Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey everyone, this is Chris from the Uncommon Path podcast. The scripture Revelation 12 11 says and they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Our hope is that as you listen, you will be encouraged in the Lord. This podcast was created as an avenue to share people's raw and unfiltered journeys with them. We hope this brings breakthrough and intimacy with Jesus through their testimony of what God is doing through their lives.

Speaker 3: 0:42

The other thing is I can go down rabbit trails. So if you guys, feel free to like. I've never had a juicy carrot, like they all seem pretty dry to me, but like I'd most certainly chase rabbits. So if you need to try and redirect, you know like I'm sure there's a juicy carrot in there somewhere.

Speaker 2: 1:01

Yeah, maybe. So my grandfather always said that's what he said. We are here today with Brian Boswell, good friend of mine. You are a pastor at Cornerstone Church in Clayton. You've been a pastor there for how long now?

Speaker 3: 1:20

This year, in November will mark the sixth year.

Speaker 2: 1:23

Wow.

Speaker 3: 1:24

Yeah, finishing out Wild.

Speaker 2: 1:26

Yeah, and then you've been married for 17 years.

Speaker 3: 1:31

Been married for 17. May will be the 17th year and we've been together for 20. So it's been a long time now. How old are your kids, man? One of them just had a birthday. So I got a 13-year-old, a 12 old, a 12 year old she just turned 12 and then a 10 year old and an eight year old. Two boys, two girls wow oh, wow it's a lot of fun at my house right now.

Speaker 3: 1:54

Lots of fun and it's probably one of my favorite ages is them being around this age because they they're up for doing just about anything like. We love to go hiking, we love to do stuff, and so they're up for just about anything. And they're up for doing just about anything Like. We love to go hiking, we love to do stuff, and so they're up for just about anything. And they're not to that point in that teenage years where they just want to sleep all the time and you know, parents are no more fun that sort of thing they're they're just like to hang out and have fun.

Speaker 1: 2:17

That's awesome, that's cool, those are good ages.

Speaker 3: 2:26

What? What is a fact about yourself that few people know? So I'll tell you this. But this is funny. So I grew up in the 90s and I loved Christian ska music and I really got into swing music.

Speaker 2: 2:43

I do not know what ska music is, oh gosh, you're dating yourself. He's younger than me.

Speaker 1: 2:49

I'm with you, I'm 43. Okay, I'm 44.

Speaker 3: 2:52

So yeah, we're in the same group, warren you ever heard of ska music. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:56

Well, you're a musician, he's a trombone player.

Speaker 1: 2:59

Ryan Five Iron.

Speaker 3: 3:00

Frenzy, there you go, supertones. Frenzy, there you go, supertones five iron frenzy.

Speaker 2: 3:08

Oh yeah, that's okay. It's basically like rock and you add horns to it. I mean it's the easiest way to kind of describe it, maybe a little bit of like rap in it a little you know okay but,

Speaker 1: 3:14

yeah, that was kind of punk music and then you kind of taint it with brass. I do know what you're talking about. That was now.

Speaker 3: 3:19

That's one side of it, the actual um, the, the part that most people don't know is I actually enjoyed swing dancing so like I kind of got into ska through, you know, just that was what was popular. But then I really kind of dove into swing dancing and I loved swinging dancing like 25 years ago. There was a moment for that in like 96, 97, 98.

Speaker 1: 3:46

It got super popular again.

Speaker 3: 3:48

Yeah, there was actually like when I was in college, like I was in the middle of nowhere, new York, right Like 20 miles outside of Rochester, this little town called Lima, and there was nothing in town except like a little tiny little downtown. They were having swing dance lessons while I was in college. I'm like, I'm going like so I literally like I went down the street went to the swing dance lessons.

Speaker 3: 4:10

You know it was me and like a bunch of you know older people you know, but I was, I was so, I was so stoked to learn how to swing dance, you know.

Speaker 2: 4:20

Wow.

Speaker 3: 4:20

That was a lot of fun, though it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2: 4:23

No more, no more swing dancing for you Probably would throw my back out at this point in life, but yeah.

Speaker 3: 4:30

No, like my wife's not into dancing, so we don't dance that much. I mean, like you know, slow dance, you know that type of thing, but not like you know. We're not going out country music line dancing or I don't know whatever.

Speaker 1: 4:46

What is popular nowadays? Any idea, salsa dancing people that do.

Speaker 2: 4:50

Right, I don't know, I avoid dancing. Yeah, I mean, I don't. I don't know, I'm the wrong person to ask yeah, obviously you don't even know the music how do you know ska music?

Speaker 1: 5:03

yeah, I can't believe you didn't know what that is I've.

Speaker 2: 5:06

I listen to five iron frenzy and bands like that all the time, but I never heard ska music like how do you spell that s-k-a?

Speaker 3: 5:13

yep s-k-a, and I mean, if you really want to dig deep, that was third wave ska and then there was um music before that that they wow. Yeah, it was basically a I'm ready to move on? Yeah, I feel it. I feel it I could go way down that rabbit hole. You want to find a juicy carrot? That's where we go. But swing dancing basically evolved into sky later that's hilarious.

Speaker 2: 5:38

That's a very unique story yeah, I I don't.

Speaker 3: 5:42

My wife knows that about me, but there's probably not many other people that know that I could probably probably still do a little swing dancing if I could. You know the moment was right okay, and I probably wouldn't be able to walk for a week after that well.

Speaker 2: 5:56

So take us, take us kind of the origin story of your path with the lord. What was, was that like? I mean, I ask this question all the time because for me, I knew God was real, I knew he was good, but he changed my life on a dime, whereas some people it's kind of gradual. What was yours like?

Speaker 3: 6:19

Yeah, so I grew up in church. I always joke I was born in December. At the beginning of December my mom actually put me in the Christmas play that year as baby Jesus. So I mean, like when I say I grew up in the church, I mean I was there from like the you know, almost like moment of birth. It was like hey, come right in, we got a part for you to play.

Speaker 3: 6:43

But I grew up in church and I love church. I love my family. My family is a great family. It was me and I had one little sister who's five years younger than me, up until I was about 13, 14 years old, and my parents ended up getting divorced and for me, man, that that, just that. That destroyed me because I loved my family so much and it wasn't that we had a perfect family. Some people grow up and they have these great families. That was not my experience, but I just loved my family. I loved my love. I still do. I love my dad, I love my mom and man. They were my whole world growing up and so when my parents split, it just rocked me. It was so incredibly hard. I can remember just thinking that this was the end of. It felt like my world was crashing down.

