Don't get down when you're seeing the worst, cause the last will be the first.
What a day I'm telling you, all things will be new.
Living up in a down world.
Yeah we're living, yeah we're living, living up in a down world.
This is Jimmy Annanette and we are with Mr. Chevy who has not been feeling so good lately.
No he hasn't, but I just saw you play the air guitar.
I was rocking the air guitar.
You were playing the air guitar.
It was a Gibson SG air guitar.
Oh.
See that SG right there hanging behind you?
That cost an arm and a leg?
I traded for that one, just FYI, didn't cost a dime.
But.
What a deal.
Yeah right.
I love that guitar though.
It's got a little Angus Young vibe.
Poor Chevy.
Mr. Chevy's been sick, so we had him in puppy jail all last week.
And then what happened?
We picked him up on Sunday.
Yeah we picked him up on Sunday from boarding.
He was being boarded and he has been throwing up, lethargic, laying around, sleeping so soundly that I'm running around doing things and he's not even paying attention.
He's not him at all.
However, he made the turn today.
We were worried about him this afternoon, this evening.
We were worried.
We were like if he doesn't eat or drink anything today, we're going to have to call and maybe take him in, probably get an IV because he's got to be dehydrated.
I know.
I tried to give him ice and he wouldn't even take it.
I know.
He's doing better though.
He made a turn.
He started, he finally ate and drank and I put in some fresh RO water and he seemed to like that.
Now he seems very happy as he's laying in your arm.
I know.
He's a sweet boy.
He missed us.
So we were gone last week.
We had a big week last week.
But you know the same thing happened to Tina and Adam when they went away.
Remember when they went to Italy?
Yeah.
Phoebe, when they got back, Phoebe was very sick.
Very sick.
She was kind of the same thing.
Yes.
Throwing up, lethargic.
I wonder if it's anxiety because when we dropped him off when we were driving to the boarding vet.
Yeah.
He was nervous.
I mean he was shaking.
He was unusually nervous.
I know.
That was really bothering me.
Never does that.
And we have to do it again in two weeks.
It means we can never leave again.
Well we have to.
To cancel our anniversary trip.
No we're not canceling it.
To Colorado.
No.
We need to find a house sitter is what we need.
We do because he's such a good boy.
No.
Adam said we would take him if it, but Phoebe's super territorial and she's eight times his size.
It would cause her to regress.
Oh it would cause Phoebe a freak.
Yeah.
Because she's regressed so much.
I love her too.
So anyway he's pretty chill right now.
He's looking very content.
So we want to welcome you to our show.
This is Jimmy and Annette and we are living up in a down world.
It's the name of our show and we're on episode number 43.
I never know.
We are continuing.
The weeks are flying by.
Staying the course.
I know.
Time is flying by.
We're talking about Christmas services and staff meeting today.
Yes.
We're planning our Christmas service.
I'm going what?
And then a week later, two weeks later we start three services because we're growing
so much.
Yeah.
So we pastor a church called Bridge Church in Fredericksburg, Texas.
You can find us online at bridgefbg.com.
Come check us out.
We have our full services on there.
Sermons, messages, everything is on the website.
We'd love to have you just check it out.
We do our services live on Sunday.
We're doing two services currently, but we are out of room.
We're over capacity right now in our two services.
So we're going to be going to three services January 7th.
Yep.
So when we just made that decision today, it's a big decision.
Our board of directors was cheering us on.
They were like, y'all have to go to three services.
So we've got to make room for more.
But that means we have to find volunteers, more volunteers.
It's a lot of work.
It's like having three events every single week that you're planning.
Back to back to back.
And I don't know how you're going to do it.
I'm so fired up.
Well, I worry about you because when you preach your first sermon
and then the second service comes, I'm like, how does he remember
what he said before or if he didn't?
What do you do if you go, oh, wait, are you saying?
Who knows what the third service will be?
It'll be like a surprise.
I don't know if I could do that.
I'm super excited about it because our heart is to reach people
with the gospel of Jesus Christ, period.
We're reaching people.
People are getting saved.
People are coming back to faith who maybe had lost their faith
or gone through just life happened.
And we're seeing them come back.
And then we've got a lot of people that are moving into our community.
So Fredericksburg, Texas, we're in the heart of the Texas Hill country.
It's wine country out here.
It's the second largest wine industry in America just behind Napa Valley.
We'll probably pass Napa Valley, not too distant future.
So it's a huge industry out here.
$2 billion a year industry.
I bet it's more than that.
It probably is now.
That was eight years ago when I heard that stat.
But we've lived here eight years.
But we have people moving here from all over, California, both the coasts.
We've got people coming from Denver, Colorado.
We have a lot of Colorado folks that are coming to Texas.
And it looks like a lot of people are moving to Texas and Florida.
I wonder why.
So I say come one, come all as long as you're...
Don't bring your politics.
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.
I know.
America.
So anyway, our little town's growing and our church is just blowing up
with new people from all over the place.
And every week we're meeting people from a lot of Houston folks move here.
We love Houston people.
Southlake.
People coming from the Dallas area.
Yeah.
It's wild.
But it's fun too because every week it's just who's going to be there
and are we going to have room?
Our children's ministry is out of room.
So we just have capacity issues, but those are good.
If you're going to have problems in a church, those are the kind of problems
you want.
Oh, there's too many people.
We're not going to turn people away.
We're going to make room.
That's what we're doing.
The whole idea is to make room.
It's not because our goal is to grow a big church.
We want to grow big people, big followers of Jesus who love Him.
God wants to grow a big church because He wants people in church.
He wants people serving Him.
He wants to bless people.
In community.
He wants to meet the needs of people.
He wants to give people hope.
It's beautiful, isn't it?
Yeah.
By the way, you're beautiful.
Oh, you're so sweet.
I mean...
We've had a good day.
We've had a great day.
This is funny.
We had a staff meeting this morning and we are going,
we had a great day because we love our staff.
We love our staff.
We have a great team.
I get excited to go to work on Tuesdays.
It's one of my favorite days.
For that reason.
Yeah, we do.
Because it's really the only time we see all of them at one time.
