105. Freedom in Brett's Story Part 2

Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James Seyfried and Brett Martin. Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast, everyone. We are glad to be back with you. What a great last week episode as we got to talk through Brett's story, as we got to talk through his life growing up in the church and where he was at. We're going to be picking up on that story where we left off last week. Brett, how was this past week in your life? We had church on Sunday. I had my first Sunday here at Pleasant Grove. What a great week that was. Just excited to be able to minister here. And sorry if you heard that ding on my computer. But yeah, so excited to be here preaching. And I've had some great conversations with different people. Great feedback. Really excited about revitalization of what the Lord's going to do here and his ministry here. So we're really, really excited about what's going on. Brett, how are you doing? And how was this last weekend for you? Man, things are going great here at church. I told you last time we started some small groups here at our church. And it has just taken off. Response has been really good on it. We've had new people come and visit our groups. People are excited about it. And we're getting more people in our small groups than we ever did on Sunday night. And so things are just clicking right along. You know, James, I know you just got a new job as a pastor. But, you know, if you ever, you know, need some side money, you need a little part-time gig. I just heard of a position that's opened up you might be interested in. You know, they're looking for a new speaker. So, speaker of the house. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know. Maybe you could put your hat in the ring for that. You know, it's a standing offer with the house. You know, they know me well. You know, I know several of them up there. I do know a couple of them, actually. I email with them every once in a while. But, yeah, they know where I'm at. But, you know, it's... They've got your number. It'd be a step down from where I'm at now. And I don't like taking steps downs. But, yeah, it's crazy with what's going on. The government... First time in history. Yeah. Government may be... Speakers ever been fired. I know. Government may be defunding and not able to pay the bills. But for Freedom Podcast, we're still here. We're still producing great content. And you can bet that we're going to continue, whether funding's there or not, we're going to continue the podcast. If the government shuts... If you're a government employee and the government shuts down in 45 days because there's no speaker, you will have more time to listen to the For Freedom Podcast. Absolutely. So, silver lining. You want to hear some fun stuff about John? I'll share his news on here as... Go for it. I'm all ears. All right. So, he leaves the For Freedom Podcast because he's a bum and he can't deal with us anymore. Um... He goes to California for a conference. He leaves the conference a little bit early to make his flight. He gets to the airport. His flight gets canceled. Not only does it get canceled out of California, but there was a bad hailstorm in, I think he said Dallas, Fort Worth, where he was flying into to make his connecting. And so, they canceled all the flights out of Dallas, Fort Worth. So, instead of getting home yesterday, which we're recording this on Thursday, on Wednesday when he had planned, they rerouted him from California to Arizona to Philadelphia and then down to Tennessee. Oh, wow. My man has been on a plane. When he lands, it will be almost over 24 hours of travel from California to Tennessee. Um... Mm-hmm. So, he's exhausted. And I'm pretty sure that this is the Lord just chasing him for running away from his God-given calling to be the co-host of the For Freedom Podcast. That's just my thoughts. That's right. So... You know, a little, little, little, you know, fortunate old Jonah there. Hey, well, you know, when you run, God takes care of you. Yeah, yeah. Going down to Joppa. Should have stayed where God had him. Right, right. Let me ask you this. Like, I don't know what it's been like where you're at, but here in Mississippi, we have been in the biggest drought. Like, there's been absolutely no rain. And that hasn't rained for two months. Are y'all getting rain up there? Um, we have actually had a great rain season. Um, we have, um... So last year, we only had two good hay seasons, two good hay harvests. This year, we've had like three or four. So rain-wise for us, we've had really good rain. Um, though it hasn't been bad at all. Um, nowhere near a drought. I think it's been a week since it rained or something. Um, but we're almost in our frost season, so it's about to have our first frost and kill everything. Um, looking forward to that. That's not the most much. It hasn't rained here in two months, and a lot of people are blaming El Nino. Oh, I don't know what El Nino is, but... They're telling me... They're telling me the master meteorologist that can get their... I mean, they can get everything wrong constantly and keep their job. I wish I had that ability to just say things wrong all the time and keep my job, but they somehow are able to do that. Um, they're telling us that it's going to be a great winter because of El Nino this year. Who knows? Yeah. They tell us that we haven't had a snow in two years in North Carolina where I'm at, so I'm a little mad at the weather people right now because they keep taking the snow away from me. Um, so, yeah. It's supposed to be 45 degrees this Sunday here in South Mississippi, so... Let's go. That's, uh... Yeah, I know, so... Um, but I did hear that, too, about the winter, uh, getting really bad, a lot of snow. Um, one more thing that I want to do, and you can help me do this, is we've got to plug Israel. Yeah, I'll do it. We've got to... Yeah, man. Let everybody know that, listen, we've got spots available you are not gonna want to miss. You will never regret spending the money to go to Israel. I would love to do a few Israel episodes leading up to the trip, um, I had a wonderful opportunity this past Monday uh, to get to speak to the Homemakers