Episode 7- Chad Merrell: I Should Not Be a Pastor

Chad Merrell should not be a pastor.

He was a 22-year-old warehouse supervisor married to a full-blown opiate addict. He found his 3-year-old son locked out in ankle-deep snow, in a diaper, while his wife watched from the window upstairs. He lost his driver's license. He drank himself into oblivion every weekend his kids weren't with him. He was the guy in your church you'd quietly wish would stop showing up.

Then his pastor and his dad called him within 16 hours of each other and told him the same thing: "It might be more sinful for you to stay than to leave."

Then a Pennsylvania judge, in the most father-hostile family court in America, wrote him an airtight custody order so unprecedented it's now illegal to write.

Then a hungover Saturday morning happened in a pool house in Pennsylvania, where a woman named Amy grabbed his face with both hands and prophesied that he would one day pastor God's people.

Six years later, he was sitting in an auditorium when the pastor of First Baptist West Monroe announced, to him and everyone else, that he was their new recovery pastor. He had no idea.

This is one of the most honest pastor stories we've ever put on this channel. If you've ever felt like your past disqualifies you, this episode is for you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I love our churches that invest in young leaders. I think what you came out of came out of the the rust belt of America.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

So sometimes when people ask me how I came to faith, I'm not really sure. I'm not sure if I was saved when I was seven and my dad baptized me. Or if maybe I was just really familiar with church all the way and finally broke and surrendered in that truck.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

That moment that moment in the conversation, you're absolutely true where it cut it really becomes evident real fast, like you're connecting with a position and not a person, right? I'm a real person.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

I get chills right now, bro. Like it, I couldn't, I still can't believe it. And somewhere along the line in that, especially in Pennsylvania, there there started to be some unfaithfulness. Obvious. I always suspected there had been some, but now there was just really obvious. To the point that in 2005, I get the phone call that I never thought I'd get in a million years. It's from my father. I think it might be sinful for you to continue to keep those children in that environment. They see a wife who's been a stepmom has a story like theirs, and God just continues to say, Man, I can use even that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Chad Merrill.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

What's up, Josh?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Here you are, man. I'm um man, I'm excited about getting to finally get you down here in front of me. Uh man, you're one of those, you're one of those friends that I've had that's a relatively new friend in my life. But it feels like we've been friends since we were children. Like that's what it feels like. Every time we get to hang out together, it's like it's easy. It's easy. It's easy. That is a good way to put it, man. But I'm glad I'm glad you're here, man. And I think one of the one of the reasons I want people like you, but you to be here, is to tell stories of guys who've been able to live through life, like the ups and downs, the lefts and right of what of what life is, and be able to do so with confidence and courage at the end of the day. And uh man, I see that in you, and I and I I I just I I really resonate with with you. I like spending time with you. Um man, one of the most important things about you is uh you like to kill animals and eat them. Oh yeah. It's one of my favorite things.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

It's how I know God loves us because they all taste great.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

They they do. They do they're delicious. Yes, they are. They really are. So anytime I find a pastor that's uh also like into like the outdoor, it makes me feel like I'm gonna be okay. You know, because I'm bringing all the redneck in every room I end up in. I feel like trust me.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Trust me, I'm in Rock Hill, bro. There's not a lot of us up there, you know. And so I'm I'm right there with you.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Yeah, man. So I want to do a little introduction and then uh I want to I I want to hear part of how guys carved you out, man. It's just a such a cool story. Um I um I heard about you for a long time, you know, kind of being here. You pastor uh North Rock Hill Church. And uh you how long have you been there? Almost eight years. Yeah, I was gonna say it's been a it's been a minute in the first probably four or five years of that. I knew your name, saw you on whatever socials and different things. I would see you from time to time at whatever kind of you know statewide events we would have, but never really had like a legit conversation. Um but man, you're you guys are killing it up there. Um I'm I love hearing the story of what guys doing and continue to doing up there. And not not just that, man, you're not just a pastor up there. Like, like you've got like like you're leveraging influence in the lives of other pastors. And uh, so yeah, uh and and been married for how long now?

SPEAKER_02 3:56

17 years, man.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

17 years to to your wife, Tanisha. Yeah, and I said I said it right. And I didn't even know that was her name until today.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

I thought I thought it was just T. Yeah, I call her T. Most people call her T. It's uh that's how we know her, man.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

That's good, that's good. And and so, man, you guys got a little different story than uh than a lot of people. You're gonna get into that. Yeah um, but man, you got a house full of kids, or it was a house full of kids. I'm very full of more, man.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

I get a raise every few years when one moves out.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

I've I feel that mine's been going the other way, bro. We we we we've got we've got them uh we've got them stacked in there right now. They're getting more and more expensive by the date. Oh man, all the time. That's just crazy. That's crazy. So let's go through those, though. Your oldest is Chris.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

Chris is in West Monroe, Louisiana. All right. He's uh 31 years old, man. And he's um he's uh he's a creative kid. And I call him a kid, man. He's a young man. He he follows Jesus. He's active in leading worship music. He uh he does video production and um backtracking for studios and recording studios, things like that. He does a lot of uh soundtrack projects. He also is kind of a uh uh self-employed landscape sprinkler guy. That's how he pays the bills so he can do stuff he wants to do, man. He's an awesome dude.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

That's cool, man. That's that's great. 31. You don't look old enough to have a. I'm not, man.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

I was I would, man, I'm I'm his daddy, not his father. You know what I mean? So one of the ways that God's redeemed my story is I get to be that dude's dad. And uh so he was he was 16 months old uh when I met his mom. 16, 18 months old when I wanted met his mom. And we'll get into my story more later, but like through much counseling, I've learned that I overlooked a lot of things about his mama because I really wanted to be his dad.

unknown 5:47

You know.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

So then we move on to to Carrington. Yeah. And she's married to Harrison, and they they're living out in Utah right now.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

They're in Utah, but their man, their house is for sale. They're trying to get here as quick as they can to Greenville, trying to get down here to South Carolina.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

The Lord's country. That's right. Come on, come on back, come on back. Yeah, and then next we've got Madeline, married to Sam, living here in the upstate of South Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Both graduated from North Greenville where they met. She ran across country. Price makes the difference, bro. Price makes a difference and makes married couples, I think.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

That's what there's some places for that over there.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

And he uh she's a nurse at at uh one of the hospitals here in Greenville.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

Oh, cool.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

He works for the uh Greenville Triumph in the in the in the sales and marketing office. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Oh man. And so then Kendall married to Christopher.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Yep. Yeah, we got two Christopher in the family. Christopher, her husband, Christopher Natze, is the newest one. They've been married for a little over a year. They live in Rock Hill near us, and uh they're doing really well. They go to a church downtown and and just really living for the Lord, doing a good thing, man.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

And then the baby. Come on. Ava.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

The great equalizer. She's the one we have all in common. That's that's my my wife, T and I's baby together. She's 13, just turned 13 last weekend, and man, she's got her own phone. She's got makeup now. She's ready to rock. She's doing. She's just she she runs us around and does things. She's she's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Dude, my so my my youngest daughter, my youngest child is a is a daughter, and she's 10. She's about to turn 11. And bro, I don't, I don't, I just raising her is like one of the most hysterical things in my the whole thing, man. The whole thing is hysterical. And it just, I don't know. All the other kids are boys. So three older boys, she's the baby, and I treat her differently. She gets treated nicer, better. Like I give her breaks. The other boy, my boys ask me all the time, why does she why does she not get in trouble? I'm like, I don't know. Go dig a hole, you know. Like that's right.

SPEAKER_02 7:53

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

They don't understand. I'm like, listen, that's not my point to explain it to you.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

We tell Ava all the time she's not living the same life that her siblings live. You know, we we're older with her, we have money, we're a little more settled, there's nobody else in the house. Like so her siblings and I remind her all the time to suddenly how it was for them.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

You're living a new life, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

You're getting a better end of this deal.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

On the gravy train coming back. That's right. That sounds like a fun house, though, man. She's having a blast. Now she now, you know, you do the outdoor thing. Like that's that's one of those that's so is she into that with you? Does she do anything?

SPEAKER_02 8:25

She used to be. She used to be. She likes to go for a hike every now and then. She'll she if you know, if I can get on a boat, she'll ride a boat, or she loves to ride the tube on the lake when we go to my dad's house or something. But she doesn't go to the deer stand with me anymore, man. She used to, she loved it, but now she's uh she she's pretty girly girl now. She she does theater, she does uh great at school, she plays volleyball. She's into her stuff now. So she she's cool if I go without her now.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Okay, okay, okay. She's starting to define part of who she is. I love that, man. I love that. Well, dude, tell me like, you didn't grow up here in South Carolina.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

No, man. I grew up in Virginia in a little nothing town, a little paper mill town called Covington, Virginia. It's right on the line. So Interstate 64 runs from Norfolk, Virginia on the East Coast to Covington, Virginia on the western border. And then it goes into West Virginia. That's where I grew up. You could hit West Virginia from a ro with a rock from my house. Nice. Grew up in a pastor's home, man. Like uh dad pastored the same church for I think 42 years before he retired. And uh he's still pastoring. I don't think old pastors ever stopped. He's he's been an interim pastor for a church in near Roanoke for about three years now, and um helping them transition and does some mission work, he and mom. And uh man, I grew up PK and uh just dead set on the fact I was never gonna be a pastor, man. Yeah. Like never. But it was it was a good, good childhood, man. Like you talk about a dude that likes what I like. Yeah, that's a good place to grow up, man. There was there was nothing to do but hunt and fish. You know, it was all mountains all around us, rivers, lakes, and man, that's what I grew up doing. It's all I want to do is play ball and and and go go hunting and fishing.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Man, that's what that's where it's at. I I just I you know, my boys, one of my boys are really, really in the other one's into like, it's it's not too bad. He's into like cars and great music, so I can get into that too. That's okay. That's right, that's right. Uh, but yeah, man, I I the culture that I grew up in, like it's it's one now the age I am, it's one of the things I love the most. And there was a while in my life to where I felt like I'd go into these conversations with a lot of other pastors, and I start looking around and I'd be like, I felt like one of these things is not like the other things. I don't fit, you know, I don't I don't fit into every room, you know, especially when it's like, okay, how many seminaries degrees do you have, or or you know, where did you do this or where did you do that? And I never would have a whole lot to say.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

You know, and then when it came to like what I'm interested in, I didn't, I mean, I think I played golf for a while because, you know, I was supposed to. And then I realized I was like, this isn't fun. I'd rather be shooting stuff. And uh so, yeah, man, the fact that the the fact that you, you know, you were able to grow up like that, like it resonates with me.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

Oh, yeah, me too, man. Like nobody's more aware of how few people are like me and rooms are full of pastors than me. You know, like and so uh in Louisiana it wasn't such a big deal, you know. Everybody, even even people's wives hunting fishing down there, you know. But you can buy deer corn at 7-Eleven in Louisiana, baby.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

And uh man, listen, that's an idea. It is listen, listen, y'all need to think about that upstate of South Carolina. I'm a customer, yeah. I'm the convenience of that. Put this where I need it. Put this where I need it, bro. Drop a tailgate and we'll get this done. That's right. Oh man. Yeah.

unknown 11:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

So in and tell me, so when did like you grew up as a PK? Yeah. So were you understanding the gospel early in life?

