February 19, 2025 • 57 mins
Former pastor's son Caleb Ward joins Lola and Meagan to share his experience about the height of evangelical culture in the early 2000s in a church called Kingdom Life Ministries. Caleb discusses growing up in an environment where everyone was speaking in tongues and having loud prophecies in the middle of church, the pressures that come with being the son of a pastor, how heightened emotional experiences keep people connected to their churches, wild evangelical youth culture involving Christian rock, how good church leadership can actually exist, and why shunning is one of the worst parts of modern Christian religion.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you have your own story of being in a
cult or a high control group.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power
that you'd like to share.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Leave us a message on our hotline number at three
four seven eight six trust.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
Shoot us an email at trust Me pod at gmail
dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Trust Me.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Trust Me.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I'm like a squat person.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I've never lived. To you.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
If you think that one person has all the answers, don't.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to trust Me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief
and manipulation from two tongue speakers who've actually experienced it.
I'm Lola Blong.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
And I'm Megan Elizabeth, the tongue speakers. That's what you'll
get at it.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
You'll get it, You'll hear it.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, that'll make sense.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
It's good today.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Our guest is Caleb Ward, my pal from the horror
film community, but also a former pastor's son who experienced
the height of evangelical culture in the early two thousands
in a church called Kingdom Life Ministries. While Kyla was
not necessarily in a traditional cult, we'll talk about what
it was like growing up in an environment where everyone
was speaking in tongues and having loud prophecies in church
(01:11):
about things like who would win the game, the pressures
that come with being the son of a pastor, and
how those heightened emotional experiences keep people connected to their churches.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
He'll talk about the wild evangelical youth culture involving Christian Rock,
how good church leadership can exist, and why he thinks
shunning is one of the worst parts of modern Christian religion.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
This episode has some pretty comical evangelical cultural touchstones here
that I would really like to see a TV show of,
So Klob please get on that. But yeah, it's not
what it's not a necessarily a traditional cult episode, but
I think you guys will enjoy it. And there's still
plenty to talk about in terms of the evangelical community
(01:53):
and that like heightened emotion thing that some of these
churches can give us that keep us feeling so connected
to those communities. Be on the point where maybe we
should be right totally before we jump in. What's your
culty is saying of this week? Actually, I know what
it is because it's the same as mine.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yes, we're sharing one. Okay, you give it. You give
it its introduction.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Okay, so everyone by now, I think probably has seen
all the headlines about this new cult known as the Zizians.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
If you consume conservative.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Media, you will be there will be a lot of
fear mongering you're probably saying about it. But it almost
seems like this is kind of this generation's Manson Family
a little bit in that it's like praying on some
like fears in conservative America. But there are actual killings
that are happening and there it's all led by one
(02:48):
person who's like.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Radicalized.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Some very intelligent, otherwise seemingly had good jobs and pretty
normal lives people. The Zizian leader is a trans woman.
Most colds, obviously are are run by cis gender people.
This one happens to be run by a trans woman
and that is being run within the media. Nevertheless, it
is pretty insane. Six is it six people that have
(03:14):
been killed now, Megan.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yes, six. They've been linked to six deaths across three
states and maybe more.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, so they're apparently one of the members. Their parents
have been killed.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
There was an older there's an old.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Man whose property they were kind of like trying to
set up shop on, like camp out on and he
tried to get them to leave, and they tried to
kill him, and then he survived, and then he was
going to testify against them in court, and then allegedly
they did kill him, this eighty something year old man,
and then there was a shootout with the cops where
(03:50):
like two people died, I think one of the members
and maybe a cop.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I mean, as far as the like carnage goes, I
think that's pretty much the overarching description of it. Like
you said, it's been everywhere. It's kind of confusing, you know,
but it's it is really scary. And I was kind
of going back to the beginning to see what they
actually were originally talking about, and I found it very interesting.
(04:19):
So there's this Bay Area rationalist thought called functional decision
theory that I guess really took off at Berkeley, which
is where a lot of these women are going. So basically,
what it's saying is that what decision do you want
to make if you're making this decision for every version
(04:43):
of yourself in every reality, So what it really wants
you to do is pre commit to huge decisions so
that every version of you in every reality is making
the same choice. And the point of it is like,
it doesn't matter if it works out quote unquote in
this reality, as long as you're doing it in every
(05:03):
reality and one of them at well, and then enough
of them you're going to make positive changes. So you know,
they were very committed to causes like veganism, So there
was really extreme things that they decided to pre commit
to that would help change this industry, which, being totally honest,
(05:26):
I could really see myself getting caught up in a
belief system like this, especially if it includes something like veganism,
which I'm not currently vegan, but I have been for
a very long times in my life and get very
passionate about it. Yeah, really interesting and definitely a cult
that I could be persuaded to join.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Okay, this is so interesting because I feel like normally
you and I would be like we would totally join
different cults, but this is one, not because of what
you just said, but because of some of the other
parts of the other origins. Also seems like one that
I would join because it's Okay, So it's a group
of like young computer scientists who are all like you know,
(06:06):
apparently incredibly intelligent. Like one of the members all her
friends kind of came forward and were like, she's so smart,
she's so like brilliant, she had so much going for her,
and she got sucked into this thing.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
It's all of these people who are.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Kind of My understanding is their belief system is centered
around like rationalist thought or whatever, and it's all about
like making choices. My understanding is that there's some association
with this idea of like rationalism and talking about the
you know, the dangers of AI just stuff that I
like connect with. But then it starts to get pretty
(06:44):
hairy because I guess the leader whose name is as
if they look that up.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I'll I'll just say, like rationalists use this the school
thought that I described to justify like radical altruism. If
I donate now, I want every version of me and
all realities to donate. You know, if I kill the
bad guy now, I want every version of me and
all reality is to kill the bad guy.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
That's their version of rationalism.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Because traditionally rationalism is believing that reason is the primary
source of knowledge, not experienced, and so I think a
lot of people would not believe in multiple realities necessarily.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
So the leader Zizz, who also faked.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Her own depth which was a right side plot. I
was not expecting.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Oh, by the way, she she's just been arrested. She
and someone else have just been arrested. So that's why
this is breaking news this week.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So the leaders is one of the things that she
was starting to talk about was this idea that there
are two different parts of your brain and like they
have conflicting personalities and ideas or whatever, and like something
about you know, trying to reconcile these two different parts
of yourself, which is not based in anything actually rationalist
or like based on any evidence.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
That's just like some shit she made up. So the
point is, we don't really know that much.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
We know that the general outlines of some of the beliefs,
but as we know, the beliefs are not generally important.
What's generally the key is that there's a leader who is,
you know, manipulating people and kind of radicalizing them, and
in this case they are they have been radicalized to
the point where people have been murdered.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
And that is all we know.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And also we no one's been convicted in court yet,
so we don't know who did what allegedly. It's all alleged,
but they've.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Been linked to these deaths, we should say.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, I will say that there was an article just
kind of describing the other trans women and the group
and how they were all and you know this this
is just one article, but they're just saying that they're
like super lonely vulnerable people that you know, we see
that as being people culled pray on.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, So more to come.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I'm sure this will be in the news for many
weeks and months and we will update y'all. But until then,
should we talk to Caleb.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Let's talk to Caleb. So you've decided to quit your
job and chase after your dreams, good for you. But
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Speaker 2 (10:10):
Welcome Caleb Ward to trust me. Thank you, thanks for
being here in the flesh.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
That was enthusiastic entrance.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I haven't seen him in so long.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
It was so fun.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
It does feel like a nice, like little reunion. This
was great, This is perfect. I've never felt more welcome
in my life.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Oh my god, that's all you want exactly. So you
are a pastor's son, yes, and you were in a
group we have never talked about before. Start us at
the beginning. Tell us about your some of your early
memories of religion, like maybe that first church that you
were in.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, so okay.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
So I was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where my dad
was the pastor of a church called Belvity or Baptist Church,
which was essentially sort of like an offshoot of the
Southern Baptist Convention, which is a denomination mostly based in
the South. Obviously, it was predominantly just sort of like
(11:09):
a standard like Baptist Christian church for a very long time,
and then sort of in like the mid nineties, there
was sort of like a shift where they started doing
more like praise and worship and speaking in tongues and
using banners and and and you know, all kinds of
like performative banners. Banner oh, like like giant banners that
(11:33):
just say like Jesus. Like there were like a couple
of like mostly women, I feel like, who would just
sort of like parade through.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
The church.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Like banner girl.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
I know, yeah, banners and ribbons. It was like, what's
the competition with the Olympic competition.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
That's kind of strange for there to be oh the ribbons. Yeah,
that's that's I mean. Were you kind of like, WHOA,
that's weird or no?
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Because that was all I knew, Like I remember because
I went to Christian school at like a different at
like a Lutheran school for a long time, and like
we would have like Lutheran chapel and I was like, oh,
this is that I think maybe that was like the
first time I was like, oh, this is a lot
different than what we do on Like my Sundays are
(12:19):
a lot different, where like at this Lutheran school it
was a lot more like traditional and hymns and stand up,
sit down, neil and you're out the door, like very
standard like Christianity, Lutheran Christianity, and ours was more like
a rock concert.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So I was Mormon, So our Mormon church is very solemn.
We only play the organ, and no one's like saying
anything funny ever. I mean maybe maybe you'll have a
missionary who'll get up and give a talk, and you
might crack a joke or two, but generally it's like
quite serious. And I went to like some friends services
or whatever, and I was like, what the fuck is
(12:55):
going on? There's guitar in shurt.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
I mean it's how I learned how to played drums.
It's how we learned how to play every instrument that
I know how to play. Was because I was like
in the band, that's kind of sick, okay cool for
like me and the like sixty people that would come
to the church. I was like a local celebrity to
sixty people.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
The same sorrow was like seeing us what worship to
God was. Yeah, you guys, sorrow like way Mormons the
act of being sad. Oh yeah, yeah, we had to be.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
It's very Catholic.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
You're like, sorrow that sounds like a cool rock band.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
No, just Sound Nails cover band.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And we weren't even allowed to have organ It was
just just people saying hell yeah, and some people not good.
Oh well I'm sure. Yeah, so far your group sounds
kind of cool.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
I mean like as a kid, you're like, oh my god,
we get to like run around and like this is
kind of fun. And you know, we were there until until.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I was ten.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
We were we were in Baltimore for the first ten
years of my life this church because.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
There's so formative. This is all I knew. We were
there several days a week. You know.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
My my mom had a job at an accounting firm.
