Latest / The Redeemed Backslider / The Prodigal Preacher- Pastor Donavon Hill #TRB Episode 59

Transcript

The Prodigal Preacher- Pastor Donavon Hill #TRB Episode 59 · The Redeemed Backslider

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: With your host, Kathy Chastain, Christian-based psychotherapist and Redeemed Backslider.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is dedicated to those who have wandered but are ready to return to the life-changing power of grace and the freedom found in Jesus.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, welcome to the Redeemed Backslider.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kathy Chastain.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a Christian-based psychotherapist and I'm a redeemed backslider.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I am super, super excited about this interview today.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: With me from Prairieville, Louisiana, which is otherwise known as Baton Rouge, Louisiana, I have Pastor Donovan Heel.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: I have recently become acquainted with him when I read his book, which we will talk about today.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: And since that time, I've just been diving into his history and his story.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm just so, so happy to have him on the show today.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: But Pastor Donovan is a church planter, preacher, teacher, worship leader, and a singer-songwriter who has ministered around the world.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: He is known as a visionary and an innovator who inspires others to attempt great things for God.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: To the Life Point family, Donovan is an encourager who loves God, loves people, and declares, quote, a bad chapter doesn't make a bad book.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: End quote.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: His motto is Jesus, People and Mission.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: So with that, Pastor Donovan, welcome to the podcast.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for your time to be here today.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Great to be here.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I uh I watched your podcast with um my friend Dustin Long over at High Hope Ministry.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um I was sitting there thinking, oh, I want to hear more about this.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I want to hear more about this.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: So for the folks at home, Pastor Donovan is also a prodigal.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so we're gonna start there with your story.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would like to hear as many details as you would like to share.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: We're not on a time frame unless you are.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I I think the reasons we leave and how we come back is so very important to the prodigals that are still out there and haven't returned.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, so I'm just gonna let you start.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I will try not to interrupt, but I may have questions along the way.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um pause every now and then and look up in case I I do, because I don't want to be rude.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh yeah, so I was raised in church and I was um I was all in.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: I was uh from from the time I was a kid, I was all in Sunday school, I was all in the youth group.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: I was not a perfect kid.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_02: I had uh my share of of problems, especially for that age group, but I loved the Lord.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: I felt a call to ministry at some point.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh well, actually, when I was in my early teens and around 15 years of age, I kind of zeroed in on preaching and I felt like I would be a preacher.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I just determined to live my life in such a way that that I could fulfill that call.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I wanted to start right then.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I just uh I mean I just lived for it.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: I was all in, all in.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to go to a seminary to a Bible school.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: My dad wanted me to go to a secular college to LSU.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so I gave him a year, and then I left and I went to a Bible school, and I I loved it.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was a theology major, I was living this dream, and I had a supernatural um like call to that particular school, uh, which is I've not shared very often, but it's really amazing because there was a school back in the day.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I'll I'll date myself, I'll definitely identify my tribe as I give this information.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: But I was um I was familiar with a college called Jackson College of Ministries, JCM.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's a very musical school, but it's it was at the time uh very theological.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: They had had this resurgence.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_02: So David Bernard was there, David Reaver was there, Daryl Johns was there, Alan Oggs was there, of course, Tommy Kraft, Lenny Wolf.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like it was this stellar uh staff, uh Jonathan Urshan.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: And um, but it I didn't know who was there.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: All I knew is that I would have gone there because I was very familiar with it.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: I used to go to a music conference there.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to go there.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I was listening to a preaching tape one time of uh a man named Alan Oggs.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_02: And Alan Oggs is a very special vessel for the Lord, and Alan was preaching and he said, he said, uh the Lord called me to go to a Bible school.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: I went to a Bible school called PBI.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm listening to this in my car at 15 years of age because you could drive at 15 back in those days.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: So right.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm listening to a cassette tape of Alan Ox preaching, and he says, PBI, and man, the presence of the Lord flooded that car, and the Lord let me know that's where you're gonna go.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't know where it was, I didn't know PBI became JCM.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I just knew wherever PBI is, that's where I'm going.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: I said, Yes, Lord, I'll go.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: And when I found out it was PBI, it was JCM, I I was blown away.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, of course I would go there, but the Lord tricked me, you know, to say yes to a place I didn't know.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was seeing your willingness.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: And he's done that several times in my life, and that was probably the first time.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: And so I knew I was in the right place.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was so where I needed to be.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, the problem was when I got there, at the end of the semester, um my pastor at my home church resigned, and it was a scandalous resignation.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the the church was divided over the meeting, and I was very close to my pastor.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: He was my pastor from 12 to 19, and uh so it was he was very influential in my life, and so with I if anybody gave me the right advice, um, I didn't heed it.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: I don't remember getting the right advice.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_02: The right advice would be stay put and you'll be fine.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: But I quit before the semester, right at the end of the semester, I quit the school and went back home because I felt responsible, like I needed to try to help my church.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm 19 at this point.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, what am I gonna do?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so I go home to help, and I'm torn.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm friends with my ex-pastor, I meet with him, we talk, he he says he's innocent, the church is divided, there's a lot of angst, and so I uh I start trying to sort it out.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of it doesn't make sense, and one thing led to another, and I got hurt, I got mad, I got angry, and then uh that began a downward spiral for me.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it it just led to eventually uh a bitterness in my heart, and bitterness blinds and is deceptive.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so it just that was kind of like the beginning of the end.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: Now, um, are you good?
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_02: You got any questions?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: What uh what do you think?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, besides the obvious, there there was hurt, but what do you think was hurting you the most?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Were you you you um did you think about God being associated with the church?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Was it hard for you to separate who God was versus who the church was?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Did you lose your faith in the church overall as a whole?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like, where was the root of that hurt that caused the bitterness to become what it became for you?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: I think, Cathy, that it was um it was like I had this picture in my mind of what a preacher is supposed to be, and that picture was that man that was leading the way.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Now the truth is there were other preachers that I admired, but he had taken me under his wing, and he was from kind of a renowned family.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: They were sharp as tacks, they had this they they dressed well, they presented well, they loved people well, they shepherded well, and I just had this picture.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to be like him.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I dressed the part, I acted the part, I was influenced by him.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: And so I had a hard time differentiating between the Lord, and that sounds so shallow, but um I guess it would be like I had this picture of what serving the Lord looked like.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, and I wanted to walk in that role, and then that was shattered, and and I I was fractured.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't know I didn't I didn't know how to act.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you were as you were kind of mirroring that identity for yourself, so that that fall you lost your mirror, you lost your image of how you were patterning your own life.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I I don't want to come across so shallow, but you gotta understand I was 19 years old.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was a oh, I don't think it's shallow at all.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think it it speaks to the influence that that pastors have that church has is has over its people.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I think it's a very important distinction.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt similar too.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: One of the reasons when I left, I didn't know how to separate God from the church.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the Lord had to te teach me that, you know, because it was just all the same.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: When you're raised in it, it's just all the same.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know either.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, uh it was to the point that uh especially, I mean, it's maybe a little different today, but back then, especially, and it may not have changed, but back then, uh, like I I wore suits like he wore, I did my ties like he did his ties, my shoes, my look, my image, my Bible.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: He was into Schofield Bibles, and I got a blue Schofield.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: I like it was just this whole I want to be Who's your mentor?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: I want to be in this club, I want to be a part of this.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: He took me to meetings when I was too young to go to these meetings and introduced me to ministries that impacted me and were powerful.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, yeah, uh that's where I first saw Lee Stoneking, just I could name names, but was through he introduced me to these people, and I just man, I wanted to be in.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so when he when he kind of um kind of stepped away, I I I didn't know what to do.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: It was the the shepherd is smitten and the sheep are scattered, you know.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, uh I didn't know who I was.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I think it makes perfect sense.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Well, when excuse me, when when I was when I when I was 15, and this comes into play too, when I was 15 years old, I went to a youth prayer meeting, and I was smart enough to know, I've alluded to this, but I was smart enough to know that the next few years were critical for me.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna finish high school, I was gonna go to college, what am I gonna do?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I was a very musical kid.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I played instruments, I wrote songs.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so, am I gonna do music in church or am I gonna preach?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of my my view of ministry.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: It was a dichotomy.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's preaching, it's music.
• 12:59
  unknown: Right.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so I prayed, God, what do you want me to focus on?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the Lord, in that prayer meeting, I went home after the prayer meeting.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't feel like I got my answer because that's what I was focused on when I was praying.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: And in my room that night, I opened my Bible and I was praying and flipping through it.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I went to Romans 10 and it said, How shall they hear without a preacher?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: And the Lord said, You will preach and your music will always complement your ministry.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: And the bottom line is every time I've gotten that out of order, bad things have happened in my life.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: But as long as I've kept that in its proper order, from that, I'm almost 60.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: So all this time, that's like a life assignment.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: So as long as I've kept that in perspective, things have gone good.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: And when my pastor fell uh into that situation, um I decided I don't, I'm not gonna be the preacher guy.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna pursue music and figure things out.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: I'll go over here temporarily at least, and I'll figure things out.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went after music wholeheartedly.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: And when I did that, that was that was not a good move.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned the hurt that led to bitterness.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Were you aware of the bitterness at the time, or have you become aware in hindsight when you review your life, how that how it was really bitterness?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh no, at the time I did not recognize it as bitterness.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: I I didn't even recognize it as anger.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: I recognized, honestly, looking back on it, all I knew is that I was not happy with what had gone down, and I was shaken.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: So what I looked for was escape.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Some fun, some good times.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing is, when when I felt this call from the Lord, and and um I come from a very evangelistic church, I would call it hyper-evangelistic.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_02: When I was a kid in the 70s, my dad went and picked up hippies from parks and brought them to church, and I went with him.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is in the hype of the hip hippie movement.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: So long-haired guys, uh barefooted, smelly, um nicknames Superman, Spider-Man, and uh, and we just brought them to church, and and we had a a plaque on our wall and above the baptistry.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a traditional church, you know, two sets of pews, a middle aisle, a stage, or a platform, and then a choir loft, and then uh a baptistry.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: And above the baptistry was a plaque that was shaped like a diamond, it had a neon light coming out of it, like a candle, and it was called the flame of evangelism.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: And anytime the church did not have a visitor, I'm talking about midweek, weekend, whenever revival.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: If there's not a visitor in the house, an usher would put a black bag over the flame of evangelism because the flame had gone out.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: We didn't care about souls.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: So, like I grew up, like you got to teach Bible studies, you got to win the lost.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm in mangan territory, so like the mangans were always visiting and preaching, you gotta win souls.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: Morel Cornwell, you got to teach Bible studies.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't, you're going to hell.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like we thought we were, I thought I was going to hell all the time.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm like, I gotta see right, right?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: I've got to win the lost, and that was like a big deal.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I've got to witness, I gotta win the lost, all the lost, they're all on my shoulders.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I felt that responsibility, and and I come from that background, and so uh that's a heavy load to carry.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, you know, I found myself weeping and crying, uh like, help me win the loss, and I was trying.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: But when this all went down, I'm like, well, I'm gonna go have some fun and get a little relief.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe it's not my responsibility to win everybody.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, really, in hindsight, I wish I would have had, and maybe I did have it and I didn't listen, but I wish I would have had if if the older Donovan could go back and talk to younger Donovan, older Donovan would say, Hey, it's not your responsibility to win everybody.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: The weight of the world doesn't have to be on you.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you can have joy in serving the Lord, serve him with gladness, you know.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but but I was so I felt this intense pressure uh to win the lost.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so this was like an escape valve.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I blew off steam.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I'm gonna go have some fun and do music and and and it was Christian music.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna do this.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so it was an escape.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't recognize it as um anger that would eventually come to bitterness, that would turn into deception, and and I'm way off track.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: I I had no idea that's what was going on.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it seems like uh the the call that you walk in now.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you had that then, you felt the burden of it, and it's become your life mission now.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we'll talk about that later.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: But um disappointment and disillusionment.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I I disillusionment is a correct word.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think you've used that.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I equated that to disappointment.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think it is one of the hardest emotions to reconcile for people because it it's a form of grief.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: There's nowhere to go with it.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like there was nothing that you could do to fix the situation you were in.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I I had a similar experience, and I I didn't I didn't know like you what to do with all of that.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so, like you, escape.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was just a perfect way to say it.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: You you you don't there's no place to go, there's no reconciliation to be made by things that you cannot control.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um, when you're a kid, it's it's really difficult to understand.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: We're just not equipped.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: That's so true, 100%.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and I I had not moved to Nashville.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: I stayed in town, and a wonderful pastor moved in, Dan Coke, Dan and Jan Cork.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: They were amazing, and they loved on me and they tried to help me.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: My wife, uh, my at the time she wasn't my wife, but she had just gotten in church.