Speaker 3: 7:39

And there was nothing I could do about it. I'm trying to talk to my mom, trying to explain, you know, like trying to figure out what's going on, and you know I'm getting the runarounds and the excuses and all of that, and obviously as an adult I know that things are a lot more complicated.

Speaker 3: 7:55

But man, it it, just, it, just it just hurt me, like it it it was incredibly hard and so at that time, uh, 14 years old, I just, you know, started this kind of rebellion streak. You know, I felt like I lost my dad in the process. So my dad was really important to me and, because of the nature of how, you know, divorces usually go, I was spending, you know, two weeks with my mom and a weekend with my dad, and so it felt like my dad had had walked out of the family. And that wasn't the case, but it it, it felt like that to me and so, 14, I'm looking for some sort of foundation, something to set on, something that you know, something to kind of, to kind of to to, to find my own identity in and um, I grew up in the early to mid 90s and, you know, kids in in high school then were typically either like preppies, which were, you know, the really, uh, social butterfly kids with the polo shirts and all of that, and had money.

Speaker 3: 9:08

I didn't come from a family that had money, so, especially when my parents divorced, it was even worse. So I didn't fit into that group and I wasn't a geek or a band person. I didn't have any of those skills at that time and so I didn't fit into that group and you know, around that time was kind of the rise of like the skateboarding slash, alternative grunge genre and that was what grabbed me. I mean it just all of my friends or ended up being all kind of the outcast crowd and so we all just banded together and the good in that was I found some camaraderie that kind of helped me through that time. The bad in that was we also found drugs and alcohol and you know I started smoking marijuana at 14 years old and it's hard for me now, like looking at my 13 year old son thinking that he could be in that same spot in a year.

Speaker 3: 10:05

You know, like it, it's just almost unfathomable. But I'm sitting there and I'm, I'm, I'm trying to find my identity and everything other than Jesus, um, even though I'd grown up in the church and I had all the right answers, I just I, I, I couldn't. It wasn't real to me. You know it was a part of my story and I learned a lot and it was all head knowledge. But you know they talk about that 18 inch journey, you know, going from your mind down to your heart, and it hadn't made that journey yet. So 14, 15, 16, I'm just, you know, I got kicked out of church. I mean, that's an interesting story, yeah, so the church background I come from has got a bit of legalism in it and so when I grew up and had that kind of I'm going to really latch on to my grunge friends, it was like everybody's growing their hair out.

Speaker 3: 11:02

So I my hair out and, um, got to about shoulder length and uh you know 14, 15 years old and the lady comes up to me at church and says, hey, if you're not gonna cut your hair, you shouldn't come back here wow, holy cow yeah and so I was like oh, okay well, you're just telling me what I wanted to hear anyway, because I really wasn't connecting with church.

Speaker 3: 11:28

So I was like, all right, no big deal, I'll leave. And so I stopped going to church during that time too. And so a couple years go by, and around the age of 16, I end up meeting a girl. Her name was Blue. She had a friend named Skylar and Blue.

Speaker 3: 11:48

I thought she was cute, you know, and I wanted to get to know her better and so. But she was a Christian, so she was going to church and she was a part of a youth group and she was doing all these things, and so, in order to spend time with her, I was like, well, I guess I'm going to have to go to church. So I, I, you know, I had my mom dropping me off at her church for youth group and was really trying to chase after this this girl and, um, just wanted to spend time with her. And so she invites me to this, um, this event it was a mercy seat, christian rock concert, and I didn't at the time, I didn't even know Christian Rock was a thing Like. The only thing I knew was Carmen, if you guys remember that. Oh, yes, that's a deep track Whoa man.

Speaker 1: 12:33

It's very far from rock too. It's more like opera, like Broadway. I don't even know how you describe that to somebody that's never heard Carmen, but it was cool at the time. Yeah, have you heard Carmen?

Speaker 3: 12:41

Ryan.

Speaker 2: 12:47

No, I have you heard carmen ryan? I have not.

Speaker 3: 12:48

I'd say man we're gonna have to oh my god, we have to spend an hour after this podcast just going through like youtube videos showing ryan like all these different things.

Speaker 3: 12:53

So these are deep tracks, but man, I only I only knew about carmen, and that ain't rock. That's something else. I don't even know how to describe it, but mercy seat was described to me as this rock band, and they're actually. I didn't know it at the time. I live, I grew up near danville, virginia, and this is all happening around that area, but the mercy seat band was actually from the raleigh area. I had no idea, and so I ended up meeting some people.

Speaker 3: 13:17

Years later they ended up coming to my church and so we got a. I got a little connection from there. But um, um, so I go to this concert with her and it's at the end of this Christian camp and there's all these kids standing around, um, and, and you know it's out in the field, and so I mean this is just like bar minimum, like concert. You know like they literally had like a flatbed trailer out there and they put the band on top of the flatbed trailer and that was basically. It know like they ran an extension cord so they could be amplified I mean it was.

Speaker 3: 13:50

It was probably, it was sound wise, probably terrible warren.

Speaker 3: 13:54

I know it would probably it's not warren approved yeah, so we get out there and we're standing in the middle of this field and they go through the concert and it's about halfway through and we're standing in the middle of this field and they go through the concert. It's about halfway through and all of a sudden the lead singer kind of in the middle of two songs stopped and he asked the question. He said what is the meaning of the word grace? And I just sat there and I listened to that and I'd grown up in church and it was one of those words. I was like I know this word but I couldn't put a definition to it. I didn't know how to explain it. I'm like I know what it is but I can't really explain it.

Speaker 3: 14:39

And I'm at this Christian camp and I'm expecting because this was one of those really long, awkward pauses, you know I'm expecting someone else to answer him and I'm looking around, nobody else is answering. And then he answers himself finally and he says grace is unmerited favor, it's getting what you don't deserve. And, man, when he said that man, something inside of me broke and I realized that I'd been living my life chasing after things and doing things that I wanted and that I was completely self-consumed and I didn't deserve his love. I didn't deserve the things that he was offering to me freely and I and I, just I had no I. It just hit me like a ton of bricks. And so I can remember hitting the ground in the, in the, in that field, and just crying. Really that's the moment I felt like I met the Lord for the first time, was out there in that field, and I went home and I called one of my best friends who you know, was right there in that drug scene and everything with me, and I said, hey, man, I'm done.