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Yeah, man, dude, I knew like I knew about Jesus before I knew the ABCs, bro. Like, I I have amazing parents, by the way. Like, I'm not one of these guys that didn't want to be a PK because I was ignored by my parents or because ministry took took my place or anything like that. My parents were amazing. They discipled me. I mean, from the earliest age, I remember learning about Jesus. My grandparents were believers, they taught me about Jesus. And so, like, I don't remember ever not knowing about Jesus. And then uh when I was, I don't know, five or six years old, something like that, seven at the most, um, there was a local children's evangelist that came through every year and he shared the gospel. And for some reason, man, the same story I'd heard all over and over just resonated with me, man. Like I thought, oh no, I need Jesus, you know. And and so I went out and uh I found Jim all. Jim all, it's funny, Jim ended up being uh one of my hunting buddies. He's my one of my his son ended up being one of my hunting buddies. So I ended up hanging at his house all the time, my whole life. But at that time, he was just a guy that I knew his name. And so I went to him and said, Jim, tell me about what this guy's talking about. And so we talked, and man, I need I need to give my life to Jesus. That's what I want to do. I want to follow Jesus. And so, man, I I prayed. Jim was there with me. It wasn't long after that. You know, dad and mom talked with me a lot, and then dad baptized me. I remember because my feet flew out from under me, man, and I didn't think I was gonna get back up. It probably was that long, but it felt like forever. And that I felt like I was really baptized, man. I was down there a long time. But they're getting you good. It was good. It helped me understand.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Had a lot of sin to wash out of that loose you needed to take, you know.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

And uh, so yeah, I think uh that was it. And then I just kind of rode that for a long time. I rode what I was familiar with, everything was familiar, you know what I mean? Yeah. So I I I didn't have to work hard to follow Jesus because I was in the lane, man. I was just running with people that did that. And so when I got in high school, man, it was um, you know, it's you you know me as a challenger in a good way. I wasn't always a challenger in a good way, you know. So when I started getting middle school, high school, I started wondering what else was out there. Okay. You know, I had some experience at a Christian school that was pretty legalistic. Dad got me out of there young in time, you know. But um so I went to I I started trying to wonder what else is out here, you know, what else am I missing in this in this world? And um, and so really got into sports and girls and hunting and fishing and just kind of doing my own thing, you know, my um but still was a pretty good kid till I got to college. Yeah, when I got to college, man, there's no there's nobody checking on you in college, you know what I mean? And so um went to uh James Madison University. Okay. And uh man, the the party crowd was just better at community than the Christians were. Yeah. Take note. I'd go to these places, I'd go to, I'd go to campus crusade, I'd go to uh, you know, Intervarsity, all these places. I knew where to go, right? Right. And I was pretty resolute. I'm gonna live this thing out in this state school, you know. But I went in January, so there's not a lot of on-ramps in January, everything's formed. And so I'd go to these places and I'd sit down, look around, like, oh man, I know these guys. I played ball with these guys, this is cool. Here are my people. The speech or the or the message or whatever was happening would be really good. And then somebody would stand up at the end and say, Y'all know what to do. Go to your small groups, you have any questions, see Jen. And everybody just leaves, and I'm sitting in this room, like, I don't even know who Jen is. Or Jen. They must not have room for me here. And I'd go back to my dorm room and the party crowd, you know, hey man, we're going to shoot pool. You like shoot pool? We're going to this. You know, so I was just hanging out with them all the time. So I never really meant to go on off the rails, but I kind of went off the rails. And uh just really started living it up, man. And that's kind of how it went for me. I came up through that from a young age, really in a good place where everybody around me loved Jesus. I was discipled really well. I had no idea anybody was discipling me. I thought we were just hunting and fishing and playing ball, but people were investing me like crazy. And then in in college, just couldn't find my way into community, man. Like I just the churches, the the groups, I just felt like, man, nobody knows I'm here. Or they'd try to win me to Christ because I was new before they even asked me if I knew him. Things like that. And to be honest, man, it just kind of kind of turned me off to the church. And so I would go to church when I was at mom and dad's and not any other time. And and like I said, man, the party crowd, like you ever think the party crowd's full of bad people? It's not. Yeah. These dudes are they're they're great people. They they were they were coming to find me, they were coming to get me. They were we were hanging out, we were doing life, we were we're still friends with a lot of those guys today. And uh, and so that's kind of where it started to go for me.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

That hunger, that hunger for connection and community sort of just has always been there, and we we continue to live in it and have it. And then as pastors, yeah, sometimes we're all we're we're back in we're back at square one trying to figure out, well, how do I navigate this now?

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Yeah, isn't that the truth?

SPEAKER_00 17:05

Uh it's it's like very, very interesting, especially. I talk to guys all the time who are pastoring a small church or medium-sized church, and they're there or man, guys of large churches who just kind of insulated and they don't really have any like real brothers around them, you know, like real friends, real community, real thing around them.

SPEAKER_02 17:22

So it's weird, right? What we do. So I was thinking about this one day because of what you're saying. I was like, man, why is it that I know everybody, but I don't feel like truly known by very many people? This was after I became a pastor.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

And I was like, and it dawned on me like I have a 40 to 45 minute conversation with these people every week. They see my life on social media. They I am so familiar to them. And so I started watching what happens in conversations, and you'll love this. I think you'll resonate with this. There's this moment that happens when you're having a conversation with somebody who knows you but you don't know them. You know, because like they know my story, they know my wife, they know everything about me. There's this moment where there's a lull in the conversation, and I call it church people face. They make this face like and that's the moment when they realize I don't I don't know any more about you than what we've already talked about. And it clicks. I can almost see it. I don't think it's conscious, but it clicks. But I know you I know you're my pastor, so I know how to relate to you. And so now I'm pastor, I'm not Chad anymore. We're we're just having a conversation at that level. And I think over time, I had to really learn that that I've got to be the one to push past that because they feel like they just got an opportunity to get time with the pastor. And I they don't have a clue that I'm long, I'm longing to really be known by them and to know them too. And so then you throw in my wife. Now your your wife comes along and they do the same thing with her, but when when that face happens, they realize I actually don't know you. Also, I don't think I know what you do either. What do you do? So I'm not sure how to relate to you because I I don't know you as a person. I don't know what your role is. And so I think there's some distance sometimes. And so I still have a heart to help relationships happen in the context of the church because I think we get so ingrained in the flow of it all that we forget about how to bring people along and how to how to build, you know, past the stage or past the the proximity that we have with people we're familiar with, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Absolutely, dude. I it it's interesting to me, and I think a the reason you're mentioning is people have heard you tell like intimate stories about your life, funny stories about your life, but it's been a unilateral conversation for the most part. Right. And so when they see you in public, like one, they you know, they want that FaceTime. Uh they're gonna come up and try to connect and Which I love that by the way.

SPEAKER_02 19:56

It is like I want to be.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

But that moment that moment in the conversation, you're absolutely true, where it c it really becomes evident real fast. Like you could you're connecting with a position and not a person. Yeah. Right. And I'm a real, I'm a real person.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Right here, yeah. So so the reason I'm so passionate about that, and I didn't mean to rush the timeline of the story we're trying to talk about, but like that awareness started in trying to be a new Christian guy at a new school in January, trying to meet my people. That's where it started. It started sophomore year, and when I transferred from Liberty to James Madison, and I'm trying to go to all the right places to meet the right people, and I can't find my way in. I left all those places thinking there's just not room for me here.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Tell tell me, what do you think it was that made that made you feel like there wasn't room for you specifically?

SPEAKER_02 20:51

I think I think it was the outsider language, the insider language. So think about my first time there. I like I'm still learning where the building was that they meet in, much less where A204 was, which room number, whatever. So by the time I get there, like I'm just grateful to be there. I'm looking around and I see some guys, like they see me, like, oh, hey man, oh, that's John. We played ball together. I know these guys. I didn't know he went to school here. It's starting to feel familiar. Then about the time I start feeling settled, it's time to shift to small group time. And they have no awareness of the fact that there's me. And also, here's the crazy thing. There wasn't just me. There were other people in the room too, like three or four other people each time this happened. I'd look around and we're all sitting there like, I don't know what to do. Like, I mean, how do I small group? Like, is that what y'all do now? Who's Jen? Like, how do I I don't see anybody looking? I'm looking around, I don't see anybody ready. I guess that I guess it's full. You know, it's kind of how it feels.

unknown 21:52

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

So I didn't know what to do. You know, it just it made it made what was starting to feel familiar feel detached all over again. And like I Wasn't going to push through that twice each time, right? And so, and then the guys who saw me at the beginning, because everybody's looking for new people at the beginning, well, they're not looking for me when it's time for group because they got to get to their group. And so I think it's just an awareness. It's just a it's just a systemic kind of awareness that would like, hey man, let's make sure we have an on-ramp for people no matter when they come. Because I don't think any of those are bad people. I think they're awesome. And some of them, again, were I'm still friends with some of them. But there was just a lack of awareness because they were there and it was familiar to them and they forgot that it wasn't familiar to me. And I just think that's easy to do.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

So as a result, man, you got you got deeply connected to the wrong group of people. Yeah. They made a way, they had a system, they had a process. They're good at it.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