Yeah, we get everybody together.
Everybody has their own little area that they're in
and we don't really get to see them much.
Pastor Russ is our executive pastor
and I kind of kick it off with just the inspiration side of it
and then he brings the heat with the stuff.
We just ask for people to share from their different areas.
Children's ministry, student ministry, pastoral care,
worship and production, connect groups.
I mean, we went around the table, all the departments that we have.
It was one testimony after another of what God is up to.
The way we like to say it around here,
I've been saying this for a long time.
It's a quote from C.S. Lewis, the Chronicles of Narnia.
Aslan is on the move.
The lion being Jesus.
Aslan is on the move.
Jesus is on the move.
We're believing God for revival and spiritual awakening.
We have such an amazing church,
which brings me to the topic we're going to talk about.
Wait.
But wait, before we do that,
I want to catch up on a couple of things.
First of all, our trip out to California.
That was interesting.
Yeah, that was very interesting.
We went out to Bethel Church in Redding, California.
We love Pastor Bill Johnson.
We've just learned from a distance from him.
He's a very wise teacher.
But we also know that the church there is very, very expressive.
A lot more than any church I've ever been to.
Than we've ever been to.
I don't even know what words to use,
because I don't want to put it down at all.
There's nothing to put down.
It's just not our tribe.
It's their culture, and that was what we realized very quickly.
It's just not our tribe.
We don't worship like that.
We believe the same things.
We believe that the Holy Spirit is alive and active and involved.
We believe the God who spoke still speaks.
The God who healed still heals.
We believe the same things.
But in terms of expression,
we're in a Lutheran community, a German community.
The Germans aren't exactly expressive people,
so we have a lot of Lutherans in our church.
We have a lot of Catholics in our church,
and Baptists, and a lot of different folks that come to our church,
and then people who come from all over.
That would be a hard environment for them to be in.
It was hard for us.
So much so that we left the conference early.
We left early.
We felt like we got what we went for.
The Lord really spoke through Dr. Ed Silvoso,
who wrote a book back in the 90s that rocked my world called
That None Should Perish,
a great book on evangelism and taking Jesus into culture.
And then Pastor Bill Johnson's son, Eric Johnson,
brought to me the word we needed to hear.
He was the first speaker, and he talked about bringing Jesus,
taking Jesus into culture, and not being weird.
It was perfect.
Perfect for that environment.
But then the whole conference was weird.
I know.
Everything else was weird from there on.
We're just being honest.
Some people might come to our church and go,
y'all are weird.
We'll go, yeah, we probably are.
Because every church has a different culture,
and so we recognize that.
Anyway, we got what we felt like we were supposed to get,
and then we came back a day early, actually.
Then we had a great weekend at the bridge.
Oh my gosh, full capacity.
Man, God has lands on the move.
He's showing up.
That's good.
It was a great weekend.
But the trip was good because when you and I go away together,
whether it's a working trip or we have an anniversary trip coming up,
31st anniversary, woohoo.
In November, it would be the weekend of Thanksgiving.
We're going out to Pagosa Springs, Colorado.
We were blessed, blessed, blessed by a church member
to gift us that for kind of pastor appreciation month,
which is October.
We're going to go out there and get to spend a few days
in the mountains in a cabin, and just so looking forward to that.
Just by ourselves, just you and me.
I know.
I can't wait.
Did Tina ask you what are you going to do?
Was it Tina that asked you that?
Yes, Tina said, well, what are you all going to do?
And I said, nothing.
I'm so happy that we don't have to get up and go to an event
or a conference.
We can sleep as long as we want.
We can stay in bed as long as we want.
We can go out to eat.
We can cook at home.
We can go over to Durango, Colorado.
It's just down the road from Pagosa.
It's just going to be great.
I want no agenda.
I don't want an organized trip.
I used to have to organize every trip.
No more.
I'm done.
I have outgrown that.
I want no agenda.
It reminds me of our sabbatical.
It's kind of like it's a short micro sabbatical of just getting
away and just having no agenda, but just to enjoy and be with God
and be with each other.
Anyway, and we won't do a show that week unless we do one
previous to Leaving Town.
We'll see how it goes.
We may actually have to skip one, but I'm not going to take
our gear because I think the internet out there is probably
very sketchy.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
I don't even think it's out in the boonies, out in the mountains.
Anyway, that's coming up.
Oh, we had such a wonderful, we had a great day on Sunday at the
church, and then Sunday afternoon we just went and hung out with
our besties.
No, we didn't.
No, Monday.
Monday.
I am so messed up.
Yes, you are.
We didn't go anywhere on Sunday.
What day is this, by the way?
Yes, we went.
You're right.
We hung out with Adam and Tina, and we always have a great time.
We try to get together at least once a week.
Yeah.
At least.
Get hang time either at the house.
We went out to this amazing, beautiful winery called Augusta
Vins.
It's so beautiful.
It's just beautiful.
I mean, you go out there and you feel like you're in another
world.
Yes.
It's gorgeous.
It doesn't feel like you're in Texas.
Yeah, it feels like Napa or something.
I mean, it's just really beautiful.
Beautiful, you're surrounded by large vineyards, and it's just amazing.
That's one of our, it's become one of our, we call it the club, our club.
But that's become a favorite.
So that's, is that what Tina's talking about?
Unless I'm missing it.
Okay.
Because her newsletter, she's talking about the club, and then we were
joking about our club, the club.
Oh, so.
Because they're going to turn the whole main part into the clubhouse, only
for members.
Oh, okay.
And then other people will be in the other new building, their
building.
That's what that is.
Okay.
So that.
Our audience does not know what we're talking about.
We're talking, it's a beautiful winery here in the Texas Hill Country that we became
members of a while back.
And then we were thinking, no, maybe we shouldn't, because we've basically stopped
drinking.
Yes.
And we didn't stop drinking for moral issues or anything like that.
It's because.
Because of carnivore.
Carnivore, we are on the, it's not even a diet.
It's just the way we eat now.
I don't even call it a diet anymore, but some call it carnivore diet, but it's not.
It's just the way we eat.
And so, I mean, I rocked at least 22, 24 ounces of steak tonight.
Yeah.
Two big New York strips.
Oh my gosh.
Unbelievable.
I'm happy right now.
But we have to, when we became a member in June, I believe it, or July, we have to stay
a member for a year.
So we still have to attend, I mean, get our wine.
So we're just like, oh, we'll give a lot of these away.
We have a big stash.
So for people that love wine.
Yeah.
And like I said, it's not an issue.
It's just, it's for our health and what we're trying to do, our health goals.
And we're in great health, actually.
You got your CAC number.
Oh my goodness.
Which is a calcium.
It has to do with heart.
It's plaque.
It determines if you have plaque in the heart.
The scale is zero to what?
Well, I mean, it can go up to over 500.
Right.
And what did you get?
Zero.
Perfect score.
Girl, you're a rock star.
I prayed.
I mean, because I didn't, what the test does was it determines if you're at risk for heart
disease.
I was really more interested in you because your mother passed away at 45 of heart disease.
Your grandfather, it was in your family.
I didn't have it in my family, but with this carnivore diet, you know, people are like,
you know, you're going to die because you're eating so much meat, which is, aren't you
worried about having a heart attack?
I'm like, no, I'm not getting a heart attack.
We're preventing it.
And I thought, I'm going to prove this.
And Dr. Berry said, you know, you should get all these different labs done.
All of mine were good.
And one of the labs he suggested is a CAC test, 119 bucks.
So it was worth it.
And I prayed.
I said, Lord, please let this be a zero, which means I have zero plaque in my heart.
That's the perfect score.
I mean, it didn't get any better than that.
No.
That is heart healthiest.
She sent me the report, she was like, this is so good.
I'm super proud.
She said, if you're going to do that, I want to see what the results are.
Cause I have a lot of people on carnivore and I'm curious.
A lot of our friends are on carnivore.
Our son's on carnivore.
Well, you know, to me, this is why going to three services is the perfect timing because
of the energy we've had because of carnivore.
I've got the stamina.
I feel good.
Two services is easy now.
And so I wanted to say, we are on day 126 of Ketovor.
Because we started with keto.
But today is day 100 of carnivore.
So 126 days.
It's a milestone.
Yeah.
It's a milestone day.
So cheers.
What have you got in your wine glass there?
I've got water with a little bit of lemon in it.
It's more keto than carnivore.
I'm rocking a Perrier with lime.
Yes.
And our new love when we go out to eat steaks is club soda with lime.
Oh my gosh.
That's like a treat.
Which most carnivores wouldn't do the lime thing, but you know, we're not 100%.
It's trace amount stuff.
So anyway, so we had a great time with Adam and Tina.
I was talking to Tina because she volunteers at the church on Tuesday.
So while we're doing our staff meeting, Tina comes up to the church.
Answer the phone that never rings.
Hallelujah.
We don't want our phone to ring.
We want people to call their connect group leaders and minister to one another and not
always calling us.
But we did have a lot of people coming in and out of the church.
Yeah, a lot of traffic.
But so she does that on Tuesdays.
That's such a big blessing for her, for us, for her to do that.
And so big thanks, Tina.
You're such a blessing and such a great friend.
And we were just talking and I went in and hugged her neck and she said, I just love
it when we hang out because we could just be so ourselves with each other.
Exactly.
And we are all just like, you know, rip me open, let me bleed out.
I mean, we're just real that way.
And that's what real friendship is.
And so we love Adam and Tina Curry.
I just want to I want to promote them for a moment and just say, you need to listen
to No Agenda.
If you want to know what's really going on in the world and in the world and politics,
Adam the Podfather, Curry and John C. Dvorak, they have hosted a show two days a week, three
hours a show.
It's unbelievable amount of content, but they do media deconstruction and man, they deconstruct
everything you think the news is telling you that you believe is true and true lies.
So anyway, it's called No Agenda.
And we just you can find that easily.
You know, any platform type in No Agenda and it'll come up.
They have their own website as well.
You just type in No Agenda and you can get right to it.
And then Adam and Tina have a podcast called Curry and the Keeper.
And that's that's one of our faves.
We listen to that.
They do that tomorrow night.
And check them out.
Curry and the Keeper.
You've never you'll laugh.
Their whole premise used to be around just the wine.
That's true.
And now it's it's leaning more towards God and what their journey what their journey
is.
And it is an amazing, amazing to listen to.
And we get to be a part of that.
We're like on the 50 yard line.
We never get to be part of a journey like we're not in the cheap seats.
We're literally out on the playing field with them.
It's so joyful.
And it's just fun seeing Adam being able to attend church on Sunday mornings.
He hasn't for years because he wasn't a Christian, so he didn't go to church.
And then when he became a Christian a couple of years, a year and a half ago, he still
he does his No Agenda show on for what?
16 years on Sunday.
So now this he's had three weeks in a row with us getting up early.
Yeah, he's he's sacrificing to be there because he felt like the Lord said, Can you sacrifice
to come?
You need to be with the body of Christ.
Speaking.
Wow.
I love it.
It's just so fun seeing my best friend, seeing all my best friends.
I get to see Adam and Tina, my two best friends, and you're my real way best friend.
So to have you guys there and need to bring Chevy some I wish we could.
Other people brought their dogs.
Oh, I know on the front row.
That's all I'm going to say about that.
So anyway, we had a great time with them and just again, just being friends.
And so let's talk about our topic today because we wanted to go.
We wanted to talk to you and share and just have a conversation about something that was
very painful for us.
Very heart wrenching.
Because a lot of people go through what we're going to talk about or have gone through it.
And maybe they didn't.
It didn't end well.
Yeah.
Maybe it did, but maybe they have to learn some lessons from it because a lot of times
we repeat things that happen in our life.
And I feel like this is going to help some people.
I think so.
Let me frame it.
I can frame it in the way of a question.
And here's the question.
What do you do when you're doing all the right things and it all falls apart?
Because you think, so maybe I'm not doing all the right things.
Or we get mad at God because we have a transactional relationship or we're saying, you know, because
I did all these good things, then you should have blessed me with all an easy road.
Especially if you're doing them all in the name of God.
Yes.
So when you have a transactional faith, it is so dangerous and it's so not the Bible.
There's no transaction here.
I mean, Jesus is Lord and God is the King of Kings, the President of Presidents and
Governor of Governors.
I mean, he's the ruler of all.
And so there's not a transactional thing here.
It's not, I'll do this if you do that.
I mean, that's transactional.
So when you're doing all the right things and it all falls apart, what do you do?
How do you handle it?
And we had that happen to us.
Where we pretty much lost everything.
We did lose everything.
We lost our home.
I had to sell one of our two cars.
We literally, we lost our retirement part of it.
No, all of it.
Okay, thanks.
We lost all of it.
That's encouraging.
So see how we're…
No, that's not true.
We had to pay off bills to live with our retirement.
But yeah, basically we didn't, we had to start all over just a few years ago.
Rebuild.
At our age, which there's no way you can rebuild.
So what happened was we found ourselves unemployed.
I was on staff at a church.
I'm going to not, I'm not going to talk about who that was because that doesn't matter.
But the circumstances came around where I called out the senior pastor on a heresy.
We were actually supposed to take over the church.
We had gone to do some missions.
So we moved our family from Nashville back to Texas.
Don't say where it is.
Not to Texas.
Okay.
Back to Texas.
So we were, I was the associate pastor but was going to become the senior pastor.
That was the deal.
That was the whole thing.
And we were going to transition into that.
And then things started to change once we got there.
The church started to grow.
You and I were working hard.
You were working with children's ministry.
I was overseeing youth ministry and everything, worship, the whole thing.
And basically running the church.
And then the leader liked that arrangement and he changed his mind.
He decided that he wanted to keep that arrangement.
Yet we had, you had been a senior pastor for years and we had only come as an associate
pastor just in the interim so that the church could get to know you and then he could set
you in as a pastor.
So what had happened was a lot of people started gravitating towards us because they thought
we were going to be the senior pastors too.
And he just, man, he just did a flip flop on us.
But he was, he had some heresy in his teaching.
He had some heretical stuff that I had to address because as a pastor…
Who's been trained.
And a shepherd who's here to shepherd the sheep and protect the sheep, if there's something
that's heretical, and you see it all through the New Testament in the letters, Paul combating
those who are heretical.
And so I simply asked for an audience with him to actually sit down and let's open
the Bible and let's present our views.
And I have a, and I was going to debunk what he was saying, which was off.
Which if someone did that with you and your eyes were open and you realized, oh, I would
repent.
You would repent and go, oh my goodness.
Oh my gosh.
Thank you for bringing that to the light.
And I had a blind spot there.
So thank you.
Exactly.
And instead he got angry and fired me without board approval, without anything.
I'm just totally overwrote everything simply because I called him out.
And that sent us, I'll never forget.
I was driving home because I left after he fired me.
I was driving home and I called you and I said, Hey, I'm on my way home.
And you're like, what are you doing coming home?
And I said, well, I just lost my job.
And you didn't know.
You said, we just got fired.
We just got fired.
Cause you were on staff too.
We were both on staff.
So it wasn't just you.
It was both of us.
I said, we just got fired.
And what did it feel like when you heard those words?
I was so angry because I think I was shocked that this could happen.
I wasn't, I was never angry with God, but I questioned God.
Why did this happen?
Why did you let this happen?
Because we were coming in the right spirit.
You never approach anyone in the wrong spirit.
You always sat down to talk with him.
I did it gently because spirit of appeal.
Let me help you with this.
Not accusation, but appeal.
You did not.
I know you.
And so I was just like, wow, now I know how Joseph felt when he got accused of raping
Potiphar's wife.
And yet he was running away from her.
She grabbed his jacket, his cloak, and then used that to tell her husband.
Because he refused to have sex with her because she was the one giving the ultimatum.
That's in the Bible.
But he ended up...
He got accused.
Falsely accused.
He got accused and thrown in jail.
And yet how did he handle it?
Oh boy, did he handle it with grace and honor.
So we got sent into a tailspin.
And to make matters worse, we knew that we had to move.
We had to make a change.
And we weren't sure what we were going to do.
And we had a daughter who just started junior high.
Yeah.
And a daughter in junior high.
Our other kids were grown and out of the house.
And so we had her to think about...
We just brought her to a new school, knew everything, and her life was not going great
at the time.
And everything came apart.
Everything.
Everything that could break, broke.
I mean, if you'll remember this, we were renting a house and planning on buying a house at
some point.
We literally did a two-year lease.
Did a two-year lease because we thought we were there from now on.
And we had to call our landlord and break our lease.
And he said, look...
And he was so gracious.
He was Jewish.
Jewish.
And I had a great relationship.
He knew I was a pastor and a Christian.
I knew he was Jewish and Orthodox.
And we had a wonderful exchange.
And I had to explain, you know, this is something we didn't see coming.
He was willing to work with us and help us the best he could.
However, he said, I've got to put it back on the market.
And he said, so when are you all going to move?
And I said, we don't know yet.
We don't even know where we're going to go.
And so he said, well, I'm going to go ahead and put it on the market and see what happens.
And it rented immediately.
What happened was, this was so crazy, is I had left...
We had someone living with us too, someone who had moved to the area to work in the church
with us.
And we had to tell her.
And so her and I had left to go grocery shopping or do something.
And when we came back, we noticed people were in our house.
And usually they call.
Did they call you?
Did the realtor?
I don't think so.
I think they forgot to contact us.
I know you drove up and they were showing the house.
They were showing the house and the gentleman saw the look on my face when I walked in and
it was a man that was looking at the house for his family.
And I just burst out in tears because I saw him signing the lease.
And I just lost it.
Here we are.
We've lost our job.
And now we've lost our house.
Now we're homeless.
What are we going to do?
And it just...
So I'll never forget that gentleman when he was walking out the door, he asked for me
and I walked out there and he said, Pam, I can tell that you and your husband are Christians
because you have scripture written all over this place.
And he said, what is going on?
And I let him know.
And I'll never forget him saying, you know what?
I have an answer for you.
And he was a godly man.
