Hi, I’m James Gilbert. I’m an author, speaker and veteran of hundreds of Christian missions to 63 nations, including Iraq, Russia, China and Ukraine. I love bringing decades of experience and insight to people just like you, who want to live with joy and purpose, and make a lasting impact on the world.
I am the author of Storm Chaser: The Terry Law Story, the true-life adventures of a daredevil minister who advised prime ministers, dodged Al Qaeda assassination attempts, smuggled Bibles into Iran, rice into North Korea, fed multitudes of refugees in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even befriended a Pope. Together, Terry Law and I founded the Storm Chaser Foundation, a literary initiative to help people caught in life’s storms to find peace, power and purpose by running into the storms most people flee. Terry and I also co-authored several books, including Unmasking ISIS: Defeating the terrorists who want to destroy the world, a book that became a valuable asset to several members of Congress and Homeland Security.
Along with other books, I have written dozens of songs and recorded three albums, including Hosanna! Music’s Lamb of God. My most widely known song, I Love You with the Love of the Lord, has been translated into numerous languages around the world, and is a considered a classic in church music.
In addition to my work at jim Gilbert Ministries and The Storm Chaser Foundation, and together with fellow author and all-round genius, I also co-authored The Worldview Course, a 13-part video series designed especially for small groups and families. Staged in a fun and slightly irreverent way, and endorsed by Christian thought leaders such as Dr. George Grant and Eric Holmberg, The Worldview Course has been called “an artful distillation of the mind and heart of a truly biblical worldview.”
My Content
Over the years, I’ve been introduced to audiences as a teacher, author, musician, missionary, theologian—even “iconoclast,” someone who loves to barbecue sacred cows. Thus, subscribers to my blog will share in my life’s adventures and hardships, through stories, book excerpts, teaching, and social commentary from a practical, biblical point of view.
In addition to this blog, I will soon launch a video podcast, James Gilbert’s Wise Sass. Be sure to look for it soon on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other platforms!
My Biography
First and foremost, I am a follower of Jesus, husband, father, and doting grandpa.
Since diving into international ministry at age 18, my career has taken me more than 5 million miles into 63 nations, including three dozen missions to Russia and the former Soviet Union, as well as extensive ministry in Cuba, Iraq, China, and many other nations where the Christian faith is resisted and persecuted. Further, since 2022 our miinistry has engaged in ongoing humanitarian work in Ukraine, during Russian leader Vladmir Putin’s savage assault on that suffering nation.
My life on the road began in 1969, as one of the founders of a contemporary music group called Living Sound. Such music was then controversial in American churches (one pastor made us conceal our drums in a baptistry to keep from offending his congregation) but thanks to the universal popularity of American pop music, we pioneered a new kind of evangelism that reached young audiences all over the world.
During several tours of Apartheid-era South Africa, our concerts broke racial barriers, set theater attendance records and brought spiritual revival to that nation’s youth.
In Poland, we began in a communist-owned nightclub—where the club bosses who invited us didn’t know we we were a Christian band—and wound up doing repeated tours of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic cathedrals. That ministry eventually took Living Sound to Rome with the former Polish Cardinal who had become Pope John Paul II. But my wife, Dolly, and I chose to skip meeting the Pope, because…
In the Soviet Union, where our ministry was assembling an underground recording studio, the KGB were on the lookout for American bands in tour buses. Dolly and I, on the other hand, were just another couple coming in on the ferry from Finland…except that we were carrying a master recording deck and enough Yankee cash to send us on a tour of Siberian prisons if someone discovered it.
Not only did we make it home safely, but we went on to return to the Soviet Union, both before and after it fell, some three dozen times. Eventually, we were featured at a jazz festival, and became the subjects of a radio documentary in Estonia, a Soviet republic that eventually gained its nationhood and joined NATO.
With the birth of our daughter in 2001, I began traveling less a little less and writing a lot more. In recent years our missions included Bulgaria, Cuba and Iraq, where I interviewed Kurdish political and military commanders who eventually defeated ISIS, and our present humanitarian work in Ukraine. Oh, and I’m now a grandpa, the role of a lifetime and best longterm “mission” of my whole life!
My Contact Info
You can contact me via email, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter.