Our Guest Kent Henry

SID: Now, most of you have probably heard of Kent Henry. He just informed me he’s done 60 worship albums and the thing you’ve done for 42 years, your passion is to usher believers into the presence of God. I have to believe that’s your passion too. You want to be in the presence of God. I’m going to take you back. You’ve been doing this for 42 years but at 19, you’re an athlete, you’re a rock musician, you must have thought the world was your oyster. I mean, everything was going right for you but you were depressed.

KENT: Right. After being a high level athlete and a lead singer in a band at 15 and half, depression came to my house. I thought I was king of the world but Jesus saved my life. Four years later some people mentioned Jesus to me, it was a family that I knew, I read a Four Spiritual Laws tract, gave my life to Jesus. I’ve never looked back. He took depression right off of me and I’ve been a happy camper ever since. It’s been very powerful.

SID: But you actually saw him at 19? What happened?

KENT: I’m glad you asked because my mom was a beautician for 42 years and I had been playing ice hockey, I had long hair. I was drying my hair late at night in her beauty shop with my, drying my long hair and I decided to look at the Four Spiritual Laws tract and I read it and threw it down. Something said pick it up again. I read it, God loves you, there’s a gap, receive Jesus. So I said, “Jesus, I don’t even know if you’re real but I’m asking you come into my life.” Sid, I tell you, out of the mirror in my mom’s beauty shop he appeared and stood in front of me and said, “You are my son, I love you.” I was changed. I could not believe this supernatural experience. That’s what he wants to do for anybody that will call on his name.

SID: Now, there’s a long time but I always ask this question. What did he look like?

KENT: Well, he had a white robe on. He had the gold sash, or belt and stuff and brown hair. But the thing is, he was speaking to me not with mouth but with his eyes. It was like so wild because I didn’t expect that to happen. It was like the warm grace of God embraced me. I felt like, he didn’t actually do this but I felt like I was taken into his arms and held as a son. It was beautiful.

SID: Now, when you got filled with the spirit and given a prayer language, I mean, a nice Baptist wasn’t enough, you had a Baptist and Catholic praying for you. Here you get the best of all worlds. Of course, you probably became a believer about the time I did.

KENT: Right.

SID: The only ones that were moving in the spirit were the Catholic charismatics at that time.

KENT: Yeah.

SID: They prayed for you and what was your experience?

KENT: Well, I was at a Newman House Center on the campus of the University of Missouri, St. Louis and I prayed during the mass, people that are from a Catholic background, for petitions. I prayed for anybody seeking the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially speaking in tongues. Boy, it got really quiet. It was a folk mass but then a spirit filled Baptist guy named Steve and a spirit filled young lady, Maggie, came up to me after the mass and said, “Were you the one asking about the Holy Spirit?” I said, “Yes.” They said, “We can pray and you can be filled with the Holy Spirit.” I started taking my leather jacket off, I was on a motorcycle back in the day, and they said, “Well, we got to down in the basement.” I said, “Great. If the Holy Spirit’s in basement,” you know how these stories go. We went down there and I was listening to them praying with their prayer language and I was so amazed. I thought they were foreign exchange students or something because they were praying. And then, Steve bends down and goes, “Kent, stop listening to us and look at the Lord.” When I did, Holy Spirit filled me up. It was like a fresh oil, an oil came over me. I started praying in the Spirit.

SID: Did you realize when you said that, I felt the presence of God. I imagine something like you felt the presence of God.

KENT: It’s real.

SID: When you said that, it just, it like came down. Go ahead.

KENT: It’s real. Well, and then that warm oil. I started praying the Spirit and it was just so fluid I thought, “This is truly amazing.” There was a Baptist lady who was spirit-filled, I happen to call her. She says, “Kent, what tongues is is a prayer language.” I want to remind our viewers today, Sid, tongues is a prayer language that when you don’t know what to pray. I have used it every day since. I’m at the grocery story, Sid, I’m getting the peanut butter and the Oreos in the health food aisle, not really, but I pray in the Spirit and sometimes people overhear me and they just think I’m a foreigner. This is not my home, we’re going to be with the Lord one day, isn’t it cool? I really want to have people think about going back, power up in your prayer language again.

SID: Within a year after that experience, you became a worship leader and 5000, listen to this, 5000 young people were saved, filled with the spirit, and radical. You would have meeting once a week, something like 1550 to 2000, what would you say was the attraction of these young people? Young people in those numbers don’t go to something.

KENT: Here it comes. So ’74, ’75 and ’76, I’m only … by the way, I was Spirit-filled Easter night of 1974, in April. They asked me to lead worship two months later. So two and half years after that, that’s when all those kids got saved. We had 1500 every Saturday night from 7:00 to 10:30, think about the length of the meeting.

KENT: Here’s what it was, Sid. It was winds of the Spirit and waves of worship. It was irresistible because our Jesus is irresistible. The kids were coming out of sleeping with their girlfriend and sin and drugs and everything else. They came in and got saved and Spirit-filled. It just ran for almost over three years that we saw that happen. I believe it was the winds of the Holy Spirit effectively just transforming hearts and then it was the waves of worship.

KENT: We knew … somehow, Sid, the Lord said, “I’m going to show you about worship.” I remember I was leading worship, I’m a guitar player first, a piano second, I was leading worship and I turn around I said, “Let the band play.” They took off playing and stuff and I went, “Oh, my God. I hope that’s legal in church.” I thought, “are you?” And then, I found the words zamar, the seven Hebrew words for praise is to play unto his power. And there you have it, Sid. We just kept doing that Saturday night after Saturday night and—

SID: It was an atmospheric thing. Could they feel the difference?

KENT: That’s the super point about all of it. When you see his presence released, atmospheric change is automatic and it becomes transformational. You cannot stay the same and be in his presence on that level.

SID: When we come back, 1983. How would you like this to happen to you? 1983, he finds out his future. He’s going to be worshiping in the glory, miracles are going to break out, and it’s starting to happen now. We’ll be right back.