I remember this mind-bending.
And I've never met him before, don't know anything about him.
And he said, I have an RV in storage.
And if you need a place before you figure out where you're going, I'll go put that RV
on any RV...
Yeah, you pick the RV part and I'll go park it and set it up.
You pick the part and I will put it wherever you want.
And you can have it as long as you need it.
And you weren't there.
It was just me.
And I was just like, what?
So he gave me his card or whatever.
You came home.
I told you and you're like, what?
Okay, that's creepy.
We don't even know this guy.
Well, I mean, yeah.
But we decided to take a chance and we called him and his whole family came and we took
him up on it.
And we ended up living in an RV for what?
Three months?
Yes.
I was there for three years.
I ended up going back, going to Nashville for a little bit.
And it was beautiful.
It was one of those...
I didn't know if this was going to be like a little...
It's like a $200,000 huge RV.
This was a huge, massive RV.
And so he set us up and I started...
I mean, that's a God thing right there.
Oh, it was really...
Man, God came to the rescue.
We were still devastated though.
We lost everything.
And two, we were humiliated.
It was just so humiliating.
The only time I got fired was from a job in high school because I wanted to play football.
And the dude said, you can't play football and work here because it's going to interfere.
He said, I'm going to have to let you go.
It devastated me.
You could have just stuck a knife in my heart.
This was a lot more...
So here I am as an adult getting fired.
And having a young person...
And the sad thing is, is Faith had just started this new school.
We'd only been there a few months.
And she went to a counselor and told them we were homeless.
I know.
So they thought, well, do you need to get up?
They called us and said that your daughter said you are homeless.
Do you all need meal plans?
You know, do you all need...
It was like...
We're like, no.
Our whole world just fell apart.
I had to explain the situation and I said, we can pay for her meals.
We're just...
Luckily, she was about...
School was going to be out in a month or so.
And so...
So let's spare the details.
Let's get to the crux of what happened.
So we now had a reason and an opportunity to be angry and offended.
We could have...
Man, we could have filed a lawsuit on this thing.
We had a case and we had people come alongside us who said, you actually have a case.
This is wrong.
The way this was handled, this is not right.
And we made a decision early on that we were going to walk in honor.
Oh man, that was tough.
Because everything in your flesh, everything in your body and people around you want you
to validate yourself.
Right.
And when we get hurt, when we get ripped off, when we get fired unjustly, and because we
were doing the right things, we were standing for the right things and then we still lost
everything.
And then we lost everything else and I had to get rid of your car.
We were down to one car.
I mean, we were just...
It was like, what else is...
We had to put everything in storage.
Our whole house was in storage.
And we could have stayed in that RV forever, but we were like...
We were lonely.
We were in a place where none of the rest of our family...
It's like being in a foreign country.
We were like...
So I had to go to Nashville.
I had a friend who was really sick and dying and I wanted to see her.
And that's where my daughter and son-in-law were and grandkids.
And I came home or I called you and I said, I think if we have a chance to move anywhere
in the world right now, we need to be close to family and let's move to Nashville.
And so you and Alicia came back and packed up the...
No, we went and stayed...
No.
We stayed.
We went to Arkansas first and stayed.
Yeah, Pastor Rick and Cindy McClure.
We did.
They offered us a basement.
They had this cool basement apartment in Malvern, Arkansas.
And they said, we get it.
This happened to them.
It was the very same thing.
And they had people who came around them and helped them.
And so they came around us.
They paid it forward.
So we stayed with them for about a month.
And then I went to Nashville and we all came and packed up.
And I followed you back up to Nashville.
And I said, let's just move to Nashville.
But we couldn't get a place because we didn't know where we were going to land.
I was putting out resumes.
How many resumes did I send out?
We counted and it was over 500 resumes.
You counted.
I quit counting about 200 because I was done.
Well, I'm the numbers person.
I'm into counting, remember?
I was so devastated.
It was devastating because you got a lot of...
Dear John letters.
Dear John letters or nothing at all.
Yeah.
Or we would get down to about what?
Four to six churches and it would be between you and the young guy.
And they always chose the young guy.
Yeah.
So we had a lot of...
We dealt with one disappointment.
It was a blow after a blow after a blow.
But we never cursed God.
No, we never got mad at God.
No.
Because I never thought it was God.
I thought these are people.
Yeah.
What started this.
But people do.
They do.
Or they get mad at the church.
And this wasn't the church either.
No.
This drew us.
We had to go find a church where we could heal.
Exactly.
And we weren't ready to go back in the ministry.
I'm glad God did not let us get a job when...
Especially there was one particular one that wanted us.
I think it was up North Ohio or somewhere.
And they were begging us to come.
Remember?
They called us and just said, please come.
And I did not feel right about it.
Man, thank you.
But it's not our time.
It's not.
So we were 11 months unemployed, which is just mind bending.
And the only reason why I was unemployed is because I was doing all the resume work and
getting all these semi offers.
So I kept getting strung along like, oh, this one's going to happen.
Oh, this one.
And then it would be one let down, one disappointment.
After another.
So it strung us along for months where we kept thinking, oh, we're going to end up in
Georgia.
We're going to end up in Idaho.
We're going to end up out in Washington.
Or Hawaii.
And then there was another one that we got down to the wire with.
So we kept all these opportunities seemed to be dangling in front of us.
And then they would all go away at the last second.
And so it was let down after let down, rejection after rejection.
And I spent hours and hours.
And we ended up living with friends or family.
We went back and forth for that solid 11 months.
It was humiliating for me as a man and a provider for my family.
And yet in the middle of that humiliation, which was my flesh, that was my pride, in
the middle of that, the Lord kept telling me, stay the course.
I got you.
I'm here.
I haven't left you.
I haven't abandoned you.
I haven't forsaken you.
And I just kept, I remember I would tell you, I know this is the right thing.
I know God's going to open a door.
Somehow, some way, something's going to work out.
And I just never let go of that.
And I refused to be mad at God because it wasn't God.
And we refused to abandon the church.
We were at the church every time the door opened.
We became church junkies.
We did.
We were the best church members anybody would ever want.
