Cussin' Christians Ep. 172 - When Pastors Fall

Watch us on YouTube!  https://youtu.be/GUJ8gE11ABo

Special guest Clint Nowery shares his journey from lead pastor to rehab, to pastoring again.  Clint talks about how he found Grace in the midst of disaster.  
Check out Clint’s retreat canter at https://bigcypressrefuge.org/

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yo, what are you doing right now?

Speaker 2 (00:04):
We are going to get real about men's issues, who
Jesus is and who we are as men in Christ.
We're gonna hear Trey, Jeremy, Michael and Brad break it down.
These guys call themselves the cussin Christians.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
All right, guys, what is going on here? There's a
lot of money in making cleaning houses right now? That's right.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
If you're good at cleaning toilets, that's right.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
I don't get anything. What's companies?

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Time to spare? Cleaning?

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Time to spare?

Speaker 4 (00:34):
I don't get will clean so you have time to spare?
Oh that's cool, she's marketing genius man? What is this
star man who doesn't want some time to spare?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Right? I mean despair? It's like I got time, I'm
gonna despair. What do I do time to despair?

Speaker 5 (00:55):
It's like I saw this joke the other day and said,
getting kiss while you're asleep as the purest form of
love unless you're in prison.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Nice, that's funny. Hey, did your.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Son really get a bear?

Speaker 5 (01:18):
I thought that was like in a park where you
could walk up and got one.

Speaker 6 (01:23):
Yela, what the way do I hear you rite not
a beer be.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Yeah, both boys killed black bears. Yeah, oh they killed one,
all right.

Speaker 6 (01:33):
I believe it though, because I was going to get
one of my alligator stuffed eleven alligators.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Even I was going to get the rug made out
of Yeah, you can't make that would hurt, It would
be rough. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:46):
What what's a bear hunting light?

Speaker 8 (01:49):
Is it like deer hunt? Where you are? You go
stalk them?

Speaker 1 (01:53):
What you know?

Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's similar.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
I mean, there's a lot of different ways to do it,
but it's similar to the way we do it is
similar to deer hunting where you're kind of watching him waiting.
You're not going after them the barrels. There's brown bears
where we are too. I mean, I've done it a bunch.
I've done it a bunch. We it's the first one
for the boys, but we I've hunted up there for

(02:15):
I don't know fifteen years now. In fact, when I
was in I may have been a freshman in college.
My dad sent my brother and I up there for
two weeks, just the two of us. Oh my gosh,
we uh to fast forward the story. We saw so
many bears. We called it was a fourteen day trip.
We called on day twelve, and this black bear started

(02:37):
fighting the brown bears right one hundred yards from my
brother and I. This black bear was a stud, big male,
and we're like, that's our bear. So I shoot him
and he runs off about seventy five yards into the
tall grass and we go kind of. We get on
the four wheeler after a while, and we go kind

(02:58):
of towards where we thought he was us and this
brown bear stands up like twenty five.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Yards from us.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
We got back to the cabin as fast as we could.
We called, we called, and we said we got to
come home. We can't do our nerves were shot.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
So the trip ended early, you know.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
Well, and we went. We went home the bart least. Well,
I got the skull from that bear.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Was that your dad teaching you guys how to pray?
I guess there's a lot of lessons in that.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
My bear story.

Speaker 6 (03:34):
We were trout fishing in West Virginia Cranberry Gallades and
we had a mama bear and some cubs.

Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, you get in trouble there, and yeah.

Speaker 6 (03:42):
Literally she walked on one side of the creek and
I was on the other side of the creek with
my fly rod. And that's all I had, and she's
walking with us. Yeah, all the way down the creek.
I mean, we're miles back in there, and just finally
eventually she just went up in there.

Speaker 4 (03:54):
But yeah, when you get around I'm not in a
good spot, right.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
That's where I can get real, real dangerous, real quick.

Speaker 9 (04:02):
Well, this is I've been wanting Clint to join us
for a long time. You were so gracious and given
testimony for the Matthew West event last month, dude, and
loving it was cool to see in your face.

Speaker 8 (04:16):
We've we've been wanting.

Speaker 9 (04:18):
Well, look, first off, last week we really got into
and I had a conversation over dinner last night talking
about last last week's podcast about how pastors point fingers
at each other. Yeah, and you know, with the death
of John MacArthur and a lot of that stuff that
was going on, and it was people were who I

(04:41):
was with last night was like, God, what y'all said
is so true. Like how many times do I walk
out of a church and I instead of saying, man,
Jesus was alive in that church, I always go you know,
Clint's message kind of sucked today, you know, and I'm
starting I'm starting to grade my pastor and based.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
On I've never heard your message suck favorite.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
I copied most of.

Speaker 9 (05:05):
Them, but Clenn Dowery's joining us to it just stirred
something in me.

Speaker 7 (05:12):
Excuse me, I want to talk about pastors today.

Speaker 8 (05:17):
And you have been a pastor on a roller coaster.

Speaker 9 (05:21):
Of amazing highs and amazing lows and the the struggles
that pastors go through. And then how you know, the
Book of Acts is all about the gathering of us
like this and edifying each.

Speaker 8 (05:36):
Other in Christ.

Speaker 9 (05:36):
And somewhere, somehow, some way from you know, when the
last you know, when the apostles were going out spreading
the word we we we time in the world. We
went from these small gatherings that edifying Jesus to really
putting a man on a pedestal, on a stage or

(05:59):
behind the pulpit, right And you know, I I.

Speaker 8 (06:04):
I had some thoughts.

Speaker 9 (06:05):
I wanted to the challenges that pastors face, the struggles
that they have.

Speaker 8 (06:12):
There's a lot of things.

Speaker 9 (06:13):
You hide or can hide and putting on a mask
that people just don't understand. The burnout, the isolation, the depression,
or the difficulties your personal lives, your marriages, what you
go through with what it's kind of want to open
that up, and I think it's really important for people
that are listening. And it's not you know, you're you've

(06:34):
been lead pastor at a gigantic church in Georgia, the
pastor at a very large church in Florida. These struggles,
maybe expectations placed on pastors that are probably unrealistic that
we put on you.

Speaker 8 (06:50):
Things like that.

Speaker 9 (06:50):
I wanted to just kind of explore the heart of
you know you and everything else so and and and
and just pastors and general and how the Western culture
has created this what person up there on a stage,
So Clint, welcome to join it. Welcome to joining us

(07:11):
on the cusin Christian yesterday and your cat thanks for
your cat fits beautiful.

Speaker 4 (07:15):
Yes back award just for you guys. It's my personality
pretty well. No, I trade, like you said, I was
pastor for I've been pastor for twenty plus years. Started
in college with with ten, you know, twelve kids in
my youth group. I had middle schoolers and high schoolers,
and I hated the middle schoolers. They were a pain

(07:38):
in the butt, and you know, thought the high schoolers
were fun.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
And then middle school.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
Pastor for twelve years. Probably my most fun My most
fun job was that that season lead pastor for a season,
and then, like you said, I was executive pastor for
about seven years. So yeah, I've kind of experienced the

(08:03):
you know, multiple roles in your journey.

Speaker 9 (08:05):
Starting with the middle is very typical of pastorship, right,
you know, coming out of seminary and let's start them
with the kids and work them way up through the adults.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Yeah, that's usually how it works. That's usually how it works.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Why did you want to be a pastor to start with?

