Find Out About Our Story

Dr. James Thomas and his wife Debrah

I ended up an angry, troubled teen in the early 70s. I excelled at sports and sampled thoroughly the 70s new age culture! My father ended up pastoring a church in a very liberal (dead) denomination. He consequently lost the power of his original conversion and relationship with God. Something he will admit to you today! He is a very powerful, wise man of God today! However I said in my teens "if that's what it is, I don't want it!" I went after sex, drugs, and rock and roll! I became a very troubled, dark teenager!

But in the spring of 1976 all that changed! God made a massive move to get his son back, and to set him back on course! God did things in my life in 1976 that my denomination simply didn't believe in. It was so powerful, I knew it was God and it forever changed my life! I always knew I was called; but again, I told the Lord that if he called me into the ministry, I would never get saved! I confused the ministry with the dead religion I saw in my father and his minister friends. I wanted real, transparent, relevant or nothing! I chose nothing!

In 1976 while sitting alone in our house at the dinner table, I was visited! I had what some old timers would call an epiphany! Today we know it as an awake vision talked about in Joel and acts, and throughout scripture. It was so vivid, powerful, and real that I can see it today with the same clarity as 41 years ago!

To preface the sharing of this epiphany, I will share with you these facts. I didn't know anything about scripture! I didn't know that the kingdom of darkness and light were at war. I didn't know that we were in a battle of spiritual warfare with darkness. I didn't know that the kingdom of God and darkness are set up with a spiritual hierarchy and functioned like an army. I didn't know that there were different ranks in those armies! I didn't know that there were generals, lieutenants, privates etc. in God's kingdom. I didn't know that there was a pyramidal structural hierarchy. I didn't know that the bible talked about the weapons of our warfare that are mighty through God to the pulling down of demonic strongholds as talked about in Ephesians.

I was unaware that the bible in Ephesians said to put on the whole armor of God that you might stand in the day of battle. I didn't know that it described each piece of Armor - the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit, the belt of truth, the shoes of peace. I didn't know that God was light! I didn't know the significance of white horses or mountains in scripture!

In my vision, I was suddenly no longer in my house or dining room! I saw myself in space. The earth was in the distance and looked about the size of a quarter. I was in a chariot being pulled by white horses! I was in complete roman armor from head to toe. I had a sword stretched out over the chariot and I was giving the command to charge! Behind me was an army that was innumerable, all who were in armor in chariots being pulled by white horses. I was the lead and point chariot and the army was organized behind me in a pyramidal hierarchical formation!

As I looked at the earth, a huge light was enveloping earth and I knew that the light was God. He was my leader and I was their leader! He had given the command to charge and I was sounding the charge at his order! I knew that God was going to bring about an end time awakening that would envelope the entire earth that would immediately proceed the return of Jesus!

I was out of that vision and immediately in another subsequent vision. This time as before I was still in Roman armor. I was on top of a very high mountain almost in the clouds. My foot was on the very top pinnacle point of the mountain. I had my sword held up into the sky and I was screaming victory! (only years later when I was going through a very difficult time did God reveal to me that I couldn't have climbed that mountain by myself or in that armor! He had put me there!)

God then spoke to me from the clouds and said, Jim, you will be a general in my end time army! But I knew that he also had revealed to me that I would go through much preparation and pain in preparation for that role! A promise he kept!

I didn't understand what had just happened to me, but I knew this was God! There was no doubt in my mind at all! I repented to him and started my new journey! I immediately started ministerial training. I started a group called the young believers and got many young people saved in my first years as a new believer! God ended up bringing me in a strange different path I couldn't initially understand. After going to bible school, I got married in 1980. The Lord led me to stop full time ministry and put in a carpet and upholstery cleaning business. I continued to minister, even pastor, but I ended up owning many business and companies. We ended up inheriting millions in assets and cash at a very young age. God told us to let it go and we did.