I think she was working in or No, it was
a CPA, and my dad was, you know, at the
church every day. And I think the congregation was like
at that time, was probably like one hundred one hundred
and fifty or something like that. It was a lot
bigger at that time, which I don't know if that's
that's not a mega church by any yeah big because
(14:28):
of like what the church that we eventually ended up
at was a lot smaller. But this was you know,
mid to late nineties, so it was like DC Talk
and Reliant K were like big bands in my life
because like, you know, that was all I was allowed
to listen to, And like POD was like the first
like like more hard you know band.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Do you guys know Christian rock?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, we are.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
That's the one that, like most people know. But like
when I think of POD, I think of Snuff the Punk.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Snuff the Punk.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
Okay, Snuff the Punk is the first album that Pod
ever put out. It was like an EP and the
I remember the original album art, which is like kind
of hard to find, is like an angel holding a
gun like and pointing it at a demon like in
like a like a half Nelson kind of situation.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Oh my god, fucking rad right, isn't that cool?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I mean, that is sick?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I was.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I had an album title title that I wanted to
use for my new album, and I looked it up
to see if anyone had it, and Pod just released
an album with that title, so I can't use it.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Lies?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
We tell ourselves.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Oh, that's that's very cool.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
I haven't listened to a new Pod album and probably a.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Very long time. You don't need to, okay.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
But I did drive by myself to San Diego three
years ago to see them live for the first time
because I was like, I just need to full circle.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
I need to see them. I'd never seen them perform live.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Really.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
I drove by myself to the House of Blues. I
asked so many people to come with me. I was like,
I'll buy your ticket. I don't want to go to
this alone. Let us guess, and everyone was like, no, thanks,
I have gone. I was like, okay, I guess I'll
go by myself. And I went and like they played
the hits and I was like, great, got that out
of my system and site, I mean.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
No hate to Pod. I don't know Christian, that's fine.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah, it has like a nostalgia factor.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Yeah, but like that was that was sort of like
all I knew as far as like pop culture, and
like my community was like all based in this church,
like our friends all of our like family friends, Like
it was all based in this church. Like I had
some neighbor friends and friends from school, but like it
was mostly like this community, you know, except for us
(16:41):
all living on a compound. Like it was just this
insular group that you know, kind of fed into each other.
And like people would leave. And I was very young
at the time. I didn't really sort of pick up
on this until way later, but like people would leave
the church and they would essentially be like completely ostracized,
you know. And I didn't experience that until much later
(17:02):
in life. But like I remember at the time being like, oh,
the so and sos have left the church. That's sad, like,
but we'll still see them, right wrong, Like we never
see them again.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
It was like they died.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Right when did you guys? Transition from Church one into
Kingdom Life Ministries.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
So we left Baltimore for North Carolina in two thousand
and two. The summer of two thousand and two, we
moved to Richland's, North Carolina, which is bumfuck nowhere town
of I think the last time I checked the population
as of like twenty twenty two, it was like sixteen
(17:38):
hundred people. Oh my god, So I think at the time,
it was like probably like eleven hundred.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
It's near a bigger city.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
It's near Jacksonville, North Carolina, where Camp La June is,
which is like the largest marine base, so there's a
lot of people there. But like in my like town,
like where I went to high school, very teeny tiny.
That was when we shifted to well what was called
at the time Praised Tabernacle.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
It was called Praise Tabernacle at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
It's really amazing how many people who grew up in
the evangelical community were at just tons of different churches
with all these different names and the differences. It's just
minutia what the differences are. I cannot keep track.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Like I can't either, and I was in it.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
Yeah, Like like if you asked me, like what the
impetus for calling the church Praised Tabernacle was, I don't
know that I could tell you, Like I I it
like I'd have to like really stretch to try and
figure out why it was called that. I mean, I
knew why they changed the name to Kingdom Life Ministries,
and it was because after you know, the founder of
(18:42):
the church, doctor Kelly Varner, passed in two thousand and nine,
my dad like sort of was like it's time for rebrand,
like let's let's shake things up. You know, it's sort
of like a new not regime, but like you.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Know, a new new era. Yeah, a new era. Yeah. Yeah.
He was in his kingdom life era.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
And and and that felt more attuned to sort of
what the mission I guess overall was of, you know,
of the church, which was sort of like this higher
elevation of living living a kingdom life. Like there were
there were these sort of these like almost like sections
(19:22):
of like higher learning that they would call like the
the lower room, the middle room, in the upper room,
which is I believe pulled from the New Testament, where
after Jesus dies, it's okay, yeah, after Jesus dies, the
(19:42):
apostles are like communing in a room literally like in
an upstairs room. This is the story that I might
be butchering. And this is when they like feel the
Holy Spirit for the first time, and so like this
is the story in the Bible that talks about speaking
in tongues, which is, you know, basically like when you
(20:02):
have no other words to describe what you're trying to
communicate to God, it's just sort of like this mumbo
jumbo like made up language, you know, and like the
bid is like he's coming, He's coming on a Honda
leaving on a Hondai. Like that's the like bid is like, Oh,
if you don't know what you're saying, just keep saying
that over and over again.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
And I don't get that. If you're coming in a hut.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
It's just like it's just like an automonopoia kind of sounding.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Okay, So I grew up doing auctioneering, I am, and
she was and ventriloqui.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
So I went to like auctioneer school, which I say
in quotation marks because it was a weekend seminar. It
was not a school, but my mom and I went
to camp. Yeah, but it was my mom and nine
year old me and like twenty five grown ass cowboys
and amazing. But I like, I was just thinking about
it the other day because my friends were asking about it,
and auctioneering is very similar. You just say, who.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Would he go?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Who'd have bid dollar?
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Now?
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Can you still do it?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Now?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Like if you tried, I basically just have like a
five second snippet memorized because I don't really remember.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
How to do it.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, I if I would have been I would go
if I not five, who not ten? Would go ten?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Ten?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Now fifteen? Okay, that's all I got.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
That's basically speaking in tongues.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah, yeah, I can do it.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Is this speaking in tongues? Yeah, I used to do
when I was when I was little.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
That gave me chills. Here, it's weird.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
So I used to do that when I was little
all of the time. And and the two by twos
you're not allowed to speak in tongues like that is
one of the biggest sins you can commit. And my
mom would be like, shut.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Up, why was it?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
I don't know. There's some verse in the Bible that
says like you should stop speaking in what the Bible
just like says so many different things.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
It's so hypocritical.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
So yeah, but it was like the one thing I
was kind of good at and just came naturally to me.
And I was like, just let me freaking speaking.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
This is one thing, Like I've got it down.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, I would have been a rock star.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I know. My dad and I would pretend to speak
in another language just to like fuck with my friends.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Oh that's fun. So it was basically speaking in tongues
kind of Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
I mean yeah, you know, uh, what's the it's like
pig Latin. Kind of sounds like pig Latin.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, whatever, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
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pros dot com slash Trust. Sorry, So, speaking in tongues
was in the So that was, Yeah, that was in
(23:56):
Baltimore as well as North Carolina, but like just to
kind of like take a step back to like Belvedere
and Baltimore sort of how we ended up in North
Carolina was basically my dad had started to kind of
feel like, you know, they weren't doing enough, like there
was something higher to sort of access.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
And like speaking tongues and you know, in praise and
worship and like loud and gregarious and not just like
this like sorrow and woe and like we're so bad
and we're sinners. Like there was more to it than that.
So like there was there was like there were honest
intentions in it. I think as far as like we
could be doing more and we don't need to be
like these like downtrodden. Everything is bad and you're so awful,
(24:39):
like like.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah right, yeah, Like what's the profile on your dad.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Like like what's his whole what's his.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Deal, what's his character?
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Yeah, my dad is from not from My dad's from Florida,
from Winter Park, Florida.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
He did not grow up very religious.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
And then he was in the army, and then he
was in the Navy, and then he was in the
Air Force.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Oh wow, I think in that order, I think.
Speaker 7 (25:10):
A military I've never Yeah, and he didn't retire, you know,
he did his like his tenure, like his the years
that he had signed up for, and then he left
and he talks about how when he left he didn't
really have like any direction.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
There was like a navy captain who brought him to
a church service one night, and you know, and that
just sort of changed his life.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
From there, he went to Bible College.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
That's where he met my mom and they got married
and then nine years later they had me and they
ended up in Baltimore. Take you over this church because
he was part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is
basically like a like like if you were like playing
in like the minor leagues, like in baseball, like you
like play for like the the the Tulsa Drillers, which
(25:56):
is like a minor league for the Dodge. Is like okay,
you get called up to the Dodgers. Like he was
a Mississippi, he was in Montana. He got called up
to take care of this church in Baltimore.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
That's all right.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
He seems very charming from the from what I've seen.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
M Yeah, he's a really good guy.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, he seems like I would trust him.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Do you think that the military informed his like being
drawn to religion like kind of with the structure and hierarchy.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
That's interesting. I never I've never thought about it like
that actually, but that makes a lot of sense, like
sort of having a system in place. But it's so
interesting because like he kind of broke away from that
and became a little more like freestyle, you know, right,
So that's really interesting.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I never thought about it, like, I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Guess, Yeah, what you're describing sounds more not chaotic, but
like expressive.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
But he started out like you said, I mean, he
did start out more regiment to him, right yeah, and then.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
You know I saw there was something more.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yeah yeah, So tell us about how, like how did
he actually become the pastor it was like in North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah yeah, So it's an interesting story.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
So basically, in two thousand and two, doctor Varner invited
my dad to come down to Richonds, North Carolina and
start a school essentially for pastors.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Like, oh, it would be sort of like a quarterly.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
Conference of sorts where pastors sort of within this sort
of like offshoot of an offshoot of an offshoot of
Christianity being like Kingdom Ministry would come in and like
learn from him and learn from doctor Varner about like
various teachings and just really digging into like the granular,
granular parts of the Bible, like stuff that was taught
(27:48):
to us on Sundays, and would just go completely over
my head because it was like a collegiate level of learning.
Like it wasn't like here's a simple Bible story, you know,
you unto others and then you see you next week.
It was like, let's talk about what like Ezekiel means
when he says this one word and this is the
(28:08):
original Latin or this is the original Greek and like
just stuff that was so over my head at the time.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
So he was brought down to run this school.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
We had been there I think like six months at
the time, and the hierarchy of the church was there
was doctor Varner, there was another pastor I think his
last I think he was Pastor Keating I think, and
then my dad was running this church. So it was
sort of like that hierarchy.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
And doctor Varner is the leader of the whole great.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah, he's like like the CEO, and then the pastor
is kind of like the president. And then my dad
was like, you know, running a department.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Right right, right right.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And how big was the total group, would you say?
Speaker 5 (28:49):
I think at the time it's probably like around one
hundred people. Oh yeah, small, very small, like yeah, maybe
maybe one hundred people. And I think we had been
in North Carolina maybe like six months at the time,
maybe a little longer when the pastor just like left,
(29:10):
like we were given like no story, like he's.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Gone, Well he probably did something bad, right.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Probably, I mean I have to assume like in some capacity,
like he just like it was like overnight, he's gone,
He's out of here.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
So interesting, we've had two guests on the show who
were pastors and had a like sexual indiscretion of some
kind and we're like overnight, yea, just gone.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
So there was a.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
There was a separate incident, not not with this pastor
but with the church like accountant or not secretary, but
like who would run the money for a church.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I love gossip so much that I'm like drooling to
find out what this is.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Oh, this was like this is the first year. This
is all stuff that happened, like the first year we've
been there. Like the drama, uh, like the the account
I can't remember exactly what is his title was just
like also gone in the night, and we're all like
what happened?
