On January 10, 1980, I was asleep in the night and was awakened by a very loud trumpet-like voice blowing three words into my ear: "Hartford, Seattle, KWJS"
I jumped out of bed and wrote the letters KWJS on a notepad beside my bed.
When I looked to see what KWJS was, I found it to be a radio station that broadcasts religious-type exhortations for the church.
I said to God, "Are You telling me to go on radio? I wouldn't know how to do that."
A very gentle voice from within me spoke these words, "Call the radio station manager."
I believed that to be the Holy Spirit speaking in answer to my prayer concerning what to do about radio.
As a result of this, within a few days I was broadcasting exhortations for the church on radio station KWJS.
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Within a year I was on radio from coast-to-coast, from New York City to Seattle, thus "Hartford, Seattle, KWJS as was spoken to me that night by what I believe to be an angel of the Lord.
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One day at church my pastor, Robert Tilton, said to me, "Joan, you need to contact Michael Ellison Advertising Agency. They can do you a lot of good."
This is the first time I heard of advertising agents promoting ministers but I was soon to learn most of those big-time TV-radio ministers had an ad agent behind them.
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At that time, Michael Ellison represented Kenneth Copeland, Marilyn Hickey, Robert Tilton, and they had represented Jimmy Swaggert shortly before this.
So I contacted Michael Ellison Advertising Agency and became one of their clients.
I learned that the big-time ministers frequently have advertising agencies promoting them.
Billy Graham's agency came to visit with me during that time to try to persuade me to sign with them. But they wanted me to do something that I was unable to do because God had told me to do just the opposite. So I turned them down.
I did sign with Michael Ellison Advertising Agency. They sent their representative to Dallas to talk with me. (These were extremely subtle people, well dressed, sharp, persuasive.)
One of my best friends who helped me with various things in ministry sat down with us as we met in my apartment in Dallas.
The ad agent assigned to me said, "I want to make a suggestion. On all of your printed materials put 'Send me your prayer request.'"
I was shocked!
I didn't want to do that, and I told the agent immediately I did not want to do that.
I could see on the face of my friend that she was surprised I did not want to do that, for it is common practice for ministers to do this.
But I think it is wrong to solicit prayer requests from Christians. I think it is a gimmick used by ministers to get a following and also to get money from those people.
I believe the person should pray directly to God through Jesus. I do not believe the church member needs to be thinking that I have more power with God than he does. For the truth of the matter concerning prayer is told to us in the following scripture.
I John 5:14-15 And this is the confidence that we have in HIM, that, if we ask any thing according to HIS will, HE heareth us:
And if we know that HE hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of HIM.
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So I told the advertising agent that I would not do this.
The ad agent said to me, "Well, Joan, you are missing a good bet. For when they send a prayer request, they frequently put money in the envelope along with the prayer request."
Truly it was a fund-raising gimmick which ministers were encouraged to use, and most do use.
I refused to do this.
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Through the next month, the advertising agent made several "recommendations" which turned out to be commandments from the agency.
* The first order was, "We do not want you to send any printed material to anyone until we have viewed the material and edited the material."
Of course I can't do that. I can't have anyone editing what I believe to be from God. If I did that, I couldn't do the work of God.
Galatians 1:10 For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
The ad agent went on to explain that they could fill Soldiers and Sailors auditorium in Pittsburgh for my meetings. All I had to do was not offend anyone.
Jesus said:
Luke 6:26 Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Luke 6:22-23 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.
Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
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* Another thing the ad agent "recommended" is that I re-name the ministry and call it "Joan Boney Ministry" instead of Jesus Ministries.
I told the agent I couldn't do that.
Because when we were naming the ministry and I prayed over the name that this ministry was to be called, before registering it with the State of Texas and the United States government, I heard this: "The name that is above all names."
Philippians 2:5-9 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, HE humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted HIM, and given HIM a name which is above every name:
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I just kept hearing over and over, "The name that is above all names."
And I said to God, "Are you telling me to call this ministry Jesus Ministries?"
I was convinced that was to be the name of this ministry. When I registered it, I was shocked because no one else had requested that name in the state of Texas. I know very well why they don't request "that name", because Jesus is an offense to people and that name would offend people.
(It would be much more accepted to name a ministry something like, "Word of Life," but that name was already taken by another ministry in Texas where we were registering the ministry.)
Today, on internet you will find multiple ministries that are called Jesus Ministries. When we started the blog we had to call the blog Jesus Ministries Exhortations because other ministries called Jesus Ministries were publishing a blog and we couldn't have the same name, so that is perfectly alright.
The advertising agency didn't like it at all because I wouldn't change the name of the ministry to "Joan Boney Ministries", promoting my own name.
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I was only with the ad agency for about 3 months, when one day I received a letter from the agency whereby they told me that "unfortunately" they were forced to eliminate some of their clients and I was one they were going to have to eliminate, that they would no longer represent me.
It was truly devastating to me at the time.
I knew this was the road to the big-time on radio and television for ministries. I had seen other big-time ministries become large because of the ad agency.
I felt I had failed.
Then God gave me a scripture to show me the truth.
I had not failed, but I had passed a test.
Matthew 4:8-10 Again, the devil taketh Him (Jesus) up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
And saith unto Him, All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.
(worship: obey that person as if he is a god)
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and HIM only shalt thou serve.
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God saved me from personal greatness and glory of men by showing me a few things that I just couldn't do, such as say "Send me your prayer request."