They figured it out. They're good. There's always room for one more, right? Because look, it's fun. It's fun. I mean, we're we're we're just having fun. We could just take two cars instead of one if we have too many people, right? So we're out doing our thing. And and man, some of these guys were good, they're they're good guys. They're they're doing great jobs, they have great families today. Um, I'm thankful that some of them know Jesus today because I met them back then and and and they've seen my life change.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Um, but also their lives, you know, they run in against things, they start looking for meaning, they look start looking for purpose outside of what they know. They you you usually find your way to Jesus when other stuff doesn't work, right? Sure. So some of them found it through me, some of them found it through other ways, but I've been able to stay connected with them. Others, you know, they're friends for a minute, not for long, but it they were, they were just a very intentional group of people. Now, I don't think they were organized. I don't think there was a somebody say, hey, you got to go get seven more this week. I don't think there was any of that. It just, man, when it's the party, it's the party's more fun when there's one more person.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

Right. And so, man, I'm passionate about our church being not just a church that's nice to each other, but a church that's truly a welcoming church because of those moments in A204 in the science building, trying to go to campus crusade or over in the student student building, uh, trying to go to intervarsity and trying so hard to find Christian community, or going to the church down the road that I'd heard good things about and trying to find my way in, but just continually feeling like an outsider. And look, I was a guy, I knew how to do church, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Like, yeah, your dad was a professional.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Yeah, I I was I was in there. I mean, I've set up chairs, I've done it my whole life, you know, I've been the guy serving at church, but it it was really disorienting to go to the place that I thought would be home and feel like an outsider, or to go to the place where I thought I would find belonging and feel like I don't belong here. Right. And so, man, I think I think that's a bigger I didn't even know I'd talk about that today, to be honest with you. Like I think that's a bigger part of my story than maybe I even realized when I hear myself say it out loud.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Well, so what was the result of that, man? I mean, you you kept moving on and now you're sophomore, and you're you're trying to navigate your way and outside of your parents' preview, right? Right under their, you know, you're not under their thumb anymore and you're making your own decisions. And dude, what what did that result in?

SPEAKER_02 25:12

Lots of uh expertise on academic probation. And I'm I'm an expert on the rules of all of academic suspension and academic probation at James Bass. I knew it. I knew how to get uh get in and out of that. But um, so yeah, I think eventually my dad, uh, you know, my dad's an awesome dad, man. He he knew that he had to let me become a man. Um, and so he was doing that and he was trusting me as much as he could. But at some point, I think now he knows what I was doing during that time. I think back then he probably knew, even though he didn't really know something isn't right here. And so he comes to me one day when I'm when I'm home for, I was probably home hunting or something or for a holiday or something. He says, Hey man, I'm gonna need that gas card you've been carrying in mine. I said, Okay. He said, and and you just need to know that, like, um, I know you got some scholarships. I know you're a little short on what it costs you each semester to be there, but man, I don't know what you're doing up there, but I need you to know I'm not paying for it anymore. And so if you want to keep doing what you're doing, you're gonna have to pay for it. And so I think, cool, I got a job. So I was really good and found out I'm really good at working, I'm really good at leading people. I'm really so I mean, again, you know, God, I look back on all nothing's wasted, right? Even so, even though I get to these places in a bad way, partying like crazy, you know, partying and having fun. People who say sin's no fun, they've never done it right, man. Because sin is it's the consequences of sin are that are no fun. Sin is a blast. Like, and so I'm I'm having fun, I'm ignoring consequences, I'm ignoring just how far off course I am from where I meant to be. Yeah, you're banking them up for later. Banking them, man. Just and the fruits, uh, rotten fruits piling up. I'm ignoring it. But so I get a job, you know, I'm working and and and I just kept getting promoted. And then one day I'm looking around and and uh man, I don't really need to go to school anymore. Like the the degree I'm trying to get, I'm already doing that job, making more money than that. So I'm just gonna get out. And by then I had met this girl, man. Like, and so you know what kind of girl you meet when you're living like that. You get a girl who's living like that, right? And so the the party was fun, you know, the the the sex and the the freedom and the and the just all it was just good, just a very indulgent, good time, you know, no foresight of of where it was all headed. Just it was just it was fun. Living for the moment. Living for the moment, man. Living for me for the moment. And and then I meet Christopher, her son. He's 18 months old. Okay. His father's not in his life. Um, her parents, uh, you know, she her mother was an addict, uh, all these things. So I have a bit of a savior mentality, which is most pastors probably do, I think. Right. And uh, and so I I got in deep and I think I started lying to myself, you know, if I just if I just marry her, then all this is worth it, it's probably fine, you know. If it's it'll fix it. Get to be his dad, you know, it'll be fine. I'll get her out of that house and she'll be fine. And was just pretty kind of naive, and and I don't know how much of that was naive true naivety or how much of that I was just choosing to be naive about. But I was sure that everything would be fine once I got her out of the circumstances she was in, and then her and Christopher were with me. And I get back from a honeymoon and I realized, man, I'm 22 years old. I have a I'm a I'm a supervisor at a warehouse. I'm from the outside looking in, it looks like I'm doing pretty good. Yeah. I'm married to a full-fledged opiate addict. And uh, and I remember saying, oh my goodness, this is worse than I thought. You know. So that's how it goes, man. So, like there's the ebb and flow of that life is that there's some things you can do in your own strength, and there's some things that God's gonna allow you to experience in his grace that are good, like the job, the protection, things like that. But then there's also the consequences of sin that are always hanging out there. He said, Man, I'll never forget it. I remember coming home and trying to go to work the first day back from the honeymoon. It's first day or third day back, first day of work back from honeymoon. And and and and and her acting like I was being unreasonable that I was gonna leave to go work my second shift job. And then coming home every day and it getting more and more difficult to just go to work and just becoming more and more worried about Christopher just getting what he needs through the day. And then, you know, it was just it was a it just began to snowball, and I oh no.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

What was happening with the baby? I mean, who was she taking care of him during the like what was that?

SPEAKER_02 29:50

I mean, yeah, I uh there was it was a team thing. You know, I I was home all day. You worked second shift? I worked second shift, so I would leave about 2 30 every day, two o'clock every day, and and and you know, she would go to her parents' house, and yeah, I think often it was you know, my ex-brother-in-law that would just play with Christopher and stuff, and then they'd be home when I came home. And that's just how it went, you know, for a while. And and then it got, I'll be honest, like I don't want to tell it wrong. Like it we found sustainability over time in in some ways. You know, we bought a house, we moved in, we we there were seasons of good, uh, but a lot of volatility, a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Tell me a little bit about that in particular. Like you said earlier, like there was a moment where I realized I'm married to like an opiate addict. Yeah. How did how was that how is that like fleshing itself out? What were some of those symptoms that you were seeing? And and again, I'm asking you that. And I mean, we're honoring, we're honoring everybody. We're not here to put any packs.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Oh, you can ask me whatever you want, man. I trust you, and I'll tell you if I can't answer something, man. Uh my it's my kids' moms, I'll do my best.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

But hey guys, you might be wondering how you could get connected to us at Hearthemission. Well, we'd love for you to check us out at Hearthem.com and join our email list there. We'd love to stay in touch with you about when new episodes are coming out, send you resources that you might be able to use in your leadership and ministry. Check it out at heartthemission.com.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

I'd I'd never seen addiction up close. And so to see the desperation at the bottom of a bottle of pills was just eye-opening, man. Like it was unnerving and eye-opening all at the same time. Like, whoa. This is not just like management of anxiety, management of pain or fear, you know, both physical or mental pain or fear. You know, this is this is actually it should do anything to get that again. Right. Uh and and and so you know, as that progressed over time, that that understanding grew and grew and grew. And it it came to be where, you know, I was a I would see that um in in place of groceries, there'll be no groceries, there'd be some frivolous purchases and a new bottle of pills. Um so then, you know, the same amount of groceries cost twice, three times as much because you still got to buy them, right? And all the other money's gone. Uh I would see that like the bank account, I I could do the budget and we had plenty of money to live the life we were living, but we never had enough money. There were always these questionable things and uh there were bottles around with other people's names on it. There were uh doctor appointments when there weren't needed, when they weren't needed. You know, there's just a lot of um I mean I can't think of a better word than desperation to to have this thing that that made the world feel better. And there there will be periods where it would be better, but as soon as things got difficult again, as soon as soon as things started to hit that downward spiral, this desperation to just, I know what will numb that, I know what will get rid of that. Um, there's long, long periods of just like, hey, it's time to go. We got to leave in five minutes, 45 minutes later, still in the restroom, still in the bathroom, getting re getting ready, because she hasn't gotten the feeling yet to go face what's what's next. Yeah, so lost jobs, you know, different things. And so I think the pinnacle of it, the the the times that it really kind of came to the biggest head were were times when uh I remember going to work, and the house that we owned was in a ski resort, and it it was as it was built as a ski chalet. It was a very simple cabin, but it's kind of a walkway down to the parking place, and it was a pretty cool house, you know. But the I had to walk down this walkway, and so I'm walking down to my truck and I hear a noise and I look around, and it's my son, he's three years old by this point, and he's on the deck in ankle deep snow in a diaper and nothing else. Daddy, I can't get in the house. Daddy, mommy says you have to come home, she won't let me in the house. And I'm standing there with my keys in the door of my truck, looking up at my three-year-old son standing in the snow. And upstairs above that door is my wife at the time looking out the window, one like, what are you gonna do? And I'm having to like, am I gonna lose my job or risk my son? And I remember standing there with my key in the door thinking, nobody should have to make this decision. How does this make any how did I get here? How did I get here? I'm looking at the truck, I'm looking at the house, uh, all the stuff that I can't pay for without this job I have to go to.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

Yeah, yeah. It's like, how did we get here? Well, it was your it was your very way of protecting him. Like it was it was your way of protecting him, was take taking care of her. That all was connected to you getting up and going to work every day.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Yeah. And so look, I have I have great compassion for her. You know, she was raised by an addict mother and and raised in a family that had a I'll say a lo a loose relationship with with prescription medicine. Yeah. You know, and um and so I know how she got there. I I I have still wrestled to this day, even you know, it's been 20 years since I was married to her. Um I still wrestle with like how how could you keep choosing that when I can see what it brought you? You know, everything it costs you. How do you and to this day I think she still probably lives that way. I don't I don't know her anymore, so I I don't know really how she's doing. But um the kids and I, we we s we saw glimpses of who she really is, and she was a lovely person in those moments. But we also see what addiction and dysfunction turned her into, which was something that we had to get away from.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

You guys had other children. Tell us about tell us about that. What's the timeline on that?