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And it was he was stealing.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
He'd been stealing from the Jurnal for like years, oh
for years of legitimate yeah, and like but like the
like the pastors were like, we're not seeking legal action,
Like you have.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
To go though, like and that's and we can come
back to that, but like not seeking legal action. We
come back to a lot in this podcast because it's
like we'll take care of it in God's family. And
the crimes can get bigger and bigger and bigger and
it's a disaster.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
It is a little like let's like not embarrass ourselves.
Like that is kind of like the way it felt
at the time. And because I was like eleven and
like being and I was getting this information, like I
feel like I had to grow up very fast in
a lot of ways because of sort of like being
in this church and like being such a focal point
of the community.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
This is a small town.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
A lot of churches in this small town, though, and
like there's a Baptist church, there's a Lutheran church, there's
a Methodist church, there's another Baptist church, there's a smaller
Pentecostal church. There was our church, like and like being
one of several pastor's kids like kind of had a
bit of a spotlight on me at times. But like, yeah,
there was just all this sort of like chaos happening
(31:23):
like the first year that we were there. And so
my dad, who did not want to come and be
the pastor of this church, initially was like I'm not
coming to do this, I'm coming to run this school.
Like less than a year in is now the pastor
of the church, and then remain there for until twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And I imagine you have like a very window into
the going behind the scenes from just kind of overhearing
things within that.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Yeah, in a big way. And my parents were They
were very honest. They were very open and honest with
me about what was going on to do degree of which,
like I think back on now and I'm like, I
didn't need to know all.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Of this, right, and like to.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
Their credit, what I will say to my parents' credit,
like later in life, like my dad has apologized to
me for things of like things that he said or
you know, things that they sort of let me in
on that Like I just didn't need to know as
like a teenager who was like like discovering girls and
like learning to play instruments and skateboarding, Like I just
didn't need to Like, yeah, wasn't my responsibility, you know
(32:31):
it did.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I did feel very responsible for things because I was
a part of this family right and part of the church.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I have to imagine being a pastor's kid, like and
only child and only child. My god, that's so much pressure.
You have to be the good, good boy all the time. Yeah.
I want to know more about doctor Barner because he
had prophecies.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
Oh yeah, that was a big part of like a
regular like Sunday service. Like if doctor Varner was was there,
because sometimes he was traveling.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I was sorry, just to clarify when we say doctor,
this is not medical doctor.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
No, no, no, no, like a doctor of theology, doctor
in theology. Right, Like my dad is technically a reverend,
but he doesn't call it like he doesn't he never
had people call him reverend like he was always just
like pastor Ward.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
So this, I mean, this is a big part of
like a like a regular Sunday service. So we'd start
at like ten am with like opening like notes, and
this is what's going on like this week, and you know,
like because we would do a lot of stuff in
the community, things like that, like our youth group had
Friday night hangtime.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Oh lucky you, Friday night hangtime.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Exactly what I need to do come back to the
church on Friday night. And then we would do praise
and worship, which I played drums that I learn it
play drums uh in the church band. And we would
do like a couple of songs and like however, the
spirit sort of moved like sometimes we'd never even get
to like the actual stop sermon. Yeah, like fairly often,
(34:15):
like it would just we just end up in praise
and worship for like two hours with people like grabbing
the mic being like I've got a word from the
Lord or like I'm hearing something, or like oftentimes there
was another sort of like associate pastor in the church
that would like, have me do like drum I'm not kidding,
what have me do drum solos as like a ministry.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Oh yeah, wow, like a sound.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
Bath, like a really yeah, with a lot of like
toms involved. But uh so oftentimes like doctor Varner would
come up and he would he he also played the saxophone,
and so he would come like sometimes you do like
a saxophone solo, or like he'd come and sing prophecies
to people or which.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Sounds great, it sounds fun, yeah, but seeing.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Prophecy, Yeah, yeah, that was a big part.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
What's an example of this?
Speaker 5 (35:07):
Okay, the one that has stuck with me and like
essentially just sort of haunted me for.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Uh the better part of Oh my god, how long ago?
Almost twenty years now, I guess.
Speaker 5 (35:19):
So in two thousand and nine before he passed, like
two or three months before he passed, there was one
morning it was the Oh it was the graduation service
that was always a big deal, Like for like the
high school graduates were getting read to graduate and I
was getting ready to graduate me in a couple others,
and in the service, like he came to me and
(35:42):
saying a prophecy that was verbatim. You think you're just
going to school. Your life has always been under my rule.
The next seven years, I'll give you all you need.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
And so this is like, you think your life is
just going to school, you're actually.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Under Yeah, fully I can them.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
I forgot it.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Seven years.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
The next seven years, I'll give you all you need.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
The next seven years will give you all you need.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Fairly close. He had a way deeper voice, but that
was pretty good. Years will give you all you need.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Yes, And you're like what in my mind, I'm like, awesome, fuck, yeah,
I'm set by twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Awesome. That stuck with me for a really really long time.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Oh good, duh, Like what did you think that that meant?
Speaker 3 (36:32):
No fucking idea. I wasn't even eighteen at the time.
I didn't know.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
You'd be like, sir, this is a Wendy's Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I mean it's not nice.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
It does, Yes, it does in theory, You're like, wow,
that's great, but like that's the dangerous part of some
of this stuff is like some of these like quote
prophetic words would be like do this go here, leave.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
This, marry this person, do this, have this child.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
It's like, what's that predictor telling people what to do with?
Speaker 5 (37:08):
Yeah, as like this is the word from the Lord.
I'm tapped into a source. I have this like link
from here to here, and this is a word from
the Lord, and you're so enraptured in it to the
point where you're like, Okay, well that's got to be it.
So like for seven years, I like even after I
had left the church and like walked away from religion entirely,
that that message.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Stuck with me.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
It still sticks to me to this day where I'm like,
well did I well, like what did I what happened
in twenty sixteen? Like what did I do here? What
did I do there? Like that like haunted me for
a really long time.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Well you said that in these service like what is
it praise and worship? In praise and worship, yeah, like
everyone people would just kind of grab the mic, So
like would that be that? Did that mean? Like anyone
could have a prophecy.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah, pretty much like there wasn't much of a filter.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Oh my gosh, this could go wrong and it's so wrong.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah yeah, I mean in a way, it's like more
equitable because in most coldes, the prophet's the only one
who can have the prophecy, right, or the leader, and
that you know, people get drunk on that power. On
this one, like what if people had two conflicting prophecies
at the same time.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
What would happen?
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Oh, that happened all the time, it did. Oh yeah,
Oh my god, yeah, that would happen all the time.
Like people would come up and say something very specific.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Oh my god, I just remembered one. It was Super
Bowl Sunday.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
Timely and the Carolina Panthers were in the Super Bowls
So whatever year that was, I don't remember it. And
doctor Varner was preaching that day and like he this
is so burned in my brain. He could feel like
the energy sort of like shifting in the room, like
he was kind of like losing people. They weren't paying
attention because this Super Bowl Sunday, you want to get
home and get your stuff prepped and like having a party, YadA,
(38:52):
YadA yadda, and he just went Panther's gonna win by
fourteen they lost.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
So I was like, man, is all of this bullshit?
Is he just saying this stuff to me? Wow?
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Did you like how old were you wish?
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Oh that I would have been? I was a teenager,
like probably like fourteen. Did you believe in him for
like a long time? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Did you believe in him when he said that? And
was that something that put a crack in your face?
Speaker 3 (39:19):
That stuff like that?
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Was when was where I really started to kind of
question things. I remember very distinctly when I was, uh,
probably fifteen, I was probably like fifteen or sixteen.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
I asked my dad.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
I asked my dad if I could go to First
Baptist Church, which was literally across the street. I wanted
to go there for a little while because I think
I had like a crush on.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Like course, that's why you wanted to go there.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
I think it was one of the Smith twins.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Oh my god, my mom was a Smith twin.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Oh was it her? It might have been her. That's
your mom is a Smith twin. Wait, she's a twin
and her last name is Smith?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Said she identical? Yes, your mom's an identical twin. Yes,
I don't know that.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Yeah, and their last time of Smith anyway.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
This was not your mind.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Maybe it was. It wasn't because she was not there.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Exactly.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
I wanted to go to this church because like I
think one of the Smith's wins went there, and like
I was obsessed, and I remember asking my dad, was like, Dad,
could I go to this church? And he has since
apologized for this, so to preface that, he said, verbatim,
if you go to another.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Church, I'll have to quit my job. WHOA.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
And I remember being like, hmmm, why, And he said,
because it will show that I.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Am not the leader of my family.
Speaker 5 (40:39):
But I'm I'm going to butcher what he said exactly.
But he was like I don't have control sort of
over you know, over over my own house, like there's
a break in my house. And that like shook me
to my core. So it must have been younger. It
was like thirteen or fourteen probably at the time.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Shook you how like you were like.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
Like I was like, oh my god, Like that's so
you're right, this is so important, like I'm a crucial
part of this, like I'm the chosen.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
One, right or whatever.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
It really like solidified to me, just sort of this
this fear that you know, any decision I made would
affect our family life as a whole, right, Yeah, which
is this really scary thing to like to think about.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
You know, I always think about the difference between people
who grew up with no religion and people who grew
up with religion because these like very intense prophecies and
responsibilities are putting are being put on you that other
people don't understand at all. It's like living in game
up thrones versus just living right a completely different world.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
This is something I deal with my wife, who grew
up like with zero religion. I think she went to
church like two times in her life, and so like
trying to explain that to her is like it's taken
a long time to like explain what this is, or
like show her clips or show her music videos of
stuff I used to watch, or like like because it's
a whole of the world. But to me, I was like,
(42:11):
everybody's like this, right, which is sort of inherent in
like a cult mentality, is like, oh, this is what
everybody should think and this is the way it should be.
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Speaker 2 (42:58):
So, so, okay, doctor Varner. Did he have a direct
line to God more than other people though, despite that
other people could have prophecies?
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Yeah, that's certainly what it seemed like. I mean, you know,
we founded this church. He was like a mainstay, starting
in like West Virginia and then moving down to North
Carolina for the better part of like thirty years. You know,
that church had you know, praised Tabernacle had been there
for since the eighties.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
I think I think it was established in the eighties.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
And so, you know, and like his his kids still
you know, kind of like run his his ministry because
he wrote a lot of books and you know, he
had a lot of tapes and CDs, and DVDs and
things like that, and so his you know, his family
kind of sort of runs that what would you call it,
like many empire, like an archive or sure, yeah, of
(43:52):
some sorty you know, and people still like quote him
a lot, and you know, use his books. So yeah,
there was definitely something about the way that he would
talk about his communication with God that seemed like he
was way more connected.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
You know.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
It was definitely like implied that what he said went
because he had this you know, direct source, this direct line,
and he would.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Tell people what to do with like big life decisions
and stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
He would aggressively advise.
