Faith, Freedom, and the Fight Ahead — with Ché Ahn

Purpose ain't always born in comfort. Sometimes it's carved out through struggle, through crossing borders, through finding your voice in a world determined to silence it. Welcome back to the CJ Moneyway Show, in association with the Believe Network, where we talk purpose Leadership. Brick by brick, decision by decision, prayer by prayer. Today we're sitting with a man whose life reads like a modern-day testimony. A journey from Seoul, South Korea to the streets of America, from searching for identity to standing bold and calling Cheyenne came to this country as a child with nothing but family, faith, and a fight to survive. Rebellion tried to write his story, but at 17, God flipped the script. Since then, he's built Harvest Rock Church, led Harvest International Ministry, a global movement touching 25,000 churches worldwide. A leader, a pastor, an author, a man who's walked into rooms Most people only pray to reach. He defended religious freedom, took his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court, and now he's stepping into a new battleground, running for governor of California, carrying a message rooted in family, faith, freedom, and hope.

This ain't politics, this is purpose.

Oh, welcome to the CJ Moneyway Moneyway Show.

Hey, Chad Pastor, how you doing today, man? Welcome to the CJ Moneyway Show.

Well, thank you. I love your intro. I got to get a copy of that. Is something like you just recorded with some professional artists, like the script, or did your team do that? That was amazing.

Uh, it's something that I'm working on, Pastor. It's something that I'm working on, a little project I'm working on called the, uh, Moneyway Movement. And, uh, it's just something I feel passionate about going into the highways and the hedges, you know, as far as life.

You are definitely gifted and anointed for that. It just really shows. So thank you so much for that introduction.

Uh, no problem, man. And it's yours. I'll send it to you when we get off this call today, man. You use it on the campaign trail, man, and tell them CJ Moneyway.