SPEAKER_02 36:14

Like so my son was eight was uh I think he turned he turned three um the week we the week before the week after we got married in 1997. And then Carrington was born in in 1998. Um I I used to say that well, I don't I shouldn't tell that probably the I yeah, I didn't know we were having a baby, I'll say it that way. Uh I thought we were protected, I thought so I'm I I don't know whether the drugs compromised birth control or if she didn't take it. I I don't know. I don't know. Um but man, Carrington was born, she was perfect, man. I had never seen a more beautiful baby than when Carrington was born. And I I thought surely this is this is gonna change some things. And I th and it really did for a while. Um it was a sweet time there for a little bit. But the circle had to be small for things to go well. As soon as there was a work trip, or as soon as there was a holiday, or as soon as there was some other uh external stuff, things would things would get crazy. Uh we had two more children. Um the uh Madeline was born in in 2000 and Kendall in 2001. And uh man, I somehow like God allowed me to care for those kids. I I was kind of a single dad, even as a married man in a lot of ways, and working. And and I lost some jobs because of the dysfunction I live within. We we had a couple hard moves, you know, moved from Virginia to Pennsylvania. It was a great promotion for me, but it was also kind of a last-ditch effort to save my family. Get let's get away from the crab bucket that keeps pulling us back in. Let's get out here and redefine. That's a great word. And there were some seasons of good in there, but any time where a little more perseverance would have brought true sobriety or true deliverance, uh, there'd be a relapse, there'd be a choice. And somewhere along the line in that, especially in Pennsylvania, there there started to be some unfaithfulness. Um and, you know, obvious. I always suspected there had been some, but now that it was just really obvious. And so um, to the point that in in in in 2005, I get the phone call that I never thought I'd get in a million years, is from my father, who's been my pastor my whole life, you know, and he says to me, son, I love you and I love my grandkids. I actually love my gr my daughter-in-law. But I think it might be sinful for you to continue to keep those children in that environment. I think it might be time for you to think about getting out.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

He's worried about their safety.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

That, but also just like, where's this go? You know, like there's all these choices being made. He knows about it. And I was honest with him. I I would never made it without him. And like my parents bailed me out literally a couple times, you know, um, uh of of financial messes that are that are the fruit of dysfunction. And and uh and so I was very honest with them. I felt I owed them that. And and I needed my dad to be my pastor, too, you know. And so um, yeah, I was back in church, kids and I were back in church for the most part at that point and had a good pastor up there. Less than 24 hours from the time my dad called me, Pastor Kirk called me, who's still to this day one of my best friends, and almost word for word said the same thing that that dad had said to me. Chad, I've been doing some digging, and I've been really re-evaluating what I believe about divorce and what I believe about what Paul says in 1 Corinthians and and and these other passages. And Chad, I think it might be more sinful for you to stay than than it would be for you to leave. There's there's grace for you in these passages. And I'm like, did you talk to my dad? You know, and I mean I'm talking like 12. It was like an intervention, right? Right, 12, 16 hours apart, this is happening. Like, this is not an accident, right? And it and it dawned on me like God has not forgotten us.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

You know, and so um, man, I left and and like I I went down to to the bar where she was with her, you know, her her, I guess, boyfriend. She called him at that point. And yeah, we technically were still married. She was in and out of the house by this point. And I just dropped off the house keys and I said, the rent is paid for the next three months, the utilities are paid for the next three months, the kids and I don't live here anymore. I wish y'all the best. And I left. And and uh I you know, I went and I moved into the pool house. I used the pool term pool house loosely. It was a it was an unfinished edition on my buddy Dave's house, and uh, and the kids and I lived there for a couple months till we got back on our feet, could get into the house that I'd be renting closer to where I worked. And you kept the same job. I did, yeah. So so here you are. Look, by then I'm not even running warehouses anymore. Like I was the the distribution and production director for one of the biggest organic food companies in the country. Like somehow, God was giving me grace in my career, and and grace through resilience and just the ability to function without sleep, grace for my kids. Like God was granting me many things that were admirable even as I was living through this just hell on earth in a lot of ways. Um, good people around me, like Pastor Kirk and like Dave, who was the worship leader at the service that we attended, and he had taken my son under his wing, and my son was now playing drums with him, and they were leading worship together, things like that. And I I see it so clear now that God's hand was on us.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Even as he didn't take away all the circumstances and consequences of the choices we had made. I had made, you know, I say I had made. Because I needed those consequences, or I never would have changed, man. I would have thought, I would have been really good at telling myself I was doing fine because my career was up and to the right. You know, so we moved out there to Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania, a little town of 700, and I lived literally a third of a mile from my office. Kids went to school behind the plant that I worked in. Like all the God couldn't have orchestrated anything more manageable for me than that circumstance. And we had people like my best friend in Pennsylvania lived in that city, in that little town of 700. I mean, everything had God's hand on it. Like I'm really encouraged right now, just telling you that out loud and hearing my own voice say it. Like, God, you were doing cool stuff then, even though I was being an idiot.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

Chad, I can't I'm I'm just trying to take in the idea of you managing a career. You also got well, not to mention you just gone through a like a relationship breakup that included betrayal, sexual sin, and everything that goes with that, and how it affects us as men, how that might affect you as a man. Like you, you, you're navigating that. You're now taking care of your your children, three children, right, at the time, plus her son, Christopher, who you had become, as you say it, his daddy. And uh the the thought never crossed your mind you were leaving this boy there, like he went with you.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

He was he was the and I'll tell you some more about this in a in it, we need to come back to this part. But the miracle of all this is I got custody of him first. And I still to this to this day, he still has a different last name than me. Like I I had no legal right to him. I got custody of him first in all this. Like God has, I'm telling you, God has God's hand was so obvious. Now, listen, I'd love to sit here. Tell you that that's when my life everything was good for me at that point. Like, right. I I will say I was a great dad.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Like I I knew those kids needed me. I knew that I was all they had. People asked me to this day, how did you do it? And my answer is there was nobody else to do it.

SPEAKER_01 44:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

And so I got up every day and I did it, man. And I was tired. I went weeks without sleeping. I don't mean that as an exaggeration. I literally did not sleep. And um, but I cared for those kids. But I also kind of lived a double life during that time. I was mad. I was mad, man. Like so when my kids would be at their parents at their mom's, she she was living, you know, she was living with her pharmacist at this time, which is kind of ironic. And he was a decent guy. They they would go over there sometimes. And uh, man, I would just, I didn't want to be alone, man. I didn't want to be in the house by myself. I didn't want to have nothing to do. Idle times just made me crazy. And so I would either work or I'd go out drinking with my buddies. And so I was, I hardly ever touched anything when the kids were with me. But when they left, I I lived it, I lived like a single man without a care in the world until they got back. That's what I was doing. And so somehow I was pretty good at my job. Somehow I was good dad. And somehow God never took away the people around me who were still pointing me to Jesus. But I think some of them maybe didn't even know what I was doing all the time. They probably had an idea, but they maybe didn't really know that they knew.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

So, for all intents and purposes, I mean, you were living completely apart from the will of the gospel. Oh, yeah, dude.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

I was so angry. I was so angry, man. Like I couldn't believe that this was my life. I couldn't believe that the state of Pennsylvania put those kids back in her home. I couldn't believe that judges looked at these. I mean, I list stacks and stacks of paper and then sent the kids to their mother to their mother. I couldn't, I couldn't believe it. I'm watching my son have to be like late to school. I'm getting calls every other day that they're late to school because while they were with her in the house that I had prepaid of the all that, like he was his school started 20 minutes before his sisters. He would get up every day, he would make lunch and breakfast for the sisters that weren't in school yet. He would make lunch and breakfast for he and his sister, and he would ride her to school on the handlebars of his bike, walk her into the school, and then go to class. And and I'm getting calls every day that he's late, and I know why he's late.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

In Pennsylvania during the school year.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

I mean there's snow, everything. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, that went on for a little while, and and what really happened was like again, God's hand, right? So we start out, we have everybody gets a social worker when you're in a custody battle or whatever. So this children's services person, we got the old grizzled vet who'd given up on life years ago. Like she comes in and checks the boxes and just leaves. Everything's fine, everything's fine, nothing matters anyway. I'm just about to retire. Then one day, somebody fresh out of school, brand new on the job, still idealistic, thinking she's going to change the world and fix the system. She comes in, she's the new caseworker, and she starts documenting what she really sees, not just checking off boxes. My child, who was my my two, my two oldest children, one was in the upper elementary, one was in the lower elementary. The two guidance counselors started seeing things and talking to each other about what's really going on in the house.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

The three of them somehow talked and all wrote a letter to the court with their with their report. Like this this need this is this needs, these kids can't be with their mom. I'm at work one day and uh I get a call from my lawyer and uh he says, Hey, can you get to my office today before 3 30? I said, What now, man? Like I've given you every dollar I got and I still don't have my kids. Like, what now? What do they want now? Yeah, I'm thinking they're another hoop to jump through, right? Or they're like they're constantly billing me for more child support and all these things. I'm broke, I'm struggling. I'm like, what now? He goes, Your son's on his way here right now. And if you can get to my office before 3 30, you're gonna have custody of your son today. Wow. I said, What? He said, I'll explain to you when you get here. And so here's my life, right? So so the irony of all this is I borrow my buddy's car because I don't have a driver's license. I've I'm suspended from the life I'm living. And I drive with no driver's license to my lawyer's office, and I bring my son back home. And a judge, somewhere in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the most liberal state going to, you know, especially in family court at that time, they were known as a place that never helps the father. Nationally, they were known as that. He had decided that he was tired of seeing these names across his desk. And Christopher was old enough that if he would give a statement, he could say where he wanted to live, and he did. He wanted to live with you. And he can't, so they awarded me custody. Wow. Page two, that judge had opened up a formal review. Okay. Under his own discretion, not a committee, not anybody else. He was not farming it out. He was going to review every case file he could find from the guidance counselors and from the social services workers to determine what was in the best interest of the three girls. Two weeks later, without ever going to court, Josh, without ever going to court, I was awarded the most airtight custody agreement in the history of the family courts of Pennsylvania at that time. I was one of, I think, less than 10 people who'd ever gotten this custody agreement the way it was written. And I never went to court. A judge just decided these kids need to be with their dad.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

That is unreal.