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Her first service, she had had this experience at home with the Lord.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: And Valerie's first service at my home church was the night uh my pastor resigned.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_02: So, right?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: So she's so excited about what God's done in her life, and so she's just like, Well, you get another pastor, you know, God's good.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so happy.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're all devastated and trying, I'm trying to, I'm losing myself.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: And so we kind of passed in the night.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_02: She's getting in, I'm getting out, and uh, we became fast friends, but it was uh, you know, people handling it in a in a different way.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: She's not disillusioned.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: I am.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: This new pastor couple moves in, they're amazing.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I saw the compassion and the love and uh sadness in their eyes as they watched me fade and finally move.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: I remember telling Jan, I'm moving, I'm moving to Nashville, I'm I'm pursuing some music, and she just looked at me so sad.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I knew she knew, uh, but I was determined.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and we're friends to this day, and they were great.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: I I brag about how they were great pastors, even though I backslid under their ministry.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like they were wonderful, but I didn't do so well.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: But I was already on this path and was kind of chasing this dream, which was an escape.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: And if I'm honest, in my flesh, an excuse to do what I kind of wanted to do anyway.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's good.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so what comes next?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: You go to Nashville.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: I go to Nashville and uh and I had some connections.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: I had recorded demos and I'd sent a bunch of music into different this is Christian music.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I had friends that lived there and were in the business and were doing well.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, well, that's a relative word.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: They they had a foot in the door.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I uh reached out to them and they're like, come on, you know, the water's warm, you'll enjoy it.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: So I took off with uh hardly anything, clothes on my back, a few dollars, my equipment, and and I moved to Nashville and I ended up living on the kitchen floor of a of a guy.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_02: We actually, I had friends um that I met, had a friend that I met in Nashville, I'm sorry, in Jackson, that uh he had he was kind of doing the same thing I was.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: He had his own reasonings from Ohio.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh we were friends, we did a lot of music together, so we thought about moving and doing a band together.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: So we moved, I moved to Ohio, and then we moved to Nashville uh a couple of weeks later.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: And when we moved to Nashville, it was in the middle of a blizzard, and so he had a friend he was staying with.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: He had gone to Jimmy Swaggerts Bible School.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: He had a friend from Swaggerts that was there, so he he moves in with that guy.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: That guy had money.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: I moved in with my poor music friends, and I'm living on a kitchen floor, frying bologna, eating big, uh drinking big T Cola from Kroger.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I mean, uh, we were broke.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: The blizzard didn't help.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyhow, long story short, uh kind of got into the fabric of Nashville, made the connections.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_02: And what's crazy is uh birds of a feather, like I found them.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: I we found each other.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_02: The the people that came from my background, my Pentecostal background, and were disillusioned.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, we found each other.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: And we just bonded and we did music together.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: And really, we stoked the fire of we made really our sarcasm uh was a way of dealing uh with our past and poking a finger in the eye.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it was so we we were sarcastic, we made fun of.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, we were brutal.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: This is back in the day of answering machines.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: So we left uh on our answering machines.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh we mocked preachers, famous Pentecostal radio programs.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: We uh we we were just we mocked and made fun of.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just a way of um expressing our anger and our disappointment.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and it was a way uh of eventually it it I really hardened and uh and and became serious about my um my problems that I had with my past.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: And and and Kathy, it was one of those things where I I consider myself like super smart.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like the smartest guy in the room, in my opinion.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: You know, so I would walk in rooms and I'm the smartest guy in the room in my own mind, which is ridiculous.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_02: But but I I was um I started questioning things I held on to as true.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so you'll relate to this, and I think a lot of the the viewers or your listeners will.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it started with uh standards and whatnot, like the way uh I was raised to to look at uh outward appearance and these things we did and we didn't do.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so I started walking away from that.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's crazy.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I had I had allowed myself to have friends that didn't um that were devoted Christians, but they didn't have a background like I did.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: And so that added to my, you know, like, wow, they're they're great people.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Justification, yeah.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought, you know, for my world, they're like going to hell like a bullet.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: And um and I realized they're good people and and they don't adhere to any of this stuff.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: So I just started throwing out all the outward things, which then led me to the other things, the more core doctrines.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this, you know, this doesn't matter, baptism doesn't matter.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: And eventually I emptied my truth bucket to the point that there was nothing in it, and I didn't know what I believed.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Then I started thinking, I don't know about the Bible.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, is it author authoritative?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is it I always heard it was inherent and it was infallible, and uh, I'm reading things now that say otherwise, and I'm listening to voices that say otherwise.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so before long, and it this was a very quick journey.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna say that's a scary place to be once you give up the belief that the Bible is the word of God.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that that's such a dangerous place.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: I wasn't scared at all.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I was liberated, I was on fire, I was alive, I felt so alive and I felt so invigorated, and I was that I became a zealot that I'm gonna, you know, I found the truth and I'm so I've deconstructed my faith and I've come to deconstruct your faith.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so looking back, I had a conversation with my mom one time, and she's like, she's like, I'll never believe what you believe because I was trying to convince her, and I'm like, I didn't think you would, but I'm after the young people.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, God, that's scary.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: You can't say that.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: Scary.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, I'm like, yeah, watch me.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I was it was I was an evangelist on the dark side.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Which is scary now, but at the time, I I felt like I was doing the work of God.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because all this time you're still singing Chris Christian music, writing Christian music songs.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, or did you ever change your genre during that?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_02: I shifted, I changed that that that fell quickly.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_02: And you gotta understand Nashville.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think that helps.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't want to get too deep in the weeds and stop me if I am, but Nashville is uh, you think uh, you know, mom, apple pie, country music, good times, Jesus.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but but Nashville is a stronghold, uh high place from which influence flows, severe influence.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a lot of spiritual activity in Nashville that is not positive.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: And at that time, especially, I had kind of gotten into new age, so I'm I'm floating around in a lot of new age thought.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: So my music reflected that.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: However, I will say this the Christian music industry, and I'm coming from the 80s, but at that time, and I would say there's a lot that has remained the same, maybe even gotten worse, it was uh it was full of hypocrisy.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a it was about the money, it's follow the money.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I wrote to try to make money.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_02: I wrote Christian songs to try to make money, but I also was uh I was writing uh country songs or rock songs, anything I could to to make money.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: But then I also, another thing about Nashville is it's so ego-driven, which is flesh.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: And flesh is just it partners with the dark side so quickly and so easily.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I was all about expressing myself.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: I've got things to say, I've got art, I need to express myself.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really smart, I'm really creative, I'm a creative, I'm brilliant, and I'm gonna tell a story and an allegory, and it's gonna blow your mind, and it's a it's a you know, and so I was writing for my own music's sake.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: I was writing to make money, and uh, and so yeah, I sunk like a rock to uh my belief systems were all shot, and I was um my music expressed it, but I would write a good Christian song if I could get paid for it.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I love it.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_02: It is real.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for watching our podcast through all the last episodes.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: We just finished recording episode 58, and um, we've had such wonderful feedback from you and have been able to share many great testimonies of what God has done in the lives of prodigals and um and those who are just coming to the Lord for the first time.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to ask if you would prayerfully consider being a monthly sponsor of this ministry.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or if you're a business and you would like to promote your business on this podcast, if you would like to um partner with us in that way, that would be great too.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we would just really like to do more episodes and we'd also like to do some uh provide some teaching resources to those that haven't yet come back to the Lord or maybe still just watching these testimonies week after week.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: But um we could really use the support, and if you wouldn't mind prayerfully considering any donation amount would help five dollars, ten dollars, a hundred dollars, one-time gifts, whatever God lays on your heart.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: I know that there's a lot of places asking for money, and I totally understand that.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've never really asked for it up until this point.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um I thought that maybe I could just make an appeal um and ask if if you would just pray about it.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but more than anything, more than any money that you contribute, more than anything, I would covet your prayers and also that you would share this podcast with those that you might know.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Because the more people that we reach, the more seeds are getting planted, and the more someone is connected to a prodigal who hasn't come home yet.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for your time and thank you for tuning in with us.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: We really appreciate it.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_01: God bless you.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: It it is, it is the reality.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_01: The guys uh that on the studio here um were in music in Nashville, good, good Christian, wholesome guys, and um left here, went there, success, very successful, um, moved back, you know, and uh opened this studio and they just didn't like it, couldn't couldn't tolerate it, did not align with their values, which you don't see that very often, walking away from a successful band to come back and and do the right thing, you know.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um we probably have some mutual friends.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: Probably so.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's a small world, I would guess.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel like it's a small world in general, the older I get, but but definitely probably in the music world.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, were you very spiritually sensitive?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: I I know that that might sound weird because walking in the Holy Ghost, having the Holy Ghost, you know, walking in the spirit, we are we are spirit-filled beings and spirit beings, but not everyone kind of taps into that um early in life, and some churches, you know, almost don't pursue that back in those days.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I'm wondering when you were in Nashville, you know, what your sensitivity level was spiritually, and because you talked about it being a high place with a demonic stronghold, were you experiencing all of that, or is that also hindsight?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_02: Hindsight.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I grew up very uh obviously in a very spiritual environment.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: I I got the Holy Ghost speaking in tongues when I was seven years old.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I was around that on a constant basis.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: I I I believed that I believed in the gifts of the spirit.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: I was in a church that flowed in the gifts of the spirit, and in the 80s, there was a real resurgence of the gifts uh being emphasized because uh previous generations had kind of turned away from that because of the goofiness of latter rain and whatnot.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_02: But there was this real pushback to it.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was around a lot of that and hook, line, and sinker.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: I was all in.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted that, I believed that.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was a tongue talker, I believed in dreams and visions.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, I've already told how God led me to feel like I was gonna preach and then I was gonna go to this Bible school.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was I was very sensitive and more sensitive than I realized.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_02: You take it for granted sometimes, you know.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because because it's what we knew, it's how we grew up.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly, exactly.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: But when I walked away, uh it's really interesting, and this is a part of the story that is uh confusing and was confusing to me at first.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_02: Hindsight, I get it.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_02: But when I first walked away, I remember when I first moved to Nashville, I got off the kitchen floor, I got into an apartment with my roommates, I had my own room, and I remember being in my room and feeling the presence of the Lord so thick, like stronger than ever.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I took it as confirmation that I was on the right path.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: Looking back on it, it was the grace and mercy of God.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_02: Reaching out to me and trying to help me, but I not confirming what I was doing, I was in a bad way, but just trying to help me.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: And as I ref as I took that the wrong way and continued down this path, that lifted.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I never I didn't feel that that presence of the Lord.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_02: Call it what you want, if you know, you know.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_02: But I I didn't feel that again for years.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: And that is what ended up driving me back.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_02: But going back, that that was confusing.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, like I just I just totally took it the wrong way.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_02: I took it the way I wanted to take it.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing the right thing.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel like I did the same thing, and I and I wonder how many prodigals out there have had that same experience, you know, because in talking to them, even those that haven't come back yet, and those who have, there's a very common theme.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: They love the Lord, you know, and they would try to pray or reach out to pray.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it is confusing, it does feel validating.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember when I came back to apostolic faith, I'm like, I speak in tongues, I'm in my closet of prayer, I look just how I look, my big old hoop earrings and all the things.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I had big hoop earrings too.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I can see it.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: I can see it.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: And and we do think, and what I've realized now is that I never understood obedience when when the Bible says, if you love me, keep my commandments.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: I I I was always looking for confirmation that God loved me, never ever looking at how I can love him.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's good, you know, and not realizing that it was a reciprocal relationship, you know, and that he was looking for something from me too.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: And and really, I've only begun to understand that since coming back to apostolic faith, because it is very confusing, and that is the grace of God when we do feel him and he's reaching for us.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: But it is a much different thing, I think, both in presence, um when we are plugged into that stream and serving him in obedience the way the Bible tells us.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I was uh I was looking for uh and and I was this is you know I a lot of prodigals have these stories, and it it's it's sad and it's funny.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_02: There is some humor there.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm from Louisiana.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Louisiana's big apostolic Pentecostal.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: We have this giant campgrounds, and I grew up every year going to I'll say this the the I was born in 1966.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: I went to the campgrounds, so in August, so after camps, the very next camp season, I was at camp meeting in 1967.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so I went to youth camps, I went to camp meetings with my family.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_02: My family had a cabin on the Louisiana campground.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I grew up on those campgrounds.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: Every summer I looked forward to camp season.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I was there, I worked camps when I got old enough.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: I was a student at camps.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_02: I just I loved camps.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: And when I lived in Nashville, camp season comes.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: My girlfriend's there with me, which is now my wife, and we're not in church at all.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, uh, you know, it's it's camp time.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'm gonna go to camp.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: Let's go to camp.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, What are you smoking?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like, no, what do you mean?
