Author Interview ~ Dr. Mitchell Kruse

Dr. Mitchell Kruse is an author, speaker, and the driving force behind The Restoration Road, a ministry movement that equips believers to live authentically where culture connects with Christ. Kruse is best known for his contribution to the auction arena, especially in the area of collector cars and real estate. For seventeen years, Kruse was owner, CEO, and auctioneer of Kruse International, the world’s largest collector car sales organization.

The art of auctioning has been passed down through three generations of the Kruse family, but as Kruse followed in his father’s footsteps, he discovered that success is a fragile thing that often comes at a high price. Though Kruse had been raised in a Christian family, he had vacillated between legalism and relative lawlessness. Facing the constant pressure of his life in the fast lane and the real possibility of losing everything he had labored to build, Kruse finally reached a turning point and surrendered control of his life to God. This move radically transformed both Kruse and his business over the next several years.

He sold his company to pursue his calling to communicate God’s restoration through grace and wisdom evidenced in leadership. Kruse earned his Master of Arts and Doctor of Religious Studies degrees with high distinction from Trinity Theological Seminary. He volunteered as teaching pastor at Blackhawk Ministries, a church of two thousand members.

Mitch Kruse Interviews Tony Dungy about Restoration:

Mitch Kruse sat down with Super Bowl winning Coach Tony Dungy at an annual Fellowship of Christian Athletes banquet in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Monday, March 29. Coach Dungy answered questions about his need for restoration, his self-restoration attempts, and his full surrender to Christ, his Restorer, including how God has used him to bring restoration to others.

The video of this interview as well as other interviews and discussions about the book can be viewed at http://www.therestorationroad.com/road/video/.

Q: The book includes many stories from your own restoration process. Tell us about your life before you took those first steps down restoration road. What was the turning point for you, the moment when you realized it was time to surrender your life to this process?

A: My family had set the bar extremely high in terms of achievement. Both my father and my grandfather were famous auctioneers, and I was determined to follow in their footsteps. So I became the world’s youngest Realtor and licensed auctioneer as a senior in high school. Our world-renowned family business specializing in classic cars and other high-end auctions had suffered a devastating blow, and we were all but ruined. I made it my mission to rebuild the business, restore the family name, and then to become a billionaire by the time I turned 40. I wanted to prove to the world that a Christian could do it. But my years of foolishness with money, of putting my business before my family and faith, led to me believing I was the master of my own fate. I realized how fragile and empty the world I’d created for myself really was. I didn’t want to be the one in control of my destiny. That was the moment I surrendered my broken life to the Restorer’s plan.

Q: What is the key that unlocks the gate leading to restoration road?

A: In a word, surrender. God does not force His restoration on His children. His passion is to make old, damaged things new again. This can only happen when the old is surrendered. Like a classic car that needs restoration, each one of us must surrender our old basket case of a life to the Restorer. He begins to disassemble and renovate the components of our lives, piece by piece, whether they are un-restored or self-restored. Finally, the new is surrendered again. As the restoration process unfolds, we learn that we are designed to bring authentic restoration to others. We surrender the new for this purpose and continue to surrender any old parts that corrode again over time.

Q: Just as the physical heart has four chambers, you believe the spiritual heart is comprised of four chambers and each of us also carries four God-given desires that shape our decisions and our values. Tell us more about this.

A: God created our spiritual hearts with four chambers that we can remember in the acronym WISE (Will, Intellect, Spirit, and Emotions). The Will is the chamber of our choices. The Intellect is the chamber of our thoughts. The Spirit is the lead chamber of our prayers. The Emotions represent the chamber of our feelings. Each of these chambers beat for the satisfaction of our four primary desires. We see them in the very first book of the Bible. That’s how foundational they are to our lives. Every choice, thought, and feeling, every investment of time, talent, and treasure is an attempt to satisfy these desires.

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The first primary God-given desire is significance, which comes from being created in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). The second desire is contentment from being blessed by God to be fruitful, multiply, and subdue (to bring contentment to) the earth (Genesis 1:28). The third desire is control from being empowered by God to rule over the earth (Genesis 1:28). The fourth desire is security from being provided with every seed bearing plant and fruit bearing tree (Genesis 1:29-30). Notice that each desire is from our being, or our identity in the Designer, who is also our Restorer. These desires flow vertically from the heart of God into each one of our spiritual hearts, and they flow horizontally into our relationships with others (Genesis 2:18).

These desires are all good—they’re given by God himself, after all. Our attempts to satisfy them apart from God will lead to a series of foolish and damaging choices.

Restoration Road by Mitch Kruse with Derek Williams
Credo Communications/March 2010
ISBN: 978-1-935391-31-9/316 pages/hardcover/$24.99
http://www.therestorationroad.com/

http://www.mitchkruse.com/

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