188. The Eric Capaci Interview - Part 1

Welcome back everyone to the For Freedom Podcast. What an amazing last couple weeks has been. We have been overwhelmed with the excitement of our new box, our For Freedom Experience box, with our soap from Angela there in Tennessee, our Coffee with a Purpose and a Story, helping our church planters in Nicaragua, and then our fourth sampler pack of cigars. Thank you for ordering those. Again, the first five that ordered are going to receive the free book that me and John recently came out with, and so we're excited about getting those in your hands. And we are excited about what we have coming up. I want to just give a short, brief intro. This week and next week, a two-part episode interview with Eric Capace, my pastor growing up in college. During my college experience there, this is my wife's pastor, who reached her while he was in ministry there, serving in Arkansas when he planted the church and still is there. And I would not be where I'm at today if not for Eric Capace and his vision and his love for me and for my wife's family and for her. And so this interview, it's going to be a two-part interview. This week will be about an hour long, and then we've asked Eric nine questions, and then next week we're asking him nine more questions. And so it's another about an hour long as well. So about a two-hour interview. We want to break it up just so you can have time to digest both of them. We'll be dropping some clips over the next couple of days of some of those interviews. You can find those on social media, and you can share those. But we appreciate all of our listeners. We thank you for your time and investment in our ministry and what we're able to do here with the For Freedom podcast. We want to drive people to Scripture. We want them to see the freedom that they can experience through Galatians 5.1 and understanding that Christ has set us free not to be under the yoke of bondage any longer. And so we are so thankful for you. As always, if this episode or any of our episodes has encouraged you, we encourage you to go and give us a rating and a review on iTunes, share it on your social media platforms, help get the word out about what we're doing. And we hope that this will continue to be a blessing to you. Looking forward to the rest of the season as we dive deep into a couple of other figures this week, this year, by the end of the year. And we hope you enjoy today's episode with our interview with Dr. Eric Capaci. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Welcome to the For Freedom podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness, washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man-made code. Blood bought my freedom, now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing, that's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with saints. Sipping grace from the bottle, no room for fakes. I light one for liberty, toast to the king. Every ash a sermon, death has lost its sting. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Now here are your hosts, James Saifert and Bretton. Well, we're excited to have Eric Capace here with us today. And my former pastor from when I was in Arkansas, my wife grew up in the church there where he was at. Or is that, not was that. And I went to college there and been excited to have him on for a while. And so, Bret, welcome to the podcast. And Bret, Eric, not your brother, sorry. Welcome, welcome to the podcast. And we're going to start at the beginning, jump right in. Some of our listeners may know who you are, may not know who you are. Tell us a bit about your upbringing, your early life, and your spiritual formation growing up in church and what that looked like. Absolutely. First of all, James, Bret, thank you for having me on the For Freedom podcast. It's an honor. I really mean that. Of course, I have a lot of respect and love and memories from our time together, James. And I love it when we get to see each other. I'm fortunate enough to have some of your family living in Hot Springs. So that's a free ticket for me to always rekindle our friendship. But it's not really rekindling. It's just a continuation. So thank you so much. Yes. Well, I was, and I'll share this just totally transparent. As expected, I'm sure. But I fortunately, in my story, grew up as a Roman Catholic. In my early childhood, my parents, who were devoted Catholics, devoted Catholics, I'm sorry, they got divorced when I was very young. My brother and I were very young. I was probably three. My brother was one. And of course, that's anathema in the Catholic Church. To do that would almost mean to be excommunicated from the church. And when you grow up in New Orleans, Louisiana, as a Roman Catholic. Now, notice I didn't say Catholic. I said a Roman Catholic because that is the true religious way to say it. So we grew up and our dad was somewhat excommunicated. So to get back in the church, he got his marriage annulled, which means kind of as if he was never married in the first place. And so our upbringing was solid, but obviously in a split home. And so I served, I got to visit my dad every other weekend. And fortunately, my parents were very, they loved us a lot. And if there was any divorce done right, it was my mom and dad's. And so I was blessed to not really know, you know, the fighting and feuding and chaos that sometimes can