Mavericks on the Mic
Mavericks move differently. They are known for disrupting the status quo and rewriting the script. Mavericks on the Mic uncovers the “Maverick Moments” that have shaped the lives of our guests. From personal stories of risk, unexpected pivots to moments of faith and resilience, these stories will inspire you to see your own Maverick Moment — the one that changed everything, even if no one else knows about it.
Mavericks on the Mic
Dr Jackie Greene: Called by God, Not by Culture
Dr. Jackie Greene isn’t asking for permission—she’s letting us know that God has already given it.
As a preacher, teacher, and founder of Permission Room, she has been called to equip women to step fully into who they already are in Christ. Not later. Not once they’ve perfected it. Now.
In this episode of Mavericks on the Mic, we sit down with Dr. Jackie for a powerful conversation about spiritual identity, leadership, and the cost of becoming whole in a world that keeps trying to shrink you.
This is not about titles. It’s about authority.
It’s not about roles. It’s about revelation.
And it’s not about balance—it’s about alignment.
We talk through:
🎙️What it really means to walk in wholeness
🎙️Why obedience will always feel heavier than people expect
🎙️ Leading in male-dominated spaces without apologizing for your call
🎙️Performance-based Christianity vs actual intimacy with God
🎙️ The moment God told her: “You don’t need permission to be who I called”
This conversation is an activation for every person who's been holding back.
You don’t need permission to be powerful.
But if you’ve been waiting for it—here it is.
Chapter Markers
00:00 – Intro: Dr. Jackie Greene Joins Mavericks on the Mic
02:15 – Leading Beside a Giant: What It Means to Be Jackie Greene
05:45 – Identity Outside of Titles: Woman First, Before Any Role
09:30 – The Cost of Leading Well in Public and Private
13:12 – Surrendering to the Process When You Don’t Like the Pace
17:45 – Why Spiritual Discipline ≠ Spiritual Identity
21:08 – Performance vs. Purpose in Christian Culture
24:50 – The Reality of Church Hurt & Religious Pressure
30:00 – Raising Daughters in Today’s Culture
35:26 – Becoming Whole: The Journey to Loving All of You
41:12 – How She Protects Her Peace & Discerns Her Yes
46:50 – Wholeness > Perfection: Letting Go of the Pressure
50:10 – Jackie’s Heart for Women in Leadership
55:30 – What She’s Learning About God Right Now
59:47 – Final Word: Your Calling Is Not a Performance
#DrJackieGreene #MavericksOnTheMic #FaithAndWholeness #WomenInMinistry #FaithLeadership #ChurchHurt #SpiritualGrowth #WholenessJourney #IdentityInChrist #CallingOverClout #PurposeDrivenLife #ChristianLeadership #BlackWomenInMinistry #FaithAndFemininity #GodFirstAlways #permissionroom
🔥 Drop a comment to let us know who you want to see on the Mic.
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🎧 Want to watch the conversation? Watch on YouTube
My illustrious sister, dynamic, powerful, best female preacher on earth.
Speaker 2:I feel very, very privileged to have made it to Mavericks on the mic. Thank y'all for having me.
Speaker 3:Can I start off by just saying we would like you to just check your brother on a couple of things.
Speaker 2:Let's check, Mic check. What made me change from being a girl that was so insecure that couldn't get over the reality that I felt rejected because my daddy left. That got me over the two chemicals in my hair, taking all my hair out. What?
Speaker 3:do you think about when you think that Norman is doing all of this?
Speaker 2:The most brilliant person I know.
Speaker 4:Things were starting to pop off for Travis and he got had got invited to, uh, to, I think it was a Potter's house, and he called you backstage because he was nervous.
Speaker 2:You better pick up that guitar, put that little pick in your hand and go out there and do the thing you were created for. What's?
Speaker 4:up everybody. Welcome to another episode of Mavericks. On the Mic, I'm JJ.
Speaker 1:I'm EJ, I'm Norman and today we have a very special guest, my favorite guest of all time. We grew up together. Together, I've known her as long as she's been alive and she is my illustrious sister, the dynamic, powerful, best female preacher on earth hey guys what's up?
Speaker 4:thanks y'all for having me.
Speaker 2:My name is jackie and, um, I feel very, very privileged to have made it to mavericks on the. Thank y'all for having me. My name is Jackie and I feel very, very privileged to have made it to Mavericks on the mic. Thank y'all for having me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we were talking about it. The real basement. I was like we have to have your sister. The real basement, Non-negotiable.
Speaker 3:We're not doing that. This is gonna be a good one. Oh my God, this is going to be great. Can I start off by just saying we would like you to just check your brother on a couple of things.
Speaker 2:Let's check, might check.
Speaker 3:That face is good Okay.
Speaker 1:I hear you loud and clear there's no payday was yesterday.
Speaker 3:What is it Payday?
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:I hear you loud and clear.
Speaker 3:Now I'm seeing the eyes. No, but I do think. You know I'm curious and this is just my own little like. You came up with him, I did. You know him. He's made quite an impact in the world, but you're still a little sis praying for him, looking out for him. Like, what do you look at and think about when you think that Norman is doing all of this?
Speaker 2:When I think of Norman, the first thing I think about it is probably, no, not probably the most brilliant person. I know. That's first um. A lot comes in mind in terms of having seen him um go through the maturation of the little boy who laid on the floor, rolled up him, uh, he was just always very different. To see him do what he's doing is not a shock, because I think the level of brilliance, um, his ability to go against the grain has always been a thing, um. But what I will say to this audience and to you all that I don't feel that most people know, is we haven't really seen the true impact that he's supposed to make wow, what do you mean?
Speaker 2:by that. I feel that he has made a mark as it pertains to music, but if you were, my husband talked about it best. It's almost like you don't know the truth of what could be because you have left so much on the table. He actually is a preacher, he is a prophet and it's been clear since we were four. He has the ability to make any group of people follow him because of how strongly he believes what he believes and I believe that he takes the time to like, really lean into that and not be afraid of it, not run from the true call. I don't think that what we've seen, as it pertains to maverick city, music or any arena, will come close to the impact that he'll make in his actual call wow, what do you think about that?
Speaker 2:not close close.
Speaker 1:I've told you this already.
Speaker 4:I just like hearing it. We just want to hear it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I told you I'm not going to do what we're doing that much longer. I'm supposed to be a pastor, it's for you.
Speaker 2:But I want to ask you back when you say that you're not going to do it much longer, how do you know how much longer?
Speaker 1:I have. I know I'm on borrowed time. You know I'm on very borrowed time. I think along the way on the journey, I do think JJ became an assignment for me, a direct assignment.
Speaker 1:I think there were some things that, from just a personality standpoint, there are seasons with people and I think that all things work together for the good of those that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
Speaker 1:I think that I may have branched off into a season that wasn't ordained, but that he has allowed me to really make impact and that through that it was an ordained season for JJ and that through that, it was an ordained season for JJ and he's using me to kind of chop the weeds, put some infrastructure in order and then go off and do what I'm supposed to be doing with the people I'm supposed to be doing it. At the same time, I'm learning leadership skills I didn't have. I'm building relationships I didn't have. I have an understanding for music ministry I wouldn't have otherwise had. I have an understanding for high-level business that I wouldn't have otherwise had, and I think it's caused some difficulties, but I think it's definitely caused some positives that I'll take through life forever. I think that'll make me a better pastor than I otherwise would have been.
Speaker 4:What does a Norman Jumphy-led church look like?
Speaker 1:Radical baby Radical honest would have been what is, uh, what is a norman junkie led church? Look like radical baby radical honest. Uh, uh, outside the box. It's not about four walls, it's about the people, you know. I mean, I, I'm a non-traditional person. Uh, in every essence, I have a very unique testimony, uh, one that is currently still being written. You know what I mean. I think my wife will play a huge role in any ministry that I have. Her testimony is wild as they come. I just think we're different. I think everybody says that. I think I look into ministry and I see a lot of and this is going to sound like what it sounds like I see a lot of people God has raised up because I took too long. I do, I do, I do, but it's not me.