On my website, I liked it so much. And so Yeah, you spelled it out even in the intro because I immigrated with my family to the United States from South Korea in 1960. I came here at the age of 5, and so I'm not a born citizen. I became a citizen at the age of 12, and it's amazing that I've been living the American dream with my parents. My parents were— again, my dad was a Southern Baptist pastor, Korean Baptist pastor, but he couldn't make money being a pastor, so he immediately became a dental technician. He had learned that trade in high school, and so he went back to school, got certified, worked for a dental lab. And then my mom encouraged him, why don't you start your own lab? Because my mom was a businesswoman. She was amazing. My grandfather, her dad, was a very successful businessman. On my mom's side, they were successful, wealthy, but my dad was very, very poor. He came out of North Korea. It's only by the grace of God he escaped communist North Korea. It was in 1950 when Kim Il-sung, now the dictator Kim Jong-un, the grandfather of Kim Jong-un, invaded South Korea. And 35,000 Americans died in that Korean War. It was just tragic. Thank God for the American soldiers that intervened because they were able to push the North Korean forces to the Chinese border. And during that 6-month window, My dad and his family were able to migrate to South Korea and met my mom and got married and had my sister in 1954. In 1956, I was born. And so it was right after the Korean War. But my dad hated communism. He was a pastor. He wanted freedom and liberty, and he came to this country. And, and what a tremendous blessing, because they started to prosper right away with his dental business. He started his own dental lab called On Dental Laboratory. And with the proceeds of that money, my mom said, why don't we buy a restaurant? And my mom was an amazing cook and the restaurant just took off. People were lined up, no hyperbole, I fear God, but people were lined up to get into that restaurant and was very, very successful. And with the money that they made, they started to buy real estate in the nation's capital, which is very expensive in Washington, DC. And they bought, uh, ended up owning 5 houses at one time, running them out, having a source of revenue. And so that entrepreneurship came from my mom, which came from my grandfather, and came upon me because even though I'm a pastor, because of what my mom taught me, my dad demonstrated, I started my own little company called Joseph's Storehouse in 2010. Is an S-Corp. And the reason why I started that company is because I didn't want to be dependent upon wealthy people to finance our church. I wanted to be the one to bless it. And, you know, because people come and go and you rejoice when people come that are givers or tithers, but they leave. And then all of a sudden you're trusting God for more. And I began to realize I have to look to God as my source. For finances. But then the Lord spoke to me, he said, "Why don't you become the biggest giver?" And just hit me, and I said, "Okay, what does that look like?" And start your own business. So I talked to my financial manager at that time, and he said, "Oh, just start an S corp. It's a tremendous tax write-off, and you have your—" And here in California, we pay the most expensive taxes. And just, he said, "Just keep it simple." And so I started to do the same thing my parents taught me. I used equity from my house to invest in other homes, and before I knew it, I was owning 5 houses in Los Angeles, and I started to prosper. I started to make more money as a businessman than as a pastor. For the last 15 years, I've been able to turn my salary into the church, and so is the grace of God, but it's the legacy I received from my parents. But most important legacy is they prayed me into the kingdom. Because I didn't know the Lord, but they prayed and prayed. I was doing drugs, I was selling drugs, I was hanging around the wrong group, and it just broke my parents' heart. And, um, I was expelled from school for doing drugs on school property. I was sent to juvenile detention at the age of 15. And so it was just really, really bad growing up, just being rebellious. But they prayed for me, and one day I was just frustrated. I cried out to God. I said, God, I don't even know if you exist, but if you do exist, if what my parents told me is true— because they told me the gospel, that Jesus died for my sins, that he rose again on the third day, there is a heaven and a hell. I said to God, I don't want to go to hell. If there's a hell, I don't want to go to hell. It's kind of a selfish prayer, but I was being sincere about it. And I just said, show me, just show me the truth. And right after I prayed that, I was in a room by myself, so I actually said it audibly. As soon as I said that, the presence of God came all over me, and I didn't know at that time. Later on, I realized it was the Holy Spirit. I had an encounter with the Holy Spirit and just began to weep in the room by myself. I felt so much peace, so much love, and also at the same time, I saw my sins. I saw how rebellious I was, how I'd broken my parents' heart, and hurt myself and hurt me academically