Speaker 9 (08:18):
Well?

Speaker 3 (08:18):
As a pastor's kid?

Speaker 4 (08:19):
And I looked at mom and dad and the church
and the influence, and.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
You know, I admired that.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
I think the the journey I was on, my dad
was a very influential guy, uh in South Florida.

Speaker 3 (08:35):
And I saw that and thought not in a like
a hey, I.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
Can't wait to be the man, but in a man
he's making this God's using him to make a difference.
And I just thought, Wow, how cool. That's what I
want to do. So that kind of started the journey
for me. I mean, it wasn't quite that simple, you know,
I didn't just jump into it. Spent a lot of
time processing making sure that's what I want to do,
really trying to discover if that's what God wants me

(09:00):
to do, which is another conversation, you know, for maybe
another time of how to figure that out and how
all of that works. But yeah, I went to college,
got a marketing degree, and then went to seminary after that, and.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
Then jumped in.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
I was actually doing seminary while while working at the church,
so I did kind of a duel enrollment type thing.

Speaker 10 (09:26):
We've known a lot of pastors over the years, and
we've kind of gotten a glimpse behind the curtain, like
what they deal with members, Like members are never happy,
you know, they have to deal with the emails, all
that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Growing up with the dad as a.

Speaker 10 (09:36):
Pastor, did you see that side of it or did
he handle it so well that he just kind of
he protected you from seeing that.

Speaker 3 (09:44):
I didn't see much of that.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
I didn't and by the time I was old enough
to really recognize it, he wasn't pastoring. He had moved
into a different, you know, career path and so, yeah,
you know, it's a good question, Brad.

Speaker 1 (09:59):
I think the.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
Overwhelming majority of my experience in terms of seeing my
dad as a pastor was good as a kid, which
was naive, very naive. But but yeah, that was my
experience and probably one.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Of the reasons I ended up Yeah.

Speaker 10 (10:20):
Sure, yeah, yeah, because because I've heard some guys say,
you know, they were in pastoring, they got out of it,
they say they probably wouldn't go back, just because again,
you you deal with so many headaches, so many difficult
problem people. I think, unless you're really called to do it,
it's got to be. I don't think people can just
do it because they want to be on stage.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
No, I think there's a you might be.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
You know, the way the way social media sets things up,
you can you can quickly get an impression that pastors
are seeking notoriety, they're seeking a stage. Yes, they're seeking voice,
they're seeking influence.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
I'm sure that exists.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
I think social media amplifies that and might give an
impression that's not completely accurate my personal experience. I know
very few, I know very few pastors that they start
that way. At least I'm sure they're out there. But

(11:24):
the pastors I know are not in it for that.
They're not about that, they're not interested in that. And
I tend to think just again, from my It's all
I speak from today is from my own experiences. I
don't think most pastors go into it wanting that. Sure,
that's it's an easy, you know, lying to cross. But

(11:46):
I think you know, they they genuinely want to tell
people about Jesus, and things can quickly get sideways as
in my story, you know, can quickly get get sideways.

Speaker 9 (11:58):
After your journey through the youth ministry, high school ministry
and landing at the big yeah, the megachurch type scenario. Yeah,
the responsibilities you had in Georgia. I mean, I I
want you just to be as candid as you want
to be.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Sure, but.

Speaker 9 (12:17):
You had a you had a defining moment to your
detriment and what you experienced through you know, through through that,
how did you look at yourself, you know, kind of
differently on the inside about your calling and share what

(12:37):
you want.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
But I just yeah, yeah, I can quickly kind of
share that story.

Speaker 4 (12:44):
So I I was, I was a pastor for probably
fifteen years. Yeah, it was about fifteen years middle school
pastor and then and then lead pastor of a big campus,
incredible organization.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Uh. And then you.

Speaker 4 (13:06):
Know within a within uh, you know, on one Let's see,
Tuesday night, I'd confess to hide in some secrets to
my wife and to my boss, and Thursday morning, I'm
in rehab.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
You know.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
So I went from uh for all kinds of addiction,
but I went from kind of top of the in
some ways, top of the you know mountain in terms
of the church world, to complete train wreck. And to
your point, Trey, I think that's one of the reasons pastors, uh,

(13:46):
you know, keep things a secret because you go from
zero to a you know, zero to one hundred. There's
no there's very little in practice, there's very little. Hey,
let's work through this. Let's uh, let's process how we
can help you with this. It's you're either great or

(14:06):
you're out. And that's just the reality of the church.
That's the reality of the church world. And so I
think there's a lot of reasons why guys hide. There's
a lot of reasons why it's hard to share as
a pastor. For me, I knew if I you know,
I tried a lot of different things. I'd read all
the books, I'd prayed, I'd done the deal.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
You know.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
The one thing I hadn't done was told somebody what
was going on. In my heart right and the secrets
that I was keeping. And uh, one of the reasons
for that was because I believed it would wreck my family,
it would wreck my my career, my income. As a pastor,
what happens you guys see this, It is so consuming

(14:51):
that your friendships, you know, your your your income, your insurance,
your everything. Your entire life is surrounded by this job.
So if you if you do something to affect that job,
you don't just say, Okay, I'll go get another job. No,
you're you're literally there's a potential of losing all of

(15:12):
it at one with one strike.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (15:17):
And that's that's I think.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
One of the things that's unique, fairly unique about being
a pastor is is that everything in your life is
connected to your role, and that makes it very difficult
to open up.

Speaker 8 (15:30):
Yeah, it's like we live here.

Speaker 9 (15:32):
If we call the space coast, you know, you know,
we're launching rockets two or three times a week.

Speaker 7 (15:36):
We got all these industry giants right in our backyard, those.

Speaker 9 (15:40):
Engineers that are developing those vessels to take things into space.
At five o'clock at the end of the day, they
shut the door on it.

Speaker 8 (15:46):
That's all.

Speaker 10 (15:47):
That's right, Well, if one of them has a moral failures,
just like, oh well, oh well that guy, you know,
he can still he can continue in his job.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
But with a pastor, it's a very public thing.

Speaker 4 (15:57):
It's a very continue yeah, continuing his job, or maybe
he has to go get you know, get a job
at the you know, the place down the street or whatever.
But yeah, inside the church, it's a different ballgame as
it in some ways should be as it should be,
you know. But those things, that's one of the factors

(16:19):
that kind of pile on into into guys just kind
of saying, well, I'm.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
Not going to open up.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
I'm not gonna And a lot of times you don't
know where that line is as a as a pastor,
you and I might say, man, yeah, we all do that,
we all struggle with that. But as a pastor, you
don't know where the line. Where's the line of what
I do versus what other guys are doing that might
get me fired, versus saying, hey, let's let's talk about
that and work through it.

Speaker 5 (16:46):
Just the judgment from people in the congregation, because Christians
can be cruel, man, and the judgment there and then
walking through this, you know, the foyer of the church
and people looking the shame and it's like, man, that's
got to be an amazing struggle or a burden to
have to carry.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
You know.

