♪ In every generation, there have been revivals, massive moves of the Spirit that changed the course of history. In every revival, there were believers like you who chose to answer the call to become the one in their generation. Discover your call to be the one in your generation. ♪ Welcome to Revival Radio TV. I'm Gene Bailey. Glad you're here today. We're going to continue our talking about revivals, awakenings, everything that God's doing.
But with me today, a very special interview, Ellson Bennett. Thank you, sir, for joining us today. Good to have you back. Let's go back in time because there are a lot of people that may... You've been on the show before, obviously, but people don't really remember. We have a lot of new people. So let's go back in time. The story of how you came connected with Kenneth Copeland and why are you sitting here today? How did that all come together? - Oh, my gosh. That's a long story.
But Brother Copeland, back in 1972, him and Jerry Savelle came out for the first Navajo Believer's Convention, Faith Convention. And at the time, I was probably like five or six years old. So you'd understand, I'm raised on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. And back in the 70s, there was absolutely nothing out there. And I remember in my time as a child, we had wagons, very few vehicles. But at that time, I was just intrigued with preachers.
And as a young child, my father was an associate pastor at White Post. That's a place that Kenneth Copeland and Jerry came, Brother Copeland. And so White Post was just a new church at the time, just birthed. And here I am on the reservation. My father, Eugene Bennett, was an associate pastor, and he's now in heaven. And then there's another man, Kenneth Begishe, was the pastor and the founder of White Post Church. Now I'm White Post. And then we have ministers in and out all the time.
But this time, there was something different. As a child, most of the kids had heroes like Superman, Batman, and so forth. But my heroes were preachers. And I would watch them preach. I would watch them get off that stage and watch them all afternoon and follow them around. Sometimes I probably annoyed them.
But, you know, one of the things I did was when I got home, I would get a stick and some rope and wrap the stick around that rope around the stick and tie it and then put the rope back here like holding a mic. And I would go and herd sheep. And I would stand on top of the rocks while the sheep are grazing. And I would stand up there and I'd start preaching to the sheep. And this is as a child. And then I remember the Lord saying, there's a day coming. I heard this loud and clear.
There's a day coming. If you look out, and there was trees everywhere. I mean, as far as your eyes can see. He goes, that's how many people you're going to be ministering to as a child. And so when Brother Copeland and Jerry Savelle came, there was a supernatural attraction. And they were in the middle of the revival that was taking place at White Post. They showed up.
And when they showed up, a lot of our Navajo people were coming out of what we call the Native American traditions, the Navajo traditions. And I remember my father and Kenneth Begishe going from one hogan to another hogan. Hogan is like a mud hut made out of logs. There's logs and mud over it. And that's what the Navajos lived in. And so they would go from one group of house to another group of house and just reach the lost. And then they would bring them into the church.
And that's how the White Post started. But when that was happening, one of the things that I remember back then that the people were so intrigued with the message that was brought forth. Because it was so different than all these other messages. And the message was on faith. Because when they came out of the Navajo beliefs, their traditional beliefs, they believe in the power of words in that realm, in that belief. So when they heard the Word of Faith, they just opened up their hearts.
And they were just receiving by faith. Because they knew that the power of words meant life to them. And when they heard that Word of Faith message, they connected with him. And then as a child while they were there, I followed them all afternoon. Everywhere they went. I remember even the trailer that they put them in. And I would sit outside the trailer just listening. Just wanted to hear. Just wanted to see, okay, because I'm going to go home, and I'm going to go imitate. And so I ran home.
By the time I got home, I used to have a bed sheet, king-size bed sheet. I just put some sticks under there and nailed them down to the ground and that was my tent as a child. And I would preach in there copying Brother Copeland, Jerry Savelle. And I remember even at that age, there was people that would get rocks like turquoise, get rocks. The money currency wasn't even on the reservation. Here and there, but it wasn't on the reservation. People didn't know what they were.
So they would bring rocks. They would bring stones to the reservation, and they would put it in the offering. And I remember people doing that. And they were so excited about sowing a seed. They were so excited about, okay, this is the beginning. And at that time, I was there where there was nothing, where we were out there in the middle of the reservation, no signal of any radio or anything like that. And God chose that place. And out of that place, we sowed rocks.