because I wasn't able to function in school because I'm constantly high in school, so my grades dropped. And so I just said, God, I don't fully understand what I'm going through, but this presence stayed with me for 3 days. Off and on I would break down and weep because I would feel the presence of God. And finally I made a decision that I was going to repent of my sins, turn away from my sins, and I heard the small still voice of the Holy Spirit He said, if you want to follow me, throw away drugs and follow me. And I did. And May 25th, 1973 was the last time I did drugs. I've been completely, by God's grace, drug-free, and I've been loving Jesus, serving him. And then a few months later, God called me to be a pastor. I went back to school to study to be a pastor. That led me to California. So I came to California to go to seminary. That's one of the reasons why I came. But the main reason why I came is I had a dream, a prophetic dream. In 1982. I came out in '84, so it took 2 years to make the transition to move out. But in a dream, a Black man appeared to me, and to this day I don't know who that person was. I didn't recognize him, but I have a feeling it was William Seymour, that was the great pastor, catalyst of the Azusa Street Revival of 1906. And he said, come to Los Angeles, for there's going to be a great harvest and a great revival. And I woke up, my wife was next to me. I woke her up, it's 4 o'clock in the morning. I said, I had this most amazing dream. It's more of a vision. The moment I shared it with her, the presence of God came upon her and she said, this is of God. Let's get down on our knees and ask God further confirmation. And we did. And God confirmed for us to come to California. But because I made a commitment to my dad to go to seminary, I also said, okay, there's a great seminary there, Fuller Seminary. And I enrolled in Fuller in 1984. Got my Master of Divinity, and then I got my doctorate in 1994. Took me 8 years out of the 10 years I studied to get my 2 degrees because I was also a father. We have 4 children that are now grown up. It's not a perfect family, but they all love Jesus. 2 of them are pastors, and we have 10 wonderful grandchildren. And honestly, when I look at California, how much has changed since I moved out here in 1984, I can't even recognize it. I mean, the weather's still the same, it's beautiful, but it is just very sad that we are the richest state in the union. I mean, if we were a nation, we'd be the fourth richest nation. 4.1 trillion GDP. It would be United States, China would be number 2, Germany would be number 3, and then would be California. And yet we have 35% of our people living in poverty. We're last in all the metrics. Even though we have the most money, we're last in education. We're 48th out of 50 states test scores. We are number 1 in homelessness, which is not a good thing to be number 1 in. We have 187,000 homeless. We pay the highest taxes, the highest gas price, the highest energy price. Electricity is just exorbitant, and yet we have all the crude oil and natural gas. Just in one county alone, Kern County— we have 48 counties in California— one county alone, we can provide enough petroleum for all the cars every day. 30 million gallons are consumed in California every day, and yet we import 60% because of our environmental, extreme environmental laws. And I believe in creation care. I like to call it creation care because I believe God created this world. And he said it's good and we're to steward that. But the extreme laws have just really hurt our economy and hurt people. It's interesting, when God created the earth and he said every day it's good, it's good. But when he created man, Adam and Eve, he said it's very good. People have to be the priority. And the government, when you swear on the Bible to uphold the Constitution, you're swearing to protect people and to really, from enemies within as well as foreign enemies from without. And protecting people means to also protect them economically, to provide the right environment. Now they have to take responsibility, they have to work and all that. I don't believe in communism where government pays for everything, but I do believe that we are to provide the atmosphere where people can thrive. It's just the opposite. We've had 1.5, 1 million, 1.5 million people left the last 2 years in California because it's just no longer affordable to live here. It's just so expensive. And so I wasn't surprised, actually, that I need to take that back. When God called me to run for governor, I said no. I said, God, anything but this. You know, I'll do whatever you ask me to do, but don't ask me because it's impossible for a pastor who is a conservative Republican to win in California. And it's only 25% of Californians are registered Republicans. 