obviously be in a divorce situation. But I tell you what, I did grow up as a devout Catholic. And so my life was serving in the Catholic Church up until the age of 13 as a, as the altar boy. So, you know, it's not uncommon for me to, to visit the, the priest and about a monthly basis. And I still remember the prayer as I knelt and genuflected in that little box. Forgive me, father, I have sinned. My last confession was, and then I would tell him what my last confession was, confess all my sins and walk out of that little booth thinking, I'm, I'm okay until I sin the next time. And of course that didn't take long. So that was kind of my upbringing. That was my religious upbringing. And I'm, I'm grateful that I, I at least had a context for who Jesus was in that sense, but not, not what salvation was. So that's my, that's my upbringing in short form. Good, good. Now, and my first experience was I'm a student at Howell's Anderson college. And this guy gets up to preach chapel. And in it, he tells a story about him going through the projects, not wearing his tie. And he goes to get jumped. And so he pulls. And then he's. Of his pants. And it's, Oh, you're with the church. You should have told us, man. So that was kind of my first introduction to you. So let's lead that into the next question. What led you to choose Howell's Anderson college for your ministry training? For influences, mentors that helped shape that decision. Just, just, just tell us about your time there. Yes. So for me, you know, I was saved at age 13 in an independent fundamental Baptist church. It was a radical transformation of my life. I'll forever be grateful for Glenn Riggs who preached the gospel that day. And, uh, and I, I ran down that aisle and got saved. And it was, that was my last after that. I, I never, I should say never. I mean, I, I, I did not frequent the Catholic church anymore. I was radically changed. Not that a Catholic can't be saved. They can be saved. And my dad was, was a born again Catholic, but I, I, uh, I was grateful for that. So my, my influence for the first eight, uh, five, six years of my Christian life was a man by the name of Glenn Riggs. And I, I would want to say, I think he's 80 years old now, still pastoring in Florida. I would want Dr. Riggs to know how grateful I am that he was faithful to preach the gospel that day, introduced me to a gospel. I had never heard, uh, by grace through faith. I had never, ever heard, uh, that, that gospel preach. And so I'm grateful that I'm saved. He became the influence in my life because Jack Hiles would come and preach at what was then called the hot Springs Baptist temple every single year. And the auditorium was full standing room only. And I became enthralled with his style, his motivation. Uh, he was very attractive as a, as a public speaker told great stories, obviously respectfully, I would say this now I'm careful how I look at my past. I try not to curse my past and be real critical and cynical about it. I mean, I could, but I choose not to, because I know I'm who I am today, largely as a result of, of the influence of these men, even though many of them today, uh, have been exposed as, as different things. But I really do appreciate Dr. Riggs and his faithfulness. And of course, having zealous preachers in the pulpit at that time. So, uh, I was influenced by Dr. Riggs and Dr. Hiles. And so when it came time for me to choose where I'm going to go, uh, and again, I'm, I'm giving you answers as I would if in real time, as if I was back there, not, not in light of what I know now that that was my decision. I did not know there was another decision. I didn't know there was another college out there. I had no clue. I thought if you're a preacher boy and I was called to preach at age 15, uh, in a, in a, in a Wednesday night church service, uh, if you're a preacher boy, it's where you go. That's the, that's the college for preacher boys. You know, for all I knew, everybody went there except for Catholics, you know? So, uh, I was drawn to go there, went there and, um, I'll answer that and see if there's any other questions off of that, that I need to address. Yeah, I think it's great. And I think that, uh, as we often say on the podcast, we never want to trash our heritage because one of the things that we know and respect about the independent fundamental Baptist that we came out of was they taught us to love the Bible. Yep. They love people and they taught us how to do ministry. And that's one of the things that I hear often, even at the convention, they'll say, you know, some of our best Southern Baptist pastors are independent trained guys because they taught them how to do ministry. We taught them theology and we teach them theology well, but we don't teach how to practically do ministry in an everyday world. And that's one of the things that I appreciate from champion in my time there. And, you know, in my time I had hundreds of colleges to choose from, you know, West coast, golden state, uh, there's a college up in, up in, it wasn't housed, but it was another church up there in the Northern Northeastern part, uh, champion. There was a couple of different places I was looking around, crown, round. And so there were all these other places that we were looking at and going. Um, and so those formidable years in ministry definitely make us who we are today. Um, and, and how we serve and how