his family.
His father sensed the change as well, and he resisted it.
A Father Who Systematically Mocked the Power of God
“And as our home took on a different atmosphere, my father became more and more violent. He didn’t want my mother to become a Christian. And when she did become a Christian, he didn’t like it. He especially did not want her to become a Pentecostal Christian, a tongue-talking Christian.
“I remember seeing my father get up in the middle of the floor after church on Sundays, and he’d just start running, raving, and he’d start mocking preachers, and he started mocking speaking in tongues.
“I used to watch him do that, and I would fear, as a little boy. I didn’t know anything theologically, but I would just fear as I saw him become so animated in the floor, out in the floor, as he’d begin to mock speaking in tongues and the power of God.”
In another telling of his story, Pastor Kilpatrick described how deliberate and persistent his father’s opposition had been:
“But I remember my father really did a job systematically every week to try his best to turn me against Pentecost. He hated tongues. He hated preachers. He did not want my mother going to church.”
His father’s opposition was not an occasional angry outburst or one careless remark. Week after week, he attacked Pentecost, preachers, speaking in tongues, church attendance, and the faith of John’s mother. It was a sustained attempt to shape how his son understood God.
Yet his father’s mockery produced an unexpected response:
“But the more he mocked it, there was something about it, it made me crave the power of God the more he mocked it.”
A father’s influence reaches deeply into the heart of his child. He can strengthen his child’s confidence in God, or he can fill that child’s mind with confusion. He can demonstrate humility before God, or he can use his authority to ridicule everything associated with Him.
John was too young to understand the theology behind speaking in tongues, Pentecostal worship, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. He did understand that his father hated those things. Yet something within him was being drawn toward the very power his father mocked.
The mockery created confusion, but it also awakened a deeper hunger.
Torn Between His Father and His Mother’s Faith
“I remember I was in such a tear. I was torn between my mother wanting to go after the things of God, and I remember I was torn after my father, wanting to love him and please him, because my father thought the sun rose and set in me.
“I was his only child out of seven marriages. He had my mother, she was his fifth wife, and he had two more after her. And out of seven marriages I was his only child, and he thought the sun rose and set in me.
“And I didn’t want to hurt him, although I saw him very abusive toward my mother and my sisters, my half-sisters.”
This is one of the most painful conflicts a child can face. John loved his father and wanted to please him, but he could also see the violence and abuse his father inflicted upon his mother and sisters.
Children should not be forced to choose between loving a parent and recognizing that parent’s destructive conduct. They should not have to decide whether following God is a betrayal of their father or mother.
Yet this was the spiritual and emotional conflict in which Pastor Kilpatrick lived. His father loved him deeply, but he also pressured him to reject what God was doing in the family.
The Saturday Night Ritual
Among the violence, Pastor Kilpatrick remembered the tenderness and determination of his mother. Every Saturday night, she prepared him for church.
“I’ll never forget one morning. My mother always washed my hair on Saturday night, you know, in the sink, in the kitchen sink. It was a ritual.
“She’d call me, and she had one of these little spray things on the sink, and she’d wash my hair, and then she’d show me the clothes I was going to wear to church the next morning.
“And I’d get up early the next morning. We’d have to catch the city bus and go to church.”
His father had a car, but he would not drive them to church. His mother was still determined to take her children. She washed her son’s hair, prepared his clothes, awakened him early, walked with him to the bus stop, and rode the city bus to the house of God.
These seemingly ordinary actions became acts of spiritual warfare. Every Saturday night, she was preparing her child to enter the one place where he said he could experience peace.
“If You Take My Boy to Church”
His father’s opposition intensified as Sunday approached:
“I remember on Saturday night so many times my father would rant and rave as church time came closer. He’d just begin to rant and rave, not wanting her to go.
“And I remember he’d threaten her. I could hear the licks many times in the middle of the night. Many nights I’d get up and go to the bathroom, and I’d see him with her pinned against the wall, threatening her that if she went to church, that he would have everything she owned out on the steps when she got home. He’s going to kick us all out.
“One night I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I saw him with her up against the wall, and he had a knife to her throat.
“And he said, ‘If you take my boy to church, and if you go to church in the morning, I’ll slice, I’ll slit your throat, and I’ll kill you.’”