Speaker 3: 15:51

God's changed my life Like I've met him and you know I'm trying to talk him into coming along on this journey with me, but he wasn't ready for it, and so I can just remember just the overwhelming sense of love that I felt from the Lord in that moment, and that has really has been one of the things that really changed my life and changed the trajectory of my life, because, man, the town I grew up in, most of those kids, a lot of them, were still there still dealing with drugs, still dealing with alcohol, and that could have easily been me.

Speaker 2: 16:28

That was, how big was your hometown?

Speaker 3: 16:31

So I grew up in Caswell, county, north Carolina, and the reason I say it that way is because most people have never heard of Caswell. They always go. Is that at the beach? I'm like, no, it's not at the beach, it's near Roxborough, north Carolina. But Roxborough is in Person County Caswell. When I grew up it was, you know, you hear one stoplight towns. Like the whole county. There was like a caution light, that was it. You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 16:57

Like we had one high school, one, you know, junior high school, middle school or whatever you'd say A few elementary, elementary, but yeah yeah, when I was asking, because I a lot of when I went to high school in northern new mexico in a small small town and it's a seasonal town, but it's just interesting how many people get stuck in a small town like that and I have a bunch of friends that are still. They're just off into la la land. Well, you don't, you don't feel like there's a way out. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:30

You know, like my parents worked at the Dan River Mills when I was a kid. Um, you had a mill job and it was like all right, you know, you kind of think, well, that's what I'm going to end up doing too. And so there, cause there's not a lot of opportunity, you know a lot of people don't go away and then come back either. So I mean the people that do, you know, quote unquote succeed.

Speaker 3: 17:53

You know they're going to, they're going to go off and they're going to go move to Raleigh or Charlotte or Virginia beach or whatever, and, uh, they don't typically come back cause there's not a lot of opportunity there, and so that's the hard part. I think that feeds into this idea that it's kind of hopeless. Like there's a hopeless situation, how am I going to get out of it? Yeah, and so that's one of the things I battled I wanted to get out, so that that part of my story kind of feeds into this next part, which is once I met Jesus.

Speaker 3: 18:23

It was like everything. Just it seemed like it was on Zoom. Or Jesus, it was like everything. Just it seemed like it was on Zoom or something Like it was just. It just it felt fast forwarded, like everything just started happening really quickly. And so I end up, I fall in with this whole new group of friends who what they wanted to do on Friday and Saturday nights was like get together and play worship songs and pray, you know. And so here I am, 17 years old, in high school, no longer in in this party scene but on in a prayer room.

Speaker 2: 18:55

You know like spending time praying with people on on on saturday nights such a pivotal change like sophomore year to junior year, like that's just so wild.

Speaker 3: 19:05

Was it hard telling your old friends like see ya, it was in one sense because I had genuine love for a lot of those people, but at the same time it felt like I'd come to a split in the road and it was like I had to go this way and they were still going that way and I couldn't help that. You know like I'm, you know like I was trying to talk to a few of my friends and try and get them to come along on that journey with me, but it was you know, it, it, it didn't.

Speaker 3: 19:36

Some of them kind of would hang out some. So there was a little bit of cross, um, but it just wasn't the same after that, like I. For me, internally, like my walk with the lord, it was just different from me and I was looking for people that um you know would was on a similar journey yeah, if that makes sense.

Speaker 3: 19:58

I wanted to find people that were on a similar journey and so, 18 years old 17 years old actually, I'm in a, I'm in a on a prayer night and I'm in the. It's maybe 10 of us, all teenagers in this room with a. We had a couple of adult leaders who were like youth pastors at a local church, but not a church that any of us really went to. It was all just a conglomerate of people who just found they found each other. And I'm in the middle of this prayer room and praying and the Lord shows me this vision, and it was a vision of me preaching, and I'd never even thought about that.

Speaker 3: 20:36

I was planning on going to college to be like an art teacher or something. I loved art, loved the idea of teaching. I thought it was a great idea. So I get this vision and I'm like man. Is that the Lord or am I just? Where did this come from? And so I got really confused. And the part that bothered me the most about the vision was not necessarily that I saw myself in the vision and I'm preaching, but I saw myself preaching at my mom's church, the church that I'd gotten kicked out of and I hadn't been back to in about four years and I'm like what is this?

Speaker 3: 21:14

You know like this doesn't even make sense. You know like I'm growing. You know I've got my connections, I've got this group and I felt like the Lord was asking me to go back there. And so this is a Saturday night. Sunday morning I get up instead of going to the church that I'd been attending. I get up and I go to my mom's church and it's an old school Baptist church. They do the you know invitational hymn at the end you know just as I am you sing the first, second and fourth verse, cause you know you can't sing the third. It's illegal in a.

Speaker 3: 21:45

Baptist church. How long was your hair at this point?

Speaker 3: 21:53

I'd actually had it cut because it was pretty nasty. I mean, it wasn't probably a good look on me either. So I went back to the church, church, and I get there that morning and I go, uh, wait till the altar call and the pastor would always stand up at the front and pray with you if you wanted prayer. And so I went up front and I told him. I said, hey, pastor Wayne, I feel like you know God's calling me to this and I, you know, my hope is, is he would, because he was a really good man, still alive, still a good man.

Speaker 3: 22:27

My hope was that he was going to talk me out of it Like hey, brother, you know we ain't even seen you in four years, like you might just want to like simmer down a little bit, but no, he said. He says, well, let's pray. And so we prayed together. And then he turns me around to the whole congregation. He says you know, brian feels like he's called to preach and so I'm going to give him a date to have him preach. And you want to talk?

Speaker 2: 22:50

about wild.

Speaker 3: 22:52

I mean, I just had no expectation that 17 years old, 17 years old, old Baptist church and the pastor just wow, that's wild.

Speaker 3: 23:01

And so it was, um, it was incredible, um, an incredible, incredible opportunity because, like I said, I hadn't been there in four years. And so I go in and I'm getting ready. He says I got an opportunity coming up. We're going to have a youth revival weekend. And he goes I've got somebody slated for Sunday morning, somebody slated for Saturday night. Maybe you could do the Friday night opening night thing. And I thing, and I thought, you know, I'm thinking to myself well, that shouldn't be too bad. There's only like maybe 20 kids going to be there. Like you know, it's not this big, it's a small church, you know. And so I'm like maybe 20 kids there, probably 10. I'm like I can do that, okay. And so I start and I mean I'm like writing notes, I mean I'm doing the work, you know, and so I get up there. Well, let me, let me stop right there real quick. He calls me about a month out. The person on Sunday morning canceled. He says hey, brother, can you do Sunday morning too, because they canceled.