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, it's she didn't grow up around it.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, it's camp time.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I gotta go.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, so we drove to camp and I go on those campgrounds, and I'm looking the way I look, you know, I got long hair, I got earrings.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_02: I try, I I tried to dress up a little bit in my cool way, and uh, it's just so dumb what I was doing.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, like, I so I go to the campgrounds, and people haven't seen me like that.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so they look at me and they're like, Donovan, like, what are you doing?
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then I get offended.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, you're so judgmental, you know, like people are coming after me.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like they were just shocked.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_02: And naturally, it was like a radical shift.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, but I just used it as fuel for my fire.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, you guys are just like I thought you were, and and so then I'm all mad.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: And and Valer's like, like, I of course, like, what do you what are you doing here?
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: Let's leave.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: So we left, and I'm all mad and sad and disappointed and hurt.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: And now I have now I have material, I have emotions from which I can now write songs and express myself and you know, moan and complain.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's just so dumb.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_02: But it's you know, looking at it from a common sense outsider's perspective, like, yeah, well, they were shocked.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_02: You you just looked radically different.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: Of course they were shocked.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_02: Wasn't anything to do with judgmentalism.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: But it sure feels that way when you're sitting in that seat.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, for sure.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: And and there probably were a few of them that were, but you know.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and I I can't like you, I've come to the conclusion that there probably was a lot less judgment than what it felt like, you know, coming in.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: For sure.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was it was just a concern, probably, you know.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: But it takes it.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm grateful for hindsight.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_01: It takes us getting through things to understand sometimes, like you said, how deceived we have been and and how much the grace of God had covered us during that time.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Kathy, uh, if I can, I'll share a little insight.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's it's it's amazing to me because I'm not special.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord sees every prodigal.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh like you you've uh been familiar with the father's house.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: House, you're one of his, and you've gone rogue.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, but he knows the end from the beginning.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: So a little story about me.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: I was probably 16.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was chasing this call to preach.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: My dad's trying to talk me into going to LSU instead of Bible school.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: And man, I feel the weight of the world, I've got to save the world.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I go to a youth congress in, I think it was in Indianapolis.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh the preacher's preaching, and he's talking about the coming of the Lord.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: And in that youth congress, the Lord just speaks to me the way he did.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a kid, I'm not jaded, I'm innocent.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_02: And he just says, I and I was I was trying to figure out why I was so weird because I was a weird kid.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was like teaching Bible studies, and I was like intense, and I'm studying the Bible, and I'm and I'm not perfect.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: I have plenty of mistakes, but I'm I just I'm like trying to win souls, and I'm just I'm doing all I can.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: And but I stand out like a sore thumb at times, and I can't even have a decent good time because I'm burdened all the time.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I said, uh, I said, God, you know, like why did you put this in me so deeply?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why am I like this?
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: And like I said, the preacher had just talked about the coming of the Lord, and the Lord said, I put it in you so deeply because there wasn't much time.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_02: There's not much time.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I put it in you deeply because there's not much time.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you tell a young apostolic Pentecostal kid that at Youth Congress when they're preaching about the coming of the Lord.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_02: My first conclusion is the rapture.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like Jesus is coming back.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_02: So there ain't no time.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: There's no time.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I got it, I gotta, I gotta double down.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_02: So years later, I'm here in Prayville and I'm praying one day.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_02: I said, God, you know, I I got a question.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_02: When I was a kid, you told me this.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_02: It's been 40 years.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what's up?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_02: Why would you tell me that?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know time is irrelevant and whatever, but like relative, you know, like what is it?
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: What is it?
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_02: Why did you say that?
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: He said, it's not that I was coming back.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_02: It's that this this moved me.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_02: He said, is there wasn't much time before you were offended.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I had to drive it into you deeply so it would be there.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: I knew what was coming.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, wow, you know, like that's amazing.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like, he's amazing.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: So like that's that was he kind of like programmed in me the the comeback, um, the comeback.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, before I left.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_02: So he could trigger it.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, this is not gonna be apostolic theology, but you know, I think about the prodigals that have come home.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_01: And would God have wanted us to go out and do the things and have the scars?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he also knew how he would use it eventually in our life coming back.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it's it's a difficult thing to say it was all ordained, you know?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right, sure.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because like your book, which we'll get to in a little bit, like your life story is culminating in this very thing, who you always were, who he always designed you to be, in spite of where you went, knowing where you were gonna go and how he brought you back and put it all together.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is like you said, he is amazing.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it it allows us, I think, which I'm still working on, how to really rest and trusting that he's got our steps ordered.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, and then the name of this podcast is the redeemed backslider.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: He knows how to take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it for good.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's the redemption.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: He redeems it, he turns it, he changes it.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that's the phenomenon that blows my mind, like God's capability of that, and then obviously the fact that he knows the end from the beginning, uh it is mind-boggling for sure.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it is part of the genius of God and the bigness of God.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh he's he's amazing.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: He's amazing.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: Were you were you tormented much uh your time in Nashville?
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Were you were you tormented?
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: You were into the new age?
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, did that feel peaceable to you?
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: Was there a chaos component for you?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: Was it was it ever confusing, or were you just so set in your philosophical belief that you you you continued with the idea that you were right?
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: When did you notice that you had lost your peace?
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I was not tormented at all.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_02: That was like I was living the dream.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: I was um, and thank God I didn't get into drugs and um, you know, I drank, but I I didn't drink much.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I I just I was high on my philosophy, my points of view, my my search, and uh my my creativity.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_02: I was high on myself.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's yeah, trying to be something, yeah.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_02: Trying to be this this rock star and uh and pursuing that dream wholeheartedly.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_02: So no, I was not tormented.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_02: I was very um I was set in this path.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: The problem was uh my girlfriend, so she got in church as I was leaving church, and we were best friends, and um she went to another Bible school, a different Bible school.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_02: She had been in a Methodist uh school, uh, Sentenary College.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: She had a scholarship.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: She got in church, she loved the Lord.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_02: She thought she would go to the equivalent of Sentenary College on the Pentecostal side.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: So she goes to a little Bible school in Texas, which is not the equivalent of centenary college, and uh she went down there and she's a new convert, she is vulnerable, and so she's just kind of doing her thing.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_02: She loves the Lord, and she got in a situation where she saw things she she wasn't happy with, she didn't understand, she didn't get it, and she was she had an opportunity to be offended.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm a voice in her life that's a bad voice, and I'm telling her that she's in a cult, they're Nazis, you need to get away from there as quick as you can.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so when she has this opportunity and she we liked each other a lot, okay.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_02: We just knew we couldn't be together because I was going one direction, she was going another.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but now we kind of see a possibility, and so I'm like, why don't you just move up here?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like forget all that, leave them behind.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_02: So she does.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_02: So she moves to Nashville, and the difference between us is that she is a good girl who loves the Lord, she's just not living right.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_02: I am totally deceived at this point, and I am pursuing spiritual air castles, and I'm just over here doing meaningless work that I think is saving the world.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_02: And she comes in and she's uh Valerie is uh she's very black and white, and she's very insightful, and she's very quick.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so she knew she saw right through my facade, you know, all my garbage.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_02: She saw right through it, but she loved me, and I loved her.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I didn't see through my stuff.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just trying to get her to join me on the dark side.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_02: So it looks like she's joining me.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so we swore we would never go back to a Pentecostal church.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: We're trying out a few churches here and there, and uh, and I'm just I don't like them, and I'm smarter than everybody, and she knows I'm just full of it.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, but but we just loved each other, and so then she she wants to get married, and uh, you know, so she so she she she you know it's kind of like we gotta get married, uh, or or you know, I might leave.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because she had conviction, she had some conviction, and uh, and and and I don't, but so we uh we get married, and as soon as we get married, and I'm like, I love Valerie, but as soon as we get married, she starts going back to a Pentecostal church, and I'm so angry.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why do you want to go?
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even notice, like, she's kind of shifting the way she dresses and looks and all this.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then I do, and I'm like, oh my God, you know, here we go.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so she goes to church, I go with her, she goes up and prays.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: She's trying to get her her bearings back, and I'm trying to protect her from getting back in the cult.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I go up front with her and I stand guard over her and I dare anybody to pray with her, and don't you touch my wife?
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: And and uh, I'm so obnoxious that she asks me, you know, like, please don't go to church with me, you know, like let me go by myself.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_02: You just stay home and write some songs or whatever.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh, and and we're at this church in Nashville, the the Bectons are the wonderful people.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: They uh and they're trying to soul win me.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: They're trying, they're asking us to go out to eat.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_02: And uh there and they had some insight.
• 55:17
  SPEAKER_02: I've got connections through the family.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so they're like, uh, let's go eat.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_02: So we would go eat and uh get a free meal, and Ronnie Becton would be like, uh, so you like to golf?
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I'd be like, no.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I would leave it hanging.
• 55:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I think the most awkward conversations ever.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 55:39
  SPEAKER_02: And it's intentional on my part.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a conversationalist, but I don't want to be here.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: I know what you're doing, I know what you're trying to do, and like I'm not gonna have any part of it.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it was just so awkward, I was so mean.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, we laugh about it now.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_02: We're old friends now, but it was it was a terrible time, and uh, but Valerie realized that you know, she knew my story, and she knew that I had to get out of Nashville, that for me it it was uh it was just toxic.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_02: And if I didn't get out of there, I might not ever get out of there.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's like Sodom and Gomorrah.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so she she calls her uh her dad and her uh mom and she says, uh, we're moving.
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_02: She gives them a date, we're moving.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: She worked at Vanderbilt.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I had a job uh at a HMO and and and you know, and doing music on the side and trying to get into it.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_02: She says, uh, we're moving.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_02: She lays the date out.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: She doesn't tell me, she tells them.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we had this killer uh little townhouse in Georgetown, Green Hills area, man.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: I was like up in my people.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um I'm making, I'm getting the brakes.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a publisher, I see it coming.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so she tells me, hey, by the way, uh, dad's gonna be here with a truck, and like we're moving back home to Louisiana on this date.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, we ain't moving, you know, like I'm breaking in and we're not moving.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_02: And she basically says, I'm moving with or without you.
• 57:18
  SPEAKER_02: And we're we just got married, and and I we're in love, and I'm like, This is this can't be happening.
• 57:27
  SPEAKER_02: She said, You've got to get out of here.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, she says what she needs to say, and so I make some deals with my music people, which is hilarious because like I I hardly made a dime in music in Nashville, but I was making the connections and uh could have, I'm convinced.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of my friends, you know, ended up with careers.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's still there, and I'm still still friends.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: But I just was like, um, I didn't want to do it, but I made these little deals and we ended up moving.
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_02: And when I moved away, she was right.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of disconnected me enough that uh the influences every day weren't there, and uh the spiritual impact wasn't there.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_02: We moved back to North Louisiana, and I began to realize that my all these people that I had uh written off as being judgmental and and and ignorant and um you know I just misaligned them.
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I I just uh I I just I criticize them.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: Anyhow, I realized they're not bad people, they're not evil.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_02: I think that all they do is sit around and talk about me.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized they have lives.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_02: They don't ever talk about me for the most part.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um I started to realize that uh things were not as bad as I kind of thought they were.
• 59:05
  SPEAKER_02: And it started a it started a a process, a process in motion that I I began to realize that uh that they didn't have problems, but that also opened a can of worms because it was like I started to realize that maybe I do have problems.
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe they don't have first time.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_02: This was a revelation.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now uh that had to be hard.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I actually it started uh a little bit earlier with a book.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mentioned it to Dustin, but uh my my pastor Dan Caught read a book called This Present Darkness.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: He's the one I backslid under.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh he read a book, Frank Paretti.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's it's it's um, you know, people criticize it now.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's fantastic, it's too fantastic, it's but it it opened my eyes to another realm, kind of like took C.S.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: Lewis to another level and a more uh realistic level, um not Narnia, but it takes it to uh you know a little town in America, and it just painted this picture that that spoke to me.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: So while I'm in Nashville in the new age, doing all this kind of stuff, I started at least contemplating the idea, at least it put the seed of the idea in my mind.
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a real page turner for me.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_02: I read it quickly, and I was like, you know what I'm talking about?
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_02: Did you read read the book?
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yes, and I've given it away to lots of people.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I I want you to finish, but I find that so interesting because up until that point, you had not thought about the demonic realm.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: I know that in church we don't really talk about it a lot, we just talk about all the things that God can do and walking in the spirit.