This was not merely disagreement over religious beliefs. It was domestic violence, intimidation, and an attempt to use terror to stop a wife and mother from following Jesus.
The threats were also directed at the spiritual future of her children. Her husband specifically said, “If you take my boy to church.” He understood that taking his son to church could influence the direction of the boy’s life, and he wanted to stop it.
John’s mother understood the same thing, which is why she refused to surrender.
A Mother Who Would Not Forsake Her Family
“And I remember my mother used to say with a crying voice, [to my father] she’d say, ‘Honey, I love you. And when God saved me, He saved me to be a better wife too than ever before, and I love you more than I ever have.
“‘But,’ she said, ‘I can’t forsake my family, and I can’t not go to church. I’ve got to go to church and serve God. And I want you to know that I love you.
“‘But,’ she said, ‘if I don’t go to church, I’ll lose my soul, and there’s no telling how our son will turn out, and there’s no telling how my daughters will turn out.
“‘I’ve got to go to church. So if you’re going to kill me, go ahead and kill me.
“‘But,’ she said, ‘as you kill me, I’ll be praising my Lord.’
“I’ll never forget that.”
Her answer was not driven by contempt for her husband. She affirmed her love for him and her desire to be a better wife. At the same time, she refused to allow his threats to separate her from God or prevent her from caring for the souls of her children.
She recognized that her decisions would affect how her son and daughters turned out. She was willing to suffer rather than abandon her responsibility before God.
Her faithfulness left an impression her son never forgot.
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Persecuted for Taking Her Children to Church
“And I remember seeing my mother week after week take a beating after we got home from church. She’d take a beating. She’d take licks every week, ritually, for taking us to church to serve God.
“I used to see her as she’d be abused and cussed at and fussed at and mishandled and slung while she’d be trying to cook lunch for him.
“I remember so many times, thank you, Mama. How do you go through that all over church? All of it’s over church. How do you go through that?”
In his other telling, Pastor Kilpatrick supplied additional details about what regularly happened when they returned from church:
“And when we would get home from church, we had to ride the city bus. He had a car. He could have took us, but when we rode the city bus home, we had to walk home from the bus stop, and it was just regular. He would start cussing, and he would start just yelling and [shouting] accusations, and he wouldn’t usually stop while my mother was cooking lunch until he drew blood from her nose or her mouth.
“And it was regular from the time I was 8 until the time I was 12.”
He remembered the same terrible pattern in his other account:
“And my father usually, as I have said many times, he usually wouldn’t stop until he drew blood out of her nose or her mouth on a Sunday.
“That’s the way it was coming up in that. But there was something about that persecution that drove me to God as a boy.”
This was not an isolated episode. For approximately four years, the family’s return from church was regularly followed by accusations and violence.
The abuse wounded John deeply, but his mother’s faithfulness also gave him a picture of unshakable devotion to God. His father showed him the destructive power of hatred and unbelief. His mother showed him what it meant to remain faithful to Jesus while suffering greatly.
The persecution that could have driven him away from God instead deepened his hunger to know whether the presence and power of God were real.
The Only Place He Felt Peace
“I remember feeling the heaviness of demon oppression in my home. I knew that our home was oppressed by demons. I knew it wasn’t possessed necessarily, but it was heavily oppressed because my father was the headship of that home, and he was oppressed by demons.
“And I remember the only time I would ever feel peace is when I went to church.
“And when I’d go to church, to the house of God, I could feel a peace, that warm family feeling and peace that I never felt at home. I remember that so well.
“And so church became something that I began to crave because I wanted peace, and I was tired of the fighting and the violence, all over church, all having to do with church.”
Church became more than a weekly service to this frightened and wounded child. It became the place where he experienced peace, safety, family, and the presence of God.
This is why churches must never underestimate the importance of creating a loving, Spirit-filled family for children and adults living in troubled homes. The warmth they experience among God’s people may be the only peace they experience all week.
Related:
Vine Fellowship Network: Returning to being the Family God has Called us to be.
A healthy church family can show a child that the violence, chaos, and oppression in his home do not represent the character of his heavenly Father.
When the Abuse Finally Broke Her Down
Years of violence, threats, betrayal, and spiritual hostility eventually took a devastating toll on Pastor Kilpatrick’s mother:
“And I remember my mother had a nervous breakdown, and she pulled the shades in our bedroom, and she didn’t come out for three months.
