From Homeless Teen-Dad to Gospel Rapper | Dillon Chase - Granger Smith Podcast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dylan, what's up, man, what's up man?

Speaker 2 (00:04):
It's good to be in Texas.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm so glad you're here. It's our story is interesting.
We were doing an event together in Amilla, in the
Pananel of Texas, and you're you're on it, and I
was on it, and but I wasn't. I did, I
wasn't really informed. I came in, I had a couple

(00:27):
of guys from the church with me, and you get
up on the stage and you did a spoken word yeah.
And I first of all, you got up there and
I was like, oh, this is this is gonna be interesting.
But then when you started, instantly I was like, Oh,
this guy's this guy's solid.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
He knows his Bible. You know, this guy knows his Bible.
It's weird how we can just it doesn't take long.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Just a few lines. It's a few lines, because when
you hear when you hear a watered down version over
and over and over and over and over. But then
you get a guy that's solid, and you go, oh, oh,
this is just got a brother. So then I saw
you the next morning at the hotel and having breakfast,

(01:13):
and you and I were just like because then you're
gonna go speak. And then I was flying home and
we were doing this and and I was like broken,
I want to get your number. I don't know where
this is going to lead, but I just I want
I want you. I want to be your brother, you know, basically.
So that's how we met. And then here you sit
and you're wearing a shirt that says suffering It's temporary.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yes, but God's goodness is forever like Corinthians for you know,
So what momentary light affliction? Yeah, this is like you
can the eternal weight of glory. So it's just something that, uh,
I'm trying to still wrap my mind around and really
flesh it out in my life. You know that. Man,
the hard things we go through, there's an expiration date

(01:56):
to it, but there's no expiration date to the glory
of God.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
You know. Amen, Yeah, did you are the Are these
truths that you read and experience in life? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
You know, suffering is something that just everyone of all times,
of all people groups, everyone relates with suffering. It's just
part of the human experience. And I think my testimony
was so dramatic, which we could get into, but there
was a lot of suffering just growing up with two
parents who were in addiction and in and out of rehab,

(02:33):
and you know, eventually I come to Jesus, I repent
of my sin and believe the Gospel. And then oh,
like my suffering was really just paving this hard row
that led me straight to Jesus. And that was kind
of my testimony. I put a bow around it and
I shared it all over the place. You know, look, man, drug, addiction,
all these things, and then the Lord save me. And

(02:54):
suffering is just temporary, but God's goodness is forever. But
then you just live your life long enough as a
Christian and you endure worse suffering then you had before
you're a Christian. And it's also hard because you're like, well,
I was supposed to suffer. I was a heathen, you know,
I wasn't. I was that lost sheep. And now I'm
your child, and like I'm experiencing suffering at a deeper level.

(03:18):
So I mean it comes from a place of like
being a special needs dad. So like my youngest son
is severely autistic, and so getting that diagnosis in twenty
twenty was just tough. And it's like, as a dad,
you just kind of want to figure out well, how
long is this going to last or what can I
do to fix it? And then having other children who

(03:40):
have like are in a prodigal season. I'm like, that's
a level of suffering that I never, you know, wanted
to know. But I come back to God's word and
I'm like, suffering is going to change us, grief is
going to change us. But through the Holy Spirit, it'll
only make us long for Heaven more, want more Jesus.

(04:01):
And at the end of the day, when as hard
as it is on earth, when you compare it to
eternity with Jesus, it's light and momentary, you know. So
I know it here. I'm still trying to flesh it out.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, you're right, because we need we need to know
it here and we need to beat it into our
heads so that we could be conformed to that because
are transformed from that, because it starts, it really starts
in the mind, because our hearts, which are being renewed,
need that, they need to be told the truth that

(04:35):
comes from our mind. Religions the only art, excuse me,
Christian is the only religion that does this, that encourages
no use your mind, no think about this, hear it.
Think about it, process it, preach it to your heart.
Really really, every other religion starts with the heart. It's like, no,
feel it, experience it, spiritualize it.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
But that's what Mormons will tell you when they tell
you to read more, Like, well, just you have a
feeling in.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Your pray about it and didn't get that burning in this?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah. Yeah, it's like renew your mind, take every thought
captive's to your own soul. Yeah yeah, yeah, So you
go back again, you go No, I read this, Paul said,
this light momentary affliction is preparing us for internal weight
of glory.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
I don't know if I believe though. Read it again, Yeah,
but I don't know. Yeah, read it again, and then
your heart's just crying out no, no, because your heart's
so wicked, you know.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
So okay, So where do we start with you? Man? Like,
when were you saved? Let's start there.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Maybe I was saved in two thousand and four, So
I just graduated high school and I was in my
nineteen ninety eight four tourists with a tape adapter to
the CD walkman to the cigarette a dafter the power
of the CD. The whole set up lots of wires, Yes,
and I had to come to Jesus moment outside of church,

(05:58):
outside of a preacher being present. The gospel seed had
just been planted and the Holy Spirit had been convicting me.
So I had heard the gospel from a young age,
but I never identified myself as someone who needed God's grace,
like I just thought suffering was my salvation. So I

(06:20):
was so arrogant that by the time I was a teenager,
I thought, Man, it's hard for me to say this
out loud. I thought in my mind when I stood
before God that he would say, I'm so sorry for
the life you had. Yeah, come on home, let's go fishing,
you know, like he was gonna be my popa in

(06:42):
the sky. And I didn't need to live for Jesus
or surrender or know him that he owed me heaven
because my life was rough, which obviously I could have
looked to the left and right and found people that
would have loved to trade places with me, even with
a hard life. So it wasn't in till I came
to the end of myself. Christian family took me in

(07:06):
my senior year of high school and just lived out
the gospel. I mean, it was an African American family.
It was like six thirty in the morning listening to
Kirk Franklin on the way to church, going to church.
The church was like you'll hit your steps at this church.
We're walking around, we're up, we're down, you know, super charismatic.

(07:27):
And then he would he would hear us trying to
you know, my friends. We had a rap group. We'd
wrap all about guns. We didn't have girls that wouldn't
talk to us, but I mean it was our world, right,
So we had all the guns, all the girls. And
he comes in, this retired military, big intimidating man, takes
our microphone, takes our computer, takes everything out the room.