In the early 80s, I was in Washington DC running Maryland and Virginia for a corporation. I was very successful there and the toast of the company. I was sitting in my office and I told God, "God, I hate this. I am a minister. I don’t want money. I want to be in the ministry full time." He spoke to me and said "Jim, grow where you are planted, I have a purpose for this!"

In the years to come, I would own many businesses all or part. Sometimes I owned two or three at the same time. It was clear that I had a gift. I became so good at business, I ended up being a consultant for businesses, churches and ministries. To name a few of the businesses that I owned, advertising companies, direct mail companies, publishing company, mortgage Co, Insurance agency, Construction Company, roofing siding gutter company, janitorial companies, mechanic shops, consulting, auto dealerships, ect.

At this point, I realized that all of these enterprises were just training to fulfill my call and become the general he had shown me that I would be! I made good money many times, but He never allowed me to eat of the large sums of money I had created. Many times, other people ate of what I had created. Many of these experiences were short lived and He moved me on to another industry quickly. I suffered much pain through a lot of this journey. I understood the preparation spectrum that he was using in my life. I failed many times and learned more through failure than my successes. I learned more about ministry and people in business than I learned in school or ministry. But there are some things and losses that were hard for me to understand.

About five years ago, I had a dream. Jesus and I were on the landing at the top of a very long staircase. In the dream he said to me, Jim, each step represented companies, jobs, experiences, and every loss that I had gone through. He showed me that if he had allowed me to eat of the millions or the byproducts of my efforts in the early steps of my life, that I would have never gone to the next step and become the man, problem solver, and leader that you are today. He said, now you have ascended all these steps and have become prepared to be the general I've called you to be. Even though I knew this, I took great solace in that dream, as I had gone through much pain and many betrayals through that journey and life process of almost 40 years!

In 1989 to 1990, God laid out the entire plan or blueprint for this end time army and ministry. He showed me many hidden mysteries of his transgenerational viral model of growth which he created everything on in this creation. He showed me that even Jesus built his church square on the shoulders of this model of growth. He showed me that the church isn't using these principles today and that they are even biased toward the model itself. The devil has strategically biased the churches against this model as Jesus used it to expand his church and kick his butt in the early centuries of the church! He revealed to me how to build the Good Shepherd army on these principles. He also revealed to me that this plan would help reengineer the American church back to biblical Christianity!

I've worked on this plan since that time. Through the years in my prayer time, the Lord revealed to me that he would give me a large farm for our international headquarters and we wouldn't pay a cent for it. Even though I was from Florida, I knew the farm was in the north and I felt strongly about Pennsylvania. Through the years, The Lord revealed to me that when we received that farm and were in that geography, that it would be time to launch the Good Shepherds army fully!

I kept talking about this farm to my four sons thru the years since they were small children. There were times that they weren't sure if their dad had fallen off the turnip cart. You see, I knew it was on a long beautiful lane through the woods about a mile and a half off the road. Through the years, more would come to me about it. I knew it had a big beautiful 1800s farmhouse with big double doors. Inside it had a beautiful wood staircase and parlors on the sides. I would generally spend 2-4 hours a day in prayer and bible study. In 2011, in my prayer time, it kept coming to me that the farm was going to materialize immediately. Again I knew it was in the north and I felt strong about Pennsylvania. I called my family together and told them this. My son said dad, you're smoking dope! I said son, you will see it with your eyes! Within a few days, I was in New York. We didn't know where we were. We were lost in a neighborhood. I said stop, I'm going to that house to ask where we are. A woman came to the door and the Holy Spirit downloaded to me in a very pronounced way that he sent me all the way from Florida to get this woman saved and to disciple her, which I did!

To make a long story short, this woman told me she had a big farm in Pennsylvania and she felt led to give it to me and the ministry. Although Jane was not a Christian and deeply into new age magic, we came to find out she came from a long line of family that were devout Christian people. From their writings they had an intense interest in foreign missions. During the civil war, or shortly afterwards, the patriarch of the family, Johnston Loughry, was in a field on the farm and had what he referred to as an epiphany. (Which we now know to be a vision.) They said he came in from the field and was white as a sheet. He called every one of the family into the house as well as the farm workers and told them what had just happened to him and what he had seen in the epiphany. He said in the epiphany he saw the future of the farm and he had been shown that one day the farm would be used for the work of the Lord. He said he saw houses and buildings all over the farm. He saw that the ministry would go all over the world from that farm!