“And I couldn’t go to church because Mama couldn’t go to church. I couldn’t go by myself. So I wasn’t in church three months.”
In his other telling, Pastor Kilpatrick revealed what the family did during those months—and how deeply his mother’s collapse affected him:
“And so we helped take care of her the best we could, but it just broke her down. And it broke me down. It broke me down.”
The woman who had endured years of threats and beatings finally collapsed under the weight of what she had suffered. For three months, she withdrew into her darkened bedroom.
Her son suffered with her. He and the family helped care for her, and because his mother could no longer take him to church and he could not attend by himself, he also lost access to the one place where he had experienced peace, safety, family, and the presence of God.
The abuse broke his mother down, and it broke something within him.
The Night His Father Left
Later in the same conversation, Pastor Kilpatrick returned to the night his father abandoned the family:
“Whenever my father left us, I remember the night that we saw my father’s car. We went riding around looking for him. He didn’t come home.
“We found his car in another woman’s driveway that night. We rode around with my brother-in-law and sister until after one o’clock in the morning. We rode around about five hours around the city looking for him because we didn’t know what happened to him.
“We found his car in another driveway over off of Hamilton Road.
“And I remember my mother came home that night. She sat up the rest of the night looking through the white pages trying to find that address.
“And by seven o’clock on Sunday morning she found that address, and it was a woman’s name. And I’ll never forget the woman’s name to this day.
“We knew that my father had spent the night with another woman. And I saw my mother heartbroken.
“And from there on my father never came back home. Matter of fact, he married twice after he left my mother.”
The abandonment added another wound to the years of violence and spiritual hostility. His father had mocked the faith of his wife, abused her for taking the children to church, and then left the family for another woman.
His mother’s faith had taught him that God was real. His father’s behavior left him with serious questions.
His father’s abandonment did not end his influence. John remained caught between his love for his father and the faith his mother was fighting to preserve.
“I Still Loved God, but I Had Some Serious Questions”
“After my father left, I didn’t backslide. I still loved God. But I had some serious questions.
“I was pulled. I was desperately pulled.
“My father would call me, and he would fill my head with all kind of stuff, and then when I’d get off the telephone, my mother would debrief me, and she would pray for me.”
In his other telling, Pastor Kilpatrick acknowledged just how much his father’s ridicule had affected him:
“But my father made such fun of Pentecost. He made such fun of everything that goes on in Pentecostal churches until, I mean, I have to say it did have some effect on me.
“That was my father. It had some effect on me, really it did.”
Pastor Kilpatrick had not rejected God or turned his back on Jesus. He still loved God, but his faith had been wounded by the words and conduct of someone he loved and wanted to please.
His father attempted to fill his mind with doubt. His mother responded by listening, speaking truth, and praying with him. She recognized that her son needed help separating his father’s destructive behavior from the true character of God.
Children often need a safe place to process what they have heard and witnessed. They need permission to ask difficult questions. They need truth spoken patiently and lovingly, and they need someone who will pray for them when another influence is attempting to draw them away from God.
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God Began Drawing Him
Despite the damage his father caused, God continued reaching for the young John Kilpatrick:
“So I remember I used to watch Oral Roberts on Sunday morning on television, and he would be in his tent, and I’d be watching his program, you know, and he’d have that healing line.
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How to Receive Healing: Unleashing the Power of Faith and God’s Will
“And I remember one Sunday morning I was watching his program, and I was about 12 years old, 13. My dad hadn’t been gone long.
“And I remember I was watching that program, and I saw those people being healed, and I felt the Lord come on me in my house, in our home.
“I felt the warm presence of the Holy Spirit come over me. He just enveloped me.
“And I went into Mother’s bedroom, and I sat on the side of the bed, and I said, ‘Mama, I don’t know, but I believe God may be calling me to preach.’
“And I was just, at that time, 12. God didn’t call me until I was 14, but I said, ‘I believe He may be calling me to preach.’
“‘Oh, honey, that’s wonderful.’”
Before Pastor Kilpatrick fully understood his calling, the Holy Spirit was already drawing him. The presence of God entered the same home that had been filled with violence, oppression, and confusion.
God met him there.