we do things. That was where transition and ask about your calling in the ministry or called to be a pastor at 15. And, uh, I know a lot of these answers. And so I'm just sort of reliving a lot of these college stories that I heard. Uh, so, so what made you feel called to plant a church because you planted a church and in hot springs, what made you choose hot springs? And, um, I know there were some other places and some other things, what, 33 years ago. Now you, you plan the gospel. You just celebrated our 33rd anniversary two weeks ago. So, so tell us about that. How, what was the, the driving force behind starting the college of the church here in hot springs? Yep. So I'm in California. I graduated from house Anderson with my master's degree in education. Well, bachelor's in pastoral ministry, and then a master's in education, went out to California, served under the ministry of Roland Rasmussen and my wife's home church. And so we're there and we're, we're tearing it up. I mean, you talk about some stories and some memories and wow, man, I, there's a lot to tell about my experience there and mostly good. I'd love that we saw youth group go from one and I'm not exaggerating one to 150. And it was, uh, uh, we, we had what I believe to be still at age, 60 years old, 33 years in ministry as a pastor. I don't know that I've ever experienced a revival like I did in those two years as a youth. It was just fascinating. So I'm there, but I'm realizing, and this is critical. I think this is a, I think this would be good for our listeners to hear. I'm, I'm realizing that my vision and my zeal is, is conflicting with the pastors. Not now I wasn't disrespecting him. Look, he's paying my salary. I mean, I needed to get in line with his vision. And so I'm, I took him out and said, you know, pastor Rasmussen, I'm, I'm struggling, uh, with the philosophy of, of this ministry. It was very heavily Christian school, uh, had a football team that had a budget of, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say this. I don't think I am. I hope I'm not had a budget for the football team of a hundred thousand dollars a year. Of course, football is an expensive sport, but, uh, my youth budget was about 2000 for the year. So I had spent $10,000. I was 8,000 over budget. Um, which is, I know not good. Okay. I get it, but, uh, I did it because I thought good night. If they were going to spend a hundred thousand on football, I'm spending 10,000 on teenagers. And I got called to the carpet and, uh, and I should have been. And, uh, and I told him, I said, pastor, I said, I just, I realized I should have used more discretion, but my, I just don't know that I can continue to stay here. If philosophically it's more about football than it is about, and I love football. I go to every game. I love it. But I said, it's, I just don't, I don't see how we're lining up here. And I don't want to stay and be a hindrance to you. He said, Eric, you're not a hindrance. You're, you're doing great. You're growing the ministry. We need you here. And so I tried to stay, but I, I just was struggling. I get a phone call. So here's the answer to the question, but I wanted to give you that context. I was struggling. I really was not, not in being successful as a youth pastor, but struggling with lining up with the, the, the ministry there. So a guy calls me from hot springs. His name's Bud Kaufman. Bud was a part of about 12 people who had, were in hot springs, who, who knew me when I was a young kid. That's all they knew. They had seen me in a decade, but they knew me as this young, fired up kid in hot springs that got saved and, and left. And went to Bible college. And now I'm out in California. I'm a married man. I got a kid. And he said to Eric, we're struggling. He had left the independent Baptist church that we got saved in, which by now had been obliterated. And again, respectfully, like a lot of independent Baptist churches have experienced obliteration because of the church model. The, uh, you know, the, the pastor kind of, you know, having a, uh, low accountability, um, theology being weak, all these things. And so our, the church I got saved in was obliterated. And it was down to like 10 people. And, and they were just trying to find out where they were going to go. So he said, Eric, would you pray about coming to hot springs and starting a church? Well, my desire was to go to new Orleans and to plant a church in my hometown. I mean, I, that's all I could think about. I ate, slept and drank new Orleans. I mean, I could show you Bibles that I have with pictures of the superdome. And as a young, zealous kid, I mean, every young preacher boys thinks he's the next Charles Spurgeon. Right. So I'm, I, my, my church is going to be inside the superdome. I'm going to be the pastor of the superdome church. I mean, it, and, but God, that phone call shook me. I thought, man, I, you know, is this something I should consider? And so my wife and I began to pray. I went and talked to the pastor again, still just saw that I am just long-term. I'm not going to be, to be able to help this man and be honest in what I'm doing. And so I, I stepped down and we drove to hot springs, Arkansas with $1,500 in our pocket. I mean, well, actually 3000 because I sold a condo that I had there lost $30,000 because the economy was absolutely rock bottom when I moved in 88 or 90. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. No, uh, came to California in 90, left in 92, came out to Arkansas and, uh, we, uh, planted this, this church. Uh, but that's the story. It was a phone call from a guy that became a deacon in our church. And, uh, here I am 33 years later, still love the inner city. I mean, if I go on a vacation, it's going to be with 30 million people. I'm a city guy. I'm a city slicker. I love big cities, but I am in Arkansas in a smaller town, but I am so excited about, uh, you know, what, what's happening here and what we've seen happen, uh, in, in church planting out of our church. So it's exciting. Uh, I visited gospel light a few times. You said they had a girl from there. I've got several of the other people who grew up with me in church who, who went to champion. And I'm just curious, Eric, those early. Why? What was that like? A moment that you can just share with us about those early stages of gospel light. Yes, yes, yes. You broke up just a little bit there, but I think I got the question. What was it like, uh, in the early days of gospel light? It was, oh man, listen, church planting and pioneering. There's absolutely nothing that can even come close to it. There's nothing that, that, that has excited me more. And still to this day, at the end of our conversation, I'll be able to share a little bit about that. But, uh, man, I, I had the time of my life. We, we came here by faith, had nothing. I mean, we lived in the middle of, uh, of, uh, of the woods and I'm not a country guy. I mean, I am the exact opposite of what it looks like to live in the country, but we moved where there was ticks and fleas and, and trees. And, uh, it was insane. My $350 was my rent. My brother lived in one room. I lived in one room and, uh, with our wives and we, our two little babies lived in the other room. And we just absolutely lived by faith in a way that I don't think I I've ever lived again. I mean, I, I oftentimes find myself in a place at 30, 33 years in with saying, praying this prayer, listen closely. God, give me the faith of a 27 year old kid who had nothing, but had everything. You know, now, you know, if the offerings are a little low or things are a little tight, I tend to wonder, is God going to come through? And yet when we came to hot springs and, and had no church building and I, I went to a bank, tried to borrow $50,000 to buy a church. That was a little storefront building. The banker told me I was crazy. He said, do you have a job? I said, no, but I know God, God can provide. He said, well, that's not how it works in the banking world. You, you got to have collateral. You got to have at least a co-signer. I said, what's that? He said, that's somebody that that'll sign and make good for your loan. I said, well, if I bring a co-signer back, will you give me 50,000? He said, I, you bet I will. But do you know anybody? I said, no, I really don't. But I said, I'll find somebody. I went out, knocked on doors, found a rich neighborhood, knocked on the door. I'm telling you this story fast. Knocked on the door. Guy answers the door. I said, listen, I'm starting a church in Hot Springs, Arkansas. I'd like to invite you to come. He said, all right. Well, if you got the guts to knock on my door, I'll come. When's your first service? I said, June, June 5th or June 7th. He said, all right, I'll be there. I said, I got one more question. He said, what's that? I said, listen, I need to borrow $50,000 from the bank. And I don't have any money and I don't have any collateral. But I'm looking for a co-signer. I said, you got a nice house. You drive a Lincoln Continental. And I'm kind of thinking maybe you could sign for this and we could get the money. He said, are you kidding me? You're asking me to come to your church and then sign a loan for you to buy? I said, well, yeah, that's what I'm asking. And he said, son, you got the guts of a high diver. He said, any kid that's got guts enough to ask a total stranger to co-sign a bill is going to do something. He said, let's go. We go to the bank. He co-signs. We get the money. He joined the church and he died about seven years ago. He was a member for over 25 years. That kind of faith is the kind of faith that I wish I had now. And at times I do, but to be honest, I fall short of that, just that, you know, I'll walk on glass to preach the gospel. Sometimes I need that faith again. So anyway, I hope that helped answer your question. Yeah. And now you've named the building after him, Cliff Kaufman. And yeah, it's just a great story. And still, I don't think that I would ever have the guts to do that. That would be insane. And it is. It was. Yeah. There's tons of stories that we could tell. And for sake of time, we won't go through that. Maybe that'll be another story for another time. But you said that when you were going to Hiles, one of the things that when you went there was that was the only college that you knew about. So now fast forward, this would have been 20 something years ago now, or the college started, the campus started in 03, 04. 04 is the Bible Institute. Okay. So five was the college. So 21 years ago, you start the champion. You start the college, the Institute. What was the drive, the lead? I mean, there was some other colleges that were out there. You've got Crown. You've got Lee Robertson. You've got some other colleges that are doing things. You've got Pensacola. Liberty started up with Jerry Falwell. Why champion? Why then? Why now? What was the reason that inspired you to start it? Yeah. Great question, James. You know, you're right. There was a lot of colleges out there. And we supported many of those. I mean, it's in a sense that we had students going to all of those colleges, even Liberty at the time. Although at the time, as you know, we would not have been a massive proponent of anything but an independent kind of a local church college. But we still had one or two at Liberty. We had several at Golden State, a couple at Crown, some at West Coast. Of course, quite a few at High House. But this is the answer to your question. I'm pastoring in Hot Springs. It's about 2003 at this time when God laid this on my heart. Church is exploding. We're running, you know, 12, 13, 1400, a small town. We've got a big bus ministry. And honestly, it was phenomenal. It really was. I look back on those days, like I'm experiencing now, another phenomenon of growth. And the Lord said, Eric, you need to teach young men what you've learned about building a church from scratch, about planting a church and growing a church and in a small, smaller community. There's something you can teach. And I said, really? Lord, do you really want me to do that? How? He said, and when I say he said, you know, I'm talking as if he's, you know, it's a conversation, but sometimes I feel like it is. And he said, yes, I think the way to do that would be to start a college. So that's where it started. I began to talk to people, counsel with deacons and friends and other people. And then we decided we're going to do this. I'll tell you this quick little story. So we decided we're going to start this college. So I got 10 people very close to me, including my brother and his wife. And I said, let's meet in a room. So everybody bring the name that you would like to call this Bible college. Everybody bring a name. Don't write your name. Don't let us know you were the one that brought it. Just write a name on a piece of paper. Let's have pizza. And let's vote on this name. So we get some pizza in. We meet in a room. Everybody brings their name. Put it in a hat. So I just start pulling them out one by one and saying, if you vote for this name, you know, raise your hand. And I read them all first, then we went back and voted. And my sister-in-law, Cindy Capace, Brett's wife, put champion. And she got all 10 votes. We all voted. I don't know what I put in. I don't remember. I didn't put champion in. That was my follow-up question. What was your name? What did you put in? Honestly, I don't. Probably something like freedom or something. I don't know. Who knows? I probably put something patriarchal. I don't have any clue. But I know when I said the word champion, my reaction, along with everybody else's, was, that's it. So it became champion, Christian. But it really was birthed from a prayer time with God that had this conversation of, teach what you've done. You've got a DNA here that I think could be valuable to some people that need the energy and the excitement of church building. So that's how it started. Well, whenever you first started the college, I'm sure you had a vision for the college. My question is, how was that? Describe that vision and then how that vision has changed over the years to where you are now. Great question, Brett. Yeah. So the vision for the college when we started was obviously very much influenced by my independent Baptist heritage. It would have been, you know, it's all about the local church. And again, it is still all about the local church. As a Southern Baptist, as you well know, they are, in my opinion, they're more not only biblical, but more strong on autonomy and on independent than we were. You know, so I am more independent than I've ever been as a Southern Baptist. But it was heavily influenced by that, which means our vision would have been, you know, as we accepted students, there was a stereotype. James would know. I mean, you had to be a Christian. Now, we had some rebels in the school. I mean, James could tell you, but they came in with either lying to us or I say that tongue in cheek, but we were accepting only Christian kids from independent Baptist churches that would have had to agree with things like, you know, all the girls who were in dresses were King James only. And we were never, and I think James would attest to this. We were never, even though that's who we were, we were never so dogmatic on it and ugly about it. Now, we had some staff that were, we had some, and that was my fault. I, I did bring in some people who did not have my spirit and it hurt us bad because people, students like James might even come into my office and say, I'm not sure I understand, Eric, you don't seem to be this way, but I just heard this in a class, you know, and I'm like, well, and I had to kind of massage that all the time. It was so frustrating because I knew I, I was these things. I knew this is all I knew, but I knew the spirit of it was ugly and I couldn't find that in scripture. And that, and I struggled with that all my independent Baptist day. Honestly, I, I struggled with the spirit of fundamentalism more than I did fundamentalism. I mean, like I honestly, in many ways, enjoyed being conservative and being, you know, and, and I had no problem with not going to movies. It wasn't