75% are Democrats or Republicans or independents. But the fact is that 85% of California vote Democrat. And so, you know, 15% vote Republican. So Even though we have more registered voters than we think, you know, 25%, which is not much, but yet we lose every election, every election. That's why we have a supermajority. For example, we have 40 state senators, only 8 of them are Republican, 32 are Democrats. But we have a supermajority with the assembly, again, majority of them are Democrats, and we have a Democratic governor. And so for me to really bring about change, through legislation. I need to have State Assembly and state senators who share my value, and I need to be the governor. But that's why I said, God, it's going to take a miracle. God came right back to me and said, I'm a God of miracles. And he said, I'm asking you to run, I'm not asking you to win. I didn't get a rhema word, I'm going to win, but I knew that God wanted me to run. And he said that I'm giving a prophetic invitation to the body of Christ. If they will come forth and support you, you will actually win. Now you have to understand, we have 12 million evangelicals in California out of 40 million. We have more evangelicals in California than any other state except for the state of Texas. There's more Christians, evangelical Christians. When I mean evangelical, I'm not talking about just churchgoers, but people believe the Bible is the word of God. They are born again. They believe that Jesus is Lord, he is God, and they're doing their best to follow him and obey him. And yet with all those evangelicals, 6 million of them are not even registered to vote. But let's just take the 6 million that are registered to vote. If all of them would vote biblically, we would win every race. There's a lot of people don't show up for races in California. We're so laid back. So last governor's race was little over 11 million showed up. When Newsom won against John Cox. Just imagine if 6 million showed up and they voted for the Republican. He would have lost, you know, Newsom would have lost. And so what we have is we have a lukewarm church. They're not stewarding their citizenship, you know, they have a bad eschatology, they're just waiting for the rapture, whatever. But I believe Jesus said you're to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world. The church is God's answer to all the injustice and evil in society. That's what it means to be salt, because back in the days of Jesus, there was no refrigeration and salt was used to preserve the food, to make it last. And the metaphor is to preserve society from rotting out of evil and injustice. And we're to be the salt of the earth. We're to be the light of the world. And how are we to be a light? Jesus said, In Matthew 5, this is by the way, Matthew 5:13-16, he said in verse 16, "Let your light shine before men that they may see your good works." It's through your actions, in other words, your light is shining. It's not just sitting there singing, "This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine." It doesn't work that way. It works with us being activists, taking action to speak out against injustice, to vote, to register and vote. So anyway, what I'm doing right now in my campaign, I'm really focusing on the evangelical church. I'm getting them to register and vote because the Lord told me if I can get them awakened and registered to vote, I will win. But my other pathway is really the prayers of the saints, because there's no way I can win without supernatural intervention from God. And that's where prayer comes in. God is a God of miracles. And it's interesting, Mark 11:17 says, "My house will be a house of prayer for all nations." It's not a house of fellowship, although I love fellowship. It's not a house of teaching or preaching, although I love preaching and teaching. But he says the priority is prayer. Mark 11:17, "My house will be a house of prayer," not just for United States, but for all the nations. And so I really believe that's what's been sustaining me. People have been praying for California Breakthrough. People have been praying for me. And when I ask people how can they support me, I said the first thing is prayer. I say secondly, you know, volunteer, you know, just, uh, we need door knockers, we need people to make phone calls, but most importantly, we need people to pray. And then of course they can give, because in California you cannot win without using media. You have to reach 40 million people. CJ, think about it, if I preach to 5,000 every single day between now and June 2nd, which is the primary, I would reach a little less than 1 million. But when you're talking about reaching 40 million, you have to use the power of media. You have to be on podcasts like this podcast. You have to be in my personal time. And that's why they say when it comes to running, whoever is the golden rule, whoever has the gold will end up ruling. In other words, the one who raises the most money. It's not about Jews, not money for yourself. Is for the campaign. They're the ones who are gonna win. But God's grace, you know, I've been doing it without raising the most money, but we just recently had the first Republican debate with 13 candidates. And by God's grace, I came out the winner by a landslide. I had the most votes of the people who surveyed, watched this debate on television, but also those who were in person. I got 57% of the first, they had to pick the top 2 vote-getters. The second had 37, and I beat out the front-runner of the Republican Party, Steve Hilton. And again, I give God the glory.