Speaker 3: 24:03

I'm like oh my goodness, this is not.

Speaker 1: 24:07

So I'm like I'm in shock, right.

Speaker 3: 24:15

And so I'm like all right, yeah, sure, like you know, and I'm nervous as I'll get out, you know, and never done really any public speaking, I'm only 17 years old, and so he says that. So we get closer to that weekend. Friday night comes and I mean I'm prepared. This is not a question of preparation. I have got notes, I have got points and I get up there. And I don't know if you guys have ever experienced this, but I got up there and I started sharing, I start preaching through the sermon that I've written. It wasn't long or anything like that, but it felt like every word that came out of my mouth dropped to the ground. I mean, just came right out and dropped to the ground Like it was dead, it had nothing in it.

Speaker 2: 24:54

And.

Speaker 3: 24:54

I mean, at the end of that it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life At the end of that Friday night I am questioning God. I'm like God, I didn't hear you. This was terrible, this was a terrible idea. And now now I have to do this again on Sunday morning in front of a hundred people, like what have I got myself into? And so I'm like really questioning it. And so all day, saturday, I'm just praying Lord, if there's, you know, kind of the Jesus prayer. Lord, if there's any way you can deliver me out of this take this cup from me.

Speaker 1: 25:28

Take this cup from me.

Speaker 2: 25:29

This was terrible you know.

Speaker 3: 25:32

So I'm like Lord, please get this, take this away from me. I don't want it, you know. And he just wouldn't let it up. And so Sunday morning I get up there and the only thing I know to do like I made like the simplest sermon outline that Sunday morning that you can make it was basically the ABCs of Christianity and I was going to tell my story. So I get up there and I just start telling my story and man, it was like the I mean, it was the Holy Spirit just dropped into that church when, I told my story and people were bawling, people were crying.

Speaker 3: 26:08

It's a small church and we had an altar call at the end of it and like half the church went up to pray. Several people got saved, several people rededicated their lives to Christ. It was like this massive move of God in this little, tiny Baptist church and it was one of the most special moments of my life. And I look back at it after that and I'm praying. I'm like Lord, what was that Friday night? I felt like it was like the deadest thing that ever existed. You know, like I'm questioning my call and all of those things. And then on Sunday morning you move in this mighty way and I felt like he spoke to me and said when you rely on yourself, you're going to get those Friday night results, but when you rely on me, I can do amazing things. And so that was really a huge moment in my life, just realizing that. And so that's kind of like been one of the things to steer me.

Speaker 3: 27:08

Most of my life was just the, those two big interactions. So even today, like I'm big on preaching grace, like I love to talk about the grace of God, and then I I I do not try to bring myself into the pulpit when I preach. I will be very vulnerable and very authentic and those type things. But I'm really trying to rely on Him when I speak and allow Him to move and even speak in spite of me. Just try and get me out of it altogether and let Him speak. Because what I have found is that when people hear God speak, man that changes their life. When they hear me speak, you know, they might laugh a little bit, might have a good time, but man it's it. Change comes when God speaks.

Speaker 2: 27:59

I can, I can. Yeah, I attest to that for sure. Every interaction I've seen you do it's been about the other person and it's been about what is Jesus saying. It's been about focusing on them. And then, even when you speak publicly to your, you're one of the most aware people of not wanting to distort what the Lord is wanting to say, and I really admire that about you. I think that's really awesome.

Speaker 3: 28:28

I feel like that came through that hardship. You know what I mean. Like the, I think God has spoken to me more in brokenness, like my own brokenness, than in any other way, and so, like at this point, I really relate to Paul when he's, when he's talking in Corinthians about it's through his weakness. He's like I'm going to boast in my weaknesses. Who says that? Almost all of us, we want to boast in our strengths. I'm really good at this. Let me tell you. He's like I'm boasting in my weaknesses. I think that's the sign of a broken man, and I think that's the sign of a broken man.

Speaker 3: 29:14

And so for, me it came through a lot of hardships of God just continually, and he still is continually breaking me. We were talking about Job last night at Bible College at church and it was the part where one of his friends says, hey, God breaks but he binds you up. He wounds but he heals you. And man, that verse just resonates with me. Hosea, I think, also mentions that same principle and I think that's what I've seen through my life. Is this wounding, this breaking, and also this healing and this restoration, this breaking and also this healing and this restoration, and so seeing kind of God's, God's redemptive story, like written through my life, man, it's been powerful.

Speaker 2: 29:56

So what happened like after after that, after high school?

Speaker 3: 30:00

So cause I I felt that call to go into the ministry. I started looking into colleges. I ended up going to Elam Bible Institute and college in Lima, new York, and I left there. I went there in 99. I got up there and, man, you talk about a different world. New York is a different world than North Carolina and this is upstate New York. So I mean, this isn't the city, this is cow pastures and but it's a different world. And so I get up there and man, it was. It was like I was the one of the more popular kids on campus, which I wasn't used to, but it was all because I have a Southern accent and most of those kids had never heard anybody with a Southern accent, except maybe on TV or something. So like every lunch everybody's like, hey, come sit with me. And I'm like why? And they're like we want you to talk. And I'm like what do you want me to say? And they're like that, just keep doing that.

Speaker 3: 30:59

Yeah, it was funny and they're like you got an, you have an, you have an amazing accent. And I'm like, no, you guys are the ones with the amazing accent.

Speaker 3: 31:06

Like I'm here in New York, talk, you know, like they're, they've got these, these thick Northern accents, and I'm like you guys have the accent I don't have the accent and so, um, uh, going through school, I ended up ended up meeting a girl and, um, one of the jokes of the college you know it was Elam Bible Institute, but the joke was that they could have called it Elam Bridal Institute they guaranteed the girls a ring by spring or your money back type thing, yeah, get your MRS degree.

Speaker 1: 31:38

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 31:40

So I ended up meeting a girl and getting married, proposing to her getting married. I got married in August of 2000. And man, it was trouble from the start. And so let me just kind of say this when my parents got divorced, that was one of the things that I was promising to myself, like, hey, when I get married it's going to be for life. This isn't. There is no way this is ending in divorce. Um, and then the church culture that I grew up in is that if you got divorced.

