Johnny Miller

“I am a professional Colonel Sanders impersonator. I do the voice and everything. I go all around the world doing TV commercials and attending events. It's a lot of fun. As an impersonator, one of the things I do is to tell Colonel Sanders’ story. One day I realized, I have to tell story too.

I was introduced to the Seventh-day Adventist Church through a Daniel and Revelation seminar in 1984. Right away, I fell in love with the message. Soon, people realized that I was very outgoing and studious. My first year in the church I became a literature evangelist. I also threw myself into Pathfinders. Within one year I was a Master Guide. I was just soaking it in, and I loved it.

Now, there was a downside to all of this. Despite of all this passion and excitement, I was lacking something important. When a new person comes to the church, you need to assign someone that will disciple them. Someone that will guide them, counsel them, and pray with them. Well, that never happened for me. About two years after finding the Adventist faith, I got involved in a cult and it pulled me out of the church.

After being in this cult for 20 years, I basically lost myself. Like the old saying says, ‘by beholding you become changed.’ Here I was, beholding this cult environment to the point where I had no individuality anymore. I thought and acted like the cult leader.

When I left in 2006, I realized I needed to change my way of thinking. I was in Yuma, Arizona when I met a retired SDA minister. He told me something that just blew away my mind. He said, ‘Johnny, what you need to do is get back your first love experience, that experience you had in 1984. The only way you can do that is to fall back in love with Jesus.’

Now, it wasn’t always easy. I faced some pretty hard times. My wife divorced me because I wasn't going back to the cult. I was homeless. I also got very ill. But I talked to God like I would to a friend. I opened my heart, listened, and eventually found that first love again.”

-Johnny Miller, from London Church in Kentucky.