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The Pain and Prayers of a Pastor with Brandon Smith · True Comfort

• Teasi Cannon (00:00) Hi, I'm TC and I want to welcome you to true comfort where it's our desire to live out 2nd Corinthians chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 Which assure us that we have a God who comforts us in all our afflictions and encourage us to share the comfort that we've received with others who need it. And I also want to welcome my guest, Brandon Smith. Brandon, thank you so much for being here with us today. Brandon Smith (00:26) It's a pleasure to be here. You did me a favor by sharing your story on our podcast. So it was a no-brainer. No-brainer. Teasi Cannon (00:33) ⁓ well, thank you. I enjoyed that conversation a lot. We had a lot in common and a lot that we shared. But so listeners know a little bit about you. I'm going to read a little of your bio here. So Brandon is the co-host of Black and Blurred podcast, along with his brother, Darren, who's great. And just side note, it was funny that he reminded me so much of my brother. His smile is just great. I did. I sent you a picture of my brother. Brandon Smith (01:00) You sent me a picture of it, right? Because I think we ended up agreeing a little bit. When we saw that, we were like, OK, I can see. Yeah, yeah. Teasi Cannon (01:05) Yeah, it's like they have the same grin. ⁓ It was just really sweet. ⁓ So anyway, side note, Brandon has been in pastoral ministry for 11 years. He was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland after and after trusting in Jesus while in university, he was burdened with revealing the wholeness of the gospel of Jesus and the Lord's desire to unite all things in heaven and on earth through him. God in his grace has sustained him through tumult and church ministry and has now called Brandon to plant a church in Baltimore after 11 years in the DC area. He and his wife ⁓ Tulani are currently following God's guidance as Brandon raises support and as they raise their three sons in the knowledge and discipline of the Lord, along with building Legos, constant wrestling matches and playing hide and seek. In his free time, Brandon and Darren tackle hard topics of this generation around the blurred views of race, culture, and personhood by bringing clarity through the lens of the gospel. I love that. and I will put the link in the show notes on how to find your podcast and ⁓ all the other. Brandon Smith (02:15) I'll make sure I send you the link to your episode as well in case people haven't heard it. Teasi Cannon (02:20) Okay, wonderful, yeah, I'll put that in the ⁓ show notes so people can find your ministry because you guys are talking about culturally relevant things on a regular basis. I know listeners will really appreciate that, but. As you said, we got to know each other a little bit through your ⁓ podcast, the conversation we had. And I think we both went to the cross-examined instructors academy. Isn't that true? No, not at the same time, but we both experienced that ⁓ intensive weekend workshop, which I have mentioned on other episodes. Anyone interested in apologetics, learning how to articulate? Brandon Smith (02:46) We We weren't there at the same time, were we? Okay. Teasi Cannon (03:01) better how to ask better questions. It is definitely a worthwhile intensive workshop. So we have that in common. And so that leads me to just remind listeners that each week I am inviting a guest who has intentionally studied the evidence for the biblical worldview. I'm inviting them to open up their heart with us to share about a personal experience with pain or heartbreak, how God has comforted them through that. and why they trust that God's confidence is trustworthy because of the evidence that they have learned. And my hope and prayer for these conversations is that we all as Christians will see that it is not uncommon to experience heartbreak and suffering as Christians, that we will see we're not alone, that we will see that we are not fools for believing in God's promises. and that we will actually have more in our own tool belt to navigate our own future doubts, but also to help others navigate their wounds, their doubts, and their confusion. so again, Brandon, thank you for accepting my invitation to come and encourage us today. I want to also just say one more thing to listeners, that these conversations are not pre-scripted, and so content may arise that is... very deeply painful and may be considered triggering to some. And so I always just like to say, just be prepared for some potentially heavy topics to come up. But with all that said, I'm going to just let you start wherever you're wanting to start, Brandon. Brandon Smith (04:50) Yeah, well yeah once again TC I'm glad to be on here with you and contribute to this because I think that I told you multiple times in phone and in our episode ⁓ that this is a ministry of wound sharing. It's an incredible ministry and it's actually a weapon against a lot of people who would find justification for quote-unquote leaving the faith to recognize that they've been wounded without knowing who healer is. think it's a good revelation that comes from Christians being able show their wounds. Teasi Cannon (05:21) Yeah. Brandon Smith (05:31) this podcast and then also you continuing to give that opportunity to other people in this podcast. ⁓ yeah, you know, as you said, born and raised here in Baltimore city, was ⁓ raised by two parents who know and love the Lord currently. Teasi Cannon (05:36) Thank you. Brandon Smith (05:50) But something very interesting about that, I took into pastoral ministry when I was pastoring students, is that I believed that my identity as a Christian was hereditary. It extended to me through my parents. And so, I went to church because they're bigger than me. They tell me what to do, I did it. And there was a great foundation in me, but as I got older and adopted different... Teasi Cannon (06:03) Hmm. Yeah. Brandon Smith (06:19) worldly ideologies, dealing with my own identity things. There are aspects of my own sinful nature that meshed very well with the world and the world that I was around. ⁓ And so in these two worlds in kind of like my teenage years I got very good at being duplicitous. I knew how to be very fluent in Christianese. I knew how to be and say the things that I needed to say. ⁓ But then I also knew how to turn that off when I was away from all that and seeking all the different pleasures and toxic ⁓ vices of the world. So when I was in college, ⁓ I had a professor actually sent me a documentary. She overheard me and a classmate of mine talking about religion. Because once again, I could wear my Christian hat. My classmate was a Muslim and we talking about religion and I was just arguing on behalf of Christianity even though I didn't know Christ. Teasi Cannon (07:23) you Brandon Smith (07:24) But if I was filling out some application, I would check off the Christian box and she overheard that conversation and ⁓ sent me a documentary and that documentary was meant to disprove religion to say how religion is false. Now, you and I have been around the apologetic block long enough to know that when someone's trying to disprove religion, the focus of the conversation is going to be Christianity, right? No one's out there. Teasi Cannon (07:41) wow. Right. Brandon Smith (07:52) in the secular world trying to disprove Krishna. ⁓ No one's doing that. So the entire documentary was, I'm sorry, the entire section of this copycat thesis that I'm sure you're familiar with ⁓ was surrounded around how Jesus is a copycat of just ancient religions and it's not true. The documentary was so poorly argumented that even in my current, Teasi Cannon (07:56) Right, you're right, yeah. Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (08:21) I found holes in it. And it kind of disrupted my desires for that documentary. I was hoping it would give justification for doing the things that I was really wanting to do in my life. If you could just get rid of this thing, because I wasn't an atheist, I would never say that there is no God. It's probably worse than an atheist. It's like I think God exists, I just don't care what that means. ⁓ Teasi Cannon (08:36) Yeah. Yeah. Brandon Smith (08:48) And so it was found wanting that documentary which led me for the first time to want to read the Bible to be introduced to this God and introduced I was. The gospel in Romans was as clear as day. And when it talks about the conditions of my own heart, my status before this holy and righteous God, the truth that I know to be true but I'm holding it down with all my strength and power, it's exhausting. Teasi Cannon (09:02) Hmm. Brandon Smith (09:15) as Paul says, suppressing the truth in our unrighteousness. And then also addressing the conditions of the world. But then that just gave, ⁓ it was like balm to my spirit to recognize that God is so loving to have done something about this dire problem in our world and in my own heart. And that the condition has been rectified. That while I was a sinner, he sent Christ to die for me was so profound. because a lot of my idolatry was in performance. And the fact that God rescued me at my most disgusting state means that there isn't something that I can do that he hasn't already seen that would make it push him away. That in my most disgusting state, while I'm an enemy of his, he sent his son Jesus to die for me. So when I become his son, there isn't something that I'm going to be doing to maintain that love. That doesn't make sense. That love is established. And the way that I live is an outpouring response to that love. And so there wasn't anything in the world that I had ever heard that was that clear. And so I was grateful for that. And I was introduced to the God of the Bible, turned to Christ, and my entire life shifted. Teasi Cannon (10:18) Yeah. Brandon Smith (10:39) And what was important to me at that moment was, as I reflected on being around church, being in church culture, being very familiar with it, yet having no relationship with the object of that entire culture, Christ. And so now there was like a new lens through which I was seeing things and the very fundamental piece of it was just my very presence in a worship gathering was very significant to me. Teasi Cannon (10:53) Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Brandon Smith (11:09) ⁓ I come from a musical family ⁓ and so I was always attracted to certain aspects of music and you I grew up in a Presbyterian church ⁓ in the late 80s and 90s so the music wasn't awesome but but still there was this inexplicable beauty ⁓ and I couldn't attribute it to anything Teasi Cannon (11:25) Right, no, I know. I was right there with you. Yeah. Yeah. Brandon Smith (11:38) Now when I came to Christ, now I could attribute it to something. I was also very astonished about people's responses to the singing. I'm looking at them like, well why do they seem so jubilant or so emotionally connected to this song? It's just a song. But I've always had that type of relationship with music. I love music and now I know where it's pointing me. It's pointing me to this person. And I'm just. Teasi Cannon (11:52) Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (12:05) hearing a reflection of the beauty of this person it's pointing me to. ⁓ So that was a very important thing for me and I kind of was on fire, had this zeal for ministry. I was in engineering school when I came to Christ and I had a bit of a wrestling match with the Lord because I wanted to see some fruit from the work of getting an engineering degree but ultimately I was really chasing... some of the things I was chasing in that career. I wanted some prestige, I wanted comfort, I wanted a good salary, I wanted financial security. All those things are good, but I exalted them beyond what they ought to be and I was holding on to that. ⁓ And so when I finally renounced those things, ⁓ I knew I was going into ministry. ⁓ And I kinda just went back to my home church. I didn't know what it meant to go into ministry, I didn't know what the process was, I just showed up. Teasi Cannon (12:37) Mm-hmm. Hmm. Brandon Smith (13:01) on a Monday saying, I'm just gonna come here and you guys tell me what to do and we'll see what the Lord does with that. And this little small church in West Baltimore City, the way that I would describe it to people is, lot of people are familiar with Tony Evans. Tony Evans grew up at the church across the street from my church that was well known in Baltimore. And I would always say, yeah, I'm at the church across the street. ⁓ But. Teasi Cannon (13:03) Yeah. Brandon Smith (13:30) It was a small family church of about 100 of us. My family was probably like a good 40 or 45 % of that church. It was my grandmother's church, her children, my cousins were there, we all grew up there. And so as I'm in this new phase of life of this church, I've been at my entire life, it is now my church. Teasi Cannon (13:36) you wow. Brandon Smith (13:59) for the first time in my life in ⁓ early adulthood. Teasi Cannon (14:01) Yeah. Brandon Smith (14:06) And so that was just, I remember those days. I remember those days when the scriptures is just ⁓ yearning for it to read it and sit with the Lord and ⁓ also recognizing a lot of the kind phariseic ⁓ tendencies of our church. ⁓ And that the faith of a lot of the youth was being kind of stuffed down. We had champions. We had older brothers and sisters, saints who were there at the church who championed. us and facilitated our growth and fanning the flame of our faith, but I would say in large part those flames were being snuffed out. And so ⁓ as a result of that we went through