Speaker 3: 32:17

You were pretty much outcast like that. That was um it. It was never named the unpardonable sin, but it was pretty close, you know, like um, it was right there next to it. And so I ended up going to the college meeting this girl getting married. And man, it was just trouble from the start. It was.

Speaker 3: 32:33

It was hard, and I come from this broken home where I didn't have the tools to be a good husband, to be a good leader, you know of the house, and to to even even to know how to communicate or conflict resolution or any of those things that are incredibly important in marriage.

Speaker 3: 32:51

And so it was just a bad situation. And she came from a home that had some issues as well and she was battling her own demons with some drugs and alcohol issues even when we were in college, with some drugs and alcohol issues even when we were in college. And so we ended up getting married and it was just really hard, but I was still trying to follow God. So I took a position as a youth pastor at a church in Danville, virginia, which was a non-paid position, but just wanted to follow him and put my yes on the table and do whatever he asked me to do and uh, we ended up moving out to Virginia beach with that pastor, um, and taking over a church out in that area and stayed there for about two years and, through a variety of circumstances, we just we it was time for us to leave.

Speaker 1: 33:46

It was a uh, it was a hard uh season, and so how long were you married when you took over this church?

Speaker 3: 33:54

We went, uh, we were. We were together for about a year before we moved out to Virginia beach. And so when we went out to Virginia beach, he took over his uh, his name was Tim Minor. He passed away a few years ago. Uh, awesome man of God, um, but he, he was going to be the lead pastor and he wanted me to be there as his associate slash you, slash, you know, right-hand man essentially like do do all the things. And there was actually a few of us. All of us moved out together.

Speaker 3: 34:25

Um was about, I think, six or eight of us, if I remember right, that moved out to Virginia Beach together and, man, we saw a great move of God. You know, the church was kind of on life support when we got there and it ballooned up to 200 people and you know, people were coming from far and wide to be there, and so it was just a really cool thing that was happening to be there, and so it's just really cool thing that was happening. But, at the same time, underneath the surface, the things that were going on between me and her were, it just weren't nothing was getting resolved, it was, it was constant problems and, again, neither one of us had the tools to even know, to ask for help. You know.

Speaker 3: 35:09

And I think that's a hard part is like sometimes you don't even know to ask for help. You just think man, this is normal.

Speaker 3: 35:15

You know, I don't know what like, I don't know what good looks like if you think about it Like, I grew up in my house and my family was dysfunctional, so I didn't really even know what good looked like, so I didn't know what to compare it to. You know, and so I know I wasn't doing what I needed to do as a husband, but it really it fell apart right before, right around Valentine's Day in 2004. And that was probably the hardest day of my life. We moved out to the western part of North Carolina and there was a. She had taken a job at Staples.

Speaker 3: 36:03

I was a newspaper writer, so I was writing for different newspapers as a I don't remember the term right off the top of my head, but basically like a freelance writer. There we go. So I was working as a freelance writer for a couple different newspapers, but it wasn't real steady income, and so I was constantly looking, while we were out there, for another place, another job, something more full time, and I'd found it. I found it in Johnston County. I was going to go work for the newspaper out in Smithfield, selma area, and so we're and I got her a job at the same newspaper. She was going to sell advertisements for the, the newspaper, and so we're planning to move and she comes to me the night we were getting ready to move, which was february 13th, and she says, hey, I'm gonna go meet with one of my friends, I'll be back later, you know, just want to say goodbye. So okay, no problem. And um, I said I got plenty to pack and so I'm packing, getting everything ready, and she doesn't come home. It's midnight, she's still not back and I'm trying to call her phone, can't get anybody and getting scared and nervous for her.

Speaker 3: 37:20

And I start looking through her some of her stuff, as I was packing, and one of the items she had was this smock that Staples made you wear, and inside of there I found a piece of paper with another man's phone number on it. And, man, my heart broke in that moment because I knew what that meant. And I dug around a little bit more and I found inside of there I rolled up a $1 bill. It was folded, funny, and I unfolded it and there was cocaine in it and I was just in shock. I didn't know what to do. And so I get the phone number, I reverse, index it and find this person's address, and so about 2 or 3 in the morning I drive over there and her car's parked there at this other man's house. I get out.

Speaker 3: 38:19

Inner redneck in me comes out. I start banging on the door at 3, 30 in the morning or whatever it was. Thankfully nobody ever came to the door. I think they were zonked out, probably on drugs. At the time I didn't know what to do. So I come back to the house. I'm just kind of in a daze. I don't sleep.

Speaker 3: 38:46

About 6 in the morning she shows up. She's like hey, sorry, I fell asleep over at my friend's house and I'm like that's not where you were at. I start pulling out the evidence I found in her smock and show her the phone number and she's like that doesn't mean anything. And then I show her the dollar bill with the cocaine in it. And it was like man, just I don't know something. Something came over her and she starts to try and grab it from me and she's jumping on my back trying to take it from me and I'd get it over to the bathroom and flush it down the toilet. It over to the bathroom and flush it down the toilet and she's just full of anger at me.

Speaker 3: 39:36

And around that time my parents show up to help us move and so we couldn't even really talk about it. We just both shut down, completely stopped talking and just mindlessly load boxes onto the back of this U-Haul truck and we drive it out here and I try to get her to go to a counseling person. We go one time and she just wasn't owning what she was doing, what she had done, and she was like I'm done, and so she left and that was probably one of the darkest periods of my life. And so I was looking at here I am 20, you know, mid twenties or whatever and have aspirations of being a pastor, and now all I can see in myself is just damaged goods. Just who's going to hire a pastor? That's going through this.

Speaker 3: 40:35

And she moved out and moved in with the guy and she never came back and I held out hope for a while that you know something would happen and was praying and but eventually God just got released from me. But what didn't get released was the shame that I felt. Man, when we talk about shame, I like I think about shame in two ways. One is the shame from things that we have done and I've experienced that type of shame throughout my life Just things that I've done, the sins that I have committed. But the other side of shame that a lot of people don't talk about is the sins that are committed against us, the things that are done to us.

Speaker 3: 41:23

Things that have happened in our life that we had no control over not not a lot of control over in this case, but that type of shame is so hard for people to get free from that and that's what I experienced really for the first time, because I'd promised myself from my parents like I am not going to get a divorce, I am not going to get a divorce.

Speaker 3: 41:46

And here I was, like I have no ability to make this marriage work, like I am. You know, I tried some things. I just I didn't have it, I couldn't do it and it wasn't happening and I didn't know.

