BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

B V O V : 1 1 by Ronald C. Jordan was living under a microscope. "I've always been myself," John says. "But at the same time, I grew up in a world where everybody's looking at you all the time. You're basically in an observation bubble. For instance, I'd go to church and, at almost any point, I could turn and see somebody staring at me. If it were during praise and worship, and I was standing but didn't have my hands raised, I'd think, It's praise and worship, and I'm not raising my hands. If I don't raise my hands, they might think something's wrong. Do I need to raise my hands so people think I'm spiritual? Will that make them feel better? "The problem with that is, if I give in to thoughts like that, I'm just being fake. I'm not being my true self. "People see fake all the time. They see fake on TV, they see fake on Instagram and other forms of social media. We even see fake from the platform in church. So many preachers and pastors stand up there and act like they're perfect, and say things like, 'Y'all should be perfect, too.' That could not be further from the truth. What is true is that nobody's perfect. Everybody has issues, and that's what people need to hear. They want people to just be real—to stand up and say, 'Man, I've got issues.' "It's people's condemnation, their sin consciousness and shame—all these things— that people face. They know they have imperfections. What they need to know is that God also knows they have imperfections, and He wants to help them get through them. Jesus dealt with people who were extremely imperfect. Look at His disciples. They were way imperfect. Look at King David and the things he did. "Everybody's dealing with issues. They might be on di‹erent levels, but they still have issues. The thing is, when you're not being fake, when you're shooting straight with people, it gives them hope. It isn't just about people talking about the struggles they had to go through and how God brought them out. It's about people admitting their faults, their failures, their weaknesses; and seeking God's help to bring them out. That's what gives people hope because they believe, If He did that for them, He can do it for me." A Dierent Direction None of these things had been apparent to John as a young teenager. Though he had no desire to follow in his parents' footsteps by entering into ministry, following high school he found himself part of the KCM team in 1984—working as a welder, and then moving on to maintenance, where he was eventually promoted to Director of Facilities in 1990. A couple of years later, in 1992. John rose to a place of enormous responsibility when he became director of KCM's international o™ces. His responsibilities involved overseeing the operations of each of the o™ces, located in Canada, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, South Africa and Australia. Two years later, at age 28, John stepped into what would be his biggest challenge yet—CEO of Kenneth Copeland Ministries. After two decades of succesful leadership, John entered into a season of deep di™culty, which included problems in his marriage. Instead of going to God for help, John says he turned to alcohol to escape the pain of relational tension. John soon realized that instead of providing a way of escape, his drinking was paralyzing

• Cover