a bit of a Rolodex of pastors. And so by this time at my church when I just come to Christ we were on our fifth pastor just in my lifetime. Teasi Cannon (14:54) well. Brandon Smith (15:05) ⁓ our fifth pastor, he's a young guy, ⁓ vision guy, know, ambitious. And ⁓ I grew in relationship with this person, one, because I wanted to go into ministry, but two, because a part of my coming to Christ, it's a weird moment, I'm a very, I'm a logician. ⁓ I'm a very rational person. ⁓ And my sinful side, especially Brandon BC outside of Christ is very arrogant. It becomes arrogant. It's ⁓ self-righteous, it's pompous. And so when I was not in Christ, when I would look at Christians and the church going, even though I was church going, because I was younger, fasting, prayer, I'm looking at it like this doesn't make sense, this is stupid. And so when my coming to Christ in God's grace, you know. the still small voice I heard in my mind was, Brandon, you're stupid. And so I remember thinking I need to reconsider every conclusion I had made about the Lord up until this point. And so I did that. And I reconsidered things about prayer and I reconsidered them by actually actively engaging them as if I'm engaging a person and not just some act, not just some thing, fasting, I'm engaging a person. Teasi Cannon (16:09) wow. Mm. Brandon Smith (16:33) I thought that serving in ministry teams was weird. I needed to go face first into a ministry team. And a part of that kind of journey that the Lord had me on was this decision I had made about this pastor who I knew before he pastored our church and I kind of cast him aside as something I didn't like about him. Which was not a, that was a rare thing for me. I'm not a person who meets people and I say, I don't like this person. Teasi Cannon (17:00) Mm. Brandon Smith (17:01) I'm typically an easygoing person when it comes down to people. But since I made that conclusion, he was a part of my ⁓ spiritual journey unbeknownst to him because I had this feeling about him. I knew that I needed to move closer toward him and build a relationship. And I did that and we did grow in relationship. But there was still something I did not like. ⁓ Teasi Cannon (17:30) Mm. Brandon Smith (17:31) something that did not sit well with me. ⁓ And I know one specific thing was, he was from Baltimore, I was from Baltimore. We attended the same high school, it was a college prep high school, engineering high school, that was a bonding piece for us. And also had similar previous lifestyles outside of Christ. ⁓ In my testimony of the Lord in his... faithfulness and his grace towards a wretch like me, I have gratitude in being able to share the way that I was in that lifestyle. But whenever he talked about it, it seemed like I was being walked through some type of trophy room of some sort. And that did not sit well with me. There were also different practices. He would visit homes. Teasi Cannon (18:18) Mm. Mm. Brandon Smith (18:30) husbandless homes. That I think that a pastor ought to be very cautious of, to say the least. I think that as a pastor, ⁓ my practice is you don't go into houses with a woman by herself. Just out of respect for her, especially if she's married, respect for her husband, and also out of safety for you. Teasi Cannon (18:48) Yeah. Right. Right. Brandon Smith (18:59) to be above reproach, right? ⁓ These are the things I still just had issue with, but in my immaturity, in my youngness, I was including that into the things that I needed to submit to the Lord. Teasi Cannon (19:00) Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (19:14) brain and you need to whatever stuff it down and that turned into just something catastrophic where he ended up in an adulterous relationship with not just someone a member of the church but a member of my family Teasi Cannon (19:17) Right. Wow. Brandon Smith (19:34) ⁓ And I ended up finding out because another one of my package deals was missions trips I had pompous arrogant thoughts about missions trips. So guess what I did when I came to Christ ⁓ I went on the missions trip to Guatemala. It was a phenomenal time but Literally the morning I came back. I got a frantic call from the husband of this wife ⁓ And it turns out that at least what it seems like is the Teasi Cannon (19:45) Yeah. Brandon Smith (20:04) pastor and the pastor's wife were in some argument. The pastor's wife knew what had happened between her husband and the wife of this other husband. And in sort of a kind adult temper tantrum, she calls the husband and says, guess what my husband and your wife did? And the first person he calls is me. And it's devastating. Because even with me not being in Christ throughout my Teasi Cannon (20:22) Wow. Mmm. Mmm. Brandon Smith (20:33) Adulthood I mean throughout my childhood. I grew up in a kingdom Family not just my immediate family my entire family my grandmother ⁓ Grandfather who was an elder who at the time of this had passed ⁓ But my father's siblings not just my father's side of family and ⁓ and You know my cousins my grandparents made sure that everything Teasi Cannon (20:39) Mm-hmm. Wow. Brandon Smith (21:03) was done through the lens of the gospel and our love for Jesus Christ. Our family meals, our birthday celebrations, no matter whose birthday it was, the entire family we had to get together. We'd sing, we'd pray for the person. ⁓ So I grew up in a kingdom family. And so this was devastating. And what was even more devastating was being the only person who knows. Teasi Cannon (21:17) Wow, that's such a gift. Yeah. Brandon Smith (21:32) It is, it is, it was... And so there's this kind of selfish thing in addition to this logistics thing where it's like, do I tell people? And then after about, I don't know, a few hours, I'm like, I can't not tell. This is gonna kill me from the inside. And in addition to that, I had uncles, my father. Teasi Cannon (21:33) Yeah, that's a lot to carry. Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (22:02) were elders, my mother, my sister, my brother served. I was serving. So these people are in influential positions. ⁓ And now at this time, I had just started seminary on my journey into ministry. What is so fascinating, if I pause really quickly. What's so fascinating about ⁓ the Lord dragging me to Himself is that I, because of the faithfulness of my parents and because of the faithfulness of their parents, ⁓ in my own personal life, my rock bottom that makes me cry out to the Lord was the rock of ages. It's not just this random thing where I can go seeking out answers and go to spiritual places to try to see what people are talking about. No, I had already been given the truth and now I have the truth to investigate and it wasn't found wanting, it was proven in my own life. think there's an apologist named Philip Dodridge, linked very late apologist, who was doing a treatise on apologetics and he once said in the opening, he said, I implore you to observe that there is no greater evidence Teasi Cannon (23:10) Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (23:29) in the soul of the true believer than to have felt the power of the life-saving gospel in his own heart. Teasi Cannon (23:34) Yeah. Brandon Smith (23:36) And so even as apologists, when we give evidence for the reality of God as revealed in scripture, there is no evidence more significant than to have felt that power on your own heart and having the salvation of the Lord pressed on your own soul. And that's the gift that my parents gave to me and that coming to Christ was a filling in. Teasi Cannon (23:53) Yeah. Brandon Smith (24:03) of this skeleton that they had given me with flesh and blood and meaning. And so at that point, that's the reality. That's true. And there's nothing that can change my mind, even if it is some of the most devastating things that happened to me. Because I think about, as I reflect on my journey, as somebody who is wanting to go into ministry, to train people in the knowledge of the Lord, to be an agent of his kingdom, for that to happen is easily an out to say, nevermind, I'm not doing any of this. Teasi Cannon (24:49) Right, because of the hypocrisy that you witnessed? Right. Brandon Smith (24:51) That's right. That's right. And I witnessed great hypocrisy before that. You you grow up in a church culture, in any type of church culture really, but you know, I think there was a lot of unhealth in a lot of the members at our church, but you get older, you begin working, you're working in the place where the adults in your church live, they come to your job, you see the way they interact with you outside of church, and you're like, what is this? Teasi Cannon (25:03) Mm-hmm. Right, right. Brandon Smith (25:22) And so now that I'm a different person and now that I'm in Christ, the most devastating thing that I've ever experienced happens. And I have to go through the trouble of trying to communicate this. And so I let my parents know. My parents, meet with some of the elders. Some of them weren't there. Like my uncle wasn't there in this meeting. ⁓ Thinking about having to let... Man, they were so hard broke. Teasi Cannon (26:02) Yeah. Brandon Smith (26:04) ⁓ And my only reason for wanting to push toward taking this route was because I wasn't even in my, I wasn't in my son hat, my grandson hat, my brother hat, whatever. I was in a training to be a pastor hat. And by God's grace, my very first seminary class that had just started when I found this out was called Organizational Change and Conflict. I don't even remember all my seminary class. Teasi Cannon (26:21) Right. Right. Brandon Smith (26:34) But this was called organizational change and conflict and it was how to deal with ⁓ conflict and catastrophe in the overall church administration or organization, how to deal with it in a familial context when your family is involved, and then how to deal with it in your own heart. Teasi Cannon (26:59) Well, that was providential timing. Brandon Smith (27:02) That course literally walked me through how to move forward in this circumstance. Which, go ahead. Teasi Cannon (27:10) Did anyone, you may be getting to this, but so you've got a pastor who has committed adultery with a member of your family. Brandon Smith (27:18) Yeah. Teasi Cannon (27:21) and your family is deeply a part of the fabric of this church and leadership and just history. So this isn't, know, I'm just recapping for listeners because you have to remember all those facets just to understand even the weightiness of this. It's not just you're sitting in the back pew and you hear ⁓ a rumor about this guy. This is your pastor, you're training for leadership. You've been brought into understanding it. a painful sin, a big moral failure has occurred. And did you ever, I mean, I guess did you ever experience any pushback or any shaming, any guilting of you for sharing that information with your family? Or did everyone understand that was the right thing to do? Brandon Smith (28:14) I didn't experience any high magnitudes of that to my face, I don't know, but I did experience some pushback. Not the shaming part of some pushback. ⁓ Teasi Cannon (28:21) Okay, good, good. Brandon Smith (28:30) you know. A big piece of me wanting to move forward ⁓ with sharing it was because of the catastrophe that that type of secret causes in a church body. Now that church is my family. I mean my siblings and cousins and other best friends we grew up with, we just consider ourselves all cousins because we grew up in that church. We're still all now on a text thread where they annoy me with 20 texts a day. Teasi Cannon (28:58) Mm. that's funny. Brandon Smith (29:03) All of us. I'm doing a Bible study with some tonight. Like this is a tight-knit group that has been sustained through a lot of tragedy and I thank God for that because that's what it means to be children of light. You have to be in the light and even if someone's trying to conceal it, you need to bring it into the light even if you get scarred in the process. Teasi Cannon (29:19) Hmm. right. Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (29:33) even if you get scarred in the process. And I think that's what I was praying through because outside of the church being my family, my actual biological family is involved and I need to inform them so that we can walk in the light together. Teasi Cannon (29:47) Right. and help this man, this pastor. know, you can't, I mean, we're seeing the fruit, and I'm sorry to interrupt again, but we are seeing the fruit in our culture in a major way of instances where people don't share, where they know of an egregious sin in a leader or an influencer and they don't share. And then years go by and more and more people are wounded. And then what happens? It eventually comes out. And God meant for us to deal with that. Brandon Smith (29:49) and the push, ⁓ go ahead, right. No. Teasi Cannon (30:18) in-house with one another for the church to be self-correcting by loving each other enough to hold each other accountable. And it's as if we have completely dropped that mechanism and the world itself is now being used by God, I believe, to correct the church by exposing the darkness. You're talking about having things in the light. It's better to have things in the light in a community of people who love one another. Brandon Smith (30:38) yeah. ⁓ yeah. Teasi Cannon (30:46) And if we don't obey that command, which is a command, to hold each other accountable, to help each other repent, when we don't do that in the body of Christ, then the world is all too happy to shine light on it. So, you what you were doing was hard and excruciating, ⁓ not trivial whatsoever, but it was really an act of love to go and... Brandon Smith (31:09) genuinely was. Teasi