Hey, Pastor, let me ask you this, you know, 'cause when I first got the pitch, being a Democrat myself, you know, I was a little bit skeptical, you know what I'm saying? Because for one, I didn't want to get into a political debate and things to that nature. Then when I looked at the profile, I'm like, wait a minute, he going against Newsom, you know, And so I ran it past my wife, and it's just being honest. I ran it past my wife and she said, Cory, ain't nothing wrong with listening to other people's side of the story. You know what I'm saying? Because like, as you say, I know California is basically a Democratic state and that they normally, you know, win the Democratic races, whether it's the Senate, as you was talking about, in the Congress and things of that nature, the governor. And so I was curious on how you know, you had the confidence to run in this race. And then also too, you know, as you were saying that the Lord speak— was speaking to you, you name a couple of dates, man, that just rang true to me. May 25th, 1973 was the year my parents got married, and that was the year I was born in October 1973. My pastor today that I have at True Light International came from Pennsylvania to this area in 1982. So when you said that, it made some significant points and values, you know. But yeah, but with that said, Pastor, so I was, you know, curious. And also too, because with all the division going on today, you know what I'm saying, with things that's going on, but with Republicans and Democrats where we can't even have a decent conversation, I heard something say that we can mend the bridges.

No, I agree with you. And just, uh, for the record, my family was Democrat. My dad was a Democrat. We were— I was a Democrat, but what's happened in California is not Democrat, liberal Democrat of a traditional type. It's gone extreme left, progressive, Marxist. Some of the bills have been passed, it's just absolutely attacking children. For example, we passed this bill right during COVID SB 145. And what is that? It means the Senate Bill 14-5 that was passed by one of the gay senators in our Senate. Again, not against anyone personal, but when he passes a bill that legalized adults having sex with teenagers 14 years and over, that to me, I just draw the line. That's not a felony anymore. And so just imagine a 45-year-old man preying on a 14-year-old teenage boy because he's a pederast. Pedophilia is having sex with children. Pederast is with teenagers. And so when I see that this person is a minor, is under 18 still, and to pass a law like that, I said, what is going on here? We also passed a law just recently by the same senator in 2023 that became law, and it was called SB 357. What's SB 357? Again, Senate Bill 357, is that in the past, if there was a teenager, a kid hooking on Sunset Strip in downtown LA, you will go up to the child and immediately ask for their ID. If they can't come up with the ID, you take this child into child custody. Sometimes they have fake IDs saying they're 18, but you would take them to child custody. Nowadays, you cannot even go up to them. They say that It's harassment, is racist because most of the people are minor, they're Hispanic, they're people of ethnic background. By the way, 51% of California are people of ethnic background. So the majority are not white. It's people like me and people like you. And so, so, you know, since that law became law in 2003, human trafficking has tripled. Because the organized criminals know they can't be touched now. The pimps know they can't be touched. And so now they're putting kids out on the streets, or hooking, and it's just evil. It's absolutely evil for using children, because here's what Jesus said: if you cause one of these little ones to sin, in Matthew chapter 19, verse 4, it's better for you to hang a millstone around your neck and be thrown into a lake. Than cause one of these little ones. Actually, he says that in Matthew 18:4, but Matthew 19 says, "Do not hinder kids from coming into my kingdom because the kingdom belongs to them." Let me give you other bills. This is law. A transgender kid can go into a girl's locker room. He has a total freedom. This is law. It's not just, you know, policy. It is law. We passed that bill in 2003 and 2011. In other words, they can go, you know, he's a biological man but he thinks he's a girl, so he could hang out in the women's, girls' locker room. He can compete in women's sports. Again, the common sense, you know, look, I believe in equality, I believe in— because I'm an Asian minority. But when you start getting away from science, XY chromosome being a male, XX being a female, and to say that whatever you want to be, you can be, and you have the rights, legal rights, to be in women's sports, even though on a federal level we just came against that. But in California, it is law. So that's why I, as a pastor, have to say, wait a minute, timeout. The Bible says he created them male and female. In California, Silicon Valley, where Facebook is, and reason why we produce so much money GDP is because of Silicon Valley. I mean, think about Google's headquarters there. Facebook has had— or Meta has headquarters there. We have Amazon headquarters there. We have Apple Stores headquarters there. Just those companies alone is over $3 trillion. And so they made us the wealthiest state. But on Facebook, there's 55 different genders you could sign up when you join Facebook. Now again, where's the science behind that? We just come to a place where it's humanism. It's not based on the Bible. It's whatever you feel, whatever you think, right? Be all that you want to be, just be yourself, and that's right. Whereas the Bible says no, there's two genders, male and female. He created the male and female in Genesis chapter 1, verse 27. And he said, be fruitful and multiply. You cannot multiply right now. The decline of children in America is scary because people have studied civilization throughout history. And when you start having less children, it's the beginning of the end of the decline of citizenship and the wealth of the nation. And right now we're seeing a lot of couples are not getting married, and those who are getting married are not having children. Just to give you an idea, Europe is going into a tragic decline. The average parishioner in Paris alone, only average couple has only one child. By the way, contrast that with a Muslim family in Paris. The average Muslim family has 7 children, and Islam is now the fastest growing religion in the world, not because of conversion growth. They're not leading people to to Muhammad is through biological growth and through democratic process of getting their people out. And so you have— Mondani is a socialist, he's really a communist, and he's a Muslim. Now I know that we want diversity, equity, inclusion, but this has taken it to an extreme because he's making promises he cannot keep. We cannot pay for all the free food and bus rides and all this. Sounds good, but that has to be through legislation. A mayor cannot do that. But this is what we've been doing in California. We've made promises. So most of our money is going to social projects. For example, with the homeless we have right now, we spend $5 billion with a B for the homeless every year, $24 billion in the last 5 years. And homelessness has increased during that 5-year period by 40%. Because we're not dealing with the root issue. The root issue is a sin issue, and it's a drug addiction, drug selling. Uh, what happened was is that 11 years ago we passed a proposition, Proposition 47, that made a felony— if you stole a car, you broke into someone's house, it was felony. They changed it to a misdemeanor, and all of a sudden, you know, you can now walk into a grocery store a CVS drugstore or Walmart, whatever you want to call it in your neighborhood, and you can steal up to $950 is a misdemeanor. Past that, it becomes a felony. And no one's going to arrest you for misdemeanor because the courts are jam-packed with felony cases and misdemeanors. Still against the law, but we have so many of them, they just stop arresting people. So now we have the highest crime rate. So this is not Because when you swear in the Constitution as a governor is to provide protection for the people. Now we have the highest crime rate, we have the highest taxes, uh, when we have all the oil we need in one county alone, but we're importing them because of our environmental laws. 60% of the petroleum we're bringing in from Saudi Arabia, from Kuwait, countries in the Middle East that is very unstable. And if something happens, we war breaks out there, they could just stop the petroleum instead of producing ourselves. And so it's ideological what's going on. So to me, I didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me, because I believe in some of the values. But this is real extreme to have men in women's sports. So anyway, some people may agree with that, but I disagree. I believe that that's not real fairness— it's not real justice that women should be allowed to compete with other women and not men in women's sports.