Auxiliary here in Mississippi. Um, we had about, uh, 40 to 50 homemakers from all around the state come to our church and, uh, we had a really great meeting, great singing, uh, but I had the wonderful opportunity for about 45 minutes to show a slideshow and talk about Israel and, uh, just got me even more excited about it. Yeah. Hey, man, I'm excited too. I know we're gonna have a great time. Um, if you just come and hang out with me and Brett, that'll be worth it right there, worth the whole cost of everything. Uh, but we'll throw in going to Israel on top of that. Um, so come with us. It's gonna be a blessing. And also, Brett, since we mentioned that, um, here in just a couple of weeks, so we are October 5th, so we are one month away from the RFP meetup, um, in Asheville, North Carolina. And so if you, um, want to make plans to be there, you're gonna get hotels on your own. Uh, there's no cost to be there. You're just gonna show up, hang out, hoping to have, um, 80 to 100 people there. Uh, it's, if you, if you were at the bourbon meetup or at the Georgia meetup, it's gonna be very similar to that. Um, hopefully you'll come, have a great time. If you're within driving distance, drive on in. Um, I'm, I'm only about an hour, hour and a half away from Asheville. Um, so I'll be driving up that Friday, being there till that Saturday. Um, so if you're coming, let me know, shoot me a text or email or whatever, uh, Facebook message, and we'll get together. We'll get lunch on the way. Uh, Brett's coming in with his wife, um, from Mississippi and, uh, we're gonna have a great time. And so hopefully you'll come, hopefully you'll be there for it. Uh, very laid back, very casual. Uh, we're talking three sessions, some panel sessions, maybe a breakout session or two. Um, but real laid back, just very informal, um, hanging out, having a good time. And so hopefully you'll come and join us and be a part of that. Um, November 4th, 5th, somewhere around in there, um, in Asheville at Hope Church, Asheville, where Nathan's Carvat is at. It's gonna be a good time. Can't wait. Yeah. All right, Brett, let's jump into your, uh, finish up your story. So we left off with talking about how you went back to work at your home church part-time and everything went apart. So pick up from there. So, uh, me and Emily get married. Uh, she got married. She graduated. I still have one more year left. And then, uh, we got married and my, was driving around with my pastor during that time. And my pastor told me that if I didn't get a full-time offer, um, after Bible college, after I graduated, to come back and work for him because he could, he could pay me part-time at my home church. And I thought, man, this is a great opportunity. Go back to my, to my home church. And, you know, at this time, I was under the impression that what my pastor told me to do was God's will because God spoke through the man. And so that's exactly what I did. Me and Emily graduated and me and Emily and our brand new six-week-old baby boy packed up and went back home to Macomb. And, uh, that camper that was behind my dad's house was traded out for a brand spanking new 16 by 80 single-wide trailer. And we moved in. Now, when I was a teenager going to Christian school, I had a job at a local area oil change shop. And so I had some experience in that. So one of the members of the church was a good, is a good friend of mine. His name's James. And he offered me a job as an assistant manager. Uh, so I went back to work. I went back to work at an oil change shop as assistant manager. And eventually, a few years later, I became manager of that shop. And in total, I managed that shop for around 15 years. So, uh, I was in for about 15 years of my ministry. I was bi-vocational. And look, let me say this. Even though hindsight is 20-20, I still grew up, grew up with a good life. Listen, my pastor growing up, I know he loved me. I know he loved my family. He came to my granddad's house and witnessed to my granddad in his, in, uh, my papa's living room. He witnessed to my granddad again on his deathbed. Um, when I was in the hospital or one of my families was in the hospital, he was right there. He had a great relationship with my mother. My, my mom actually bought the lumber for this church's first Sunday school rooms when he was starting the church. because how this church got started was the original church that I was riding the bus to going to vacation Bible school at that church. That church split. And then the pastor took those that left that church and made, uh, started what I consider to be my home church. And listen, it was a good childhood. I remember the vacation Bible schools growing up. I'll never forget we had a summer camp we went to that our church owned and operated. And I was never young enough to go to that camp as a camper, but I was a counselor there. And it was called Camp Joy because my pastor went to Tennessee Temple under Lee Roberson. So we called it Camp Joy. And there was the most fun I'd ever had growing up. Being a counselor at that camp, making them kids pillow fight, making them do the dying cockroach, telling scary stories. And, you know, it's hard to tell scary stories when you can't talk about ghosts. But we figured it out, man, and we had some of the best times in my life. And I remember the story. We were talking about Mark Cantrell. And we was at Camp Joy one week. And we was pillow fighting. And I decided I'm going to, we were, it was, we had the lights out and it was strobe lights. And we was pillow fighting. And I decided I'm going to go up and hit Brother Mark. And he turned around and slung that pillow. And I swear, it felt like I got hit with a ton of bricks. He knocked me out. I went down. And I stayed away from Mark Cantrell and the pillows after that. But, you know, listen, I said, I'd like to say that there, there are people going to my home church right now today that I still love to this day. In fact, let me say that every person who's still going to my home church today, these, I love every one of them. These people have changed my life. They led me to the Lord. They taught me the Bible. I memorized scripture because of these folks. These folks invested in my life. You