Sid: My guest Lindell Cooley, Lindell was the Worship Leader for what many call the greatest revival of the 20th century the Pensacola Revival in the Brownsville Church. Lindell before we did this interview I called my friend Pastor John Kilpatrick and I said “John tell me something that you think is one of the most amazing things about Lindell Cooley that he might not even bring up.” And John said to me “Ask him about how I hired him.” Well you get a call from John Kilpatrick and he’s not aware at the time that you’re very cold towards the things of God, towards the supernatural, towards speaking in tongues. You got intellectual, you got into studying psychology, you had a lot of artsy friends that you were… there was a spirit of the age literally hit you. You didn’t end up being an addict or something like that, but you were kind of cold to the things of God. So John called you on the telephone and offered you a job to be Worship Leader at his church and he wouldn’t take nom and he said “Can I come by and see you?” But coming by meant going from Pensacola Florida to drive to Tennessee and he could get there until about 11:00 PM. So he gets there at 11:00 PM and you want to make sure that he does not offer you the job, so you take him out to a bar. Tell me about what happened.
Lindell: I took him to a place that was really opened late at night where all of the kind of seedy folks go after dark.
Sid: (Laughing)
Lindell: And I thought you know I’ll scare him off, you know and then.
Sid: You would have scared me off but go ahead. (Laughing)
Lindell: And it’s so funny we sat down at a 4 top table and I had put together a list of 28 requirements I would have to ever take a job in church ministry again, I was just at that point. He sat down with me and he started talking to me. And I said “Look John, what are you looking for, what’s your job description?” And Sid by the Spirit of the Lord he started reading my list it had silly things on it like “I won’t do any office hours.” Nobody hires… you can’t hire someone without office hours are you kidding, I said “I won’t do them.” And he looked at me across the table not knowing what was on my list he couldn’t see it it was in the seat next to me. He said, “I would imagine someone who works the way that you do the office would probably not be the most conducive place to do music and create and that sort of thing, so just come to the office for staff meetings and that sort of thing. And then he just kept going 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Sid: He didn’t see this list?
Lindell: He did not see the list; no way.
Sid: So he was speaking by the Spirit.
Lindell: Absolutely. The Lord was speaking to him through me to me through him and I started weeping. When he got to 6 or 7 on my list I started to weep. Because I’d just come out of a year and half I’d left a wonderful church and I was in a year and half of just crucible. I don’t know how to explain how it came, you know Peter denied the Lord 3 times but yet slept next to Jesus and traveled with him for years. So we can go through these things. And man he got to 6 and I started weeping and I put my hand up and I said “John I’m going to take your job, I’ll just take your job because I feel the Lord and I’m going to take your job but I want you to know I’m in no spiritual condition to be a Worship Leader at your church.” (Laughing)
Sid: Well again that would have closed the deal for me I would have said “Well I want to get out of this bar anyway goodbye.” But he didn’t say that did he what did he say.
Lindell: Sid, he looked at me and pointed that finger in my face and said “Son, you know how to get right with the Lord, you get right with the Lord and you be there Palm Sunday and I believe it was April 9th 1995 and start your job.” (Laughing) And that was that, and that’s what I did.
Sid: I bet you amazed yourself that you even did it.
Lindell: I did but you know what Sid honestly during that period of time between the time he and I talked and I actually started the Lord, the Holy Spirit got on me and started breaking me down. I literally wept for 2 weeks solid while I packed my things to go to Pensacola. I mean the Spirit of the Lord in conviction was on me and I wept and wept and wept. The Lord had already started the process, the minute I said “Yes.” You know if anybody’s listening sometimes if you’ll say “Yes to the Lord He’ll start the process.” But He doesn’t start the process sometime until we make the commitment until we say “Yes Lord I’ll do this” and then He’ll start the process and that’s what He did with me.
Sid: Now we’re going to play a song that came right out of the revival that you wrote yourself called “I Need You More.” Where did that song come from? I know it came from God but tell me the experience that God birthed it.
Lindell: It came from a time in the sanctuary with a good friend of mine that I’d known since I was a child. A pastor’s son came to visit me and stayed with me for a few weeks visiting revival. After lunch we were headed for the house and he said “Can we go back to the church?” Of course I’d spent so many hours at the church going home was a good idea but we walked around the sanctuary that afternoon, prayed awhile. Then he sat down next to me and said “I need to tell you I’m hooked on prescription medications and I don’t know what I’m going to do.” And so I began to pray with him and so arrived from that moment of prayer we walked over to the piano and wrote the song “I Need You More.”
Sid: I have to tell you the Holy Spirit interrupted this interview for someone that’s listening. “You get right with God as you hear:
“I Need You More” (Worship Excerpt)
Sid: That was “I Need You More” and I have to tell you I’ve been a believe over 40 years now Lindell and my honest prayer is “God I need You more than, I mean every moment I need you more than I ever had in my life.” I’m just more aware that I need Him more.
Lindell: I need Him today Sid. (Laughing) Go for it…
Sid: Well I’m going to tell you something.
Lindell: I need some support, I don’t know what’s going on.
Sid: Well how could you have taken a job and I understand Pastor Kilpatrick said to you almost prophetically he knew that something special was coming. What were his words when he hired you, this was before the revival?
Lindell: He looked at me in that restaurant/bar and he looked at me and pointed that finger and he said “You know how to get right with God, and he said “Besides God is about to do something and He wants you to be a part of it.” That’s what he said to me.
Sid: Okay.
Lindell: But Sid I felt the presence of the Lord is what you have to understand I was in such a dry place. And I felt, I knew what the presence of the Lord was like because I had experienced it as a child. So I knew that it was familiar to me, and when he started talking the Holy Spirit started speaking to me and I knew there was no way I was not taking this job. I knew that I was going to Pensacola.
Sid: Okay, you are there on Father’s Day 1995 revival breaks out there and you just happened to not be there, when did you first hear it happened?
Lindell: I heard it in KFK Airport on the telephone on Monday after Father’s Day.
Sid: How could you miss it? (Laughing)
Lindell: Well I had had a commitment to do a musical tour in the Ukraine and I was gone for 2 weeks and that was commitment before I took the job at Brownsville and I was flying back in. And I called John and I said “John, I’m back in the United States to let’s you know I’ll be home tomorrow sometime.” And he said “Oh Lindell, it’s happened, it’s happened.” I said “What’s happened?” He said “God has come, God has come to the church and revival is here, the Spirit of God is here.” And he started telling me what happened on Father’s Day and I started weeping on the phone, I could not wait to get back to Pensacola.
Tags: its supernatural, Sid Roth