to me. Hey, not the end of the world. I'll go to movies. No big deal. Right. I mean, it's just my, my preference. But when people would say, if you do go to movies, you're, you're hell bent for, for hell with no, no, no hope of heaven. I thought, oh man, that's ugly. That, that doesn't make sense to me. So to answer your question, I, I think because in, in my spirit, my spirit, never, ever, I never drank the Kool-Aid. That's the best way I can say it to you, Brett. I never drank the Kool-Aid. I was independent. I was fundamental. I liked it slash loved it, but man, I, I just, I, I never could understand the spirit of it. So I began to make changes and these changes that I was making began with things like, I'm going to be silly. I'm going to be silly. Things like not wearing a tie. That was big to fundamentalism. I mean, especially if you're Hiles Anderson, I mean, you take your tie off, you are heading for Rick Warren-ism, you know, you're just destined to go there. Um, things like, okay, we're not going to have a Wednesday night traditional Bible study, or we're not going to have Sunday night church. Now, bear in mind, and I'll answer this question if you ask it, but this was not a decision I made immediately. This was a five-year transition. And I'll talk about this based on some of the questions I know you're going to ask, but I'll touch on it now. So as we transitioned, Brett, into who we are today, it was about a five-year period. And, and I say this, not, not for anybody that's listening to, to feel sorry for me. It's my story. And, and it, it, it is what it is. And I have no regrets, but I pretty much lost every influential friend I had in fundamentalism. I mean, I, I mean, every, every single one, I mean, I, if it weren't for guys like James Saifert, who said, I'm not going to, I'm going to be your friend. You know, it was only the young guys. It was the young guys that I think appreciated what I was doing. And even if some of them didn't agree with it or were slow to come around or had other pastors speaking into there, like, be careful. Watch out, Eric, he's going sideways. Be careful. And of course, a lot of them left. James didn't. And I'm grateful. But, uh, so I found myself alone, very alone. I wasn't depressed. I'm not that kind of person, not my personality, but I was very alone. And I reached, I went to an Adrian Rogers, uh, seminar in Sevierville, Tennessee. Changed my life. Changed my life. I mean, I used to pay 30 bucks to go to pastor school for a week. 30 bucks was the registration fee. This was $600. I mean, I put it on a credit card. I had $600. I'm an independent. I'm going to make it $24,000 a year as a pastor. And that's, you're overpaid if you're making $24,000 a year. So I'm making $24,000. I put it on my credit card, went and heard Adrian Rogers say things I had never heard before. Now, let me give you this little insight. It did help that Adrian preached out of the King James, oddly enough. Now, he wasn't King James only, but, but he, so that helped me. It was like, God gave me the perfect person to influence me to understand that, Eric, there's another world out there. These people love Jesus as much or more than you do. Then I went to Jim Cimbala's Tuesday night prayer meeting at the Brooklyn Tabernacle in New York by myself. Cool story. So I get to New York. Nobody knows about my wife. Nobody knows about my wife. And I'm going to New York because I've got to find out what, what, what this is all about. What this, what, what this idea of praise and worship and prayer. And, you know, is there a balance of emotionalism and worship in, in, in, in a, in a church? And so I get out there. This is so fun. I don't think I've told this, but once or twice, James, you may have never heard this part. So I know you've heard my Jim Cimbala story, but so I get there. I'm in a Marriott hotel and I'm about to go to the prayer meeting. I'm in the, I'm in a elevator. Okay. We're going, I'm going down. A guy walks, the elevator stops on a certain floor. A guy walks in. So, you know me, I'm, I'm friendly. I'm like, Hey, brother, how you doing, man? What's your name? He tells me his name. I said, my name's Eric. Because what's your force? Well, I'm actually, I'm here. I'm going to Brooklyn Tabernacle tonight to a prayer meeting. He goes, me too. I go, great. Hey, yeah, that's cool. You know, he goes, well, where are you from? I said, hot springs. I said, uh, he goes, you look like a guy named Erica pace. I said, I am Erica pace. He said, man, I'm an independent Baptist preacher from South Carolina. Cause you don't know me, but I've heard you preach, but I'm here to find out if this thing is real. And I go, me too. I go, you want to go together? So I literally go with this guy that I met in an elevator that I'd never known before. That was there for the same reason. I was there that knew me, but I didn't know. We go to the meeting that night. We are both slammed by the Holy spirit. I mean, not slain. Okay. I get it. We've got to be careful. I always say things, but I was taken by the Holy spirit. For the first time in my life, I raised my hands in worship. I was prayed over. Uh, and I just, I was just changed. And I came back and I told my wife when I got back, honey, there's no turning back. I'm, I'm, I'm all in for Jesus. I'm following Jesus. If it costs me everything, I can't live this way anymore. I'm a phony. I'm