• 1:01:02
  SPEAKER_01: Was that the first time that you really begin to see the other side and how it works against us by reading that book?
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you had a lot of knowledge.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I would say probably yes.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_02: Having said that, I had listened for years to uh preachers on the radio, Christian radio.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_02: So back in the day, I mean, you've got Bob Larson, you've got these cult hunters and these demon hunters and stuff, and and I heard them, but as I walked away, like somehow, somehow I just didn't see the devil.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: I just saw freedom from rules and freedom from the angst of living counter-cultural.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_02: And now I can I can blend in, I can be part of society as a like a normal part of society, and maybe even uh an influencer and shift society.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_02: And um, but I never thought of the devil, demonic spirits, like I never thought of what where I was going as them being involved in any of that.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_02: But that book, that book planted that seed, it is a pivotal key uh uh to what happened in me.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it just was there.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: I read it quickly, and and so when I left Nashville, and and that's one of the reasons I identified Nashville as a high place of demonic influence.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's a cultural, it's a global influence.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, it would be a place where the enemy wants to come in and put hypocrisy in ministry instead of a ministry, it's an industry.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: There is the industry of Christian music, yeah.
• 1:02:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it's full of the devil because the love of money is the root of all evil.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so you have this chasing fame and fortune in the Christian music world.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I saw at firsthand, and I felt bad.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_02: I influenced people, like I got this Baptist kid to move up.
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, come on, dude, you know, like this is where you need to be.
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: And he was very talented, gifted.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_02: He got in the music industry, and the next thing I knew, he was very gifted.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: He's like strung out on heroin, he's living in a rehearsal closet, and uh I was like, wow, you know, I didn't see that coming.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I just saw brokenness all over the place, but it's still the Christian music world.
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and I'm not saying Christians are perfect and should be.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's plenty of brokenness in apostolic ministry and all over the place, right?
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_02: But it the industry was just brutal.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_02: And um, so that book, that book helped me to see that that you know, there could be spirits involved, maybe.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'll think about it another day.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_02: When I when I got out of Nashville, that's when I began to contemplate that deeply and for real.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I went back to church with Valerie, but it was different this time.
• 1:04:18
  SPEAKER_02: I was still angry, and I dared anybody to they could pray with Valerie, but don't you touch me?
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'll throat punch you, you know, like yeah, I I felt that way, and I think a lot of prodigals do struggle with that.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um I don't know how we get around it other than just the presence of God being in the atmosphere when they come to church to where it softens their heart and and they can be more receptive to that.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I mean, that's a real that that's a real thing that that we walk through when we are coming back to visit, you know, for holidays or Mother's Day or Father's Day or whatever, you know.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um so how long was it for you before, you know, once you moved out of Nashville before you really began to reconcile with the Lord?
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_02: It was, it took me some uh a few months.
• 1:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: It was probably within the first year that I got away from Nashville.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: And um I it was so that was uh I want to say 1990.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: And we um we were we were going to church on a regular basis, and I was um I slowly was realizing the first of all it started with the people.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like it started with people, and it was I had to come back and realize people are not the problem.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because at first I thought, you know, people are the problem, I'm checking out.
• 1:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: Now I'm checking back in and I'm having to realize.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: People are not the problem.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_02: And there was a moment where I realized that I was, and Valerie was instrumental in helping me with this, but I was the one pointing fingers and going, you guys, you're so judgmental, you're so judgmental.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I noticed nobody's pointing a finger at me.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'm the only guy pointing a finger.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_02: So who's judgmental?
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_02: I was the one judging them.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, that stung, but it was a realization.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, okay, I've got a problem.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that leads to another question.
• 1:06:36
  SPEAKER_02: Do I have any other problems?
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I have some other problems.
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I began to question myself.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas I was very sure of myself before.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now I was unsure.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm questioning.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I will say this because uh every prodigal has their own unique story.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_02: There are similarities.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_02: Then I would say there are also categories like some come back this way, some come back that way, some leave this way, some leave that way.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Valerie was a good girl doing wrong.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_02: I was a I was a good guy who lost my way and became a bad guy that didn't know I was doing wrong.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_02: So those are two different scenarios.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and I was deceived.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I had this slow process.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_02: I did, I was not the guy that slid into the altar with a good sermon and wept and cried and raised my hands and prayed back through, and I'm back in.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_02: I was not that guy.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_02: I was very slow, methodical.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_02: It kind of in the same way I left.
• 1:07:37
  SPEAKER_02: I was creeping back in.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm having to answer questions because I'm trying, and this is a I'm just now thinking of this.
• 1:07:48
  SPEAKER_02: I had to be true to myself.
• 1:07:50
  SPEAKER_02: That was like something that was important to me.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: I did not want to be fake.
• 1:07:55
  SPEAKER_02: I did not want to be fake.
• 1:07:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:07:58
  SPEAKER_02: Huge, huge thing to me.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm creeping my way back in, and um, and and and then I began to realize that I I had this epiphany where it dawned on me.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't felt what I used to call the presence of the Lord in years.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_02: I can't remember the last time I felt that.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so I just remembered when I wasn't jaded, how that felt.
• 1:08:37
  SPEAKER_02: And it was all I know to say is that I felt clean.
• 1:08:41
  SPEAKER_02: I felt uh all was right with the world, that you know, when I would leave those moments, those encounters, I just felt good.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_02: My conscience was clean.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_02: Doesn't mean I was perfect.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like I felt renewed, cleansed, times of refreshing in the presence of the Lord.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_02: And then usually with the youth group, we'd go to the pizza place, we'd play video games, eat pizza, and then I'd go to school the next day.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I was just, it was just a thing that I had not experienced in a long time.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I had written off in Nashville as psychosis, as like mass hypnosis, as somebody put a spell on me.
• 1:09:22
  SPEAKER_02: I was a kid, I was traumatized, it was contrived, it was not real.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_02: It's the same goosebumps that I get when I'm watching a movie and something moves me emotionally.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it was chemical, it like all these explanations that I had.
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I couldn't fabricate it.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_02: I couldn't get there in an artificial way.
• 1:09:46
  SPEAKER_02: What I experienced as a kid.
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_02: And again, this is the prodigal advantage.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is the father's house.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_02: I had experiences in the father's house as a kid that I remembered.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_02: They were documented in my brain.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_02: I remembered.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_02: And you could say in my spirit, but like my mind recorded these things, and I wanted to go back.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted that, that peace.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm all about peace and love, man.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's I was a hippie in my own right.
• 1:10:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I now I don't have this peace.
• 1:10:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Valerie has has uh banished me from Nashville, and uh, and I don't feel peace, and uh and I realize it, and I realize I can't, if I go back to Nashville, I'm not gonna get it either.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_02: I realize this is bigger than Nashville.
• 1:10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I don't I had something when I was a kid that I don't have now.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I began to pursue that, and I guess the questioning of myself was kind of the beginning of the end for the devil in my life.
• 1:10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Did that rock your world, knowing your fallacy, your your ability to be fallible?
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like, did that unsettle you because you were so confident, you you knew who you were, you knew what you thought.
• 1:11:14
  SPEAKER_01: There was there was such confidence there as you begin to realize um that maybe you could be wrong, or maybe you had it not figured it all the way out that yet.
• 1:11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Did that create a vulnerability in you that that caused some unsteadiness, or were you just relieved because it just became a new avenue to explore?
• 1:11:38
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great question.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_02: It it was uh unsettling.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_02: As sure as I was when I was a young man that I was right and I had to save the world, I was this had the same certainty as a backslider that I was right, and everything I had been taught was wrong, everything I thought I knew was wrong.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_02: And that was um, and I was mad about it, and I wanted to, I wanted to redeem the time, and I wanted to do as much good with my new reality as I had tried to do with my old reality.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I was running fast and furious in the wrong direction, and then same passion, different focus, exactly, and to get stopped in my tracks and to begin to realize holy cow, I might be wrong now, I may have been more right then.
• 1:12:42
  SPEAKER_02: That was uh hard to admit because I had burned so many bridges, I had made so many ridiculous claims, I had, I had, you know, made, I had hitched my wagon to that star and I was long gone.
• 1:13:03
  SPEAKER_02: And to realize I could be wrong, like first of all, that's embarrassing.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh second of all, that is uh, you know, who who have I influenced?
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Third of all, what are my friends gonna say that that uh that are on the dark side?
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna look like a fool.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_02: And and then my own integrity, I have sworn that I will never go back.
• 1:13:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so I'm about to have to consider breaking that oath.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was tough.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_02: I would say I don't think I could have done it without my wife.
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, Valerie was steady Eddie, and and my pastor, so Dan Kock had moved on and had passed away, and Jerry Dean had come in.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_02: Jerry Dean was the new pastor in town, who I couldn't stand.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't like him at all.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and but Brother Dean gave me space and grace.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_02: And those are the two most important words to a backslider, in my opinion.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Give them space and grace, let them breathe, don't smother them, let them move at their own pace.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know the decisions that they made back in the day that they're having to undo and unwind and untangle from.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_02: And it takes time.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And and Brother Dean gave me space and grace and just love me as I tried to figure out this new reality.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_02: Valerie gave me space and grace.
• 1:14:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, others did.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, some were impatient and I was threatening, you know, you get in my face, like I will, I still will hit you, you know, like don't touch, don't touch me.
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because you know, we got the hands, we want to lay hands on everybody.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:15:00
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, but but yeah, so it was um it was unsettling for sure.
• 1:15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I uh I imagined throughout that you were trying to repent and getting back to the place of being filled with Holy Ghost again, right?
• 1:15:21
  SPEAKER_02: During all of that, and then yeah, yeah, it was well, it was I wanted that feeling.
• 1:15:30
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted that feeling I had as a kid, and so I began to pursue that.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's I didn't pursue speaking in tongues, I didn't pursue standards, I didn't pursue I I wanted that feeling, like whatever that feeling was, I wanted.
• 1:15:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I began to retrace my steps.
• 1:15:50
  SPEAKER_02: So what did I do, which is such a kind of a neat idea as a prodigal, you know, uh just kind of retrace your steps.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_02: How did how do I get home?
• 1:16:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_02: And uh so I was trying to figure it out.
• 1:16:07
  SPEAKER_02: And as a kid, as a young man, and it's mainly as a teenager that that you know, my spiritual formation took place, uh really developed.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I I used to listen to preaching tapes back in the day, cassette tapes.
• 1:16:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I went to the church library and I rated it and I took all these tapes, and I would just listen to these cassettes of preachers, many of whom I I had listened to these tapes years before.
• 1:16:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I would listen to tape after tape after tape, legendary Pentecostal preachers, James Kilgore and uh, you know, Nathaniel Urshan and and uh Lee Stoneking and Billy Cole and the Mangans and like all these different ones.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_02: I was just listening to all these tapes, JTP, and I would try to find my way.
• 1:16:52
  SPEAKER_02: My I try to get that feeling.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_02: I had lost that love and feeling.
• 1:16:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying to get it back, you know.
• 1:16:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh, you know, that didn't really do the trick.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_02: It was nostalgic.
• 1:17:04
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I fasted.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_02: I used to fast, and so I started fasting, and uh and I would pray, you know, God, if you're there, I'd like to get that feeling back, and I'd fast and and I'd go to church, and but nothing ever did it for me.
• 1:17:24
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I was on this personal journey, so I'm trying to think the time frame.
• 1:17:31
  SPEAKER_02: We were in an apartment for a while, and then we moved to this house uh in Broadmoor in Shreveport.
• 1:17:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I went home on my lunch break and I was praying.
• 1:17:45
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and I write about this in the book, but it was the moment where I it's kind of like the Lord brought back to my memory.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't realize it at the time, but when I used to speak in tongues.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_02: So time out.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_02: If you're not familiar with this, it doesn't make sense.
• 1:18:02
  SPEAKER_02: If you are, it does make sense.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_02: But I grew up around people speaking in tongues on a regular basis.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, people have all kinds of different views on that, but the church at Corinth, they all spoke in tongues, and so much so that Paul tried to regulate it.
• 1:18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I grew up around a lot of speaking in tongues: personal edification, tongues and interpretation, um prophecies, and then tongues, and like just it was always wild.
• 1:18:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I spoke in tongues, and so as a kid, I would hear sister so-and-so speak in tongues, and um I could mimic it, and we did as kids, my cousins and my friends, we'd be like, Who am I?
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_02: And we would say what she would say when she spoke in tongues, because she when she spoke in tongues, she said the same thing every time, right?
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh most of the time.
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Most, you know, very similar.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and the same with famous preachers that I would hear them speak in tongues, and and I could mimic them.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_02: And and so we would just kind of do that, and it wasn't sacrilegious, it was just kids making a note, uh, you know, and and you know, and I guess it's right.
