At our first-ever CTN Plymouth gathering, we were honoured to hear from broadcast media pioneer, publisher and active board member, Chris Cole. In his candid and inspiring talk, Chris shared his story of faith, media, business/ tentmaking and what it means to carry Kingdom influence into the marketplace and reminding us that real transformation happens through authentic relationships, koinonia and the courage to share our testimony.
Chris Cole testimony – Faith, business & overcoming hardship
I was converted through the work of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, which started in 1950 with Demos Shakarian. It is a massive ministry reaching businessmen with the Gospel through testimony.
Back in the 70s, I was living in Brussels and was quite entrepreneurial. I owned a large discotheque and was partnering with Heineken Breweries, working as a successful DJ. I also partnered with a businessman who ran one of the most successful restaurants in Brussels, the Hard Rock Cafe. This was around the time when Great Britain joined the European Economic Community (EEC) and many international companies were moving their head offices to Brussels. I found myself thriving as a businessman while also working as a radio host.
One day, three guys came into the radio station where I was working and said, “We’d love to share the good news of Jesus Christ.” I noticed that these guys carried something I had never seen before. My background was fairly broken, my parents divorced when I was 16 and I went off the rails, with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. My only experience of Christianity was going to a Church of England boarding school in Buckinghamshire and my mother had been confirmed in New York at an Episcopalian church.
While at the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, someone stood up and said, “Someone here needs to be strong against the powers that come against you.” I didn’t even know what was going on, but I knew that word was for me. To cut a long story short: on 6 December 1981, I had a profound experience of God coming into my apartment and convicting me of my sin. I realised I was a sinner. I’d hurt someone very badly emotionally, someone who had fallen in love with me and I just dismissed that person. I always felt in my conscience that was terrible. I repented to God and said, “I’m so sorry.” And I had an experience of God touching me on the top of my head and was born again.
It was so profound. I knew nothing of theology, but I was definitely being transformed by the love and grace of God and the Holy Spirit. I walked into a church in Brussels, went up to the front, nobody was there, and I had a vision. If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan you’ll know the Mines of Moria and the dark abysses on that journey. In the vision, I stood on the edge of this abyss, and the devil tempted me with anything I wanted. The temptation was extremely powerful.
As I was standing on the abyss, having this experience of Jesus, I would have preferred to have gone insane than neglect my salvation. So I stepped into the abyss of insanity, but God the Father came and put me back on a firm footing. Two months later, I had a prophetic word about “reaching thousands, no, millions, for Christ through media.”
I want to tell you, God does test your heart and soul. And as He tests these things, it’s not that you can earn it, but He wants to know that you’re capable of carrying some of the things He wants you to carry. Western theology sometimes presents Christianity as only good news, but it’s more than that.
Kerry and I have been married 43 years. Our story is told in the book Gotta Die To Live. God has done tremendous things for us, absolutely brilliant things. But when we look at the Church today, especially when we consider our 318 million brothers and sisters in persecuted countries, we understand something of the Word of God that we have lost. The Early Church knew the reality of Revelation 12:11 which says: “They overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives even unto death.” We in the West, and I’m not condemning us, need to get back to understanding and overcoming the trials that come against us.
When I received that prophetic word, I had a lot of stuff. I had shares in my nightclub, disco and restaurant. However, when God said, “Go back to Plymouth,” my faith was so real that I gave everything I had away: my shares in the disco, nightclub, everything — I didn’t even add it up, I just gave it away, including my record collection. I came to Plymouth, went to visit my mother, and she and my sister got saved, and I started again in very humble circumstances.
I was cleaning the outside of the church, I didn’t care what I did. But then I started Cornerstone Vision, dropping leaflets myself. Cornerstone Vision was started as a resource to support Cross Rhythms, which is now global with over 50 stations all over the world. That prophetic word about being involved in media, God has fulfilled that. I’m on the board of GOD TV, still linked to UCB, Cross Rhythms, and the Christian Broadcasting Council. So I’m walking in the track of that prophetic word.
Ephesians 2 tells us that the foundation of the Church is built on the Apostolic and the Prophetic, with the foundation being Christ Jesus. We have a five-fold ministry however a lot of our churches are run by elders and pastors. I’ve been to large churches and thought, “I wonder how many apostles, pastors, teachers, evangelists and prophets are in this church?” We need to see a return to the five-fold ministry and I’m excited about seeing that happen.
Getting back to the hardships we as Christians are sometimes faced with, I do want to share my journey of overcoming from a health perspective. In 2022, while I was working on a doctorate in Christian theology, God told me, “I want you to read the Book of Job. I’m also going to take care of your children.” I didn’t really know what that was about. But I read Job, and then in 2023, I was at a conference at St George’s, Windsor and I fell seriously ill. They took me to hospital, couldn’t find anything wrong. I drove back the next day, then that week, I collapsed and was back in hospital. By the end of October, I was diagnosed with incurable blood cancer — myeloma. While in hospital, I had three cases of sepsis, two massive haemorrhages and two kidney complaints.