“I Need Something Really Bad in My Life”
When Pastor Kilpatrick learned that Oral Roberts was coming to the Columbus, Georgia, fairgrounds, [Oral Roberts Tent Healing] something awakened within him:
“Well, I kept watching, and so one morning they made the announcement, ‘Oral Roberts is coming to Columbus, Georgia, to the Columbus, Georgia fairgrounds. And he’s gonna have an afternoon service on Saturday in the afternoon at two o’clock.’
“Man, my heart burned. It just lit up. And I remember I said, ‘I’m going.’
“And I went in to my mother’s bedroom, and I said, ‘Mama, Oral Roberts is coming to Columbus Fairgrounds. Can I go?’
“‘No, don’t even ask me. No, honey. No, I’m not going to release you to ride that bus by yourself. No.’
“And I kept on. I said, ‘Well, Mama, let me tell you something. You know what we’ve both been through with my dad.’
“And then I said, ‘My dad’s had some effect on me. And I need something. I need something really bad in my life. Please let me go. Please let me go.’
“Well, it took me two weeks of begging her, and she finally relented.
“And she said, ‘Well, if you’ll go and ride the bus and get off and transfer and ride the other bus, and as soon as it’s over, you can make it home before dark, I’ll let you do that. But please do exactly like I say.’”
The young boy understood what many adults struggle to admit: “My dad’s had some effect on me.”
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He knew something inside him had been damaged. He did not need another religious argument. He needed to see whether the Pentecostal faith his father mocked was real.
Where the Healing Waters Flow
“So I remember I rode the city bus down. I had to get off, transfer, and walk the rest of the way.
“And I got to the Columbus, Georgia fairgrounds, and I’ll never forget when I got off and walked on the fairgrounds, I heard on the loudspeakers on those tent poles. I heard them playing that song, ‘Where the Healing Waters Flow.’
“And they were playing that as an instrumental to that B3 organ, ‘Where the Healing Waters Flow.’
“I felt the Spirit of God come on me so strong, my chill bumps would not go away. They just come and stood there and just would not go away.
“So I got under the tent. And whenever I got into the tent, I was 12, and back in those days there was no security like we know about it today. So I was able to move around at will and try to find a good place.
“I wanted to get a good vantage point so I could see.
“My father had done such damage to me that I needed to see the reality of Pentecost.”
Pastor Kilpatrick did not go to the meeting looking for entertainment. He was looking for reality.
His father had spent years telling him that Pentecost was worthy of ridicule. His classmates had repeated the same mockery. He needed to know for himself whether the presence and power of God were real.
The Healing He Witnessed
“And so I remember the worship was good, the music was good. And I remember he first started praying for some people, and you couldn’t see nothing was wrong with them. They just walked up there, and he prayed for them, and there wasn’t much to it.
“But I looked over in the corner, and I saw this woman. It was a Black woman. She had a band down around her head. Looked just like Aunt Jemima. But she had a goiter hanging down off of her neck onto her breast. It looked like a hot water bottle hanging off her neck onto her breast. And when she walked, it waddled.
“And when she walked up toward that ramp, that goiter just waddled. I said, ‘Mm-hmm, okay.’
“So I got up close, and I remember she waddled up that ramp to where Oral Roberts was. He was sitting in a folding chair. And he put his hands on his hips like this while he was sitting in the chair.
“And he said, ‘Mama, you believe God can heal you?’
“She put her hands on her hips. She said, ‘Oral Roberts, do you really believe I’d be in this line if I didn’t believe God could heal me?’
“And just like that, just like that, he used to, he popped her on her forehead. You could hear it smack. It was so fast I couldn’t even see it.
“And as soon as he popped her on the forehead, he put that microphone right up to her neck, and it sounded like she was swallowing a milkshake.
“And she kept swallowing, and in 15 minutes, her neck was as normal as mine is.
“Come on, give God glory, somebody. I said, give God glory in this house.”
Pastor Kilpatrick testified that he watched the woman’s neck become normal. What he witnessed did more than affect his understanding of healing. It addressed the spiritual wound his father had inflicted.
God was healing more than one person beneath that tent.
“My Faith Needed Healing”
“When I saw that, you might say, ‘Well, was you a doubting Thomas?’
“No, I was a believing Thomas, and my faith needed healing.
“My faith needed healing.”
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- Deaf Ear Healed | Oral Roberts Tent Meeting 1955 (Colorized)
- Boy Healed of Polio | Oral Roberts Tent Meeting 1955 | Original Black and White Footage.