(07:47):
You're not gonna speak those words in my house. Come
back in with a page of Bible verses to read. Meanwhile,
how am I going to rhyme Ecclesiastes. I can't even
pronounce it. I'm looking at it. I still don't understand
a lot of Eclesiastes. But it's all these Bible verses.
And he was like, write music about this. And really
what was happening was I was seeing, Oh the gospel

(08:09):
is it really has power? Like I've I've heard people
pray like, I heard my dad pray over my mom
and my mom was overdose. I heard my mom screaming
to God and praying over my dad when he was
passed out. But these people pray because they know God
and they have joy and their family has peace and

(08:30):
their structure and it's all based off principles in the Bible.
So the gospel just became real to me. I saw
it fleshed out, but I still wanted my sin more.
So I ended up leaving their house to go live
with my brother and live with my aunt. But eventually,
I always say, like, living with them put a pebble
in my shoe and I could walk around with it

(08:53):
for so long and it didn't bother me too much
at first, but man, if you walk a few miles
with a pebble on your shoe, you're like, oh, I
got a with this. And so I saw like the
example of Christ in them, and it made my sin
more apparent and the Lord the Holy Spirit. Right, It's
like you think about that metaphor of the new birth,

(09:17):
and well, you have a birthday, but you had about
nine months of life prior to that new birth. So
I feel like in two thousand and four, I was
experiencing like spurts of spiritual life, but pre regeneration. So
it's like, I get that fornication makes me feel like

(09:38):
I've sinned. You know what is this feeling like talking
about these things? So I was wrestling for like six months,
but then I just broke under the weight of my
sin and just realized, like, God owes me nothing my
hardships in life. I'm not just a victim of my circumstance.
I am also a sinner who is chosen hate and

(10:00):
anger and bitterness over grace and mercy and forgiveness. And
I didn't have the verbiage. I don't really remember how
I prayed to God. I just prayed with what words
I knew, and I called my girlfriend who's now my wife,
on my track phone. I had one unit left. You know,

(10:21):
this is a Nokia Bring phone with one unit, and
with my last unit, I called her. I told her
I just gave my life to Jesus. We get married
a year later, and yeah, then I'm here on the podcast.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
So I want I want to I want to double
click on something because this idea that you're that suffering
is your salvation. That's that's a very common thought. I
was actually talking to my brother yesterday about this. Rc
spro calls it the justification of death, meaning saved by death.

(10:59):
So this they're suffering in this world. And you know,
but whenever I die, I'll be with the I'll be
with the Lord. You know.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
It's death that takes you there.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
It's death that that's that's the door that gets you
into heaven. Is you just have to die. You got
to go through the world, you got to do your thing,
believe whatever you believe, but just open the door to
death and you're in. And so that's why, at the
surface level, so many funerals, which everyone calls them celebration
of life. Now it's it's just like, ah, they're they're

(11:30):
all together with the family dog and with grandma and
with little Billy you know that had the four wheeler
accident and that you know they're all together. Why because
they died justification of death And it's I would we
don't need to get into it right now, but but
anyone listening, I want to just kind of use our

(11:52):
minds to to see where where in the Bible that
would possibly exist that doesn't it's like a deistic idea
that's just modern deism that how do you get to God?
Just die and if you suffer, like you're saying, oh
even better, that's more merit in heaven. Oh welcome, Dylan,

(12:17):
thank you, thank you. I'm so sorry. If you're suffering,
you get a mansion in heaven. Yeah, that's something we
create and perpetuate. So anyway, go ahead, that's a great
thing you brought up.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
Yeah. So I used to kind of put God on
trial in my mind, and I would get real frustrated
during hard moments because I mean I was five years
old the first time I saw my dad overdosed on heroin.
I was probably in second grade when I saw my
mom make an attempt on her life. I remember being

(12:49):
a dad and doing a family divo one night and
we're talking about fear and we're having family discussion. I'm like,
all right, kids, tell me what's the scariest thing you've
ever experienced in life? And I think my daughter was
five years old, and she got like a really serious
look on her face and she's like, well, and I'm like, well,
this is about to be big, Like maybe this is
something I don't know. She's like, one night I heard

(13:14):
this super creepy noise and it really scared me. But
the next morning Mom said it was the ice maker
and it's like it was the icemaker machine going off
at you know, two in the morning. That was her category,
probably the most fearful thing she's been through in life.
And I remember thinking, oh, man, if you would ask

(13:34):
me that in second grade, I would have. And that's
when I realized, like, one, you know, by the Lord's grace,
my kids are going to have a different life than
I did. But two, what became normal for me never
should have been you know normal. Yeah, And so in
those moments of where like, you know, maybe my dad
was gone for and my dad was with me at

(13:56):
that conference though, so the Lord has done amazing things,
but he would be gone for days on a binge,
and I remember it's like Dad goes to work, Dad
didn't come home from work. The next day, Dad's boss
calls like, hey, where is he is? Everything okay? And
then we find out, wait, Dad didn't go to work.
And then it's just like this intense feeling of fear

(14:18):
and anxiety. And then as I got older, it was
just God, where are you? Why are you allowing this?
What's going on? You know, the only concept I had
I had of God was from like a very word
of faith type of theology, where that's if I ever
did visit a church with a family member. It was
normally that if I was ever scrolling through late night TV,

(14:40):
I would like see some televangelists and sometimes I would
like lean in and watch it. And I'm like, imagine
how sad it is for eleven year old to think
if I prayed with enough faith, then my parents wouldn't
be drug addicts anymore. So there has to be something
I'm not believing hard enough for it, you know. And
so it began to kind of warp my view of God,

(15:04):
and I felt like he was on trial, like where
were you when this happened? Where were you in this
suffering happened? And it was through the Gospel that I
learned it's a more important question to ask, is like,
not where are you right now in this particular place
of suffering, but go back and say, like where were

(15:26):
you when you left heaven? Came to earth, born of
a virgin God, in human flesh, lived a life I
could never live. Die to death I deserved as the
payment for my sin to satisfy you know God's judgment
and then rose up again. And then suddenly I forgot
my question because when I think about, that's what he did,
that's what he went through, and now his arms are

(15:48):
extended not to turn away anyone who comes to him
through repentance and faith, and he's seated in the heavenlys
and he does whatever he pleases. I'm asking the wrong question.
I didn't have the language for this when I gave
my life to Jesus in two thousand and four. But
I began to think, I need someone to be my
substitute for my sin, and I need to repent and

(16:10):
trust in this person to be my savior. And so
that's what I did. I didn't have those words for it.
God miraculously just melted my heart towards my mom and
dad instantaneously like people that I felt so much disgust
and anger and bitterness, and I just, deep down, you know,

(16:31):
I loved him, and I almost hated that I'd loved
him no matter what, And in an instant it was
I just felt compassion for my mom and dad. So
that's like my witness, that's like my mission field, you know,
is my mom and dad. So I was that family
member on Christmas, who's like giving out CDs of a
forty minute gospel sermon recorded by me, you know, like

(16:53):
maybe my kids sang a Christmas song like the first
two minutes to get them into it. And then after
that it's like, well, let's talk about the real meaning
of Christmas forty minute like what is it? Centers in
the hands of an angry guy, you know, like really
intense you know preaching and like made some family members mad,
made my mom and dad, you know a little bit
upset about that. But it's just like, man, I wanted

(17:14):
to see my parents experience the freedom you know that
was in christ. So that's kind of what it looked
like early on.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
I gotta know though, like what's what connected the the
fledgling word of faith understanding of God. Then you're listening
to Jonathan Edwards like oh yeah, okay, what was that? Well, wow,
that's a great question.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
You're really good at this. So I get saved and
I just go back to that church that i'd been
to a few times, like we're one of those families
like Easter, Christmas, and there was other times where like
I mean, my my mom like one time was doing
really well and she got plugged into this church and
they met like in a junior high it was a

(17:56):
church plant. But still like when the pastor walked in,
you're like, oh am, I going to get to like
give him a high five or like, well I get
to you know. It's like he's a celebrity, you know.
And so we go back to this church, my girlfriend
and I and by the way, like we're teen parents,
so we got our kid too, and I'm just like