know, even though I did grow up, you know, IFB, I grew up, I had a good life, a great church with great people. I really did. I want to say, though, that being on staff at that church was just, it was just an absolute nightmare. So, I was just there to do what I would, what I had always done. When I was a teenager, I ran the children's church. You know, my pastor wanted me in that position to do it forever. Even as an adult, wanted me to just be in that position forever. Now, when I first came back, I came back with Josh Westmore, who is a Hope Church pastor. And, you know, I know he's not going to mind me mentioning his name, but we went to Tri-State together. And, man, when we were at Tri-State, I mean, we weren't friends per se, but we knew each other. But, man, me and Josh, being at my home church at the same time, it was like two brothers in the middle of war. I mean, it's like getting to know each other in the trenches. And, like, now we have a friendship that's going to last the rest of our lives. Josh Westmore is one of my, one of my closest friends in the world. But he was hired full-time and I was not. Now, I overlooked it, you know, I overlooked it a little bit because I was, I was from that church and I didn't get the full-time position and he did. So, you know, maybe at first I was a little resentful, but, you know, that melted away as, you know, as we quickly became friends. So, you know, Josh, when he was there in that particular position, he did everything that the pastor didn't want to do. I mean, you know, those typical type of IFB assistant pastor positions. I mean, he was the bus director. He was a school principal. He was the youth director. He was a song director. He was the choir leader. He was the janitor. And he just did all of this stuff. Bus captain. And, man, in those type of positions where you do everything the pastor doesn't want to do, you wear so many stinking hats that, you know, that type of ministry employment is just really, really toxic. And I know it, it took a toll on it. And listen, I was a bi-vocational. So, I was just over the children's church. I had a class on Wednesday nights. I also ran the vacation Bible schools every summer. And eventually, I became a congregational song leader. And every once in a while, I'd trade off and lead the choir. And, and, and, and I thought about this story. And I'm trying to remember stories about this time. I want to give you a little example of the stuff that I had to deal with. Because this man, this story really sticks out in my mind. I was leading, this is after I first started leading the choir. And so we all lined up in the choir loft and we had practice. Now, when we would practice in the choir loft, we would do it before Sunday night church in the main auditorium. So there are people, few people behind me in the pews coming in and out of the auditorium. Sometimes the pastor and some men would, would, would be in the church and would line up on the back wall. And I remember this one practice where I just, you know, I just kind of let it be open. I just kind of let, you know, you know, let it be an open, loose practice. I let people talk. I let people shoot it, shoot out ideas. People were cracking jokes. People were laughing. People were having fun. I mean, I was joking around with them and I thought to myself, man, this is the best practice we've ever had. This is great. I mean, a choir, because I was already apprehensive about being a choir director because I'm not a singer. But, you know, I was like, man, if choir is going to be like this, this is something, this is something that I can do. I was like, okay, you know, I can, I can do this. But then later, the pastor called me in his office and told me that he was watching that practice and said, while that practice was going on, he leaned over to one of his men and said, do you see what's going on up there? What do you see? And the man looked at my pastor and said, nobody's in charge. So he was looking on my practice, just judging it and telling me, you need to rein things in. You need to be the only one talking. They don't need to be cutting up there like that in practice. You need to tell them it's your way or the highway. You need to step up. You need to take control. You need to shut it down. And man, I left out of that office just my head hanging low. I was just so depressed. And the next Sunday when we had practice, man, people were smiling. They were getting ready to have a fun time and in choir again. You know, they were like, man, choir is fun now. And I had no choice. I had to lay down the law. And you could just see the whole choir deflate. I mean, their smiles just turned to straight faces. And all that unity that we have built was destroyed because of authoritarianism. And man, that's just a little tip of the iceberg. Some of the stuff that I had to deal with. Yeah. And well, man, you know, when you think through that and you hear that, how many times have we heard that story of this overbearing, over, you know, I don't want to say overprotective, but just, you know, everything's got to be my way or the highway. And if you're not doing it this way, then it's wrong. I mean, how often has that been the story that someone has shared of someone who's coming out of legalism and coming out of this spiritual abuse that happens in church. All the time. Yeah. And to hear that from a staff member's point of view, you know, for me, I didn't know that you and Josh worked together. I knew y'all were closed. I didn't know y'all worked together. I didn't know y'all went to college together. And so that's, you know, awesome to hear. But that is this side of ministry that a lot of people don't ever see. And this, people ask all the time, why do pastors leave the ministry? Why do pastors get burned out? That right there is the reason why. Because they are set to this ultra high standard of it's got to be done this way. I've got to have the right voice inflection. I've got to wear the right outfit. And then all of a sudden when everything doesn't work out but you're doing those things, all of a sudden you begin to give up and you begin to quit on ministry. So, man, thanks for that. And you know, that authoritarianism, they push that in your marriage too. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. They push that in like the wife is supposed to be, you know, submissive and silent to the point where even if your husband is wrong, you do not speak up and correct him in public. Yeah. And me and my wife had that type of relationship for years and it, man, it was taking its toll until one day we had a come to Jesus meeting about it and we just decided that that's not the way that not, you know, I realized what I was doing to her and I just broke down and cried and begged her forgiveness and so, you know, that, you know, that was one thing we had to work through. So, so what brought me into a depression was, you know, I continued to be passed over for that full-time position. After Josh left, all these other people would come in one after another and it kept, you know, I would just get passed over year after year after year, you know, that assistant pastor position was just a revolving door but I didn't care because I knew that that's what I was supposed to do. I was just convinced of it. You know, at one time there was a position open over the school and it was given to a layman in the church rather than hire me full-time. You know, because that, that phrase, full-time Christian service, full-time Christian service, had just been pounded into me and pounded into me and so that was what I was going for and then the assistant pastor position kept cycling through these people and it was like a revolving door and I would, and I would never be considered for the position and in my mind, this church was the only place I could serve so if I didn't advance here, I didn't advance anywhere and at one point me and my pastor diving down the road and he mentioned to me that he doesn't look at tithing records and boy, did that ever turn out to be a lie. He did look at the tithing records and, you know, a part of the reason why he didn't hire me full-time was because I didn't tithe the way he wanted me to tithe and what he thought I should give and, you know, it was apparent that there were other families that retreated better because they tithed more and that was just the way it was and I went to him at one point and I think I came down to the altar. I had been there for so long and I was just kind of, just kind of doing my little thing in children's church but I wanted to be in the ministry and so at one point I came down and I think I re-surrendered the pastor in an altar call because, you know, I wanted my pastor to know that, look, I'm ready to go pastor a church. So, what he did is he took me and put me in the Sunday school room at the front of the church and this is what he said. He said, I want you to fill this Sunday school room. I want you to make it your church. I want you to bring in new people. I want you to fill this Sunday school room and this Sunday school class is going to be your mini church. I don't want you to prove to me that you can be a pastor. Okay? So, now we were already going out knocking doors for the church every week passing out tracks and honestly not getting many visitors. And now he wanted me to bring in new people to fill a Sunday school room with first time visitors. doors. Well, I mean, I did go out and I knocked doors and I invited people and I tried to get people to come, but two months in I couldn't fill that classroom. And it was like after two months he had decided that the experiment had failed. And so because I couldn't fill that Sunday school room and build a Sunday school class with brand new adults in two months by cold door knocking, I guess that meant I wasn't cut out to be a pastor apparently. I mean, look, I got no direction. I got no help. It was sink or swim. You can either do it or you can't. And I was so discouraged and I was so depressed because I wasn't being promoted and now I apparently failed at being a pastor. And since I was 13, that's like I said, that term full-time service has just been drilled into me so much that I thought now it was over. Now I couldn't be what I was told I could be since I was 13. I just got so depressed about it. Like I remember I got so depressed about it that before the service we would meet in the back where the baptistry is and there was this door that led out to the choir loft and the staff would line up and the choir would line up behind the staff and we'd all walk out together and we would get back there five minutes before service started. Well, I remember going back there 15, 20 minutes before the service started and just staring at that door all by myself. And I would just stare at that door in the dark because I was in just such a depression and I was just like in the dark chasm that offered no help and I felt like I had absolutely no way out of my situation. It was one of the lowest points of my life. My pastor never offered to ordain me. I asked him about ordination when I first got to the church after Bible college. He said, I asked him if he would ordain me and he said, well, you know, after you've been here for a while and you've kind of proven yourself, then I'll come to you and I'll tell you when to be ordained. It's one of those, you know, don't call us, we'll call you. It was one of those situations. He said, you know, I'll tell you, I'll come to you when it's time to be ordained. And that's the way we left it for eight years. So near the end of the eight years, you know, by this time, I'm in that depression. I'm in that, you know, just that low state. I had almost quit caring about everything. You know, my faith survived Hal Zanerson, but my faith was not surviving this experience. I was quickly losing my faith. And, or so I felt. And so near the end of that eight years, one of the guys who had been hired on staff in this position, which by the way, I'm not going to mention his name, but this guy I'm talking about is a great guy himself. I love this man. There's nothing negative toward him. I would do anything for him. I know he would do anything for me. This is not a shot at him at all. But he asked my pastor to ordain him in front of the church, in front of everybody during the invitation. And my pastor stood up that very service behind the pulpit, right after that