John Edmiston is a pioneer at the intersection of faith, leadership, and technology. As the Chairman and CEO of Cybermissions, John has dedicated his career to empowering global ministries through digital innovation and thought leadership. A seasoned educator, he has served on the faculties of prestigious institutions worldwide, including Fuller Theological Seminary and Asian Theological Seminary, teaching subjects ranging from urban ministry to the theology of technology.

Beyond his work in digital missions, John is an accomplished life coach, public speaker, and the author of several books, including Biblical EQ and Solution-Focused Ministry. Whether he is training leaders online through platforms like GlobalChristians.org or speaking at major international conferences, John is passionate about helping believers cultivate emotional maturity, embrace modern ministry tools, and deepen their spiritual walk.

WEBSITES

Cybermissions.org: online training for the use of technology in ministry

GlobalChristians.org: online discipleship and theological training

NewTestamentPrayer.com: resources and courses on prayer and spiritual warfare

EternityRadio.org : free Mp3 based Bible training for oral learners

HarvestimeInstitute.org : A two-year online course in evangelism and church planting

BiblicalEQ.com: a Christian approach to emotional intelligence training

SolutionFocusedMinistry.org - developing a new mindset and new methods for modern ministry

DownloadingGrace.com : how to develop the Christian spiritual life by appropriating the grace of God.

SpiritualContinuum.org : a new approach to Christian discipleship based on cooperating with the Holy Spirit

Welcome to 12-Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, His creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Pastor John.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I'm in rural Virginia where it's beautiful and sunny.

Well, from my studies and from what I saw about you, I'd love to know over the years, your studies of emotional intelligence, what has it brought you to all these years after?

I had a difficult childhood, so I sought for a biblical way to regulate my emotions and I decided that it had to be fully biblical.

While we could incorporate psychology, I thought, well, Jesus is the standard, the Holy Spirit's the way to get there, and the Bible is the instruction book.

So it's helped me to sort out various issues in my own life, helped me to be a better leader, helped me to be someone that can manage people better.

But I think it's helped me with my sanctification.

It's helped me to be a better Christian over the years.

Tell me, how did you even come to meet Jesus?

Well, I was an atheist.

I came from one of those families that you would see on TV with the father at one end of the table, mother at the other, and we grew up on a very secular humanist stuff where we had Aldous Huxley as sort of the hero of the house and people like that.

And so I was 21 years old when I started questioning my humanist background and realized there's some kind of spiritual world out there, but I didn't want it to be a Christian one.

I thought I was thinking more along New Age lines and Zen Buddhist lines and things like that, and I was very opposed to Christianity.

So I tried to mathematically disprove miracles and God and Christianity.

I was finishing off a degree in chemistry and the mathematics was very difficult.

And one afternoon I went down to a Franciscan friary to hear a friend sing.

I'd never been anywhere near a church before.

And so I went down to this Franciscan friary and God appeared to me as a light and spoke to me for about 20 minutes.

And in the middle of that, he said, if you don't believe in me now, I'll leave you alone forever.

I had no idea what that meant, but I gradually felt the presence of God, decided that God was real.

And I thought I had discovered God.

Well, of course, God had revealed himself to me.

And so I went home, tore up my calculations and decided that God was real.

So then I had to figure out which God I had believed in.

And so I did a study of comparative religions and through a long process, I decided that Christianity was the one.

I had three questions.

I said, if there's one created God that I've met, his true religion must be compatible with the basic laws of science and not ridiculous like the animists.

Then I said that if there is one created God and his religion must enable all people on earth to worship that religion simultaneously full hour and a society not collapse.

And I thought that, you know, the societies that require people to go off and be monks or hide in caves, if that's the highest expression of the faith, that's very impractical.

And why would God invent a religion that required people to basically go off and do things like that?

And that my third one was if one created God had a religion, then that religion must bring people life.

And so the first one question eliminated a lot of the animistic magical ones.

The second one eliminated a lot of the more mystical.

And so by the time I got down to the third question, I was down to Judaism, Islam and Christianity.

And I decided that Islam didn't bring life.

And this was a long, long while ago before all the terrorist things happen.

I decided that Islam seemed to be a very rigid religion.

So I then looked at Judaism and Christianity and I was reading my little New Testament, Gideon's New Testament, and I came across a verse in Galatians that said if righteousness could come by the law, then Christ died for nothing.

And that was my point.