Speaker 1:And so we wrestle with the tension by saying later Now we wrestle with the tension by saying I still see fruit in the current season.
Speaker 2:Can you still see fruit in the current season and still pivot? Because you say so, though, absolutely Okay. I mean even a dodge, because the connotation, or I would say the implication, of what you're saying is as long as fruit is there, I stay.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. I've loved fruitful seasons before. I'll do it again. Okay For sure, a good tree can't bear bad fruit, so I'm always gonna bear fruit. It may not be the fruit he wants in that season. I might be an apple tree when I need to be a pear tree, you know I mean. So it's time, it's time, it's definitely time to move. I feel it the grace has lifted for sure. I told you this. You got on my case. You got on my case the last time I said this on the podcast. Oh, it bothers them.
Speaker 2:It bothers, jay-z, I don.
Speaker 1:It bothers, jason? I don't think it bothers him Talk to me about why I don't think it bothers me it does.
Speaker 4:Why do you say that? Because I don't.
Speaker 1:I think because we're best friends. I never talked to you deeply about that. I think it shocked you the first time I said it.
Speaker 4:I think what shocked me was how heavy it, how heavy you carry that burden. You carry that burden because I, like, like you, know how many people you meet in this industry. You're like, yeah, I'm gonna start a church but it's like when you talk about it, it's like it's like crippling, it's like this is what this is my calling and so for me I'm like well dang.
Speaker 2:When you say well dang, you feel like it means the departure no, I, it's not even that.
Speaker 4:It's just more or less like wow, that the reality of that is sort of like this doesn't feel like a oh and the sweet by and by, like this feels imminent, right. So it's just more or less just like the mentality of being ready for at the at the drop of a hat, to be ready for that. You know what I mean, um, but no, it's not. I don't feel, man, I don't, he can't do that, it's not like that. I want him to run for all the run into all the things god has for him, you know, full stop.
Speaker 1:So but I see it, I feel it, he's put it, he's put it on their hearts and they don't know it. You know, I'm saying I, I sense it. Like all of the executives, they want to run a company that I don't have to come to work.
Speaker 3:I think a big. I mean, I think yes, but I think it's, and we've talked about this. I, I and the other executives even that came on in the past year want, want to help lift burdens and loads. That was a very big thing, I think. When Norman approached us, it was, hey, this is what God can do for you and your legacy and your children and all of that.
Speaker 3:But for me, I was always interested in knowing this would help him. Could I, could bless him like I could. Actually, you know, I, I can be a part of one hour less of him worrying because I don't think people understand and I know this episode is not even about this necessarily but I, I don't think people fully understand the weight that norman carries, like he carries it all day, every day. If, if it's payroll for the people, it's on him. If it's a tour, it's on him. If it's the music getting out and working like in the marketplace, it's on him. And he has, you know, for better or worse, carried that weight and people in, you know, zimbabwe don't realize that they're listening to some of these songs because he stayed up until 3 am you know, I really.
Speaker 2:I mean, although that seems heroic, I don't think it's supposed to be that way it's not and that's what I think.
Speaker 2:That's my, that's right, that's my burden is that we were not created to carry that level of weight, and when you do, it will crush you. And so how do we shift? How do we get to a position that we find a level of dependency where we still fulfill, will we fulfill, call, but we're not doing it in our own might or strength. That's right, because that's where the sweet spot is, that's where the life more abundantly, that's where the life of fulfillment truly is found. And so I think that's why my press, for it would be for you, or for you, or for him, would always be around. How do I continue to pray, or even partner with the Lord for his will to be done in a way that you find dependency, not in my own might and strength to hold it, because it'll crush you, that's right.
Speaker 1:I'm telling y'all I I told JJ, I think I told JJ the other day or maybe I told EJ what I see today, the way we operate today it is, and to say I think when people think about dependency on God, they think it's like you're running and you don't get weary, you walk but you don't faint, you're still running, brother.
Speaker 2:You're still walking, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:You just don't get weary. You know what I'm saying. That is the difference people like a lot of times. When I first got in the ministry and I first got into doing these things, it was always excuse making around to be complacent and lazy. It's what I saw. It's a lot of.
Speaker 1:I didn't make it in corporate america no disrespect to nobody in ministry. I didn't make it in corporate america. I'll cover. You shouldn't be yelling at me. You shouldn't be putting expectations on me. You shouldn't be no accountability on me. I should have to work hard, god going to make it happen. Faith without works is dead man. You know what I'm saying. And I bring the same excellence and I believe we should bring the same excellence to God that we bring to everything Now, in that when you do have high-achieving people, when you do have people that have this standard of excellence or that struggle with perfectionism or they struggle with whatever it is, or putting a lot of weight on themselves, they can find themselves doing things for God, but not with God. That's so good, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:When you get into the game of doing things for God but not with God, then you know that's when you get crushed under the weight.
Speaker 2:Because you have pastors. The same way.
Speaker 1:It's less burnout, because when you talk about high-teaming people, burnout is so far off. For you to burn out doing music, it will take a lot. For me to burn out solving problems, it's going to take a lot, a lot, a lot of problems. It ain't no base level, probably it's so. I don't. Burnout is a term for people that are uninspired, but it generally is. If you're not inspired by what you do, you're gonna burn out well, some people burn out because of doing something too long.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think I feel you, but I generally attribute it from a leadership standpoint that if one of our uh people that partner with us in what we do came to me and said you know what, man, I'm just burnt out with social media, this means I don't want to do socials, no more.
Speaker 2:I don't consider that as I'm burnt out Meaning you don't have capacity to do it Exactly.
Speaker 1:I don't consider that burnt out as a person. I'm burnt out with this task, like we were talking about a young lady. She does a specific task in our organization. She's just not inspired to do more. She's really not in her sweet spot.
Speaker 2:I was just about to say she's probably not in her actual lane.
Speaker 1:She's not in her sweet spot. There are certain things we could do from a nepotism standpoint to alleviate what she's feeling, but it's just not. We have to partner with God on what we do, because when you are, I don't want to use the word high achievement, I want to use something that's not. That's not like puffing up or pride.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I get what you're saying, you know there are people with like personality types. That just that, motivated, motivated.
Speaker 1:I know people have connotation to say what are you trying to say? I'm not, I don't have, I'm not trying to give a connotation, it's just a personality type, type A, whatever you want to call it. But they have to be very cognizant of who's in charge and not just the result.
Speaker 2:And the why.
Speaker 1:The why is secondary to me, to who's in charge. I used to focus on the why and you can get the result why you're looking for. So, for instance, man, we about to go there I was talking to PT, right, and we was talking about tour. He had came to Atlanta show and he had shared with me, when the show was over, that I didn't thank God, I didn't thank God at all for the show. Like I said, man, we did it Like, look, woo-da-woo-da-woo, my why was to fill arenas with people worshiping God. But I was my why, that was my why. But I didn't care, I didn't ask him. Yo, you know, is that what you want? Like you want that was my why.
Speaker 2:But I think the thing that I'm combating with in terms of the why is, when you know who's boss, the why is attached to who's boss?
Speaker 1:So we're certainly not saying the same thing. That's what I was saying, because your, why can't?
Speaker 2:be detached from the boss.
Speaker 1:Exactly that's what I was saying, that if who's it? That's why I'm saying, first and foremost, who's in charge? Because you can have a God-led why you go up to anybody and say, man, my goal is to fill arenas with people worshiping God, getting saved. You know, people get saved night after night, after night after night after night.
Speaker 2:But the truth of what you're saying is a lie, Because that's generally not the person's why. They might put that as a forefront or the cover, but underneath it it's a purpose for why they want to fill the arena. That was my genuine why. Okay, so when you say that and you say that you didn't give God thanks if it was just a. So why do you want to fill the arena? It's like what is the purpose I want?