Cannon (31:10) act a love for your family, love for your church community, and love for this pastor to be able to start moving toward a plan for restoring or helping bring wholeness into a very broken situation. Brandon Smith (31:26) Yeah, and there were big consequences to that. don't mean consequence in like purely ⁓ harmful, but there were consequences to that. And it's related to also some of the pushback that I got. The pushback that me and my parents got from the elders was, because in this meeting with the elders, ⁓ the pastor was not there. ⁓ And the response we got was, It wasn't crass, it's gonna sound crass the way I say it or flip it, I say flipping is better, the way that I say it, but their response was for us to forgive him and to keep it to ourselves. And I, go ahead. Teasi Cannon (32:08) which I am just blown away because that is the opposite of biblical forgiveness. Biblical forgiveness does not ignore sin and sweep it under the rug. So this is such a therapeutic definition of forgiveness that has crept in to our culture throughout history. And I'm blown away because I'm actually right now doing a deep dive on this and for you to bring up that specific perfect example. of just forgive him. That doesn't line up with biblical forgiveness. Brandon Smith (32:40) Well that's because we've celebritized the office of the pastor. So much so that even people covet it. And I'm so flabbergasted when I hear young guys say, can't wait to be a pastor. And I think about that, I'm thinking why? I'm not saying, that's terrible. I'm just saying when I was as young as you were, my eyes weren't set on living a life on a cross. That doesn't seem attractive to me. Teasi Cannon (32:57) Yeah. Hmm, yeah, right. Brandon Smith (33:10) It's not attractive unless you don't think it's a cross. Teasi Cannon (33:15) You know what, Brandon, too, that reminds me, I've heard that for example, in China, where the church is underground, pastors don't want to be known as pastors because they're the first ones who will be put to death. so, imagine in our country, if everyone that decides they want to have a platform or be a pastor knew it was setting them up for greater chances of actual death, how many people would be saying, I want to be a pastor. Brandon Smith (33:46) Yeah, sign me up. I, I'm, you are speaking my language right now. I do. Teasi Cannon (33:48) I'm thinking too many things at once, but do you see what I'm saying? It's kind of like we are realizing like, okay, this is a high calling and this is a laying down of your life. Christian ministry is meant to be others centered and cross-focused and our celebrity culture has turned it into something that would be absolutely foreign to ⁓ the first church, you know? Brandon Smith (34:10) the duties of this pastor which this current pastor in our story today he was still carrying those duties out some of which being communion Teasi Cannon (34:14) bright. Wow. Brandon Smith (34:26) before one takes communion yet he's still administering and taking communion. He is performing pre-marital counsel for married people or people who are getting married. ⁓ He did the counseling of the couple that he sent against. Teasi Cannon (34:46) Are you kidding me? And they knew? They received his counsel? ⁓ Brandon Smith (34:52) Yeah, so the council came before the adultery. Yeah, the council came before the adultery, but not only that, I know from the husband that the husband was also being in a way manipulated by him because he would hear certain things from the pastor and he would say, hey, I don't think that's appropriate. And he's saying you need to be a more trusting husband is what your problem is. You need to be a more. Teasi Cannon (34:55) Oh, before the event. okay. Yeah, that makes sense. I'm like, I don't know that I would. Yeah, that's not uncommon. Yeah, that's pretty typical. Brandon Smith (35:20) So now it's clear cause to say you are not qualified. ⁓ You are not qualified. And so because that unfortunate pathway being the pathway that elders wanted to take for us to forgive and ⁓ continue, I mentioned what I said before on purpose about this new life lens I had. Teasi Cannon (35:26) Right. Brandon Smith (35:49) on the church and the beauty of the church and the reverence for God's bride is because that played a role into my inability to do such a thing. I had lived my entire life coming into a church with no meaning and no genuineness and this duplicitous mindset and I'm not doing that again. If it means that I have to come in here and act like I don't see sin in this guy or that I'm not dealing with anything, I'm not... Teasi Cannon (35:59) Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (36:17) I lived as a hypocrite intentionally already. I know what that's like and I don't want to do it anymore out of love for the Lord. So I can't stay here. And I know that if I leave, I'm not, it's not that I'm a big deal, but like I said, my family and I am one of the older sons in my family. So if I leave and my parents leave, that's a humongous deal. Teasi Cannon (36:27) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. Right. Brandon Smith (36:47) and I'm not gonna leave and not my siblings leave, it's gonna turn into a humongous deal. And so that's why we also had to walk with our family through it. And I actually got called, I got a call from the pastor while we were going through this. Actually, that's a lie, I called him. I called him to let him know, hey, you have an opportunity to confess this to the church. And he's telling me how much of a bad idea that is and he's giving. Teasi Cannon (36:55) Yeah. Brandon Smith (37:17) and I say, look, I just want to be very humble about this, but clear, I'm no longer under your authoritative care. And I wasn't calling you for permission, I'm calling you out of respect to give you a heads up to say, I'm letting my family know what took place. And that means, inevitably, the church is going to know. You have an opportunity to get out in front of this and actually pastor them. Teasi Cannon (37:46) Yeah, or better yet, step down. Right, yeah, pastor them because Matthew 18 is all about, I mean, a lot of times it's used against victims. like, well, did you go? Did you talk to them? But really it's church's own. Brandon Smith (37:46) you have an opportunity. That would be pastoring them. Yeah. ⁓ you Teasi Cannon (38:03) ⁓ love for sinners to bring them to repentance. The whole goal is to get the person who has done the offending, the sinning to repent so that they can be restored in whatever way is possible. But in the case of a pastor sinning in that way, that would not mean instant restoration to ministry. Like the right thing to do would be to step as far away from that pulpit as you possibly can. And so what you were doing and what you were being counseled to do just ignore this or just to say it would