I was in hospital for three and a half months. But God really came through for me during this time. in that. Amid the level 10 pain I went through I had a really good time with the Lord and perhaps some of it might have been the morphine, however I’d already experienced resurrection when I got saved and I was not going to be deterred.
My experience proveds that God is there in the difficult times. The Persecuted Church builds on koinonia, not the ecclesia. The ecclesia is about church structures but in the Persecuted Church have to know their brothers and sisters deeply because those brothers and sisters could be secretly working against them. Koinonia, seeing eye to eye, discerning Jesus in each other, is essential for the Persecuted church. It was essential for the Early Church before Constantine and I think we’re getting back to that.
So I hope my testimony shows God’s faithfulness for business. The church in the West is going to go through a beautiful revival, born out of the Jesus People movement and the Quiet Revival. But there is a challenge for the West to come out of the ecclesia in our hearts, not come out of church, but come out of structures and realise what Romans 8:28 says: “Everything works for the good of those who love the Lord and who are called according to His purpose.”
My identity is not in the work I do, my identity is in Jesus Christ. If it wasn’t for my wife and my three girls, I couldn’t care less when I go to Heaven because that’s when it all starts. We don’t teach enough about what’s ahead of us. The Thessalonian Church faced persecution, they even longed for martyrdom for the sake of a better resurrection.
Where you are positioned in eternity depends on this life you’ve lived here. That’s something we have to grasp. Eternity is forever — there are things in the Word that we need to evaluate here. Kerry and I recently recorded programming for GOD TV entitled, ‘Where is God in the Suffering?’ We are careful not to make suffering a doctrine, but suffering is part of Christian living. “In this life you will have trouble.”
I remember experiencing revival in Plymouth between 1982 and 1986 — hundreds of people came in the front door and went out the back. They were saved, but they were washed in a religion that said, “You’re saved now, everything’s fine, no worries.” So when they hit the first conflict, they abandoned Christ because there weren’t mothers and fathers in the faith who loved Christ enough, without controlling people, to say, “Your life matters. Your backstory is important. You have to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, because you still have a sinful nature.”
One doesn’t get beautiful pearls without irritation. Pearls are created by grit or sand in the oyster and as you work through the grit and the sand, the beauty of life is built around that. Your life becomes the testimony. People are attracted to you because they know you don’t have an agenda other than to be a conveyor of love. It’s all about love. (Koinonia) “Faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love.” If we don’t love ourselves, we can give people religion but not the essence of Christ. That’s why prostitutes and tax collectors can get into the Kingdom quicker than Pharisees — sinners know the transforming power of meeting Jesus and embracing his forgiveness.
When we started The Plymouth Chronicle, we were on Cross Rhythms and working with UCB and others. Our team wasn’t all Christians and we did a festival with 3,000 people for 10 years in Okehampton. The vision wasn’t just marketing and advertising, it was the Kingdom.
I think we’ll see more people who carry the presence of God into the marketplace, people who will redeem the areas where people need to hear the Gospel. I tell our folks at The Father’s House: “Don’t take people to church first, take them home, have a coffee, build a relationship, so when you do take them to church, they have a reference point.” There are thousands of mature Christians who don’t go to church anymore, they’re not rebellious; they’re just looking for something more authentic from the Word of God.
We have to get into that authenticity. Your backstory is important. If you trust God, you won’t mind sharing your grit and the redemption God brought through that grit — that’s the pearl. That’s why Jesus said, “Don’t cast your pearls before swine” — make sure people understand what it cost you. There’s a cost to giving God your brokenness. When we share our brokenness, the presence of God is palpable — miracles happen. And we’re going to come into a time of miracles. Jesus needed the Pharisees to put Him on the Cross. Religion did that.
I’ve never known a more exciting time. In 1947, Smith Wigglesworth had a prophetic word — a year later, Israel was established. He said there would be two moves of the Holy Spirit across the Church in Great Britain: the first would affect every church open to receive it and be characterised by the restoration of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit; the second would result in people leaving historic churches and planting new ones. And the Lord says, “No, neither is this the great revival — but both are steps towards it.”
In the 1990s we had the Toronto Blessing, before that the Charismatic Renewal. Churches began to say, “We’ve got Jesus, now we’ve got the Holy Spirit.” But what we still needed was a relationship with the Father. You’ll hear more about that now because fathering in God challenges your independence and authority. If you trust God for your life, you can let go of your own authority. That’s why God told me in 2022, “I’m going to take care of your girls.” I came out of hospital after three and a half months, couldn’t walk, lost 40 pounds and all my girls were there.
God then gave me a revelation: “Chris, you don’t believe you’re lovable.” I know God loves me, but He was talking about the deep places in my soul only He can reach. God wants to do something deep in our souls that connects us to the Father so fully that our lives don’t matter. “They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives unto death.” If we can’t conquer death in our experience, we’ll never experience life. The Persecuted Church teaches us this.