Speaker 5 (44:29):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
I think that's maybe the way that I would put it.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
To the point that like I went to I mean
I went to a Christian university for the first semester
of college because like I had been kind of like
dollying back and forth between like two places to go,
and I ended up going to this this church earth,
not this church, sorry, this university in Lakeland called Southeastern University,
(44:54):
which is a Assemblies of God University, which is an
other denomination, because he had like advised me to do that.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
You know, it was like a major life decision and
I was.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
Horribly depressed, and I dropped out after a semester and
like was brutal. I like tried to take my own
life at that time. It's the thing I'm very open about.
I talk about like very publicly. It's not something that
I've I've hidden. It's but like because I was really
struggling with like who I was, because I'd been so
ingrained in this space and it was the first time
(45:29):
i'd like broken out and was like got to like
sort of experience the world for myself. But yeah, he
was very strong willed. I mean he had he was
very like performative, you know, like he was really charismatic,
like even if you didn't really know what he was
talking about or you know, understood the references. Like, I mean,
(45:49):
he had this like dense knowledge of the Bible to
the point where like he could pull scripture and he
could pull the the original Greek and what it meant
and how it translated in the various different you know,
in interpretation of the Bible, because there's you know, hundreds,
you know, there's King James new International, There's there's a
very popular one in the early two thousands called The Message,
(46:10):
which was basically somebody like essentially like through the Bible
into chat GPT.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
And was like talk to me like you're like a
cool youth passion.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, I mean that's his interesting. I mean I wouldn't
you know, say it sounds he sounds like a traditional
cult leader or anything. But I find it's almost like
a there's still a special knowledge thing going on that's
not necessarily like he is the literal prophet, but like
(46:39):
he is so educated, yes, and he knows so much
more than you do.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
About the Bible talking to him, Yeah, that's pretty intense.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah yeah, although was God God talked to everyone.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Yeah, but like I guess he had more of like
a direct line.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Right right, right, you guys are more on like a
party line.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, like like we were playing like a
game of te essentially, right.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
So what were his main beliefs do you mean, like
in terms.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Of like what he was saying? Yeah, like what what
what was his what were the churches?
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, beliefs.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
It was based in like a kingdom mentality. Oh that's cool.
It was essentially like based in a kingdom mentality, wherein I.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Had no idea what that means.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Yeah, I know, I know it sounds cool. It does
in a kingdom.
Speaker 5 (47:27):
Wherein there was like this sort of like upper echelon
like sort of again I was talking about like the
lower middle and the upper room being like this, like
you know, removing the veil between like yourself and God.
Finding this like it was kind of about like finding
your own direct line. So there was sort of this
like power instilled in people too, like like you could
(47:48):
be like me. You could be like me, which is
like like a very popular thing in terms of like
a cult mentality of like you could be just like me,
Like if you worked hard enough, and if you study
hard enough, and if you allowed yourself to sort of
commune with Christ the way that I do, you would
be as in tuned.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
But I imagine that sets up that kind of moving
goalpost that we always see where you're like, I'm not
hearing God's voice in my head, so this is I
must be what's wrong with me?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yes, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
He's wrong with me?
Speaker 5 (48:18):
Why?
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Why?
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (48:19):
I mean that was something that I struggle with a lot, because,
like I just I felt like I really started to
kind of like see the cracks early on and start
to see the seems to where I was like, oh this,
I like don't buy this because it seems like they're
constantly kind of like shifting what that actually means. And
I didn't fully understand what they were talking about when
(48:41):
I say, like every church service like kind of felt
like a collegiate level, like a master's level collegiate course
on theology.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Like that's what I mean, Like I it would I would.
Speaker 5 (48:52):
Struggle to like like give you like an example of
like what a standard church service was like, because it
was so dense and it was so focused on like
the Old Testament and interpretation. But that was his way
of sort of explaining that, you know, this is how
(49:13):
I commune and this is how I have gained this understanding,
this this this ability to communicate with God the way
that I do is because of the knowledge that I.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Have right, And I think often with this kind of group,
the point is sort of, whether consciously or not, to
confuse the congregation, because if you have all of the
answers and it's confusing, then they will defer to you
for answers and guidance and authority.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
Yeah, And I mean like the level to which like
I felt like I was like, am I not getting it?
Is something wrong with me? Kind of going back to
what you were saying, like really came to a head
when we would have these like we would have these conferences.
We'd have like you know, like spring and Summer conference.
Like Summer Conference was like a really big was a
really big deal because these other churches that were sort
(50:01):
of a part of this like unofficial denomination of like
Kingdom Church, Kingdom Living, Kingdom Life would all congregate. These
are churches sort of in like Virginia, South Carolina, other
parts of North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
They would all sort of in the southeast would sort of.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
Converge on our church in the summer for like a
like Coachella of you know pastors in the Southeast region.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
You told me a story about yes, please please relay
some of the activities that would happen.
Speaker 5 (50:34):
Okay, So Summer Conference was later say it was like
a it was like a festival essentially, like all these
different churches would come into town to be like you know,
three hundred people like packed into the church and all
these different pastors would come and it would be like
Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night,
Sunday morning. Sometimes a Sunday night, and so what is
(50:57):
that There was like seven services like all in a row,
and like we would, there'd be a different pastor every night,
and Friday night was like the get down night, like
shit's gonna pop off.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
It's Friday night. Everything's gonna happen, like this is the
big night.
Speaker 5 (51:14):
Same with every other you know service, we'd start with
like praison worship and then there'd be, you know, a sermon.
But Friday Night, rarely do we ever get to the
sermon because it was just like everybody's locked in. There's
banners and ribbons flying around, like the music's going like
and people are prophesying. Well one night and this also
(51:36):
just so happened to be the night that we had
new neighbors moving across the street from us. Yeah, invited
them to come that night. Never forget this. During praison worship,
I'm playing drums and so I'm like in like a
drum cage in the corner of the room and I
can just like see everything, Like the church was essentially
built like a like a rectangle, okay, And I was
(51:57):
in one of the corners and you could just see everything.
So a bird's eye view this one pastor who is
kind of the youth pastor who would come in you know,
from I think he was based in West Virginia or Virginia.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
He comes over to my dad, who is now.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
The pastor of the church at the time, and you know,
doctor Varner is obviously there as well. Everybody's in. You know,
it's like the Avengers of you know, of pastors.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
This guy comes up to my dad and he's like,
the Lord has told me to do something. And he's
like what.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
He's like, the Lord told me to ride my motorcycle
through the church. And they whipped open the doors on
both ends, and he rode his motorcycle through the church
like he was Ryan Gosling at the beginning of placement
in the Pines, just zipping through and everybody losing their shit.
(52:50):
This is amazing. Oh my god, God is great. This
is so wonderful. And I'm like, We're never going to
see these neighbors again. I'm just like in a panic
of just like what's happening, what their faces look like.
I mean, I'm playing drums, so like I'm like i
gotta I gotta stay in time, like what's happen. But
I'm just like what's happening, because like I had headphones
(53:12):
on so I could hear everything. I could hear microphones,
and like they're all speaking in tongues, and just I think.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
I would use this for so much evil if I
were on this, I think I'd be like, God wants
me to get a bunch of toys and you should
make out with me. That is what Scott's telling me.
Speaker 5 (53:28):
I really didn't utilize this the way they probably should
have that abusive power. I didn't even think about that,
Oh the amount of like Max Steele and g I Joe.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
First see myself doing that. Did anybody ever kind of
like ask for things that were I don't know, like
a Christmas wish list?
Speaker 3 (53:53):
I think I remember.
Speaker 5 (53:55):
I think I remember, like because again, like it was
sort of a free for all a lot of times,
so like you know, you come and talk to past
Reward and like he'll give you the mic you know,
Like my dad was a lot better about like using
some discretion of giving.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
The microphone to just what everybody. There was one horse in.
Speaker 5 (54:11):
Our church who like would would really just kind of
go off the rails and just start like kind of weeping.
There's a lot of like tears and emotion because like
it's a very like it's a heightened state, you know.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
Do you remember, like.
Speaker 5 (54:23):
I think, like a kid taking the mic or something
and like making something up about like his like baseball
game or something like I'm going to hit a home
run like the Lords told me, I'm going to hit
over Yeah. Yeah, which probably didn't happen. Panthers didn't win
the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
So okay, big thanks to Caleb for joining us, and
we love you, Caleb, We do love you, Caleb Megan.
Speaker 4 (54:47):
Yes, if you were Caleb's age.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
In the early two thousands and you came across this church, yeah,
in this community and culture, what do you think would
you join?
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah? I think I would really like it. As we
identified in the episode, I love speaking in tongues. I
love a good Christian Disney World Land experience. Anything youth
groupie is super fun in my opinion, So yeah, I'm gone.
I'm what about you?
Speaker 2 (55:20):
I think I think it would depend on the context
going in, because you know, like you growing up church
was very.
Speaker 8 (55:28):
Solemn and like yeah quiet and like no one was
doing anything loud at all borings, So when I like
would see that happening in other people's churches, I'd be
kind of like freaked out.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
So I don't know that I would join, right, But
but if I were just a regular girl and saw
people doing stuff that was exciting, like probably who knows, Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Well I think that's fair, and uh, we can't know
for sure either way, but I do see some version
of my and one reality at a Christian Disneylander right now, bring.
Speaker 4 (56:04):
In a back to go, all right.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
Big thank you to Caleb for coming on the show.
Thank y'all for listening. Please go rate us five stars,
Go buy a T shirt, have some fun with that.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
Bit dot l y slash, trust me merch that's right,
and as always, remember to follow your gut, watch out
for red flax.
Speaker 4 (56:26):
And never ever trust me. Bye.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
Trust Me as produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and
Steve Della Lamiter.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
The special thanks to Stacy Para.
Speaker 2 (56:39):
And our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
Twitter at trust Me Cult pod, or on TikTok at
trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and o La Lola on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham
Hicks on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
Remember to rate and review and spread the words
Speaker 6 (57:06):
M hmm.
If you have your own story of being in a
cult or a high control group.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Or if you've had experience with manipulation or abusive power
that you'd like to share.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Leave us a message on our hotline number at three
four seven eight six trust.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's three four seven eight six eight seven eight seven eight, or.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Shoot us an email at trust Me pod at gmail
dot com.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Trust Me.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Trust Me.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
I'm like a squat person.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
I've never lived. To you.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
If you think that one person has all the answers, don't.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Welcome to trust Me. The podcast about cults, extreme belief
and manipulation from two tongue speakers who've actually experienced it.
I'm Lola Blong.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
And I'm Megan Elizabeth, the tongue speakers. That's what you'll
get at it.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
You'll get it, You'll hear it.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah, that'll make sense.