SPEAKER_02 50:18

And it's illegal to write that court order now in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

And you're, I mean, you're you're literally describing what only God could have provided for you.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

Dude, I mean, like at that point, if if I ever had a doubt that that God was not done with me, that doubt was removed that day. And and I just decided, man, I wish I'd told you I cleaned everything up. I didn't. I I still I just cleaned up. I didn't clean everything up. But I was like, man, I'm gonna be the best dad I can be. I'm gonna raise these kids. And man, they thrived and they did well. And they but I still was dabbling in this world. You know, I was unhealthy. I was just unhealthy. I didn't know it, but I was. I was unhealthy physically, spiritually, uh, emotionally, all these things. But God was tugging on me, man. And and at some point, my buddy Brad, who is so funny, I hope he gets to see this because he might not even know that he might even remember, but he came in, he goes, Man, what are you doing? Like, you're a good dad, man. You're a good man. Like, but when I see how you're living on these one weekend a month when the kids are with her, like, what are you doing? Like, you need to find a good woman and you need to date her. I said, bro, I'm dating. He goes, What you're doing today? I've seen this before. Yeah. He said, What you're doing every day. He said, and so he started asking me questions about like the girls at church, you know. Like, what about I was like, man, these girls don't want it. I I I am I am a rated R story compared to their life. Right. Like they don't, they don't want this, man. Top mess. So he's like, what about this girl? What about this girl? Like, man, I I don't know. He said, What about Tanisha? I said, dude, I of course I would date somebody like Tanisha. Somebody like Tanisha would never date me. And that was the end of the story. A month and a half later, two months later, whatever it is, I had no idea they play on the same volleyball team.

SPEAKER_00 52:12

No way.

SPEAKER_02 52:13

Yeah. I didn't even know her. I just kind of knew of her. She was on the worship team with my son and different things. I saw her around. The service we went to was a young adult service was pretty small. We all knew each other.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

You were still in church too about that time. But you're living this other life. Oh, yeah. You're trying to raise the kids and work and you're holding all this together all the while, knowing, man, what's going on in your heart?

SPEAKER_02 52:33

Trying to figure out, Jesus, what does all this add up to? How do I follow you knowing where I've been and knowing what's still ahead? Right. And so I'm trying to figure it out, but at least I knew that I'm that guy that I hate in my own church. Like, like we're not going to name him. No, no, he's got a lot of names. I mean, he's in every church I've ever been at. But like I knew church was good for my kids. Yeah. And I knew the people there were good. And I I still had friends there that never quit, right? So I was there, Brad, these other guys. And so, you know, here we are doing all this. And they're at this volleyball picnic one day, end-of-season picnic, end of season dinner, whatever it was, that their adult league volleyball team. And he goes up to Tanisha and they knew each other, they're the same small group and everything. And he goes, Hey, uh, she was best friends with his fiance at this point. And she said, he says, Hey, my buddy Chad would love to date you. Uh-huh. And she, we laugh about this all the time. She said, uh, man, I'd really have to pray about that. Uh-huh. I was infuriated. Infuriated. Pray about what? What? Like, you don't know, you don't know me. And so it's like, it's so if we laugh about that now, but like, yeah, I mean, the mirror. She could have prayed a little while all the time. She could have prayed a long time, man. Like a long time. She probably wishes she had sometimes. But yeah, so then all this keeps going and and and God's gradually kind of shifting and shaping me. And things are kind of getting further disarrayed with the kids' mom. So they're with me more. She's missing some of it. Now I have custody. I get to like I actually had veto power for anything she wanted to do. And I didn't abuse that. I I wanted them to have a good relationship with their mom if they could. But it got to where I couldn't let them go to the to her mom, their mom's house. They didn't want to go. And so um we're we're just doing doing life, man, doing a single dad thing, you know, and going to little league games and working and, you know, trying to figure out how to make Halloween costumes and braid hair, you know, all this stuff. Like I'm just doing the thing. And uh another friend, Brad, and another friend said, Hey man, you should come on the young adult camping trip we're going on next month. Like, bro, I'm not even a young adult. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like two of y'all are married. I have four kids and I'm divorced. Like, I'm the guy you guys call about like in investments and leadership problems.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

Like or the police. Why is he around? Right.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Yeah, like what are you talking about? You're right. That's fair. That's actually fair. It's like, what are you talking about? He goes, now you should you guys should come. And so the kids overheard it. They're like, yeah, we're going, you know. So now we're going on this camping trip. That camping trip ends up being like the biggest line in the sand moment, I think, in my life. Because on the way up in my little 90, in my 97 Silverado, we're going up into the what they call the Pennsylvania Rockies. It's about a three-hour drive from us where we were living. And the whole way I'm like trying to get out of this thing. Like, hey kids, what if we just went camping at the lake instead? You know, it's a long way. Oh no, Dad, we're going. I know what they're doing tomorrow. We're having some more spot, we're going, you know. Yeah, but we don't have this or that. Maybe we should. No, we're stopping Walmart, we'll get it, we're going. They kept, Dad, you said we're going camping, we're going camping. I was like, I can't get out of this, you know. And so I was just angry and turned the turned the radio off. And I don't know what happened. Like, I can't remember how I got into this conversation with God. I just remember, like, I started praying. And I've been ADHD my whole life. I didn't know that until I was like 48 years old, but I can't finish a prayer unless it's out loud or written down.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:15

And so I'm driving. And so I start praying. And I'm like, my kids can't hear these words. I was fluent in Spanish at that time. I'm pretty good at it now, but I was really fluent then. So I just start praying in Spanish. I'm just pouring my heart out to God in Spanish. My kids are in the backseat, like, what is going on right now? You know, because they they knew I wasn't on a phone. Nobody talked on the phone while they were driving back then, and it wasn't Bluetooth or anything in a 97 truck. And I'm riding along, just yelling at God in Spanish. Like, and I remember even saying the words, like, God, I'm done. I'm done being two people. I know you've been trying to get my attention. God, I don't, I don't know what what all the why I had to live through all this to get to this right, but this feels like it's a big time, and I I'm I'm ready to follow you. And so sometimes when people ask me how I came to faith, I'm not really sure. Right? Like, I'm not sure if I was saved when I was seven and my dad baptized me and just didn't really understand surrender till that moment in the truck, or if maybe I was just really familiar with church all the way and finally broke and surrendered in that truck. But that was the moment where surrender was finished in me, or like the the the die-to-self moment, right? And I'm just pouring my heart out to God, like God, I'm done. I repent, I will follow you. And I remember saying, I'll even if there's never a girl like Tanisha Lehman in my for me. And I used her name because that's the one Brad had said. Knowing I would never date her. She would never date me. No, it just was a, it could have been anybody, but just a name, right? Even if there's not a woman like that, God, I'll be the best single dad. I will raise these kids up. I will give them to you. I'm I'm in. I'm done living two people's life. And so I started just repenting before the Lord. I'm crying, I'm yelling, I'm snot bubbling, I'm doing it in Spanish. My kids are like, what is going on? He tried to bail on this thing. Now he's losing his mind, you know. And so we get up there, and uh just to test me on it, God let me experience this. Because we get there and my son waits, not at Walmart does he tell me this, not at our house does he tell me. Three hours later, when we're in the Pennsylvania Rockies at the campsite, I got the tent all laid out, tacked down with the stakes. Hey, son, hand me the poles. Uh, Dad? Remember that time me and my buddies used the tent to go camping? Oh, Lord. Yeah, we broke one of the poles and lost the other one. So you're telling me we're all up here, we didn't have a tent? Guys, we're sleeping in the truck tonight. And then somebody else comes in, they're like, hey man, we decided to bring a big group tent. We got two big ones. The girls are gonna sleep over here, the guys are over here. But you and the kids can have this whole wing of this one because you get it's got its own door. You guys, because I know they'll want to be with their dad. I'm like, Are you kidding me? That night we're around the campfire, and everybody keeps making a big deal about the fact that Tanisha Lehman is still up. Like, you always go to bed first, you know, everybody. And I I'm not, I'm just trying to not make it weird for her because Brad's already made it weird for me telling her. She's been praying. She keeps going. And and like I noticed the next day, my kids, like I said, they knew Brad. They knew his fiancee, Teresa. They loved her, they called her Aunt Teresa. So they were with Teresa and my and Tanisha the whole time. And I think God just made us a little less scary that weekend. And kind, and and the words that she uses is that God just nudged her towards me that weekend. And and so everybody in my life thinks that I met Tanisha and then cleaned my life up. And so at work, they're like, man, this girl's been good for you. I'm like, man, you don't understand. You don't know. God broke me in that truck and seven hours later shoved her towards me. You know what I mean? Like, it's incredible. It like God was just waiting, man. Like he was just waiting on me to finally call crap stinking. You know, that's kind of how I say it. You know, this call mess messy and just break it before him because he had this whole new season for us that he was just waiting to give us. Man, you you were in this pool house.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:45

Yeah.

unknown 1:00:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:47

In the early days.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:48

Raising your kids there.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:49

Oh man, three months we were there. I can't believe they let us stay there that long.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:52

And the the family that was there, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:55

Tell me, tell me about those. They just took you in.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:58

So the guy, Dave, that owned that house, is the guy I was talking about that took my son under his wing. My son's a drummer. Now he plays everything. Back then he was a drummer. So Christopher was 12 years old when he started leading worship at the Hershey Evangelical Free Church with Dave. And then they ended up being a part of groups and going, he called him his pocket drummer. He took him everywhere. So the time Christopher was 12, 13 until he was 20, and then after he's played with Dave. Uh so Dave was like, hey man, you're you work in Fredericksburg. We love you and the kids. We've got room. Come stay in the pool house. And as long as it takes. And so I'm there, and you know, they're in it. The kids are back and forth some at that time. I was living there actually when the state gave them back to their to their mom for a little while when school first started. You know, I'm just I'm I'm a wrecked man. Wrecked. And so, bro, like when I tell you that was the the bottom for me, I was drinking every day. You know, I I was catting around, just anything to not be in the in the alone moments that I had to sit there and face the fact that I felt like everything was gone. You know, and I did it. Right. And so, I mean, it was a Saturday morning. I know, I know, uh, I think we've talked about this. Um, I had been on one the night before, brother. I mean, I'm telling you, like when I tell you I was hungover, I may have still been drunk. It's like eight o'clock in the morning. He comes banging on the pool house door with a cup of coffee, and he says, Hey man, I need to talk to you. And I'm thinking, that's it. They're kicking me out.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:33