- Healing son David of Tuberculosis – Oral Roberts Tent Healing 1952
This is the heart of Pastor Kilpatrick’s testimony.
Thomas is commonly remembered as the disciple who doubted. Yet Thomas was not a hardened unbeliever who wanted nothing to do with Jesus. He was a follower whose faith had been shaken by circumstances he could not understand. He needed a personal encounter with the risen Christ.
Pastor Kilpatrick did not describe himself as an unbelieving Thomas. He called himself a “believing Thomas.” He still loved God, but his faith had been wounded by abuse, abandonment, and years of ridicule from his father.
There is an important difference between rebellion and wounded faith. Some people are not refusing to believe. They desperately want to believe, but the behavior of someone they loved and trusted has damaged their ability to trust.
They do not need to be mocked or dismissed. Their faith needs healing.
“It’s Real, It’s Real”
“And so when I saw that, I had seen enough, and I left early, went back, caught the bus, went home.
“But when I walked down that aisle, or when I walked down that bus line to catch that bus, I still had fixed in my head the images because, see, in my class, when Oral Roberts was coming to town, in my class, I was in the seventh grade, and the influential girls and guys all were making fun of Oral Roberts.
“They said, ‘Yeah, he’s got this thing that when people come forward, he zaps them, and he’s got this zapping thing. And that’s what goes on.’
“And after my father had done his number on me for four years, I didn’t know what to believe.
“But when I saw that, I left out and I said, ‘It’s real, it’s real. I know it’s real.’
“So I got home, and from that day till this day, I have never doubted the presence of God and the power of God.”
One miracle touched at least two lives that day. Pastor Kilpatrick testified that a woman’s body was healed, but the faith of a wounded 12-year-old boy was also healed.
The boy who entered the tent asking whether Pentecost was real walked away declaring, “It’s real, it’s real. I know it’s real.”
People Are Coming Because They Need Something Real
Pastor Kilpatrick’s experience contains an urgent message for every church leader:
“I just want to say this to you. Listen, in our opinion.
“And I have never doubted the presence of God. I’ve loved the presence of God. I’ve loved healings and miracles.
“And I just want to encourage every preacher, every board member, every staff member, don’t ever forget the people out there that’s coming to your church that you don’t know them.
“You’ve never seen them, but they’re coming and they’re looking for something.
“And we’ve got to get back to the reality of Pentecost.
“And I want to say this, we’ve got to get back to the reality of signs and wonders.”
We do not always know what people have endured before they enter a gathering. We do not know what their parents taught them, how religious leaders treated them, or how often their faith has been mocked.
A cautious or skeptical visitor may be carrying a desperate prayer: “God, I need to know that You are real.”
Churches must give people more than religious performances and carefully managed programs. People need the Word of God, salvation through Jesus Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the reality of God’s transforming power.
The Spiritual Father God Provided
After his biological father left, Pastor Kilpatrick and his mother were able to attend the church pastored by his brother-in-law’s father. This pastor eventually became the spiritual father Pastor Kilpatrick needed.
Related:
- The Nature of True Apostleship
- Everyone needs a church Family, a Tribe.
- Apostolic Ministry and the Role of Apostles, Ken Sumrall
- We Have Not Many Father’s
- Freeing Apostles to Run: Restoring God’s Order for Supporting the Fivefold Ministry, Ken Sumrall
“I’ll tell you one more story.
“I remember I was going to my pastor’s church then. My brother-in-law, his dad pastored in the city, and Mother and I got to go to his church once my father left.
“So I remember he was a powerful man of God, wound up being my spiritual father.
“One morning he was preaching, and he moved in the prophetic, and he moved in signs and wonders, and he was the real deal. He was the real deal.”
His biological father had mocked preachers and the power of God. His spiritual father demonstrated the character and power of God before him.
A spiritual father cannot erase everything a child has experienced, but he can provide a godly example of manhood, leadership, faith, love, and spiritual authority. He can help restore what a biological father damaged or failed to provide.
Another Miracle He Never Forgot
“But I remember one morning he was preaching, and he was in the middle of his sermon, and he said, ‘There’s a lady here this morning.