invitation. And my pastor said, this brother here has asked me to ordain him, and it would be my honor to ordain him. And I was just, I was flooring, I was flabbergasted, I was confused. This is my home church. I have been here for eight years. Eight years ago, when I asked about ordination, I was told that, well, I'll come to you, and when I feel like you're ready. And now this guy, who's not from this church, asks, and my pastor agrees in the same service. And I was already in a depression, and now I felt like I had just been run over by a bus. Keep in mind, at this point, like I said, I'm still in that depression, and I felt like I'm just at the bottom of this barrel when it's everything I can do just to get up and go to work. It's just everything I can do just to go to church. You know, because I'd just been passed over so much, and I just, oh, it was a horrible feeling. So I go into my pastor's office within the next few days, and I present him with this, and I tell him how I'm feeling, and I say, look, this is what you told me eight years ago, and now here with this guy, you agreed to ordain him the very night he asked. And my pastor looked at me and said, Brett, you don't tithe. And listen, I know a lot of people are going to listen to this. There are people in my church that I pastor, they're going to listen to this episode, and I'm being 100% open and honest with everybody right now. I'm being transparent. By that point in my life, I had quit tithing, because I had quit Karen. You know, I had been beaten and run over and verbally abused and passed over and lied to so much, so yes, by that time, I had stopped tithing. But it's not like I was there the whole eight years and didn't die. Okay? I mean, to be honest with you, there are times in that time that I could barely afford to pay my bills to put groceries on the table. There's a program in Mississippi called WIC. I'm sure they have it in other states, but you get cereal and milk, and I never understood the term government cheese until I started getting WIC. Now, if you had young children, you qualified for this. Listen, we were living off WIC food. My mom was buying groceries from my house. Okay? And look, I know there's no excuse for not giving, but I don't want to make excuses, but I don't think it's just a black and white thing. I needed help, and I didn't get any help. I got thrown under the bus, and he looked at me and said, that's why I'm not ordaining you. And he actually said to me, James, he said, my standards are too high to ordain you. That's what he told me. Now, stick a pin in that, because we'll circle back to that later. That's incredible to hear that he would make that statement to you, that his standards were too high to ordain you. And yeah, I understand. I know exactly where you're at with, you know, I was there. I was on Medicaid. I was on, my family was on that, and we weren't to the point where we needed food stamps, but my wife had said to me several times, James, maybe we need to look into doing this. And I'm like, nah, no, I don't think we need to. But it was tough, and I was there. I know what you're talking about. So that is, that's incredible. Go ahead. Sorry, sorry to interrupt. No, you're fine. You're fine. I believe that he never had any intention from the very beginning of ordaining me, because when I first got there, he said, oh, I'll come to you next time when I think you're ready. Yet here we are eight years later, and all this guy has to do is ask, and he says yes, which by the way, once again, not a shot at that guy. I love him to death. But I was still lied to, and I was, I made it through, like I said, I made it through Bible college with my faith, but the way I was being treated, I was losing my faith pretty quick. And, you know, I told a little bit of this next part of the RFP when they interviewed me, but for a long time I was clean shaven. And then one day, I get it, I'm a 32-year-old man, never had a beard. beard. And then one day my pastor told me, we're having a conversation in his office, and he told me that I could grow a beard because I wasn't a full-time staff member, I could grow one. Man, I ran out of that office, I was like, yes. I was like, this is so cool. I went up to the teenage boys, I was like, hey, preacher just gave me permission to grow a beard, and they were like, oh man, you're so lucky, yeah. And so I grew a beard. Stick a pin in that, we'll get back to it later. So I'm in this depression, and it's this low, low point in my life, and I just didn't see how I could continue. So one day, you know, because I'm brainwashed at this point, but, you know, one day I got a little bit of courage about me, and I said to myself, I'm going to look for a church. So I started sending out resumes to IFB churches. And I sent out a resume to a church in the coastal area of Mississippi, and, you know, they hit me back. They called me, and he's asked, how old were you? And I said, man, I'm in my early 30s. And it's like, oh, okay, okay. You know, it's like they had been getting, you know, hits from my guys fresh out of college, but I was in my 30s. It was like, man, yeah, yeah, we want you to, we want you to come candidate. Sunday. So I went to my preacher's office one day, the next time I had an opportunity to tell him that in two weeks I would miss a Sunday because I was going to go candidate to be a pastor of this church. This is what I had been working for. This is, this was, this is what I had done everything for, all of my schooling, all of my college, the past eight years. I've been assistant pastor at this church. Everything was leading up to this point. And then I go in his office and tell him I want to candidate at this church. And that, like I said, I guess I was maybe 32 at the time. And James, when I tell you that in 32 years of my life, I had never seen this man, that man before. He slammed his fist down on the desk and yelled. And he said, what are you doing? I said, what? What do you mean? Then how did this church find out about you? I said, I sent my resume. And he said, so you're looking for a church like you're trying to find a job at McDonald's. The ministry's not like working at McDonald's. You don't send out resumes. Let me