be too hard on the congregation to hear this is such a common story these days. And it grieves me because it is playing right into the enemy's playbook in order to completely continue and perpetuate these cycles of hypocritical sinful behaviors in high influence positions. I know you and I are on the same page with this. It's tragic when what the position you had was the biblical position and your desire was to honor Christ and his church. But in this situation, you were being faced with, I going to have to leave the church of my childhood? Brandon Smith (39:18) That's the big thing. Teasi Cannon (39:19) Yeah, am I going to have to uproot my family? And that it wasn't just a building for you. This is your history. This is part of your heritage. And it's a bigger deal than just having to choose the church across the street. It's a much bigger deal, what you were faced with. So what did you end up having to do? Brandon Smith (39:42) ⁓ yeah, we left, know, those. Teasi Cannon (39:45) Your whole family, parents and everyone? Wow, that was a big deal. Brandon Smith (39:50) I remember Darren, he was the worship leader. You know, ⁓ you dare to tell him. Teasi Cannon (40:17) Is that Darren's dad? Is that his dad? ⁓ yeah, that's right, your brother. Sorry, forgive me. not cause... Right. Okay. Brandon Smith (40:17) person. No, Darren and I are brothers. Yeah, that's right. It's his uncle too. It's my father's oldest brother. Older brother, older brother. Yeah, he had to tell him. I remember him telling me he was just... He just started weeping. Teasi Cannon (40:41) you Brandon Smith (40:45) And so, yeah, know, things transpired the way that we thought that it would. Our family trickled out and that, you know, that turned into a lot of rumors and all this other stuff until the poor fat pastor was forced to step down in a very unhealthy way. and that church is, it is a building. It's got a few people still in there that gather on Sundays, but ⁓ yeah. The gospel is not there. The gospel is not there. ⁓ And I think about that as a foundational entry to ministry. I'm like, whoa, what you doing, man? I couldn't get like a... ⁓ Teasi Cannon (41:35) Right. Brandon Smith (41:37) But I'm grateful. I'm grateful for it. Because... The last 11 years of my life have probably been the hardest. And that's not including that. That was early on. me leaving that church and I actually met somebody who was in one of my seminary classes who was a part of a church plant out in the D.C. area and that's what made me move. And I started doing ⁓ ministry and being trained. But that era of life where we get into like the BLM stuff and the race divisions and all the rhetoric behind it that was actually tearing churches apart and then you've got COVID and you know, we're people, right? We're sent for people and it's gonna happen. But what was so hard about that was being in pastoral ministry and not being able to be on the front lines with brothers in locked arms because you're divided over all these issues that seem very obviously unbiblical. ⁓ And there were a lot of different things that really were heartbreaking in the way that I approached it. So, ⁓ you know, even being a black American man from Baltimore City, ⁓ Darren and I say this often on our podcast. Teasi Cannon (42:53) night. Brandon Smith (43:08) If somebody wants to have a political conversation with us, which is not my desire, because they suck, conversations. However, if you want to do that, you'll come to know I'm a conservative. Now might not use all the typical conservative jargon because my conservatism is rooted in my faith. It's not the other way around. I'm not a Christian identifying with other American, you know, Christians. I'm a conservative because of my faith. Teasi Cannon (43:15) Yeah. Mm-hmm, right. Mm-hmm. Right. Brandon Smith (43:37) And it's a natural thing of Christ to preserve and conserve things that are good. And so that's where that conservative stance comes from. ⁓ But, you know, during that time frame, you had lot of people writing books and blogs and ironically, in the area that I was in, in the more affluent DC area, northern DC area in Silver Spring, as a... Teasi Cannon (43:46) Hmm. Brandon Smith (44:07) black man from the inner city of Baltimore, everybody thought they had me pegged. I'd read books about people like you. I know what you guys are going through and things like that until they realized I actually don't like that we murder babies like we do in our country. I don't like that we are blaming regular law-abiding citizens for criminals' acts with guns. I don't like... Teasi Cannon (44:13) Mm. Brandon Smith (44:36) that we are ⁓ hoisting up the altar of sexualized sensuousness in the name of compassion. What? No. I'm not for any of those things. And not only that, I also see my blackness and your whiteness as a pendant that God wears on the necklace of his glory. It doesn't point to me at all. It doesn't point to you at all. Teasi Cannon (44:46) Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (45:05) It's actual reflection of his diversity and his creativity and all this language of our skin tones that point to us to glorify us is satanic at its core. That leaves you in a lonely place. Teasi Cannon (45:11) Wow. Wow, that's such a beautiful way to say that, Brandon. I've never heard that. I really love that. Brandon Smith (45:26) It's the only way that I can even see it because the opposite... Let me tell you, T.C., growing up just learning of black history, now it's gonna be... There's always truth to the deception that Satan brings, right? There's always truth, but if somebody were to take 13, 14-year-old Brandon, if I was able to articulate it and have me write a book... on black history, that it would be that all of these good black people were just trying to live good wholesome lives and they were just disrupted and destroyed by all these evil white people. That would be the conclusion. That's just the way things are presented. ⁓ Movies, television, books, museums, you're inundated with it. Teasi Cannon (46:17) Right, right. Yeah. Brandon Smith (46:24) so that the only thing you can actually leave with is genuine bitterness and hatred. And when you come to Christ, you don't realize that, ⁓ that doesn't exist. You realize that even if something like that does exist, it exists in the heart of every. Teasi Cannon (46:29) Mm-hmm. Right. Brandon Smith (46:44) every man. So this narrative that's being ascribed to America, the youngest country in the world, it's like, you know, we have decades and decades and centuries and millennia of these very things happening throughout the world and we have them currently in our own country today and we're ignoring it for the sake of a specific narrative and that leaves you in a very lonely place in ministry. Teasi Cannon (46:45) Right. Right? Yeah. Brandon Smith (47:13) And