Speaker 1:the people to get saved. Okay, but this is the thing. It's like this. You remember the John Piper thing I the John Piper thing, I mean what you remember, the one where it was like the people got to heaven and then he went up to them and one of them was a pastor, but he was supposed to be an accountant, and one of them was an accountant and he was supposed to be a pastor. Sure, okay, so your why can be genuine and it can be genuine.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not saying that, but I'm saying to me. But I'm saying to me if God is actually Alpha Omega, he is Adonai, which means he's Lord, which means he calls a shot my why cannot be detached from what he wants.
Speaker 1:No, I think you missed what I'm saying. I'm saying people can have whys that are attached for him, but for him you can have a why for God that's detached for him.
Speaker 3:I don't really understand you mean for your own ambition.
Speaker 1:No, like for my own ambition. I can want to fill a church full of people.
Speaker 2:But that to me still is diverting from who is boss or who is Lord.
Speaker 1:I can want to fill a church full of people for him.
Speaker 2:But again. So, for instance, I'll give you an example my wife, specifically, is to bring God's glory right. Okay, Meaning I don't get to dictate how I bring him glory. If my desire is to bring him glory, that means I have to do what he's actually desiring, what his instruction is, and that's the only way I fulfill glory. So I can't decide oh, I mean, I just want to go sit in a chair Like oh, I mean what I'm eating and sleeping.
Speaker 1:We're not disagreeing. The reason why I'm on this point is so that people don't think Just start.
Speaker 2:No, no, I don't yeah, no, no.
Speaker 1:I don't want people to think that because you do things for God and you feel genuine, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, like you feel that you can still be off. Yeah, you feel genuine, you feel passionate, okay, compassionate. There is no, you don't feel, you have no ulterior motive. You ain't trying to feel important, you ain't trying to like, there's just, they're just in the wrong profession.
Speaker 2:Like literally they're in the wrong profession. But I would still. I would fight back on the reality that they got to the wrong profession somehow. But but there was a diversion from him being out.
Speaker 1:But those things, those things don't have to be monumental. It could be, it could be. I want to be like my mama.
Speaker 2:It could be something, and to me, that still places an idol above him being.
Speaker 4:Lord, yeah, I like what you're saying.
Speaker 1:Yes, the reason why this is good is because this is a rampant problem in church.
Speaker 2:For sure. That's why I'm hitting it so hard.
Speaker 1:Because there are things we don't see as bad, like wanting to be like your mama. Nobody sees that as something that's an idol before God, absolutely. That's why I'm trying to keep you here is because it's like, as people listening, they're thinking that, oh, he want the Philarenas to look important, he want the Philarenas to because but it can be admirable if you'll be wrong.
Speaker 3:He want the Philarenas to make money. That's good.
Speaker 1:People don't need these super negative connotation motives for your actions to be sinful.
Speaker 2:Right, that's right or not? Well, yeah, it is sinful.
Speaker 1:I've cited what he wants it don't need to be something like oh, my God it ain't got to be, it's simple. Saul saying was simple hey man, look bro, I ain't giving up this title.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying. I look good.
Speaker 1:You going to make Sean look. He ain't going to screw another chick, he ain't going to kill his best friend, he ain't do the David thing, but David Hart was still for God. That's what I mean. It's like, if you compare Saul and David today, we ain't canceling Saul. You know what I'm saying? Nobody, we would be like ain't nothing wrong with that? Ain't nothing wrong with that?
Speaker 4:I like the way she said it, because David knew who his boss was.
Speaker 1:David knew who his boss was, saul didn't. But if you look at them through man's eyes, everybody would say David is a no good dirty dog, he don't deserve to be a pastor, he don't deserve to lead nobody. And they would uplift Saul. They wouldn't even ask Saul to step down. What you mean? You need to step down, the man just want to. And I'll even add that.
Speaker 2:The another thing to add to this conversation is you can start pure in that when they call Saul, he was hiding amongst, like he didn't even want to be in position. He started humble, he didn't start. You know, pompous and it's all about my name and I gotta look good. And so you really do have to be careful, season over season, like day by day, to make sure, like father, thy kingdom come, thou will be done. Like I am still waking up every day, like father, whether whether I'm talking, whether I'm on a podcast, whether I'm mothering, I still have to ensure that I am making sure that you are seated on my heart as Lord and that is lived out in your actions. Like people can see who's boss.
Speaker 1:They can. That's good, and that's the reason why this is center is because one of the things in our relationship that's keen is that, most, when you look at most people that live a life like how we live, life, our life that's devoted to God, a life that's for him, that everything you do is ministry-based. A lot of people in a lot of churches have a job God doesn't desire, doesn't have. Wow, a lot of people in a lot of churches have a lot of people not in church and they're working in the world, making more money they can count, should be in the church, and though that's the issue is that some people are working for god, for the right reason, but not with them, and that's difficult to reconcile, that's difficult to see, that's difficult to see, but they know, they know.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they know.
Speaker 1:They know it's a cover, they know because there's still this emptiness, there's still this unfulfilled thing they have. And I remember when I was at church, you know we would always be at church and I used to always ask Jackie and them I was like why do the same people come to the altar every week, like every time? Be a church next to ours, ask Jackie and them, I'm like why do you say people come to the altar every week, every, every time, like you don't know? That's a good question.
Speaker 2:I actually and I'll be honest that that question troubled me for a long time, because I really am about true transformation. I think that people do that over and over again because they believe that what's found at the altar can't be found in their own room, that what was found at the altar in the presence of their pastor they don't have access to. That. He didn't rip the veil from top to bottom to give them access also to come, Like literally, not afraid, but literally come before him and get the same thing. One thing that I can say and it's one of the reasons I've kind of given my heart to it is many people tell you like you're supposed to be a woman of the word, You're supposed to be a man of God, You're supposed to be a woman of fasting, You're supposed to live this life where he's Adonai and they don't know how.
Speaker 2:And I do feel called, and it probably is like the educator and teacher in me. You have to show people how, and I don't just do that by what I say, I should do it also by how I live. So I've invited women to like no, this is how I read the Bible, this is how I, when I'm upset with my husband, I make a decision to not just throw anything out my mouth. I literally like I will go to prayer or I'll just go to the bathroom. I might cry for a moment and just process. I'm telling them stories like that so they have another reference. But if you don't ever show people how, it's hard to hold them accountable for what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 3:You know, so many times, though I feel like, especially within black Christian church space, historically, you haven't had to do all that in order to lead. That's true. You just needed to be charismatic, that's true. You know what I mean? You just, yeah, it was a very low yeah. And then when we saw people who were charismatic and educated or charismatic and compassionate, that's when we said, oh, they're incredible. But it was like sometimes the barrier to entry was really low and as long as you could like look the part, it was enough. And so then, when you had people trying to be equipped, discipled, that wasn't a focus in a lot of those church communities. So you really have not just been teaching these women but discipling them in the way right, I mean even down to the books and the conferences and everything. We'll get to that.
Speaker 2:But you are really walking with women to disciple them in a way that they may not have gotten that otherwise. Because the truth of what I feel that references back to the altar, is it's a form of godliness. If you don't have discipleship at the base, if you don't have a time of living this out not just Sunday, but Monday through Saturday, you have the form of godliness but you're denying the power thereof. You're like the very essence of what made me change from being a girl that was so insecure that couldn't get over the reality that I felt rejected because my daddy left. That got me over the two chemicals in my hair taking all my hair out. None of that would have happened without the sanctification process that happened in my Monday through Saturday. It wasn't on a platform, it wasn't at somebody's altar.
