Todd White was a drug addict before being completely set free and having his life transformed by Jesus. Since the day of his conversion, he has devoted himself to sharing the Gospel wherever he goes. He has witnessed God’s powerful healing and deliverance and encourages the Church to rise up boldly, and to expect wonders, miracles, and the salvation of great numbers. Through his ministry, Lifestyle Christianity, he teaches Christians to find their true identity in Christ and to to be led by the Holy Spirit, and conformed to the gospel. He will soon take part in the ‘Awakening Europe’ campaign together with Ben Fitzgerald and is helping the team in preparation of the convention that will take place in Prague from 29 June to 2 July 2017. The team’s desire is to evangelize the Czech Republic, to equip Christians in the country and throughout Europe, and see transformed lives. Thank you Todd for your desire to see Europe and the French-speaking world turned upside down and transformed by the message of the gospel.
This interview was originally published in French on Info Chrétienne.
Can you tell us about when you first met Jesus?
I’d been a drug addict for 22 years. Four and a half months prior to my conversion I’d actually asked Jesus into my heart but I never got into the Word. I didn’t understood that that was going to transform me in relationship with Jesus. I went out one night to get some crack. My girlfriend and my daughter had chased me out of town, and I found a kid selling drugs on a back street. I picked him up and once I had the drugs in my hand, I told him I was a police officer, and I started to read him his rights. And he started to freak out.
I didn’t have money for the drugs so I told him to step out of my car and put his hands on the hood. As soon as his hands were on the hood, I hit the gas and he unloaded a 9 millimeter at me. I don’t know how many bullets he shot, but I know it was enough that I shouldn’t be here right now. And I heard an audible voice say,, “I took those bullets for you. Are you ready to live for me yet?”
And I went and I actually did the drugs. But I didn’t get high that night. It was so weird because they were very real drugs. I had smoked crack and I knew what they were. I went home. My girlfriend was at home and she hated me. She said, “You need to leave.” I said,“I actually do need to leave.” And that night, I left the house. Three days later, I went to a place called ‘Teen Challenge’ where I remained for two months.
When I first went to Teen Challenge, every night I would have horrible nightmares that I was being attacked. It was the only place where Satan had access to my soul – through my mind, will and emotions. And he had access. So every night, my roommates were petrified of me because I’d run around the room screaming and yelling, and I’d hide underneath the bed. It was awful.
One day I was across the street at Teen Challenge in Harrisburg, at the induction center, and I had my guitar. I didn’t know how to play, but I was just strumming, and a homeless man came up pushing a shopping cart. And I looked and he had army fatigues on. They were like floods. He had swimming goggles on his head, and sneakers on and he was pushing a shopping cart. And I looked at him and I said, “Man, do you know how much Jesus loves you?” And he pulled his shopping car over and said, “I do. Do you know how much he loves you?” So he started talking to me, and he told me that I had a demon. He didn’t know me, he didn’t know where I was from. And he sat there talking to me and I didn’t get upset. I was with another guy from Teen Challenge and he actually walked across the street mad because the homeless guy had told him he had a demon too, but he didn’t want to hear that. But this guy knew something about me, even though there’s no way he could have known.
I didn’t understand what words of knowledge were or anything like that. I was brand new. So he starts to preach the gospel to me like I had never heard. And I said, “Man, why are you out here? Why aren’t you preaching somewhere?” And he said, “Twenty years ago, the Lord told me to pick up my cross and follow Him, and I’ve been pushing this shopping cart,” (it was full of Bibles), “across the nation from mission to mission talking to anybody who would listen.” And he said, “We’re gonna pray and this thing is not touching you. This thing is leaving you.” So he prayed and I didn’t feel anything.
I went back inside and the others made fun of me because I was talking to the homeless guy across the street. When I turned around he wasn’t there. I had no idea where he went. All I know is that I went back in there, my life seemed to be the same. I went through my day and that night, I had a dream that I was in a valley with a broad bottom to it, and steep sides. It started shaking, and I thought the demons were coming to chase me again. But instead of them coming to chase me, I heard a voice say, “Behold, I’ll never leave you nor forsake you. I’m always with you.” And immediately I woke up.
I went into the prayer room where I had determined to go everyday. There was a Bible there but I didn’t understand it. I had ADHD so I’d never read a book. The Bible was the first book that I could understand (and the most important!). And I opened it to Psalm 23, and I saw, “Tho I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil.” And it was as if God was speaking directly to me through this scripture. But I didn’t say anything to anybody and the second night I had the same dream, with the same valley.
The third night, it was amazing because there was a light that went from behind me the whole way down this valley, and there was a voice that came from behind me, and He put His hand on my shoulder, and He said, “Do not fear. I will never leave you nor forsake you. I’m always with you. This addiction will never touch you again.” And I woke up, and they told me to go home. They actually said, “Go home.”
So I went home to my girlfriend and my daughter. My girlfriend had started to come to Christ before I went to Teen Challenge and while I was in there she fully believed that God could transform me. Four days after I came home, and in the middle of the church service, we got married! Today I have the most incredible wife and the most incredible marriage, where we have never been closer. She’s amazing and I love her.
What triggered and marked the beginning of your ministry?
My job was my ministry. I never considered that I needed to be ‘in ministry’. Every believer is drafted into ministry. I just did my job as unto the Lord. I didn’t ever ask to speak. I worked for an ice company, and I delivered ice to people, often of various different religions. And I would see between 10 and 30 people healed and come to Jesus every day of my life at my job. People would come up to my ice truck because they knew that I would pray for people. I had to make sure I did my job as unto the Lord, producing and keeping up with everybody else I worked with. I wanted to be outstanding in my job.
