Road To Redemption
Road To Redemption
Pastor Jonathan Howes - Audio Podcast
A humiliating arrest on a college visit. A long drive home with a father’s hard words. And then a student camp where the gospel finally clicked. That sequence didn’t just clean up a teenager’s weekends—it set the course for a pastor, a church plant that grew from a living room to multiple campuses, and a family devoted to helping others meet Jesus in everyday moments.
We sit down with Pastor Jonathan "Pastor J" Howes to trace the arc from party culture to purposeful living. He explains how a single verse—“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation”—became a new identity, and how discipleship through sports gave him a model to follow on ordinary days. We unpack the question so many wrestle with: How do you really know you’re going to heaven? Pastor J lays out a clear, biblically grounded assurance rooted in grace, not a life scorecard, and shows why that security matters for mental health, resilience, and joy.
From there, we get practical. You’ll hear the three pillars that keep faith strong: join a Christ‑centered church, open the Bible daily, and commit to a small group that practices honest accountability. Pastor J shares his group’s “stay in the fire” rule and how simple daily check‑ins keep the flame alive. We also talk about Spiritual Moments, the devotional book he co‑wrote with his wife Jennifer, built to help families reclaim quiet, unhurried conversations around Scripture with icebreakers, short teachings, and prayer prompts. And we end with a challenge from Joshua 3: most moves of God start when we get our feet wet. If you’ve been waiting on certainty, this is your nudge to take the next step—invite, lead, serve—and trust God to meet you in motion.
If this conversation encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a quick review so more people can find the Road to Redemption. Your story might change when your toes hit the water.
For more information contact us at
rtrdestiny@gmail.com
Well, welcome to Road to Redemption. I'm John Martin, your host, and I'm so excited to be with a good longtime friend of mine, Pastor Jonathan Howes.
SPEAKER_00:How are you? I'm great, man. It's awesome to be here, excited about being on the Road to Redemption.
SPEAKER_01:Pastor Jay, as they call you. I love that. That's your kind of your name and your church up there in Georgia, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I do a podcast with David Pollack, and uh he was the one who first started calling me Pastor J. And he and I played church basketball together. So that's kind of how we got to know each other. We played basketball every week. He he's probably the most competitive person I've ever been around. He's calling me after church basketball games, suggesting who should be in the starting lineup, the rotations. But anyway, he started calling me Pastor Jay on the basketball court, and that just that just translated. Now just about everybody at church calls me Pastor Jay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Yeah. That's good. So a little bit, tell us a little bit about you. So you you pastor church up in uh Loganville area of Georgia. That's right, yeah. And what's that called?
SPEAKER_00:So uh Graystone Church. Uh my wife and I started the church 22 years ago. Uh we moved to Grayson, Georgia from Fort Worth, Texas. I had gone to seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, um, at Southwestern Baptist. I was pastoring some churches out in Texas, and then I had some friends who invited us to start a church uh in Grayson, Georgia. So we moved to Grayson, Georgia 2003. And we began the church in our living room with about five families, and so we had um you know 10 to 20 adults in the living room. The kids read the kids' ministries up in my son's bedroom, and uh, and so that that's that's where we began the church 22 years ago. Went from uh our living room to a daycare, from the daycare to a rented warehouse facility, and then we stepped out in faith and bought land and built the building, and and that now we're a multi-site church. We have three different campuses, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:All kind of between Atlanta and Athens, that's right, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so the the main campus is there in Loganville, Gwinnett County. Okay, and we have one in Monroe, which is Walton County, and then we have one in Bogart, which is O'Conee County, which is out about 10 minutes from uh University of Georgia.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. So we we're here in Miramar Beach, Florida, because you you and I are both from Mississippi Gulf Coast. That's how we know each other growing up on the Gulf Coast, and you visit here in uh Miramar Beach. So we're we're we're blessed that we got to have you come in today. Uh but I thought we'd we'd hear a little bit of your testimony. Tell us about your your upbringing and how you came to know Christ.
