My Brother's Journey
My Brother’s Journey is a Catholic podcast for men focused on living the faith in everyday life and growing closer to Jesus Christ. Each episode explores real challenges, practical lessons, and encouragement for the daily walk of discipleship.
My Brother's Journey
God Writes Better Stories: Brother Keith's Journey Beyond Denominational Boundaries
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Baptized in his Protestant church in 1988. Ten years on a church building mission in Buffalo, NY. Now a regular at our St. Philip the Apostle Catholic men's Bible study. Greg and Baron sit down with Protestant neighbor and active bible study participant Keith Currie to hear how God writes a story nobody plans — and why authentic friendship is still the most powerful form of evangelization there is.
Hey, welcome again. I'm part of the tag team. I'm Greg Joseph Chuck, and with me is Baron Fink. Baron, great to see you again, my brother.
SPEAKER_00Great to see you too.
SPEAKER_02I am so excited about our mystery guest. And uh and I'll tell you why, right after we finish with the opening prayer.
SPEAKER_00Would you mind leading? Sure, no problem. Thank you. Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen. Dear Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to get together to talk about the ways that you work within our lives, Lord, and how you lead us uh towards you, uh, how you encourage us, how you uh uh help us to uh find our way. Or we look forward to this session, look forward to uh um you being part of this this opportunity. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. So, mystery guest, I'm gonna ask you in about a second or two here to introduce yourself. But I am honestly and earnestly excited to have you here. So why don't we start with first of all, introduce yourself.
SPEAKER_01My name is Keith Curry, and I'm a next door neighbor to Greg. The hitman just I don't know about the hitman, but I knew that was coming.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm I'm very I'm um and I'm picking up Pin Fine, no problem. Um, I'm very excited to have you, Keith, and I and thank you. Thank you for for being here. Um, one of the reasons I'm excited is um because you, unlike so many of our previous uh brothers that we interviewed, um, you are not Catholic, you are Protestant, and yet you're you're you've been coming to our Bible study here for what a couple months at least now.
SPEAKER_01I've been coming since uh February.
SPEAKER_02Since February. Wow, time flies. I believe it's February. Yeah, time flies. And um, so let's start with first of all, let's start with just that question. Like, we're delighted to have you here. Absolutely. And uh the question is, is what uh what inspired you to come to our Bible study, knowing it's a kind of like in a Catholic church with a bunch of Catholic guys.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. Um well it's interesting going back, you know the story. Uh, we played golf out at Morrisville, uh golf course out there, and after we got done, you and I went to dinner and got talking about our faith. And uh from there, uh you mentioned that you had this men's Bible study group that had started at a church in Mooresville, but had moved up to this church in Statesville, and uh that one thing led to another, and you uh after mentioning it, I was like, sure, I'd love to come to that. Um, and so it just fits with uh I'm always trying to learn and grow in my walk with God, and so this fits exactly what I'm trying to do. Uh, to answer the question about from my perspective, when you say you're not Catholic, uh, growing up, we used to have this thing called the Apostles' Creed that I was part of, and in that it says, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church. And uh, and so in that I was always had a question with my grandmother who was more spiritual, uh, what is that? And and so to be clear, I am Catholic, I believe in the Holy Catholic Church, but I'm not Roman Catholic. I hope that doesn't affect that. But from my perspective, that's where I'm at. So that's how I ended up coming, and uh, I have really enjoyed getting to know so many people, not just the guys I've listened to every single podcast that you put out, uh, because I think you started about the time I came. And um, but uh, I have really enjoyed meeting so many people, and uh, we've been studying in the New Testament, which has been great, and so I've just had a great time. It's been a blast for me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, for us too, and we're definitely glad to have you here, no question about it. Um, so you as you have listened to all these different podcasts, you you know that this is really about a guy, you know, us as men, our spiritual journey. And so it's