Going through suffering doesn’t mean God’s punishing you, it’s part of it. The Prosperity Gospel is crumbling in America, as it should. Does God prosper us? Yes, but we must walk through difficulties with the same trust. That’s why Job is so good — there was nothing wrong with Job. In fact, the devil didn’t pick the fight, God did. He’s preparing us for eternity. When you come into this life, you have nothing; when you go out, you have nothing except what God’s done in you with Him.
That’s it. So all idolatry must go. Don’t put Your identity is not in your business; your identity must be in intimacy with Christ.
Can you imagine communities of people who share their pearls, created through the grit? Believers who discern who sees and values what they’re saying. But when you do that in the marketplace, you’ll see impact. When I started, I was gung-ho, witnessing to everyone in Plymouth. We built Cornerstone Vision on that tentmaking principle.
My business partner Chris Girdler and I joined our businesses 25 years ago — now The Chronicle goes to 92,000 homes. Every two months we put Lifelines, a testimony newspaper, in every issue. We go to all the churches and say, “Got a testimony? We’ll interview you for radio and print it in the paper.” We freely distribute it to 92,000 homes. We’ve got 80 distributors. So we’ve got Lifelines, The Chronicle, and Cross Rhythms Plymouth.
Can we get the church to see Plymouth as a Kingdom landscape? Maybe not. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if, like Smith Wigglesworth prophesied, we began to truly ache for everyone who doesn’t yet know Jesus?
CTN Plymouth and Tent making
Frank Bennett and I have been working for about 10 years on a relationship between Exeter and Plymouth, through CTN. I want to say Frank is very free in terms of the organisation. He said to me, “Well Chris, what do you want to call this in Plymouth?” And I said, “Well Frank, God gave you the vision for CTN and we want to honour you because He gave you the vision. “The hand cannot say to the eye, ‘I have no need of you.’ And sometimes in the discernment in the Body of Christ, we need to recognise what each person carries from God in order for God to build His Kingdom to the honour of Christ.” Sometimes we can be very competitive in the West. So I said, “Frank, let’s call it CTN.”
It’s against the backdrop that there are more business meetings in the UK now than ever before. I think that’s a sign of what God is doing in the nation. I’m really excited about the times that we live in. Obviously, the greatest revival in the world is in Iran. You only have to pick up a newspaper, social media or the news to see what’s happening now between Israel and Iran. And if you study the Iranian revival, what you will find is that Iranians who become Christians have an absolute love for the Jews in Israel. I think that’s absolutely fascinating. So we live in incredible times.
It’s not enough to just do business. When I was saved through FGB, they wouldn’t allow you to mix business and the Gospel. But today, tentmaking ministries are key. Some people in this room are going to network for the benefit of the city. That’s what I want to encourage.
Tentmaking is important. The Apostle Paul, along with Priscilla and Aquila, built more into the city through his tentmaking than anything else, because there wasn’t a secular-sacred divide in the Early Church. Rabbis used to work. So your work is really important. Your community’s got to see you in what you’re called to do. That’s really important, because we’re not all called to Bible colleges. We’re called to wherever we are. The hand cannot say to the eye, I don’t see you.
Tentmaking has been a hallmark of Cornerstone Vision in Plymouth for many years. I would encourage you to read this article, ‘What is a tentmaker?’ And if this document encourages and inspires you and you’d like to grab a coffee with Chris Cole or one of the team to discuss it further, please do contact dave@cornerstonevjsion.com or call 01752 225623.
CTN Plymouth
This is just the start of CTN Plymouth, a small inaugural meeting. We’re not 100% sure where we’re going with it yet. We want to be faithful to Frank, who’s doing amazing work in Exeter, and also on Zoom. If anyone wants to connect more deeply, we’d love to have a coffee — no agenda, just connection. The future will have no idolatry or agendas. If you feel unfulfilled in ministry, don’t try to take it from someone else. Let God put it together. Don’t push it, you’ll miss the relationship. I want to know that I’m seen, you want to know you’re seen and together we know Jesus is seen most of all.
Please be careful. One of the biggest traps of the enemy is bearing false witness. We’re killing ourselves with gossip. I’ve been in media for a long time and I know that it’s more important how you finish than how you start. Have compassion for people who gave their lives for God and things went south — be sensitive; it’s a spiritual battle. Don’t judge quickly, see that God sees things better than we do.
Thank you, everyone, for coming. If God gives you a prophetic word and you’re in His purposes, He will fulfil it. Father, thank You. I keep thinking of Bethlehem — the most powerful expression of Yourself, Father God in Christ, was born in a stable. You’re not into fancy shows, you’re into faithfulness and humility. I pray, Father, that You would bless Crosslink and show us the way forward in Jesus’ holy name. Amen.
Also speaking at CTN Plymouth, was Frank Bennett. See Finding your place and transforming the marketplace: Frank Bennett’s story.