SPEAKER_00:So I actually grew up unchurched. Uh my dad was a Methodist, my mom was a Baptist. They couldn't agree on what church to go to, so we didn't we didn't go to church growing up. I was really into sports, played tennis tournaments on the weekends, we went fishing on the weekends, slept in on Sundays, and uh we were what you call CEO Christians, you know, Christmas and Easter only. So we always went on Christmas and Easter. Uh my parents had grown up gone grown up going to church. Uh but then we when we moved to Gulfport, Mississippi, when I was uh where you and I knew each other, uh we were invited to go to the local First Baptist Church. And uh so we started visiting First Baptist Church, Gulfport, Mississippi. Uh one Sunday, our whole family walked the eye. We joined the church. My dad, my brother, and I were all baptized that night. Um, but I didn't understand what it was all about. I mean, I had no Bible knowledge whatsoever. But we started going to Sunday school and church every every week. And I was your typical high school kid, as you know, and so you and I were part of a high school fraternity, which is which is crazy. Um, the kind of things we were doing as 15 and 16-year-old kids, it was kind of an animal house type situation. I don't know if you remember the the turbo burp. Yes. Um the guys bought like a car and we cut the top off up. We had the uh Phi Kappa logo and the troll of the seat and the trunk and the the beer tab on the on the hood.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so we were pretty wild in high school. And uh we we partied every Friday and Saturday night. I mean, underage drinking, getting drunk, you know, who you don't want to go to any details there. Uh, but I was in church every Sunday. And so it's like it was like I was living a double life. Like I would go to church on Sundays, but then the other six days of the week, I would do whatever I want to do, kind of kind of kind of living for myself. But I think going to church every Sunday, being in Sunday school every Sunday, I started hearing, I started hearing the Word of God and started being influenced by the messages that I was receiving. And I don't know if you knew this, but uh you're a big part of my testimony because when we were juniors in high school, we went to Ole Miss one weekend. I think it was uh homecoming weekend. I don't know if you remember I saw that we drove up there. Yeah, and the whole way driving to Ole Miss, we were like drinking beer. We had like a 24-pack, 12-pack, 24-pack of beer. We got up there and we were being uh rushed by the fraternities. And so we went at pizza and beer.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I remember.
SPEAKER_00:And then we started going around to the different fraternity houses, and they had drinks and everything, and I was probably 135 pounds at the time. I ended up passing out in in between two fraternity houses. I don't know if you know this, I don't know if you know the story. Yeah, and uh I was arrested for public intoxication, minor on the influence. They call my dad from the Oxford police station, and this is I don't know what time of the night it was, but there was a Sigma Kai, I think his name was Steve Gunn or Scott Gunn. Scott. Scott Gunn. He gets on the phone with my dad and he says, uh, Mr. House, I don't drink. Uh if it's okay with you, I think he said he was a Christian.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Uh if Jonathan could could come home, he could spend the night in my in my room at the Sigma Kai house, he won't have to spend the night in jail. And I remember I went home, spent the night with him. My parents picked me up at 9 a.m. the next morning. And uh, you know, it's a six-hour drive from from Oxford to Gulfport. And so I rode all the way back to my parents, home with my parents. I was sick, we were pulling over, and uh, and my dad said, son, it's like baseball, three strikes and you're out, and this is your third strike. I had gotten caught drinking a couple of times before. So I was grounded on probation and all this kind of stuff. So I promised my mom that summer, summer before my senior in high school, I'd go on the church camp, student ministry, to Ridgecrest, North Carolina. And I went up there and it was Austin Smith and I were like the only seniors. And there were a few girls that they were our age. But it's like I heard the gospel for the very first time that God loved me and had a plan for my life. But I was sinful and separated from God. I knew I was sinful. I mean, I knew I'd made mistakes, and they shared that Jesus Christ that died on the died on the cross for my sins, he paid the penalty for me. And on the third day he rose from the grave. And we too can can rise with Christ if we put our faith in him. And it's like a it's like a light bulb went off in my head that like the gospel finally made sense to me. And it oh, this is why Easter is so important. This is why we went to church on Easter, and so ended up committing my life to Christ uh that week up in Ridgecrest, North Carolina. I probably cried for about two hours afterwards because I was so grateful that God would forgive me. And when I got back, uh, everybody in our student ministry, I was about to go play in a tennis tournament in uh Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and they had gotten together and they'd all wrote me these little notes and put them in cards, and they gave me an envelope for each day of the week, each day, each day of the tournament. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and so on Monday I opened the envelope and it had all these encouraging notes from the kids in the youth group and it had Bible verses. And the first Bible verse that I read was 2 Corinthians 5.17. It says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come. And uh I remember claiming that verse, that was the first verse that I memorized. My old life of sin was gone, my life was changed, and now I'm living this new life in Christ. And so that's that's my testimony of changed life, and and my life pretty pretty much changed from from from that moment on. Almost 40 years now, that I've been walking with God, living for God. Um, it's not doesn't mean I'm perfect, but I am I am heady, I'm on the upward call of Christ, trying to become more like him and trying to grow closer to him uh every day. So that's that's my story.
SPEAKER_01:No, I love it. I I remember that. And and and I think you and I talked before that you know, we really had a divine hedge of protection over us uh when we were younger, you know, with just drinking, doing things we you know shouldn't have been doing in excess, and just we just pray that, you know, over our children because we you know so much we we can teach them the best and teach them about the Bible, but you know, we just we have to pray, and and God definitely had a hedge of protection over over us, and we're thankful for that. And I was gonna say too, you probably won that tennis tournament in Hattiesburg. You you I don't know. This guy was really good. Went on to play college tennis, and just uh we all we all aspired to be Jonathan Howes, and none of us could do it.
SPEAKER_00:What's interesting how got guys used tennis in my life. So a month after I became a Christian, after my life changed, Dean Register was the pastor of our church at First Baptist Gulfport, and his nephew had just come off of a Summer Beach project with Campus Outreach, a guy by the name of Keith Nix. And they said, Hey Keith, you need to meet Jonathan. He's he's a brand new Christian, and uh he's he's he's a tennis player. And so Keith had played tennis at Jacksonville State University. He'd he was about to be a senior, and he and I ended up playing tennis together. I ended up actually beating Keith, and he was a senior in college, and I was gonna be a senior in high school, and Keith started recruiting me to play tennis at Jacksonville State, but he also started discipling me, and so he would send me Bible studies in the mail, books to read in the mail, sort of poured into me, discipling me as a brand new Christian, and he recruited me to come to Jacksonville State to play tennis, but also to be discipled by him. And that had a huge impact on my life because he was a graduate assistant on the tennis team. David Barnett and I were roommates. Yeah, David ended up coming with me. Uh I was able to get him on the tennis team as well. He's a good player. And so uh, but Keith, Keith would spend the night in our dorm room about three nights a week, and he was four years older than us, but he modeled for us what it meant to be a Christian in college. And so he taught me how to have a quiet time and how to pray and how to study the Bible and how to share the gospel, how to how to disciple other people. Like he he invested in me. So having that older Christian to look up to, to be discipled by, to model for us. I even remember when he was dating Kim, his wife now, I mean he modeled for us, you know, what it was like to have a have a Christian dating relationship. And so um tennis played played a big part of a big part of my life, what it got me through college, paid for my college, but also got me to Jacksonville State where Keith discipled me and poured into me.
SPEAKER_01:So that's cool. Jonathan, what one of the things that I've been noticing um just talking to friends, you know, that I have here locally back in Mississippi, about faith and hope, and is I I feel like a lot of folks I talk to, they're not 100% sure they're gonna go to heaven. They they would say they're a Christian, but I'll hear them say a lot of things like, you know, well, I think I think hopefully I've done good enough to get in. I you know, it's kind of like hopefully, you know. I've and I I feel like um I see a lot of you know, somewhat almost works-based that if I can do enough, I can get in. Talk to us a little bit about that. How does someone know for sure they're gonna go to heaven?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think so many people grew up with that works-based mentality, and I and I had the same mentality, like if my goods outweigh my bads, you know, God's gonna let me into heaven. And and even guys that I've been in our church for years and I've discipled for years, they'll say things like, Well, I hope I've done enough to get into heaven. And I explain to them all the time, like you could never do enough to get into heaven. Like, even our righteous acts are like filthy rags to God. Like nothing we do is, you know, we're still impure and unholy, and the only way to heaven is through through God's amazing grace, through faith in Christ. And in 1 John it says that if we have the Son, we have eternal life. If we don't have the Son, we don't have eternal life. And even uh John said, I write these things to you who believe, so that you may know that you have eternal life. Like you can know that you have eternal life, and if you have Jesus, you have eternal life. If you put your faith and put your trust in him. And I think one of the one of str one of the strategies of the enemy, Satan, uh, is for us to doubt our salvation. And one of the armors of God that we put on is the helmet of salvation, is to protect our mind from the doubts. He wants us to doubt our own salvation, but we can be sure that we're going to heaven because we have the Son. And it's been sealed with the Holy Spirit. You know, we have the Holy Spirit in us, which is a deposit guaranteeing our salvation in heaven. And so for me, I always go back to that changed life. Like, has your life changed? Is the old life of sin gone? And are you living a new life in Christ? Because if your life is changed, you're you're a new creation. You know, it's like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. You can't go back to being the caterpillar, like you were your your life is has changed. And so I do think that's something that people struggle with.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, they do. And and also, um in the world we're in today, people have a lot, there's a lot of anxiety, depression, fear. Um the world is a is a treacherous place. And I know everything I read is that God wants us to experience heaven here on earth, or at least some version of it. And and and how do we do that, you know, with all the problems? You know, any any advice on that?