(18:17):
this is what we do now, Like we go here,
we hear an encouraging message. We're kind of like can
sneak in, sneak out? Apparently there's lots of blessings and
stuff we can unlock. Like I still remember the speech
before you turn in your tithe. It's like we're believing
for raises and bonuses, benefits, settlements, checks in the mail, inheritance, waiting, inventions,

(18:39):
and like we would declare all these things before we
would you know, put in our tithe. Like I still,
you know, twenty years later, I can still remember it.
And on top of that, I was doing music before
and just you know really like even as a high
school student, I was producing like my own CDs, like
selling them out of my back, Like and then now

(19:02):
I'm I have this thing, like I'm in love with Jesus,
so I'm wanting to make music. So I'm recording at
this studio of these guys who like, you know, totally secular,
and I'm like, hey, I'm a Christian now, so my
music's changed. And they're like, cool, that's fine. We record
this other Christian guy here. This is like five. He said,

(19:22):
his name is La Craye. He's like he's actually pretty good.
And I'm like, oh yeah, and they give me his
email and I email them and I'm like, hey, you know,
let's make music. We're gonna like go platinum for Jesus,
you know. And he like hits me back, who's discipling you?
I'm like, who's disciplining me?

Speaker 1 (19:38):
Wait?

Speaker 2 (19:38):
What word is that? Like, I've never you don't just
use that. I've never heard the word disciple. Like my
favorite book of the Bible was the Table of Contents
just because like that showed me where to go. And
now he's saying disciple and uh, he's like this disciple
and so he's like, hey, let's you know, grab lunch.

(20:01):
And so he's like, this is the college ministry. It
was based out of Denton Bible Church Tom Nelson. It
was called Plumbline find a community group. And then he's like, hey, yeah,
you're great at rapping, but most people who listen to
your music need to be discipled, Like, you know, music
is not gonna save anyone, but you can use your

(20:23):
music to help disciple, teach and admonish. You know, that's
what they're really big on back then. So he literally
took out, took my notebook, give me your notebook. You know,
this is when we're still writing our rhymes in a notebook.
He writes it down R C sproll Holiness of God.
John Piper brothers were not professionals. John MacArthur maybe a

(20:45):
couple other names, and he's like, you know, go check
this stuff out. And you know, this is someone who
was older than me, who had been saved longer, and
who already was have like a fruitful ministry. I mean,
he he wasn't like you know where he's at now,
but he was performing at youth groups all the time
in church camps and so there I'm like, the first

(21:05):
book I got was John Piper's brother. We're not professionals,
and I'm like, whoa Like the I go to the
college ministry, they just preached the Romans Road. I'd never
heard that. I'm like, how did I even get saved
if I didn't know Roman's Road? You know. It's like,
but I truly believe the Lord, did you know? Save me?
But they're saying, well here Paul, and I'm like, wait,

(21:26):
I thought God wrote the Bible, Like who's Paul? I
mean that's literally where I was. I just thought the
Bible was just no one can understand it. You can't
just read it. It's just like this really mysterious book.
And it's like, Lord, I'm having a hard time, Like,
show me something, just open up to it. Yeah, Bible Roulette.
And so then they give me this book called Thirty

(21:46):
Days to Understanding the Bible, which I really recommend. It
just gives you a framework just to tell you, like
the sections of the Bible, you know, from historical, poetical
profit you know, the prophecies, the epistles. And it helped
give me a framework. And then it was like I
was just trying to catch up to all the college
kids around me. So I'm reading double, I'm listening to sermons.

(22:08):
Obviously we got plugged into the church, like through the
college ministry, we get plugged into the church. And then
I just started just devouring God's word and then calling
my uh maybe at the time was my fiance and
trying to tell her what I just learned. And she's like,
that sounds crazy, and I'm like, no, you just have

(22:30):
to believe it. I can't explain it, but I'm telling
you it's a trinity. Go, okay, there's three of them,
but it's not three. She's like, I don't know. I'm like, no,
you're not saved if you don't believe this, Like I
don't have the words for it, you know. So it
was just I didn't realize that I was getting like
a seminary education, you know, like Herman Nudics. They brought

(22:52):
up Herman one day. They brought Herman the Bible Study
and I met Herman, and I'm getting all these things.
I'm going through systematic theology from Tom Nelson on like
cassette tapes and yeah, just and then I'm going back

(23:13):
to my friends that I had who I did music with,
and I'm just trying to regurgitate it, like God forbid,
they have a question for further clarification because I just
heard this like two days ago and I'm just repeating
it to them. And then so that's how I got
into you know, Jonathan Edwards. And then I start doing
inner city outreach and some of the same areas of
South Dallas my dad used to get dope from. I'm

(23:36):
going there and putting on concerts and outreaches and doing
Bible studies where we're talking about the doctrine of sin
and all these things. Man, it was pretty man crazy great.
Yeah he did, you know, and I know he's had
an interesting journey, but I'm forever grateful for him steering

(23:58):
me in that direction. And not only did he help
me spiritually, he sent me home with music equipment and
he offered to produce pretty much half of my first
album for free. You know, he just gave me what
he wasn't using and just yeah, really, they let me
record at their studio for free. They just really invested
in me on from both ends.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Wow, man, that's crazy. And think about think about how
important that one little question is. Who is discipling?

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yes, I had to look up the word.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, I mean people all the time. That's that's where
I go when I'm talking to people. At the very beginning,
it's like either who's pastoring you, who's discipling you? Or
where where are you in this because that's a it's
an easy indication to tell how far along you are

(24:49):
in your faith.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah, And I think discipleship will look different in different seasons,
you know, cause like when I was a baby Christian,
it was very intense, like once a week plus the
two times we're seeing each other at church Wednesdays and Sundays,
plus Thursday nights, and it's real structured because it's like
I don't know how to share my testimony. I don't know.

(25:10):
And then I get married, so now someone else is
discipling me. Who's married, been married, you know, fifteen years
longer than I have, which at the time I thought, man,
y'all are old. You know, now I'm older than they
were then. And then now it looks like we're having
dinner together, a husband and wife, and we're talking, and
then maybe we go out and whatever shooting hoops in

(25:30):
the driveway and we're talking about some things and maybe
sit down in the car. And then another stage in
life where you got kids, and it's like now when
I think about who's discipling me. It's like so many
people are constantly pouring into me within my church community
rather than being like the one guy that I'm always

(25:51):
going to.

Speaker 1 (25:52):
You know, you said something interesting too, when you would
learn something like book, learn something and then somebody would
ask you a question. And that's that's such a good
way to get sharpened because we'll use the trinity because
you brought it up. You could read about the Trinity
and you'd be like, okay, cool, and someone goes, what's
the trinity and you go, it's oh, I go read again,

(26:14):
And that's what really because you thinking about how to
say something out loud is a much more advanced level
than just reading it and taking it in. And so
when the more people ask you questions and the more
you wrestle through it, the sharper you get. Because none
of us want to look stupid. We want to we
want to have some kind of meat in the answer.

(26:35):
So dude that So then you you're you're being discipled,
you're being poured into, you're getting sharper. Where where does
the local church play in this? Because you're you started
in the Word of faith, where does that change?