If you are interested you can look on our home page on the right-hand side where it says "Information Sheet" and you will see that in that document I discourage people from sending prayer requests to me, and I try to encourage them to pray themselves and have faith that God will answer their prayers provided they are praying according to the will of God.
There were some very difficult years where I communicated with the radio audience by written materials, these were the days before email, and I was in Clovis, New Mexico, USA, where my mother lived and she was growing old and I was there in case she needed something.
It was definitely not the glamour I had out on the road traveling from city to city having meetings for radio audiences, and I missed it personally. It was a kind of suffering for me.
We lost a great many followers during that time. We gained no additional followers at all. We got smaller and smaller, while other ministers got bigger and bigger with more and more followers and more and more money.
So it was not a glamorous period of time for me during that decade or so.
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In March, 2012, God gave me a dream. In that dream a woman was singing to a group of people. I said, "She has a nice little voice. It is a little voice, but it is a nice little voice."
When I awoke from that dream and thought about it, I knew God was showing me to start a blog.
By that time we had internet. So I contacted Pam Padgett, who had been a computer programmer at FedEx and knew computers, and I asked her if she could setup a blog.
She said she didn't know anything about blogs but she thought she could.
Pam very shortly, within a day or two, had setup a blog for us.
I was delighted with what she had done and we started publishing immediately.
We were so naive that we had no idea that this blog goes all around the world.
The very first day we had two responses from Germany and we were so excited.
Then we woke up and realized this publication we were writing goes all over the world on the internet.
It is perfect for me because it costs us no money at all to publish it. We had very few offerings by that time. And nobody edits the writings so I am free to write whatever I believe God gives me by HIS Spirit. This is a critical point.
When I was on radio everything went so well at first because the messages God gave me were messages dealing with the subjects of: taking thoughts captive, following God by His Spirit, dealing with destructive thoughts and such. (Large numbers of church people wanted to hear these messages.)
After a few months, I heard the following words over and over:
"The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God ... The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God ... The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God."
After hearing that, God began showing me sins in the various big-time ministries. I tried to get messages to those ministers but I was stopped by the people who scan their mail.
So, I decided to get on my radio broadcast, naming the ministers by name, and citing the sins being done by the minister.
I did that from coast-to-coast with each of the situations God had shown me.
Hate mail from their followers poured into my office.
One day I was in Seattle having a meeting. Standing outside the door to the convention center was the manager of the Seattle radio station. He had always been very friendly to me, but not this time. He was very grim looking and he said, "Joan, you know those judgment messages you have been speaking. If you keep speaking those messages, I don't know what is going to happen to you. We may have to put you off the air. You have many 'good' messages. Just speak those messages."
What George didn't understand is that I have to speak the message which I believe to be from God. That is the "good" message. I can't just speak messages that people approve and messages they like to hear, for then it would not be good messages if I spoke it because they wanted to hear it.
Galatians 1:10 Paul says: For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
The Holy Spirit rose up in me and responded to George as follows. "George, if I don't speak the message that I believe to be from God, then I don't have a message and I may as well be off the air."
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They did put me off the air in half of the radio stations I had at the time. But half of them left me on the air. I continued to broadcast for the next 2 years on radio, but I could tell it was over. The season had ended for me on radio. So, in 1984, I terminated the radio broadcasts.
We had certainly less than 100 people communicating with me by that time. We had had thousands at one time. So with the people who still communicated with me I continued to send exhortations to them weekly by US mail before internet days in the late 1990's.
Toward the end of the 1990 decade, I did learn a little about a computer.
In 1997, I bought a computer and learned how to write emails. I was so insecure in writing emails that I would say to one of the people I wrote to, "Tell me if you got this" ... because I couldn't imagine that this could go through the air safely to another person. She was very patient and always responded, "Yes, I did receive the message." So my faith in using this medium increased.
By the year 2000, I had insisted, to our very small church group, that everyone use computers and I switched over to emails.
Some of the people in our church group were older than I, and I'm sure it was hard for them to make this change, but they did it.
So we switched to computers and I stopped sending messages by US mail and sent them by email which was so much easier and faster.
Then by the year 2012, God showed me to start the blog, which I did. Jesus Ministries Exhortations.
By 2015, Pam Padgett and I wrote a book which we published on amazon.com which showed how to use a Kindle tablet. The book is titled A Graphically Illustrated Kindle Fire HD 8 Guide: For Non-Computer Generations.
When we were writing that book, Pam was still getting it into the format to publish it on Amazon, and I was a little bored because we had finished the book. So I was saying to God, "I'm just a little bored." That is when the idea came that if I could publish a secular book, maybe I could published a ministry book.
So I started writing Taking Thoughts Captive which we published directly with Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. It cost us nothing to publish the book, there was no editing of the content, and we had an opportunity to circulate the book worldwide through their free book program. (This allows us to give that publication for free 5 times during each 90-day cycle.)
This fit me perfectly. So we started publishing ministry books on Amazon and we published many ministry books. We were able to keep the price of the e-Books down to 99 cents.
We found also that we could publish paperback books. Knowing that many people do not read an internet book, they want to read paperbacks, we began publishing paperback books, again at no cost to us. We could take reduced royalty of 35% and let them have the rest of the royalty, and they would print the paperback book with no charge to us. Amazon sets the minimum price, but I think they are reasonable for the number of pages in the paper book.
We have been with Amazon since that time. It has worked very well for us. Not only do our books circulate all over the world, but we are not edited. I am free to print that which I believe God wants printed. That is a critical point in being a minister of God.
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