especially in my context. ⁓ And so it was easy to just be labeled as a Trumper, this kind of scoff and slander people, Christians will give you. You're labeled as a Trumper because magically, you know, I think the way I do because Donald J. Trump decided to run for the presidency in 2016. And that's where my thinking started. So it's a very condescending place. Teasi Cannon (47:42) Mm. So your entire journey into intentional ministry, it started with this initiation that was excruciating, having witnessed massive hypocrisy and moral failure and sin in the church you loved. And then you've gone into many, years as a pastor with a pastor's heart for the body of Christ with a love of... Christ and the unity of his body having navigated one challenge after the next being pigeonholed being labeled and and you know in your own context and Also just, you know, I'm sure dealing with the normal life stressors that we all face, even when we're not pastors. And so what I'd love to hear is just, you know, in general, how has God, what has been the overarching comfort that you've received from God through it all? is, how has God sustained you? And then in general, you know, just briefly, I know we could spend hours talking about all the evidence, but. And if you could briefly say through it all, God has comforted me this way and I trust that comfort because this is the most powerful evidence I lean into when I'm tempted to doubt. What would that look like for listeners? Brandon Smith (49:04) Yeah. The Lord in His grace has treated me like ⁓ a simple minded man in the way that You know, I trust your word Lord, but could you please just show me some stuff to you know to really help me in my simple-mindedness I addressed a couple of those things already and that he literally carried me through those trying times by placing me in that class and not just being able to help how to work my family through it, but then reading Ken Sandy's Peacemaker and what it means to do work with the Lord in your own heart Teasi Cannon (49:38) Right. Brandon Smith (49:46) to able to lay those things and pursue offering forgiveness ⁓ as an act of obedience and also a healing ⁓ in your own heart. ⁓ But then he has also ⁓ surrounded me with a host of brothers and sisters from afar ⁓ in real time carrying me. I shared this with you when we first spoke on the phone that you talking about Teasi Cannon (50:05) Mm. Brandon Smith (50:15) the wounds you sustained in your church during, know, this is not involving my home church situation, but what I was dealing with in ministry. It was the very first time I ever heard the most clarity of words put to what I was feeling and experiencing. That in and of itself is such a gift because we can trust that the Holy Spirit actually speaks on our behalf when we don't have the words to even come to the Lord. Teasi Cannon (50:45) Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (50:45) But it is still better to be able to come with Him and say, Lord, this is what I'm feeling and You gifted that to me. And that was just God's grace to be able to do that, to lift me in that. Because sometimes when you are dealing with something and you don't know what's happening, it's a bit of a, yeah, it's confusing. It's a bit of despair in and of itself. ⁓ And another thing, lastly, He allowed us to go through Teasi Cannon (50:52) Mm. Yeah, it's confusing. Mm, yeah. Brandon Smith (51:15) my own kind of personal trial that was aside from ministerial in that my wife was infertile. We found out we wouldn't be able to have children. And in that time as a husband with a wife who's broken over such a reality, you're left helpless. There's nothing you can do about that. You can't do anything. But the only thing you can do is it teaches you how to hurt. with someone. That's all you can do. It teaches you how to sit and weep with someone and pray for someone. We both were hurting in a way, but she will always have hurt differently than I have. I'll never know what that's actually like to be a child bearer who can't bear children. I'm not a child bearer ontologically. Teasi Cannon (52:04) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (52:14) And so in that time, we were on this journey of repentance because when we first got married, we had a very common Americanized thought of this is when we're gonna have children because we wanna do these things and we wanna do this and that. And so we had a time of repentance and then we had a time of a season of just prayer. And my prayer for my wife was that she would come to a place of joy. in the Lord's comfort because we were offered all the opportunities to do like hospital things of trying to, you know, you know, I kind of, it was hard but I had to shut that down because I didn't like how much hope we were putting into that. Even theoretically, we didn't do anything but theoretically I didn't like how much hope we were putting in that. We had prayed, we had asked the Lord for children and then we found out if something's wrong, the doctor said something's wrong so it seems like the Lord's answer was Teasi Cannon (53:03) Mm. Brandon Smith (53:14) And I would rather come to a place where we can trust his goodness and no than to try to circumvent that no And other means so that was my prayer for my wife. I was gonna be patient, but nightly I was just praying for her to come to a place of joy in the Lord's goodness Because his answer of no since he's a good guy. It's still a good answer Teasi Cannon (53:21) Hmm. ⁓ Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (53:40) and I remember her telling me, she called me from work one day and she said, I woke up with so much joy today and gratitude and comfort by God's goodness, trusting that he knows what's best for us and what he needs for us. was brainstorming things that we can do with ⁓ fostering and adoption, what we can utilize all the space we had in our house. Teasi Cannon (53:48) Wow. ⁓ Mm. Brandon Smith (54:10) for all that stuff and I had so much gratitude for that. I remember in my nightly cigar session in my man cave, you know, it's kinda contradictory. I had a cigar but I'm on the ground weeping before the Lord. I'm like, oh, this isn't adding up. But she's a night, I'm the night owl. So that's why I always end up that way. She's not a night owl. And she interrupted my time around 2 a.m. with her pregnancy. Teasi Cannon (54:24) That's beautiful. Brandon Smith (54:40) saying that she was pregnant. Teasi Cannon (54:41) What? Brandon Smith (54:43) And I genuinely, that's the most shocked I've ever been and it's the most dumbfounded I've ever been. Teasi Cannon (54:49) Yeah. Brandon Smith (54:52) So back up really quickly, I know we're running low on time. One of the gifts that God gives to us when we can trust Him, when He says no, is that we can trust Him with actually anything. I think something that we