Pastor Greg Locke

Pastor @ Global Vision Bible Church. President of Locke Media & GV Press. Host of Red Sky News. Global Evangelist. Founder of Bible Experience Museum.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

I’ll be preaching the Word at this powerful event with @seanfeucht. Bring a friend. God is on the move!!

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

Today would have been Evan’s 21st birthday.
I’ve sat with that reality all morning. Twenty-one years. The age where most parents get to watch their son step into manhood, chase dreams, maybe even start a family of his own. Instead, I’m left with memories, a grave, and a heart that still aches in ways words can’t fully capture.
I didn’t take the day off. Not because I’m strong or past the pain—I’m neither. I chose to finish this revival meeting tonight because the best thing I know to do when the enemy tries to steal, kill, and destroy is to keep preaching Jesus. To keep pushing back the darkness. To give the devil a black eye in honor of my boy and for the glory of the One who holds him now.
If you’re walking through the loss of a child, hear me: the ache doesn’t expire on a schedule. The empty chair still hurts. The what-ifs still whisper. You’re not weak for still grieving. You’re human. And the same Jesus who wept at Lazarus’ tomb is near the brokenhearted today. He doesn’t rush your tears, but He also doesn’t leave you in them forever.
I’m choosing to fight forward—not past the pain, but through it—because my son’s life still matters, and the gospel still works. Heaven is real. Jesus is enough. And the devil doesn’t get the last word.
Happy birthday in heaven, Evan. Daddy loves you.
And Jesus gets the glory.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

This is about to start in the Knoxville area. 3 nights. Come be a part.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

TO GOD BE THE GLORY!! This morning we gained full and complete access to our Locke Media studios. The Lord is faithful. We have so much that’s about to happen. Buckle up. This will be a miraculous comeback story. For questions or information, please message [email protected]

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

There is the person you were before you buried your child… and a completely different person after you buried them. They are not the same. Not even close. And they never will be again.
The ones who keep trying to drag you back to “the old you” are not motivated by love. They are motivated by convenience. Your grief makes them uncomfortable, so they want you to hurry up and get over it so they can feel normal again. That is pure selfishness dressed up as concern. I’ve watched the impatience, the subtle pressure, the quiet frustration that you’re still not “yourself.” It is an absolute slap in the face to a grieving parent.
I will never be the man I was before May 8th. That man is gone. He was buried with my son. There is a before and an after, and the after is a completely rewired soul that carries a weight most people will never understand.
I’m writing this while sitting at my son’s gravesite. Something about being here cuts through all the noise and brings a clarity that nothing else can.
If you cannot give space, patience, and real grace for that reality, you are not helping. You are revealing exactly who you are. And some of you have shown me more in these last three months than I ever needed to see.
Grief is not a season you schedule around other people’s feelings. It is a lifelong rewiring of the soul. Stop demanding the old version of us. They no longer exist. We are learning to walk with the ones grief has made us.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

I’ve made so many mistakes through these many years of ministry.
I’ve publicly and privately repented for them.
It’s difficult living in the public spotlight where every single statement and decision—right ones and wrong ones—gets dissected. We’ve been course correcting.
This past Sunday I deliberately cleared the slate of the messes and casualties we’ve made by ordaining people too quickly and too casually. Not all of them, but many for sure. I also boldly retracted the title of “Apostle” that was bestowed upon my wife and me a few years ago. We refuse to carry titles that God never assigned and that have only produced confusion and pressure.
When you start correcting, pruning, and changing things to make them more pleasing to the Lord… here’s why some people can’t handle it:

1. They loved the comfort more than the purity. (As long as it felt familiar, they stayed. The moment it required surrender, they resisted.)

2. They never counted the cost of obedience. (They wanted the blessing without the breaking.)

3. They confuse loyalty to people with loyalty to God. (When the correction touches someone they like, suddenly the standard becomes “too harsh.”)

4. They preferred the appearance of growth over actual fruit. (Bigger crowds and smoother systems mattered more than a clean house.)

5. They were never fully submitted to begin with. (The pruning just exposed what was already in their heart.)

6. They mistake kindness for compromise. (Grace without truth feels safer to them than truth that demands change.)

7. They fear losing influence more than losing God’s favor. (Their position mattered more than the presence of the Lord.)

8. They want revival without repentance. (They’ll shout for fire as long as it doesn’t burn up their own agendas.)

9. They think the correction makes them look bad. (They’d rather protect their image than submit to the process that actually sets them free.)

