What an exciting week for us! Above & Beyond will be featured on a national, secular documentary about deliverance ministry. I want to give you some background and details about the show so hopefully you will watch and share this news!
The show, titled “Fighting Satan,” is the premiere episode on Lisa Ling’s “Our America” show on the Oprah Winfrey Network. It airs this Thursday, May 29th at 10 pm EDT.
Because of copyright issues, to watch the show, you will have to visit this link to get information on the episode and how to view it:
Watch the show
I was contacted in June 2013 by a production company in New York City. They were working with Lisa Ling’s “Our America” and she wanted to do a TV show about deliverance ministry that focused on how this approach might help people dealing with emotional issues.
They had spent a lot of time on our website and were intrigued but indicated that program funding was still an issue. We’d actually been contacted over two years ago by the same company however OWN apparently was not prepared to finance a program on that topic during that season.
Phyllis and I linked up with them a few weeks later, in July 2013, on a conference call where we explained our deliverance approach more thoroughly and answered their questions. When the network committed to financing the show, the producers came back and told us they were very interested in including our Center. The key question was we could we find someone who would agree to be filmed as they went through deliverance?
Quite frankly, we were skeptical initially but we reasoned that if the Lord wanted us to do this, He would raise someone up who would willing to be vulnerable and open on national TV! We were confident about the integrity and motives of the show producers and were not concerned that this was going to turn into an ambush as some had warned. Lisa has done other programs on controversial topics, including the church ministering to homosexuals, and has been fair and not exploitative.
Training and equipping people in deliverance ministry is a major priority for us so we believed that God was giving us exposure so that the word might get out! We had been praying for open doors, and this sure looked like one!
Through a series of circumstances, including a missed client appointment with Phyllis that resulted in a fortuitous delay, a young lady of strong passion, conviction and courage said she would be willing to do it! We put her in contact with the producers who talked with her at length. They became comfortable that she was a good candidate and was going to have an interesting story to “show and tell”!
Just after Labor Day of 2013, five production people showed up in our small Tampa office early on a Monday morning. They had flown in on Saturday to film and interview our client in her home and church surroundings. Lisa Ling came into the office mid-morning. They turned my office into a studio and filmed the entire two hour deliverance session with Phyllis leading it and my wife as her helper.
Afterwards, Lisa interviewed Phyllis on camera asking her specific questions about deliverance ministry. They packed up and left before 5 pm. Nine months have passed and, just like expectant parents, we are waiting to see what is birthed!
We have not seen the show and will see it for the first time like everyone else. Once again, here are the details:
- Show: “Our America” by Lisa Ling (Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN))
- Date: Thursday, May 29th 2014
- Time: 10:00 pm EDT (check local listings)
People have asked what we expect to happen when this show airs. Quite frankly, we have no idea! We only know that God orchestrated this entire process. We did not pursue them at all; in fact, we backed off for awhile because, after a few rebuffs, we began to doubt that someone would come forward. While our faith may have wavered, we look back and can say that we truly believe God is in this because He alone brought it all to pass. For that reason, we have hope and expectancy that there will be good fruit.
The Lord reminded me sometime back about a line from the “Field of Dreams” movie. “If you build it, they will come.”
We have been diligently building a portfolio of resources to help train and equip people to do deliverance ministry. While we love to minister people and continue to see clients locally and worldwide via the internet, multiplication of this important ministry is only possible when new people are trained to do it! That is our passion, and we are looking forward to seeing how the Lord will use this show, and other venue, to move that vision forward!
Get all of our popular videos, podcasts, presentations, and guides in one place.