This man was very well known as a no nonsense man, not given to flights of fantasy! He never had an experience like this before this event or after. From that time on, each subsequent generation had similar epiphanies of the same thing!

This is interesting, as what they saw in their epiphanies was beyond their 1800s frame of reference and understanding at the time. The only understanding and experience of ministry that they had was a little white church tucked back in the mountains! Yet what they consistently saw was a global ministry headquartered on their farm!

The 94 year old granddaughter of this man was still alive on the farm when I came. Her name was Anna. She was a very intelligent, articulate woman. I enjoyed my time with her and grew to love her. I miss her very much! Anna told of an experience that she had experienced that she called an epiphany. Anna is the one that told me of all of the history of her family. Anna didn't know what we were going to do on the farm. We had decided not to share with Anna that the farm was going to be transferred to us from the daughter Jane after she passed. She didn't know we were a mission organization. The house is a big 1800s farmhouse with a big covered front porch. Anna had 2 old church pews running from the front door on both sides of the door of the house to the ends of the porch. She said Pastor Jim, I want to share something with you that happened to me. I don't want you to think I'm crazy. I'm not crazy, but I had an experience that was very profound and life changing and I know it was from God. I've been afraid to tell anyone about it. All my people since the civil war have had epiphanies. The epiphanies showed that one day this farm would be used for the work of the Lord and that the ministry would go all over the world.

Anna said one day as she was sitting on the front porch and wide awake, she had an epiphany. She saw people that she didn't know sitting shoulder to shoulder on those church pews, filling both pews. The issue is that in that area everyone knows everyone else, so she thought this was strange. She knew these people were people of God. The most disconcerting aspect of the vision was she saw all of the world needs positioned between each of the people on the pews! Sin, sickness, death, orphans, the homeless, starvation, stronghold, nakedness, etc. She said she saw arm like tentacles go out from the end of each pew off the porch down the farm lane to the main road and all over the world! She said "Dr Jim, do you think I'm crazy? I know this experience was real. It was vivid, as if I was in the vision itself! She said, I believe this is what my forefathers told me about that they had also experienced." I said, no Anna, I don't think you're crazy. Your epiphany makes more sense than you know!

There is so much more I could share with you about all these events, but this is not the right venue. We will tell the whole story in a book! In conclusion, The Lord made me walk through over 40 difficult experience filled, even painful, years of preparation to fully launch this army called "The Good Shepherds"! The Good Shepherds are soldiers and champions of love in the west! Our mandate is to fight for those who cannot fight for themselves! It's a disciplined, committed, well organized army and representative force that has a superior, divinely inspired battle plan.

Because of the superiority of the blueprint and plan that God gave us over 40 years ago, as many people have now said, "you will never be able to find anywhere else a place where you can produce so much fruit for God and humanity for so little!"

Finally after 41 years, we are now sounding the charge and battle cry at God's command! Night is at hand and the day is far spent! We must work while we yet have light! We have been given a short window of reprieve! But make no mistake about it! We are at God's final curtain call! There is a great revival coming and we are a significant part of this awakening! Consider and pray about coming and joining us! We are however not looking for everyone! We are looking for people who would be soldiers for Christ serving people, not just civilians! God marines! Doing the works of Jesus, preaching the gospel, making disciples, of all nations! We will plant churches in every nook and cranny of the world! We will feed the hungry, clothe the naked, sponsor orphanages and schools, help the homeless, and bring medical missions to remote areas. We are only looking for the few, the committed, God's marines! Serving everyday with eternity in mind! So as we will hear when the final trumpet is sounded, "well done, thou good and faithful servants! Enter into the joy of the Lord!"