SPEAKER_00:I when you were talking about that, it made me think of John 10 10, where it says the the enemy comes to steal and kill and destroy, but Jesus says, I've come that you may have life and have it to the full. And and the reason that Jesus came, of course, was to die on the cross and and uh and pay for our sins and give us the opportunity to have eternal life. But eternal life begins on earth. Like eternal life is not just living forever, but it's living the highest quality of life. It's living the good life, it's living the best life. And and the life in Christ is so much better than the the life of the world. You know, I wouldn't I would never want to go back to the drinking and the partying, and that life was so empty because it just leaves you wanting for more. You know, you just it might give you a high at first, but then you wake up the next morning and you you just you feel terrible. Where Christ is this this Holy Spirit high, like it's a it's a natural high that that He is He's the well that doesn't run dry. I mean He He it's a fulfilling life and and living for God and being used by God to impact others for for all eternity, to see somebody else's life changed, and God allowed me to play a small part in that. I mean, there's there's no better feeling uh in the world. And so I think uh you know mental health issues, depression, and those those are those are those are real things. Yeah. And I think trying to combat that with being in being in the word of God, replacing the lies of Satan with the truth of God's word, and constantly dwelling on the word of God, thinking about the word of God, praying about things, instead of worrying about things, pray about them, turn them over to God. So but it I think depression, mental health issues, those are those those are real issues that people have these days, for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that kind of ties into our three key pillars that we have for the road to redemption, which is to get into a Christ-centered church, go to church that will bless you, it'll change your life. Find a Christ-centered church in your area and just go, and then get get into the word of God, read the word of God every day. Read your Bible. If you don't have a Bible, get the Bible out. We we promise God will start speaking to you through His Word, and then get into a small group. A group that you can be accountable to, be make yourself vulnerable. It it will bless you in so many ways to get into a small group through your church. And that that brings me to your book. Folks, uh, Jonathan and his wife Jennifer wrote this great book called Spiritual Moments. 52 Devotions for Families, couples, and small groups. Tell us a bit about why you and Jennifer decided to write this book.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it looks like you've been using the book because you got some coffee stains all over the country. We got coffee, but it's blessed. Which is awesome. Well, the way the way that I've grown the most spiritually is through a daily quiet time. I mean, I love I love your three pillars. Christ center church, small group, daily quiet time. And we we talk a lot about that uh at our church and in our small group. I have a group of men that I meet with weekly and disciple and and pour into them, and we we hold each other accountable to that daily walk with God, that quiet time. And one of the sayings that we have in our small group is stay in the fire. And I shared with them an illustration one time, and I don't know if you've heard this illustration before, but that of a campfire. And so a campfire's burning bright, and you take you take a log out of that fire, eventually that log is going to burn out. But if you put that log back in the fire, it's gonna catch fire again. And I've seen so many Christians take themselves out of fellowship, whether they quit coming to church or they quit coming to a small group, and they're not around like-minded people, and it's easy for that flame to burn out. And so we have the saying in our in our small group is stay in the fire. Like stay in fellowship, stay in church, stay in the word of God. And I get a text every day, the guys take a picture of their quiet time and send it to me, and at the bottom will always say, Stay in the fire. And so for Jennifer and I, this was just one way we wanted we wanted to make it super simple and easy for families to have a weekly devotional time. And so it's something you can do just sit sitting around the table, you know, you and your family, starts off with an icebreaker, just some some interesting questions just to get the conversation going. Like this one is about a crawfish bowl, which we love a good we love a good crawfish bowl down the Mississippi Gough Coast. Absolutely. But the icebreaker question is what is your favorite food? Is there a snack that that you can't have just one? Are there certain foods you crave? And so it gets the kids talking, gets them talking around the table, and then we have a teaching moment. We'll we'll share a story, and then it always relates to a biblical truth, and then we have discussion questions just to get the kids talking, get the family talking. And then at the very end, it's just a simple, you know, what do you want to pray about this week? And we try to get different kids to pray, different week, uh different uh times we do the devotion. And then there's six other days that go with the topic, and so it's trying to create, it's trying to build the habit for our kids to have a daily quiet time. And so one is, you know, ideally to have it on a sunny night, have it after dinner, uh, share a meal together, and then have the quiet time or have the devotion together, and then we have the daily verses, and so you can text your kids. Your kids may not be old enough to have their own cell phones, but those who do, you know, we can we can text them the verse of the day and hey, what did you get out of this verse and what what can you learn from it? But we really just it's just a simple book called Spiritual Moments to try to get spiritual conversations going in the family, whether it's in the living room, uh bedtime, around the dinner table, whatever, whatever the case may be. Yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_01:It's a blessed us because it gives it just gives you some structure to get together. For us, it's getting away from the screens, you know, and and and bringing the family together and what we were calling couch time with our family, and to have the icebreaker and just spend some time. You know, we do it in the evening before bed, you know, as a family, is so important because there are just so many distractions out there with mainly the screens these days, is if we can just put those away, folks, and you can read this great book, Spiritual Moments, Jonathan and Jennifer Howes. Really awesome. I'm so thankful that y'all wrote this book. Uh Jonathan, is there anything else that you'd want to share with folks that's on your heart before we go today?
SPEAKER_00:One of the things I I was thinking about uh coming in this morning, I don't know if God just laid it on my heart, but the thought that every great move of God begins with a step of faith. And you go back to Joshua chapter 3, and and Joshua's about to lead the Israelites into the promised land, and that that was the goal to get into the land of Canaan, the promised land. But they have the raging Jordan River in front of them, and and God gives them the instructions for the for the priest to take the Ark of the Covenant, and the priests were to step into the water, and then God was going to perform a miracle. And so they have to take this step of faith. They have to get their get their toes wet. And then once they step into the water, then God does the miracle and he stops up the Jordan River, and about three million people walk over on dry land. And I talk to people all the time who want to do great things for God, they want to have it have an impact for God, and they're waiting on God to do a miracle. And I think God is waiting on them to take that step of faith. And so uh, once the Israelites took that step of faith in the water, then God did the miracle, and then they were able to cross over into the into the promised land. I think so many of us have goals and dreams and visions that we want to be used by God. Well, we have to take that step of faith. And so my my encouragement to people is to take that step of faith. Whatever that step of faith is, just to step out and trust.
SPEAKER_01:Instead of waiting on God to move, you move, you take that step of faith, and then trust God to Yeah, and a lot of that is is with small groups, I think, because a lot of people have thought about starting a small group, but they don't feel qualified. They don't feel like, hey, I'm not a pastor, or I'm a businessman or woman, or mom, or you know, so I think that's kind of an example of something that a lot of people struggle with. They don't feel qualified, but it's these days there's just so many resources to do it. And and and and people are so thankful that people open up their homes or to do that. So we we just encourage people, yeah, like you said, take that step. That's awesome. Yeah, well, it's been good, Jonathan. We're we're gonna go play a little golf now, right? I I know you went from tennis to golf. I couldn't believe when I saw you a few years ago and I said, let's play some tennis. She's like, No, I'm playing more golf now. So golf's his his sport passion now, is that correct?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I I love playing golf. Tent tennis is what I'm good. I'm good at tennis. Um but uh golf's a new challenge for me. I've kind of got kind of got the bug. Love playing. I still play a little little tennis with my daughter and you know, just for fun, but nothing nothing competitive. So I I re when Federer retired, I retired. We kind of retired at the same time from tennis. So but yeah, love love to play golf.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, good. Well, thank you. It's been a lot of fun, and I know this is gonna bless people. Hey, hon honor to be here.