Keep making it right. Keep growing.
Those who can’t handle the correction were never going to survive the next season anyway.
❤️🔥

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

Grief doesn’t knock. It kicks the door in. Three months out and I still get ambushed without warning. One minute I’m functioning like a normal person, and the next I’m standing in a parking lot or sitting in my truck while the weight of my boy being gone hits so hard I can barely breathe. No trigger. No slow build-up. Just the sudden, crushing reality that Evan is not coming back….ever.
This past week the wave that rolled over me was pure anger. I’m not an angry man by nature. I don’t live there. But grief brought that emotion with it—deep, raw, and heavy. Not primarily at God. Not even mainly at the enemy. At the waste. I watch people treat life like it’s disposable, getting their feelings shredded over opinions, politics, church drama, and petty offenses that won’t matter in five years, much less in eternity. They argue for hours about nonsense while real souls are slipping into eternity every single day, playing games with time like they own an unlimited supply.
My son is dead. Twenty years old. Gone. And people are still out here wasting the very thing I would give anything to have back for him. You don’t understand that until you’ve stood over a casket that should never have been closed. Until you’ve had to explain to your other kids why their brother isn’t coming home. Until the silence in the house becomes louder than any sermon you’ve ever preached.
Grief is not tidy. It is not orderly. It does not care about your schedule or your strength. It comes in waves that will knock you down when you least expect it, and sometimes the only emotion left standing is a furious ache that the world keeps spinning like nothing happened. I’m learning to let it come. I’m learning that the anger is part of the love. I’m learning that the people who tell you to “move on” have never had to bury their child.
If you’re still here, stop wasting it. Stop letting small things own large parts of your heart. Stop arguing about what doesn’t matter while the people you love are still breathing. Life is short. Eternity is long. And some of us are carrying a weight you cannot imagine.
Evan, I still miss you every day. And some days that missing turns into a fire I don’t know what to do with. But I’m still walking. One wave at a time.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

See you tonight Muncie, IN.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

If you’re going to walk with God at any real depth, you’re going to walk with a limp.
Nobody asks for it. Nobody wants it. But Jacob found out the hard way that the man who wrestles with God doesn’t walk away the same. One touch on the hip socket and the patriarch limped for the rest of his life. Not a temporary setback. A permanent mark. Every step after that night at Peniel carried the reminder that he had been broken by the hand of God—and that brokenness was the very thing that made him usable.
We live in a generation of soft shoulders and fragile spirits. People who call every inconvenience persecution. People who need three days of recovery after doing almost nothing for the Kingdom. People who talk about sacrifice while carefully protecting their comfort, their image, and their emotional equilibrium. God is not handing out His true mantle to the easily offended or the chronically exhausted from inactivity. He places it on men and women who have been taken into deep places of brokenness—places that strip you, humble you, and leave you walking differently.
A.W. Tozer said it best: “It is doubtful that God will ever use a man greatly until He has hurt him deeply.” That is not cruel theology. That is the pattern of Scripture. The limp is the evidence that you stopped wrestling for control and started surrendering to the One who wounds in order to heal, who breaks in order to remake.
If you’re walking really close to God, you’re going to walk with a limp. It will be the best and worst thing that ever happened to you. The pain will stay with you. So will the power. And neither the world nor the religious church world will ever understand either one.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

Hope to see many of my Indiana friends this Friday and Saturday

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

@petrowashere That’s fantastic!!

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

Everywhere I go, people keep telling me the same thing:
“Don’t stop posting. Everyone around me keeps saying I need to get over it… that it’s been long enough… that I should just move on. But when I read what you’re writing, it gives me permission to still hurt. It lets me grieve without shame. And somehow, in the middle of the tears, I feel the Lord restoring my soul.”
I hear it in texts, emails, and DMs. I hear it from people who stop me in parking lots and restaurants.
Brokenhearted mothers and fathers are being pressured to rush their pain so other people can feel more comfortable. And somehow these posts have become a place where they can breathe, lament, and still hold onto Jesus at the same time.
So I’m going to keep talking about it.
I’m going to keep saying that three months later (or three years later) it can still feel like yesterday.
I’m going to keep saying that missing your child doesn’t mean you’ve lost your faith—it means you loved deeply.
I’m going to keep saying that the same Jesus who wept at a tomb is still close to the brokenhearted and still restores souls.
If you’ve been told to hurry up and “get over it,” hear me:
You don’t have to rush your grief to make other people comfortable.
Lament is holy.
Tears are not the enemy of faith.
And the God who sees every one of them is still in the business of putting shattered hearts back together.
I’m not writing these posts to stay stuck.
I’m writing them because resurrection hope is strong enough to hold both the ache and the praise at the same time.
If you’re still hurting… you’re not behind.
You’re not weak.
You’re not faithless.
You’re just a parent who loved their child, and Jesus is still walking with you through the valley.
We’re going to keep going.
And by His grace, we’re going to keep finding life on the other side of the tears.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