And out of that to today, we have hundreds of churches that came out of White Post. And now we have another. This is our second generation of White Post Church now. And so we have a younger generation that's running the church now. And the church is thriving, it's moving forward, and they're doing, adding on to the last generation. But guess who's still there? Brother Copeland. Here we are, second generation, preaching the gospel on a Navajo reservation. My father went home to be with the Lord.
And Brother Begishe, he's still out there in White Post. But I tell you what, he just loves the Navajo people. He's been with the Navajo people for generations. And one thing with Brother Copeland is, I know his heart is with the Native American people, not just Navajo. And so one of the things that we did years ago was we honored him for the first time. And we had a family sacred naming ceremony for him. And we allowed him to come into our tribe. And we gave him a name.
And so we had a Navajo tribe, many tribes. It wasn't just Navajo. It was Lakota Sioux. We had one of our pastors, a spiritual leader, that came down from Rapid City just for that ceremony. And he did the honor song for him. Quincy Good Star is his name. And it was an honor where the people came, the elderlies that knew him from the last generation, the original people that were there came out that night. And then you have the younger generation.
And that night was so special because the name we'd given him was prayed over by elderlies. So what they do is they go out and they pray over what name to give a person. It was very special. And once the elders come back and they say, okay, I believe this is going to be this name. I believe that one person may have a part of a name, another person have another part. And they may all come to a place of agreement, okay, this is the name.
They'll say the name one time and they'll never mention it again until the day of that ceremony. So when he was out there and we did this ceremony for him, I believe it was 2019 at the Healing of the Nations Motorcycle Rally that we do on the Navajo Reservation. And the name that we gave him is Wambli Hoashte. Wambli Hoashte means good voice eagle. So it's the Lakota and given from the Lakota Nation to the Navajo people. And the Navajo people honored him with it.
And so, you know, it was a name that is very special to our native people. So, you know, and then the same thing with Jerry Savelle, we gave him a name as well. And, you know, just honoring these men that have been faithful to bring the Word of Faith into these Indian nations for generations. And without hesitation, without, you know, any question, they were there. Anytime, you know, the doors were open, you know, they were there. And they're still there.
And, you know, there's so many things that happened through the years, you know, and they never have got to the place where they said, "You know, I think we're going to stop coming." You know, they keep coming now. And it's like I said, it's been 52 years of relationship. That's wonderful. - Tell us about what's going on during that season until now. I mean, there's an awakening that's going on. Tell the people what's happening. What are you seeing happening?
- Oh, from the last generation, you know, the last generation couldn't read or write. They got the Bible. Oh, they loved the Bible. They would just sit there and say, "I wish I could read it." And I remember one elderly, he would sit there and just look at the Bible and say, "Man, I wish I could read this, but I can't." And he would put, you know, my grandfather did the same thing too, was he would put his hand on the red letters. And he said, "The red letters has power.
The red letters has power." - Wow. - But they couldn't read it though. They carried it because it was life to them. This is life. We want to know. But if you study the history of the American Indians, Jesus was always revealing himself to the American Indians before any settlers and missionaries came forth. Jesus was already introducing himself to the tribe. So when they received the Bible, oh, that was a great gift to the Navajo Nation and the Navajo people.
And so when they received that Bible, they would open it and they were just, they didn't know how to read it, they just put their hand and just hold it and love it and say, "This is life. We actually finally got the book." And they were filled with the Holy Ghost. And they would have prayer meetings all night long. And I remember sitting in those prayer meetings and I was a child and they would bring me to these prayer meetings. I didn't have a choice.
They would bring me in and they would say, "Stop running around." So they would tie me to a chair or something. And I'd just sit there and they'd be going all night long. They would start at, you know, in the evening sometimes. And we didn't get out until the sun came up like five in the morning, the summers. And we would go walk, walk home early in the morning, but all night long. And there were some missionaries that were non-natives that were there.
So there was a language barrier with some of the elderlies that were there, White Post, but somehow they understood each other in the realm of the Spirit. - Yeah. Wow. - And so they would pray all night and they were just drawn together and tied together and drawn together. And that's how the whole prayer service started from there.
And then you go into from there, they had another, I don't like the Word movement, but there had another move of God to where not only the church began to grow, but they began to plant churches outside of White Post. And so they, you know, they had ministers come out of there. They had churches come out of there, but those churches were started. I'm saying like 40 churches were started out of that.