Speaker 2 (26:52):
So through the college ministry, I just felt like, Wow,
I'm learning. I'm learning, like just verse by verse, you know,
book by book. What church is this, Oh, it's Dent'on
Bible Church. And then I started going to Did'on Bible
and then was part of a church plant called Lifeline
Bible Fellowship. Basically, what they had was people graduating college

(27:17):
and just being so plugged into that community. They just
are kept coming back to college ministry. So they decided
through didn't Bible church, Well, let's just plan a church
with all these people who are aged out of college ministry,
you know. And so it was awesome. I mean it
was a church where scripture was taught expositionally, community was there.

(27:41):
Probably what was lacking was it was just so many
young people, like very I think, I mean, we were
a young married couple, and I think there was only
a handful of other people who had been married, like, oh,
if you've been married three years, like whoa, You've been
married forever, you know. And so that was, you know,
kind of lacking. But that was my church home for
only a year because I lost my job that I

(28:05):
had and we were struggling to make it. We're in Denton, Texas,
and that's how we end up in Oklahoma. There was
a family owned property my grandma offered to us. It
was behind Long John Silver, so you know, it wasn't
a nice neighborhood. And again I'm at a concert with
La Cree and of course I just have like a
little five minute slot. He's the headliner. And I'm like, yeah, man,

(28:26):
I'm moving and I'm going to find a job.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
D D.

Speaker 2 (28:29):
I'm gonna try to find a place to record. He's like, no, no, no,
before you find a job, before you find a place
to do your music, have you found a church home?
And I'm like no, He's like, and he sends me
to this website, which I mean, I guess I kind
of was just blessed. I think, have you ever heard
of Nine Marks? Yeahah, we're a nine March church. Yeah,

(28:50):
so it was similar to nine Marks, but this is like,
oh six. It was another website, but it was like
find a healthy church near you type of deal. So
I type in this our zip code and one church
pops up. I mean, it could have just been a
cult and just been on that and I would have
got sucked right into it, you know. And it had
a creepy name, Messiah fellowship, Bible church. It seemed like messianics. Yeah,

(29:15):
we're coming from a church, like an urban church plant
where a guy might you know, rap and but we
might sing a hymn and then a guy might do
like a rap before the next song, and it's like
it's the cult. It's just like a shared culture, you know,
but Christ over culture. And we walk in on that Sunday.

(29:36):
Let me tell you, like the church was about the
size of this room or recording in. I walk in,
I'm already in front of everyone. I thought it was
just the door. Apparently I walked through the wrong door.
And I'm like face to face with the pastor mid sermon,
walking in late. They're just like fresh meat in the door.
Like everyone act normal. Don't overwhelm them. You know, we're
so desperate for people to be here. And man, by

(29:58):
God's grace, it just became a great community for us.
So we get plugged in with discipleship with the associate pastor.
We teaching awanas, you know what I mean, at different
age levels. And then like the church went through hard
times just like uh, we went from a church split

(30:19):
where the pastor went to plant somewhere else to not
having the building and turning into like a church, just
home church, which it's like it's hard to invite people
to church when you have home church. That's the one
thing like people get, yeah, can get weird about it.
It's like, yeah, I know, your kids just go right
back to that bedroom. They'll be fine. You know. So

(30:39):
we're we're going from house to house, which we me
and my wife still like we miss the house church
phase just because even though it was small, it was
like you don't even know when church starts or when
it ends because it's just so organic.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
It's like you're just there the family.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
You're having a meal. The next thing you know, like
oh yeah, we're having church, and then next thing you know,
it's like, oh it's three hours later, we're all still here.
But then a really beautiful thing happened in twenty fifteen,
our churches merged with that pastor who had went to
plant in a neighboring city. Our churches came together is
Sovereign Grace Bible Church. And that was in twenty fifteen,

(31:17):
and so that was like my Paul, you know what
I mean. And so he's the guy that really when
I first moved to Oklahoma, we would meet up and
the guy who walked with me and my wife through
early marriage stuff. And then in two thousand and nine
he goes to He's like, man, you're doing so well
here and you're just serving the Lord so good here.
Really I feel like freed up to go plant this church.

(31:39):
And I'm like, no, don't leave me, you know. And
so it was really sweet, you know, to six years
later to be you know, reunited with him, and so yeah,
so that's I've really had the same pastor in my
life since two thousand and six. So it's a it's
a huge gift because I mean he doesn't even have
to ask at this point. It's like he just knows,

(31:59):
you know, something's not right, you know. So it's really
been a safeguard in my marriage and my ministry just
having the same guy in my life since six.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
You know, a long time ago. Tyler and I STARTEDYE Apparel.
It just came from originally just artist merch from Granger
Smith from my artist days.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
And when ye.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
Apparel started, we built eee dot com, but we had
no idea what to do with it, like how would
we possibly sell a T shirt? I think the first
one we had was I've got a tough schedule Earl
Dibbles Junior. It didn't take long before we realized we
were in over our head and we needed a company
to host this for us. That's when we turned to Shopify.
Shopify is basically the checkout portion of your website and

(32:43):
they handle all of that. They do the numbers that
they have, all the algorithms that we don't understand, but
they do. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of
businesses around the world and ten percent that's a pretty
big number of all e commerce in the US. You
can get started with your own design studio with hundreds
of ready to use templates. Shopify helps you build a

(33:04):
beautiful online store to match your brand's style. You can
accelerate your content creation. Shopify is packed with helpful AI
tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance
your product photography. It's pretty cool and best yeat. Shopify
is your commerce expert with world class expertise and everything
from managing inventory to international shipping, to processing returns and beyond.

(33:29):
You don't have to worry about that stuff. You could
just be creative in what you do and let Shopify
handle everything else. If you are ready to sell, you're
ready for Shopify. Sign up for your one dollar per
month trial period and start selling today at shopify dot
com slash granger. Go to shopify dot com slash granger
once again shopify dot com slash granger. If you're trying

(33:49):
to get a gift for someone that you think has everything,
how about a special video message from me. It's easy
to do. Go to cameo dot com slash granger Smith
and you put in the prompt what you want me
to say. I get that message on my phone. I'll
say happy birthday, happy anniversary, whatever personalized message you want
me to say to whoever you want me to say
it to. I send it to you and you give

(34:09):
it to them. It's pretty cool. Go to cameo dot
com slash granger Smith. Like you're hitting. You're hitting all
the things that as people walk through their faith. Who
who is pastoring you? That's the next question that you
could ask after who's discipling you? And if you don't know,
or if you don't know how to get a hold

(34:30):
of him? Yeah, then Actually I saw a funny meme
today that that's said to our our elders, but it
says says as sign says meet the pastor, and oh no,
it says, please observe the following. No photos with the pastor,
no handshakes or hugs. Pastor is unable to receive any

(34:51):
items at this time. That's a problem.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
That's a problem. How do we safeguard against that? As
churches grow? Do you think it's just going out and
planting churches?