Speaker 4 (00:49):
It's good today.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Our guest is Caleb Ward, my pal from the horror
film community, but also a former pastor's son who experienced
the height of evangelical culture in the early two thousands
in a church called Kingdom Life Ministries. While Kyla was
not necessarily in a traditional cult, we'll talk about what
it was like growing up in an environment where everyone
was speaking in tongues and having loud prophecies in church
(01:11):
about things like who would win the game, the pressures
that come with being the son of a pastor, and
how those heightened emotional experiences keep people connected to their churches.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
He'll talk about the wild evangelical youth culture involving Christian Rock,
how good church leadership can exist, and why he thinks
shunning is one of the worst parts of modern Christian religion.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
This episode has some pretty comical evangelical cultural touchstones here
that I would really like to see a TV show of,
So Klob please get on that. But yeah, it's not
what it's not a necessarily a traditional cult episode, but
I think you guys will enjoy it. And there's still
plenty to talk about in terms of the evangelical community
(01:53):
and that like heightened emotion thing that some of these
churches can give us that keep us feeling so connected
to those communities. Be on the point where maybe we
should be right totally before we jump in. What's your
culty is saying of this week? Actually, I know what
it is because it's the same as mine.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yes, we're sharing one. Okay, you give it. You give
it its introduction.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Okay, so everyone by now, I think probably has seen
all the headlines about this new cult known as the Zizians.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
If you consume conservative.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Media, you will be there will be a lot of
fear mongering you're probably saying about it. But it almost
seems like this is kind of this generation's Manson Family
a little bit in that it's like praying on some
like fears in conservative America. But there are actual killings
that are happening and there it's all led by one
(02:48):
person who's like.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Radicalized.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Some very intelligent, otherwise seemingly had good jobs and pretty
normal lives people. The Zizian leader is a trans woman.
Most colds, obviously are are run by cis gender people.
This one happens to be run by a trans woman
and that is being run within the media. Nevertheless, it
is pretty insane. Six is it six people that have
(03:14):
been killed now, Megan.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yes, six. They've been linked to six deaths across three
states and maybe more.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, so they're apparently one of the members. Their parents
have been killed.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
There was an older there's an old.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Man whose property they were kind of like trying to
set up shop on, like camp out on and he
tried to get them to leave, and they tried to
kill him, and then he survived, and then he was
going to testify against them in court, and then allegedly
they did kill him, this eighty something year old man,
and then there was a shootout with the cops where
(03:50):
like two people died, I think one of the members
and maybe a cop.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
I mean, as far as the like carnage goes, I
think that's pretty much the overarching description of it. Like
you said, it's been everywhere. It's kind of confusing, you know,
but it's it is really scary. And I was kind
of going back to the beginning to see what they
actually were originally talking about, and I found it very interesting.
(04:19):
So there's this Bay Area rationalist thought called functional decision
theory that I guess really took off at Berkeley, which
is where a lot of these women are going. So basically,
what it's saying is that what decision do you want
to make if you're making this decision for every version
(04:43):
of yourself in every reality, So what it really wants
you to do is pre commit to huge decisions so
that every version of you in every reality is making
the same choice. And the point of it is like,
it doesn't matter if it works out quote unquote in
this reality, as long as you're doing it in every
(05:03):
reality and one of them at well, and then enough
of them you're going to make positive changes. So you know,
they were very committed to causes like veganism, So there
was really extreme things that they decided to pre commit
to that would help change this industry, which, being totally honest,
(05:26):
I could really see myself getting caught up in a
belief system like this, especially if it includes something like veganism,
which I'm not currently vegan, but I have been for
a very long times in my life and get very
passionate about it. Yeah, really interesting and definitely a cult
that I could be persuaded to join.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Okay, this is so interesting because I feel like normally
you and I would be like we would totally join
different cults, but this is one, not because of what
you just said, but because of some of the other
parts of the other origins. Also seems like one that
I would join because it's Okay, So it's a group
of like young computer scientists who are all like you know,
(06:06):
apparently incredibly intelligent. Like one of the members all her
friends kind of came forward and were like, she's so smart,
she's so like brilliant, she had so much going for her,
and she got sucked into this thing.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
It's all of these people who are.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Kind of My understanding is their belief system is centered
around like rationalist thought or whatever, and it's all about
like making choices. My understanding is that there's some association
with this idea of like rationalism and talking about the
you know, the dangers of AI just stuff that I
like connect with. But then it starts to get pretty
(06:44):
hairy because I guess the leader whose name is as
if they look that up.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
I'll I'll just say, like rationalists use this the school
thought that I described to justify like radical altruism. If
I donate now, I want every version of me and
all realities to donate. You know, if I kill the
bad guy now, I want every version of me and
all reality is to kill the bad guy.
Speaker 4 (07:07):
That's their version of rationalism.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Because traditionally rationalism is believing that reason is the primary
source of knowledge, not experienced, and so I think a
lot of people would not believe in multiple realities necessarily.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
So the leader Zizz, who also faked.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Her own depth which was a right side plot. I
was not expecting.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
Oh, by the way, she she's just been arrested. She
and someone else have just been arrested. So that's why
this is breaking news this week.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So the leaders is one of the things that she
was starting to talk about was this idea that there
are two different parts of your brain and like they
have conflicting personalities and ideas or whatever, and like something
about you know, trying to reconcile these two different parts
of yourself, which is not based in anything actually rationalist
or like based on any evidence.
Speaker 4 (07:47):
That's just like some shit she made up. So the
point is, we don't really know that much.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
We know that the general outlines of some of the beliefs,
but as we know, the beliefs are not generally important.
What's generally the key is that there's a leader who is,
you know, manipulating people and kind of radicalizing them, and
in this case they are they have been radicalized to
the point where people have been murdered.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
And that is all we know.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
And also we no one's been convicted in court yet,
so we don't know who did what allegedly. It's all alleged,
but they've.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Been linked to these deaths, we should say.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yeah, I will say that there was an article just
kind of describing the other trans women and the group
and how they were all and you know this this
is just one article, but they're just saying that they're
like super lonely vulnerable people that you know, we see
that as being people culled pray on.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, So more to come.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
I'm sure this will be in the news for many
weeks and months and we will update y'all. But until then,
should we talk to Caleb.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Let's talk to Caleb. So you've decided to quit your
job and chase after your dreams, good for you. But
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Speaker 2 (10:10):
Welcome Caleb Ward to trust me. Thank you, thanks for
being here in the flesh.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
That was enthusiastic entrance.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I haven't seen him in so long.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
It was so fun.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
It does feel like a nice, like little reunion. This
was great, This is perfect. I've never felt more welcome
in my life.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Oh my god, that's all you want exactly. So you
are a pastor's son, yes, and you were in a
group we have never talked about before. Start us at
the beginning. Tell us about your some of your early
memories of religion, like maybe that first church that you
were in.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
Yeah, so okay.
Speaker 5 (10:47):
So I was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where my dad
was the pastor of a church called Belvity or Baptist Church,
which was essentially sort of like an offshoot of the
Southern Baptist Convention, which is a denomination mostly based in
the South. Obviously, it was predominantly just sort of like
(11:09):
a standard like Baptist Christian church for a very long time,
and then sort of in like the mid nineties, there
was sort of like a shift where they started doing
more like praise and worship and speaking in tongues and
using banners and and and you know, all kinds of
like performative banners. Banner oh, like like giant banners that
(11:33):
just say like Jesus. Like there were like a couple
of like mostly women, I feel like, who would just
sort of like parade through.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
The church.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Like banner girl.
Speaker 5 (11:43):
I know, yeah, banners and ribbons. It was like, what's
the competition with the Olympic competition.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
That's kind of strange for there to be oh the ribbons. Yeah,
that's that's I mean. Were you kind of like, WHOA,
that's weird or no?
Speaker 5 (11:58):
Because that was all I knew, Like I remember because
I went to Christian school at like a different at
like a Lutheran school for a long time, and like
we would have like Lutheran chapel and I was like, oh,
this is that I think maybe that was like the
first time I was like, oh, this is a lot
different than what we do on Like my Sundays are
(12:19):
a lot different, where like at this Lutheran school it
was a lot more like traditional and hymns and stand up,
sit down, neil and you're out the door, like very
standard like Christianity, Lutheran Christianity, and ours was more like
a rock concert.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
So I was Mormon, So our Mormon church is very solemn.
We only play the organ, and no one's like saying
anything funny ever. I mean maybe maybe you'll have a
missionary who'll get up and give a talk, and you
might crack a joke or two, but generally it's like
quite serious. And I went to like some friends services
or whatever, and I was like, what the fuck is
(12:55):
going on? There's guitar in shurt.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
I mean it's how I learned how to played drums.
It's how we learned how to play every instrument that
I know how to play. Was because I was like
in the band, that's kind of sick, okay cool for
like me and the like sixty people that would come
to the church. I was like a local celebrity to
sixty people.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
The same sorrow was like seeing us what worship to
God was. Yeah, you guys, sorrow like way Mormons the
act of being sad. Oh yeah, yeah, we had to be.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
It's very Catholic.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
You're like, sorrow that sounds like a cool rock band.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
No, just Sound Nails cover band.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
And we weren't even allowed to have organ It was
just just people saying hell yeah, and some people not good.
Oh well I'm sure. Yeah, so far your group sounds
kind of cool.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
I mean like as a kid, you're like, oh my god,
we get to like run around and like this is
kind of fun. And you know, we were there until until.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I was ten.
Speaker 5 (13:57):
We were we were in Baltimore for the first ten
years of my life this church because.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
There's so formative. This is all I knew. We were
there several days a week. You know.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
My my mom had a job at an accounting firm.
I think she was working in or No, it was
a CPA, and my dad was, you know, at the
church every day. And I think the congregation was like
at that time, was probably like one hundred one hundred
and fifty or something like that. It was a lot
bigger at that time, which I don't know if that's
that's not a mega church by any yeah big because
(14:28):
of like what the church that we eventually ended up
at was a lot smaller. But this was you know,
mid to late nineties, so it was like DC Talk
and Reliant K were like big bands in my life
because like, you know, that was all I was allowed
to listen to, And like POD was like the first
like like more hard you know band.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Do you guys know Christian rock?
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Yeah, we are.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
That's the one that, like most people know. But like
when I think of POD, I think of Snuff the Punk.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Snuff the Punk.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
Okay, Snuff the Punk is the first album that Pod
ever put out. It was like an EP and the
I remember the original album art, which is like kind
of hard to find, is like an angel holding a
gun like and pointing it at a demon like in
like a like a half Nelson kind of situation.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Oh my god, fucking rad right, isn't that cool?
Speaker 2 (15:20):
I mean, that is sick?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
I was.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I had an album title title that I wanted to
use for my new album, and I looked it up
to see if anyone had it, and Pod just released
an album with that title, so I can't use it.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Lies?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
We tell ourselves.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Oh, that's that's very cool.
Speaker 5 (15:34):
I haven't listened to a new Pod album and probably a.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Very long time. You don't need to, okay.