kind of conceal to ourselves when it comes down to prayer is we're afraid that the Lord is gonna do the opposite of what we want. And if we can trust His goodness in that, then that actually gives us the freedom to ask. for literally anything and trust his response no matter what. And so something crazy that happened when we had joy in the fact that the Lord told us no is not only did we brainstorm for ways to glorify him with an empty house, we had freedom to keep asking him for children. And we trusted even if he says no to that. And I remember crying to him and asking him for a son. I wanna say. Teasi Cannon (55:24) Mm-hmm. Right. Brandon Smith (55:49) son that was raised the way that I was raised and the knowledge of the Lord and the discipline of the Lord with the grace of the Lord instructed in those ways guided ⁓ that I can be able to offer grace to to discipline to love to you know all these things that I was gifted as a man ⁓ I wanted to give to this boy so that he would know to love the Lord as much as I love him And I just prayed for that. ⁓ So when she came in with that pregnancy test, I was genuinely dumbfounded. Dumbfounded. know, thus went all the things. You know, we got to tell our parents. They were so excited, so overjoyed, because they knew that we biologically couldn't have children. ⁓ And everybody goes through all the things. What do you think it is? Are you going to be a boy or a girl? Teasi Cannon (56:28) Yeah. Brandon Smith (56:48) I was quiet the whole time, it's gonna be a boy. That's what I asked for. And so that's what it was. And it was our first born, Parker, and about 13 months after that, the second born came, and about 15 months after that, the third born came, and now I've got four, three, and one year old boys trying their best to tear our house apart. Teasi Cannon (56:50) Mm. Aww. Wow. Right, wow. Wow, congratulations. know, that is, you know, and what I feel inside my heart is just, this is something to praise God over and to rejoice. And, you know, this is such a testimony of answered prayer. And I'm really thankful for that because God does answer prayer. But what I also think is so beautiful, Brandon Smith (57:18) hahahaha Thank you. Teasi Cannon (57:45) is that you and your wife knew there would be joy even if that hadn't happened. And I think you had a confidence in his goodness because of his character, not because of the consequences, but we do have a good father who also does want to show his goodness in the land of the living. And so we hold those things in sort of attention. We want to ask, we can go and ask our father for good things. And we can also have a deep abiding joy and knowledge that he is good, not tethered to how the circumstances are going to turn out. And that is a faith that can stand. That's the faith that can endure because this world is not our home and ultimately we will have a combo of good and bad circumstances. I feel like I've had a lot of suffering and hardship in my life. I've also had massive blessings in my life and I expect for that weaving to continue. I am not under any illusions that I've achieved anything that would eliminate the possibility of suffering in my future. But I know you and I agree that the reason why we can look forward with hope despite having gone through so much hardship as Christians in the church with the church is that we know God exists, we know His word is reliable, and His word teaches that He is good and that He is faithful and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. And that reward is what we need. It isn't always earthly things, but it is more of Him. He is the great reward. And so, no, please. Brandon Smith (59:36) Amen. Something I'm grateful to the Lord for, sorry to cut you off, but something I'm grateful to, like in a way, not in a way, actually the Bible says it, that we are all priests to this world, We don't need to covet people standing on stage and whatever. Shepherd is an office, but it's also a verb. And as a mother, you inherently are shepherds, right? And so. Teasi Cannon (59:54) No. Yes. That's right. Yep, that's right. Brandon Smith (1:00:03) ⁓ It's so beautiful and I'm grateful to God and even in pastoral ministry that He has given me the grace of being in multiple pits and finding joy in Him in those pits because it means that though there's going to be times of weakness, there's going to be times of sorrow, something that's going to be out of sight, out of mind is doubting His goodness towards me. That's not going to be a question and I actually, pity, in a compassionate way, I pity the one Teasi Cannon (1:00:25) Mm-hmm. Brandon Smith (1:00:32) who was once like me, who grew up in church, was around Christians, was around churchianity, and then experiences these trials. Because then they think I'm walking away from Jesus, yet they never knew him. They didn't know his goodness, but God and his grace allowed me to be reconciled with himself first, and then he threw me in pits. Why? Not just so that I can learn to have joy. Teasi Cannon (1:00:46) Right, yes, right. Right. Brandon Smith (1:01:01) in the midst of those circumstances, but like you said at the beginning of your podcast, TC, so that I can be a neighbor to people who are also in pits and questioning his goodness. And I can comfort them in their affliction in the same way that he has comforted me in my affliction and continues to do so. Teasi Cannon (1:01:11) Right. Yep. Right. And just because he has, you've been in pits, but he's been there with you. He's never ever abandoned you to pain and suffering. Brandon Smith (1:01:25) Been there with us, yeah. Teasi Cannon (1:01:30) apart from him being very present and closer than a brother, which is such good news. So, well, Brandon, I know we could keep going on and on, but I don't want to keep you, I want to thank you again so much for sharing that, your heart as a leader, as a leader and a pastor in the church. It's very important for us to all remember that our pastors are also walking through, Brandon Smith (1:01:41) You Teasi Cannon (1:01:59) lots of suffering a lot of ⁓ situations in their own private lives and need prayer all the time. But I appreciate your desire to live before the Lord faithfully and honestly and to shine light on darkness so that others can find freedom in the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom of light and life. So thank you so much for your ministry, Brandon. Again, I will put in the show notes how people can find you. And if you have been listening and you've been encouraged or know someone who would be encouraged by this conversation, please consider sharing it and also consider subscribing if you haven't so that you don't miss a single moment of true comfort. Thank you so much, Brandon, and thank you everybody for listening. Brandon Smith (1:02:44) Thank you TC. Teasi Cannon (1:02:49) ⁓ shoot.