Speaker 4 (17:08):
I think you know, Brad this you you kind of
mentioned this as well. I think you we often when
you're outside of the church world, you might think the
voices from the people in the church are the loudest.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
They're not.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
That's not one of the harder of course, you're gonna
have people that complain. You're gonna have people that you know,
I don't like the sermon or you know, you're always
gonna have that. But pastors are similar. What's the loudest
voice that we hear. It's the one in our own head.
That's the one that's gonna beat you up, and uh,

(17:42):
that's the one that's gonna cause you to to to
kind of go in to hiding. So yeah, we deal
with you know, complaining and things, but that's not the
you know, that's not the tough The tougher moments is
when you're dealing with your own shame, your own regret,
your own failures, and wondering voice in your head says, boy,

(18:09):
if they if they you.

Speaker 9 (18:10):
Know, walking around with that in your brain constantly.

Speaker 8 (18:16):
That's got a wreck you.

Speaker 6 (18:18):
It does, It does, the scariest part of what I'm hearing, though,
is that you know you've been in some big churches, right,
and you know the pastors that you know, these are
guys that and I know some of them obviously that
I'm supposed to go to as a congregation member and say, hey,
I'm I'm messed up. But your counterpart you can't tell

(18:40):
that too. And why is that? Why can't I go
to I mean, in our group, right, I would go
to Trey or Michael or Brad and say, hey, guys, like,
I'm really struggling with like pornography right now and it
just keeps popping up in my feeds and it's consuming
my thought process, and like I want to talk to
you about it. Let me get this off my chest. Yeah,

(19:01):
Like let's you know, can you help me with this?
Can you pray with me through this? Can we can
we talk about it? But yet you're standing next to
the guys they're supposed to be leading me as a
congregation member. Yeah, yeah, and you're not talking to them
about it. Yeah, in fear of what that might do
for you in all the aspects.

Speaker 4 (19:20):
You described, right, Yeah, this is and I want to
be careful to make sure I'm talking about you know,
when you hear me, I'm I'm looking in the.

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Mirror on this stuff. This is this is a.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
I I for my for my own story. I blame
no one, and I know that's not what you're saying,
that's not where I'm heading. But I blame no one
but myself. At the end of the day, I think
the every every church has a culture. Every church has
a culture.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
We we know that.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Y'all know that every podcast has a culture, every restaurant
has are everywhere you go, there's a way things work,
there's a way.

Speaker 3 (19:55):
This is how things operate.

Speaker 4 (19:58):
And I you know there are church which is that
absolutely create places where you can be open, you can
be honest with each other.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (20:05):
And then there are places where that's not done and
that's not you know, for whatever reason, it's.

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Not allowed, it's not talked about.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
But I think it's important to see pastors, ministry leaders
as they're just normal guys just like you and I
and to to to uh, to see them differently. I
think that's where you get you get in trouble because
when all of a sudden we start to see them
as better than us. Then, you know, it can that

(20:36):
that creates a dangerous situation on both sides of the coin.

Speaker 10 (20:40):
In your case, so you you know, went from Tuesday
being pastor of church Thursday in rehab. Yeah, looking back
at that, is there a way that that they could
have kept you on as a pastor and you rehab?
I mean, you know, because we talk about this and
we're like, oh, this is so unfair, but yeah, pastors
have to be held to a higher standard.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Absolutely, So where's the line.

Speaker 10 (21:00):
Like, is there a scenario where you could have been
rehabbed at that same church and come back and pastored again?
Would it had taken a year? I mean, what would
that have looked like? Yeah, great question.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
I think.

Speaker 4 (21:12):
You know what, First of all, we're talking about a
scenario where you know, I this wasn't a fender bender
for me, right, the train was off the track and
on fire and in pieces. You know, I think the
way that I could have have you know, looking back,

(21:33):
obviously I have spent a lot of time processing through
what would I have done differently? What could I have
done differently? Creates a lot of regret, creates a lot
of shame the end of the day, we you know,
to have shared. This started for me in college, where
I didn't tell people what was going on in my life.

(21:53):
That's one of the things I love about what you
guys are doing, is you just you create this environment
where it's like, yeah, we'll talk about things. We'll talk about,
you know, our own crap. I didn't do that. I
just didn't do it. And so could I have been personally?
Could I have been rehabbed to the point where no, no,

(22:14):
not not, it.

Speaker 3 (22:15):
Could not have happened.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
It was such a broad I had, so you know,
it was very public. No, and you're you're not always
thinking clearly when you're in trauma like that.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
You know.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
I remember going to my boss and saying, man, I
just I love this place. Let me sweep the floors,
and uh, I didn't understand why he wouldn't let me
do that. Now I look back and say, oh, my gosh,
of course of course he didn't let me do that.
I do think and one of the things I have
a tremendous appreciation for was the way that I was

(22:56):
handled and my family was handled in that scenario. I
think churches a lot of times aren't equipped to handle
train wrecks, as weird as that might sound, especially when
it's there, especially when it's their own, especially when it's
there and the don't know what to do.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
And so.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
I have learned just.

Speaker 4 (23:17):
The relational side, you know, through unfortunately through my own experience,
of how you can handle it relationally well and say hey, man,
we love you, we're going to help you, but you
can't be here anymore, you can't work here anymore.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
And that's that's.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
Uh, it wasn't perfect, but looking back, that's how it
was handled, and I'm so grateful for that because it
created a Really what they're what you're trying to do
there is you want to create a if you're, if
you're if you're ultimately saying, hey, we're on a church staff,
we're you know, we're in this together, and this guy's
one of us, and then this guy needs to leave

(23:59):
or Gal needs to leave. Ultimately, what you want to
do is you want to create an exit ramp, and
you want to pave that as much as you can,
as much as.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
You might be heard or frustrated or pissed off.

Speaker 4 (24:11):
At the end of the day, don't we want to
be the kind of guys who want to create paved
exit ramps for people when they when they got to leave.
You know, you know you can just throw them out
of the car and say walk, or you can create
this this exit ramp that helps them transition into whatever
their next thing might be, because you love them, because

(24:32):
you care for them, Because ultimately that's are's That's what
grace looks like in this scenario, I think is you're
you're not just giving them multiple chances, but you're also saying,
when that time comes, when there's there's a there's an
organizational decision, We're going to create a paved exit ramp
for you that is ultimately not going to benefit the

(24:54):
church at all, but it's going to benefit you. That's
the impact is this.

Speaker 5 (25:00):
You know, when Trey started this and I became involved
and now we're all involved, is we don't point fingers
at guys. We're like, come on, man, tell us what's
going on. Let us know so that we can bring
that into the light and get it handled. Yeah, there's
going to be consequences of that behavior. You bet We've
all experienced it. And one of the things that I

(25:21):
love about you and when I first met you, is
just your realness. You know, there was there was never
a facade with you as as a pastor. You were
always real. And I think you can probably attest to this,
and that is going through those things and having to
to be your Your sin is open for everybody to

(25:45):
see and law watch.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
It got you to a point and you didn't bolt.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
You've I believe.

Speaker 5 (25:52):
Somewhere you found grace from people, obviously from the from
the Lord that's the ultimate and you. It helped you
become real and you weren't desensitized to the to the
the walk, the normal man walk that goes through all
these struggles that that are normal from for most people.

Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yeah. Yeah, I'm grateful. As weird as it might sound,
I look back at that season of my life.