Speaker 5 (15:40):
But I did drive by myself to San Diego three
years ago to see them live for the first time
because I was like, I just need to full circle.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
I need to see them. I'd never seen them perform live.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Really.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
I drove by myself to the House of Blues. I
asked so many people to come with me. I was like,
I'll buy your ticket. I don't want to go to
this alone. Let us guess, and everyone was like, no, thanks,
I have gone. I was like, okay, I guess I'll
go by myself. And I went and like they played
the hits and I was like, great, got that out
of my system and site, I mean.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
No hate to Pod. I don't know Christian, that's fine.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah, it has like a nostalgia factor.
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Yeah, but like that was that was sort of like
all I knew as far as like pop culture, and
like my community was like all based in this church,
like our friends all of our like family friends, Like
it was all based in this church. Like I had
some neighbor friends and friends from school, but like it
was mostly like this community, you know, except for us
(16:41):
all living on a compound. Like it was just this
insular group that you know, kind of fed into each other.
And like people would leave. And I was very young
at the time. I didn't really sort of pick up
on this until way later, but like people would leave
the church and they would essentially be like completely ostracized,
you know. And I didn't experience that until much later
(17:02):
in life. But like I remember at the time being like, oh,
the so and sos have left the church. That's sad, like,
but we'll still see them, right wrong, Like we never
see them again.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
It was like they died.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Right when did you guys? Transition from Church one into
Kingdom Life Ministries.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
So we left Baltimore for North Carolina in two thousand
and two. The summer of two thousand and two, we
moved to Richland's, North Carolina, which is bumfuck nowhere town
of I think the last time I checked the population
as of like twenty twenty two, it was like sixteen
(17:38):
hundred people. Oh my god, So I think at the time,
it was like probably like eleven hundred.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
It's near a bigger city.
Speaker 5 (17:44):
It's near Jacksonville, North Carolina, where Camp La June is,
which is like the largest marine base, so there's a
lot of people there. But like in my like town,
like where I went to high school, very teeny tiny.
That was when we shifted to well what was called
at the time Praised Tabernacle.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
It was called Praise Tabernacle at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
It's really amazing how many people who grew up in
the evangelical community were at just tons of different churches
with all these different names and the differences. It's just
minutia what the differences are. I cannot keep track.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Like I can't either, and I was in it.
Speaker 5 (18:19):
Yeah, Like like if you asked me, like what the
impetus for calling the church Praised Tabernacle was, I don't
know that I could tell you, Like I I it
like I'd have to like really stretch to try and
figure out why it was called that. I mean, I
knew why they changed the name to Kingdom Life Ministries,
and it was because after you know, the founder of
(18:42):
the church, doctor Kelly Varner, passed in two thousand and nine,
my dad like sort of was like it's time for rebrand,
like let's let's shake things up. You know, it's sort
of like a new not regime, but like you.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Know, a new new era. Yeah, a new era. Yeah. Yeah.
He was in his kingdom life era.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
And and and that felt more attuned to sort of
what the mission I guess overall was of, you know,
of the church, which was sort of like this higher
elevation of living living a kingdom life. Like there were
there were these sort of these like almost like sections
(19:22):
of like higher learning that they would call like the
the lower room, the middle room, in the upper room,
which is I believe pulled from the New Testament, where
after Jesus dies, it's okay, yeah, after Jesus dies, the
(19:42):
apostles are like communing in a room literally like in
an upstairs room. This is the story that I might
be butchering. And this is when they like feel the
Holy Spirit for the first time, and so like this
is the story in the Bible that talks about speaking
in tongues, which is, you know, basically like when you
(20:02):
have no other words to describe what you're trying to
communicate to God, it's just sort of like this mumbo
jumbo like made up language, you know, and like the
bid is like he's coming, He's coming on a Honda
leaving on a Hondai. Like that's the like bid is like, Oh,
if you don't know what you're saying, just keep saying
that over and over again.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
And I don't get that. If you're coming in a hut.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
It's just like it's just like an automonopoia kind of sounding.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Okay, So I grew up doing auctioneering, I am, and
she was and ventriloqui.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
So I went to like auctioneer school, which I say
in quotation marks because it was a weekend seminar. It
was not a school, but my mom and I went
to camp. Yeah, but it was my mom and nine
year old me and like twenty five grown ass cowboys
and amazing. But I like, I was just thinking about
it the other day because my friends were asking about it,
and auctioneering is very similar. You just say, who.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Would he go?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Who'd have bid dollar?
Speaker 6 (21:01):
Now?
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Can you still do it?
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Now?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Like if you tried, I basically just have like a
five second snippet memorized because I don't really remember.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
How to do it.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yeah, I if I would have been I would go
if I not five, who not ten? Would go ten?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Ten?
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Now fifteen? Okay, that's all I got.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
That's basically speaking in tongues.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
Yeah, yeah, I can do it.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Is this speaking in tongues? Yeah, I used to do
when I was when I was little.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
That gave me chills. Here, it's weird.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
So I used to do that when I was little
all of the time. And and the two by twos
you're not allowed to speak in tongues like that is
one of the biggest sins you can commit. And my
mom would be like, shut.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Up, why was it?
Speaker 1 (21:46):
I don't know. There's some verse in the Bible that
says like you should stop speaking in what the Bible
just like says so many different things.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
It's so hypocritical.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
So yeah, but it was like the one thing I
was kind of good at and just came naturally to me.
And I was like, just let me freaking speaking.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
This is one thing, Like I've got it down.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yeah, I would have been a rock star.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I know. My dad and I would pretend to speak
in another language just to like fuck with my friends.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Oh that's fun. So it was basically speaking in tongues
kind of Yeah.
Speaker 5 (22:15):
I mean yeah, you know, uh, what's the it's like
pig Latin. Kind of sounds like pig Latin.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, whatever, exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
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pros dot com slash Trust. Sorry, So, speaking in tongues
was in the So that was, Yeah, that was in
(23:56):
Baltimore as well as North Carolina, but like just to
kind of like take a step back to like Belvedere
and Baltimore sort of how we ended up in North
Carolina was basically my dad had started to kind of
feel like, you know, they weren't doing enough, like there
was something higher to sort of access.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
And like speaking tongues and you know, in praise and
worship and like loud and gregarious and not just like
this like sorrow and woe and like we're so bad
and we're sinners. Like there was more to it than that.
So like there was there was like there were honest
intentions in it. I think as far as like we
could be doing more and we don't need to be
like these like downtrodden. Everything is bad and you're so awful,
(24:39):
like like.
Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah right, yeah, Like what's the profile on your dad.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Like like what's his whole what's his.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Deal, what's his character?
Speaker 5 (24:49):
Yeah, my dad is from not from My dad's from Florida,
from Winter Park, Florida.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
He did not grow up very religious.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
And then he was in the army, and then he
was in the Navy, and then he was in the
Air Force.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Oh wow, I think in that order, I think.
Speaker 7 (25:10):
A military I've never Yeah, and he didn't retire, you know,
he did his like his tenure, like his the years
that he had signed up for, and then he left
and he talks about how when he left he didn't
really have like any direction.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
There was like a navy captain who brought him to
a church service one night, and you know, and that
just sort of changed his life.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
From there, he went to Bible College.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
That's where he met my mom and they got married
and then nine years later they had me and they
ended up in Baltimore. Take you over this church because
he was part of the Southern Baptist Convention, which is
basically like a like like if you were like playing
in like the minor leagues, like in baseball, like you
like play for like the the the Tulsa Drillers, which
(25:56):
is like a minor league for the Dodge. Is like okay,
you get called up to the Dodgers. Like he was
a Mississippi, he was in Montana. He got called up
to take care of this church in Baltimore.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
That's all right.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
He seems very charming from the from what I've seen.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
M Yeah, he's a really good guy.
Speaker 1 (26:14):
Yeah, he seems like I would trust him.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Do you think that the military informed his like being
drawn to religion like kind of with the structure and hierarchy.
Speaker 5 (26:27):
That's interesting. I never I've never thought about it like
that actually, but that makes a lot of sense, like
sort of having a system in place. But it's so
interesting because like he kind of broke away from that
and became a little more like freestyle, you know, right,
So that's really interesting.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
I never thought about it, like, I mean, I.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Guess, Yeah, what you're describing sounds more not chaotic, but
like expressive.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
But he started out like you said, I mean, he
did start out more regiment to him, right yeah, and then.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
You know I saw there was something more.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yeah yeah, So tell us about how, like how did
he actually become the pastor it was like in North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Yeah yeah, So it's an interesting story.
Speaker 5 (27:11):
So basically, in two thousand and two, doctor Varner invited
my dad to come down to Richonds, North Carolina and
start a school essentially for pastors.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Like, oh, it would be sort of like a quarterly.
Speaker 5 (27:27):
Conference of sorts where pastors sort of within this sort
of like offshoot of an offshoot of an offshoot of
Christianity being like Kingdom Ministry would come in and like
learn from him and learn from doctor Varner about like
various teachings and just really digging into like the granular,
granular parts of the Bible, like stuff that was taught
(27:48):
to us on Sundays, and would just go completely over
my head because it was like a collegiate level of learning.
Like it wasn't like here's a simple Bible story, you know,
you unto others and then you see you next week.
It was like, let's talk about what like Ezekiel means
when he says this one word and this is the
(28:08):
original Latin or this is the original Greek and like
just stuff that was so over my head at the time.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
So he was brought down to run this school.
Speaker 5 (28:18):
We had been there I think like six months at
the time, and the hierarchy of the church was there
was doctor Varner, there was another pastor I think his
last I think he was Pastor Keating I think, and
then my dad was running this church. So it was
sort of like that hierarchy.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
And doctor Varner is the leader of the whole great.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
Yeah, he's like like the CEO, and then the pastor
is kind of like the president. And then my dad
was like, you know, running a department.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Right right, right right.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
And how big was the total group, would you say?
Speaker 5 (28:49):
I think at the time it's probably like around one
hundred people. Oh yeah, small, very small, like yeah, maybe
maybe one hundred people. And I think we had been
in North Carolina maybe like six months at the time,
maybe a little longer when the pastor just like left,
(29:10):
like we were given like no story, like he's.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Gone, Well he probably did something bad, right.
Speaker 5 (29:17):
Probably, I mean I have to assume like in some capacity,
like he just like it was like overnight, he's gone,
He's out of here.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
So interesting, we've had two guests on the show who
were pastors and had a like sexual indiscretion of some
kind and we're like overnight, yea, just gone.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
So there was a.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
There was a separate incident, not not with this pastor
but with the church like accountant or not secretary, but
like who would run the money for a church.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I love gossip so much that I'm like drooling to
find out what this is.
Speaker 5 (29:52):
Oh, this was like this is the first year. This
is all stuff that happened, like the first year we've
been there. Like the drama, uh, like the the account
I can't remember exactly what is his title was just
like also gone in the night, and we're all like
what happened?
Speaker 3 (30:10):
And it was he was stealing.
Speaker 5 (30:12):
He'd been stealing from the Jurnal for like years, oh
for years of legitimate yeah, and like but like the
like the pastors were like, we're not seeking legal action,
Like you have.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
To go though, like and that's and we can come
back to that, but like not seeking legal action. We
come back to a lot in this podcast because it's
like we'll take care of it in God's family. And
the crimes can get bigger and bigger and bigger and
it's a disaster.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
It is a little like let's like not embarrass ourselves.