ask you a question. Does God know where you're at? And I said, yeah, God knows where I'm at. He said, well, if God knows where you're at, then one day you're just going to get a phone call. You just sit still and you stay where you're at. And if God wants you to leave here one day, your phone will ring. That's how I got this church. The phone just rang one day. And he went on. I put you in that Sunday school room and you didn't do anything to fill it. And here you are standing up here with a beard saying you're going to go past your church when a beard is rebellion. Only rebellious people grow beards. Nobody's going to hire a rebellious pastor. And I said I'd get back to the beard part. It turns out him giving me permission to grow a beard was a test just to see if I would do it or not. So how twisted is that? So even the permission to grow a beard was a test. And in the next 10 minutes he yelled at me and unloaded on me. And when I left that office I felt two inches tall. I was absolutely destroyed. It's like I had been living in this dark cave at the bottom of a ditch and somebody showed me a little glimmer of hope and then not only snatched that hope away from me but then turned around and smashed me on top of the head with a frozen sled cammer. I mean that's that's just how I felt. I you know I left that office just whammy. I was in utter shock. I went home and you know against my wife's wishes and like I said I'm still in this state of I'm in a state of shock but I'm still brainwashed and I immediately shaved my beard off because all I was thinking about was making him happy. I had given him complete control of my life and he still had that control. I lived to make him happy. I strove for his approval. I had been conditioned to do so. Everything I did was to satisfy him. I'm not saying it's right but I'm saying that's that's the way I grew up. That's what I believe and I called that church in the coastal area Mississippi and I canceled that candidation and the deacon just sounded so bummed when I called and I hung up that phone and on the inside I was like what did I just do? This is this is just everything I've always wanted and I just trashed it. Yeah. Now when did the realization of what happened to me in that office hit me? It was about two days later when the shock wore off. I'm driving home from church one night and I look in the rear view mirror and I see this clean shaven face looking back at me and that's when it hit me. It hit me that I was being controlled. It hit me that I was being manipulated. I realized that I was being kept in the same position that I had as a teenager and that was the goal the whole time. The whole these last eight years of my life have been about keeping me in the same position I had when I was 15 years old because I was reliable and I was good at it and I could do it and he didn't have to worry about it because he couldn't get anybody else to do it and had a talent for it. And as long as I was in that position the pastor didn't have to worry about somebody doing children's church. It always be taken care of. That's what I was brought back for. That's why he never ordained me. And I really think he didn't care that I sent out the resume. He didn't care that I wanted to pastor a church. What he really cared about was that I was going to miss that service. That's when I told him I'm going to miss a Sunday in two days. And when I realized I was being used and manipulated and that thought hit my brain, it's like the floodgates open. And now all these other things are starting to come into question. The movies. Why are the movies wrong? I've always been told that if you go to the movies, people don't know what you're going to watch there. And I thought to myself, well, I've seen my pastor in Blockbuster. I don't know what he's renting. He's got a satellite on his house. I don't know what he's watching. And then I thought, where in the Bible does it say that it's wrong to have a beard? Jesus had a beard. And it's like all these things started to fall into place. And that was when I made the decision that I had to get out. So I started sending out resumes to Southern Baptist churches. But this time I kept my mouth shut. I didn't tell anybody anything. And then one day a church called me. They got my resume. And it was a church about one city over 30 minutes away in Louisiana. I wouldn't preach at that church. I didn't tell anybody was candidating. I just told them I was going out of town for the weekend. And I went and candidated that church. And they offered me the job as pastor. So I went in to my pastor and I said, look, I'm, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm resigning. Quick and simple. I didn't ask any questions. I didn't ask for any advice, which at that point I had stopped doing. I didn't give anybody an opportunity to say anything one way or another. It was just time to go. God opened the door and I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. So I left. One month after I left is when things blew up at my home church. Now I'm not going to go into too much detail here because it involves people that I love, but it came out that my pastor was living immorally cheating on his wife, the same guy who wouldn't ordain me because his standards were too high, right? Because he felt like I didn't tithe enough, you know, who I, who stood up on several occasions and he would always make this statement. I remember crystal clear because he said it so much. He would say, men don't cheat out of need. They cheat out of a lack of character. The same one who told me that I was in rebellion for having a beard was having an affair the whole time. So even though I was out, there were still lingering chases of traces of legalism in me because I was raised in it. I remember Josh was actually the first one to tell me about the Recovering Fundamentalist podcast. He told me that I should listen to it. And of course, the first episode I listened to was a field kid. I wasn't going to miss those. And, you know, I can't even remember which episode it was, but I remember Brian explaining legalism or sanctification and all I'd ever heard was legalism for salvation. I'd never heard of legalism or sanctification