inevitable that normally we're gonna start with tell us about your spiritual journey, tell us about you know the young the young Keith Curry growing up and and how you were raised and and and you know your walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_01This is kind of funny because nearly two years ago I started a sabbatical, uh, stopped working, which I worked for 40 something years in the packaging business, corrugated boxes and and stuff like that, stuff people don't think about until they're moving and then they call me. But um anyway, I took a sabbatical and uh I joked about I was gonna write some memoirs, uh, and it would be a short story and funny because uh my life is comical. Uh, but I am a true Charlatan. I uh although I was born in Richmond County, North Carolina, uh my dad was chief of police of a little town down there, and uh my mom stayed homemaker pretty much. She took some jobs on the side too, but I was uh one of six kids, and I'm towards the end. I'm second from the baby uh of the six kids. But my father took a job with the railroad, which brought us to Charlotte. So from there, I grew up. Uh we started off in Midwood, which was a little bitty village down back then. This was a long, long time ago. And then uh we ended up moving out to East Charlotte to Idawild. I went to Idawild Elementary, Almon Road Junior High, Independence High School, Central Piedmont Community College. And um, so I'm a Charlottean. I grew up in Charlotte, and uh I worked in the packaging business from 1980 and on. So I kind of worked my way while I went to college. Um, and so that was my story on that. Uh, grew up around uh the Methodist Church, United Methodist Church back then. They had uh youth groups that I was part of. Um, my grandmother was very spiritual and was a Pentecostal uh holiness. She used to take us to the tent meetings. This is kind of comical, I guess, but uh uh it was everybody from the uh the Ernest Angelys, the Jimmy Schwaggerts, there was some other people, and then there was one lady, went to a tent meeting out in Mount Holly, and um ever since I went to that one tent meeting, I got a mail from that lady for the rest of my life just about uh asking for money. So anyway, that was the thing. But my grandmother was very spiritual, very loving. I found out later because she would always come over and said, Why don't you read the Bible to me? And uh found out talking to my dad before he passed away. I said, What was the deal? It was always great that we got to read the Bible with her, and because I had to go dig it out, and uh he said, Well, you know why she did that? I said, No. He says, She was illiterate, she couldn't read. Oh, so she wanted you to read to her. So in my family coming from Rockingham, they there was some of that. There was um my my mom's side of the family ran restaurants and did food business, and that's the granny. And then my father's side of the family, uh, his parents were sharecroppers, and so they were pretty poor in uh Ellerby, North Carolina, and uh, so that's kind of my story, that's where I came from. Um, and then so I had the first half of my life was right up till 1987, smoking, doing all kinds of crazy stuff, and uh, I won't go into detail, I'll spell you that. Um, but in 1987, I met a guy selling boxes. When I sell him boxes, one of my prospective customers invited me to go to church. And at the time they were meeting at a theater. I said, Yeah, yeah, I don't do that. It's gotta have a steeple at least. I can't I can't go to a theater. But uh eventually he invited me to a Bible study. It was through that I started studying, started really learning the Bible for the first time, really understanding, starting to understand it. And um, it was through that that I eventually in 1988, July 13th, I just celebrated my birthday, spiritual birthday of 38 years. But in July 13th of 1988, I was baptized. I was single, but uh I was it was a week night, and I'll never forget that night, and uh getting into the water, and the commitment I made was I don't understand everything in the Bible, but from here on I'm gonna try to do the best I can to do right, and that was a big move for me. Uh and then from there, um I got into the singles ministry, I ended up being Amanda, my wife, and uh we started dating, and within a year and almost two years, we were married. And so in December 1989, we got married. Yeah. Is that too much story? No, no, no. Short podcast, I hope. No, no, no. So we got married and uh lived in an apartment in Matthews, and we moved to the university area, which was still just brand new in Charlotte in 1989, and then uh so that was our story of how we got married.
SPEAKER_02Tell me a little bit about um yours and Amanda's walk together. Because I know she is she's also very into her way into her faith.