Like that is kind of like the way it felt
at the time. And because I was like eleven and
like being and I was getting this information, like I
feel like I had to grow up very fast in
a lot of ways because of sort of like being
in this church and like being such a focal point
of the community.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
This is a small town.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
A lot of churches in this small town, though, and
like there's a Baptist church, there's a Lutheran church, there's
a Methodist church, there's another Baptist church, there's a smaller
Pentecostal church. There was our church, like and like being
one of several pastor's kids like kind of had a
bit of a spotlight on me at times. But like, yeah,
there was just all this sort of like chaos happening
(31:23):
like the first year that we were there. And so
my dad, who did not want to come and be
the pastor of this church, initially was like I'm not
coming to do this, I'm coming to run this school.
Like less than a year in is now the pastor
of the church, and then remain there for until twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
And I imagine you have like a very window into
the going behind the scenes from just kind of overhearing
things within that.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
Yeah, in a big way. And my parents were They
were very honest. They were very open and honest with
me about what was going on to do degree of which,
like I think back on now and I'm like, I
didn't need to know all.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
Of this, right, and like to.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
Their credit, what I will say to my parents' credit,
like later in life, like my dad has apologized to
me for things of like things that he said or
you know, things that they sort of let me in
on that Like I just didn't need to know as
like a teenager who was like like discovering girls and
like learning to play instruments and skateboarding, Like I just
didn't need to Like, yeah, wasn't my responsibility, you know
(32:31):
it did.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I did feel very responsible for things because I was
a part of this family right and part of the church.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I have to imagine being a pastor's kid, like and
only child and only child. My god, that's so much pressure.
You have to be the good, good boy all the time. Yeah.
I want to know more about doctor Barner because he
had prophecies.
Speaker 5 (32:57):
Oh yeah, that was a big part of like a
regular like Sunday service. Like if doctor Varner was was there,
because sometimes he was traveling.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
I was sorry, just to clarify when we say doctor,
this is not medical doctor.
Speaker 5 (33:13):
No, no, no, no, like a doctor of theology, doctor
in theology. Right, Like my dad is technically a reverend,
but he doesn't call it like he doesn't he never
had people call him reverend like he was always just
like pastor Ward.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
So this, I mean, this is a big part of
like a like a regular Sunday service. So we'd start
at like ten am with like opening like notes, and
this is what's going on like this week, and you know,
like because we would do a lot of stuff in
the community, things like that, like our youth group had
Friday night hangtime.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Oh lucky you, Friday night hangtime.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Exactly what I need to do come back to the
church on Friday night. And then we would do praise
and worship, which I played drums that I learn it
play drums uh in the church band. And we would
do like a couple of songs and like however, the
spirit sort of moved like sometimes we'd never even get
to like the actual stop sermon. Yeah, like fairly often,
(34:15):
like it would just we just end up in praise
and worship for like two hours with people like grabbing
the mic being like I've got a word from the
Lord or like I'm hearing something, or like oftentimes there
was another sort of like associate pastor in the church
that would like, have me do like drum I'm not kidding,
what have me do drum solos as like a ministry.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Oh yeah, wow, like a sound.
Speaker 5 (34:39):
Bath, like a really yeah, with a lot of like
toms involved. But uh so oftentimes like doctor Varner would
come up and he would he he also played the saxophone,
and so he would come like sometimes you do like
a saxophone solo, or like he'd come and sing prophecies
to people or which.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Sounds great, it sounds fun, yeah, but seeing.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Prophecy, Yeah, yeah, that was a big part.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
What's an example of this?
Speaker 5 (35:07):
Okay, the one that has stuck with me and like
essentially just sort of haunted me for.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
Uh the better part of Oh my god, how long ago?
Almost twenty years now, I guess.
Speaker 5 (35:19):
So in two thousand and nine before he passed, like
two or three months before he passed, there was one
morning it was the Oh it was the graduation service
that was always a big deal, Like for like the
high school graduates were getting read to graduate and I
was getting ready to graduate me in a couple others,
and in the service, like he came to me and
(35:42):
saying a prophecy that was verbatim. You think you're just
going to school. Your life has always been under my rule.
The next seven years, I'll give you all you need.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
And so this is like, you think your life is
just going to school, you're actually.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
Under Yeah, fully I can them.
Speaker 1 (36:04):
I forgot it.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Seven years.
Speaker 3 (36:06):
The next seven years, I'll give you all you need.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
The next seven years will give you all you need.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
Fairly close. He had a way deeper voice, but that
was pretty good. Years will give you all you need.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Yes, And you're like what in my mind, I'm like, awesome, fuck, yeah,
I'm set by twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
Awesome. That stuck with me for a really really long time.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Oh good, duh, Like what did you think that that meant?
Speaker 3 (36:32):
No fucking idea. I wasn't even eighteen at the time.
I didn't know.
Speaker 5 (36:41):
You'd be like, sir, this is a Wendy's Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I mean it's not nice.
Speaker 5 (36:48):
It does, Yes, it does in theory, You're like, wow,
that's great, but like that's the dangerous part of some
of this stuff is like some of these like quote
prophetic words would be like do this go here, leave.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
This, marry this person, do this, have this child.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
It's like, what's that predictor telling people what to do with?
Speaker 5 (37:08):
Yeah, as like this is the word from the Lord.
I'm tapped into a source. I have this like link
from here to here, and this is a word from
the Lord, and you're so enraptured in it to the
point where you're like, Okay, well that's got to be it.
So like for seven years, I like even after I
had left the church and like walked away from religion entirely,
that that message.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
Stuck with me.
Speaker 5 (37:30):
It still sticks to me to this day where I'm like,
well did I well, like what did I what happened
in twenty sixteen? Like what did I do here? What
did I do there? Like that like haunted me for
a really long time.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
Well you said that in these service like what is
it praise and worship? In praise and worship, yeah, like
everyone people would just kind of grab the mic, So
like would that be that? Did that mean? Like anyone
could have a prophecy.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah, pretty much like there wasn't much of a filter.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Oh my gosh, this could go wrong and it's so wrong.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah yeah, I mean in a way, it's like more
equitable because in most coldes, the prophet's the only one
who can have the prophecy, right, or the leader, and
that you know, people get drunk on that power. On
this one, like what if people had two conflicting prophecies
at the same time.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
What would happen?
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Oh, that happened all the time, it did. Oh yeah,
Oh my god, yeah, that would happen all the time.
Like people would come up and say something very specific.
Speaker 3 (38:24):
Oh my god, I just remembered one. It was Super
Bowl Sunday.
Speaker 5 (38:31):
Timely and the Carolina Panthers were in the Super Bowls
So whatever year that was, I don't remember it. And
doctor Varner was preaching that day and like he this
is so burned in my brain. He could feel like
the energy sort of like shifting in the room, like
he was kind of like losing people. They weren't paying
attention because this Super Bowl Sunday, you want to get
home and get your stuff prepped and like having a party, YadA,
(38:52):
YadA yadda, and he just went Panther's gonna win by
fourteen they lost.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
So I was like, man, is all of this bullshit?
Is he just saying this stuff to me? Wow?
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Did you like how old were you wish?
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Oh that I would have been? I was a teenager,
like probably like fourteen. Did you believe in him for
like a long time? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Did you believe in him when he said that? And
was that something that put a crack in your face?
Speaker 3 (39:19):
That stuff like that?
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Was when was where I really started to kind of
question things. I remember very distinctly when I was, uh,
probably fifteen, I was probably like fifteen or sixteen.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
I asked my dad.
Speaker 5 (39:33):
I asked my dad if I could go to First
Baptist Church, which was literally across the street. I wanted
to go there for a little while because I think
I had like a crush on.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Like course, that's why you wanted to go there.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
I think it was one of the Smith twins.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
Oh my god, my mom was a Smith twin.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Oh was it her? It might have been her. That's
your mom is a Smith twin. Wait, she's a twin
and her last name is Smith?
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Said she identical? Yes, your mom's an identical twin. Yes,
I don't know that.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Yeah, and their last time of Smith anyway.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
This was not your mind.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Maybe it was. It wasn't because she was not there.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
Exactly.
Speaker 5 (40:09):
I wanted to go to this church because like I
think one of the Smith's wins went there, and like
I was obsessed, and I remember asking my dad, was like, Dad,
could I go to this church? And he has since
apologized for this, so to preface that, he said, verbatim,
if you go to another.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Church, I'll have to quit my job. WHOA.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
And I remember being like, hmmm, why, And he said,
because it will show that I.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
Am not the leader of my family.
Speaker 5 (40:39):
But I'm I'm going to butcher what he said exactly.
But he was like I don't have control sort of
over you know, over over my own house, like there's
a break in my house. And that like shook me
to my core. So it must have been younger. It
was like thirteen or fourteen probably at the time.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
Shook you how like you were like.
Speaker 5 (40:58):
Like I was like, oh my god, Like that's so
you're right, this is so important, like I'm a crucial
part of this, like I'm the chosen.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
One, right or whatever.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
It really like solidified to me, just sort of this
this fear that you know, any decision I made would
affect our family life as a whole, right, Yeah, which
is this really scary thing to like to think about.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
You know, I always think about the difference between people
who grew up with no religion and people who grew
up with religion because these like very intense prophecies and
responsibilities are putting are being put on you that other
people don't understand at all. It's like living in game
up thrones versus just living right a completely different world.
Speaker 5 (41:50):
This is something I deal with my wife, who grew
up like with zero religion. I think she went to
church like two times in her life, and so like
trying to explain that to her is like it's taken
a long time to like explain what this is, or
like show her clips or show her music videos of
stuff I used to watch, or like like because it's
a whole of the world. But to me, I was like,
(42:11):
everybody's like this, right, which is sort of inherent in
like a cult mentality, is like, oh, this is what
everybody should think and this is the way it should be.
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Speaker 2 (42:58):
So, so, okay, doctor Varner. Did he have a direct
line to God more than other people though, despite that
other people could have prophecies?
Speaker 5 (43:09):
Yeah, that's certainly what it seemed like. I mean, you know,
we founded this church. He was like a mainstay, starting
in like West Virginia and then moving down to North
Carolina for the better part of like thirty years. You know,
that church had you know, praised Tabernacle had been there
for since the eighties.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
I think I think it was established in the eighties.
Speaker 5 (43:32):
And so, you know, and like his his kids still
you know, kind of like run his his ministry because
he wrote a lot of books and you know, he
had a lot of tapes and CDs, and DVDs and
things like that, and so his you know, his family
kind of sort of runs that what would you call it,
like many empire, like an archive or sure, yeah, of
(43:52):
some sorty you know, and people still like quote him
a lot, and you know, use his books. So yeah,
there was definitely something about the way that he would
talk about his communication with God that seemed like he
was way more connected.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
You know.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
It was definitely like implied that what he said went
because he had this you know, direct source, this direct line,
and he would.