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Now let's get back to the show. I mean, you know, Pastor, for that matter, I think that there's a lot that we can agree and disagree on. You know, that's just natural. But let me ask you this. You know, you talked about the homelessness and the things going on in California, you talked about the bills and the oil. You lead a multicultural congregation. What have you learned about bridging deep division, political, racial, generational, the things that people that live in California desperately need? Why do you feel like you'll be the change for that?

Well, because I have a history of bringing reconciliation and unity to the body of Christ. Between the different ethnic groups. When the LA riots took place in 1992, I was on the board of Love LA with Bishop Blake, Bishop Ken Ulmer, Jack Hayford, my mentor, and Lloyd Ogilvie, and I was the fifth one on the board. And when the riots broke out, I know it was over Rodney King, but the reality was is that a month before that, Latasha Harlan was shot by a Korean grocery store owner And as a result of that, she got probation and she got off on that because they said her Second Amendment right and she was protecting her store that was being robbed. And just something very simple, I think like a gallon of milk or something. And so then the month later, the Rodney King beatings, which was caught on video and the injustice of the police beating up on this man. Regardless of what he did, it was just police brutality. They went over the top. And because it went viral, the tape, the city rioted, but they rioted in Koreatown. So with $1 billion damage, many of you saw this in '92, $500 million of it was in Koreatown. And when I saw that, being a Korean pastor, by the way, my church is not Korean, it's American. You know, I joke, I'm a banana. I'm yellow on the outside, but culturally I'm white. I grew up in an American church. My wife is not Korean. She was born in New York City, and so it's really a unique background. But I felt like the Lord say, "Host a luncheon and bring the top, the largest Black churches with the Korean churches, megachurches." We have over a million Koreans in LA, so there's a lot of churches there, and bring them together for a time of reconciliation. So I actually paid for the lunch myself. It didn't come out of the Love LA budget. I just wanted to sow into this because I had such a passion for this. And I remember asking Bishop Blake, who's now the presiding bishop of Church of God in Christ. He was a bishop of his area of Los Angeles. I said, Bishop, would you lead by example? Would you be the first one? And would you do some identification repentance? And he said, "You mean to repent on behalf of the Black people that died?" "Yeah," I said, "you didn't do it, but they did." And he said, "I got it, I'll do it." And so he got up and he said, "On behalf of the Black community, will you forgive us for all the carnage and damage we did in Koreatown?" The moment he said that, the Korean pastors start to weep because they lost everything in the fires and the rioting. And then I had talked to Pastor Dr. Heeman Park, and he was a pastor of the largest Korean church, a 5,000-member church and the most prominent church. And his daughter goes to our church. And so I asked him, I said, "Dr. Park, would you ask for forgiveness for racism by the Korean people?" And he says, "Well, I don't feel we're racist." And I said, "Well, here's the perception, though." You buy the stores in South Central and Watts, you go to the Black community, but you don't hire any people from the community. He says, "Well, we don't. We don't hire anyone. We just use our family members. It's not racism, it's economics." I said, "It doesn't matter. The perception is that you are discriminating against the Blacks by not hiring them." And he said, "I get it. I will repent and will change." So he gets up right after Bishop Blake and said, "Will you forgive us for our racism?" He didn't mince words. "We don't hire people in the community." He tried to explain, "Now we do hire our family members, try to keep the money in the family." And that's how they prosper, by the way. I'm not saying that to justify, but that's the way they think. But he said, "We will change and we're going to hire people from the community." And then the pastor, the Korean pastors, did a prophetic act. They invited 5 pastors who were there, top pastors, Bishop Blake, Bishop Ken Ulmer, and they flew them business class, first class to Korea to speak at their churches, their churches that they are affiliated with. And they gave them a large honorarium. They just honored them because they wanted to come with the opposite spirit. Since then, the Korean church and the Black church in LA has been so unified. It's amazing that after George Floyd's tragic murder, BLM and Antifa, they did not go to Koreatown. They went to Fairfax. That's where they marched and protested and where unfortunately