You know, they they know. They know what I'm doing. I mean, I probably reeked of liquor. And he says, Amy made breakfast. Come on in. And so by this time, Amy and Dave were going to a different church, and it was, it was pretty Pentecostal, pretty charismatical. No, actually not Pentecostal, more charismatic. I'm tracking. You know what I mean? Like I'm tracking. The fire and the spirit, you know, that kind of thing. And and she was really into it, spoken tongues, those kind of things. And I'd never seen all that. I was a little weirded out by it and kind of kept it at arm's length. And I didn't want any part of any of that right then. I was just, I didn't want any conviction near me, right? No spirit near me. Just get away. And he says, We need to talk to you. Amy made breakfast. And I'm thinking, oh no, they're gonna let me off easy, but I'm done here. And uh, and so they come in and I I was still drinking my coffee, and he scoots my food's on the table. He scoots this little breakfast table out of the way, and he walks around behind me and puts his hands on my shoulder, and she grabs my face with both hands and puts her forehead to mine. I would have told you she prayed over me in that moment, but I but now I look, she prophesied over my life, bro. Like that still sounds weird coming out of my mouth because where I grew up in the Baptist world, we don't we don't talk about that a lot, but she grabbed my face and she said, Father, I believe you have given me, I can almost say it word for word. This is really close. Father, I believe you have given me a word for this man. And I pray you'd give him ears to hear it and a heart to believe it. Father, I don't know how long it will take to heal the hurt within him, but you are healing it. May he feel his heart soften. And as it softens, would you give him a dream, a vision for the heart that you have given him to live in the true, in his true self? For I see that one day this man will pastor your people. This man will proclaim your word. I get chills right now, bro. Like it, I I couldn't, I still can't believe it. It's 30 years later almost. I can't still can't believe it. 20 years later, it's 2025. So it's 2005 when this happened. Help his heart to settle in his true identity so he can become all you have put in him to be. Amen. They slid the table over and I ate pancakes and eggs. Like, we didn't talk about it. And I'm sitting, I'm kind of glad because I'm hammered. I'm I'm I'm just trying to be like, I don't know what just happened, man. I just need to go to bed. Like, this is great. This breakfast is probably good for me, though. Let's get something in my stomach. Later that day, yeah. I went, Dave was out at the pool and I went out, and I'm like, hey, bro, what was that this morning? He goes, God, Amy has wanted to pray that over you since you got here. It's been almost three months I'd been living in that poolhouse. Now keep in mind, my kids still in hersey at their mom's. I'm still living the way I'm living. Like, I mean, there is no evidence in my life. I have no valid driver's license at this point. I'm still suspended. I'm like, all this is there is zero fruit in my life that would tell you that that's a pastor living in that pool house. There is zero fruit in my life that'll tell you that man even knows Jesus in that pool house. I believe God gave me a man. Them a word from me. And that that word was more important than I ever knew in that day. Because I mean, years later, you know who was the first person I ever called when I became a pastor in 2011? Was Dave and Amy Dennison.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:12

No way.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:13

And I said, hey, I need you to know something.

unknown 1:06:15

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:16

2005, you spoke at that time, six years ago, you spoke a word over me.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:20

Dude, there's there's real power and a blessing. Oh man. I'm I'm I'm I'm more convinced now than I'm ever than I've ever been. Yeah. About the power we carry as not just pastors, it's more than that. I'm talking about the power we carry as fathers, as leaders, as men.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:41

Spiritual beings, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:43

In the lives over the people that God cares for. Absolutely. Like I'm I'm telling you, like there's something special about a blessing, which when you recognize what God, the beauty God's put in some somebody's heart, and you speak that over their life, like it's it's powerful, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:00

Yeah, and I think honestly, the reason I could believe it, when, you know, over time I could believe it. I couldn't believe it in the moment. I thought she was crazy. I thought this is some charismatic stuff right here. This is this woman, like she has no idea what I did last night.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:13

But over time I became to believe it. And I think God pricked my heart for the ministry in that moment. And I I think I had help bel it helped me to believe it because my father and mother never stopped speaking those things over my life.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:27

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:28

My pastor, Kirk, never stopped speaking those things over my life. I mean, even at my worst, when they they kind of didn't want to dig deep enough to truly know, but they knew, you know. They know details what they knew. They would just say, Hey, I know what God's put in you.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:45

I see the heart of a father in you. There's no way that your heart's that tender to those kids and there's not tenderness in you. You know, I I see that you've persevered. I see that you're strong. Those kind of things. There were times when dad said, I don't think I don't think you're broken. I think you're just tired. Son, you're I remember this, him saying my my greatest prayer for you is I pray that one day you will realize how tired you are. Because I think that's your way back. Like you're so far into this world that you don't even remember what normal feels like. How truthful is that. Right. And so they never stopped speaking hope, even in the even in those moments. Like just think about the simplicity of I just hope you'll not be tired.

unknown 1:08:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:32

Or you'll realize you're tired, so you'll rest. And so then over time, that cumulative effect helps me believe what Amy had spoken over me. And I look back on it now, I don't think she was crazy at all. I think she was in tune with the Holy Spirit in a way that I still to this day don't fully understand. How else could she speak those words to me in those circumstances?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

I mean, it had to be from God.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:54

Because I look back over my life, it's happened exactly how she said it was.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

I mean, is it connect with God's Spirit? It's validated through God's people, it's confirmed through his word, and now we see it right in front of us. Man, so camping trip. Yeah, God brings you two together. Dude, crazy. And how did that relationship progress? I mean, here we are now. We've got, you know, Ava, that's 13 years. Ava's here. You guys obviously. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

Um was exactly one year from that camping trip to our wedding.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:27

No way.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:27

Yeah, exactly. I didn't realize that until just a few weeks before we were getting married. She told me that. Yeah, exactly. One year, exactly. 52 weeks. And so a couple, maybe a month, maybe two months after that camping trip, I think maybe only a month, my buddy Brad, who started this whole thing in motion and his fiance, who was T's good friend, they got married. So guess who they paired together in the bridal party, you know, me and Tedisha. So I'm still trying to not make it arm out. I'm still trying not to make it weird. Yep. But I'm also, I mean, it's I'm starting to heal a little bit at this point. So let's let's have some fun, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

And oh man. And you know, like what whenever we're at a wedding, that's when my wife looks the prettiest she's ever looked. They get all dressed up.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:09

That's a so oh yeah, dude. Like, so I'm I'm just like, nah. You know, maybe. But nah. You know, and so yeah, I stayed to myself and kind of those kind of things. And I think right after that, she was, I don't remember the context, but she was looking for baseball gloves to send to some Central American country or South American country as some kind of missions project. She was the point person. And so she had emailed a bunch of guys in the from the young adult service and she had emailed me about it. And of course I had a bunch of them. So I gotta give them to you, you know. So I'm trying to keep the conversation. We might as well get married. Hey, I found I found two more. I found another. You know, I'm trying to keep this thing going. You ain't no dummy. No. And so she went to, I think she went to Catalyst Conference, you know, or or Passion, one of those in Atlanta. And when they got back, uh, I didn't know, but sometime during that time frame from the baseball gloves to that conference, she had had a conversation with my buddy's wife, uh, another friend, Matt, who had walked with me. Matt was the guy who walked with me through all those things. He's a count, he's a psychiatrist, he's a counselor, good man of God. We had a good relationship. And so his wife was another one of T's good friends, and and she had asked, Hey, like, I'm feeling like a nudge toward Chad. Like, what do you think? And Diana, thank God for Diana Davis. I think you need to give him your number. Amen. And so she came back from that conference and picked up that email string about the baseball gloves, and she's like, Hey, I think you probably want this, and I actually want you to have it. And so she sent me her number. And so we, it wasn't long after that, we went on our first date at some little restaurant called Nico's in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. And I just knew, like, I don't know, this might be the most Chad thing ever. I'm like, I just knew that like I don't want to like mess around here. Like, she needs to know what she's getting into. If she's gonna, you don't just date me for giggles, right? Like, I I know what I bring to the table.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:14

That's a quote right there. You don't just date me for giggles, bro.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:17

I know me and I know what I've all the baggage with me at that point, right? Like, and so I'm it wasn't lost on me that this was a big deal. And so I was like, hey, listen, I this isn't the very first date thing to do, but I want you to ask me anything you want to know, and I will tell you my story. And Rod told her. And she didn't leave. Hey, how about that? She didn't leave, and and she wanted to go out again. So we went back to her house, we watched, watched TV for a while, just talked. We talking was easy, like she was it it it felt close, it felt good, like I it it didn't scare her at all. And now I had no idea about the whole God nudge thing at that point. Yeah, I had no idea. But um, she had been praying, right? She had been processed, she did trust her friends, she did know some of these things, and and and I can tell her to this day, like, I love you because you didn't leave. But you've never left, you never will. Like, I love you for that. And and uh, and so like the next day I'm talking to mom, and mom's dying to know, and I wouldn't tell her because I wanted her to make her ask, you know. She's like, tell me about this girl. Like, what about this girl? You went on that date last night. The good kids told me. And I said, Yeah. I said, Mom, I'm gonna marry that girl.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:28

You knew.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:29

She's like, You're kidding me. How do you know? I said, because she stayed and she wants to go out again. And I just, there's no way that that none of this is on purpose. And so we dated and dated and dated, and and uh, you know, it was again, like I said, it was uh about eight months in we got engaged, or six months in, something like that we got engaged, we got married. We I we didn't plan it that way. We realized it along the way, one year to the date from that first campfire.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:00

Dude, that's wild. Ain't that crazy? That's wild, bro.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:03

It's just a it's God, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:05

Like, I mean, I don't know of another backstory of a pastor that in any way is connected to that, bro.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