Speaker 3: 41:59

I didn't know how to deal with that. And so I'm in my mid-20s and in the meantime she took all the money out of our bank account. I had to go before I just moved to this new house. I had to go to the landlord and say, hey, I got no money to pay you next month's rent. I know I just moved into this house, is there any way I can work this out? And thankfully I had a good landlord who said, yeah, just you know, can you pay a little bit extra each month? I said, yeah, I can do that, and so literally had to pay them back over the period of a year. Um, just because of the financial hole that I was in, my mom sent me like a Walmart gift card just so I could buy some groceries. Like it was it was, it was bad.

Speaker 3: 42:44

And so I'm dealing with all this shame and I don't know what to do with it. And the really hard part is when you get. I had a friend of mine tell me this recently. They were saying that shame needs three things to grow. So if you were going to put shame in like a Petri dish or whatever and try and grow it, you need three things. You need darkness, lies and isolation, and I felt like I had all three of those. It was like that perfect storm because I was believing lies, I was living in darkness and I was isolated. I was in an area where I didn't know anybody. I didn't have any friends. I'd just moved out to this area and so I didn't know anybody. I didn't have any friends, I'd just moved out to this area and so I didn't know anybody. And so here I am, isolated. I got no help and man, I am just wallowing in this shame and it would follow me for well over 10 years.

Speaker 3: 43:42

What were the lies, brian? So the lie? I think that that I believing, and maybe other people believe this as well. But the lie that I was believing was that once I became a Christian, there was a few, but once I became a Christian, I couldn't that. You can't mess up after that, like God forgives the sins of your past, but not necessarily what you do after you become a Christian. Once you become a Christian, you're supposed to be a good person and you can't make any mistakes anymore. If it is, it has to be only a really small mistake. If you've ever heard pastors preach, sometime they'll admit a sin from the pulpit, but it's kind of like you know, it's not really a sin, buddy.

Speaker 3: 44:28

You know, like you know like it's like when you go to those job interviews and they ask you like tell us one of your negatives or whatever, and you're like well, my negative is I work really hard, yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:41

You know and you well, that's not a negative you know, um a lot of pastors. I study my bible too much and I forget to worship.

Speaker 3: 44:48

Yeah, yeah, exactly like I spent way too many hours in prayer this morning you know like I mean, you know, the most that most pastors will admit to is pride. You know like that's kind of like the little, the give me sin that everybody goes oh everybody struggles with that.

Speaker 3: 45:04

It's okay, pastor, yeah, but like you couldn't have a real oh man, this was a breakdown struggle. And the problem with that is that when we say that pastors or leaders or anyone that they couldn't fall into some sort of sin, what we're saying is that there's no chance of redemption, and the Bible is all about redemption. There is like no place where you go, where you're too far gone. I mean, god redeems, and the part that's most powerful in this to me is that God redeems us, even from like things that are done to us. He can actually heal things that have hurt us and that's like a real story in the Bible line that I had no framework for the way I grew up, and so when I'm believing, the lie is that I can't do anything. Now I am damaged goods and I have no hope in the kingdom of God at all. I have nothing that I can offer God. Now, that's part of the breaking. God wants to get us all to the point where we go. I really have nothing that I can offer him.

Speaker 3: 46:19

And it's only by his grace that I can even just say his name you know, like that I could do anything, that I have anything to offer, it's only through him.

Speaker 3: 46:30

I have nothing on my own that I can offer. It's like even the natural giftings that I have. They all come from him. That's where they come from, and so when I get to share, when I get to do these things, it's this huge privilege. And so, like what you were saying earlier, like the reason I care so much for others is because I see myself in them. I see where God has done something in me and it's been so powerful that I want other people to experience what I have experienced with him and not live in a place of shame, not live in a place of bitterness or unforgiveness or whatever. Like all of those things. All they are is, they are, um, they're prisons from the enemy, and God's given us the key, but we just we don't even, we don't even know we have it and that is where I was at at 20, whatever, 24 years old.

Speaker 3: 47:24

It was like I had the key to get out and I didn't even know it. But that's because grace that was the key was just finding grace Grace for myself and grace for the things that had been done to me, and grace for others, and realizing that I'm not the only broken one. Everybody's broken, everybody's gone through something, everybody has struggled, and God still. You know, one of my favorite signs or sayings is God can still draw a straight line with a crooked stick, and I've been that crooked stick for most of my life and what was the healing journey like?

Speaker 2: 48:04

Hmm?

Speaker 3: 48:05

Yeah, so that that's so. That's where I'm heading. So, fast forward a couple years, I end up meeting my wife, autumn in 2005. And there was no reason for us to even get together, honestly, because I'm just a completely broken man and she's 19, 20 years old, just a great woman, somebody I don't deserve at all, and she and I we get together and it was just like it was two broken people who found each other.

Speaker 3: 48:43

You know, her parents had just recently gone through a divorce, and so it's just two people that were broken and found each other. You know her parents had just recently gone through a divorce, and so it was just two people that were broken and found each other. And God really just put us together to help us heal. That was part of it. So we started that journey together, but I didn't want to trust, I didn't want, you know, I was struggling with all the things that you can imagine, and so that took a period of years to kind of work through just me, learning how to trust me, learning how to you know, really love her well and start to find some of the tools to help with conflict resolution.

Speaker 3: 49:21

And how does a man communicate to a wife and a wife communicate to a man? You know, it took me years of trying to work through some of those things. I'm still working through some of those things. The thing that didn't change in me right away, though, was the shame, so I carried that shame through. First, you know, we dated for about three years. We got married in 2008, and from 2008 to um 2018.

Speaker 3: 49:55

So 10 years there, I was going to church, I was active in the church, so, um, you know, I play a bass guitar. I'd play with the worship teams, Um, but I was really just wanting to be in the background. Uh, I felt so much shame from my past, and I felt like I couldn't even share that a lot of times with the pastor of the church that I was going to, or any of the leadership, because if they found out and again, this is where that darkness lies and isolation comes in If they found out, I was so scared that they were going to judge me and kick me out that I wouldn't be able to be there, and there were a few times that I shared my story with someone and that helped a little bit with the healing sharing with the pastor. But it wasn't until about 2018, when I attended a solely business for the first time, that God really lifted that shame, and that came from really just being alone with the Lord while I was there and I was dealing with all these things. We'd been married for 10 years.