• 1:19:24
  SPEAKER_02: It would be this this happened all the time.
• 1:19:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so we could mimic it, we could play church and mimic it, and and it was just people spoke in tongues, and so charismatics would call it a prayer language.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's like you speak, you're you're speaking in that's your prayer language.
• 1:19:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's this, you know, you edify yourself, you build yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the spirit, your prayer language, and uh, and so I remembered I used to speak in tongues, and I would say, I remember my brain recorded the phrases and kind of the syntax that I knew what I used to say.
• 1:20:00
  SPEAKER_02: I just kind of remembered it.
• 1:20:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I was at home, I'm all by myself, Valerie's at work, I'm on my lunch break, I laid across the bed, and I was desperate, man.
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_02: At this point, I could not get that feeling back.
• 1:20:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, God, and this kind of gives you an indication of where I was.
• 1:20:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, God, I don't know if you're real.
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_02: If you are real, if you're there, uh I'm going to say those words that I used to say as a kid.
• 1:20:31
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and maybe that'll work.
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you're there.
• 1:20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump off this cliff, and if you're there, catch me.
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I did that.
• 1:20:45
  SPEAKER_02: I was laying across the bed, and I said, and I I said a syllable, and as I did, the presence of God just flooded me for the first time in years.
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_02: Just this, just baptized me, just covered me, immersed me.
• 1:21:01
  SPEAKER_02: Just it was so powerful, Kathy.
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_02: It just was indescribable.
• 1:21:08
  SPEAKER_02: It was joy unspeakable, full of glory.
• 1:21:10
  SPEAKER_02: Just just the glory of God came on me, and I spoke in tongues, and the Holy Ghost spoke to me and quoted scripture.
• 1:21:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's a Jesus messianic scripture, except a corn of wheat, fall into the ground and died, abides alone.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_02: But it was real emphatic.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_02: And he was talking to me, and then he clarified and he said, Forget everything you thought was true.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_02: Drop it, stop it already, and let me teach you, follow me, trust me, I'll show you the truth.
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it was it was so deep and powerful, and just like that, I was back.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was here I am.
• 1:21:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in the father's house, I'm home.
• 1:21:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that changed everything.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_02: That afternoon changed everything, and I was back.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_02: I was now I had some, I still had some arrogance and pride I had to deal with and some struggles.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_02: I had uh more spiritual formation that had to take place.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_02: I was kicking and screaming at times.
• 1:22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I still I still put my big hoops in at times.
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was trying to figure it out, but I was back and I had just bought a bunch of music equipment.
• 1:22:33
  SPEAKER_02: And the Lord, I knew, I knew immediately what I had to do.
• 1:22:37
  SPEAKER_02: I sold all my music equipment.
• 1:22:38
  SPEAKER_02: I just bought a bunch and I gave up music for years and I pursued ministry.
• 1:22:45
  SPEAKER_02: And the next thing I know, uh, I was in a group of guys going to get a license to preach.
• 1:22:52
  SPEAKER_02: And they asked me on an afterthought.
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody's like, hey, you want to go with this?
• 1:22:56
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to get this credential.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Yeah, like, whatever.
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_02: Who cares?
• 1:23:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm with y'all.
• 1:23:02
  SPEAKER_02: So I go and I get I'm getting licensed.
• 1:23:05
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm having to test and answer questions, and and I'm thinking to myself, should I be doing this?
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, is this premature?
• 1:23:14
  SPEAKER_02: But I the next thing I know, I I I I passed all the tests, and it was just um, it was the beginning.
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_02: And and the next thing I knew, because I had preached before I left church, I was a young preacher when I left.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I preach revivals, youth revivals and stuff.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just like the Lord just kind of like brought me back, and now I've got a wife, and and we started preaching, and and it just uh it changed everything.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was a game changer.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know, when you when you look back to me, you when you heard the voice of God, you always obeyed it.
• 1:23:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, selling your music equipment like it wasn't even a question for you.
• 1:23:59
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord knew that about you.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_01: He he tested you with it early on, and you obeyed.
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that that uh came back again when you when you sold the music equipment, he knew how you would respond.
• 1:24:16
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 1:24:17
  SPEAKER_02: Uh again, he knows the end from the beginning.
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_02: The very the very fact that you know he put it in me so deep because there wasn't much time.
• 1:24:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've never thought of it, but you're right.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_02: That that's true.
• 1:24:30
  SPEAKER_02: That's very true.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Because when I was when I was at a very musical Bible school, I was a theology major who played music.
• 1:24:39
  SPEAKER_02: I had it in the right order.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Did you go back and get your did you ever go back and get your theology degree or any degree because you you love the personality?
• 1:24:49
  SPEAKER_02: No, I I never went back to Bible school at all.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_02: I went back to college, but I never went back to Bible school.
• 1:24:55
  SPEAKER_02: And it's one of those regrets, Kathy, that I have.
• 1:24:59
  SPEAKER_02: Like I wish I would have, I wish somebody would have said, hey Donovan, stay in school.
• 1:25:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's nothing you can do.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Pursue this.
• 1:25:07
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord led you here, stay here.
• 1:25:10
  SPEAKER_02: But if they said that, I wasn't listening.
• 1:25:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so I reg, I wish I would have happened, woulda, coulda, shoulda, but it didn't happen.
• 1:25:18
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's a moot point.
• 1:25:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I used to get frustrated in my ministry.
• 1:25:23
  SPEAKER_02: I always think, God, I'm like five, six years behind my peers.
• 1:25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, everything I'm doing now, I should have been doing five, six years ago.
• 1:25:31
  SPEAKER_02: And the Lord kind of slapped me around and said, Stop it.
• 1:25:34
  SPEAKER_02: I I've redeemed the time.
• 1:25:36
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're right where you're supposed to be.
• 1:25:38
  SPEAKER_02: And to be able to kind of accept that is uh you know part of maturing and walking and who you are.
• 1:25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Before we transition to the book, I have many questions about the book.
• 1:25:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I want to just ask a couple follow-up questions regarding to um to current, where you're at currently.
• 1:26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um you, I don't know how often you share your testimony.
• 1:26:05
  SPEAKER_01: I know you recently shared it uh on High Hope Ministries and sharing it here.
• 1:26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how do you feel about talking about your testimony now after it's been so many years ago?
• 1:26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um I want to help people and I want to help church people understand the way some prodigals are.
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_02: They have a hard time wrapping their mind around it.
• 1:26:36
  SPEAKER_02: I was a thinker, and I was um I I I rebelled.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope I hope this is answering the question.
• 1:26:50
  SPEAKER_02: I rebelled against fake and hypocrisy.
• 1:26:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:27:00
  SPEAKER_02: And and and the the truth is some of the things that I was angry about were legit.
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:27:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and I do think that's a place where a lot of prodigals live, which is why they always bring up standards.
• 1:27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's really not about the standards, but it is for the very reason you just said.
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's so that's a powerful statement.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_02: I I've come to realize that, you know, it was there were some legit things that I was angry about, and uh it was, but I used those things as an excuse to do what I wanted to do.
• 1:27:47
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:27:49
  SPEAKER_02: It was my my exit strategy, you know.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was my I'm gonna legitimize, validate the reason I'm leaving.
• 1:27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Y'all wanna know.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_02: And shake my fist in the air and goodbye.
• 1:28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so why do you think so you have a real understanding of the fact that your testimony will help others?
• 1:28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um why do you think that other pastors who have been prodigals struggle to be open about their history?
• 1:28:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you see that?
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know very many pastors that have been prodigals that I know I know a few quite a few.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um the ones that I'm around uh don't have a problem with that.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now they don't want to get into the nitty gritty details, you know, and the the dirt.
• 1:28:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um but the the ones that uh I'm close to are very open to uh sharing their story, telling their story.
• 1:28:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um to me, like I said, I guess there's a certain uh there's a certain amount of uh me, me, me.
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, I don't want to talk about it all the time.
• 1:29:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's like it's it's me, me, me.
• 1:29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Here we go again.
• 1:29:10
  SPEAKER_02: Donovan's talking about Donovan.
• 1:29:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so there's a certain amount of that.
• 1:29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, I don't want to get into it too much because I'm I'm talking about me.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_02: But I do want to honor the Lord uh because I mean that's the that's the main character of the story, is is that there he was in spite of me.
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_02: That's the shocker.
• 1:29:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there was the father.
• 1:29:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's phenomenal.
• 1:29:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's as as awful as I was, is you know, I wrote a song that um it just says when when I when I uh went my own way and turned my back on grace, uh mercy called my name.
• 1:29:56
  SPEAKER_02: When uh I had something to prove and I shook my fist at you, mercy called my name.
• 1:30:05
  SPEAKER_02: And is it any wonder I sing and bring to you this offering?
• 1:30:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because you called my name when I would not hear.
• 1:30:13
  SPEAKER_02: And when I walked away, mercy drew near, and mercy called my name.
• 1:30:18
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's like that, that's my story.
• 1:30:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I hope it's God honoring, it's uh and not Donovan exalting, uh, you know, and that's I think that's the whole humanity thing is that we're like, boy, Donovan's got a great story.
• 1:30:38
  SPEAKER_02: And have you heard Donovan's story?
• 1:30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Because I've done that with people, like they've got a great story.
• 1:30:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, that's that's no big deal if it's no big deal.
• 1:30:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's no big deal, it's no big deal to me.
• 1:30:51
  SPEAKER_02: I just, you know, I get a little uncomfortable constantly talking about me, but I have no problem telling my story, and um just because God's the central character, like he's amazing.
• 1:31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and that's what I hear when I hear prodigal story, like the deception that you were under, the the self-righteousness, the um, you know, all of that.
• 1:31:16
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it's it's amazing, it's miraculous that God was able to woo you back, send you a woman who um who you would have such a deep connection with that made you listen, that could break through to you when you couldn't hear anything else.
• 1:31:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all of that.
• 1:31:37
  SPEAKER_01: I just see the Lord's hand in all of it, and then of course, what your life looks like now.
• 1:31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, I've always wondered that because I I have I have seen pastors where it's like, oh, it was just so long ago, it was it feels like a lifetime ago, and it's hard for them to reconnect or who they were then versus who they've become now, and I understand that, but I I think you know, we're um we're overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, and I think someone can resignate.
• 1:32:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, listening to your testimony, I resignated so much.
• 1:32:15
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I walked through so many of the similar things.
• 1:32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's it's there's a comfort in that.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_01: There's a comfort in knowing, you know, I ironically, it's its own community.
• 1:32:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's just God has been in control the whole time, you know, and thank goodness when he did call, we we answered and listened.
• 1:32:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think that there is also uh an element of uh some pastors, some preachers that uh their backsliding was not as pronounced, it was more secretive when they were younger.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so they don't want to share any of that.
• 1:32:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then sometimes I think uh you have the explosive situations, like let's just say my former pastor that went through what he went through, and he and I uh still talk, and I'm friends with his family, and I love them dearly.
• 1:33:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but he's not out there talking about that season.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just it was so much damage, you know.
• 1:33:21
  SPEAKER_02: There was so much damage.
• 1:33:22
  SPEAKER_02: So um I think maybe some of that is to blame.
• 1:33:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's the reason why.
• 1:33:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:33:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um what do you think?
• 1:33:32
  SPEAKER_01: You you mentioned that being in Nashville, you connected with other people that were living a backslidden prodigal life, you know, that came out of apostolic faith.
• 1:33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, have you given any thought to what the statistics are?
• 1:33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like how many are out there?
• 1:33:50
  SPEAKER_01: How many, how many prodigals do you think that we have out there that we need to reach?
• 1:33:59
  SPEAKER_02: Millions.
• 1:34:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I would say.
• 1:34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um I heard you know, kids raised in church.
• 1:34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I've heard all kinds of statistics on that, you know, where where um uh the percentage of kids that that leave church.
• 1:34:20
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I don't know who's accurate or not.
• 1:34:23
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I don't know if Barna in particular applies to uh apostolic churches per se.
• 1:34:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I've heard numbers from within Pentecostal and Apostolic.
• 1:34:36
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I'm not sure, but there are tons, tons.
• 1:34:41
  SPEAKER_02: And uh and they they they all have their own unique story, but the similarities are there.
• 1:34:50
  SPEAKER_02: Just like and just like we like in Nashville, we I could just smell it.
• 1:34:56
  SPEAKER_02: I could smell your background.
• 1:34:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we'd start talking, and I'm like, what's your background?
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we just found each other and we gravitated to each other and we had that in common.
• 1:35:06
  SPEAKER_02: And um that is, I think, um that that is because that culture is so strong.