Now you're talking about 40 churches, you know, each church probably ran a hundred people at least. And so now this generation, a lot of the older generation are moving on home. And now this generation has taken over those churches, the younger generation. So this is our second year, our second, excuse me, second generation of the Word of Faith, the Word of God in that reservation. And so now what's happening is everybody's upgrading to digital. Of course, everybody's going into satellite.
Everybody's going into, you know, a new era, you know, and so now we know how to read the Word of God. Now we know how to understand the Bible. And so now God is teaching us how we could reintroduce the gospel to our native American people. Maybe that were wounded by many missionaries, you know, because a lot of things bad happened through the government and through the missionary work. But there were some good missionaries as well, you know, and we honor those.
And so, you know, now it feels like that we are really going back into these different parts. You could say different parts of the native American world. You have your art market, you have your powwow, you have your rodeo. And so all these different world that native American go to. Now we're going back into those and reintroducing Jesus to them. Not only that, because of religion and what religion has done on these reservation, it has paralyzed the church.
And so therefore now we've got to go back into some of these churches and reintroduce them as well to Christ. And so to where religion has really put blinders on them to where they can't see really the true gospel. And so I think that's the generation that we're looking at now to the present day. - How can people, and I can just feel the people that are watching now, they're listening to this, how should the non-American Indian pray?
How should we, what is it that, what direction would you give us to pray for that, for your world, the Navajo Nation and all of America? - All of Indian Nation. You know, one of the things that you could pray is that there be, first of all, an awakening. A real awakening, because you have your church world that they believe they understand Jesus, but let them understand it in a greater light. The eyes of their understanding be open, enlightened.
And then we have another group over here that say they're keeping their old ways, traditional ways. And they believe in Jesus, but they don't see him as a Savior. They see God, they believe in God. They see God as a creator, forever Spirit. But now they need to know him as a Savior. And so now we have this, both worlds, non-Christians and the Christians need an awakening.
And that's what to pray for is, you know, and as you go into these Indian Nation, connect with, you know, connect with ministries that are already there. That way you're connecting with what God is already doing among the people. - So your ministry Covenant Of Faith, explain what you do and how people can connect with you. - We do so much. I mean, we do, you know, our ministry is on the Navajo reservation, which is in Arizona, right outside the Grand Canyon. And we have a church there.
And then through the church, we do food ministry. We do, you know, motorcycle rally ministry, many other outreaches that we do to youth and kids and so forth. And so one of the things that we really, that's different than most churches that are doing, because one of the things we found out was Sunday after Sunday, Wednesday after Wednesday, wasn't working. And we haven't seen the numbers go up in our church. And so we're like, okay, you know, one Sunday we get a good crowd.
And then the next three Sundays, it's just trickle-down. It's just quiet. So what is going on? So one of the things we noticed in our ministry on the Navajo reservation was that, Hey, you know, maybe we should start praying about doing something different. And so somebody had sent me this article on, you know, the Bible being a tribal book. And I start reading about it. And one of the questions I was reading that, one of the questions I had was when did the Bible turn into a Western book?
And there was, you know, because even for me, when I was in Bible school, I would look at the Bible as, this is a tribal book. I see covenant. I see blood. I see, you know, even the communion table. I see that, that's all tribal. You know, that's from my world. And so, but when I was reading this article, one of the things it said was, you know, most of the tribes in the Bible, their thought life was what they call block logic. And then the Westernized society, they more think as a step logic.
And I go, maybe that's what's wrong. We're trying to bring step logic into the tribal people that don't even think that way. So therefore I was like, "Lord, you know, show me this." And we, you know, as we began to pray, things began to come out one at a time. And what we started doing was, okay, let's start praying. Then the Lord began to give us answers. You know, I noticed that these people only showed up for main events. The healing of the nation comes, men's meeting, women's meeting.
They're faithful. Man, they're there to help, you know. But when it comes to Sunday, Sunday, Wednesday, Wednesday, they weren't there, you know. And so we started doing, okay, let's just try this, you know. And so we started doing the special meetings. And our church began to church, not the building, the church people began to grow. The numbers began to go up. And then it was like, this is how they think. This is all these years we've been missing, is that this is how they think is block logic.
- Explain block logic. When you say that, what does that mean? - Block logic means it's to where we can say, you know, like for example, this cup, you know, the step logic would say you got to do one, two, three steps to get to the cup. Block logic means this is your goal. This is where we need to be. And there's many ways to get there without... there's only three steps to get there. So that's the way they think.