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (35:01):
So what point do you think in church goes from? Which?
I mean, And there's some pastors we love who pastor
mega churches. So I'm not saying it's always.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
We're not against bad we're not against big churches. It's
I think two things. One, you you must grow the
plurality of the pastors, so as you it's because that
word means shepherd. So if you think about it's like saying,
what would we do if we had a big pasture
and a bunch of sheep.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
You'd get more shepherds.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Yeah, you know, you wouldn't get a shepherd on a
higher platform or a bigger shepherd. You'd get just get
more shepherds. And then at some level you have to
send out sheep to different pastures and send out shepherds
with them. So that communicates to the church that you know,
we we're following scripture saying we're we're here to build churches,

(35:52):
not our church, not built a church big, We're here
to plant churches. And that does mean your church can't
be big, but I think it has to be pastored
with more shepherds. Yeah, I think if you have eight
hundred two one thousand people, you might need thirty.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Yeah, thirty pastors. And like my one of my pastors, Randy,
who went to go plant this church, you know, he
didn't plant until he had another elder to plant with him.
He's like, we're at least going to there's zero people
at our church. We're going to start out with two elders,
you know, and our families. So I think church planning
should have that. And I'm not an expert on church planning,

(36:32):
but like when that's built into the DNA from the
beginning plurality of elders, you don't have to ever worry
about that awkward phase of like, well, who does this?
How do I kind of release some of this because
this has kind of become my thing. So I didn't
know that I had been blessed with biblical like church
structure and how important that was, you know, until I

(36:54):
start talking to my friends and hearing some of the
stuff they go through, church abuse, church hurt, and I'm like, man,
I guess the plurality of elders has just been a safeguard.
You know. The Bible always speaks of elders plural.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah, it's like when Paul's meeting with the Ephesian elders,
it's plural, and it's not like I'm meeting with the
senior guy and the not that it's wrong to label
one of them a senior guy, but but the have
of that plurality. It's like you said, it's a safeguard
against pride, against one guy starting to feel like it's
his thing.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
It helps, it.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Helps with decisions.

Speaker 2 (37:27):
Yeah, and expositional preaching can be another safeguard for the
direction of a church, because then you can't just preach
like the hot topics that the pastor always loves to
hit on, you know, or like, well we're just walking
through the scripture. But I was talking to my friend
who did a church revitalization outside of Portland, so that's

(37:47):
a whole different type of world than we're and it's
really awesome to see what the Lord's doing there. I
got to be there saving Grace Church. I believe it's
called Hope. I'm not getting the name wrong, but he
I want your thoughts on this. He brought up something
he's like more than verse by verse. I preach thought
by thought, like follow the original author's thought, he said,

(38:10):
because sometimes expositional preaching could isolate one verse so much
like we're just going to break this verse down today
that you could end up taking it out of context
because you're not really looking at the full thought. What
do you think about? Have you ever heard that saying
like preach thought by thought or.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Precept so thinking about expositional preaching, you would, It would
depend on you said it earlier, the genre of the
literature that you're reading, so like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't
think word by word. In Genesis fifty is nearly as
big a deal as Two Corinthians four. You're looking at
Paul and you're looking You're looking at how he's making

(38:49):
his argument and how he's unfolding what he's trying to
tell the people through his inspired word to that specific church. Now,
Genesis fifty, that's Moses retelling story of Joseph and his brothers, and.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
You could cover a lot more ground reading that.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Yeah. Yeah, So it's like, okay, what's what's the narrative
of what's happening in Genesis fifty. What's happening so that
we could see how does this point to Christ? What
does go? Where's God's sovereignty in the suffering of Joseph?
You know what what you meant for evil? God meant
for good? What? Okay, let's take that concept instead of

(39:30):
what you the word for Hebrew, you meant it's It's
not that it would be a bad thing to do it,
but it's a lot more important. Looking at Paul and
in a in a letter that he wrote in Greek, so.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
I felt pressure because I've grown up and came up
in as a you know, in Christian life and discipleship
with mainly verse by verse teaching. And I think there
could be great I think sometimes it could be even
needed for there to be something topic or to speak
to you know, something like that. And I think you
could do topical sermons in an exegetical way where you're

(40:06):
pulling it from the script, you're not forcing it into it.
But like especially at my church when I've preached. Our
church is so top heavy this sometimes, like going to
the men's conference was great because I don't know those guys.
I mean not in a bad way, but it's like
I don't I'm not in their head because I don't

(40:27):
know what's in their head. I'm like, well, I'm just
gonna preach. But like when I'm at my church, like, well,
that guy knows like way more than I do. This
guy's been going to seminary, so you can almost feel
that pressure, like, well, I got to really pull out
some deep stuff, you know. And it's like you're just
at the greeting. Paul's traditional greeting he does in every epistle,
but it's like, do I need to just grace and
peace unto you? And I just need to exegete this
for forty five minutes, you know, because it might just

(40:48):
be grace and peace, you know, unto you. It might
just And it's like when you're preaching verse by verse,
don't don't over assign meaning to something that's just there
a greeting, you know what I mean. It's like because
it's okay if you know, you get through those three
or four verses of a greeting and then you land
on verse four or five. Okay, now we need to

(41:09):
slow down, you know. So I think it's just learning
how to balance that. I'm glad that i've I've noticed
more and more people like they don't even always call
it expository preaching, but just focusing on verse by verse.
But I've also seen it misuse, where they're they're so
isolating something that it's like they'll they'll preach it for

(41:31):
forty five minutes and end up putting a lot of
their own meaning into it. And I don't know if
they're even meaning to do that, you know, I think
you're I think you're right.

Speaker 1 (41:39):
It's not It wouldn't just be a blanket statement like, hey,
you must preach line by line in the story. No
not no, not necessarily because you have to. You have to,
of course teach and explain the text, but you also
have to apply it. You could illustrate it, but but
you should always apply it. So, okay, what do we

(41:59):
what could we do as a body as a congregation
when we hear this, don't just tell me what it says,
Tell me what do I do with this? So give
me some.

Speaker 2 (42:08):
Kind of application.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
If we were teaching through the end of Exodus and
he's describing the details of the tabernacle. I don't think
line by line.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah, we'll do much for the congregation.

Speaker 1 (42:20):
Yeah, like you're gonna need to give me that whole
all of chapter thirty eight. Give it. Just give it
to me, and then give me the thought by thought.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
And I think what you just said separates ex seminary
from preaching is the application. I think that's one of
the things. Obviously there's gonna be more that. It's like,
it's one thing to get to nerd out on the
verse and talk about all in all the word and
the word usage and the cross referencing. But man, when

(42:49):
it comes to preaching, it's like preaching to people's hearts
and then unlocking God's truth so that they can apply
it to their life. Yeah, you know, because you're in seminary. Yeah,
what's your experience because I've actually never been to seminary
almost said cemetery, but no, just kidding, just kidding, that's
just a joke. That's a Baptist joke. How has your

(43:10):
experience been.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
That it's seminary? Is it's not needed for everybody? I
would never say that you you should have seminary that
you must do seminary. I think it is it if
if you want to have more fine tuned specific training

(43:35):
in certain areas, especially pastoral ministry, like if you if
you want to be a pastor and you want to
study Greek, or you want to even like I've even
taken find like classes on how a pastor deals with
the finances of the church, you know, so like things
that I would never study. A mind I would never study,

(43:59):
or the role deacons and like how to how to
divide up the different the different servings of the deacons
is not something I would just sit around and read
on my own.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
So there is that.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
There is plenty of the preaching classes, but I don't
push it on anybody. I just felt there was a
there was a time in my life a few years
ago when I felt kind of called to it and
to go to a specific one in southern in Louisville. Yes, yeah,
so I'd been listening to Alice podcast and I just