And so I decided that Christ didn't die for nothing.

It's Christianity.

So after that, I went and God got me to go to some Reformation history lectures at the university, which my friends were attending.

I looked at the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism and decided that Protestantism had a better view of grace and decided that it was the Protestant view of Christianity.

And eventually I looked at the issue of baptism and looked at the Bible and saw that people were immersed and they were baptized as adults, they were dedicated as infants and baptized as adults.

So I decided that it was more on the Baptist side of things.

And then many years later, I became aware of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and I had a more charismatic view of things.

So I go very, very slowly.

I'm a very pedantic person.

I go through my faith, you know, in the middle of all this, I question the resurrection.

So I looked at the Shroud of Turin and all the evidence for the resurrection.

I go very slowly from point to point.

And that's a bit of a long explanation, but that's how I got saved.

It's a good, I appreciate the explanation.

So if we split you into three, let's do mind, spirit, soul, which parts of you are having the conversations?

You keep talking about the chime in, right?

Where you're chiming in with the three questions, where you're chiming in with, do I go Protestant?

Do I go Judaism?

Right?

Which part is having that conversation with which part?

It's actually spirit and mind.

I have unusual spiritual experiences, which I rarely talk about, and they then challenge my mind and then my mind has to think it through and make sense out of it.

That's amazing that you had that even at 21, right?

And then of course, I would imagine it grew as your confidence grew in seeing the benefits of choices that you made.

It's given me a very grounded faith.

God has sent me around the world as a missionary, so I can think clearly in the midst of cultural and spiritual challenges.

So that's given me the ability to have a faith that survives huge financial stress, health issues, all the other things that have come my way.

I think having a grounded faith and being able to answer questions from people, that's important.

People experience PTSD from what you would have experienced in going back and forth with your conversation with God.

Do you see that happening as a result of those who aren't actively stable emotionally or even just do not have the knowledge of what's actually happening in their mind with conversations they're having?

Yeah, I think what happens is what Carl Jung calls spiritual inflation.

People have a spiritual experience and it's too much for their soul or their mind, and they become some places very arrogant, some they become bizarre and almost psychotic.

Handling strong spiritual experiences is actually quite difficult.

You get these hyper fundamentalists and people who believe themselves to be prophets and come out with prophecies that just don't come true most of the time.

And so the experience of the supernatural is something that I think many, many people have, but very, very few people manage to cope with it.

And I think the ability to stand back from the experience and work it through in a rigorous manner helps people to achieve a point of balance.

Otherwise, people could be knocked off balance.

I wouldn't quite call it PTSD, but I would say a remarkable degree of spiritual confusion tends to result.

48 years after, how has the word of God affected your family life?

Well, the word of God is the basis of my family life.

My wife, Binda, is a strong, committed Christian.

We try and live a biblical life.

And one of the things that has moved in our life is we are committed to being generous.

So we are generous and hospitable.

And we've had people live in our house for considerable periods of time, a couple of years.

In some cases, when they've been going through unfortunate times in their life.

And when we're a little bit younger and in a different location, we would have up to 60 people a week through our house for food and things like that.

So we are committed to hospitality and generosity.

And so I think that's on a biblical basis.

And I think also we are committed to serving those who most consider least.

And I think that's a biblical priority.

What keeps you sharp?

The challenges of my ministry.

I run a ministry called Cyber Missions, and it's an intersection of technology, theology and cross-cultural issues.

It's a really, really complicated ministry.

And so the things that happen, like I'm just designing a missions course for Nigerian pastors at the moment, getting feedback from them.

What do they want in the missions course?

How's it going to work out?

How's it going to be done?

So there's always a challenge.

Every day, there's a new thing to learn.

And my tech guy and I and the various volunteers at Cyber Missions say that we've always got to learn something every day.

Pastor John, this has been a great pleasure.

If we imagine you listening to this conversation five years from today, what's a message you'd leave for future you?

Take it easy.

You're not holding the world together.

Hey, this has been a great pleasure.

In closing, is there anything else you'd like to share with our amazing audience?

Well, no, it's been fascinating to do this interview.

And if you're out there, just know that God is real.

God turns up.

God does miracles.

I've seen a lot of miracles in my life.

Maybe that's another conversation for another day.

But the miracle working God is on your side.

Again, my friend, a pleasure.

I treasure.

Thank you for being on What is Inspired by Torben and Convoys.