Look, let me tell you, that's not lost on me either. Can I tell you what a gift it is to me that First Baptist Church of West Monroe, Louisiana, and North Rock Hill Church of Rock Hill, South Carolina have both done the work to understand what the Bible really says about divorce and what the Bible really says about the qualifications of an elder, and have taken the credibility of those two amazing spiritual institutions and shared that with me. Like, I will never have to have a conversation again about those things, wondering if I'm qualified. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:54

So, like the the fact that what you just said, the fact that that's true about me and that piece and my backstory is true about me. And there were some churches willing to step into that and really seek to understand personally for me, but also spiritually, uh theologically from the scriptures, and not just do the easy thing, which would be like, that's messy, let's not do that. Like, I it is not lost on me that I very few have that backstory. It's also not lost on me that there are there are a lot of people that should still be in ministry that were cast to the side and the sin wasn't theirs. The sin was not theirs. That's heavy, bro. Because I didn't leave my marriage. I didn't leave it until I was left many, many times. I mean, there was over 10 uh unfaithful moments before I before I finally left. And I didn't live perfectly. I got a story, bro. Like, but if all I was was an ex-drunk with some with some wild past, churches love that. They love that story. God turned it around, won't he do it, right? Like, praise the Lord. But the divorce thing, man, like it's such a nuanced thing in scripture. But if you really go back to Moses and you go to do through to through through the Torah, and you go to the Sermon on the Mount, and you go to Paul's teaching in 1 Corinthians, and you you look at the some of the verbiage in Romans, there is grace for people like me. And man, the gospel has come alive in my life in a brand new way because Kirk Belmont and my dad Howard Merrill, and because John Avan and Toby Frost, who you know who's now at Greenwood, he was the executive pastor that hired me. Uh, because the the the advisory team and and the and the people at North Rock, because they took time to really understand what that grace allowance was in scripture. And then to invite me into this next chapter of my life when I thought that I thought I would only ever be like one of those awesome church members. Yeah. You know, like I was content to do that. I'm gonna be a leader, I'm all in, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna earn money, I'll mentor young men, I'll tell my story at retreats, I'll lead Bible studies. That's what I was doing. I was content to do that. And Toby Frost, I think it's so fun that he's in South Carolina now, is he comes to me and he says, Hey man, I want I want to talk to you about joining our staff. And the first three or four jobs that they offered me, I'm like, No. And then one day he said, Hey, he's so I don't know if he ever did this on purpose or if Hey, just to fill in the gap.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:23

Yeah. Because you had gone from like you're still working this in this career. Oh, yes, building a very successful career. You're married, you guys are building your life, you're in the church, and and and you're just moving on. You've got no aspiration.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:37

I've gone from Pennsylvania to Louisiana at this point, too. Yeah, yeah. You know, so 10 months into my marriage with Tanisha, there was a leadership change in the company that I worked for. And I I did a great name in that industry. I'd done really well in that industry. I was working for the place to work. Everybody wanted to work where I was working. It's the best plant in the country, still is, unbelievable. They got a new CEO. And often when a new CEO comes in, he wants new people around him. Sure. And so I started watching all the people at my level, the level above and the level below were gone. I was the last one there. And I'm thinking, maybe I'm gonna outlive this, or maybe my time's coming. I don't know. But I just led us through a big plant conversion that made us millions of dollars. And, you know, I mean, I'd done a lot of things. I thought, I think I might be good. And then some things started happening, and and I don't want to assume motives, but like something got hung on me that I didn't do. And they let it hang on me because it was my turn. And and and I felt like it was unfair. I felt like I wanted to sue them. I won't I mean I wanted to fight for my contract, what they owed me in the contract, but they had reclassified my job and all this stuff. Like it was it was crazy. It was manipulative, it was wrong. But God used that to move us to Louisiana. So I moved Tanisha halfway across the country to the different country. You know, Louisiana's its own thing, man. Like we get down there to the, to the to this unique subculture of Louisiana. We've been married 10 months. We end up living in a hotel for eight and a half weeks because it was 2009. So there's all that mortgage reform. Well, we're we're dying. We're like, please let us close on this house. Here's the money, you know. And we finally get in the house. Um, we end up at the first Baptist Church of West Monroe, Louisiana, where Toby was the XP, and they start, you know, they they get to like I Toby was the first guy I met at that church. Met him the first Sunday we went. He took us to dinner the next week. We began to build a relationship, they began to know us. They start having me share my story at a men's retreat. Uh hey, would you lead this men's study? There's this group of business leaders we that want to study the word. Would you help them? I'm co-leading a D group or a life group with one of the pastors. And like I'm just doing church stuff, man, just trying to be a great church member, trying to disciple my family, trying to live for Jesus. And they start offering me a job. None of the jobs made sense, man. Like, I didn't want to be the college minister. I want to be the family guy, these kind of things. Then one day Toby comes in, and I don't know if this is on purpose, like to trick me into getting in there, or or like he's just changing his question. I'm sure it was on purpose. I'm sure it was known in. He said, Hey, we've got this celebrate recovery ministry. I'd love for you to share your story at Celebrate Recovery. I'm like, that makes a ton of sense. You know, I was married to an addict. I used to be one, you know, alcoholic, whatever. And so I went in there and um shared it. He's, and then the next week he calls me, he says, Hey, you still doing like the optimization stuff, you know, building teams, helping improve departments. Yeah, he said, You're you're really good at that, aren't you? I said, Yeah, it's kind of what I do. I I help unprofitable cost centers get profitable, uh, low-performing teams, raise up those kind of things. He said, and we've got a leadership team over there. It's a team of volunteers, but the guy who headed it up has had to move and they're struggling. But would you kind of go put your hands on it and help them get moving? Well, I did. And so the next thing I've been there like six, seven months, I'm just volunteering, I'm just helping. I'm just leading the thing. I have no idea. And I'm sitting in church one Sunday and uh John Avant was preaching, and Dr. Avant says, and if you have any questions, our recovery pastor Chad Merrill was actually here today, sitting right down here. Feel free to see him. And I was like, I looked at my wife and was like, What did you what did he just say? She goes, Are you the only one here that doesn't know you're the recovery pastor of this church? Goodness.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:34

I've never heard of a guy getting a job sitting in the auditorium of the church. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:41

And so are you the only one that you're the only one that doesn't know that you're the recovery pastor?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:46

No, I did not know that.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:48

Yeah, I did not know that. And so, man, like again, God started stirring, and and then uh they came to me one day and they they said, Hey, there's this church in Sterlington, which backstory is Sterlington was where we wanted to live originally when we came to Louisiana. The house that I had put an offer on, they had accepted it. They ended up finding out the sellers were in foreclosure, and so they couldn't sell. Uh and we didn't have time to go through the long sale, uh, long, long litigation of buying it on a short sale or rather. And so we ended up living in West Monroe. Well, we had to be in West Monroe because we needed to be at the first Baptist of West Monroe. We'd have never been there if we were in Sterlington. Well, now they're offering me a chance to go pastor to restart this church that has is dying, but has a has a remnant of faithful people that are like, please don't let us die. Come help. We'll do anything to see this church reach these young families that are coming to our area, all this. And so God just stirred in me like that. Yeah, that thing that's a little deeper than head or heart, it's like that clarity that comes from somewhere else. Like, I'm supposed to do this. And so I talked to T and she's like, Yeah, we're not supposed to do that. Like, we can't move again.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:03

Yeah, but it's right where we always wanted to be. No, the kids are thriving here. We can't move again. And so I asked her, I said, would you just pray for seven, seven days? Like for the next seven to ten days, would you just commit to pray at least once a day? And would you seek counsel from at least one godly woman who you trust? And then at the end of ten days, if if you haven't brought it up, I'll bring it up. But I'll wait till the end of that time to bring it up unless you want to talk about it. And so every night I'm laying there like, it's gotta be tonight, right? Yeah. And she she's turned the light off, go to sleep. And then it was like day six or seven. I knew she had met with Pastor Avant's wife, and I'm thinking, we're definitely talking about it today, because she just talked to her last night, you know. And she reaches over, turns the light off, and we like, good night, babe. Like, good night, I guess not. And then she turned the light back on. And she sat up in bed and she looked at it at me. She said, I think we have to do this. And I was like, You gotta be kidding me. Like, I'm gonna be a pastor. And she's like, Yeah, I'm gonna be a pastor's wife. And then we were thinking, How in the world did we get here? You know? We still didn't know what it meant. But we we said yes. And and then so I joined the staff at First Baptist Church of Westman Road, Louisiana in 2011 with the job of starting up a replant of a church that was dying in in the most in the in the most rapidly growing town in the state, um, with this remnant of faithful people that I didn't know that were just dying for us to be there to breathe life into what they were doing. And uh the best part of all of it is like I had like I by this time I got a pretty good career going. I'm working still in the still in the poultry, the food processing industry. I'm working for foster farms down there and like doing pretty well, hitting bonuses and all these things. And I accepted, I had no idea what I was gonna make.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:00