(44:35):
felt like, you know, I I spent so many years
in the dark in my life that I need to
be pouring in as much light as I can and
so me in my life. I felt like it was
a right move for me to like focus my brain
and look at what a professor was telling me about
systematic theology. And a lot of the professors are teaching

(45:00):
us how to think instead of what this means. This
is what this doctor means, and you should teach that
to everyone. It's not as much that, it's more like,
here's here's what we're dealing with. Here's what some people
have believed over the years. Here's what these people have believed.
You take this text and you make your own make
your own assumptions on this. So there's a lot of

(45:22):
church history, a lot of where did this come from?
Like why do we why do we fully immerse when
we baptized? Where does that come from from the text?
And when did people start doing it? Why did people
start sprinkling? Where did when did that start? Well, you
could trace church history and go, oh, I see this
is the first time that When was the Bible first
translated into anything? Well, okay, I see when is it

(45:44):
translated again? When did it become Latin from Greek? When
did when was it German? And then what about English?
Where did that? So, like that's a lot of church
history is stuff.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
I looked into some church history things recently because summer
I randomly get invited out to this camp to preach.
So you know, I've done music and in probably in
the last five years, I've probably done more like teaching
and preaching mainly at student conferences. And it's a really
amazing opportunity to get to speak out of camp because

(46:17):
you know, you have four or five days with kids
morning and night. I could just walk them through a
book of the Bible and they may never get that,
and I can just say it's right here, you know
you can walk through it. Yes, And so I'm always
trying to judge, Okay, where is this camp, like based
off the name of the church, because it was like,
what was it Gospel, light, light Gospel. Oh, I hope

(46:37):
it's not a light Gospel that's good, you know, Gospel
Lighthouse Church or such. I'm like, I'm already seeing some
tambourines in there. I don't know this, I've never heard.
I'm like, and I'm trying to look them up on
the internet. I'm like, Okay, this website was designed in
nineteen ninety eight, and I'm like, I can't find out
like what I'm trying to get a denominational reference a

(46:59):
state in a faith I was digging. I've never had
to look normally. It's pretty obvious. I eventually find out
the best I can explain it, it's like three churches
that started their own kind of like network of churches.
And there they're Mennonites who have wanted to be more missional,

(47:23):
which is like where the Lighthouse comes in and not legalistic.
But I mean they still value some of their culture
and things like that. So I'm like, I get to
the camp. They have these this accent I've never heard,
like they're from Texas and Kansas, but they all have accents.
Their kids have accents. But most of them were dressed
modern clothes and all that. And so I'm like, every night,

(47:44):
I'm going back to my room with my daughter and
I'm just like googling stuff about the Mennonites, and I'm like,
I'm at least gonna get some homemade soap out of
this or something. And then the more it came by,
the more i felt like, I'm like, Babe, I might
not ever come home, you know. I think I'm gonna
be a Mennonite, but come to find out, like just
the history with them and the Anabaptists and the Reformers

(48:06):
and stuff going on in Switzerland and really finding out like, oh,
like these are brothers, you know. But some things happen
culturally that separation. But then some things end up getting
that should be secondary things because of man and stuff
become the primary thing. Yes, but I think this group
of churches really had discovered just the Gospel of grace

(48:29):
and being missional. But I mean church history, you learn
so much because you're gonna just spiderweb into all these
different movements, you know. Yeah, you said it.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
Right, man. I've got a deer brother that's a minnonight
pastor in South Carolina, and it's actually been on this podcast.
But I love that brother, and and you're right there.
There are the important things united us and then the second, third,
fourth tier things that really shouldn't matter, Like you said,
sometimes those become the things that divide. Instance, when I

(49:00):
have LDS guys over here every few weeks or so, they.

Speaker 2 (49:04):
Still come to your house. Well, I got put on
the no FLI zone. We live in a country.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
We live in the country, so they don't come on
their own, but I have their numbers, so we're like
it's open dialogue. So they're like, hey, when can we
come again, And I'm like, hey, three o'clock Tuesday. So
we'll just come up here and sit and talk. And
one of the things they will bring up is the
division and the Protestant churches. There's so many. They'll they'll say,

(49:29):
there's so many denominations. Maybe they'll save three thousand or something.
I don't know, but I but I always have to
kind of reel that in and be like, no, those
are our brothers and sisters. That the denominations are more
of a culture, more of a opinion, more of a
style or a preference. But that's not We're not divided

(49:49):
on the Gospel. Whether whatever denomination you're in, if it's
an Evangelical Protestant denomination, the Gospel of Grace is at
the center of it. Yeah. So and that's okay. I
mean some of them are, you know, do this and that,
but we can't divide over that. The uh, the the

(50:10):
the there was divisions right at the beginning of the Reformation.
There there the divisions began. It was actually the first,
the very first one was over the Lord's Supper, if
it is Christ's body or if it's symbolic of Christ's
body and then boom they split and there was the first,
the first. That was the first one, that was the
very first one. Baptism came up later. That baptism was

(50:32):
actually a couple hundred years later. That's why I need
to go and the Anabaptists where the we're the first,
and they're like, I because what that means Anabaptist means
baptized again or rebaptized because they.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Started being coleeted baptism.

Speaker 1 (50:46):
Yeah, they were convicted when they were reading, like I
think in the Bible, in the Book of Acts, they
are baptized after they believe, and I was sprinkled before
I believed. I think we should do it again, Frank,
where you wanna go, Just go down the river and
will go dunk me and tell me that I'm being
baptized in the name of the Father Son and the

(51:08):
Holy Spirit, like like Jesus says at the end of
Matthew and Matthew twenty eight, go do that to me,
and bring bring our families and our kids so they
could watch. And then people saw them and they're like,
what what's that cult doing there?

Speaker 2 (51:20):
And people don't get over it.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Yeah, and they started drowning them.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
They would, they would go ambush them and drown them
in the just to like really rub it in their face.

Speaker 1 (51:31):
Like, yeah, like you want you think.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
We always tell people don't get baptized out of church
that doesn't believe in body of the Resurrection, you know,
because they'll just probably buried in baptism. Yeah, hold you
that buried in baptism. Yeah, buried in baptism.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
But yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
Crazy stuff exciting, man. And I want, especially like I
have a lot of younger Christians, you know, I want
them to tap into the rich history because so much
misinformation is spread through apps and social media of people
who aren't who are really passionate but aren't actually informed
about what they're talking about. When we could look back

(52:06):
and see and it's not Christ is perfect. Church history
is not perfect. We've gotten it wrong. But you could
see the thread of God's goodness and what Christ is
doing through his church and be proud, you know, be proud.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Man. It's such a base.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Hold on, I just watched your podcast about not saying
that's great A good way to be Yeah, that's a
good way be proud of Christ.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
There's nothing like it. Nothing, there's no other subject where
you can go back one hundred years, fifty years, two
hundred years, seven hundred years and find men and women
studying right here these sects and they're pulling out the
treasures out of the text, and it's the same treasure

(52:51):
as you're seeing. You can't do that with any other subject.
You can't do it with mathematics, you can't do it
with philosophy. You can't study Aristotle and and be just
as amazed with what he was seeing, because we are
so much more advanced than Aristotle now or any any
study except this.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
You know, you said something at the Men's conference that
and I gotta send you this picture of my dad,
so we this is the first time we ever went
to something like this together. My dad's testimony, his story
has challenged my theology in some ways because I'm like, wait, dude,
I don't know what to do with this, because God