Speaker 3 (26:21):
It's been.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
Wow, ten years ten years ago, I just kind of
put that together. But I look back at that train wreck,
and I'm I'm not grateful for the damage. I'm not
grateful for the you know, of course, if I could
do it over again, I you know, there's part of
me that would say, yeah, let's let's let's redo that.
But then I also have this. I'm at the place

(26:44):
where I'm like, man, that's made me who I am,
and I can I can sit across the table from
a guy and not not you know, one of my
favorite guys says, not blink. You know, I'm a non
I can be a non blinking friend. And I don't
think you can do that unless you've been through some stuff.
You know, unless you're limping, you don't really know what

(27:07):
it's like to limp and look at a.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Guy and say, yeah, I get it.

Speaker 6 (27:12):
We talk I talk about all the time. And you know,
some of my favorite pastors and favorite people in the
ministry aren't preacher's kids, no offense, because they've gone through something.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (27:21):
You get all these preachers kids that they lived the
perfect life and they've always been the perfect life and
they've always and it's like, well, when I talk about
what I went through, you never did that. You can
go through what I went through, so you have no idea.
So thanks for the advice, but you've never done it.
That's right, you know what I mean, that's right.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
Road.

Speaker 6 (27:40):
Yeah, So there's something about that that brings a genuineness
to the conversation. You know, when I talk to Michael
and we talk about anger and being pissed off or whatever,
the conversation we're having, like all of a sudden, I
know Michael knows what I'm talking about because he's done
it right, Like he's been there and he can give
me true advice, Whereas you talk some pastors and it's like, man,

(28:01):
like you've never sinned, So how the hell do you
know what the hell I'm doing?

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Well, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (28:06):
Yeah, And I think unfortunately they get that. It's easy
to give that impression.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
There there's.

Speaker 4 (28:13):
There is no and I know you know this, there's
no pastor who hasn't sinned. There's just guys who portray that, correct,
And that's what creates a wall.

Speaker 8 (28:21):
That mask. It's a mask lynch thing.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, it's a mask.

Speaker 6 (28:25):
I want to talk to him, right, right, creates a wall. Yeah,
I know you're judging me because you've never had that, right,
you know, you.

Speaker 9 (28:31):
Know, right when we became a non for profit and
when I you know, we.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
We were by the way, if you want to donate,
we'd love.

Speaker 9 (28:38):
Yeah, click click like but it was right when, right
when we became kind of official. You know, I wasn't
just a small group in my living room like the
first three or four years. This is twenty twenty, and
we created the website, and we created the Brotherhood support page,
and we were like doing some social media. One of
the first inquiries that I re.

Speaker 8 (29:02):
Saying, Trey, my name is John. Can we talk?

Speaker 9 (29:07):
And he gave me his number and we talked, and
he goes, I don't even know where to begin.

Speaker 8 (29:12):
I don't know who I can go to. I just
know I can't go to anybody around me.

Speaker 9 (29:16):
He said, this guy is a pastor in Texas, a
large church, probably two to three thousand people a week,
and his wife is an executive, and she traveled a lot,
and I guess things were kind of awry, and every
time she leave to go travel, he would go to.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
The computer screen and click on porn.

Speaker 8 (29:38):
And it was eating at him so much.

Speaker 9 (29:40):
But he knew, He goes, I got nobody to talk
to her. You said in your deal you will looked
at porn before. And I'm going we'll talk to me,
But inside of me, I'm going, how sad he can't
talk to anyone in his church about the struggle.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
He's going, Right, who do.

Speaker 9 (29:57):
Pastors have to really turn to? I'm Joe Schmoe don't
have a seminary degree. I don't have any of that,
and you got a pastor and we set up. I
set a game plan with him. I just said, when
whenever she's going out of town, you send me a
note and.

Speaker 8 (30:15):
I'll be there for you.

Speaker 9 (30:16):
And I'm fifteen hundred miles away from you, but I'll
be there for you. And sure enough, the next week,
I'm going into a restaurant in Vero Beach with with
a few people and my phone buzzes and it's him
on the phone at six o'clock and I said, hey, brother,
what's going on? He goes, just want to let you

(30:36):
know my wife just got on the plane and it
is flying out. And I said, all right, you okay, goes,
I am because I'm calling you. And he I said,
if any if you even think about going there tonight
and clicking on the computer.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Screen, call me.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
I don't care what time it is.

Speaker 9 (30:55):
I couldn't wait all night long. I'm sitting there just
looking at my phone right right. And the next morning
I couldn't stand it, and I just seven thirty, are
you up?

Speaker 8 (31:04):
And he goes, yeah, And I called him and.

Speaker 7 (31:06):
I said, well what happened? He goes, You know, it's crazy.
I said, what he said?

Speaker 9 (31:12):
It released me because you knew right, And I said,
you made it through the night, okay. Not only did
I make it through the night, okay, but I prayed
as soon as I hung them up from you. And
a few minutes later, there was a knock on my
door and it was my son who had wings, and
we watched Monday night football together and I went to
bed and I and I'm like, why didn't he have

(31:35):
someone in his local area that he could go to
with this? Sure, it's a long story, but I just
want I share that because I think about you.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yep, you hadn't You had nobody go to?

Speaker 4 (31:46):
Well, I think for me, you know, if I'm honest,
there was plenty of people to go to. I was scared. Yeah,
I was scared to I was scared of the consequence.
I was scared of the repercussions.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
I was downplaying. I think we all probably do that
to some level.

Speaker 4 (32:06):
I was downplaying, I can handle this, I can I
can do this. I'm all right, I'm I'm I'm you know,
at least I'm not doing this, you know. And that's
where I think we with with different you know, in
my story, in my case, with different addictions, you can
do things privately that are you know, if it had

(32:28):
been alcohol or if it had been some kind of drugs.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
You know, hey, we recognize that guy. What's he doing?

Speaker 1 (32:34):
You know?

Speaker 4 (32:35):
And but when you can do something privately that nobody
knows about, it just grows and grows and grows and
grows and to the point where you cannot control it.
That's the you know, one of the definitions of addiction
is doing something that you know is going to cause
you and your family harm, and you do it anyways,
and you can't stop yourself. And that's like, whoof you know,

(32:56):
that's I didn't know anything about addiction or all that
I didn't. I didn't they didn't teach me that stuff
in seminary.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
You know.

Speaker 3 (33:06):
So uh So.

Speaker 4 (33:07):
When I end up in rehab, I'm thinking, Wow, this
life is over. Life is over, my marriage is over,
my career is over, my friendships, everything. And in some ways,
some of that stuff, you know, I certainly don't want
to give a wrong impression. Some of that stuff did happen.
Some of those some of those things I was worried about.
That's exactly what happened and why what I was afraid of.

(33:30):
But on the other side of it, I did. What
I didn't know was the grace that I would experience
from my wife and and ultimately that's what allowed me
to experience grace from God. And you know, one of
the things Trey, you and I have talked about is,
you know, hearing that grace and what is that?

Speaker 3 (33:47):
How do you? How do you receive that?

Speaker 1 (33:48):
What does that?

Speaker 3 (33:49):
What does that feel like?

Speaker 8 (33:50):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (33:51):
How do you know?

Speaker 4 (33:53):
And it was actually in rehab. I'm sitting in rehab
when I realized, you know, this grace that I had
taught for years and years and years, I just couldn't
believe with my own heart that it was for me.
It was like God said, no, this is especially for you.

(34:16):
This is especially for you. And that's what it took.
As crazy as it sounds, that's what it took for
me to understand it and accept it, and which is
another reason why I'm grateful. As weird as it sounds,
that I had to, I walked through what I did
because my relationship with God just flipped on its head

(34:37):
and the way I talked to people about God changed
completely as well.