Speaker 3: 51:05

We just moved back to Raleigh and I'm dealing with the shame, still dealing with, but still had this drive, this thing of like I want to be with the Lord, Like I love the Lord. We had precious times together but, man, it's hard to explain because when you're experiencing shame, it's a barrier in your relationship with the Lord and even though it was not something that I felt like I took on myself, it was something that was kind of given to me through the circumstances it was still a barrier. It was keeping me from connecting with him in a in a really deep way, and so I I spent 10 years. I'd given up on this, this calling that I felt like I had and um, you know, I was just.

Speaker 3: 51:58

I was going to be content with what the Lord had given me, and so I go to solely, and one of the uh things was I was, I was spending some time alone with the Lord outside the camp that we meet at, and the Lord just spoke to me clear as day while I was walking. I was not expecting it, I wasn't, it was not anything I was really looking for in the moment. I was content, but he wanted to break the shame off of me.

Speaker 3: 52:24

But he wanted to break the shame off of me and so in that moment, as I'm walking through this field, the Lord spoke to me and he says you are a pastor.

Speaker 3: 52:36

That's all he said and man, I broke down and started crying and I said and I was like Lord, I'm not a pastor. And it was like he kept repeating it you are a pastor. And so I went back and I'm talking to some of my friends there and I'm like this is what the Lord said. And they were like man, that's so you, that is you, we see that in you, and so they're affirming me in it. And it was just like, as that was happening, all of this shame started falling off of me and that was a big breaking point.

Speaker 3: 53:11

Another big breaking point in it was sharing my story. I started sharing my story more and as I shared my story, like that confession, you know, 1 John 1 says if we confess our sins, that confession, you know. First John one nine says if we confess our sins, you know that Jesus is um faithful and that he will cleanse us for all from all unrighteousness. Right. And so as I was sharing my story, god, just I mean, it was like that shame just kept melting off and over the period of that, the next few months after that event, it was like that shame just evaporated and it was gone.

Speaker 3: 53:49

And every time I share my story, even now I feel some more of it just disappear. And so there's so much power in sharing our stories. I know that's one of the basis, for this podcast is just giving people the opportunity to share their stories. And that's so incredibly powerful because, as the beginning of the podcast says, we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimonies the one thing that we leave out in that verse. It says the reason for they love not their lives, even unto death.

Speaker 3: 54:29

And to me. That's where the point I had to get to is. I had to stop loving this reputation of who I was in my head and I had to start just surrendering completely to Jesus. Like Jesus, you're writing my story. Whatever that looks like, lord, I just surrender to that.

Speaker 1: 54:50

It's interesting to me that your whole calling started with this dichotomy of you prepped super hard for this message on a Friday and then you just shared your story on Sunday and the breakthrough came to the other people on Sunday, and then that's good. What is it 20 years later? I'd never you share your story in it. Now it brings the breakthrough to you.

Speaker 2: 55:18

Yeah, golly, that like brings tears dude, that's wild, I didn't even think about that.

Speaker 3: 55:23

That's awesome, isn't it? Like God, god does. I think God like, brings us back to those points over and over again, like in our own lives.

Speaker 1: 55:32

It's a thread. It's a thread in your life.

Speaker 3: 55:35

Yeah, it's a thread throughout my life, as much, as as much as I want to run from it sometimes, because even even after you've shared your story multiple times it like when you got to go do it again there's still like this. You know, sometimes there's this pit in your stomach. You're like, oh man, you know what, if I say something I don't know, I don't want to be embarrassed or I don't want to, I feel like and it's like, but every time you do, there's this beautiful thing where God just works more healing inside of you. Like you can't see it, you know, I think if we, we walked around and our heart was like you know, we wore it on our shoulder or something where everybody could see it yeah and all of a sudden you could see like it getting you know binded up, you know like it's getting like

Speaker 3: 56:20

it's getting bandaged. You know, like if we could see it visibly, I think we'd be much more apt to do it. But because we can't see it and it takes a kind of this step of faith to walk out in and say, yeah, lord, I'm going to, I'm going to trust that you're going to do something in me sharing my story. I may not be able to see what you're going to do, but I'm going to trust that you're going to do it. I think that's where the power comes in is like us being faithful to do that.

Speaker 3: 56:46

And if you read the book of Acts. That's what Paul does throughout the book of Acts. Like his sermons are simply like most of them are just his story. He's like I was walking down the road to Damascus and then there was a bright light. And then they're like all right, well, we're going to put you in front of Agrippa. And he's like all right, I was walking down the road to Damascus.

Speaker 2: 57:03

There was this bright light, you know.

Speaker 3: 57:05

And it was like nobody could argue with him and he's like and you know, even Agrippa's going like well, are you trying to convert me too? He's like well, I wish you would be like me, except without these chains, you know. So I mean, there's this power in it. John Ortberg, I heard this saying the other day. I don't originated it or not, but it's stuck with me because it really resonated with my story. But he says that everyone has a story but no one gets the story they want. Everyone has a story and nobody gets the story they want. And I thought, man, that resonates with me, because if I were to write my story at 17 years old or whatever, or even before that, I would have not written any of this into my story. Like who writes pain and tragedy and heartache?

Speaker 3: 57:53

and those things into their story. But God does, and he does it because he gets glory, you know, like through me, walking through this, like God gets the glory for that because I was not smart enough to pull myself out of that funk.

Speaker 3: 58:09

I wasn't smart enough to, like you know, do all the right things, go get counseling or whatever. It was like I had no idea of what to do, but he knew what I needed to hear. So, like he spoke to me at that moment in that field, the exact words I needed to hear that I would have never told myself because I wasn't worthy. You know, I was damaged goods. And he's telling me no, you are a pastor.

Speaker 1: 58:36

Well, don't you think Paul had some of those same doubts? I mean, he's called himself chief among sinners and he's he. You know, his buddy Luke wrote the book of Acts and you know, I wonder. I don't know how the timing of all this worked out, but it, right in there is Paul, like standing by the coats, is Stephen's getting stoned Like leave the, the, leave the, the, the black eyes of the story.

Speaker 3: 59:06

In right, because the power can come through there and that's really the story of the Bible.

Speaker 1: 59:12

It's not just the story of Paul, it's just all of them.

Speaker 3: 59:14

Yeah, look at every broken person in the Bible, and it's every single person in the Bible other than Jesus. I mean, everybody has a broken story. Everybody has a story and nobody gets the story they want. I mean, to me that explains so much of my life, just the idea that I would have written myself in as the hero in my own story. But I'm not. He's the hero because of what I went through and the breaking process that I went through to get me there.