(53:32):
really just in two thousand and eight, man, he just
saved my mom and like I mean, she went from
being a drunk to like just saved and like had
no desire for alcohol, like just it just went away
miracle to where my dad had a sensitivity towards the
gospel and a hunger for Christ, but would really just

(53:53):
fall back, you know, into into old ways. But here
in the past years, I really truly believe I've seen,
you know, such a change in him. And so it
was such a cool moment to go to the men's conference.
And I don't know, you weren't there the last night,
but cade I don't know if this if he was

(54:14):
apologizing for us or what, but he's like, I know
this one what you guys expected, you know, but I
wanted to do something different, you know. So I he
was talking about like our teaching styles and things like that,
cause when you taught that for me, yeah, yeah, because
when you taught that first night, I was like, oh cool,

(54:34):
Like this gives me permission to be myself, you know,
I don't have to because sometimes I'm like, man, are
they wanting something? It's super loud and like, well, we're
gonna chant these three words or you know, there's gonna
be all these cliches and like like some people preach
and you just feel like you're reading a Twitter feed,
like everything is just tweetable, you know. And it was
really refreshing. And I don't know how much teaching like that.

(54:56):
My dad's been exposed to. But when you talked about
reading God's Word just like as your treasure, not to
get something out of it, I was like, Man, I'm
not doing that. Like I'm either reading God's Word and
sermon prep reading God's Word following along with what book
we're going through at church, reading God's Word because it's

(55:17):
family devo. And I'm like, man, I've gotten away from
just reading it because I love it and it's my treasure.
And so I've been using there's so many different Bible
journaling methods. What I'm doing right now is called soap.
So it's like scripture. You could write down the passage,
you could write down a couple verses of the passage.
You can write down one verse if you're just reading one,

(55:38):
and then observation, application and then prayer. And I'm like,
whatever books I'm not preaching through, whatever books we're not
going through like at church, I'm just gonna read and
I'm just gonna read it all the way through, because
like what you were saying was when we go to
the Bible like that, we're only going to go to
the Bible not to always challenge us, come for us. Yeah,

(56:01):
And like I've done that in seasons of suffering, let
me just go to the psalms, man, let me just
go to and just be let me go to you know,
Psalms forty six, you know. But sometimes we need to
be challenged, and the Bible is very confrontational. And so
we get back from the men's retreat and my dad
stayed the night and I woke up in the morning

(56:22):
and like, there he was on the back porch, you know,
just with his Bible out, you know, reading his Bible,
you know, and so like, I know that had an
impact on him. I mean for a kid who never
grew up seeing my dad read the Bible, you know,
and it's like, man, Lord like all these things that
I was so bitter about, and I look at my

(56:44):
adult years now and I'm like, Lord, like you restored it.
It wasn't And I know He's still good even for
the people who've had that story and it didn't happen.
But I'm just extra grateful that God allowed me to
see those moments.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
You know. It's a miracle. Yeah, the only the Lord.
And and there's nothing wrong to going going going to
some forty right, Yeah, the Lord is my refuge and strength.
But you're saying on top of that, Yeah, also make
sure you got that diet, that daily die, that.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
The Bible is going to read you sometimes, you know. Yeah,
don't just go to the places you're comfortable with, you know.
So you're good.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
You're speaking tonight, just doing.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
Music and then speaking in the morning. So I'm gonna what.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
Does that look like? What does what does tonight look like? Ye?
Does music look like tonight? So?

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Man, I mean, we're two musicians here, but we're from
very different worlds, you know. So I'm from this exciting
world of rap music, but the Lord saved me from
the Christian music industry, so like I never was a
part of it, you know. And I used to just

(57:54):
be kind of bitter about that. And then I started
meeting people who had been in it and been on
the other side of it and lives wrecked and had
to rediscover their love for Jesus and his church. And
they're like, no, man, I would do anything to trade
what I had for your like concerts for thirty people here,
you know, one hundred people there, printing your own merge,

(58:17):
like uploading your music through your own distributor, And like
I've had some songs like in my mind, like Okay,
Like I got to be a part of a successful
song a few years ago that was in the Christian
music world and went like number one on the Billboard,
and that was like awesome experience to see that, And

(58:38):
I'm like, WHOA, Like you actually can like make money
in music. I didn't know. But a lot of what
I do, it's like, man, I'm using the music just
as a tool to like create space for me to
share about the gospel and share my testimony. So when
tonight I'll be doing like a late night concert out

(58:59):
of church camp. But there's a lot of lost kids
there and they've been tapped out during the sermons, and
suddenly someone comes doing music they're familiar with. But it's
just like his attitude is different, his demeanor is different.
And then in between the songs, he's talking about God
like he really knows him, and he's talking about the

(59:20):
scripture and if them and you've seen this, like you
shared a really powerful testimony before we started. Music can
just take people's guard down. Man. Long like to reject
the gospel, you at least got to hear it even
have a chance to reject it. So I look at
my music is almost how I look at my mom,

(59:42):
that there was this window when my mom went to
this twenty eight day program in two thousand and seven,
where I knew my mom was sober, And I'm like,
here's my window, because now, can God do a miracle
and sober someone up in an instant? Of course, can
God do a miracle and open up deaf ears? You know,
spiritually he does it all the time. But I'm like, hey,
my mom's sobered up, right, now, here's the chance for

(01:00:04):
me to just she's coherently there, so I can share
the gospel with her. Sometimes with my music, it's just
whether I'm at a church camp, whether I'm at an outreach,
whether you know, we did our own tours in the past,
which were pretty hilarious. Whatever I'm doing, I'm trying to
use the music just to sober you up for a

(01:00:24):
minute and maybe let that guard down so that I
could preach Christ. And so I've always just I've never
had the pressure of the music industry. I've never had
the pressure of performance and numbers. When the Crez set
me down in the studio and pretty much softly rebuked me,
it was always about this is missional, Like this is ministry.

(01:00:46):
This is to shape the culture and influence the culture
towards Christ. So it's like I try to be really
good at what I do as far as the art form,
but I never compromise. Like for me, music is is
from the heart. It's it's just that's where it's supposed
to come from. And rap music really and it's how

(01:01:07):
it started, was really birth from people's pain and suffering
and communicating from the heart. So I'm like, all right,
if y'all want me to communicate from the heart, like
this is a heart that's been redeemed, so you're gonna
get you know, a lot of Jesus.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
You know, it's beautiful thing. So you'll go in tonight
with the DJ.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Basically, normally my daughter DJs for me, and before that,
my oldest son traveled with me for six years as
my DJ. We got to just do father son side
by side. I got to go to Africa, I got
to go all over America. And then when my daughter
was seven, she was ready to try to take over.
So we tried to hold her back, but eventually we couldn't.