Speaker 2:I got the gift of the Holy Spirit sitting in a small town called Davisboro, georgia. I asked a question to my mom how do you receive the gift? She said it was a gift by faith, and I believed and I took him at his word because somebody was willing to say that it wasn't all these things that you heard about. It was a thing by faith that you could release yourself to receive, and I do believe that most of these things that we allow, that many people are missing in their public demonstration in terms of character and stuff, is because they deny private devotion, they deny getting around a table where there are actually real people living it that can show them like. No, you break the word down like this this is how you, mommy, this is how you parent. All of those things I do really feel like is missing from the body current day, and I do believe it's what the people of today are crying out for.
Speaker 3:Do you feel like there's a like that we are? I'm trying to think about the book. It's almost like. Sometimes I feel like, as Christians, we are so eager to get like to consume the stuff. It's almost like junk food or binge eating, just so that we can say that we ate it Like you know, go to the conference, buy the book, sign up for the thing and then, to your point, form of godliness, you leave that. Or like looking at the mirror and forgetting what you look like, right.
Speaker 2:The Bible talks about.
Speaker 3:it's like we do a lot of events and gatherings you know like, but I don't know that everybody understands when you say that, like, open up the word of God, understand what it is and grow from this year to next year and be able to say these are the lessons I learned last year and this is how I've grown. I don't know that we're focusing on a lot of that.
Speaker 2:And I think that they don't focus on it because it is not the thing that is celebrated. So what's celebrated is that you can shout or you can be really loud or you can be very charismatic. You don't see celebrated enough somebody going through the steps of sanctification, where it might take process. It might take process, it might take, you know, you know, year after year. It might take you open up the word of god, not just to read but to allow the word to read you because it is living, it is alive. You don't see people talk about enough, I think, the true beauty of what it means to commune and the fellowship that by real like by reason of relationship actually be transformed, and I do think more people need to show that side of things. But I I I don't think it's lived often this is.
Speaker 4:This is what I was talking about earlier when I was talking about the lack of faithfulness, because what you're talking about is like it does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's a consistency exactly.
Speaker 4:It's like the root has to take, like the seed has to take root. Yeah, but it that takes time, that's a process and it's not a public process. Oh right, so you get that affirmation exactly. Yeah, that instant gratification.
Speaker 2:You're right. You're right and in today's time where it's all about what I can post on tiktok, how much I know. Like you might not feel like when you read it today that you gained something, but you do recognize that every time you come into the presence because in the beginning was the word word, the word was God and the word was with God that you are encountering a person. When you read the word, that is transforming you. It might not feel like you know, you can run with the spirit or quote that verse, but if you keep on keeping on because truthfully that is my true process it wasn't a whole lot of and I love that you always reference like we weren't the churchgoers that you know, knew. I don't know the A-flat and all that.
Speaker 2:We didn't grow up that way, we didn't. I learned God by way of real relationship. That was all my mama talked about. That was all that was ever really purported. She was never really about the religious stuff. I mean, she didn't go that way and I could understand even why he says when he has a church it will be outside of the box. That's how we've ever lived. We've never lived the confines of you. Go up there you do your little two-step and it produced nothing. To me, it has to be fruit bearing.
Speaker 3:And it produced nothing Both of y'all know the word, you can quote it. You have intimate relationship with Jesus. It is unique, probably peculiar, that you all would have developed that back then outside of the context of a church structure.
Speaker 2:So I was in the church but it wasn't like so. And I tell Travis all the time my husband they did like he was drugged at church. He was a drug baby, like every time the doors open, like we were not like that. We were not there seven days a week, we were.
Speaker 2:we grew up Baptist First of all, we went second and fourth Sunday, but what I can tell you, twice a month and when I got older like when I got 15 or 16, when I could drive I started going to another denominational church. But what I can say we did have was the presence of the Lord was in our house, which church is not like. The essence of church is not the building, it is a people that are actually called to, a person that actually lives a lifestyle. I can say we always had that. I'm going to shout my mom out.
Speaker 1:I'm going to shout my mom out, the thing that our mom had. That I always think back to and if I can give my children anything, I want to give them what my mama gave me. It wasn't. The thing she gave us from the very beginning was our faith, the very, very beginning. And when Travis gave the example, we didn't have life struggles. You know what I'm saying. We could talk about it, you could dilly-dally and nitpick, but when I say life struggles, people wasn't dying.
Speaker 2:Nobody was getting sick.
Speaker 1:Nobody was getting in a car. My mama had one car accident in her whole life Twice.
Speaker 2:Twice in her whole life.
Speaker 1:That most traumatic thing happened in our upbringing. I think one twice our whole life. That most traumatic thing happened in our upbringing.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that. I think that impacted us.
Speaker 1:I get it. I'm saying like when you talk about life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you were.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to really be like people done been through some stuff. You know what I'm saying. We had everything we wanted, all the clothes we wanted, we had cars at 16. You name it. You know what I'm saying. But the thing she rooted in us was two things. It was three things Faith in God. She wasn't going to die. Y'all take that how y'all want to take that. My mama going to be translated, my mama going to be translated, and I still believe it.
Speaker 2:My mama going to be translated. She said she going to be caught up in the hell.
Speaker 1:My mom said she's going to be Enoch and she's going to be Enoch. If you don't believe it, I got faith. You believe it, I believe it, I've always believed it.
Speaker 2:I'm not dying. I'm going to be translated. I'm going to be translated. That's how I even know what that is. I didn't even know that Enoch could be translated.
Speaker 1:If I get you repeating, that as an adult, I am weak. Yeah, and the last one and the most important one we didn't say negative things.
Speaker 2:Oh, she was speaking About your confession.
Speaker 1:What Really? We ain't never sick. We won't say nothing.
Speaker 3:You couldn't say I'm sick.
Speaker 2:No, what I would say I got a headache. She's like Saying you have a headache Is not gonna make your headache Go away. Like you don't have to confess it, don't confess it.
Speaker 1:Stop confessing it, oh Don't confess it, but it did really help. It took root in our life. It did. We ain't say no negative stuff, bro, about ourselves. We don't say no negative, bro, your leg broke, my leg don't hurt, my leg ain't broke, but y'all have, both of you, this faith gift.
Speaker 3:Like y'all really do say it and it's not like that, you know, some people try to say talk about this, other people believe it.
Speaker 2:Well, they say it like that, my pastor. He says that I have the gift of believability.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Because I believe it so much. I'm not going to say something I don't believe, and I think you're the same way. We are not going to fake it. If I don't believe it, I would be quiet before I would say something.
Speaker 4:I, I would be quiet before I would say something. I can't say. Yeah, no, I just. I mean, I sent him a clip the other day and it was I think it was a service for PT. You wrote a song, you got it in front of the church and you sang it. I sent it to him and I said this tells me everything I need to know about y'all. It's like because I was thinking, I was like of all the things that could have stopped you from doing that like have you ever written this song before?
Speaker 4:have you ever sang it? But I don't. But I'm just saying it's like the, the faith, the belief, the confidence is like that is over y'all's life. Like I remember when, when norman first started coming around, it was like, guys, we can do it. And then we're just right out the list, boom. All right, let's go for it, let's do it. And so I echo that. Like there is an extreme gift of faith on you guys' life. Like I love it. The no negative stuff. My mom was like that too. Like do not come around me talking any kind of negative. I love that.
Speaker 2:I want to ask you something I guess publicly because I don't know the answer truthfully, from your perspective. With the gift of faith, it has been one of my areas of greatest testing in terms of my actual belief in self. Privately, I don't believe many people would believe how much I have struggled with my own belief in that I could do it. So, although I can get like I would get up and sing this song, Like I'm not afraid when I get up there, but the questions I have internally about you know, am I good enough or no struggles Do you have that too?
Speaker 1:My attack different. I get why that's your attack. It's for my dad, right Okay? Oh, that we didn't have the lack of affirmation from a father, from you, makes you makes a woman question different things than it makes a son question okay, you know what I'm saying but me talk about that more oh, for me it makes me question my manhood, okay, so I do things to prove and exacerbate who I am as a man.
Speaker 1:Got it. That's why I trace after money or too many women or different things like that is because my struggle is in. Am I ever really a man? Because no one a man never affirmed me as a man.
Speaker 2:Okay, you know what I'm saying? Women, mine, it was always. Or. My continual question is like am I good enough? Like, is it enough? Like is it okay? And although when I'm doing this, generally not like when I'm up, it's not like, oh, I'm not in my head, but when I'm down I'm in my head and it is. That was why permission was birthed. Like I go in rooms asking like permission and I'm like I've already been given permission. What am I doing has always been like a thorn. I hate it and it's weird because I do have the gift of faith and believability but it is a continuum of about it, because the father is that.
Speaker 2:He gives the affirmation of identity.
Speaker 1:He's that certifier of identity, and so for my man's standpoint, a woman's admiration is good enough for me. You know what I'm saying, like my mama telling me baby, that's how my mama ever did you good, norma, you can do whatever you want, so to me you ain't nothing I can't do. You know what I'm saying. But my mama can't affirm me. My mama can't tell me I can beat you up, jj, my mama told me not to fight. She told me to run in, go home, don't. So. I was a punk growing up like you, is that?
Speaker 1:a punk.
Speaker 2:I mean seriously, I just want to know it is a punk. The video man said yes, that's why I had a slick mom but you know who had a slick mom.
Speaker 1:It's a woman. Generally I can talk junk, but I couldn't fight growing up because so those are the trade-offs. I wasn't like. You know what I mean. That's my struggle it was always like I wasn't like. You know what I mean. That's my struggle. It was always like I was a punk kind of. You know what I'm saying, like I ain't about to really do nothing.
Speaker 2:I'm going to let you know, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:You ain't going to out-talk me. That makes sense. So that's what I, that's my thing.
Speaker 3:You. I do want to talk about the book and the conference and just like talk a little bit about this permission thing, because I feel like it is yoke breaking for the women that get it Right. And I think, even as you're saying, like it's a journey and it's a process, and you got to go back to it over and over again, like, yes, what did you, what did you begin to unpack about this idea of permission and, by the way, I know it's not just for women but like how did that play out in terms of like?
Speaker 2:now I'm going to say this to these people and equip them. It has been and is the story of my life. It is this, uh, continuum of making a decision day over day that who I've already been created to be is enough at the basis of it. That is, I don't want to walk in rooms asking people is it okay to laugh this loud? Is it okay to be smart? Is it okay to look like this if I was fashion, informed, in the image and likeness of the father, to be like him? He's the greatest thing ever and I want to allow that to exude from who I am. And to me, the definition of permission is being precisely. Precisely, not kind of what God said, but precisely and fully, because I do believe that sometimes, even in precision, we'll know like no, that's exactly. He said go left, but we're like, yeah, okay, I'll go left, but I'm gonna go right sometimes. So I want the precision and the fullness of who he called me to be not dragging, your feet not dragging my feet and I want to own the foot.
Speaker 2:I don't want to leave anything on the table meaning, even though I've known to be great and an avid student, what if I also have the ability to sing a song to my husband? What if it is not my dominant hand that he wants to play up so that I'll have another level of dependency? I want us to as a people, not just women, to explore that there's so much treasure that he's placed on the inside of us that so many times we shy away from because of fear, trauma, comfort and comfort is one of the hardest ones because we get so used to. Ej is the lawyer Like. How dare him? Try to be a market, a marketing guy? What if God wants both? What if he wants a duplicity of those two things merging to show up and bring about something that, if you didn't have the lawyer, lean that it would not show up in that space? And to me, when you own the fullness of who he created you to be, all of that is displayed.
Speaker 2:And it's not displayed in one day. It is a process over time, so you don't get a permission certificate. It's one of those things that you have to live out through all throughout life. Continue to go back, daddy. What did you say? What do you want now? How am I leaning now? What season is this? What am I putting down? What am I picking up? What am I prioritizing? It is a life, truthfully on a potter's wheel, living in his face over and over again to allow him to bring out the fullness of all he poured, wow.
Speaker 1:And that's what I want to invite women into, because I don't even think that they know it exists. To put it in current terms, you've taken sanctification and placed a UI, that's a user interface, on top of it to give it language that can relate to the everyday woman.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. I love that.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It's like now the everyday woman, like we talk about sanctification, and sanctification is such a it's so religious.
Speaker 2:It's like now the everyday woman like we talk about sanctification, and sanctification is such a heavy word and then, when you take sanctification, you put the permission.
Speaker 1:You are on it Now. Okay, I get it. You know I'm on a journey, I'm on this journey and I'm seeking more and more permission from him.
Speaker 2:More and more permission from him, more and more permission from him, more and more permission from him, more and more permission from him. And, truthfully, something that I found and I write about it in the book is I found so many people who don't live that process of going after permission where they know how to act less than where they can dummy themselves down. They know how to fit the box, they know how to stay in the confines, and I know people who know how to act more than so I'll act pompous. I how to act more than so I'll act pompous. I'll act outside of like that ain't even really who you are, bro, like chill. But you very seldomly find people that just as I am. And I want a world of people recognizing that just as I am is enough. I want to invite people to like no, just as I am.
Speaker 3:That's enough, but that is so. And we talked, you know, just kind of before we were taping and everything about this idea of code switching. Yeah Right, and you almost do it because you don't know that you don't have permission. But also sometimes you actually don't, you can't afford to demonstrate that permission because the stakes are too high or other people are depending on you to maintain a thing and there's that external factor behind the code switch that says that's the wild card. You don't know how that person is going to act. And Norm said I don't do that, no more.
Speaker 3:And I think that that's a place of, I don't want to say privilege, that's a place of arriving that I think everybody could stand to get to where you finally decide I'm going to show up and I'm going to be completely me. I had a thing where I was wrestling years ago, a couple of years ago, with really turning down the dial and dimming the light, because I didn't like the way that it made other people feel when I was like full blast and I knew that they got you know insecure, or they thought that I was being away and trying to be it. So I was like full blast and I knew that they got you know insecure or they thought that I was being away and trying to be it. So I was just like you know what, I'm, instead of going to 10, I'm gonna just be at 7, I'm gonna sit at 7. Been there and God checked me and was like don't you dare, yeah, walk into that meeting and go at 7, when you could go at 10 and change all of that.
Speaker 3:It's an insult. It's an insult. It's poor stewardship, insult. It's poor stewardship, yeah, and so I'm really I'm still walking through that and and journey to your point of permission, journeying through that because I'm I'm a, I'm a recovering people, pleaser, I really, like I'm a, do seven. So everybody's happy. I would rather everybody be happy and I suffer, then for me to not suffer and live fully.
Speaker 2:Think about this they could have been happy with you at seven, but changed with you at 10.
Speaker 3:That's right, that's right. You know, change with you at 10.
Speaker 4:It is, oh you got to say there's just a sometimes, when you are living in your own freedom, you wake people up to the reality that they are, that they're not Absolutely. I think that's the beauty of him.
Speaker 1:I think the most beautiful thing of me and JJ's relationship is that right there, yeah, is when I met him and, with all due respect, I love you. You know I'm just speaking the truth. Yeah, of course I met him. He was the shell of himself and I would look at him and I'm like, bro, you're one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. You're one of the most confident, nicest. You're the one, if not the greatest, music man I've ever met. Wow.
Speaker 1:But under the wrong conditions, in the wrong soil, the best tree can't bear fruit. That's right, and I ain't saying I was the greatest soil lover, but I think I was a soil necessary for him to come out of that shell. If you in the wrong soil, when you meet a past resistance, it's easy to revert, that's right. But in the right hands, that resistance can be cultivated to keep you going on that process, like when y'all talking about, like being who you are as you am. It's like I went to a meeting at EJ, them building, all the little people in there thought I was some country and they was acting like that. And you know, I think even JJ told me after man, you can tone it down. I said I ain't toning nothing down. What's wrong with you? They can be uncomfortable. No, you know what you said no, no.