• 1:35:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I had a I had a revelation uh years ago.
• 1:35:19
  SPEAKER_02: I was flying from BWI somewhere, and uh I'm getting on this airplane, so I'm getting into a metal tube to fly 30,000 feet across the country, and there's an Orthodox Jew standing in front of me.
• 1:35:35
  SPEAKER_02: He's Hasidic.
• 1:35:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I look at him and I think to myself, there's a Hasidic Jew in front of me.
• 1:35:42
  SPEAKER_02: Then I realize, wow, 4,000 years later, I look at this man and I know his identity.
• 1:35:53
  SPEAKER_02: I know the covenant that he holds to, I know his religious beliefs, I know where he's coming from.
• 1:36:01
  SPEAKER_02: 4,000 years later, getting into an airplane, that's amazing to me.
• 1:36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, God created a culture that that so it's this, it's concentric circles.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's this outer circle, it's this inner circle, and then there's this core.
• 1:36:19
  SPEAKER_02: And in the core, you know, Paul said, What's the advantage of being a Jew?
• 1:36:22
  SPEAKER_02: He said, Much in every way.
• 1:36:24
  SPEAKER_02: To them was given the oracles of God.
• 1:36:26
  SPEAKER_02: In the core is the word, they were preserving the word, but there were these concentric circles that were culture, and that cultural dynamic, don't plow with an ox and a mule, or don't put your cotton and your, you know, these different fabrics together.
• 1:36:47
  SPEAKER_02: All these regulations were creating a separate people.
• 1:36:51
  SPEAKER_02: I know this from my whole Bible study chart, but it was creating this separate people that the culture was not the primary thing, the word was.
• 1:37:06
  SPEAKER_02: They were preserving the culture.
• 1:37:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that in any tribe, theological tribe, they they've got concentric circles, and in the middle is their core values, and so I and and uh in our background, that that core value is there, but that culture is so strong, it's like that four 4,000 years later, you're looking, you're like, I know where she goes to church, you know.
• 1:37:31
  SPEAKER_02: Right, it's right, it's very, very strong.
• 1:37:33
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh because that culture is so stout, strong, and different than in many other tribes, um it just it's deeply in us, and so we definitely kind of sniff it out when we're talking to people, yeah.
• 1:37:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a lot too, and um, but it's exciting because I think it's gonna be part of the last day revival, the harvest coming back.
• 1:38:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing it so much.
• 1:38:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I believe it.
• 1:38:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I want to transition to your book.
• 1:38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'm gonna put I'll show you guys here, but we're also gonna put links um in the description below.
• 1:38:18
  SPEAKER_01: But um it's I am three, but it's I am cubed, and that stands for I am who I am, says I am.
• 1:38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I read this book.
• 1:38:29
  SPEAKER_01: I um I loved the book.
• 1:38:31
  SPEAKER_01: I wrote down tons of questions.
• 1:38:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I personally believe that identity is at the core of most everything.
• 1:38:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a book about identity.
• 1:38:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but before I jump into the questions throughout the book that I have, can you talk about what the impetus was for you to write this?
• 1:38:54
  SPEAKER_01: How long ago did you write this?
• 1:38:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this was in uh basically the 2018, somewhere in there.
• 1:39:05
  SPEAKER_02: Valerie and I were kind of at an impasse, we're church planners, we're at our uh, you know, 11, 12 years into our church plant, and some frustrations, um, just trying to figure out some things.
• 1:39:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I went and had lunch with a mentor, and I said, uh, frustrated, man, this is where I am.
• 1:39:28
  SPEAKER_02: Can't seem to get past this.
• 1:39:30
  SPEAKER_02: Valerie and I are just struggling, you know, with in every area.
• 1:39:36
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, Well, when's the last time y'all got away?
• 1:39:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I said, Well, what do you mean get away?
• 1:39:41
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, You and Valerie, I said, Well, we went on a vacation.
• 1:39:45
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we went to Orange Beach for three days with the kids, you know, uh last summer.
• 1:39:50
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, No, you and Valerie, when's the last time y'all got away?
• 1:39:54
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, We have kids, we're church planners.
• 1:39:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we've, I don't think we've ever gotten away.
• 1:40:02
  SPEAKER_02: He's like, Well, you need to get away.
• 1:40:04
  SPEAKER_02: Just you and her.
• 1:40:05
  SPEAKER_02: Get somebody to watch the kids, whatever you got to do.
• 1:40:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, uh, y'all get away.
• 1:40:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, Well, we can't afford to get away.
• 1:40:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, sell something, do whatever you gotta do.
• 1:40:15
  SPEAKER_02: Get away, take three days, and just kind of reassess where you are, pray together.
• 1:40:22
  SPEAKER_02: So we had never, ever done this.
• 1:40:25
  SPEAKER_02: So we did what we had to do, and we we got away to uh South Alabama, you know, the uh the the uh Riviera of the South, and we we uh we spent three days together, and we we took uh a piece of paper and we wrote out the things that were uh problems and frustrations in our life.
• 1:40:52
  SPEAKER_02: We looked at our family, we looked at our marriage, we looked at our finances, we looked at our church, our ministry, and we just kind of kind of just detailed where we were, and then we started talking about where we wanted to be, and we wrote that down.
• 1:41:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then we scripted a prayer, which was kind of the novel idea.
• 1:41:13
  SPEAKER_02: We scripted a prayer, and uh we just made a commitment.
• 1:41:18
  SPEAKER_02: We prayed it together.
• 1:41:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was cathartic, it was powerful, and and then we uh committed that we would pray it either together every day or separate, whatever we could.
• 1:41:30
  SPEAKER_02: We were very busy, and that's what we did.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_02: And lo and behold, it like made a difference.
• 1:41:37
  SPEAKER_02: It it changed our attitudes, things began to shift.
• 1:41:40
  SPEAKER_02: We had some answer prayers, and so then we committed we would do that every every so often.
• 1:41:47
  SPEAKER_02: We tried to do it quarterly, that doesn't always work, you know, six months.
• 1:41:51
  SPEAKER_02: So we started trying to do that, and we were scripting these prayers that were pertinent to our particular needs at the time, and so from there uh we realized the power of a scripted prayer and and praying it together, working on it together.
• 1:42:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's no more powerful team than a husband and a wife.
• 1:42:13
  SPEAKER_02: And um so we just we just committed to that.
• 1:42:17
  SPEAKER_02: And from that came the idea of the I am statement, because we started trying to speak word, speak covenant language about who we are, who does the Lord say we are, not how do I feel, not what do my circumstances say, but what does the Lord say?
• 1:42:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because that ultimately is reality.
• 1:42:42
  SPEAKER_02: You know, the word truth and reality are interchangeable in the Greek.
• 1:42:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's what it means.
• 1:42:47
  SPEAKER_02: So, what is the ultimate reality?
• 1:42:49
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna put those words in my mouth, try to deposit them in my heart, try to speak from my heart through my mouth, try to declare, call those things that be not as though they were.
• 1:43:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's not pie in the sky, it's not magic, it's not a it's not a spell, it's it's it's not a talisman, it's it's it's like God, like Abraham became like God.
• 1:43:14
  SPEAKER_02: This is what Roman says, in that he called things that were not as though they were.
• 1:43:18
  SPEAKER_02: He declared himself to be Abraham, the father of multitudes, when he didn't have a kid with Sarah.
• 1:43:26
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 1:43:27
  SPEAKER_02: The power of words.
• 1:43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's powerful.
• 1:43:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:43:31
  SPEAKER_02: So that's where that's that's the genesis of that for us.
• 1:43:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think that prayer is so under um undervalued.
• 1:43:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think, I think growing up in it, you know, we just taking it for granted, kind of like we take the Bible for granted.
• 1:43:48
  SPEAKER_01: Not that we mean to, I think hopefully not everyone does that, but but you know, I did for many years, just really not understanding how powerful prayer really is, and how powerful our words are, death and life is in the power of the tongue.
• 1:44:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so, um, so that's wonderful.
• 1:44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so your take on Zacharias and why the angel caused him to be mute was profound.
• 1:44:16
  SPEAKER_01: I never thought of that that way.
• 1:44:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and also why God commanded the children of Israel to march around the walls of Jericho in silence.
• 1:44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Also, very profound.
• 1:44:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, could you talk about that for a minute?
• 1:44:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so Zacharias is uh there's two questions, two questioners, same angel.
• 1:44:41
  SPEAKER_02: So Gabriel appears to Mary and and later and is gonna say the Holy Ghost is gonna, you know, says, You're gonna bear a child, you're gonna have a son.
• 1:44:52
  SPEAKER_02: And she's like, How can this be?
• 1:44:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not married.
• 1:44:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's an honest question.
• 1:44:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's not a doubting question, that's a legit question.
• 1:45:04
  SPEAKER_02: And the angel says, The Holy Ghost is going to overshadow you, and you will conceive and bear a son.
• 1:45:11
  SPEAKER_02: And she says, Behold the handmaiden of the Lord.
• 1:45:14
  SPEAKER_02: She just yields right there.
• 1:45:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's who I am.
• 1:45:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm the handmaiden of the Lord.
• 1:45:18
  SPEAKER_02: Be it unto me according to your word.
• 1:45:22
  SPEAKER_02: Zacharias is serving in the temple, and the Lord appears to him.
• 1:45:27
  SPEAKER_02: He's older, he has his own legit reasons why he and Elizabeth can't have a kid.
• 1:45:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the angel says, Y'all are gonna have a kid.
• 1:45:37
  SPEAKER_02: And he's like, That can't happen.
• 1:45:41
  SPEAKER_02: There's no way that can happen.
• 1:45:42
  SPEAKER_02: And he said, You're gonna be mute, you can't say anything else.
• 1:45:47
  SPEAKER_02: This is a man that's sabotaging the word of God because he is speaking in doubt and unbelief, and he's gonna spread it.
• 1:45:54
  SPEAKER_02: He's gonna tell, he's gonna tell Elizabeth, this is what the angel said, but you and I know better.
• 1:45:59
  SPEAKER_02: That ain't gonna happen.
• 1:46:00
  SPEAKER_02: And and so, like, it's this completely different motivation in his questioning.
• 1:46:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so the angel just says, We're gonna deal with this because it is y'all.
• 1:46:09
  SPEAKER_02: You're the ones, but you're not gonna be able to say anything.
• 1:46:12
  SPEAKER_02: So he's just made mute, and in my opinion, that's because he would he would definitely have sabotaged that word, whereas Mary, she wasn't gonna sabotage the word, and then Jericho.
• 1:46:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then possibly by speaking doubt, not you know, the promise can maybe not be fulfilled.
• 1:46:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's the way be because speaking, yeah.
• 1:46:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the Lord was going right.
• 1:46:41
  SPEAKER_01: That is so powerful in application, I think, to us and the promises that God gives us and what we speak about them when it takes a while to be fulfilled.
• 1:46:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, lots of ways to apply it, but I never thought about the fact God made a mute so that he could not speak doubt, not prophesy doom, and and therefore create that outcome for himself.
• 1:47:09
  SPEAKER_01: I just thought that was continued barrenness.
• 1:47:12
  SPEAKER_02: All he had ever known was barren, right?
• 1:47:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so he would have said that, well, it's always been this way.
• 1:47:17
  SPEAKER_02: This is how it, you know, that's how we are.
• 1:47:20
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:47:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so he would have prophesied that, he would have spoken that, and it would have remained the same in spite of the word of the Lord being different.
• 1:47:28
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:47:29
  SPEAKER_02: So a hundred percent I'm convinced of that.
• 1:47:33
  SPEAKER_02: And and talking about the power of prayer, I had a realization, and and I still have to remember it, and I challenged our church.
• 1:47:42
  SPEAKER_02: I called it the 90-day challenge.
• 1:47:44
  SPEAKER_02: We will go in before the Lord, we'll pray these fantastic prayers, we'll believe God for mountains to move, and we'll declare the word of God.
• 1:47:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is what the word says.
• 1:47:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm believing for this to take place.
• 1:47:54
  SPEAKER_02: I have faith as a mustard seed.
• 1:47:57
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trusting, I'm believing.
• 1:47:59
  SPEAKER_02: So we'll pray all these great prayers appropriately in a time of prayer.
• 1:48:05
  SPEAKER_02: Then we walk right out the door and somebody asks us about what we just prayed about, and we say, Well, you know, probably not gonna happen, but you know, and so we nullify those prayers in our everyday language as if it's two separate events, two separate outcomes uh when they're both connected, they're connected.
• 1:48:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I can't nullify my prayers with my everyday words, and my everyday words uh will nullify my faithful prayers.
• 1:48:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I it's it's uh and going back to Jericho, this is amazing to me.