Speaker 10 (34:44):
What I love about your story is that your wife
did extend grace, but you returned to pastoring again at
very high level, and the church, knowing what you went
through at church, hired you again and you were able God.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
Was able to use you in that ministry again.

Speaker 10 (34:57):
I mean, that's that's amazing most churches, I don't think, well, unusual,
it isn't it was unusual.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
I am am forever grateful.

Speaker 4 (35:04):
Uh And and I've communicated that I'm forever grateful for
the opportunity to do that because you know, I actually
had a guy pretty early on after getting out of
rehab say, you know, Clinton, this is this is the
kiss of death for pastors and man that hurt. People
don't know what to say, what to do. But yeah,

(35:25):
somebody took a chance on me. And I'm grateful for
that for that season. And and and really that was
kind of what one of the things I was talking
about earlier, where you're creating paths for people to heal
and grow, and that they did that for my family.
So here's a big deal for me, for sure and
for us.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
You made a point.

Speaker 5 (35:43):
I think.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
You were in a pit. Yeah, and how do you
describe that with your wife? Yes, that's amazing.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
Yeah, Well, so the program I was in is a
three month program. Impatient, No, no, no.

Speaker 3 (36:02):
I mean, man, it was awful.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
Most people don't know what, you know, rehabs like, and
they hear stories or whatever.

Speaker 3 (36:11):
I didn't know what it was like.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
And so I'm I'm I'm in there with these guys,
and I'm thinking, what have I done?

Speaker 9 (36:18):
Like?

Speaker 4 (36:18):
These are not this is not I'm in the wrong place,
you know what I'm saying. And so, uh, you know
how we all tend to think a little more highly
of ourselves than we should.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah, guilty, guilty.

Speaker 1 (36:31):
I'm thinking these these.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
Are bad dudes.

Speaker 4 (36:34):
And then a couple of days in it's like, oh,
I'm a bad dude too, you know. It's like, oh geez, so,
uh that wasn't a fun day. So uh so I'm
in in rehabit. There's no The place that I went
to was incredible, but there's no there's no phone, there's
no computer, there's no there's no TV, there's no radio,

(36:56):
there is there's no newspaper, there's no maggot zines, there
is zero. You get zero relief from what you're walking through.
And they did that very intentionally. It was during football
season of the night, one of the nights three months
before this so one of this is the end of

(37:20):
January when I went in and so they're in the
Super Bowl. I'm in rehabit. I don't remember what I
don't even remember who was playing.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
Uh, but it wasn't Dallas.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
Yeah that's true. I can we can say that with confidence.
So I'm in there, and uh, you get no. They
essentially want you to sit in in your They want
you to be able to look at in the eye. Right,
You've got to look in the eye what you've done
and who you are and who you've become.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
And so they're not going to give you a.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
We we often don't think of it this way, but
the stuff we do with our phone, you know, even
reading social media or or you know, I'm gonna go
you know on Amazon and shop, or I'm gonna I'm
gonna watch a football game or whatever. If we're not careful,
those things turn into distractions from life. And that's not

(38:13):
my life.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Under control.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Idiot, because he's on the bottom of every real there is.

Speaker 4 (38:25):
It's why we're here because the five of us haven't
figured out. So if you're listening, take us, you know,
as as examples. But yeah, they don't want you to
create any distractions. They want you to look at what
you did and and process that, and they're gonna walk
this this place.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
They had just these great people that are gonna walk
me through what I've made of my life.

Speaker 4 (38:50):
And so I describe it as this this this you know,
big huge pile of ship, you know, is the way
I describe it. And then it's like, now you go
sit in it. Oh, and you think that's tough. You
think that's tough. But the truth is, I think that's
probably one of the best things they could have done

(39:10):
for me, is to to help me realize who I
had become and what I'd done and the damage I'd caused.
And so you're there and you're just dealing with it,
and you're just processing it, and you're overwhelmed by it.
And you know, as I think about the you know,

(39:30):
kind of to your point, Michael, the pit that I
was in is this idea of I'd seen other people.
You're you start to become friends and build relationships. You're
with these guys twenty four to seven in rehab with you,
and you see how they interact, You see what they're doing,
and you watch you're observing and their spouses and their

(39:51):
girlfriends and these kinds of things. They most of them
were like, I'm out of here, you know, understandably so
and then you know, some of them I would watch
and it would be like, these guys were all in
this pit together and their spouse and this is all
just kind of a picture in my mind. But their

(40:12):
spouse might come to the edge of the pit and say, hey,
when you figure out how to get out of there,
you know, maybe then we'll talk fair enough, fair enough,
I don't you know.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
That was the best case scenario.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
And what I experienced from my wife was kind of
climbing down in that pit with me and grabbing my
hand and saying, how are we going to get out
of here? And my gosh when and understand, this wasn't
week one, this is week nine, right, So this isn't
like you know, Michael, I think you said something earlier
about this wasn't a rushed through bolt out of here. No,

(40:49):
this is you're doing intense work, heavy work, all day,
counseling and learning about addiction, and you know, five days
a week we're I'm in basically, I'm a thirty five
year old guy in school and it sucks, you know,
And and I'm learning this stuff and I'm realizing why

(41:10):
I was doing what I was doing and the decisions
I was making.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
So you're looking at all that and you you get
to a place.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
Where you're like, yeah, this is there's this is going
to be a journey then not a fun one. And
then you know, the way I describe the grace that
I saw from my wife was like I'm for you,
and how are we going to get out of here?
Amazing and get down in that in that pit with me?
And I'm like, wait a second, if if my wife

(41:39):
will do that, that's that turning point for me when
I started to realize, huh, maybe God, maybe God's doing
that with me too, and I kind of started to
kind of process what that might look like. So yeah,
that experience is really it was a turning point for
me for sure.

Speaker 10 (41:57):
You mentioned in your the interviews that we did for
the Matthew Westclastin you mentioned that you felt like God
was looking at you and just saying what a disappointment.
I think we've all felt that, like when when we've failed,
we were in a pittance, like how could God possibly
be pleased.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
With me right now? I'm not doing this right? I'm
not doing that right, but I mean that was. I
don't know.

Speaker 10 (42:15):
I just think your redemption story is awesome, and we
all benefited from you coming back and pastoring again because
we are all at that church. We all benefited under
your ministry. So I just think it's it's an amazing
redemption story. Yeah, and I'm glad that God brought you there.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
Thanks.

Speaker 10 (42:31):
And so I don't know, that's just encouragement to anybody
else that's out there, that's in the pit right now.
He thinks their life is over, you know, God can
still redeem it and still bring.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
You out of it.

Speaker 4 (42:40):
And I think that's such an important when you think
about God, whatever's going on in your life, when you
when you think about God and picture his face when
he's looking at you, what does his face look like?
I still wrestle with this to this day, you know,

(43:01):
but so many of us think it's this look of
disgust because we've heard he's holy and he's perfect, and
it's so we and we if we're honest with each other,
if we're honest with ourselves, we know we are far
from it. And so you can't help but think, man,
he must think I am just you know. And one

(43:23):
of the things I've learned is that's not true about
who God is and his nature. He does not look
at us with this look of like you.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
You know, he doesn't do that.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
And man, when you can start to wrap your mind
around what does God think about when he thinks about me,
and you start to think about that in a positive way,
it will change the way you interact with God. When
if you were to hang out with somebody, every time
you hung out with him, you're like, this guy's on
his phone, he's not paying attention to me, he doesn't

(43:54):
like being around me.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
What are you going to do? I don't want to
hang out with this guy anymore.