This Sunday night & Monday night… Nortonville, KY.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

Three months…
I stood at my son’s grave this morning and the tears hit me like it was still May 8.
Same raw ache. Same brokenness. Same sense that the world moved on while my heart stayed frozen in that moment.
I can’t stop crying when I think about him. When I talk about him. When I just breathe and remember. It still feels like yesterday. And I know it will for a long time.
Some people are already tired of hearing about it. I get it. Grief makes people uncomfortable when it doesn’t stay on schedule. But I’m not writing this for them.
I’m writing it for the ones who are still crying in the car, still staring at an empty chair, still waking up and feeling the weight land all over again. You’re not weak. You’re not behind. You’re not supposed to be “over it” by now.
This pain is real because the love was real.
And the God who holds both the brokenhearted and the resurrection is not in a hurry for you to pretend otherwise.
I’m still here at the grave. Still hurting. Still believing.
And if you’re still grieving too — you have permission to keep feeling it. ❤️🔥

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

@BonaFideAdalis AMEN!!

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

300 on fire will always outrun 3,000 asleep.
❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
The critics and media celebrated when our church attendance dropped from roughly 3,000 to 300 over 6 years. They called it judgment. They said the blessing had lifted. They danced like it was a funeral.
They don’t understand how God works.
Look at Gideon. Thirty-two thousand men showed up. God said, “Too many.” He cut them to ten thousand. Still too many. He kept cutting until only three hundred remained. Not because Gideon failed—because God refused to let anyone say, “We did this ourselves.” With those 300 He routed an army like the sand of the sea. The reduction was strategy, not shame.
Look at Jesus. Multitudes followed for free bread and miracles. Then He preached the hard truth and “many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6:66). Even the twelve had a traitor. At the cross they all fled. Resurrection power wasn’t hindered by the crowd leaving. It was revealed through the ones who stayed.
This is the slingshot principle. Sometimes God pulls you back so the release can go farther than anyone expected. What looks like decline to the carnal eye is often divine preparation.
The real problem in the church world isn’t that some places are getting smaller. It’s that we still measure success by crowds instead of commitment. We’d rather keep 3,000 comfortable and unchanged than endure the fire that leaves 300 who will actually obey.
I’m not writing this from a place of arrival. We’re still being refined. The pruning hurts. But I’d rather stand with a remnant God can trust than lead a crowd that only shows up for the show.
The devil isn’t threatened by big rooms full of powerless people. He’s terrified of a few who have lost their appetite for applause and will follow Jesus whether the numbers rise or fall.
So let the critics keep celebrating the number.
We’re not finished.
We’re being loaded.
God, have Your way with the remnant.
We’re not asking for bigger crowds.
We’re asking for pure hearts and Your power.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

Life doesn’t slow down… it just runs out.
While you’re waiting for more money, waiting for things to get better, waiting for the pressure to ease, waiting for the right time, or waiting for somebody else to change, the clock is already bleeding out.
You keep saying, “One day I’ll obey. One day I’ll go all in. One day I’ll finally live like Jesus is coming back.”
But the Spirit of God is saying something different in this hour: There is no “one day.” There is only this day… and this day is already running out.
The days are evil. The harvest is urgent. The night is coming when no man can work.
So stop waiting for life to get easier. Stop waiting for conditions to improve. Stop waiting for a better season that may never come.
The time you have left is not yours to waste. It is blood-bought, it is numbered, and it is holy.
Wake up. Redeem the time. Live like the King is worth every remaining second… because He is.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