SPEAKER_01Well, let's let's just say, had we met at any other time, there's stuff in the Bible about at the perfect time, God did this, and got and and uh had we met at any other time, we would have uh I would have repulsed her. Uh but we met at just the right time. And uh what a great thing this is. Amanda's uh three years younger than me or so, and uh um and she was uh just got out of college, got her teaching certificate, was getting into teaching uh science, middle school science. And again, I was uh newbie in packaging sales and starting to do that, but um we met at just the right time through the singles ministry. It was kind of cool how this works. Um, again, I hope this doesn't go too long, but we they had a thing in the dating in the singles thing called the dating game. If you remember the old dating game, sure. Now, the way they pulled this off, so we wouldn't know it, was they had a partition between us so you couldn't see them, and they used other people to announce our answers to one another. Oh, okay. So it was still secretive, but uh, we actually won. Uh she chose me as of one of three uh prospectants that and uh she chose me, and I have that on video. That's pretty cool. Oh that is uh but anyway, she chose me uh unknowingly.
SPEAKER_02And uh do you take that out every anniversary to remind her that she chose it?
SPEAKER_01We don't like looking at that in there young kids, young bucks. But uh that was in uh uh the beginning of the the starting to date, and uh and it was kind of off and on, but we dated and then uh got married again in December 19 uh eighty-nine. And one of the great things about when we got married was it was my parents' anniversary, so it helped me to remember their anniversary, which helped me remember my anniversary for a guy, and then later my daughter gets born. Guess what day? The same day. Yeah, so that's a beautiful thing for me and my family. There you go.
SPEAKER_02There you go.
SPEAKER_01So um I could go on and on on this, Greg. I uh what else you want to know?
SPEAKER_02Well, I I so all of us, I think, have this moment where we're living one way and then we decide to live another way, and and clearly that was what led up to your baptism, right? Was there something was it just the invitation of that of that of that guy who said, hey, come to our church that's meeting? Was was that the kind of the key uh event, or was there you know, was there something else that was kind of in the back of your mind that that led to it?
SPEAKER_01I appreciate you bringing this back around because that guy, his name is Mike Deese. So and Mike and I are not anything alike, but he was a prospective customer, so I was trying to be respectful as I could, but we had nothing in common except for he was a really good friend, and he got involved in my life and and and and was persistent with me.
SPEAKER_02And you were young at this time.
SPEAKER_01I was I had already lived a pretty probably uh 26, 27.
SPEAKER_0226. And and how old is Mike at this age? Uh he was younger. He was oh, he was younger.
SPEAKER_01A lot younger than me. Okay, he was fresh into the business, but uh before I met Mike, it's funny how the journey you can look back and you see things. I had a girl that came to um the box plant when I was working in customer service there, and she wanted to do a plant tour to learn how they were made so she could do a book report for UNCC. Um, and she never invited me to church. I probably would have had the wrong motives for that anyway, but she never invited me to church, never invited my all study. And then um uh there was another girl that helped me put contacts in my eyes, which is really hard to do for me to put my finger in my eye. And um she didn't invite me to church. And when I went to church for the first time with Mike, which happened to be on April Fool's Day, I believe it was 19, it was April Fool's 1988. Okay, um uh when I finally went to church with him, those two girls were there, and it just goes to show. I mean, I'm not blaming them or holding anything against them at all, but it just goes to show I think I was searching, I was wanting to know the Bible, and I I prayed about it. I wanted to really learn the Bible more, and I was desperate to find out someone that could teach me. And when I found these guys and they started having this thing called a Bible talk, and uh I was learning the Bible, man. I was soaking it up. Um, Amanda could tell you this story. Like I went and bought back then you had to buy the Bible on cassette, now we're without excuse, you got apps that can read it to you. But I bought the uh dramatized version on cassette, and I would ride around the car and listen to it. So now everything I do in the Bible, if I'm reading it, it's usually a dramatized version. So just expect that when I read it.
SPEAKER_02Is that why you dress up with the long robes and carry the Ten Commandments and 15, whatever?
SPEAKER_01But um, yeah, I uh that's uh one of the highlights of the story is looking back and seeing God had his plan, and it wasn't those girls, it was Mike. And Mike was a little nerdy guy. Uh sorry, Mike, um, but a little nerdy guy, and uh I liked sports back then. He wasn't a sports guy, but man, he was a good friend, and so I think it's true what the Bible says about no one cares what you know until they know that you care, and uh that's how that worked with us. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02I'm talking a lot, man. Can you know? That's the purpose of it. That's the purpose, right? I mean, we did the best part of being the host, co-host, right? Yes, is getting to ask and listen to you tell your story. I'm telling my story, and we love it, and we love it. And we're not we're not gonna talk about golf because that's a depressing subject for me personally, as you know.
SPEAKER_01I like golf, I don't love it. I like golf.
SPEAKER_02So um talk to me because I know this, but I'd like some of the handful of people that actually listen to this podcast to get to know you a little better. You also have gotten involved with quite a bit of different ministries as a result of your walk. And can you maybe just talk to us a little bit about some of the ministries that you've some of the things did?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I'll probably not hit all this, but first off, let me just say um there was people, not only Mike, that helped me with my Bible studies, there was Dean Toscano uh and a host of other people, Rick Maul. I I could I could name off a bunch of names, Don Burroughs, another guy that was there, and so many memories going back to that. But after we got married, Amanda and I were praying about going on a mission team. It was big in the 80s that we figured we were going to go to Africa on a mission team. And um we would we were asked by a couple, Greg and Wynn Urgel, if we would be interested in going on a mission team with them. I said, Absolutely. They helped us get married, they discipled us, is what we talked about in our marriage and helped us and nurtured us in our walk so much. And I said, Heck yeah, Greg, where are we going? Now, Greg was a South Carolina big old redneck that makes me look like a city slicker. But uh he said, You're not gonna believe this, but we got an opportunity to go on a mission to uh Buffalo, New York, and it was through that that a man and I packed everything we owned. There's more to the story, but in a nutshell, we came back, we packed everything we owned into a U-Haul truck, we pulled our car up on a trailer behind it, and off to this land in the north that we didn't know nothing about, other than I did follow the Bills football when uh the wide right was Scott Borwood. Anyway, um so we went on a mission for 10 years up to Buffalo, New York. My children were born there, Zachary, who's friends with your three sons, and uh uh he was born there at Sisters Hospital, so was Olivia in 1998, my daughter uh born at Sisters Hospital in Buffalo. So that's kind of story. We we went staying there 10 years, and uh it was a great time, fruitful time. I had a guy, uh not only Greg, but so many other brothers that helped me in my life. Danny Makaluso is one of them, uh, that were just very, very faithful, and uh there was a bond of discipleship between us that we we did we call it discipleship. And um, so I stayed there to 10 years, 2001. We came back. My mother needed a liver transplant, and thank God we got her the liver transplant and got another almost eight years out of her. So that's another whole story of prayer and answering prayer.
SPEAKER_02So 10 years you you called it your mission trip. Or mission team. Or mission team. So what were you doing from a mission side in Buffalo?
SPEAKER_01So um the church was called Church of Christ, and um and we were very involved in evangelism and sharing our faith, uh, helping people to read the Bible, study the Bible, and the stuff I didn't understand, I had somebody I could go to and say, Hey, can you help them understand this?
SPEAKER_02So this is this is this is a really good this is a great topic because Catholics tend to not do a good job in general of evangelization. Now, for those of you that are the the five that are out there that are listening that disagree, that's all right. You can send me emails or whatever, text me. But my as a cradle Catholic, I I believe we don't do a great job of evangelization. So maybe you can educate us a little bit. I mean, so we're I mean, my Baron, Baron knows this, right? And in fact, this is part of the reason why we we started doing the podcast, is that we're not comfortable with kind of standing on a street corner and proclaiming to total strangers that Christ loves them and that all you gotta do is repent and you'll be saved, right? That's just that's just um my view of evangelization, right? It's it it it it's a it's a pretty basic view that I probably got off YouTube or something. But uh so my question to you is you know, what were you you know, how did when you say evangelization, educate us a little as to uh how that uh how that took its form.