(01:01:46):
And so now she'll DJ for me. But tonight I'm
DJing for myself. Because my kids got VBS, so yeah,
DBS does it come before Dad's concert? So yeah, I'll
just I'll DJ for myself. I'll run tracks. When when
I was in Japan, i went there back in October,
I actually did my first acoustic concert where I played piano,

(01:02:06):
which isn't really acoustic, but and played ukulele and did
like an acoustic house concert, which was not normal, and
I was speaking doing some songs in Japanese, so it
was not fun. It required a lot of focus. But
normally I got a DJ running tracks, and then in
the morning I'll teach too, breakout sessions on how to

(01:02:26):
share the gospel, you know, try to quick tomorrow. Yeah,
so tomorrow morning.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
So good man. So is there spoken word involved in
this or is it just rap?

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Yeah? Spoken word did that? Yeah, so let's talk about
that piece real quick. I I fell into spoken word
because a church are just like, yeah, that's too fast.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
I just thought that what I thought.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
So I think there's certain artists who have the art
form of spoken word, you know, better than I do.
Because really, I'm a rapper first, so I I rely
a lot more on meter and rhyme and tempo and rhythm.
So I get asked by like a really big church
back in twenty fifteen. So that's how old that piece

(01:03:11):
is that you heard, all right, So I don't know
how much you remember of it, but just try to
think about the content. Here was my prompt. It's Easter Sunday.
I'm like, Resurrection Sunday. But keep going. They're like, uh,
we want to talk about how God can just resurrect
your dream. That was my prompt. Oh man, So I'm

(01:03:31):
like so I'm like, okay, I'm like, man, I don't
really think that's what the resurrection is about. So then
I just went full gospel, you know, like we're going
back to Genesis. We're talking, let's define the dream, glorify
God and enjoy Him forever. That's from one of the catechisms, right,

(01:03:54):
And I'm like, that's the dream that should be everyone's dream.
And how did we lose that dream? Because sin, you know,
into the world. And I'm thinking they're gonna shut this down,
Like when I send this to the worship pastor, he's
gonna be like this, there's blood in this, there's cross.
This is like explicit and I don't know if you've

(01:04:17):
seen this with your music, but it's like sometimes you
just get a pass if it's well done, and it's like, well,
it's just so well done. So I did that peace
and man, it just people were coming up to me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:34):
Like, what was that?

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Where did you get that? I'm like, it's the Gospel.
I just I got it from the Bible. I've never
heard it put like that. I'm like, it's in there,
like and it was just kind of sad to me that. Yeah,
it felt to Christians. So my brothers and sisters they
were like, what is that like?

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
But the Lord gave you that platform. Yeah, is there
a little bit you could do here? Yeah, like an
sit right here, like we.

Speaker 2 (01:05:01):
Got we need an ambient we need the Holy Spirit
doesn't come until there's ambient music. So let me do
a different piece. This one was called He reigns. I
gotta take the glasses off. I can't do spoken word
in glasses, says before the beginning? Wait, how does this
before the beginning? When God? Yeah, here we go, before

(01:05:24):
the beginning, when what we call ancient was far in
the distant future. God reigned uninhibited no limit to the
love between father son spirits. See God was without need,
but because it pleased him He breathed in an exhaled
man from dust, knowing the throne would be abandoned. Plus,

(01:05:48):
his hands would touch his enemies and heal them. He
was king over every atom in the universe, holding together
the Earth's plates, telling the oceans where to stop. In
the first place, Jesus existed before existence, but he left
his throne instead. He chose a fleshly robe, inhabited the

(01:06:09):
womb of a virgin. He knit together to be her
son for a moment, but make her his forever. He
was king over every king, gave everything to his father.
They saw the blistered feet, a homeless rabbi who would
grit his teeth, wipe sweat from his brows, settled down,
deliver speech that was salt and light to all who heard.

(01:06:32):
But we we mocked him. We saw the only crown
fit for him was laced with hate and jagged thorns.
The only robe we ascribed to him was beaten, flesh
blistering with blood splattered. For we ignored his precious name,
But he reigns. And Jesus could have turned to his

(01:06:53):
accuser and said, dear sir, the arm that you flex
to drive these nails through my risk I Remember when
I knit that muscle tissue in you, and young man,
the saliva you spit at my mauled face, I created
the glands that produce it. And young lady, the air

(01:07:14):
you use to push out threats against me. Right now,
I'm putting that air in your chest. Yes, this is
the king who has never stopped reigning torrential rule. That's
a heavy rain because even in his death there was victory, y'all,
world forever change. This king was not left, Mamma, fied
in a tomb, temple or pyramid. Open up the eyes

(01:07:37):
of your heart. The throne to heaven is where he
clearly is. We were not saved by a peasant. We
weren't just saved by a good teacher. The creator of
the cosmos, God is our redeemer. God saved us from
himself for himself, by himself. And if you see that

(01:07:58):
eternal blood rains through your vein lines, no one can
pull in the reins on his everlasting rain because he rains. Amen.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
Amen, Now I gotta put the glasses back on. Amen.
So good man, God is good. God is good, and
the Lord has used you in your life and in
your platform, and you're yeats it's so cool, so cool

(01:08:34):
to see man. Yeah, what can we say besides he
has done it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
Yeah, he rains. He rains even in the suffering, you know,
like he rains. Don't lose sight of that, and that's
our hope.

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
You know, where can people find you?

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
Yeah, so on most social media platforms, just Dylan Chase. Okay,
so d I L L O N. Chase. That's just
what my mom named me. That's just whenever I was
in trouble, she called me by my first and middle name,
Dylan Chase. I'm like, man, that's got a ring to it.
So I've always just put my music out under that. Yeah,
you can wherever you find music or whatnot. I'm working

(01:09:13):
on a new album really just based off this whole
idea of sufferings temporary. It's called not Destroyed really just
inspired by Second Corinthians for we're broken, but we're not destroyed,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
And so yeah, it's good man, appreciate you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:09:30):
Man, thank you. It's been a blessing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
If you come back to Texas, jump back on here.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah, Cade the guy who was brought us together in
near Maillo. He's trying to see how I would fit
in that at the EEE Fest.

Speaker 1 (01:09:40):
Man, I gotta I'll be honest with you. Man I
I if I had met you like one week after,
because I was like, I want dyaling for YEGI Fest. Yeah,
So next year, I'm gonna go to you with that
date as soon as we get it. And I gotta
you gotta like take me shopping or something. Man, I
gotta get the right I gotta get the right gear
and the right hat. Oh your COVID Yeah yeah, we'll

(01:10:01):
get you.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
We'll get all the ee s. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Yeah, we don't have to go to the store for that.

Speaker 2 (01:10:05):
Yeah, let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:10:07):
All right, bro, Thank you, thank you, Thank you so
much for hanging out with me on this episode of
the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate you being here. If you're
listening right now, go ahead and rate today's podcast. It
helps more folks find the show. And if you're tuning
in on the iHeartRadio app, you could actually set this
podcast as one of your presets, which is cool that way.
I'm just one tap away. If you're watching on YouTube,

(01:10:28):
don't forget to hit like and subscribe so you don't
miss any new episodes. And if you've got a question
you want answered right here on the show. Just email
me podcast at grangersmith dot com. I'd love to hear
from you. Thanks again for being here. We'll see you
next time.

Speaker 2 (01:10:40):
Ye

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From Homeless Teen-Dad to Gospel Rapper | Dillon Chase

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}From Homeless Teen-Dad to Gospel Rapper | Dillon Chase