Speaker 4 (43:58):
And that's often how we treat It's like, well, if
he's disgusted with me, I'm gonna avoid him.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
I'm not going to talk to him.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
I don't want to be around him because I think
he's disappointed in me. But when you start to realize
the love that he has for you, regardless of your behavior,
all of a sudden it opens that you know, relationship
up and it's not you know that brick wall we
were talking about.

Speaker 5 (44:23):
You know, for me, my father had a face that
scared to live and shit out of me, and it
reared its ugly head on quite a few occasions. And
I for a long time saw my heavenly Father like
my earthly father, and it was hard for me to

(44:44):
differentiate between the two. So I didn't have a very
good relationship with the Lord, even though I was able
to speak it and say it and everything else. You know, yeah,
in some instances and then some not so much. But
like you just said, I finally realized how my heavenly
Father feels about me. And that's our goal is for

(45:05):
every man to realize who they are in Christ, and
everything else is just water under the bridge. It doesn't
matter God. And somebody told me this once and it's
kind of a Christian cliche, but it's if you were
the only one on earth, Jesus still would have went
to the cross for you, And so that shows how

(45:27):
important I am to him.

Speaker 6 (45:29):
I think you know one thing that stood out to
me when we first started talking. Trey had me read
a book and Bible and Light of our Redemption. And
when I realized that God doesn't see me through the
lens prior to Christ. When you truly invest in Christ
and you say, hey, I believe in you. The lens
that God looks at you through is different. Now he

(45:52):
doesn't see the sin anymore. So it's a different lens.
It's truly a different picture of who you are. He
doesn't see what you did. But it's really hard to understand.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
Yeah, it's hard to wrap your mind around.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
And it's really hard to accept.

Speaker 4 (46:05):
Yes, And a lot of people think, you know, there's
a lot of folks who will say, well, then you're
going to take advantage of that. That's that's gonna You're
gonna take advantage of that.

Speaker 8 (46:14):
That's whole podcast.

Speaker 3 (46:16):
Yeah. I was just talking to my kids about this
the other day.

Speaker 4 (46:18):
We we were sitting around the dinner table and I said, uh,
let me ask you guys a question. I said, if
if if mom and dad are generous with you, and we,
you know, are doing this, and we're doing that, and
we're doing you know, helping you, and you know, what's
your natural reaction going to be towards us. What's your
feeling towards us going to be? Are you just going

(46:40):
to want to take advantage of that and and just
run with it and say, well, Mom's always going to
make my bed, you know.

Speaker 3 (46:48):
I think of.

Speaker 4 (46:48):
Course, there are probably some kids who might do that,
but by and large, the majority of them are going
to say, man, this is awesome, thank you.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
I want to it this. Uh man, I want to
lean in to mom and dad.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
And I think a lot of guys get that wrong,
where they worry about whoa you're going to take advantage
of grace you're gonna take you're gonna run over it.
And and my experience has been when you really wrap
your mind around.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
Grace, it creates gratitude.

Speaker 4 (47:19):
It creates the opposite of just you know, like Paul's
talking about, you could you know you.

Speaker 3 (47:25):
Want to keep on sinning.

Speaker 4 (47:26):
No, when you interact with genuine grace, that's the last
thing that you want to do. And so, you know,
Jeremy to your point, when you think about when you
really see what God has done for you, what does that?

Speaker 3 (47:41):
What does that do cause you want to lean in?

Speaker 6 (47:45):
And when you find yourself pulling away, it's because you know, yep,
it's it's not that you don't know that you're still saved.
Right you started withdrawing because you're you're letting your father down.

Speaker 4 (47:56):
What I would say, what I would say is, in
your mind you were you. You shifted in that moment,
and you the face of God changed in your mind,
and you think you're letting God down. Oh man, he
just went from smiling at me to frustrate of me.
And what are you gonna do when you see that,
You're gonna run away?

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Exactly?

Speaker 3 (48:16):
And so when you when when we.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
Can picture and it's so hard, but when we picture
the smile on God's face, regardless of our behavior, the
smile is because of Jesus. When we remember that, regardless
of our behavior, it causes us to lean in. That's

(48:38):
been my experience.

Speaker 9 (48:39):
Well in your experience, and you have talked you know,
and I have talked about it numerous times over the years.
You could preach about grace from the stage, absolutely, but
you never fully grasped it.

Speaker 4 (48:49):
I didn't grasp it and I didn't believe it was
for me. I was too far gone. If people only knew.

Speaker 6 (48:56):
You're fifteen years into your career, yeahs past, that's right.
I want to emphasize this, Yes, right, Yes, you didn't
really think grace was for you, that's right, that's right.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
I I couldn't.

Speaker 8 (49:07):
It couldn't be that simple or what was it?

Speaker 4 (49:11):
I was too far gone. I was too far gone.
I was I was too I was a hypocrite. I
was a I couldn't control and change my own life.
I wanted so badly. One of the reasons I leaned
into grace and and would talk about it and teach
about it is because I wanted so badly for people

(49:33):
not to feel what I was feeling. I didn't want
I didn't want people to experience what I was experiencing.
So I would lean into and uh when I you know,
to the to the point I made earlier. When I
finally experienced that for myself, it changed everything.

Speaker 3 (49:50):
But yeah, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't accept.

Speaker 4 (49:53):
I couldn't really accept it because I thought, there's no way,
this is not possible. I didn't have a concept of
being given something that good when I was that bad.

Speaker 6 (50:06):
Do you think that you believed until that point but
you hadn't accepted.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
Meaning my relationship with Christ. No, I believed my relationship
with Christ was secure when I was when I was
a little kid. It was all mental health stuff and
a block in my mind, and you know, it was
all you know up here. I believed I had asked
for forgiveness. Christ was living in me, but my behavior

(50:34):
and hiding had gotten to a point where I, you know,
basically built a wall.

Speaker 3 (50:39):
I built a wall myself.

Speaker 6 (50:40):
I asked that question for a very specific reason, because
you're going to listen to this and they're going to
identify with you, and they're going to question their salvation.
Right like I've man, Like, am I really saved? I
haven't experienced this like acceptance of grace. That's not true. No, No,
you can still battle with that. Absolutely. I still to
this day battle with it. I think I'll battle with it.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
One of the more discouraging things I've had conversations I've
had in the last couple of years was talking to
a guy that was like seventy years old and him
telling me about his struggles, and I'm thinking, and this
is an incredible guy, what I would describe as a.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
Man of God.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
And I'm thinking, I thought it was going to get easier.
I thought, you know, I thought it was going to
get easier. But also encouraging to know, man, this guy
is chasing after God. He loves God, and I believe
all of us will struggle and fight until the day
that we die. That's part of what makes us human.

(51:38):
They don't just go away.