there was rioting going on. But the point I want to make is that by God's grace was used to be the catalyst. I say that to all the glory of God, but this is not exaggeration. No one else had the idea, but I did. And I felt like this was of the Lord and I financed it and brought them together. I even coached the pastors what to say. And it brought tremendous healing. And so as a pastor, we have over 38 different nationalities in our church. I lead a network of churches that's in 73 countries. It's, uh, one of the largest apostolic networks. It's like a denomination. We don't call it denomination because we haven't officially registered as a denomination, but it's a network. In 2008, we had 25,000 churches. We have a lot more now. We have over 50,000. And so I know how to work with churches and different people of different ethnic backgrounds. I understand cross-cultural ministry because I've been involved in a bicultural church. I'm bicultural myself, Korean American. And I feel that's why God's called me to run for governor, because I'm not a white male running. All the other candidates are in the Republican Party, but I'm a person of color. I'm an immigrant that came, albeit legally, you know, at the age of 5, and I became a U.S. citizen. And I have a multiethnic church. And I believe that when I govern, I'm not governing for just the Republican conservatives. I, as a pastor, we have Democrats and Republicans in our church. I'm their pastor. I'm the pastor of everyone in my church. And when I govern, I'm going to be the governor of every person. That is my mindset. That's been my heart. That's been my track record. I am a servant leader. This is not about me. It never was about me. It's about Jesus and his kingdom. And for me, I know I'm called to serve. I don't need the job, to be honest with you. I make more money with my business than I can run as governor. It would be a step down to give up my business to become governor. Economically. And so I say that again to the glory of God, the grace of God, and I don't need another career. I've been a pastor for 46 years. I've been an apostle leading a network of churches since 1996, 30 years now. I don't need another job, but God called me and I said, please not this. Why? Because I know it would take a miracle to win, and I didn't want to give myself to something timewise, miss my grandchildren, the church, because obviously I would have to delegate all the responsibilities. But the Lord said, it's worth it, I want you to run. And I don't fully understand, you know, because I wish he had given me— I wish he would have appeared to me and given me a rhema word. Not only are you— I'm going to split the Red Sea for you, you're going to win. But he didn't say that. He said, I just want you to be obedient to me, and then just see what I do. And so I'm looking forward to seeing what the Lord does. But I do believe we're in a time of revival and reformation in America. And I believe that I am preaching— CJ, I'm preaching the gospel to more people, more unbelievers since I declared my candidacy than I have ever had in years being a pastor. I mean, every week I preach the gospel, a handful of people get saved. We're not a megachurch. I mean, we have like 1,500 people. Although I lead a network that's huge, we have 150 churches in California alone, 800 in the United States, and thousands around the world. But I have done more to preach the gospel as a candidate for governor than I have ever had in years. I mean, I've done more when I speak at crusade. I've done crusades up to 75,000 in India. I had the privilege of preaching at The Call DC. I gave the altar call, the invitation, 450,000 young people on September 2nd. It was the largest youth gathering in the history of Washington, DC at the mall. So I've had the privilege of preaching at Yonggi Cho's church, uh, 40,000 in the main auditorium, 750,000 members watching both circuits. And so I preach, but I'm saying as far as unbelievers Hardcore non-Christians, I've reached more of them since August, since I declared myself to be a candidate. And I said, if that's all you want me to do, Lord, if leading people to Jesus is why you called me, then I will be grateful. But I believe it's more than that. I believe just like God said to Moses, I've heard the cry of the people suffering. 35% of Californians, most of them the Hispanic community, the lowest economic status in California is— Asians are the wealthiest, whites are number 2, blacks are number 3, and Hispanics are bottom. And so when they talk about 35% of California's living in poverty, we actually hit the poverty level, and it's mostly Hispanics. And God has a heart for them, and I believe he's heard their cry, and I I'm gonna do my best to open up the gas wells again. These are things I can do. Lower the gas prices, make it more affordable to live in California. And as I focus on the economy, I believe that we'll have more freedom to do what God's called us to do as we the people.