before. I didn't know that was a thing. I thought, okay, you add works to salvation, that's legalism. But I didn't realize that I was still a legalist because I was adding all these rules onto my Christian life that weren't in the Bible in order to impress God, in order to make God happy with me so God will love me more. And I thought, man, that wearing a tie to church on Sunday and a white dress shirt would make God love me more. Not listening to country music would make God love me more. My wife wearing skirts instead of pants would make God love me more. And it was like the veil began to lift off of my eyes. The issue with the King James Bible was addressed to a man on YouTube by the name of Mike Winger. You ever heard of Mike Winger? I haven't. But, you know, you're speaking of, I wanted to mention this, you were talking about the legalism adding to salvation. I went to my pastor in Idaho one time and I said, hey, I'm hearing this thought of legalism. I said, can you explain to me what legalism, this was the exact definition was. Legalism is anything you add to salvation. That's all. I was like, oh, okay, cool. I'm not a legalist. I don't add to salvation. And I walked away thinking, okay, I'm not a legalist. But there was never the thought of adding the sanctification the way that you just explained it, the way Brian explained it greatly on the RFP. One great thing from the RFP was, you know, the RFP introduced you to the greatest podcast in the network, which is for freedom, which is where we're at right now. So, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Mike Winger was a pastor on YouTube and he does a lot of good teaching on there. And he was the one who taught me where we got our Bible from and helped kind of lead me out of KJV onlyism. Now, I want to preface this. I, you know, because I've had some people locally locally that have come at me here recently. I want to say that I don't have a problem with somebody being King James preferred. I love the King James Bible. If you use the King James Bible, praise the Lord. It's a great translation. I still memorize my verses in King James. This, I'm not talking about somebody who's King James preferred. I'm talking about people who preach that the King James Bible is the only Bible. All other Bibles are satanic Bibles and perverted Bibles. Okay. Um, so I'm against KJV onlyism, not KJV preferred. Okay. So then, then, then the COVID, you know, during COVID, the news was so bad. I was like, you know, I'm done with Facebook for a while. I'm tired of hearing about how many people died the day of COVID, you know, during the height of the pandemic. And, uh, so I downloaded TikTok and I started making TikToks and then I started making TikToks about the RFP and then things just kind of took off from there. But, uh, so I get in this church and, uh, I, it was a Southern Baptist church that I took because I wanted to pastor Southern Baptist church. Well, James, I'm in this church for four months and something happens on the East coast with the SBC. They're supporting. There was a story about them supporting the building of a mosque. I can't remember all the details, but there were people in that church that then wanted to leave the convention. And I'd only been there four months and I didn't have to pull one way or the other to make them leave the convention or stay in it. Well, you know, they got wind of this story and they wanted to leave the convention. So they voted to pull out of the SBC. So I wanted to get away from an independent Baptist church. Now here I am right back again in an independent Baptist church. Now I say that jokingly. I was just so happy for the opportunity. And listen, they, they, they came to me and they said, well, how are we going to support missions now? I was like, let's have a missions conference because that's what I did in the IFB. And so I started bringing in all these missionaries and we took on a bunch of IFB missionaries. And so, you know, that started to be my first part of the ministry of this church. I was almost trying to go back to what I knew, trying to conform it into an IFB church. And they had contemporary music. They played it on a screen on Sunday morning and that took some getting used to. Um, I went through the music cause they, it was they just played videos and anything that had any kind of beat or drums, I took it off the music list. And so it was two years of some of the most boring worship music you ever heard in your life. And then, like I said, through the Holy spirit reading my Bible, the RFP and for freedom, I began to come around on the music and my wife started wearing pants. started listening to contemporary music and eventually I stopped wearing ties on Sunday morning. I even dropped the King James and started actually preaching out of a different version. But even in this new church, to be honest, that ruffled a few feathers. But listen, for the most part, the six years I had at that church, the church was good to me. They ordained me. I made friends for life there. They helped me through my transition out of IFB. And I am so thankful that I was their pastor for six years. And then, you know, they gave me that opportunity. So the Lord told me it was time to go. And the timing was perfect because I knew it was time to go. And so the Lord opened up the door for me to come here to Rocky Point. And I will honestly say, and listen, I have to brag on my current church. I say this every time I talk about my church, I have never been treated better at any church in my life than I am here at my current church. I mean, they take care of me, my kids, and my family, and my wife. I didn't think it was possible for a church to take care of a pastor that well. When I pulled up to our new home in our U-Haul, church members were there. They put flowers in the garden. They had all this stuff ready. They fed us. The whole church came out. We unloaded the U-Haul in just no time. There were men that actually drove down to Kentwood to help us load our U-Haul. Then the whole church was there to help us unload it. They paid us an easy wage. They paid our rent for six months. They just constantly take care of us. I didn't know it was possible for a church to treat a pastor as good as our church treats us. And I constantly feel like I'm undeserving of it. I'm so grateful and thankful for the people that God has put us here to pastor here at Rocky Point. And I just look forward to the future. I look forward to the future of this church and what we're going to do. Things are happening in our church. We've made some changes. We've tried some new things. And so far, everything new that we've tried has borne fruit. You know, and I look forward to being a part of the Recovering Fundamentalist Podcast Network. I love being here at For Freedom. I'm excited about the For Freedom podcast. I never knew I'd be on it. I listen to it so much. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be on this podcast with you. I'm thankful for what you and John have started. I'm thankful for what JC, Brian, and Nathan are trying to do. You know, when I came out of legalism, man, is what it felt like. It felt like I was on an island. It felt like if I tried to explain to other people what I've been through and what I went through, they would look at me like a calf looking at a new game. They would not understand where I was coming from. And, you know, I just felt like I felt like that coming out of the IFB. Like nobody's going to understand it. Um, I had nowhere to get direction from, advice. And now here I find this whole group of people that's been where I've been. They've seen what I've seen. They've got similar stories to the stories I have. And it means so much to me that there's a community of people that I can share with and that can encourage me. I am all in, all aboard on this mission of recovering fundamentalists, finding freedom in the gospel. You know, and you know, I've been mocked just like a lot of us have. Oh, he's in recovery. You know, uh, but like Nathan said, it's not about us recovering from the fundamentalist, fundamentalism that we grew up in. It's us recovering from actual fundamentalism, like recovering actual fundamentalism. Because I'm still a fundamentalist. I'm just recovering actual fundamentalism from people who've imported tradition over doctrine. Um, they perverted fundamentalism. They met these rules that aren't in the Bible. And it's not about how hard you can preach. And it's not about the rules that you can make up. All these extra biblical rules, no pants on women, no beards on men, ties to church, white dress shirts, King James only, no movie, no movie theater, no Christmas tree, no TV, no superheroes, no secular music, no contemporary Christian music. Wives don't talk back to your husbands, even if they're wrong. All that stuff is nowhere in the Bible. And I'll tell you what I care about these days. All I care about now is what does the Bible say? I am wholeheartedly against preference driven theology. I don't care how your granddad used to do church. I don't care how they did church in the 1950s. I don't care how they did church 20 years ago. All I care about is what does the Bible say? Right. And that's my story. And I'm sticking to it. I love it. So thankful, Brett, for your story. Thankful for you being vulnerable and sharing that. Man, it's a rough road out of legalism. And I'm sure many people can relate to a lot that was said. I know I can. And it takes a lot to be able to share your story. You know, I miss me and John. We used to interview people and have them a story. I miss that so much. If you're listening and you can relate to what Brett has went through and you want to share your story, let us know. Reach out to us. Reach out to me personally. My email is on the website. You can reach out to me on social media. Brett, same thing. You can reach out to him on social media. And we would love to have you come on and share your story out of legalism and the freedom that God has given you through the RFP, through these series of podcasts, podcasts, and, or even just, not even through the RFP. I know other people have, have found freedom in, in podcasts outside of that. And we want you to come on and share your story as well. It's always a standing opportunity for you to help other people. Believe it or not, just you sharing your story. And Brett will find this out after he shared his story. People will relate and people reach out to you because your story resonates with them. And someone's going to listen to it and it's going to help them. And they're going to find help and hope through what you have went through as well. And so thank you, Brett, for doing that. And I pray God that you will allow us to help other people through this as well. So, with that being said, remember the announcements at the beginning. If you've stayed this long, this is one of the longest episodes we've done in a long time. Over 50 minutes. Remember, Israel's coming up. Meetup's coming up and we hope that you'll join us in those as well. So, any final thoughts from you, Brett? I'm just excited about Israel. Please, I want to reiterate, we have spots available. If you have any desire to go, now is the time. We can't wait much longer on trying to get people in for the trip. You got to make sure you got your passport and we need to get your payment in. But listen, it is going to be worth it. You're going to love it. Please, prayerfully consider going because we want, we want to share this with everybody. We want as many people to go as the Lord leads to go. So, if you want to do that, just, just contact us and you can go to, we've got a website. You can go to, you can go to, my, my church's website, Rocky Point Baptist Church. The website is rpbcleak.com and that's L-E-A-K-E and we've got a link to the, I've got a link to the trip website on our church website. And so, go check out the, the trip website, look at the itinerary and you'll be thankful that you went. Absolutely. Until next time, to God be the glory. Found my new name, found that good grace, found that healing, and the tears fell down my face when I found my beginning that has no ending. Found that second chance, found my best friend, found my forgiveness, found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. Found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast. will you?

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