And we went up for prayer every single Sunday because we needed prayer.
We found a wonderful church in Nashville, south of Franklin.
And it was a healing place for us.
Pastor Steve Berger was instrumental in that healing.
And the other staff too, the rest of the other team members were instrumental in our healing
and such a place where we could just come and breathe.
And God healed us through worship.
It was worship in the Word.
The things that we had been doing for others now was being done for us.
And we were receiving the healing.
And then you ended up not going into the ministry, but you got offered a position with Dave Ramsey
and worked for him.
I ended up working back in the medical field.
I was working at a doctor's dentist office.
And we weren't ready to go back into the ministry.
And we learned a lot though being back in the workplace.
And a regular 8 to 5 job.
It made us appreciate.
It did.
It gave us perspective.
It gave us perspective because we had put so much pressure on people to be at church
every time the door opened, every time we have anything.
And we realized people can't do that.
The church movement we were part of was pretty legalistic and hardcore on life.
You need to be there, you need to sacrifice.
And we were in that for a number of years.
But my job was so demanding that it was all I could do to go when I could go.
Which we did end up going a lot.
But I just had a different perspective of what to expect from people.
But then two years, I guess we were two years into Dave Ramsey and where I worked.
And you called me one day and you said, I'm ready to put my resume out again.
And I was like, what?
And you said, I believe we need to go back to Texas.
And so I said, well, why don't you contact some pastors that we know in the Texas area.
Just put a feeler out.
Let them know that you're ready to jump back into ministry.
And all the pastors that you contact, both pastors had their positions in those churches.
And they both offered those positions after we interviewed.
Yes.
And we got two offers within three days apart.
Two great offers.
And we had to really say, Lord, which one?
And we chose the right one.
And the thing is, we would not be in this amazing church if any of that didn't happen.
So let's just talk about that for a minute because sometimes we think, my gosh, the wheels
have fallen off my life.
I'm in a place I never thought I would be.
This is horrible and awful.
But then you find yourself at some point where you're supposed to be.
And had you not have gone through the valley of the shadow of death, Psalm 23, then you
would not have ended up.
And so we've talked about the connectivity of everything and connecting the dots is a
big thing with us where if that terrible thing had not have happened, we would not be in
the amazing place we're in now.
We wouldn't be doing this podcast right now.
We wouldn't be doing anything.
We wouldn't be in Fredericksburg.
We don't know where we would be.
No telling.
And so we're where we're supposed to be.
And part of it, I think, is because we ended up giving in to God in the middle of it to
say, we don't know what to do.
You're going to have to tell us.
You're going to have to…
We're in the valley of the shadow of death.
We're trying not to fear evil, but it's scary right now.
And so we were real honest with God and He helped us navigate every step along the way.
And I think because we decided not to dishonor the people who had hurt us because there was
a few people and we decided to give honor instead of anger.
And not to say we weren't hurt.
Not to say…
We even called the people that hurt us and we repented to them.
We repented to them and released them.
For our cynicism.
For our…
Yeah, we did.
And God has restored many of those relationships.
Almost all of them are completely restored.
And we've even had some come preach in our church.
So God…
Exactly.
It's so good.
It all came full circle.
And they're coming to our church now and going, this is amazing what you guys here
in Fredericksburg, this great church.
And we're like, we never would have thunk going through…
It's not a word, honey.
I know it's a terrible word, but we never would have thought that going through all
that would actually be the very thing that landed us exactly where we…
That's what happened with Joseph.
Joseph ended up second in command in a whole nation.
In all of Egypt.
Yes.
Under Pharaoh.
Yes.
I know.
If you look, I mean, there's so many parallels in the story.
It's uncanny.
Totally.
And by the way, Joseph's story is all of our story if we will surrender to the process.
Because it is a process.
And that's the thing is it involves something that we don't like very much here in the
West, time, T-I-M-E, waiting.
Patience.
Yes.
All of that.
Endurance, resilience, all of that.
But you read a scripture yesterday or Sunday that talked about God proving us, God testing
us.
Oh yeah, that He tested them in the desert.
Yeah, let me pull that up.
That came to my mind when we were talking about what we were going to talk about on
the show because I really feel like God was testing us through this time.
And are we going to deny Him and what He has for us?
Or are we going to allow Him to take us through the test?
Are we going to pass it?
Because if you don't pass it, you have to go through it again.
And here's the thing.
I remember hearing a pastor say this years ago.
It's kind of a familiar cliché.
But God will take your test.
And if you rightly respond to the test, He will turn your test into a testimony.
Yes.
Exodus 20 says this.
It says, Moses said to the people, do not be afraid.
So he was going to go back up onto the mountain to get the tablets from God, the Ten Commandments.
He says, do not be afraid.
God has come to test you.
The word test there is the word prove.
And I told the story about my granddad was a cabinet maker.
And every time he built something, a wood, and I grew up in a cabinet shop, he would
always put pressure on it.
He always put pressure on it to test it.
When you're a builder, you put stress on whatever you're building.
And that shows if it's worthy of passing the test.
And so my extrapolation from that is that God puts pressure on us.
He tests his work.
We think the devil's attacking us.
It may just be God testing us because he's building us.
And I feel like that's what he was doing with us during that.
Oh, exactly.
Because it was several years.
It wasn't just, you know.
Yeah, this didn't happen overnight.
This was a long, a long road.
Long journey.
And yet, coming out of it and being where we are, I'm sitting in our staff meeting
today.
I'm looking around at these beautiful people.
We're hanging out with Adam and Tina yesterday, and we're sitting here with these beautiful
friends in this beautiful place on a fall day.
All you can have is gratitude.
All you can say is, God, only you could have taken our broken shards and put all this back
together again for us to be in the best place we've ever been in our lives and the happiest
we've ever been in our lives.
And the more in love with each other that we've ever been in our lives.
Our marriage has strengthened more through that.
You know, what was crazy is during that time where we were living with family and friends,
Faith, you and I were in one bedroom, a little 10 by 10.
She was on the floor all that time.
On an air mattress that had a leak in it.
Yes.
So, it wasn't ideal to strengthen our marriage, our intimacy for sure.