Yesterday I gave a prophetic word to a man whose heart was breaking over his prodigal son.
As I began to speak, the Lord suddenly shifted everything. He moved on me to share what I’ve been walking through since losing my own son, Evan.
I still can’t talk about it without nearly losing control. The tears come hard and fast. Sometimes I hate how raw it still feels. But I’m starting to realize something holy is happening in those moments…
My brokenness is healing other people’s brokenness.
My open grief is giving permission for others to finally feel theirs.
My vulnerability is doing something in the Body of Christ that polished preaching never could.
There’s a strange anointing that only comes through tears. A depth that only comes through loss. A credibility that only comes through walking through the fire and still choosing to open your mouth and say, “God is still good… even here.”
I’m learning that the very thing that keeps trying to silence me is the same thing God is using to open hearts.
So if you’re still crying… keep crying.
If you’re still hurting… keep being honest about it.
If the wound still feels fresh… don’t hide it.
Sometimes the most powerful ministry you’ll ever carry is the one that costs you the most.
And somehow… in the middle of all this pain… Jesus is still healing people through it.
Including me.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

AN HONEST TRUTH THAT NEEDS TO BE SHARED…❤️🔥

There was a time when our “tent” church shook with three thousand voices.
A time when the parking lot looked like a city, when the altars stayed wet for hours, when deliverance was not a side ministry but the heartbeat of a global movement. Books that hit bestseller lists. A movie that climbed to fourth at the box office and is still quietly wrecking people on streaming platforms years later. Over 500 first-time visitors every single week. More than fifteen thousand baptisms in the middle of a pandemic while the world told us to shut the doors. Over 7,000 people showed up for a 3 day conference in the blistering heat.
We lived in the middle of that storm of favor and it looked like success from every angle.
But nobody tells you what it costs to keep the machine smiling.
Nobody tells you about the low-grade panic that sits in your chest when you walk onto a stage that big and realize you are responsible for the emotional temperature of thousands of people who showed up expecting a show. The constant calculation. The careful wording. The smile that has to stay on even when your own soul is bleeding. The pressure to keep the numbers up so the narrative doesn’t collapse. Mega church can feel less like shepherding and more like performing for an audience that will leave the moment the production value drops or something brighter comes to town. And hanging over all of it is the heavy weight of the realization that your entire life will be judged by 30-second video clips taken out of context.
Then life happened.
People moved. People left. Trials walked through the front door and refused to leave. Internet slander became a full-time job for strangers who had never sat in our living room. Federal investigations, including a terrifying house raid. Multiple lawsuits. Bank accounts closed. Buildings at risk. Vandalism. Death threats. And then the blow that still takes the air out of my lungs when I say it out loud: the death of our son.
Everything that could be shaken was shaken.
The crowds thinned. The noise got quieter. The stage got smaller. And somewhere in the middle of the loss I discovered something I never expected to feel again.
Freedom.
We are pastoring a few hundred truly dedicated people now. Three hundred. Maybe four hundred on a strong Sunday. And I am not less happy. I am not less called. I am not less anointed. I am actually more free than I have ever been. The anxiety of managing the appearance of greatness is gone. The performance is over. What is left is a remnant that actually wants Jesus more than they want a production. A people who will stay when the lights are dim and the only thing left is the Word and the Spirit.
And still… millions follow online. The message is still going further than it ever did when the building was full. The reach did not die with the size of the local congregation. It simply changed form. I’m traveling the world and preaching the Gospel to more people than I could have ever dreamed. We have a healthy Spanish congregation and 8 thriving GV churches in the Philippines.
We are not going into a new season.
We are walking into a Genesis.
The Lord is giving us a true opportunity to begin again. Not with the old scaffolding. Not with the old pressure to impress. Not with the old demand to keep three thousand people emotionally satisfied every seven days. Just a clean slate, a smaller room, a deeper fire, and a people who are all in.
Yeah, the big crowds felt powerful.
But they never satisfied the way this does.
I don’t miss the crowds.
I miss the hunger.
I’m not mourning the three thousand.
I’m thanking God for the three hundred who stayed, and for the millions who still listen with hearts of passion.
This is not survival.
This is resurrection.
This is Genesis.
And I’m here for every bit of it.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

@LadyDarkHeart1 You can apologize when that doesn’t happen. Keep that same energy for our exoneration day.

[Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke]

Global Vision Bible Church – Building Update

Lay aside the silly rumors and the false news articles that we are meeting in secret at some undisclosed location. Nonsense.
We will be at the warehouse this Sunday. It was going to be our final service there, but we will remain for another week or so while continued renovations and preparation take place on our building in another part of Lebanon.
The only reason the address has not been publicly released is because of the ridiculous number of people actively working to sabotage any movement or progress for the church.
We will make announcements about the final move as soon as we are ready to get into the facility.
We will see everyone this Sunday.
1010 Maddox Simpson Pkwy.
Lebanon, TN
10:30 am. ❤️🔥