“‘You’ve rode the bus. You’ve rode the Greyhound bus here from another city, and you’ve come to bring your daughters to turn them into your mom and dad, and you’re going off to die because you have an incurable disease, and you’re dropping your daughters off for your mom and dad to raise them.’
“And he said, ‘If you’ll come forward right now, the Lord will heal you.’
“I’m sitting there, I’m about 13 years old now, and I’m sitting there and I’m watching this.
“And he just walks up to her almost casually and just touches her and said, ‘In the name of Jesus, I speak healing over you.’
“And she said, like that. And some women came forward, and they had a prayer cloth, and they put this prayer cloth over her, and they led her to the bathroom.
“And they kept her in the bathroom for about 10 or 15 minutes.
“And when they came out, there was this big thing in the middle of that prayer cloth that had roots all over it.
“She coughed up a cancer right there in that morning service.
“Oh, come on, church. If He ever did it once, He can do it again.”
These experiences helped establish Pastor Kilpatrick’s lifelong love for the presence of God, divine healing, and the work of the Holy Spirit.
His father’s unbelief had wounded him, but it did not have the final word over his life. God placed a spiritual father before him who demonstrated the reality of what he preached.
Fathers Must Guard the Faith of Their Children
Fathers should never underestimate their influence over the spiritual development of their children. Their words can make it easier for a child to trust God, or those words can create wounds the child may carry for years.
Related:
- The Nature of True Apostleship. A Burden to Bear, not a Position to be Sought.
- Healed from the Orphan Spirit: How Family-Sized Churches Restore the Heart of Sonship
- The Father’s Role in Shaping the Identity of His Children Including His Adult Children: The Power of Approval
- We Have Not Many Father’s | Spiritual Fatherhood as a Biblical Model
- Why Everyone Needs a Spiritual Father, Brother Ken Sumrall
Every father should prayerfully ask:
- Do my children hear me honor God or mock Him?
- Do they see me strengthen their mother or tear her down?
- Does my life make it easier or harder for them to trust their heavenly Father?
- Am I helping their faith grow, or will they have to recover from my unbelief?
- Do I encourage their hunger for God or embarrass them for expressing it?
- Does my conduct confirm what Scripture teaches or contradict it?
A father’s conduct becomes part of his child’s earliest understanding of authority, protection, faithfulness, love, and trust. Fatherhood is a sacred responsibility.
Even when an earthly father fails, the heavenly Father can reach into the wounded heart of a child and restore what was damaged. God can use a faithful mother, a healthy church family, and a spiritual father to guide that child toward healing and truth.
The Faithfulness of One Parent Matters
Pastor Kilpatrick’s story also reveals the powerful influence of one faithful parent.
His mother could not control her husband’s decisions. She could not prevent his ridicule, adultery, violence, or abandonment. She could, however, remain faithful to Jesus. She could take her children to church. She could pray for her son. She could help him process the confusion his father placed in his mind.
Her faithfulness did not immediately remove the suffering, but it helped preserve the faith and future of her son.
A mother who was beaten for taking her child to church lived to see that boy become a preacher. The son whose father tried to turn him against Pentecost became a man known for pursuing the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
The father’s choices caused deep wounds, but the mother’s faithfulness helped lead her son toward the One who could heal them.
Let Us Return to the Reality of the Book of Acts
Pastor Kilpatrick concluded with a direct appeal:
“So here’s what I’m trying to say. We’ve got to get back as Pentecostals, we’ve got to get back to the reality of what we preach.
“Don’t be ashamed of the power of God. Don’t be afraid of the power of God.
“Let’s get back to preaching the Book of Acts again, and let’s see what God can do in this generation.”
We must teach the Book of Acts, but we must also believe that the Holy Spirit is still present and active. We must preach about healing while praying for the sick. We must preach about deliverance while expecting captives to be set free. We must speak about the presence of God while making room for people to encounter Him.
Somewhere in this gathering may be another young believing Thomas.
He still loves God, but he has serious questions. He has heard the ridicule. He has witnessed hypocrisy. Someone he trusted may have damaged his understanding of God. He has come because he needs to know that Jesus is real.
His faith needs healing.
Let us never be ashamed of the presence and power of God. Let us faithfully preach Jesus, welcome the Holy Spirit, and allow God to show this generation what He can do.
Watch Brother John Kilpatrick share his childhood testimony:
Brother John Kilpatrick’s Childhood
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