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Two weeks ago, a Louisiana pastor became the first contestant kicked off of CBS's reality game show, Survivor Thailand. On the show, sixteen participants arranged into" tribes" compete for one million dollars. Every three days, the tribes vote out one member. Besides surviving the elements, contestants also compete politically (often making alliances with one another) to stay in the game.

John Raymond is the executive pastor of the 2,700-member World Harvest Church in Slidell, Louisiana, the fourth fastest growing Assembly of God church in the country. A father of three, he is writing a book on church growth, leads church growth conferences with other Harvest leaders, and leads missions trips to Central America.

Raymond took a sabbatical from his church to participate in the 39-day game. (All contestants were forced to stay in Thailand until the game ended.) However, Raymond lasted only three days. After he returned home from the monsoon-drenched beaches of Thailand, his efforts for survival continued—his church was dangerously close to the path of tropical storm Isadore when it hit Louisiana last week.

After the storm dissipated, Raymond talked on the phone with Christianity Today assistant online editor Todd Hertz.

Why did you want to be on Survivor?

I grew up in Louisiana fishing and hunting and camping. So that part of the game, the outdoorsy part, intrigued me. I was also an athlete coming up through high school, so the competition intrigued me. And being a pastor, I am familiar with a lot of relational dynamics, so that intrigued me as well. I thought with the three of them combined I was a perfect fit for the game.

Did you envision your role as a pastor would be useful in the game?

I was just hoping that they wouldn't vote me off because I was a pastor. I didn't think that they'd accept Jesus Christ or necessarily give me the lead or anything like that. I just wanted to make sure they didn't discriminate against me for my faith. I don't know if they did or not.

Why do you feel you were voted off first?

[After the tribal council vote,] I came back to the Tribal Council to give my little confessional at the end, and I saw [producer] Mark Burnett and [show host] Jeff Probst. They were standing there, like me, mouths gaping open. They really anticipated me going further in the game as well.

Mark spent the whole next day, which he had never done before, with his associate producer looking over all that footage just to see what happened.

He told me, "The name we are giving this first episode is 'When is Capability a Disadvantange?' You started the fire, you found the water, you caught most of the food, you dug the latrine. You were so capable out here and so comfortable in that environment that it made other people uncomfortable."

I took that as an honorable way to go out. But it surprised me. Some conversations had taken place, I found out later, where alliances were in fact made. If you are not there to protect yourself in these conversations, there is nothing you can do.

Someone also suggested that many people are uncomfortable around ministers because they feel they have to be too cautious or that they have a second conscience floating around. So maybe they didn't want me around long.

Watching the episode, how do you feel you came across?

Keep in mind that before CBS edits the three days of footage, they already know who is getting voted off. So they already know that if John is going to go, they have to make sure there is some reasoning behind it.

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September (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46