• 1:48:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's a time of transition, and the Lord tells Joshua, this book of the law shall not depart from out of your mouth, but you'll meditate in it day and night, that you'll see how to do it, then you'll have good success, you'll prosper, etc.
• 1:48:56
  SPEAKER_02: So the Lord has spoken to Joshua, but he's also told him to meditate in the word, which means to chew, like a cow chews cud.
• 1:49:05
  SPEAKER_02: Just mutter it to yourself over and over.
• 1:49:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, all he's got in the book of the law is the writings of Moses.
• 1:49:12
  SPEAKER_02: He's got Genesis through Deuteronomy, or some portion of that, and he is to meditate on it.
• 1:49:19
  SPEAKER_02: Well, he's one of the Joshua is one of the good guys in Numbers 13 and 14.
• 1:49:26
  SPEAKER_02: He's one of the good spies.
• 1:49:27
  SPEAKER_02: So he's lived that, he's experienced that, but now he's also studying and meditating and muttering to himself that story, repeating it.
• 1:49:36
  SPEAKER_02: So he's lived it, but he's also muttering it to himself.
• 1:49:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so he recalls that they taught themselves out of going into the promised land.
• 1:49:46
  SPEAKER_02: As a matter of fact, in Roman, uh in Hebrews, when it says that they didn't mix faith with the word they heard.
• 1:49:54
  SPEAKER_02: It's really an unfortunate translation because it is basically saying the multitude.
• 1:50:00
  SPEAKER_02: The Israelites refused to mix with the two good spies.
• 1:50:06
  SPEAKER_02: And instead they agreed with the ten bad spies.
• 1:50:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so doing, they did not receive what the Lord had promised.
• 1:50:16
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord said, I've given you the land, you can take it.
• 1:50:18
  SPEAKER_02: Go in and take it.
• 1:50:19
  SPEAKER_02: The ten spies said, that'll never happen.
• 1:50:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the multitude agreed with them.
• 1:50:25
  SPEAKER_02: So Joshua was there, but he's also meditating in it.
• 1:50:29
  SPEAKER_02: And the Lord does not tell him, by the way, tell them to shut up when they march around the walls of Jericho.
• 1:50:35
  SPEAKER_02: Keep their mouths shut.
• 1:50:37
  SPEAKER_02: Joshua gets this wisdom from having experienced it and meditating on the word.
• 1:50:44
  SPEAKER_02: And he says, This is what the Lord says.
• 1:50:46
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to march around in this fashion.
• 1:50:48
  SPEAKER_02: And listen to me, you're not going to say anything to anybody.
• 1:50:53
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody says a word.
• 1:50:54
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I know you Yahoos.
• 1:50:57
  SPEAKER_02: I know what you'll do.
• 1:50:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:50:59
  SPEAKER_02: You're not going to do it this time.
• 1:51:01
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to keep your pie hole shut.
• 1:51:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 1:51:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:51:05
  SPEAKER_02: So it's wisdom from the word.
• 1:51:07
  SPEAKER_02: But they would have talked themselves out of it as the previous generation had done.
• 1:51:12
  SPEAKER_01: I just, I when I read that, I thought, wow, that that was just so good.
• 1:51:18
  SPEAKER_01: It was just so good.
• 1:51:20
  SPEAKER_01: Everything about your book was good, but I had never thought about it in those terms with either of those stories.
• 1:51:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in your book, you write, God will not write you off because of the part of the word that you have yet to obey.
• 1:51:36
  SPEAKER_01: Rather, he will rejoice with you over the part that you have obeyed, which that's so comforting, I would say.
• 1:51:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, at what point in your walk with God did you learn that principle?
• 1:51:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because we we live under such condemnation, you know, like I need to do this, I need to, I'm not, you know.
• 1:51:59
  SPEAKER_01: And do you think any of that led to your ability to live in joy, more abundant joy, than the heaviness?
• 1:52:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, to me, for me personally, man, that's a principle that I take from Abraham's life.
• 1:52:14
  SPEAKER_02: Leave your land and your clan.
• 1:52:16
  SPEAKER_02: He leaves his land and he drags half his clan with him.
• 1:52:20
  SPEAKER_02: So the Lord doesn't say, You didn't do what I told you to do, you idiot.
• 1:52:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna get somebody else and start all over.
• 1:52:28
  SPEAKER_02: He works with him.
• 1:52:29
  SPEAKER_02: So the principles there from scripture.
• 1:52:32
  SPEAKER_02: In my own life, I would say a turning point for me was when I got into the word, because when I came back to the Lord and I began to preach, I was studying a lot to preach.
• 1:52:46
  SPEAKER_02: I had to preach a lot.
• 1:52:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I was studying to preach, and the Lord convicted me again.
• 1:52:52
  SPEAKER_02: Valerie was involved, and the Lord convicted me and said, Don't study my word to find a sermon.
• 1:53:01
  SPEAKER_02: Study my word to find out how to live.
• 1:53:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so I shifted, my preaching probably suffered, but the effectiveness of my ministry did not suffer.
• 1:53:13
  SPEAKER_02: I began to study to find truth and how to live and what the gospel means.
• 1:53:19
  SPEAKER_02: And as I discovered the incredible power of the gospel, I realized that it is.
• 1:53:44
  SPEAKER_02: Come to the Lord, you're like, I have nothing to offer.
• 1:53:47
  SPEAKER_02: I've been horrible.
• 1:53:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sorry.
• 1:53:49
  SPEAKER_02: And he takes you in, and you're so thankful and you're so grateful.
• 1:53:54
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then you get some corn in the crib, you get spiritually formed, you start to live better, you start doing some things you should do, quit doing some things you shouldn't do.
• 1:54:05
  SPEAKER_02: And if you're not careful, you think you deserve something.
• 1:54:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now I've been a good boy.
• 1:54:12
  SPEAKER_02: But keeping it in its proper perspective, I don't belong here, I never did belong here, I still don't belong here.
• 1:54:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like you said at the very beginning, I'm serving God to please him.
• 1:54:24
  SPEAKER_02: I am not serving God to get him to like me and to endorse me.
• 1:54:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I haven't earned anything.
• 1:54:32
  SPEAKER_02: So that perspective of the power, the far reach of the gospel, that he loves me when I'm unlovable.
• 1:54:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it dawned on me that when I first came to the Lord, I didn't even know everything I was doing wrong.
• 1:54:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 1:54:50
  SPEAKER_01: I've said that so many times.
• 1:54:52
  SPEAKER_02: I realized later, oh, shoot, that's wrong.
• 1:54:55
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't even know it.
• 1:54:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, the Lord worked with me with the part I got right instead of writing me off for the part I got wrong.
• 1:55:01
  SPEAKER_02: He was patient, he knew my heart.
• 1:55:03
  SPEAKER_02: And so to me, that's just a just a powerful truth because none of us have arrived at all.
• 1:55:10
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's the whole book was really encouraging, I thought.
• 1:55:15
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 1:55:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for appreciating it.
• 1:55:18
  SPEAKER_01: Using the story of Abram and the process he went through to become Abraham, your book illustrates that process is similar to what one goes through once we come to the Lord.
• 1:55:32
  SPEAKER_01: As a pastor, I am sure that has allowed you to love people without expectations.
• 1:55:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, did that come through your own experience coming back to the Lord, which I think you answered a little bit, or did that understand, did that understanding come through pastoring and study?
• 1:55:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then obviously, as you wrote this book, more it's uh, I mean, the basis of it is my own experience with God.
• 1:56:02
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's the word, of course, uh, but my own experience and and uh God being patient with me and other people being patient with me.
• 1:56:13
  SPEAKER_02: That helped too.
• 1:56:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but then as a church planter, you you are trying to get people uh from A to Z.
• 1:56:22
  SPEAKER_02: As a pastor, I'm trying to get people from A to Z.
• 1:56:26
  SPEAKER_02: But sometimes they come to faith when they're 75, 85 years old.
• 1:56:31
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes they come to faith much younger, but they've just got so much to work through.
• 1:56:36
  SPEAKER_02: I may never get them to thee.
• 1:56:39
  SPEAKER_02: They may only get to be.
• 1:56:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I have to rejoice.
• 1:56:44
  SPEAKER_02: I've learned to rejoice in baby steps.
• 1:56:47
  SPEAKER_02: Every baby step is is, you know, heaven repents when a sinner, heaven rejoices when a sinner repents.
• 1:56:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:56:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we rejoice over baby steps.
• 1:56:56
  SPEAKER_01: We rejoice, yeah.
• 1:56:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so good.
• 1:57:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I love what you present in your chapter, Remembering the Future.
• 1:57:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, can you talk about what you believe about a person's identity at an atomic level?
• 1:57:14
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that's so confirming.
• 1:57:18
  SPEAKER_01: Just yeah.
• 1:57:20
  SPEAKER_02: Go on.
• 1:57:21
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, if you have you have a call on your life.
• 1:57:26
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody does.
• 1:57:28
  SPEAKER_02: You've got a job to do, and you're gonna do it as the person God has called you to be.
• 1:57:34
  SPEAKER_02: You are first and you do second, but your identity is connected to a job, it's connected to a call, something you're put on this earth to do.
• 1:57:44
  SPEAKER_02: You have a purpose, and that purpose is actionable.
• 1:57:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's something you will do for and with the Lord, but it is something that's unique to you.
• 1:57:57
  SPEAKER_02: And that's something that I'm a fan of is um individuality.
• 1:58:02
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like the the problem that we have in religious circles is that we we cookie cut each other.
• 1:58:08
  SPEAKER_02: This is what a preacher looks like, this is what a pastor looks like, this is what a missionary looks like, this is what ministry looks like.
• 1:58:15
  SPEAKER_02: You can only do these things, you know.
• 1:58:18
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said earlier, uh my concept of ministry was music or preaching.
• 1:58:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um and it's so varied.
• 1:58:24
  SPEAKER_02: You could be in the marketplace, you could be an entrepreneur, you could be so many different things.
• 1:58:28
  SPEAKER_02: What has God called you to be?
• 1:58:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that is something only you and God can figure out.
• 1:58:34
  SPEAKER_02: It is others may see it and give you some insight, but you've got to get it for yourself.
• 1:58:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it is in there.
• 1:58:42
  SPEAKER_02: And first of all, find out who you are in Christ.
• 1:58:45
  SPEAKER_02: And you've got you've got hardcore evidence in the Bible as to what that is, who that is.
• 1:58:54
  SPEAKER_02: You are you are the beloved in Christ.
• 1:58:56
  SPEAKER_02: You are you are created in righteousness and true holiness, you're a son or a daughter of God.
• 1:59:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's who you are in Christ.
• 1:59:03
  SPEAKER_02: So find who you are in Christ.
• 1:59:04
  SPEAKER_02: But then what are your gifts?
• 1:59:07
  SPEAKER_02: What are your talents?
• 1:59:08
  SPEAKER_02: What are your passions?
• 1:59:09
  SPEAKER_02: What drives you?
• 1:59:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, God will use that.
• 1:59:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's part of it.
• 1:59:14
  SPEAKER_02: So be true to yourself.
• 1:59:16
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, what the the the most the the most this one of the saddest things is when somebody is trying to be somebody else, especially in a ministry or a call, like be you, be you.
• 1:59:31
  SPEAKER_02: I I tried in the early days to be a bunch of my hero preachers.
• 1:59:36
  SPEAKER_02: And uh thank God for my wife.
• 1:59:38
  SPEAKER_02: My wife was like, What are you doing?
• 1:59:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, stop it.
• 1:59:41
  SPEAKER_02: You can't be them.
• 1:59:42
  SPEAKER_02: Don't try to be them, be you.
• 1:59:44
  SPEAKER_02: And when you are you, you are more effective.
• 1:59:47
  SPEAKER_02: So it kind of goes to that.
• 1:59:49
  SPEAKER_02: And it and when you find it, it it becomes a natural, it's supernatural, but it's a natural flow.
• 1:59:56
  SPEAKER_02: You're kind of like remembering who you are.
• 2:00:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um and so uh it it it uh and as far as remembering the future, that that whole concept of seeing it and speaking it uh as you walk in it, eventually, it's it's like you you have remembered the future.
• 2:00:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's a it's a natural thing.
• 2:00:17
  SPEAKER_02: And the remembering the future concept is not original with me.
• 2:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: I quote the guy, but there's some interesting stuff on that.
• 2:00:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I I know that when you look back over your life, who you have become now was probably always there.
• 2:00:32
  SPEAKER_01: It just hadn't been developed.
• 2:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: And having the foundation of scripture to to plant then your identity on top of that is so huge.