And so a lot of it, when it comes to like the step logic, you can plan really good and you're on time, you're on a schedule in the step logic. But when it comes to block logic, you're on timing if you can understand that. So, you know, they go, they live by the sun. And even back in the early years of White Post, I remember, you know, they would try to advertise a service at seven o'clock. Nobody's there at seven o'clock because they weren't living by the time.
They were living by timing, which is when the sun's going down, I'll be there. I'll be there with my chores. - What do you see happening next? I mean, you're, I mean, obviously in what you just described, things have grown so much and duplicated. Now you're into multiplication and new generations now are taking over. What do you think is next when it comes to this ministry like this? - One of the things that I believe that's coming next is a unity of the Native Americans.
I'm talking about the grassroots people, on the reservation with the non-natives that are outside the reservation. Because right now I believe there's a great divide between these two. Why? Because it's, you know, their definition, the Native American definition of prosperity is a little different than their Western thinking of prosperity. So somewhere we're going to have to come together.
And then even the Bible, the way they see the Bible, the Native Americans see the Bible is way different than the way the American people see. But so we, somewhere we have to come to a place and say, Hey, we need to meet here. And that's one of the things that our ministry does is we became a bridge to both worlds. We can bring, you know, the mentality. And the great thing about our ministry is that we bring these two worlds together to where they can understand one another and work together.
And I think this time, this generation right now, they need that unity of brothers in Christ to work together, whether it's on the reservation or off the reservation. And where there can, they can, there's an understanding to both worlds. Because one of the things that has happened and has really damaged our church is I'm talking about our... when I say church is the global church, the thing that really damaged among the American Indians is because that wasn't done. We never learned each other.
So therefore this phrase came up from the American Indians. That's a white man's book, a white man's religion. And I'm sure a lot of it was, but this is the part where I'm talking about is we get rid of that and say, this is our book, you know, from both sides, to where our natives can begin to accept the Bible and really bring, because the Bible, once we accept the true gospel, the Bible is the one that's going to bring in our true identity. - Amen. Well, that's so true.
- And when we get our true identity and through that identity, our native American music that we were told not to sing, our language that we were told not to speak in our church, our native songs and arts that were told, they were all pagan religion. And when this unity takes place and understanding takes place and we give voice to one another. And now we can have a group of people that have received their true identity back.
And now they can receive the true songs, the true music and the arts and the culture and to where we can have both cultures working together. And I believe that's what we're going to see in heaven. - Amen. I agree with that. You know, we're at the end of this program, but would you look at that camera and pray for the people?
- Yeah, today I want to pray for you, whoever you are listening out there, you know, and I really want to encourage you to steady one another, especially as a body of Christ to learn one another. You know, one thing that Jesus said in his Word was learn of me. And so I believe that's one of the things that, you know, we would do in the church is learn one another. We are the body of Christ. So I want to pray for you right now that our eyes will be open and lightened.
And Father, we thank You for all those people out there that are watching. And I pray in the name of Jesus, that the eyes of their understanding, be open enlightened, that they may know what is the hope of all of our calling. And that we may finish this race with honor, that we may finish this race together, honoring the name, honoring the blood, honoring the Word, honoring the covenant and Father God, that this would be a great strong army together.
And for sure, Father, I pray that we will see true unity. And out of that unity, we will see Your glory, Father God come out of that. And Father to bless the world, to get people saved and healed. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. - Amen. So how can people partner up with Covenant Of Faith? - Well, covenant of faith, you can, you know, go to our website. It's C O F A Z.org And they can partner there. And then you'll find all of our information on there. You'll see our phone number.
You can contact them and see how you really, how you can... There's another thing that we do. We call it reservation education. And we bring people to the reservation and we educate them on the mentality of, and what we're talking about, blah, blah, And then we go through the government buildings, you know, all the schools and everything. We're talking about what's the problems on the reservation and how can we fix it? And together, not just...
You know, covenant of faith problem in their native ministry, but all together as a body of Christ, how can we fix these nations and bring healing to the nations? - Thank you, Ellson. So good to have you back. - Thank you. - I know you're going to follow, go to the website, check it out. And you know, we must be aware of our brothers and sisters around us. And, you know, it's a great ministry. And I'm so proud to work for a place with Brother Copeland, who is very loyal.
And he stayed true and stayed on the path. Thanks for watching Revival radio TV. We'll see you next time. ♪