a fake. I've, I've, I've seen the real thing. It's not that I want to curse my past. It's not that I don't believe that I was taught some really, really good things, but I said, we are now in a movement that is, is going to die. It has no chance of survival. It's not, it's not going to make it. And we've got to get biblical. I don't know what that looks like. She was scared half to death. She'll tell you that she, she, she was freaking out. She didn't know what this was going to look like and I didn't either, but that's my story. I hope that answered your question. Yeah. I remember I've been to Brooklyn tabernacle one time and when I went same way, it changed my life. I went in 2019 and took a mission group up there and I said, Hey, we're going to go to a service while we're up here. What better service to go to? I've read all the Jim's books. I've read, I've read all the stuff that he's talking about. I'm going to go experience it. And it was, it was like experience in heaven and what it was going to be like. With, I don't know how they did it. Every, I hear that every Tuesday night's different. And so they had like everyone praying their own language while we were there. And so there's like 17 different languages going on. And I'm like, this is amazing. This is incredible. You know what? Hey, what's funny about that is I've read all of his books too, but wouldn't you say, James, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I've read them all, but there's still the classic is fresh wind, fresh fire. Absolutely. Yeah. It's the class. It's the one that, once you read that one. Yeah. Now, one thing that you said that I want to hit back on before we get to this eighth question that we're going to talk about, and then we're going to jump into leaving the IFB and what that looked like, because I think it's going to help some people talk to it. One of the things in college that I experienced that, and I think I was one of the guys that sat down in your, in your office one day, because we were out and we were riding in your truck and you were playing K-Love on your car and we're listening to worship music. And I just remember thinking, if I were to listen to this in college, I would get in trouble. I would get fined. I would get the merits. I would get, you know, campus, all these things. But hey, Eric's listening to it. Like the pastor of the college is listening to it. I can listen to it. The next day in chapel, someone was there, Tony Hudson, Tony Shirley, someone. Yeah. And they were preaching against contemporary music. And I remember thinking, hold on, this isn't right. Like they're preaching against what, what the pastor's talking to, what he's listening to. So I went to you and I'm like, Hey, Eric, listen, in college, they're preaching against what you were doing. Like, I'm concerned about you. Like what's going on here. And you were just trying to manage that a little bit. And so that was one of those situations that, that you were talking about. There's that clashing of trying to figure out bringing people in to lead on staff, but necessarily didn't line up where, where your vision was for the college. Yeah. It was tough. Yeah. So where do you see, and this sort of curtailing with, with your time at house, with your time at champion and, and all these things, the relationship between the local church and Christian higher education. Some people would say, Hey, if I go back, maybe. So for instance, my, I grew up at gospel light in Salisbury. We had a college that started for one year in 1993 was the first year of it. That year, the church burnt down. And they didn't restart the college. They shut the school down. They replanted the church into another location, the school or another location in town. And just really restarted the church. So is Christian higher education a part of the church? Is it not a lot of, you know, PCC, it's a separate entity, Liberty. It's a separate entity. Like where, where do you see the local education of the higher education of college ministry and the local church? Great question. Yeah. Well, again, I think there is a model that is, uh, probably not just independent Baptist. I think that this would probably be missionary Baptist as well. There's quite a few, uh, models out there, if you will, that have been structured to where the college, like ours was initially, right? Birthed out of the church. And it's a ministry of the church. It's not got a separate 501c3 tax ID. All that's the same because it is a ministry of the church. Um, we realized, and this was tough because the board of our, of our college at that time was our deacon board. And it was when we decided to transition, um, I realized, okay, I've got to get a board now because to get accredited, to become a, uh, an accredited college, we're going to have to form a board. It's very risky because they could vote me out. I'm not a member of the board. I mean, the way you structure the board, I'm, I'm just an employee. I'm the, the board is my boss. It was one of the most, I think one of the most, I'll say it kind of funny, courageous things I've ever done. Cause I mean, this was my baby and I realized, Eric, you know, this is the right thing to do. This is to, to become an accredited institution is going to help you to, to help your students to have something more than just a piece of paper. Now I'm answering that. I'm saying that even