There was never a separation between ministering to people and working. I later went and got my real estate license, and had the opportunity to work for a Christian realtor. The weekend before I was going to start my new job I went to a conference where Patricia King was speaking. She prophesied over me, and it actually left me unconscious. When I came to, there was all this money lying on my chest, and I had no idea where it came from, but it was the amount needed to pay off the last of my drug debt.
Patricia later asked if I would come and work with her in Phoenix, but I said, “I start in real estate on Monday,” and showed her my card. She replied, “Todd, you’re not supposed to be in real estate. You are to equip the body of Christ.” I told her that I felt that I was equipping people to live a normal Christian life because I believe everybody’s called to do that, and she said, “No you need to help me equip people from a pulpit.” So I called my real estate company, and told them that I needed to go and see if this was God and they said the job would remain open for me.
I went to Phoenix for a couple of days and spent some time with the ministry. Then I returned home. I needed to seek God about this, because everything in the natural looked amazing, as if God was opening a door for me. I spent two months seeking God about it, and He told me, “You’re not to move down to Phoenix. You need to stay here.” I called Patricia and told her I couldn’t come and work for her. The pastor that I had been working with at that time said, “Todd, I think it’s time we bring you on as an employee – we can provide for you.” And that’s how I started with Dan Mohler and Neck Ministries.
Who is the person / people who have played a major role in your ministry?
When I got saved, I told Pastor Dan Mohler that he was going to be my spiritual father. And he said, “It sounds great and it sounds right what you’re saying, but let me tell you what that will do to you.” There was a lot of talk about spiritual fathers at the time I got saved, and he said, “Todd, you can glean from me, and I can be your friend. But if you’re not with me and you call and I don’t answer, you’ll think that you’re an orphan. And if God doesn’t establish Himself as your spiritual father and your Heavenly Father, then when the man you call your spiritual father isn’t there, you won’t make it.”
So then I said, “You’ve got to be my mentor then.” And he said, “The world says call no one on Earth your father because you have one father who’s in Heaven, and call no one on Earth your teacher for you have one teacher, Christ.” And I said, “Well, the Bible says you have many teachers but few fathers.” And he said, “That’s right. A true spiritual father would point you to your heavenly father because God’s always there to answer you.”
He told me that my mentor needed to be the Holy Spirit, and he pointed me to my secret place, where I can talk to God when no one is looking. Dan was always there for me to glean from, but as far as people I’ve looked up to, I honestly believe that we should honor and respect every mother and father, every person that has pressed into the Body of Christ and gone before us, like Heidi Baker, Kenneth Copeland, Reinhard Bonnke, Bill Johnson… All of these people are phenomenal. I thank God for them. I have so many heroes, I couldn’t name them all. I just love everybody.
What advice would you give to those who want to follow the same path as you?
Romans 1:16 says, “I’m unashamed of the Gospel, for it’s the power of God unto salvation to them that believe: first for the Jew, then for the Greek.” The power of it is in righteousness. “For in the Gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith.” It all boils down to understanding that you have right standing with God, the One who created you. God’s not mad at you, or ashamed of you. He’s actually thrilled that you believe that He loves you like He says He does. So it all comes down to knowing that God loves you.
People always ask me how I step out in faith. I say, believe that you are who God says you are. I travel the world and preach the Gospel, but I talk to people individually everywhere I go. And there are not a lot of people who really get “who they are” from the Word of God. They get who they are from books about the Word of God, or from a person that tells them they’re this or that. And we’re used to living by the opinions of people instead of the truth of who our Father says we are.
So how do you get bold? Find out that you’re right with God. Jesus made it easy. He gave two commandments:
Love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul, strength and mind.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
I can’t step out and love my neighbor unless I realize what God thinks about me. People are going out and trying to “do” witness, and that’s a struggle. Jesus said, I want you to go out and “be” my witness. When you know who you are, you definitely know the person standing in front of you and who God created them to be. When you step into this place, what happens is you can’t be rejected by a person because you know you’ve been accepted by your Heavenly Father.
Is there anything else in particular you would like to share with us?
On an average day, we could see 20 or more people touched. Honestly, the greatest miracle to me is a life that is completely transformed that doesn’t look anything like it did before. Jesus didn’t just come to get us to heaven. He came to get heaven into us, and when heaven gets into us, we get to destroy hell for a living. 1 John 3:8 says, “For this reason the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” So that’s always my number one priority.
As far as miracles go, we’ve seen the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the poor have the gospel preached to them. We’ve seen Hepatitis and AIDS completely crushed! We’ve just seen amazing things.
One particular testimony that comes to mind is, not long ago I was in Florida doing a youth conference. I shared about people who had put scars or marks on their body and that if they repent, God wouldn’t just forgive them, but He wanted to remove their stains from a life that they wished they had never lived, because that’s not the person they are anymore. I told them, God doesn’t want you to carry that around, because it’s a reminder of the life that you use to live. Some people say that the stain is to keep you humble, but what humbles you is Him removing it as though you never committed the act.
One girl, probably 14 years old, repented. I didn’t know it, but she was a cutter and her arms were full of cuts and scars. She came up, and we as we started praying with her, she started manifesting a devil. Her eyes were rolling back and she was growling. It wasn’t good. We kept praying for her because she wanted to be free, she was fighting this demonic thing and then all of a sudden, she breaks into a smile. She takes her coat off and looks at her arms, and Jesus had healed every cut. Her friends look, and they all start crying because her scars are gone. So I asked her to come up on stage and share what God just did and when she shared, six other kids’ scars disappeared all at the same time and they all started crying. And we’ve seen that many times. It’s so powerful!