Pastor, I only got one more question for you, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say this. You brought up Bishop Blake and the Church of God in Christ. That is the church that my pastor is under, that my church is under, True Light International. Pastor Jack Blake. Jefferson, so I had to give him a shout out on that. But you covered with prophecy. Hey, so Pastor, let me ask you this, man. Let's speak to the people of California, the single mom, the small business owner, the person who feels unseen. Why should they believe that better days are possible with you at the head of California?

Well, that's a great question, and the main answer to that is I fear God. Lying is an abomination. I'm not a politician. I'm not gonna make promises I can't keep. You know, there's 6 things the Lord hates, 7 which is an abomination, it says in Proverbs 6:16. And 2 out of the 7 is about lying. And so by God's grace, I'm going to make a promise that I'm going to keep. Now, if I break it, because we're all fallible, we're not perfect, then I'm going to repent and confess my sins publicly to the people that I've hurt. By making a promise will be the circle of people that I will confess to. But that's not to manipulate or anything like that. It's just that this is the way I've walked as a believer 52 years. By God's grace, there's no skeleton in my closet. There's no immorality. There's no financial misappropriation, embezzlement. In fact, you know, we have just seen amazing favor. We bought a $45 million church building as a church. Now, when we bought it, it was $23 million, but we bought in the most prime real estate is now worth $45 million. And so I believe that God's favor is on the righteous. And the Bible says in Proverbs 14:34, "Righteousness exalts a nation." And conversely, unrighteousness brings a curse and judgment. And so what I want to do is I want to really believe that God's going to bring righteous people, righteous leaders into government in Sacramento. And I believe that we will have the favor and blessing of God. I'm praying for revival supernatural intervention, because that's what we need to turn California around. But let me just say, on a public policy basis, I'm going to open up more land to— for single dwelling homes, bring the infrastructure to that. I can do that as governor. I can again allocate budget to laws that have already been passed, like we passed Proposition 36. And I'm going to be tough on drug addicts— drug dealers, I should say, the people who are pushing the drugs., and I'm gonna incarcerate them. I'm gonna put them back in prison because it's now a felony again to sell drugs because we passed that bill by 70%. These are Democrats. Then another thing we're gonna do, and by the way, 70% of Democratic moms want parental authority to be restored, and I'm gonna do that because we have passed bills where if your child wants to change his or her pronoun, as a teacher, as a principal, we cannot notify you as a parent, which is ridiculous. It's called Assembly Bill 1955, and I'm going to change that. We're going to reverse that, that we need to have parents notified because the Bible says in Proverbs 22:6 that parents are to train up their child in the way they should go. The church is to support. Even Sunday school is not to train up your children. You are ultimately responsible. You have to stand before God and give an account on how you parented. And so that's why the Bible says that in the last days he's going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and hearts of the children to the fathers in Malachi chapter 4, 5, and 6, because I feel that that is coming, that revival is coming. And lastly, I want to again deal with the homeless problem because I was homeless. I was a drug dealer, drug addict. 80% of the people are drug addicts or mentally ill. And so what I want to do is I want to open up more hospitals for the mentally ill and deal with those people. 20% of those who are homeless are not drug addicts, they're not— they're just impoverished, they're unemployed. And we do need to provide a safety net for them. I'm going to provide for them. But the drug addicts, I'm going to send them to treatment centers where the gospel is preached, because I've seen the track record. It should never be on the government It shouldn't be a government program. It should be in the private sector because the private ministries have had more success with homeless people, drug addicts, seeing them get saved and reformed. And I want to give them the money to help us out with the homeless problem. So I feel I have a compassionate justice issue on the illegal immigrants. I'm going to ask them to do what President Trump asked us to do is self-deport. But here's the difference between me and Trump. If you have no criminal record, if you've been working, I'm going to fast-track you right back into this country, and I'm going to give you an opportunity to live the American dream because I was once an immigrant and became a citizen, and I've lived the American dream. So I want to provide that. That's my Democratic side, if you will. Again, I don't think the Democratic Party left me. I mean, I didn't leave the Democratic Party, they left me. And, uh, the policies that they have It's just absolutely lawless. We're doing everything that's not even constitutional. To have a sanctuary state for abortion where our tax dollars will pay for abortions to other states, that's, that's contrary to Roe v. Wade being overturned, to Dobbs decision. We are doing it in the name of compassion. Here's what I think compassion is. I want to create a culture of life. I'm saying if you're a teenager and you're pregnant, I'm going to give you the option that we'll take care of your prenatal care, we'll pay for your delivery, and put your child up for adoption if you choose that, and we're going to take care of you. And so, you know, this is the way as a pastor I want to solve the problem. But you have to keep your baby because I have a culture of life, I believe. And again, we're all made, we're all precious. Every human being is made in the image and likeness of God, and we should have a culture of life from the womb all the way to the tomb. And I don't believe in euthanasia, killing elderly people because they're taking up space. Space and consuming oxygen and food and all that, that's nonsense. They need to die as human beings with liberty and the dignity and the honor that they deserve. So that's what I'm saying to the people of California.

Mm, y'all heard it right here on the CJ Moneyway Johnson Show, everybody. Pastor say they need miracles and everything in between to pull this off. And so Pastor, man, before we get out of here, man, leave us with one thing that God has spoken to your heart today to share with the audience, man.

Okay, the one thing is that Jesus loves you. He died for your sins. He rose again. 1973, I only knew it intellectually, but I never experienced it because the word believe in the Greek is pisteo, which means to surrender, to submit everything—your future, your life, your finances, your family. And when God called me, he said, I want all of you, everything you have. And I gave my life to him. And of course, he's given me life abundant. He's given me eternal life. So those who are watching right now, just pray this prayer with me. Just say, Jesus, forgive me for all my sins. I repent. I believe in you, but I want to believe in the way the New Testament talks about it. I want to take up my cross, die to myself, and follow you. I surrender all. Be the Lord of my life. Fill me with your spirit. Baptize me in the Holy Spirit, and I will love you all the days of my life. In Jesus' name, amen. I hope you prayed a prayer like that because I believe if you did that, Jesus is now your Savior and Lord, and you're going to have this blessed life, I promise you. Read the Bible, go to a great church. Church of God in Christ is one of my favorite denominations, and I ask you to get plugged in and grow and be full of the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Hey, Pastor, I really thank you for sharing your story, your heart, and your vision From South Korea to California, from being rebellious to revival, from pastor to public servant, your journey reminds us that leadership isn't about position. It's about purpose. And whether people agree with your politics or not, one thing is clear, you're fighting for families, for communities, and for California that remembers its promise. To everyone listening, build with purpose, lead with conviction, and never forget, Your greatest change starts the moment you decide to rise. Hey, this your boy CJ Moneyway with my man Pastor Chad, running for governor of California, only here on the CJ Moneyway Show, baby. Until the next time, we out of here. Peace.

Go. Let me leave you with this: every story shared here, it's a reminder that your story matters too. Keep your faith sharp, keep your focus steady, keep your vision clear. And if this episode gave you wisdom, hope, or a push forward, Share it with somebody you love.

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