though it doesn't quite answer your question, I will say this, that I do believe it is very healthy for champion to have a local church on its property, but we are two separate institutions like Thomas road is from Liberty, but I love that model. I think the fact that Thomas road is on the campus of Liberty, that gospel light is on the campus of champion, that there is such value in that. And there is a connection. In fact, every, every college that has ever been a Christian college was formed and birthed from a denomination and or a church. So I do believe that the healthiest and, and, and strongest and, and even I'll say best colleges have a local church connection. Do I think it's necessary? No, I, I don't think it's for every church. I, I, I, but I do believe that there is, when I sell champion today, even though I let them know they don't have to go to gospel light, it's not a requirement. They do not, they could go to any church in town, but the fact that there's a church on campus says a lot about who we are. And so I'm, I'm, of course we have a Christian school too. I would be a little more radical about the Christian school. Cause I, I am a proponent of Christian education, although I don't, I've never preached a sermon. Against homeschool, public school, one room school. I've never, it never will, by the way, I think it's a parental decision. It's up to the authority of a parent to make that decision for their child. But convictionally, I would not have sent my kids to a public school convict, but I would, it's kind of like, you know, the difference between being King James only and saying, I use the King James, you know what I mean? I'm so, and I don't anymore, not just FYI, but all that to say, I hope that answered your question, but I don't, I, I feel like Christian education, it's important that there is a connection to either a denomination or a church. For instance, we went to, I went to Ronnie, see Ronnie Floyd up there at Cross Church in, in, in Rogers. And I asked Ronnie, I said, well, Dr. Floyd is what I call it. I said, Dr. Floyd, do you think I should attempt to make champion a Southern Baptist college? And his answer was this. He said, Eric, he said, I'd wait till you're bigger. He said, you're still small. We've got Wachita. We've got Williams in Arkansas. He said, I think you probably should one day attempt to present yourself as a candidate for an SBC college. There's a lot of money in it. There's a lot of support. There's a lot of great things about it. There's some negative things about it. There's some other things that you probably don't want to, maybe you won't want to do it. But he said, the advantage is the fact that there is a, a, there should be at least. And for most colleges, and I heard there was some good things that happened at the convention this year with the seminaries that was, that, that gave us more. I wasn't there, James, you can speak to that later, but, uh, so I hope I've answered your question, but I do think that there is a, a, a, a positive, uh, characteristic of, of, of colleges that are attached to churches. Yeah, I can agree with that. And I, I, um, you know, I didn't know any other colleges. I was, our, our independent battery church was, was very isolated. We knew Bobby Robertson. That was about it. Right. And so when coming to champion, it, it gave me a vision for what church could be in a bigger, grander scale than what I could ever imagine. And I think Brett can attest to that. And he's talked about it with, with house as well. And even try state of, of being attached. You get to see that personal connectiveness of what college and church ministry and what ministry looks like on the ground level. Um, you know, starting a Saturday Bible club for teenagers with next generation. But we started there, you know, for a year and a half, um, and seeing teenagers from the communities come and having church with us and meeting at a basketball court, meeting in the youth center. Like it was just, it was things that we could do that we wouldn't be able to do without the support of having a local church there. And me personally, I met my wife at champion. And so, uh, through gospel, he was a member of gospel. Yeah. Yeah. So, so that was, that was a big plus there. So there's a lot of things I could say about that. Even hearing you talking, there's so many things that, that come to mind now about you, even, even on another note, the fact that when a, when a college has a church, there is, there's an accountability. I'm telling you, it has helped us, even though we are quote unquote, you know, because we're accredited, some people would look at us as more liberal or, you know, our, our student body isn't as spiritual, not full with a bunch of preachers, but these kids, man, they are hearing the gospel every week, either in chapel or in church. Many of them get saved and baptized throughout the school year. It's exciting. And so I'm convinced that if we did not have gospel light, I don't, I think champion would be off the rails now, but I think it, there's been a level of accountability as well. I 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. I found that second chance, found my best friend, found my forgiveness, found my happiness. I've been singing ever since, I found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. 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