• 2:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: I've always thought like it was really important to delineate personality and and to know yourself, as you said.
• 2:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: But that is frowned upon in church culture because we're supposed to place our flesh on the altar and play and not have desires because our heart is deceitful above all.
• 2:01:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a very it's a very fine line to tweeze apart, I think, in the in the Christian culture.
• 2:01:12
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I'm so glad that you did it in your book, and I think we need to do more of that because to me, I think deception can easily creep in, or condemnation when a person is not really grounded in who God made them to be, in their personalities, in their proclivities, in in all of the desires of their heart, because they are placed there by the Lord.
• 2:01:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:01:41
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and delight, delight yourself in the Lord, and he'll give you the desires of your heart.
• 2:01:46
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's a twofold meaning there.
• 2:01:47
  SPEAKER_02: It's like become pliable in the hands of the Lord, and he'll put desires in you.
• 2:01:53
  SPEAKER_02: Follow that.
• 2:01:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's him leading you.
• 2:01:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I believe that.
• 2:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: I just haven't really heard a lot of people talking about that, so it was refreshing to see you do it.
• 2:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, okay.
• 2:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: Umsing the story of Joseph and how God reverse engineered his life.
• 2:02:16
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like every prodigal, in my opinion, has a triumphal story waiting to be lived out.
• 2:02:23
  SPEAKER_01: What are your thoughts?
• 2:02:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, reverse engineers, it's it's a big term in my life.
• 2:02:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like to get here.
• 2:02:33
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, what's it gonna take?
• 2:02:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you reverse engineer and then you make it happen to get them there.
• 2:02:40
  SPEAKER_02: And and like we kind of talked about, you come to the providence of God.
• 2:02:45
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it was his will that I was a rebel.
• 2:02:47
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think it was his will that my pastor had these problems.
• 2:02:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think any of that was his perfect will.
• 2:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: But as Joseph said, what you meant for evil, God meant for good and he redeemed it, he turned it, he engineered it, he reconfigured the matrix.
• 2:03:09
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he just he just adjusted it to fit where it needed to fit to get you where you needed to be to do what you needed to do.
• 2:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: And when I would complain to the Lord, I'm five, six years behind, God, like I'm messed up, I wish I was ahead.
• 2:03:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, no, you're not.
• 2:03:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like I fixed all that.
• 2:03:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you're right where you need to be.
• 2:03:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're like, so you can do that for me, but you can do that for eight billion other people?
• 2:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because I'm God.
• 2:03:40
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yes, sir.
• 2:03:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like I, Captain.
• 2:03:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it's awesome.
• 2:03:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you have another book you're working on.
• 2:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us a little bit about that book?
• 2:03:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, it's called We Are One instead of I Am Cubed.
• 2:03:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's we are one, and it's the power of corporate identity.
• 2:04:00
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm gonna be dealing with uh I'm gonna be dealing with some stuff that is gonna go back to uh a passion that I have.
• 2:04:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the passion is this, and I don't want to come across negative, but in all honesty, um I just in my spirit, I'm just so sick of the industry of ministry and the shallowness of modern Christianity and the brokenness of um of the of modern Christianity.
• 2:04:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I I've been on this quest to get back to uh origins.
• 2:04:41
  SPEAKER_02: I call it the vintage church.
• 2:04:43
  SPEAKER_02: What was the vintage church like?
• 2:04:46
  SPEAKER_02: And can we have a vintage church in a modern world and be relevant even though we're vintage?
• 2:04:54
  SPEAKER_02: And and the answer is yes.
• 2:04:56
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to deal with that.
• 2:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: And to me, the primary reason, the primary way that we can do that is by linking arms with the leaders of that vintage church, that original church, and that would be the 12 apostles.
• 2:05:11
  SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that I I press in this is that I call myself a lead pastor.
• 2:05:18
  SPEAKER_02: I I'm old-fashioned, I have a business card that says I'm a lead pastor.
• 2:05:23
  SPEAKER_02: I have licenses that says I'm educated and I've got some, I can, I'm an expert in some areas.
• 2:05:31
  SPEAKER_02: I've got social media presence, I've got internet presence that calls me a lead pastor and a leader and an authority.
• 2:05:39
  SPEAKER_02: I got LinkedIn endorsements.
• 2:05:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like really something you should be able to listen to me.
• 2:05:45
  SPEAKER_02: But you don't know if I know what I'm talking about.
• 2:05:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 2:05:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know if you know what you're talking about.
• 2:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, legitimately, but I know 12 guys that knew what they were talking about.
• 2:05:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because the Bible says that number one, they spent three and a half years with Jesus.
• 2:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, they listened to his teaching, they watched his miracles and his ministry, and then they saw him die, they saw him raise from the dead, and they spent 40 days with the resurrected Christ, and they still were dumb as a box of rocks with due respect.
• 2:06:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 2:06:23
  SPEAKER_02: But then he taught them a Bible study from the writings of Moses, from the law, from the prophets, from the Psalms about how he had to suffer, die, and be raised from the dead the third day.
• 2:06:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the Bible says, and then he opened their understanding that they might understand the scriptures.
• 2:06:40
  SPEAKER_02: You don't know if the Lord's open opened my understanding or not.
• 2:06:44
  SPEAKER_02: Anybody, like you can say that about anybody, but I know 12 guys that it says that about.
• 2:06:51
  SPEAKER_02: So if I don't match them, if I can't link up with them in some fundamental way, then who knows who's right.
• 2:07:00
  SPEAKER_02: But if I match up, I have a standard that I can compare it to.
• 2:07:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's kind of like the foundation of it.
• 2:07:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's not all just along those lines, but it expands from there.
• 2:07:11
  SPEAKER_02: I want to talk about uh some of the religious uh parallels that we have with back in the day, back in their day, the Sadducees and the Pharisees.
• 2:07:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a fascinating study.
• 2:07:23
  SPEAKER_02: There's hardly you don't have you don't know of any Sadducees hardly in the Bible at all.
• 2:07:29
  SPEAKER_02: Um they're the money people, they're the aristocracy, the Pharisees are the theologians.
• 2:07:35
  SPEAKER_02: Jesus is more closely aligned with the Pharisees than any other religious group back then.
• 2:07:42
  SPEAKER_02: But he, you know, some Pharisees and their names, you know some of their stories, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, and some different, you know, you've got some names, but the Sadducees are kind of mysterious, they're money.
• 2:07:54
  SPEAKER_02: There, so you have the marriage of money and power and influence and theology.
• 2:08:01
  SPEAKER_02: And the and they they took over the Lord's house.
• 2:08:06
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 2:08:07
  SPEAKER_01: So good, so good, that's so good.
• 2:08:11
  SPEAKER_01: I pray it will be well received in the culture, because I I would imagine it's gonna, you know, shake some things, or but that's that's the goal, right?
• 2:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is just to get back to the basics and making it all about the Lord.
• 2:08:27
  SPEAKER_02: Amen.
• 2:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, one uh one more question.
• 2:08:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all throughout your book, you encourage and build faith, speaking to the possibility of what one could become.
• 2:08:44
  SPEAKER_01: If your ministry had one overarching theme, um, what is the overall ministry message or mission for you?
• 2:08:57
  SPEAKER_02: God is a merciful God, he's a powerful God.
• 2:09:03
  SPEAKER_02: He is a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God.
• 2:09:06
  SPEAKER_02: That's not cliché, it's genuine.
• 2:09:09
  SPEAKER_02: He's true to his word, his work is finished.
• 2:09:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, I I tell the story of uh the the that's one of my illustrations.
• 2:09:22
  SPEAKER_02: I love to share this, but with with a Bible, and I've got a Bible in here, uh, with the Bible, you've got you've got a story of man prior to the fall.
• 2:09:35
  SPEAKER_02: And uh here it is.
• 2:09:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's it is well I got off one.
• 2:09:42
  SPEAKER_02: Here we go.
• 2:09:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's right here.
• 2:09:47
  SPEAKER_02: That's the story of man before the that's the problem.
• 2:09:51
  SPEAKER_02: This is the solution.
• 2:09:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you could technically say, well, this is the solution, and this is to those who receive the solution, but I mean, it's like that's the problem.
• 2:10:03
  SPEAKER_02: And God went to all this trouble to fix the problem.
• 2:10:08
  SPEAKER_02: And my primary message is get it.
• 2:10:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's done.
• 2:10:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't care who you are, um, I don't care if you don't believe in God, you're an atheist, you're an agnostic, you're uh you follow some other world religion, you think you're a God yourself, you're a new ager, whatever it is, it doesn't matter.
• 2:10:32
  SPEAKER_02: If you'll just listen to the stories from this book, faith is coming.
• 2:10:39
  SPEAKER_02: Especially if you hear these stories from somebody that believes.
• 2:10:42
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's Romans 10.
• 2:10:44
  SPEAKER_02: Faith comes by hearing.
• 2:10:46
  SPEAKER_02: The context is when you hear somebody share these stories that believes these stories, faith is coming.
• 2:10:54
  SPEAKER_02: God's got a plan for your life, God, God has hope for you.
• 2:10:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would say it's the grace and the mercy of God, is my primary message.
• 2:11:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that uh all this, this He's not a judgmental, mean, precocious, you never know about old God kind of God.
• 2:11:14
  SPEAKER_02: He's a good God.
• 2:11:15
  SPEAKER_02: And you don't have to have a perverse definition of good.
• 2:11:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's simple.
• 2:11:22
  SPEAKER_02: He's good, he's a good God.
• 2:11:24
  SPEAKER_02: So there you go.
• 2:11:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's wonderful.
• 2:11:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I have one actual last question.
• 2:11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because of what you just said.
• 2:11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how do we possess all that God has for us?
• 2:11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I will I listened actually to one of your messages.
• 2:11:40
  SPEAKER_01: You taught on this, but is it really just about not quitting to possess the promised land, or is it more?
• 2:11:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, I when I have a definitive answer on that, I'll let you know.
• 2:11:54
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I'm still trying to get a hold of it.
• 2:11:57
  SPEAKER_02: But I do believe in the pursuit.
• 2:12:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 2:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: That the journey and the pursuit is where you get more and more, you possess more and more.
• 2:12:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you quit, you stop there and you start to lose what you had gotten.
• 2:12:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it is in the pursuit.
• 2:12:19
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you know, I I run with patience this race that is set before me.
• 2:12:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it's in the pursuit.
• 2:12:27
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I don't think we'll get everything.
• 2:12:31
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think we'll even realize everything until we get to the other side.
• 2:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: But doggone it, I'm gonna try to get all I can get on this side, and then I'll rejoice over there.
• 2:12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, me too.
• 2:12:44
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I I wanna I wanna be whatever God created me to be to the fullest.
• 2:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to leave anything on the table in this life.
• 2:12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 2:12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Pastor Donovan, thank you for being here.
• 2:12:57
  SPEAKER_01: I know we took a long time, but um I I really appreciate your time.
• 2:13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And for anybody, I know that one of the things that many people struggle with is self-worth, self-esteem, um, not new not knowing who you are, um, depression, anxiety, all of that can be wrapped up in just a lack of worth.
• 2:13:21
  SPEAKER_01: And um I really highly recommend this book.
• 2:13:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and it isn't just because I'm interviewing him today, it is because in my work as a therapist, identity, I believe identity is a is at the core of most everything.
• 2:13:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um because when our foundation is shaken, when we really don't know our value, our worth, you know, that just opens the door for so many else, so many other things to come in.
• 2:13:47
  SPEAKER_01: But this book is such a great foundation to help you restore that, build that, and maybe if you've never known that, to be able to see it.
• 2:13:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it has got ample scriptures throughout, and that is the place I think all of us need to start is identifying who God says we are and really beginning to embrace that.
• 2:14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it is called I Am by uh Donovan Hill.
• 2:14:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can find it on Amazon or any place that books are sold, and um and you can follow him on any social media.
• 2:14:20
  SPEAKER_01: But thank you so much, Pastor Donovan.
• 2:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for having me.
• 2:14:24
  SPEAKER_02: I really am honored to be here.
• 2:14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Appreciate it.
• 2:14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and God bless.
• 2:14:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh to everybody watching, if you have a prodigal story to share, please reach out to us.
• 2:14:34
  SPEAKER_01: We would love to talk to you.
• 2:14:35
  SPEAKER_01: God bless and thank you for watching.
• 2:14:37
  SPEAKER_00: We are so glad you joined us.
• 2:14:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a story of redemption or have worn the label of a backslider, we would love to hear from you.
• 2:14:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to support our ministry, your donation will be tax deductible.
• 2:14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Visit our website at the redeemedbackslider.org.
• 2:14:55
  SPEAKER_00: We hope you will tune in for our next episode.