I had no idea. Oh my gosh. I only knew it was less. It was less. It was less. But all I knew was that Toby had promised me that they would do everything they could to take care of my family. And so I was taking them at their word. And I did things had gotten to the point where God had kind of loosened my feet at the other place, too. It wasn't awesome there. And so I was, if it didn't work at the church, I'd do something else, right? But it was time to move. And so little did I know that that Bible study that they'd had me lead in the last year and a half at that corporate office, the guy who owned that company had come in to see Toby one day. And uh, I don't know if you know this, but like rich people like to give in person. Don't they though? They they they take the middleman out and they come in to give. They want to talk about what God's doing, that kind of thing. He had come in to to give his end of year gift to the mission fund. And he said, Toby, why isn't Chad Merrill on our staff? Seems like he should be. And Toby said, I agree, man. We'd love to hire him. He goes, Well, what's the holdup? Is it money? Like just disgusted that it could be such, you know. And he said, Yeah, frankly, it is. Well, if I give you this amount of money for the next two years, will that would that take care of it? He said, I think that would do it. I think that would do it. I would I started my first ever ministry job with no with no seminary degree, no formal training at one of the best churches in the state of Louisiana, a regional church in that area, as a part of the senior executive team of that church, making this much below my base salary that I left at Foster Farms. I did lose a lot of money because I lost some of profit share and bonuses and things, but what we lived on barely changed because God had put that piece in the whole way along. And so then we ended up replanting that church in Sterlington with 13 to 20 people, I can't remember the exact number, somewhere between those two numbers, of this remnant of people who were so ready to breathe life into that community. And 60 people who we hardly knew that raised up out of our church and went with us, some from the community that came with us. And God just breathed on it, man. Like in no time, we're running like 150, 180, 200 in this gym. We end up moving into the old church that we had left, renovated it, moved in there. We're running two services, 300 and some. I mean, I remember one year we baptized like 90 some people in the church of 250 that year. I mean, we're we became the pastor not of a church, but of an entire community. My team and I, and and God, and and look, I'm speaking at like events, talking about revitalization, talking about church planting. I'm coaching pastors, and the whole time I'm like, the joke's on them. I still don't know what I'm doing. Right. Like, and I still was that guy who didn't know I was the pastor. I was still that guy. Like, I had no idea that everything God had walked me through in my life had given me a leadership development background, had given me a relational background, had given me empathy and compassion, had given me authenticity and relatability. The thing he had done is he had broken down the pride in me to the point that I just became this relatable guy who people were refreshingly attracted to because there was no pretense to me. And so that gave me the ability to earn their trust, even as I was still learning to preach and learning to lead in a church and learning how any of this worked. And I got to be a part of a staff with some of the best preachers in the state on a teaching team that invested in me and helped me learn how to how to steward God's word and how to how to how to find my voice and all these things. And I just look back on it and I'm like, I don't think God could have drawn it up any better for me to get to where I'm at than how than what he walked me through. Because today, what happens, Josh, is man, like if you meet a pastor who's asking different questions, you know, not seminary questions, there's plenty of people with all those degrees to answer those. But a guy who's just trying to get unstuck, a guy who's trying to get past all the consequences and get to the root of the crisis, you're telling him to call me. I learned all that in the poultry industry. I learned all that making DVDs in Charlottesville, Virginia. I learned all that in another industry. If you're meeting a guy who's trying to put the pieces back together after his family fell apart and he needs a pastor, you're calling me. Why? Because I'm the one pastor you know that has that story. And so again and again over the last, man, it's been since 2000, last 14 years. I find myself cracking up because sitting across from me is someone who starts a conversation like this. Pastor Chad, I don't know if you'll understand this or not. Like, I don't know if you can even relate to this or not. But and then they tell me their version of my story. Dude, I'm thinking like, God, you gotta be kidding me.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:14

Man, I'm I'm fundamentally moved by how God carved you out. Isn't it weird? Man, it's it's it weird's not the word. I got I'm just like the word. There's this like unique sort of beauty in that to just celebrate like what he did. Like, like I love our I love our colleges and seminaries. I I love our churches that invest in young leaders. I think what you came out of. I mean, you you came out of the the rust belt of America as men were investing in you. And I think my brain, you know where it goes just goes. It goes back to that pool house, dude.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:54

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:56

It goes back to that pool house and like that young guy still drunk on on the world. Oh gosh, yeah. And here, here Amy is speaking life over you. Oh yeah. And dude, you you didn't even you didn't even know. I couldn't even hear it. You could and you couldn't see it. She could see it. Yeah. And and now, I mean, obviously, you you passed her North Rock Hill. God, God brought you up here, all that's a man. We'll have to do another podcast on that as well. But but man, I just I just want to settle in on this thought. Okay. I I want you to to talk to that guy. Uh could you imagine? 2005, Chad? 2005, Chad? If you could talk to him, yeah, what would you say, man?

SPEAKER_02 1:31:47

Man. I I don't know what he could have heard, but but I think I would want to say to him inside of you is everything you need to make it through what's in front of you. You know? I I wish that I could have been aware of how well I'd been discipled by guys like Frankie Haynes and Mike Low Masty and Tim Morris and my dad and my uncle Van and like how much depth there was in me of what I knew of Jesus. And tapped into that more readily because it was there. It was why I was a good dad. You know, it was why I people trusted me at work, even though I was lifting the way there there was this, there was so it was, it was the thing probably that Amy saw. Like, I wish I could go back and say, hey man, I know you feel like there's nothing to live for except self right now, but there's so much in you that's going to lead you through what's next. And I would love to tell them, like, hey man, as bad as you think it is right now, none of this is wasted. Because here's the thing, Josh, like I wouldn't undo one minute of it. Because when you start pulling on the thread of all the things that I like regret, like you start yanking on that thread of even the first marriage or the unfaithfulness or just those lost days of drunkenness and feeling like the state was taking my kid, whatever it might be, whatever anguish I was under. If you start pulling that thread, like I'd like to throw that part away and not live that part, it's tangled up with so much good in my life. Like I get to be Chris Schifflet's dad. There's nothing legal, there's nothing rational, there's nothing in any way other than God plopping me in his life that I should be that boy's dad. And I get to be his dad. And he is he is one of the people I admire most in this world. And I love that I get to be in his life. You know, I get to be Carrington and Madeline and Kendall's dad. I get to be their husband's father-in-law. Why? Because they were birthed out of those hard things, but God somehow made them them in that time. I get to be Tanisha Merrill's husband, and I'd have never even been in Pennsylvania if I wasn't just desperate to get out of that situation and move somewhere else. We would have gone south or west, we would have never gone up there. But I get to be her husband. I get to be a pastor because I go, all these, I know you because of this weird journey I've been on. That if you pull that thread out, it's just tied to so it's just intertangled with so much other stuff that now to this, like I wouldn't undo any of it. Ava. No, you look, you look at Ava, like she's I call her the great equalizer. Like she's the God gave us her last. And it's like, hey, watch this. You know, like she's gonna be easy for every one of you to love. Yeah. Oh my goodness. She's the thing we have in common, right? Jesus and her. And so, like, I think of all that. Now, there's stuff I wish I could take away from my wife. Like, I wish I could take away the pain of the complexities of step family, especially step family that steps into trauma, right? So, as a stepmom, it's been harder for her. Like I was unaware of how much I couldn't love her like she loved me in the beginning. Like I had scars in me I wasn't even aware of where I just wasn't tender to her. There was very little help for us in how to navigate stepfamily. We were, we were, they counseled us just like they did every other premarital counseling in the church. And it so we go in leading like mom and dad and husband and wife with all these kids, and it just threw things out of whack. I wish I could go back and say, you build relationships, I'll parent. But we didn't do that. So there's to this day, there's some some shrapnel in all of us. Yeah. From the way I, but even I still wouldn't undo it. I wish I couldn't spare her of some of that because it wasn't her fault. I still wouldn't undo it because it led me to her, it led me to here, it led me to everything. Like God just didn't waste not even one grimy minute of it. And he continually, I love to say that he redeems it. That's not true. Because to redeem it would mean he thought, oh no, what happened? Let me fix that, right? He he actually sovereignly rules over it, that even what was meant for evil, he has turned into good. Right? Glory to God, man. And so I get chills when I say that because I can think in my head, I can think of not dozens, but hundreds and hundreds of people that I've gotten to pastor or gotten to relate to, not in spite of my story, but because of it. You know, even this week, there's people that have reached out to my wife and I. Why? Because when they look around, they see a pastor as a story like theirs. They see a wife who's been a stepmom as a story like theirs. They and God just continues to say, Man, I can use even that. Praise the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:04

Dude, I've got uh I got two gifts for you. Oh no. And I I want you to I want you to open them now. Okay. And I I want them to be that way. Um so I I don't want it to make you, I don't want to make you feel weird, but but this is um this is it. And I I like giving away things that I love. Oh yeah? And this is something that I that I love. Like um, Wyoming elk tag in here. Uh I'm just kidding. Um Let's see. This is um Oh man. This is a a pocket knife.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:46

And um not just any pocket knife. Okay. It's a it's a case pocket knife. Yeah. And before anybody asks, like I don't have a brand deal or or promotional deal with it. Well, you wouldn't turn one down, would you? I mean, if they reach out. I mean, you know. Um, but but that is a very special case pocket knife because it was made the same year you were born. Really? 1975.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:15

Let me let me tell you why this is more special than you even think. The first knife that I ever got. You remember your first knife when your dad thought you were old enough to have a knife? Barlow. It was one of this. It was this exact knife. Are you kidding me? I'm not kidding you one bit. My dad gave me his pocket knife. I'm positive it was the same exact model. And and the tips were all broken off so I wouldn't hurt myself. They were a little dull, but he broke the tips off so I wouldn't poke myself. But I'm I'm telling you, like, when you when I pulled that out of that bag, I almost even said it out loud, no way. No way. That's amazing, dude. I love it. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:57

It is it's a beautiful knife. And I I want you to, there's a couple things I want to tell you. Yeah. I I want I'm giving it to you as a kind of a memento of remembrance, right? Yeah, just just to celebrate what God's done in you. And I want you to use it. There's nothing, there'd be nothing more sad than to pull that thing out after you're dead and gone, and it looked just like it looks right now. Like, like break break the blade. Do do like put that thing to the test. That thing was made when the case family was still making. So every part of that was made by hand. Every part, like the bone, the red bone is all is all dyed by hand, all that, all that was made by hand. That's awesome. Um, all the all the markings and everything, you can you can track it down to the year that to the year you were born. I verified all that. Um sweet story, but but here's here's kind of what comes with it, which is I I want to speak a blessing over you as we kind of bring this to a close. And man, I feel privileged to do it, and I care so much about it, and I I care about blessing because I think so many men go through their lives without ever hearing it. Yeah. And God gave it to you through through Amy and and and Dave, right? And in this little pool house, and through your dad, and through all these men. I love how you said that. Like, yeah, and dude, I just want to affirm in this way, Chad, hearing the story of what God has done through you is a beautiful picture of him bringing everything to pass that he put in you and that he promised you. And he's not done writing that story. Amen. And you and your kids and Tanisha, he's still telling it. And there are people right now that are experiencing some of the same brokenness that you experienced, your kids experienced, and God's gonna continue to use your story to set them free. Praise God, bro. Thank you, man. Thank you for being here today. It's fun. Like, thank you. Like, there's more of your story to you. We we gotta do this again. I'll come back whenever you want. I love more of this to get to. But man, thank you for being here today, bro. I love you, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:41:21

I love you too, man. And thanks for doing what you're doing. I think these conversations are important, and I appreciate you uh just uh setting a place for for stories to get told, man. I I I'm not missing an episode. It's great. Thanks, man.