SPEAKER_01You mentioned uh on the street corner preaching and stuff like that. The funny thing is, after I first got baptized, there was two of the guys, the evangelists and uh one of the ministry guys, that took me into uptown Charlotte, my home, and we stood out on the corner and we preached. I say we, I stood there and said, that guy. It's more than somebody else. But um uh basically we invited everybody to study the Bible if they wanted to. What was the turnout from that? Not much. My experience has been if there's anything I could encourage you with, is uh do the same thing Mike did with me. Be a friend, be persistent, and at every chance hold the word of life in front of the Bible. You gotta have the Bible as part of it. That's the thing that changed me. Uh as far as I think the uh what I'm noticing, uh all the churches are trying to change in some of these areas. Some people are more evangelistic than others, but I see the app Halo, Halo, Halo Halo that you turned around to, uh Father Mike that you sent me to. There's so much stuff. If you're searching, the answers are out there. You don't even really need people anymore. And we worried about AI off your thing last week. Um it's more and more if you're hungry, you're without excuse because it's right there on your phone if you want to pull it up. So um, but we would teach simple Bible study. I say simple, stay with the gospels, stay with the parables, stay with the basic teachings, and you can't go wrong. And you get in the book of Acts boldly and from house to house, as was the model they did. I think friendship and food really makes a big difference, especially for guys' food. Uh but uh there's no exact science on that. So I hope that helps. No, that helps. That's very simple. That helps.
SPEAKER_00So were you establishing a church then up there? Church of Christ is a very good thing.
SPEAKER_01There was a church in Hamburg that was led by a guy named Ursnell. Okay. Great guy. Oh, phenomenal. Um but and but they were wanting to take it to the next level. And they were kind of um, I don't know if you've known there's a lot of books out there about uh different Protestant churches and challenges uh of getting a building and never outgrowing it, and all that kind of crazy talk. But um, I think there are people are hungry, they always were, and Jesus said it best. He said, Go make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey. And that's the missing equation. So, how difficult or easy was it to convince your wife to uproot and let me tell you that was one of the great things about marrying someone with the same virtues. But uh look, she grew up in the church, and so she was a lot more. That's one thing great about her family. Her brother Bill and her sister Angie, they are just as committed as Amanda is, and so is her mom and her dad before he passed. Uh, but they they grew up in the church, so they had that luxury. I always pick at her because she knows that King James Bible, so she'll go into King James mode and start quoting that. Now, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not doing, I'm doing NIV. I do that new stuff. Yeah. But anyway, um, but it was uh convincing her was we we did it together, we prayed about it, and uh was it the right thing? You could always second guess anything you do. I believe it was the right thing. Our kids were born in Buffalo. My son refers to himself as a Yankneck because he's he's a Yankee by birth. But uh he's a redneck by blood. So uh when we came back home, it was the perfect time. Then, like I said, we got my mom a liver transplant, which is a whole nother story you gotta hear sometime. Yeah, but um had everybody praying for her and around the clock, there was somebody from our family with my mom in the hospital. So you keep an eye on the clock, I hope.
SPEAKER_02I am, and in fact, it's it's hard to believe. We've already done it.
SPEAKER_00I already had more questions.
SPEAKER_02Well, we I mean we could do it. Yeah, I'm sure we'll have more time to talk to Keith for sure. But uh for everyone listening today, first of all, thank you. Um, I don't know if any of the names that you all rattled off are going to be listening to our podcast.
SPEAKER_01God knows many of them, excuse me, Greg. Jamaric's gonna be listening to it, Nick, Don. I got all kind of guys listening today.
SPEAKER_02Well, that's good because uh I think we're we are growing. I think we're we're probably over a dozen active listeners at least.
SPEAKER_01Podcast, by the way.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, thank you, and thank you, uh Keith, again for for accepting our invitation and for telling us all about your spiritual walk, which has been awesome. And thank you for tuning in and being part of my brother's journey. Hey, seek Jesus in all you do and be fishers of men. God bless you, and please join us again. Vivat Jesus.