Speaker 5 (51:39):
You know, the things that the Lord has bestowed on
me with his love or just truly amazing. One of
the things my son said recently, and I don't know
if you knew, we were visiting every Major League Baseball
stadium in the country, and so City Field was our thirtieth.
And in between we went to Delmonico's in Manhattan for

(52:00):
a stake, and my son turned to me and said, Dad,
thanks for giving me or allowing me to order anything
on this menu without worrying about it. And I looked
at that afterwards, and I remember thinking, Yeah, our father's
gonna give us a thousand dollars steak when we have

(52:23):
a relationship with him. Not that it was a thousand dollars,
but what I'm saying is the things that he bestows
on us, even in light of our garbage, will truly
set you free to a level that you can't even
experience in any other realm, any other The freedom in
Christ is truly amazing. And that's that. Of course, Michael,

(52:46):
I'm gonna bestow these things upon you. And what you
said before we became Christians, before we were saved, he
doesn't even think about that, and even during the process
of our walking out our relationship with Christ, our future
sounds are forgiven. And for me to finally realize that

(53:07):
was just freedom in Christ. Total freedom.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
It's so funny. The other day I lost it.

Speaker 6 (53:14):
Like, there's this moment and I won't describe it because
it doesn't matter, but and I remember afterwards being like,
I'm sorry, thank you for already forgiving me for that,
because if you hadn't, like you know what I mean,
it was like it was that moment of like, but
it was relief but also apologetic, if that makes sense,
because you.

Speaker 4 (53:32):
Know, yeah, yeah, you're already forgiven. You're already forgiven. And
when you think of it that way, does that cause
you to want to lean in or walk away? I
think it causes us to want to lean in. Yeah, exactly,
And that, you know, Michael to your point. So, now
all of a sudden you bought you know, Delmonica, what
an incredible restaurant. Now all of a sudden, is he

(53:55):
going to say I want to go to that restaurant
every meal. No, he's going to say thanks Dad, and
he's going to lean towards Dad. Right, Yeah, you know, hey, Dad,
let me do this. Let me help you with this?
What can I do? Maybe one day He's going to
be taking you to that place. Right, That's what I believe, Grace.
When you genuinely understand grace, it does not cause you

(54:16):
to run it just wildly with your life, with your life.
I believe wrapping your mind and heart around grace cause
you don't lean closer towards your father.

Speaker 1 (54:26):
Unfortunately.

Speaker 6 (54:26):
I think that's the struggle that we find most people having,
is they truly they talk about grace, right, they don't
know grace right, haven't lived it, and they don't really
wrap their head around what it truly means. And it
causes such a distension in the church and in you know,
between Christians. It's like and it's unfortunate because the one

(54:48):
thing we all have because of Jesus grace, but we
argue about all this crap that doesn't matter.

Speaker 10 (54:52):
Yeah, yeah, he said, fifteen years in your ministry, you
didn't think it was for you, but after.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
You fell, you found it, like like.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
You don't have any choice.

Speaker 10 (55:02):
Yeah, sure, but I mean you experienced it, so you
know grace in a different way.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
You wouldn't have known. I mean, not that, not that.

Speaker 10 (55:08):
Hey, everybody let's go through the worst, that's right, trials
of your life so you can experience it.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
That's what I do.

Speaker 1 (55:12):
That's that is life, that's right, and you would don't.

Speaker 3 (55:15):
Think you can avoid it, right. I don't know anybody
that has, right.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
I know people that pretend they haven't, you know, or
that maybe they can compare it to somebody else's life
and say, well, it hasn't been that, but in some
way we've all trained wrecked our life in one way
or another. And so, uh yeah, I agree. It's it's
when you when you wrap your mind around genuinely how

(55:41):
bad you are, and grace still shows up in your life.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
It's it's incredible.

Speaker 6 (55:47):
Well, severity of sin is a human thing, not a
God thing, that's right.

Speaker 1 (55:51):
God looks at all sin the same.

Speaker 6 (55:53):
So it doesn't matter if it's just the thought of
oh man, she's really good looking and I'd like to
do this with her, or if you have to go
over and grab do it, right, you've already it is
the same to God's eyes.

Speaker 4 (56:04):
Well, there's there's a that's a hot topic that that
is widely debated in the church. I think it's pretty
clear that that's uh, you know, that's the way Jesus
describes it in the Sermon on the Mount. But for
whatever reason, I think in the in the church world,
we liked will say that, but we don't really believe it,

(56:24):
you know, we'll say, oh, yeah, if you you know,
to your point.

Speaker 6 (56:30):
That I didn't go to seminary because I don't have
to think about things that be you know what I mean.
It's like, you know, it's one thing God can't be
in front of it. Therefore we need Jesus in this grace,
you know.

Speaker 4 (56:40):
Yeah, It's it's one thing to read that, and then
it's another thing to believe it, to genuinely believe. No,
this is what he was saying here, was raising that
bar of I don't think you're better than anybody else,
or don't don't think you haven't done what anybody else does.
If you've even thought it, you're guilty of it. But

(57:04):
I'm that's too uncomfortable I think for most guys to
to really process, especially in the in the church world,
and so it's easier to just, ah, you know.

Speaker 6 (57:14):
Yeah, let's not be uncomfortable about our salvation. I mean,
let's let's let's keep that a soft topic, you know.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
Yeah, yeah, fuck, yeah, there you go.

Speaker 3 (57:24):
I was waiting.

Speaker 8 (57:25):
I was waiting as we.

Speaker 9 (57:30):
And we could go on for hours with this. This
has just been phenomenal. I kind of I wanted to
ask from your heart, from your experience, words of wisdom
you could give Number one to a pastor that's dealing
with some of the stuff we've.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Talked about today today.

Speaker 8 (57:51):
What who do you turn to? What?

Speaker 9 (57:54):
What's what's the direction of your mind and your spirit?
If you're strong, one is a pastor with something like
you struggle with? Ye, what would be a word of
wisdom that just from your.

Speaker 4 (58:05):
Experience, I have come to learn that God's ultimate goal
for us is to be free. When you say that
to a pastor, they immediately know whether they're free or not. Immediately,

(58:26):
you guys, all of us. It's not just pastors. We
know either we're free, were living in freedom or not.
We're living in freedom or we're living in performance. It's
one or the other. And if we believe that God's
ultimate goal for us is to be free, and that's
an actual option on the table, that's what I would

(58:49):
want guys to hear is that freedom is possible. It's
not easy, it won't be without consequences.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
But it is possible.

Speaker 4 (58:58):
And you know that's where places like this impact. You know,
organizations that are you know, there's organizations out there. But
I think, to my story, the one thing I didn't
the reason I didn't experience freedom is because I never
told anybody what was going on in my life. I
tried everything else. And living in a place where you're

(59:20):
even getting a taste of freedom is like, oh man,
there's nothing like it. There's nothing like it. And so
many pastors just can't. They're too they're they're they're too
afraid to experience it. They want it, But I would,
I would just encourage you to continue to pursue it
because it is. It is a real thing. It's there

(59:42):
and uh, and you can't experience it through grace.

Speaker 9 (59:49):
I'm gonna bring up something we to talk about, sure,
just as we finish up here.

Speaker 8 (59:54):
Sure, because you and I have talked about it and
I haven't been there yet.