Speaker 3: 59:50

And so after that moment, I didn't know what to do. I haven't served that way in the ministry for a long time. I was going to Garner Christian Fellowship and so I sat down with the pastor there, pastor John Kavari. Love him to death. I mean, he's still my pastor today, even though I've been pastoring for six years. But I sat down with him and I said, hey, brother, here's my story, shared my story. Here's what the Lord spoke to me. I don't know what to do. And he's really wise. He says let's pray about it. And so we prayed for a full year. This was beginning of 2018, all the way to January of 2019. So January 2019, we've been praying about this for a whole year and I'm like all right, the Lord started putting a little rumble in me like okay, you need to do something about this. There's something you need to do, and I'm like I don't know what to do. I don't know, I just have no idea of how to do it. Do I send out resumes to?

Speaker 2: 1:00:59

be a pastor. You told me.

Speaker 3: 1:01:01

I'm a pastor, but I don't really know what that means or what to do about it so.

Speaker 3: 1:01:06

I'm like I'm looking on job boards. I'm like I don't know, lord. And so again, I sat down with Pastor John and I said, hey, I feel like the Lord's asking me to do something and I don't know exactly what I need to do. And so he says, well, let's, why don't you get your credentials through Elam Fellowship, which is basically the it's not a denomination, it's just the association that we're with as a church. And I said, okay, that makes sense. And I said so. I sent in the paperwork and there's a process. You got to sit down with an interview, they run background checks and they're getting you to affirm their theology and all those different things. And so I'm going through this process.

Speaker 3: 1:01:50

And I didn't know it at the time, but I sat down to interview as I took that kind of step of faith and still got all these things kind of still rattling around inside of me. The shame's been broken, but you know, healing takes time and so I'm still trying to heal. And so I start this process and in May I sat down to be interviewed and they licensed you first and then that's kind of like a little probationary period and then they ordain you after that. And so I was sitting down interviewing to get my license with the regional director. At the same time and I did not know this until later but at the same time the pastor of Cornerstone Church, which is the church I'm at now he's sitting down with his elders and he's saying I believe God's releasing me from being here and I need to follow my calling, and he went on to be a missionary in Mexico and that was something that he wanted to do and I didn't know. But this is all happening at the same time, so you can see how.

Speaker 3: 1:02:52

God moves right.

Speaker 3: 1:02:54

So he's preparing Cornerstone and he's preparing me, and neither one of us have any idea that's what's going on. So come July of 2019, I sat down we're going to have a joint service between Garner Christian Fellowship and Cornerstone Church. You know just one of the things that they did every year and so I was invited to do some of the planning and represent Garner Christian Fellowship. So I went to Cornerstone. We're having our planning meeting and the regional director is talking to them. He's like you guys are in a special place and we're really praying and I'm going. What's going on? I have no idea.

Speaker 3: 1:03:30

And after that meeting, I heard that Cornerstone was looking for a pastor and as soon as I heard that, it was like my spirit leapt inside of me and I'm like, oh, that's it, that's what I'm supposed to do. And I was like, oh, that's it, that's what I'm supposed to do. And I was like, okay, now I'm still dealing with some shame, still dealing with lack of confidence. I've been broken. I'm not rebuilt in any sense, Like I'm going to do a Gideon moment. Lord, I hope this is okay. I'm going to put out my fleece. I know you've called me and I can feel this in my spirit, but I'm scared. I need you to show me.

Speaker 3: 1:04:16

And so I said, Lord, I'm not going to ask anybody about this position. You're going to have to have them come ask me. And I just left it. That was my prayer, and I left it. Every month, me and Pastor John will sit down and have lunch together. August comes around, we go to sit down and have lunch and I'm thinking in the back of my mind it's going to happen. He's going to ask me about it. It's going to happen.

Speaker 3: 1:04:39

I've already built it up in my mind. I know this is coming and we go through lunch and nothing happens. And so I was like oh, all right, lord, I hear you, I'm going to release this, I'm good, I'm content. And so, about a month later, we sat down again in September and he comes to me and he says hey to.

Speaker 3: 1:05:04

I want to ask you something. Cornerstone church I don't know if you know, but they're looking for a pastor and I think you'd do really good at that. Would you pray about, you know, applying for that job? They're looking for someone and they can't find anyone, you know. And so I said yeah, and so that's that's what happened. I ended up, and so that's what happened.

Speaker 2: 1:05:37

I ended up applying and they called me as their pastor in November of 2019. And then COVID happened after that. So fun. Welcome to pastoring. Thanks for igniting this calling again.

Speaker 3: 1:05:50

God, yeah, yeah, just in time. Yeah, you know you get all those esther words right and you are.

Speaker 2: 1:05:52

This is for just a time, as this, or whatever, I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, thank you, jesus.

Speaker 1: 1:05:54

Yeah, I'm so glad a hard time bro gonna reconcile the anti-mask and the mask people yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:06:03

Great.

Speaker 1: 1:06:04

Yeah, I thought I'd be doing.

Speaker 3: 1:06:07

So that was a lot of fun, but that was the start of it. And then another big component was about two years into pastoring I had to. Maybe not even that long, maybe it was a year. Yeah, it was right. Around a year into pastoring I shared my story in front of our whole congregation oh wow. So it's taking all of those moments, I think, to actually help overcome a lot of the shame that was surrounding my story. And once I started doing that, what I noticed was that God started sending people to me that were in similar spots, that were dealing with similar types of brokenness that I could just pray for and speak into and love and care. So it was. It's been really interesting to see how God wrote redemption into this, because that was a journey from the time I was 17 when I felt that call to ministry. So I'm 39 before I'm actually walking in that call of ministry. You know, a lot of people think God's asking me to do this thing. I'm going to go do it tomorrow. That has not been my case.

Speaker 3: 1:07:14

He asked me to do something and it was almost. You know it was 20, some odd years later, 22 years, yeah, and so I think I think sometimes we rush what God wants to do in us. You know, and like I said, if I was writing my story I would have been a pastor at 22, 24, you know, at least by the time I was 30.

Speaker 3: 1:07:34

But that's not the story he had written, and his story is much more beautiful than mine. You know, his story is not one that anybody could think of. It was something that only he could write.

Speaker 2: 1:07:52

Brian Boswell.

Speaker 3: 1:07:55

Thank you so much for sharing your story thank you guys for allowing me to share my story. Wow, this was a real show. I'm going to go get some rest. Bye, thank you.