Speaker 4:I love it. You said to me you said, look, if I at the beginning act not like myself, then for the rest of this relationship I can't be me.
Speaker 2:You know, Mama used to always say start how you want to finish how you want to finish, Always.
Speaker 3:It's a very real thing it is. Because what? And in my life, what I've realized and I've experienced this in a former church situation, I've experienced this in a former employment situation when the rubber meets the road and my blackness has to because of current events or because I'm getting pulled over by the cops unreasonably, like whatever, my, my actual black experience is in America and I say it to people who I've never had to say it to.
Speaker 3:They're put off because I didn't know you were one of them and I'm like, I'm black, and so when I started realizing is like I'm so sorry I'm black, but the reality is you turn all that stuff down and make sure that other people feel comfortable with you, but you're not comfortable and what happens is they get an inauthentic reality of who you are.
Speaker 4:They don't even see the fullness of the name and so I love. It's like man, if this is going to work, you just have to be uncomfortable, Because we'll know if it's not going to work at the beginning and we'll decide not to do it but man if we can be our full selves and bring our full selves we all going to grow Absolutely, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:You know me and Jay were talking yesterday. People have these various opinions of your little brother, your little big brother, because they don't really know me. I've informed, I've informed a lot of relationships in music. Still, you know, maybe 20 people have my phone number. You know what I mean and have met me in person. We talking.
Speaker 2:Even less.
Speaker 1:Even less, even less even less definitely held up meaningful conversation. So they hear the rumor mill or whatever. So we we prospectively doing the deal. How?
Speaker 1:do I know Norm's not gonna do this and JJ has now, because he's not like that, but he has now just accept, like man, either they gonna do the business with me or Norm right now. Hey, I'm not about to be sitting around keep trying to convince y'all who he is, who he ain't Like. Look, bro, if you can't tell by now that this boy going to keep it going, then you can't tell. And the reason why this is important about being who you are and coming as you are because once people actually interact with me, or once people actually get in the situation, we generally build a lifelong bond.
Speaker 4:For sure.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, because it's like he just is who he is. It just is what it is, and there's moments.
Speaker 2:I'm going to be devil's advocate in that. I do believe that sometimes, when you are not living in the fullness of your permission, you throw people off to make them believe something about you, that's not true, of course, I do that too. And I think you should stop.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't feel like you do that.
Speaker 2:No, I don't do it as much as she might think I don't do it as much. I don't do that no more.
Speaker 1:I don't piss people off just to piss them off. No more.
Speaker 3:I have noticed that. Yeah, I don't, I don't do that.
Speaker 1:I ain somebody because now I take more. I take more pride in someone coming away feeling well taken care of, well kept, and that's the words they leave with from us. Then someone feel like, oh that boy, norm, he's such a shark.
Speaker 2:I used to take pride in that stuff, that stuff ain't worth it Well, I apologize for holding you up, no, listen keep going because it's a process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that stuff ain't worth a hell of a thing.
Speaker 1:And that's the stuff I get, that's the great. And people ask why would I bring in all of these executives? You know what I'm saying. And why would you bring in people who have opposing views to you? It's because I always wanted to understand how people with other personalities had success. And then I know my good traits and I know my weaknesses, and it's to see, it's humility. It is For sure, for sure.
Speaker 1:I don't need, yes, men, you can desire them. Everybody wants adoration, everybody wants admiration in moments. But it also becomes an echo chamber, yep, and you never get to hear, and that's what I believe that happens in a lot of ministries is that a pastor has an echo chamber and he doesn't have people that challenge his opinion, engage, engage. And that comes through, something that's really quoted by a lot of you church consultants, which is what is it? Something that's division, two visions is division, something like that, and that's divinish. Two visions is divinish, something like that. And it's not another vision, it's an opinion. And I think that in a lot of places, in a lot of ministries, what would be helpful is it's not about honor, isn't blind.
Speaker 2:Right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Honor isn't blind, it doesn't not talk, it doesn't not have an opinion. It it doesn't not talk, it doesn't not have an opinion, it doesn't not add value. Every honor is adding value. It's coming as your full self. It's coming as you are bringing all you have to the table, because pastors are pastors. They aren't also CEOs, cfos, architects. The greatest genius this side of you know.
Speaker 2:All of the gifts are needed. All of the gifts are needed. I mean, he literally says we come together as one body. You're missing a pinky. You're going to feel it.
Speaker 1:You're going to feel it Period. You're missing your thumb. You're going to be really in trouble.
Speaker 2:And you don't know that. Sometimes you do not know that sometimes Because you're just the head and sometimes need all of the members, all of the members you also have another book remaining is love, which you know.
Speaker 3:I don't know how you find time, so I'm gonna come back to the book in a second, actually, because I do want to ask about the time. Okay, you co-pastor the church forward city, you are a devoted wife, an incredible mom, a friend of the friends podcast, doing it like, how, how like, and was this the because, by the way, you were doing dentistry, I was, so what are we doing here?
Speaker 2:So my husband loves to call me the youngest retired dentist that he knows. So I stopped doing dentistry in Judah is five, so about five years ago, cause I was pregnant with him, so maybe six. I literally believe in whatever assignment God has for me, and you know lots of people, especially in the professional world, where you cross every T and dot every I like. What do you mean? You go to school for eight years and you just walk away from something. I truthfully don't feel like I walked away from something. I feel like I walked into something else, carrying all that I gained from that Right. I believe it will be the same for this as it pertains to you walking into pastoring. So it's not lost, it'll just be utilized in a different way, because the reason why I became a dentist was because I like to educate. I don't care if it's teaching somebody how to play space. I'm going to teach them, babies, some ABCs. I'm going to teach somebody something. So the education arm or lean of me shows up in every place that I go. We're going to break down Genesis. All of who I am is always showing people how, and so it can show up in different facets and forms. How I find time, is living a life of devotion and that's all remaining his love.
Speaker 2:It's a Debo book of literally different things out of my journal I'm currently every single day. I asked the Lord this because I used to have such a hard time with being faithful, being consistent. I was the girl that watched all the movies, or you hear the girls in church. Like you know, I write in my journal. I was like I ain't grow up like that. I don't go lay across my bed and write in a journal. That wasn't my thing. I wanted to, but it wasn't true to who I was. And so I prayed and I was like God, I just want to be faithful, like I want to be consistent in like pursuing you. It wasn't for anything other than him, I just wanted his presence consistently.
Speaker 2:I started uh, it was in 2020 specifically around this whole idea of remain where God taught start telling me to get up at 5.00 AM. It was sometimes very hard and I mean I would do little tricks like okay, if I feel real tired, if I put my feet on the floor, like Jackie, you can't lay back down, like you sit up for five seconds like I don't know, and then I would run and I'm like, as soon as you brush your teeth and wash your face, you'll be fine. And it was a hard habit to start creating, but what it produced is it's a life of abundance, which means when I'm getting in the presence of the Lord just for myself, I'm pouring over the word like Lord, I don't just want to read this, to read it, I want it to read me. You show me these principles. I'm just writing down stuff for myself and what it turned into was a book.
Speaker 2:I literally in this book, in the very beginning, I teach people how to do it. So it's these four W's we wait, we write, we worship and then we read the word no-transcript gonna have to see them. You gotta write up, you gotta talk about what's going on, ask questions. That's how you build intimacy. From that, the lord was like yeah, you need to make a devo book because too many people don't know how to live a life of remaining.