Speaker 9 (59:58):
But you got an amazing place that we could get
men together to come and hang out for a long weekend.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
Tell me a little bit, yeah, yeah, yeah, big cypress. Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
I recently started a nonprofit and really this stuff that
we're talking about is my goal. I want to create
a place for not just pastors, not just ministry leaders,
although that's what my really, my heart is attached to,
because that's the road I've walked, but for men to
be able to disconnect from the world, from the busyness

(01:00:28):
of life and find rest, find a place where they
can relax and find a place where they can maybe
begin to taste freedom a little bit through conversation. So yeah,
I just recently started it and I'm so excited about it.
Are already, you know, working on it, and I've had

(01:00:50):
a couple of guys down join me down there, and
it's been incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
It's just.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
It's in uh.

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
Well, I just just started my web site a couple
of days ago, just to open a website big it's
called Big Cypress Refuge, called Big Cypress Refuge. And again,
the goal is to create what we're doing here without
the lights and the mics and everything, but to create
a place where men can come and be honest without

(01:01:18):
judgment and we can be those non blinking friends for
each other and you can begin. My goal is to
just get a taste, allow men to get a taste
of what it's like to say what's going on in
their minds, experience that and realize, oh yeah, this is what.

Speaker 3 (01:01:37):
I need to pursue this in my life. And is
it here in Florida.

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
It's in South Florida. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, so
it's uh, it's in South Florida. And ultimately, like I said,
my goal is to create a place where guys can
come and be free, begin to experience freedom.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Is it like a camp or it's a camp.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
Yeah, right in the middle of the Everglades.

Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
Nice, Yeah, get the airboat in or airboat and then
swamp buggy the whole thing. Man, big adventure you if
you guys know me, I'm an adventure guy. Are I'm
an adventure guy. So it's a combination of No, it's
a camp, it's cabin. Yeah, and uh, you know I
love adventure. So it's kind of a combination of wild
adventure and also very comfortable, you know, rest.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
It can be walled all day, but then get the
right that's all condition.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
Get away from the bugs with unrel right now, gators, Yeah,
all kinds of stuff. So it's it's Yeah, I'm excited
to see what happens with it, you know, I'm excited
to pour my heart into it. That's really where this
stuff that we're talking about. It's a road that I've
walked and not working, you know, not a pastor anymore,

(01:02:44):
not working at a church.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
But my heart is still with guys who are trapped.

Speaker 9 (01:02:51):
Yeah, as it develops, I'm one hundred percent in thanks
to walk arm in arm with you create some events
or opportunities for a lot of us that are in
Florida to get around there. That's and I can't wait
to check out the new website.

Speaker 3 (01:03:06):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're a web now.

Speaker 8 (01:03:08):
Yeah. So, uh say the name of it when.

Speaker 7 (01:03:11):
Take Cypress refuge, big Cypress writ it's a.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
Big cypress refuge dot.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Com yeah, dot com man dot org. Yeah, I can't
wait check it out.

Speaker 5 (01:03:20):
Can you get out of a python's grip as a
as a man?

Speaker 4 (01:03:25):
You know, I think the five of us to go
down there and try it, Okay, I think we try I.

Speaker 1 (01:03:29):
Grab one by the tail of a heartbeat. I have
no trip. I used to have one.

Speaker 8 (01:03:33):
You used to have a Python.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
We have red lbows and Uhurmese Python.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
That's the way those guys do it.

Speaker 9 (01:03:39):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:03:39):
I've seen them down there. They're they're in the backs
of these in the back of a truck. They see
a snake and they jump out.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
And just get ahold of, that's not me.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
I've not done it.

Speaker 8 (01:03:50):
I'll watch you, but I've.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Not done it in the wall. But like I said,
I used to them and I will say when they
bite you, it's not that bad. I want to do it, man, Okay,
I want experience.

Speaker 5 (01:03:57):
Deal.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
That's not that it's fast. Show us, show us. It
would take a twenty foot Python to take you down.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
That's what's down there.

Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Dude.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
You don't let it get to that point. You don't
just sit there and go your average Python. I mean,
come on, yeah, I mean you're kidding Python. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
What we need to do is we'll do a podcast
episode down there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
I mean, we'll bring it down.

Speaker 3 (01:04:27):
Yeah, let's start working. I'd love to have you, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:04:31):
Cool.

Speaker 9 (01:04:31):
Another amazing time with a very special friend, very special guest, Clint.

Speaker 8 (01:04:35):
Thanks for joining us.

Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 9 (01:04:38):
A lot of cool things going on as the fall
is coming through those of the that are on the
email newsletter list. We we're going back to Warres, Mexico
for our mission trip October eleventh through eighteenth.

Speaker 7 (01:04:50):
We're going to have the first of two zoom calls
coming up pretty soon.

Speaker 8 (01:04:54):
Go to our website.

Speaker 9 (01:04:56):
Click on our email Impactment and Impactmanistries dot org if
you're wanting to be one of the twenty men that
are gonna make a difference in a very poverty stricken area.
Michael and I went last year. I'm gonna recruit some
big guns this year, maybe to come.

Speaker 6 (01:05:09):
Yeah, good luck, come on, it's not me. You gotta
get down there. It's my wife. She she hears Warrez
and me. That's not happening.

Speaker 8 (01:05:18):
Come on, we're gonna do it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:20):
I would love to hear what you guys do down there.

Speaker 8 (01:05:22):
Okay, we'll send you. We'll send you a video.

Speaker 9 (01:05:25):
Also August twenty third, one of our local churches in
the area, Church at Vieira, is gonna be hosting a
men's breakfast featuring our old friend Ali far Hati born
a proud Muslim in Iran and had a radical encounter
with Jesus and now preaches the word all over the
country and really focuses on the Muslim community. And there's

(01:05:49):
so much happening in the Muslim community turning to Christ
right now. The dreams and visions thing is real and
I'm reading more and more about Muslims they were having
those type of experiences and understand.

Speaker 6 (01:06:00):
You know, the second best thing that happens to a
Muslim that finds Christ Bacon, Yes.

Speaker 9 (01:06:06):
Bacon, bring the bacon. But you can check out the website.
You can register to go to that breakfast August twenty third,
and then we got some other things that are coming up.
I might even be putting the finishing touches on another
Grace experience or two for twenty twenty.

Speaker 7 (01:06:23):
Seven, but more to come on that.

Speaker 3 (01:06:24):
So twenty seven, twenty six.

Speaker 8 (01:06:27):
Not that I'm a y're ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
Of my up, not a life to give a year up.

Speaker 9 (01:06:32):
In any case, great time together today for episode one
seventy three two horribly we've been doing this.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
That's wild. Good for you years, yeah yeah, good for.

Speaker 9 (01:06:44):
Finally starting to figure out some things on social media,
the good job reviews and stuff. So, but we would
love it for you to send us a note, give
us a light follow share. It doesn't cost you a dime,
and if you want to help us crush Satan with
your monetary gift, just click on the gift button on
the website.

Speaker 7 (01:07:00):
So well, that said, let's go home, I'm.

Speaker 3 (01:07:03):
Trade, I'm Brad, I'm Jeremy, and I'll claim and.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
We are the Christian.

Speaker 9 (01:07:11):
The hell, the hell I want.

Speaker 8 (01:07:15):
Way to go.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Yeah, man, dude, I love that you're down to the Everglades.
I love the.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
Student Alligator ALCATRAZL that's gonna ask that, dude.

Speaker 8 (01:07:23):
I didn't want to alligator Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:07:25):
Really close.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
Nice. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:07:27):
Some of it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
Because of where I am. I can't get my kids.

Speaker 9 (01:07:38):
M