For sure.
But God has a way.
He has such a sense of humor.
He restores things.
He's a restorer.
He repairs, He restores, He rescues, He delivers.
But we have to stick with it.
We have to have perseverance.
That's it.
So, I have three words I want to share.
Okay.
I mean, literally three words, not a long word, three.
And it's this, for you listening to this and you're like, I can so relate to pain.
I can so relate to trauma because this was trauma for us.
I can so relate to walking and unforgiveness.
I can so relate to feeling like nothing works and every time it starts to get good, it feels
like the rug gets pulled out from under me.
If that's you, I've got a word for you, three words for you.
Stay the course.
Here's three more.
Do not quit.
Here's four.
Do not give up.
God has you even when you don't think He does.
And it's like the old footprints in the sand poster.
You know, it's like, God, there were two sets of footprints in the sand and then there were
only one.
Where did you go?
And He said, I was carrying you.
So it's a beautiful thing.
He's got to, but you still, you have to do something.
In other words, you have to stay faithful to God.
Stay committed to Him.
You know, He wants to draw near to you, but you have to draw near to Him.
Yeah.
Good.
And it works both ways.
You can't expect God to make everything work out, but you don't have anything to do with
them, but maybe every Sunday.
So God wants a relationship.
He does.
He wants to hear from you.
And so He, and He wants to give you hope.
He wants to help you through all the daily grind that we go through.
But we have to do our part too.
So whatever you may be going through right now, we want to encourage you to stay the
course.
He's not abandoning you.
He's got you.
But I would encourage you in terms of staying the course, you've got to turn toward Him.
Turn your face to Him.
I love what the Psalm says that when we look to Him, we become radiant.
Our faces are radiant.
And it says, and our faces have no shame.
And so keep your eyes on Him even in the midst of the storm, even in the midst of the valley
of the shadow of death, even when things are breaking, when things are not working.
Because real faith, real Bible faith is not when things are going great, I'm half faith.
When everything's working out, oh, yay, God, He's amazing.
He's blessed me with this and that.
Real Bible faith means what Job said, though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.
That's real faith.
Real faith, when things are not working out, you say this, I know God loves me.
I know God's good.
I know He has my back.
And it doesn't take faith if everything's going well.
Oh, exactly.
That's swinging in a hammock on our autumn day.
Exactly.
It takes faith when things aren't going so well that you still allow God to work.
If I could just brag on ourselves a little bit, tiny bit, I think the best thing we did
during that whole thing is that we never gave up on our call.
No, because we knew that call.
We never doubted our call to ministry.
You called us to ministry.
He knew this was coming.
And so what were we going to do with it?
I never doubted it.
Not only did we not give up on it, I'd never doubted my call to what God's called me to
do and that's to be a pastor and to bring life and hope and build bridges to people.
So I never let go of that.
And so even in the midst of our most pain, our most disappointment, our most, oh my God,
what are we going to do?
How are we going to make a living?
How are we going to?
Will I ever get a church again?
I'm going to get 500 turn downs.
And so the key was to not quit, stay the course.
Sorry, I don't want to beat that dead horse, but I know there's somebody listening.
It's going to hear this.
This is for somebody today.
This is for somebody.
It may be for you.
And if it is, write us.
Let us know.
You can write us at livingupinadownworld.com.
There's a place that you can write us.
Let us know if this is your story.
Let us know if you're in the middle of something because we will commit to pray for you because
I thank God for the many people that prayed for us.
Oh my goodness, we had so many people praying.
People so encouraged us through that.
We'd get notes and emails and texts from people saying, hey, God's got you.
Don't give up.
And I didn't look at that and go, whatever, you're doing great.
No, I looked at it and went, yeah, you're right.
Amen.
He does have us.
We're going to be okay.
And you know what?
We're more than okay.
God has restored 20-fold.
I mean, it's like unbelievable.
More than we could ever imagine.
And it's so, he took our test and it's now a testimony.
He took our mess.
Turned it into a message.
Amen, girl.
You preaching now.
You're on fire.
Well, hey, we love you guys.
And we do know that there are a lot of people hurting right now.
And there's a lot of uncertainty in the world.
But here's the thing.
Jesus Christ is our anchor and he is sure and he's unshakable.
And if you need to tie yourself to that anchor, I mean, anchor off on Christ.
He's the rock.
And so just to encourage you, if you have maybe not been in touch with your faith from
childhood, don't wait another day.
Right now, right where you are, right where you're listening to this, make an informed
decision to say, I need to get back to God.
All he wants is to hear from you.
And to repent simply means to turn and face him.
It doesn't mean to turn away from your junk.
By turning and facing him, you automatically turn away from your junk.
Just turn to him and let your face meet his face.
You do that in prayer.
You do that in an honest cry out saying, God, I need you.
It's not working for me.
I've blown it.
I need you.
I need your help.
He'll be there.
Now, he may not fix everything right away.
That's the misnomer.
We talk about broken promises.
It took years for us to recover.
But we persevered through it.
That's right.
Man, thank God for his help and people around.
So we want to come around to you and help you and encourage you, even if it's a note
or an email or whatever, for us to...if we see your name.
In fact, I'm looking at some names right here, some shout outs I want to do that we're going
to pray for.
And Patrick and Robert and those who...Renee who have written in to encourage.
And so we love you and we're for you.
And listen, God is for you.
He's not against you.
He is for you.
And you have not sinned so far.
And you have not gone so far out from under the grace canopy of God, the umbrella of God,
that you can't come back or you wouldn't be breathing right now.
You wouldn't even be on this planet.
That means if you have a pulse, there's still a purpose and a promise.
And God is calling you back through our story right here that no matter how hard it gets
and how unhopeful it appears to be, he still has you.
He still has you.
So turn to him.
Let's give some shout outs.
All right.
Man, I made a quick turn on that, but just know we love you.
First of all, Mr. Adam, Adam the Podfather Curry sent us some satoshis.
Again.
Imagine this number, 77,700.
I know.
That's called a striper donation right there.
And thanks for the file, Mr. Adam Curry.
Love you, my brother.