Speaker 2:John 15 is my text, because it came out of like how do I stay connected to the vine? Not come in and come out? I was the girl. Truthfully, you know, I would go to the prayer meetings and you had this like oh my God, they're like she's so powerful, have these high moments, but I didn't see consistently see in my lifestyle and that wasn't enough for me. Wow, it wasn't enough for me to seem like the powerful girl, because I do have a demonstrative presentation, but I wanted a demonstrative life. Wow, I wasn't satisfied. I wanted to bear fruit and much fruit, and fruit that will last, and you don't do that apart from connecting with him daily, like that can't come from me. Over and over again. He produces that fruit that will last, and so I had to learn how to stay consistent.
Speaker 2:You have to receive his love first, and it goes through three parts in the Devo book. You receive his love. It's the Amazon package Show up at your house, and I do believe that so many people have left God's love and his intimacy sitting on the porch. The Amazon box it showed up. They didn't receive it. It's literally sitting out there getting rained on and they're walking outside the house, they're literally passing it by, going to look for the thing that they would find if they would just receive it.
Speaker 2:After you receive it, you open the box, you embrace what's in it. What I found inside of it is I don't have to be perfect, I won't get it all right. And when I was a sinner, you know what he did he still went and died for me. So, whether I got it right or got it wrong, his consistent love for me didn't change. So I embraced that reality, that man, I ain't going to get it right sometimes and I'm still loved, okay. So that means like, yeah, okay, I'm not a dentist, so what, I'm not all, I don't have a three, nine, six, and it actually just rest with him.
Speaker 2:Wow, like so many people have settled for a life of like being in the circus, like they trying to do all these tricks for God. He's like I take you just as you are, embrace that. But you don't embrace it until you receive it, and then it's just a life of remaining. After that, when I recognized that I couldn't do it in my own strength, I couldn't get it right enough, I couldn't get it wrong enough, I could just be in his presence and it'd be enough, it was the most freeing thing I had ever experienced. You talking about a girl that went from summa cum laude queen of every school, you know all of the things yeah, to be able to put that down and recognize that I'm still good enough. You don't know freedom until you taste it, and I wouldn't't go back.
Speaker 1:Your revelation of God is always the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 2:Whoa.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I met a ton of people in this Christendom. I don't know many people that talk about God from the essence that you talk about him from. You know people joke about the daddy guy thing. It's not a joke to me because my sister asked it. It's real to her. So it's like God is so alive and present and omniscient to you, omniscient, omniscient to you. It's like he is, it's like you've seen him before.
Speaker 2:And I feel like and I don't mean that because I'm not a spooky one, like you know, some people are, I mean some people get, but I not figuratively, because I can remember and this is truthful, like it's not as if I, some people that do this, have never experienced the world. I've experienced the world. I've been out there. I had a drop top, I wore my weave Like I've had all of this success and you know all the things. It was empty. It did not ever heal the brokenness that I had. It didn't keep me out of the bed. That weren't mine.
Speaker 2:It was when I gave up on the dude who cheated on me, and I remember I was in college, I was in a dorm room, I had washed my sheet, I was sitting on a mattress. I can I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember what it felt like when he walked in a room, when I had walked away from him, I willfully chose to do the wrong thing. And his love it wasn't just that he loved me, it was that he still loved me. That when I didn't want him, I wanted to make sure that this dude knew that I was ready to die. That when I didn't want him, I wanted to make sure that this dude knew that I was right to die. And I'm here.
Speaker 2:And he's like and I'll be here when you get back, that I'll still be right there. I never recovered it. I couldn't understand that it was a love out there like that. Every other thing that I had tried was it was such a counterfeit that like the dude couldn't come close. I found a real thing and it's like it is life transforming and I love to speak about it because I know people that knew me before. I knew him like that, so they know I'm not faking. I remember it was hazel contacts and you know baby fat I mean, I mean I went to the club.
Speaker 2:I remember in our little small town like that, that dj gonna give me the shout out, I remember all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:That's the thing most people don't get. I did it all young and when I'm referencing for you.
Speaker 3:I was doing the math in my head when I'm referencing for you.
Speaker 2:I was like we didn't grow up with like restrictions with all of this, like I mean I done, done, had all the stuff went to all the places and by the time I got to college I remember 18 was my turning point I was just like, yeah, man, I'm taking these contacts out, I'm taking this weave out, I'm going to figure out something to do with my hair. Like I'm over it. It didn't produce nothing.
Speaker 1:I remember when my sister changed, I was in changed.
Speaker 2:He thought I was crazy. He literally thought I was crazy.
Speaker 1:She was out of her mind. We didn't grow up like that. You know what I'm saying. We grew up like how you would think young, wealthy African-Americans in the country would be. We had everything. We called ourselves regal. We thought we was the junk. Can't, nobody mess with us. We were materialistic, young African-American affluent kids. That's the girl I left. Right, I left my rich sister in the country. We super smart, we definitely going to college and we leaving y'all down here and we're going to come back and stunt on y'all. That is who I left.
Speaker 2:Jackie G on her tag I had a candy orange Chevy.
Speaker 1:I left my stunting sister I came back to, which y'all would know now as Priscilla Shrier. I think back then it was Juanita Bonham and I don't know who these people is back then. But then I came home to this Girl what you got going on and she called me on the phone. I'm just praying for you, norm. I called my mom. I'm like Mama Jackie done joined the cult. I don't know what this Holy Spirit thing she on my phone talking about. She praying for me. I'm lost, mama, how I'm lost when I'm at.
Speaker 2:The thing that I will tell you. I mean, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, though Even in the middle of all of that, I can still remember being at Janice Church in Sandersville, Like the what would I say? The seeds or the genesis of the girl that I became was always in me. Yeah, of course I was four. I can remember singing in the choir when we were in Atlanta, before we got to Sandersville, and I used to stand up and testify what it was always in you I actually had to depart the truth of who I was to become cool and to be a part of the things.
Speaker 2:It was the rejection that I felt. I didn't want to be rejected anymore. I had to please all the people. It was more of a fakeness than it was like oh, I want to do this stuff and I just returned back to who I really was from the beginning.
Speaker 1:She did it really fast. That's the beauty in her journey. It's like, yeah, when we was young, like they were dating me to preach. When I was four, literally I gave a sermon to adults I did In a living room, on Genesis 5th chapter, about why people live longer then and we don't live as long now. I remember it like it was yesterday, seriously, this is serious business, serious business. We ask my mom if you think about it.
Speaker 3:I believe it.
Speaker 1:I just want to hear the message, but the point that I'm making is that it's to show the journey. Two people can grow up in the same house yeah, same parents, same experiences, same access and their journeys be different, and it's not due to nothing. My mom would have done the same thing for her, she would have done the for her, she would have done anything for me. It's just, my journey took a great deal longer and I do believe I do believe Jack and my mom. When I left, they got an opportunity to create a bond that I'm not going to say they didn't have when I was in the house, but she got a dedicated devotion to having. But she was the only child and when I was the only child, my mom spoiled me.
Speaker 1:I was a little boy, I was her first child and my dad was mean to me. That's just how we're going to say it. Hey, we got his daughter. He was nicer. And then Jackie got her mom along in those formative years, 15, 16. You know, I think I left when you're two years old, so 16, 17, 18. I went to college then and at 16, 17, 18, for me, I wanted to be whatever 16-year-old rambunctious boy that's been growing up. School wanted to be. I wanted what I wanted and I wanted to be.
Speaker 2:And I started having those. It was like, I would say, little aha moments. I can remember standing in church and I was looking around at all the other people and I was like I want to stand up and worship. Nobody does that. And I remember like, literally like counting myself down, like three, two, one, stand up. Like not kidding, I was like I got to stop just doing what everybody else do, like it was starting to. I was having a breakout moments Like I'm sick of being like everybody else, I'm sick of faking. I remember, and still, through college, I was always the designated driver, always the mama, always like y'all, we don't have to live. Like it was always these progressive thoughts of like why do we do this? So it was just the genesis, I think, of the pastoral part of me, like no, we can live different, we don't have to do this and it's because she's a leader.
Speaker 1:And that's the thing it's like when you know, I you before. I started going to Fort Worth City. Once I came into Fort Worth City, I was still Norman, and what I mean is like I'm not following the trend. I'm Norman, I'm bringing my full brilliance, all of my ideas, pt. These are the things I think would do right. Do you need a camera? Like, we need to get our socials up. Do you need a camera? We need to get our socials up.
Speaker 1:I'm following the blueprint of what we would call the world and applying it to this, but it's not the blueprint of the world, it's a blueprint of excellence. That's it, and a lot of times we conflate that, we conflate in the body, saying we're supposed to be separate from the world and what the light has to do with that. We're not supposed to be separate from excellence. And there are excellent. There's some things that are just simply excellent about in the world that we have departed from because we don't want to look like it. He put it here for it to be excellent and it should start at the church. It should start at the best run. Corporations in the world should be churches, for sure, the brightest minds in the world should be in the body, because that's how he designated it. That's how he designed it.
Speaker 1:You think it's a coincidence? The only non-taxable entity in the United States is a non-profit church. It's already created at an advantage. That's his earmark. Guys, I did it. You know what I mean, right, right, you, you see what I'm saying. Like, you have an unfair advantage. We always have an unfair advantage, but because of whatever reason, because of over indexing either side, yeah, we lose sight. We lose sight and access to that excellence. And that's one of the things that I believe that because of how we grew up and because of how we were able to see entrepreneurship and access, we're able to not shun business because it doesn't make us uncomfortable and it doesn't take away from the faith, it doesn't take away from the spiritual edge, it doesn't take away from any of that, if anything it adds to it, it strengthens it.
Speaker 2:It strengthens it, it gives it more veracity. And stewardship is the hallmark of Christianity. It's so embedded. He expects us to be good managers of what he sent us here for, like manage your life well, what were you sent to the earth to do? And when we don't do that well, we're producing a terrible return. That's all business. Absolutely, trust me, it's biblical, absolutely so. I should say it's Hallmark, it's biblical.
Speaker 4:We ask all our guests this question what is your maverick moment?
Speaker 2:Hmm, our guests this question what is your maverick moment? I would say 2017. Um, I didn't give y'all this backstory but in 20 uh, in I was four I am African-American my mom decided that she needed to tame my tight curls you know, it wasn't, you know foresee you know on it back then, and so she put two chemicals in my hair and it caused me to lose my hair. I had bald spots and patches in my hair, and so all of my life, I grew up with the damage of always feeling like, not just that something was wrong with my hair, but something was wrong with me. I mean, I can remember being taken in back rooms in a hairdresser. It was just always this hide, hide, you know you're not good enough, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:And in 2017, I took the weave out and cut my hair for the first time. It was to me a public line in the sand for the enemy that I was no longer going to live in, hiding, no longer live based on the label of that trauma, and I feel like it set me on a path of I'm out here now and I'm no longer going to live ashamed, and all of this private stuff that I've been working through as it pertains to sanctification and the Lord, uh, healing insecurities. I'm gonna live it out loud.
Speaker 4:There was a. There's a moment that, uh, norman told me about, when I think things were starting to pop off for Travis and he got had got invited to, to I think it was a Potter's house and he called you backstage because he was nervous. And what did you say? What did you tell him?
Speaker 2:I was like what?
Speaker 2:You better pick up that guitar, put that little pick in your hand and go out there and do the thing you were created for guitar, put that little pick in your hand and go out there and do the thing you were created for.
Speaker 2:Because at the end of the day kind of similar to what he said the wife is present to affirm I'm gonna help me. I am set to whatever Travis is created to do, be alongside it, and whether that's just my words, affirming like you got this, I recognize that and I don't see that as a small call, because I do believe that when a man finds a wife, he finds a good thing and obtains favor, that a part of my presence, it created and attracted everything that was supposed to come toward our life. So my ability to say, travis, you got this, no matter if it's 8,000 pastors and leaders or whoever it is for that matter, what God has placed in you is ready. He wouldn't open the door if you weren't ready for it. You're giving him permission. You, it's ready. If he wouldn't open the door, if you weren't ready for giving him permission.
Speaker 1:Absolutely good tag, I love that anything you got coming up um we should know about. Ladies should look out for fellas to look out for we currently are.
Speaker 2:I got a word as it pertains to permission. I have a permission app which is where all of the ladies of permission live. It's like 1500 of the ladies inside of the app. Now All of these women have made a decision. Like I don't have to live according to the world's way, I'm going to go after the fullness of who God created me to be.
Speaker 2:We took a regional approach and so we are in South Carolina, north Carolina, new York, new Jersey, philly, georgia, dmv, and so you can literally join the app and we really are doing that whole thing of like I don't want you just to come to conference and then go back to your regular life and not have a place or a way to actually sustain this life of freedom. So we are doing pop-ups monthly. They have times to be able to get on, call, ask me questions and stuff like that. It's really just discipleship at its best and kind of living out the X model of making actual regions where people can actually come together and continue to live, where they have women locking arms with them. So I would really love for any woman looking to be able to live that life with permission to join.
Speaker 1:Any new books tours?
Speaker 2:Travis and I actually have a book that we have to get done. It's coming up. I actually canceled conference for this particular year, so it'll come back in 26.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Oh, you want to dig it. I like it okay. So at the end of 2024, um, there was a lot of major transitions in our organization, not just with the church but as it pertains to our uh, our businesses drjg, green light we went through a lot, uh, I would say uh, the toll that it took on me as a person. It was I think God wanted me to take a pause to. Not this is the season that I feel like I'm in currently. I know very, very well and I think I'm a specialist at showing up for the world. He wanted me to add me to the equation and I could have done conference. I know how to push through. I know how to do that.
Speaker 2:I don't think that you see public figures or biblical leaders take the time enough to obey the Lord that when he says pause or be still, or he makes me lie down in green pastures. I don't think that we see my kind of people do that enough and I didn't want to just for the sake of like, we do conference every year, do conference. I only do conference because God tells me to do conference and in this particular season, after living through all of that, I really felt like this was a season where he really needed me to take some time to like no, let's dig into some of that pain, let's dig into some of the lessons that you could learn to not have to live some of those things again. And so I obeyed him.
Speaker 1:So, earlier in that process, what would you say would be the most valuable lesson you've learned?
Speaker 2:Ooh, okay that there are times that somebody cannot mean it bad to you, but it can be bad for you, yeah.
Speaker 1:There are times somebody cannot mean it bad to you, so their motive might not have been bad, but it still ended be bad for you.
Speaker 2:there are times somebody can not mean it bad to you, so their motive might not have been bad, but it still ended up bad for you. I have a gift of empathy and I can always understand why somebody did something. I can understand why you didn't show up. I can understand why. Okay, I can see why they did that. I can always put the. I can put the foot or the shoe on the other foot, like I can always do that.
Speaker 2:What I generally do when I do that because of the gift of empathy is I will not embrace the reality that it still hurt me. Okay, I understand, but it doesn't take away the reality that that it's like I could understand why I got punched in the face. Well, although I can understand it, should I keep getting punched in the face? And I do feel like in some ways, I was still being punched in the face by relational, by relationships that I had to learn that they might not have meant it bad, but it was bad for me and I had to learn the boundary of saying that's not good for me.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, whoa. Marius on the mic. Well, we just finished the episode of Marius on the mic with my illustrious beautiful sister, dr Jackie Chumphy Green. This is an episode you don't want to miss. It's more of a joint episode about me and her. I didn't know it was going to go that route, but I do believe you'll learn a lot about each of us personally. Our upbringing Shout out Sandersville, georgia. It birthed two of gods. Believe you'll learn a lot about, uh, each of us personally, our upbringing. Um, shout out sandersville, georgia. Uh, it birthed two of god's most dynamic warriors. I'll say you don't want to miss this episode. Tune in to the next episode of mavericks on the mic signing off, Thank you.