Speaker 2 (44:22):
Tell people what to do with like big life decisions
and stuff.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
He would aggressively advise.
Speaker 5 (44:29):
Ah.
Speaker 3 (44:30):
I think that's maybe the way that I would put it.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
To the point that like I went to I mean
I went to a Christian university for the first semester
of college because like I had been kind of like
dollying back and forth between like two places to go,
and I ended up going to this this church earth,
not this church, sorry, this university in Lakeland called Southeastern University,
(44:54):
which is a Assemblies of God University, which is an
other denomination, because he had like advised me to do that.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
You know, it was like a major life decision and
I was.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
Horribly depressed, and I dropped out after a semester and
like was brutal. I like tried to take my own
life at that time. It's the thing I'm very open about.
I talk about like very publicly. It's not something that
I've I've hidden. It's but like because I was really
struggling with like who I was, because I'd been so
ingrained in this space and it was the first time
(45:29):
i'd like broken out and was like got to like
sort of experience the world for myself. But yeah, he
was very strong willed. I mean he had he was
very like performative, you know, like he was really charismatic,
like even if you didn't really know what he was
talking about or you know, understood the references. Like, I mean,
(45:49):
he had this like dense knowledge of the Bible to
the point where like he could pull scripture and he
could pull the the original Greek and what it meant
and how it translated in the various different you know,
in interpretation of the Bible, because there's you know, hundreds,
you know, there's King James new International, There's there's a
very popular one in the early two thousands called The Message,
(46:10):
which was basically somebody like essentially like through the Bible
into chat GPT.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
And was like talk to me like you're like a
cool youth passion.
Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, I mean that's his interesting. I mean I wouldn't
you know, say it sounds he sounds like a traditional
cult leader or anything. But I find it's almost like
a there's still a special knowledge thing going on that's
not necessarily like he is the literal prophet, but like
(46:39):
he is so educated, yes, and he knows so much
more than you do.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
About the Bible talking to him, Yeah, that's pretty intense.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Yeah yeah, although was God God talked to everyone.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
Yeah, but like I guess he had more of like
a direct line.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
Right right, right, you guys are more on like a
party line.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, like like we were playing like a
game of te essentially, right.
Speaker 1 (47:01):
So what were his main beliefs do you mean, like
in terms.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
Of like what he was saying? Yeah, like what what
what was his what were the churches?
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah, beliefs.
Speaker 3 (47:13):
It was based in like a kingdom mentality. Oh that's cool.
It was essentially like based in a kingdom mentality, wherein I.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Had no idea what that means.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
Yeah, I know, I know it sounds cool. It does
in a kingdom.
Speaker 5 (47:27):
Wherein there was like this sort of like upper echelon
like sort of again I was talking about like the
lower middle and the upper room being like this, like
you know, removing the veil between like yourself and God.
Finding this like it was kind of about like finding
your own direct line. So there was sort of this
like power instilled in people too, like like you could
(47:48):
be like me. You could be like me, which is
like like a very popular thing in terms of like
a cult mentality of like you could be just like me,
Like if you worked hard enough, and if you study
hard enough, and if you allowed yourself to sort of
commune with Christ the way that I do, you would
be as in tuned.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
But I imagine that sets up that kind of moving
goalpost that we always see where you're like, I'm not
hearing God's voice in my head, so this is I
must be what's wrong with me?
Speaker 2 (48:16):
Yes, what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
He's wrong with me?
Speaker 5 (48:18):
Why?
Speaker 1 (48:18):
Why?
Speaker 5 (48:19):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (48:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (48:19):
I mean that was something that I struggle with a lot, because,
like I just I felt like I really started to
kind of like see the cracks early on and start
to see the seems to where I was like, oh this,
I like don't buy this because it seems like they're
constantly kind of like shifting what that actually means. And
I didn't fully understand what they were talking about when
(48:41):
I say, like every church service like kind of felt
like a collegiate level, like a master's level collegiate course
on theology.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Like that's what I mean, Like I it would I would.
Speaker 5 (48:52):
Struggle to like like give you like an example of
like what a standard church service was like, because it
was so dense and it was so focused on like
the Old Testament and interpretation. But that was his way
of sort of explaining that, you know, this is how
(49:13):
I commune and this is how I have gained this understanding,
this this this ability to communicate with God the way
that I do is because of the knowledge that I.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Have right, And I think often with this kind of group,
the point is sort of, whether consciously or not, to
confuse the congregation, because if you have all of the
answers and it's confusing, then they will defer to you
for answers and guidance and authority.
Speaker 5 (49:39):
Yeah, And I mean like the level to which like
I felt like I was like, am I not getting it?
Is something wrong with me? Kind of going back to
what you were saying, like really came to a head
when we would have these like we would have these conferences.
We'd have like you know, like spring and Summer conference.
Like Summer Conference was like a really big was a
really big deal because these other churches that were sort
(50:01):
of a part of this like unofficial denomination of like
Kingdom Church, Kingdom Living, Kingdom Life would all congregate. These
are churches sort of in like Virginia, South Carolina, other
parts of North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
They would all sort of in the southeast would sort of.
Speaker 5 (50:14):
Converge on our church in the summer for like a
like Coachella of you know pastors in the Southeast region.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
You told me a story about yes, please please relay
some of the activities that would happen.
Speaker 5 (50:34):
Okay, So Summer Conference was later say it was like
a it was like a festival essentially, like all these
different churches would come into town to be like you know,
three hundred people like packed into the church and all
these different pastors would come and it would be like
Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday morning, Saturday night,
Sunday morning. Sometimes a Sunday night, and so what is
(50:57):
that There was like seven services like all in a row,
and like we would, there'd be a different pastor every night,
and Friday night was like the get down night, like
shit's gonna pop off.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
It's Friday night. Everything's gonna happen, like this is the
big night.
Speaker 5 (51:14):
Same with every other you know service, we'd start with
like praison worship and then there'd be, you know, a sermon.
But Friday Night, rarely do we ever get to the
sermon because it was just like everybody's locked in. There's
banners and ribbons flying around, like the music's going like
and people are prophesying. Well one night and this also
(51:36):
just so happened to be the night that we had
new neighbors moving across the street from us. Yeah, invited
them to come that night. Never forget this. During praison worship,
I'm playing drums and so I'm like in like a
drum cage in the corner of the room and I
can just like see everything, Like the church was essentially
built like a like a rectangle, okay, And I was
(51:57):
in one of the corners and you could just see everything.
So a bird's eye view this one pastor who is
kind of the youth pastor who would come in you know,
from I think he was based in West Virginia or Virginia.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
He comes over to my dad, who is now.
Speaker 5 (52:12):
The pastor of the church at the time, and you know,
doctor Varner is obviously there as well. Everybody's in. You know,
it's like the Avengers of you know, of pastors.
Speaker 3 (52:22):
This guy comes up to my dad and he's like,
the Lord has told me to do something. And he's
like what.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
He's like, the Lord told me to ride my motorcycle
through the church. And they whipped open the doors on
both ends, and he rode his motorcycle through the church
like he was Ryan Gosling at the beginning of placement
in the Pines, just zipping through and everybody losing their shit.
(52:50):
This is amazing. Oh my god, God is great. This
is so wonderful. And I'm like, We're never going to
see these neighbors again. I'm just like in a panic
of just like what's happening, what their faces look like.
I mean, I'm playing drums, so like I'm like i
gotta I gotta stay in time, like what's happen. But
I'm just like what's happening, because like I had headphones
(53:12):
on so I could hear everything. I could hear microphones,
and like they're all speaking in tongues, and just I think.
Speaker 1 (53:17):
I would use this for so much evil if I
were on this, I think I'd be like, God wants
me to get a bunch of toys and you should
make out with me. That is what Scott's telling me.
Speaker 5 (53:28):
I really didn't utilize this the way they probably should
have that abusive power. I didn't even think about that,
Oh the amount of like Max Steele and g I Joe.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
First see myself doing that. Did anybody ever kind of
like ask for things that were I don't know, like
a Christmas wish list?
Speaker 3 (53:53):
I think I remember.
Speaker 5 (53:55):
I think I remember, like because again, like it was
sort of a free for all a lot of times,
so like you know, you come and talk to past
Reward and like he'll give you the mic you know,
Like my dad was a lot better about like using
some discretion of giving.
Speaker 3 (54:08):
The microphone to just what everybody. There was one horse in.
Speaker 5 (54:11):
Our church who like would would really just kind of
go off the rails and just start like kind of weeping.
There's a lot of like tears and emotion because like
it's a very like it's a heightened state, you know.
Speaker 3 (54:22):
Do you remember, like.
Speaker 5 (54:23):
I think, like a kid taking the mic or something
and like making something up about like his like baseball
game or something like I'm going to hit a home
run like the Lords told me, I'm going to hit
over Yeah. Yeah, which probably didn't happen. Panthers didn't win
the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2 (54:39):
So okay, big thanks to Caleb for joining us, and
we love you, Caleb, We do love you, Caleb Megan.
Speaker 4 (54:47):
Yes, if you were Caleb's age.
Speaker 2 (54:49):
In the early two thousands and you came across this church, yeah,
in this community and culture, what do you think would
you join?
Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah? I think I would really like it. As we
identified in the episode, I love speaking in tongues. I
love a good Christian Disney World Land experience. Anything youth
groupie is super fun in my opinion, So yeah, I'm gone.
I'm what about you?
Speaker 2 (55:20):
I think I think it would depend on the context
going in, because you know, like you growing up church
was very.
Speaker 8 (55:28):
Solemn and like yeah quiet and like no one was
doing anything loud at all borings, So when I like
would see that happening in other people's churches, I'd be
kind of like freaked out.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
So I don't know that I would join, right, But
but if I were just a regular girl and saw
people doing stuff that was exciting, like probably who knows, Okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
Well I think that's fair, and uh, we can't know
for sure either way, but I do see some version
of my and one reality at a Christian Disneylander right now, bring.
Speaker 4 (56:04):
In a back to go, all right.
Speaker 1 (56:07):
Big thank you to Caleb for coming on the show.
Thank y'all for listening. Please go rate us five stars,
Go buy a T shirt, have some fun with that.
Speaker 2 (56:16):
Bit dot l y slash, trust me merch that's right,
and as always, remember to follow your gut, watch out
for red flax.
Speaker 4 (56:26):
And never ever trust me. Bye.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
Trust Me as produced by Kirsten Woodward, Gabby Rapp and
Steve Della Lamiter.
Speaker 1 (56:37):
The special thanks to Stacy Para.
Speaker 2 (56:39):
And our theme song was composed by Holly amber Church.
Speaker 1 (56:42):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me Podcast,
Twitter at trust Me Cult pod, or on TikTok at
trust Me Cult Podcast.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
I'm Ula Lola on Instagram and o La Lola on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (56:53):
And I am Megan Elizabeth eleven on Instagram and Babraham
Hicks on Twitter.
Speaker 2 (56:58):
Remember to rate and review and spread the words
Speaker 6 (57:06):
M hmm.
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