He wrote, I love walking down the narrow path with our friends.
We are truly blessed.
And he says, boosting is loving.
And boosting is adding value.
We talk about value for value here that if what we're doing means something to you and
is helping and encouraging, you can send us some value.
There's different ways to do that.
You can do it through a note.
You can do it through leaving a review on our website.
You can do it by sending this link to a friend to say, hey, check this couple out and their
dog.
And their dog.
They're kind of weird, but they're cool.
What?
You know what I mean?
Because sometimes maybe our story resonates with people that even though we're pastors,
we're extremely real people.
We cut and bleed like everybody else and we have to navigate life just like everybody
else.
And that may help somebody.
So one way to show value is to send our link to others and pass the good news around.
Well, Jennifer Marshall sent us some money today through PayPal.
Going through some stuff herself.
And yet she sends us a gift.
What a wonderful girl.
We love you.
She is wonderful.
I even had her name right up here.
She's sitting on the front row with us.
Thank you, Jennifer.
Yes.
Thank you, Jennifer.
Appreciate that today.
I love that even as heavy as what she's going through right now, a major life crisis, she's
on the front row worshiping God.
She is not quitting.
She's staying the course.
And she will, too.
I believe her.
She's proving what we're talking about.
She's walking it out.
Yes.
And Jennifer, we have your back.
We have your front.
We'll hold you up.
We'll hold your arms up.
And we're not going to let you go, girl.
We love you and we're for you and with you.
Got a beautiful, this is so cool, guy named Robert Ludwig.
He wrote, and it's a review on our Living Up in a Way.
You've not heard this, so I'm going to share it with you.
He writes, thank you.
It's very interesting what he says.
I had been debating listening for a few weeks.
Well, I'm glad you lost the debate.
So I started listening.
I don't know how you were debating with yourself or whatever.
He says, I have been debating listening for a few weeks and just found ways not to.
But this last weekend, I got a nudge to start listening.
Where do you think that nudge came from?
Holy Spirit.
Good morning, Holy Spirit.
He says, I have been binging as much as I can and am so far six episodes in.
I have laughed a lot and even shed a few tears.
Looking forward to listening to all the episodes.
Thank you.
Where's he from?
It doesn't say where he's from.
Robert, write us back.
I'd love to hear some of your story.
You're hearing our story, especially if you're going back to the beginning of all these.
But we would love to hear a little bit about you.
So Robert, thank you for sending a review.
That is very encouraging to us.
And just thank you for your kind words.
And again, I'm glad you lost the debate and you're listening.
So anyway, I'm just joshing with you.
Blessings to you.
Then we got a beautiful, beautiful note from Patrick Koble.
And he said that Adam will know him.
And so he writes this.
You haven't heard this yet, honey.
He says, Jimmy and Annette, first, thank you for everything you have done and are doing
with this podcast and with your life.
By the way, he's ex-military, real deal warrior.
You'd love ex-military people.
I'd love military people because I'm so grateful.
Veterans Day is coming up where we get to say thanks.
He says, you're making a significant impact worldwide and you are appreciated.
Hearing about your lives has changed mine.
Oh my goodness.
I know.
This is beautiful.
It's so refreshing to hear about struggles and that everything is not perfect, even our
pastor's lives.
And that's true.
It's not perfect.
It's beautifully broken and we just navigate just like everybody else.
He says, and you all are so honest that it makes a deep connection with us all.
And I'm thankful for you both.
He said, I'm a longtime No Agenda listener.
Yay.
And the Duke of the South, Adam will know me.
I hope to see you all one day for a combo meetup.
That would be awesome.
Or somewhere to thank you in person.
I have been a drifter from Christianity from middle school till now, from going to church
all the time and being baptized and nothing for 10 years to having kids and going back
with them and then fizzling away and trying to get back now because of you two.
Oh my gosh.
I know.
Patrick, Champion, we are so for you.
Where is he from?
I don't know.
I don't get all that information.
We need to know so that we can plan meetups.
Exactly.
We have a meetup coming up soon.
Patrick, I'm going to be returning your note.
I'm not going to read the whole note because some of it is private.
So he says, sorry for this long first contact form, but I hope it helps and may help your
listeners and church family as we approach Veterans Day.
And so he talks about, I'm not going to read the whole thing.
He says, one of my biggest struggles has to do with what I've been through in war when
I went deployed to Iraq two times.
I think there are lots of veterans who struggle with faith and I've never found a podcast
or blog that talks about it because it's such a hushed subject.
And many veterans never talk about it.
And he says, my big question is dot, dot, dot.
I'm not going to read the rest of that.
That's personal.
But Patrick, I'll just say from our perspective, one of the reasons why a lot of people don't
go there is because we're not veterans.
We can't even pretend to comprehend what you have walked through, what you have seen.
I can't even imagine.
We pastored in Abilene, Texas, the Dias Air Force Base, and 50% of our church was military.
And that's where we really developed our love for military personnel and heart for them
and what they go through.
Received a lot of insight on what they go through.
The reentry after being in the sandbox is devastating.
And so, Patrick, I just want to say that's why you probably don't hear a lot of things.
Maybe not because it's hushed, or not because it's taboo.
If people have not had that experience, for me to speak into it would almost sound ingenuous.
I would never want to do that.
But I am going to write you back in terms of what you wrote to me and just hopefully
encourage you.
But Patrick, I want to say thank you for taking the time to reach out.
Thank you for following me.
I think I saw you follow me on Instagram and LinkedIn.
And so, brother, I want to dialogue with you.
And I agree.
In any way we can help.
Yes, we want to encourage you.
Yes, we definitely want to encourage you.
As you re-engage your walk with the Lord.
And I'm sure Adam's right along with that, as Adam has engaged his walk with Jesus and
Tina.
So we're here and we're for you.
And man, Duke of the South, bro, thank you for your service.
I can never say that enough.
And I genuinely mean it.
In fact, anytime I see a first responder or military personnel anywhere, airport, a restaurant,
wherever, I always stop and thank them.
I saw two military personnel, two paramedics the other day in the store.
And I went over to them and I said, hey, I just want to thank you for what you do.
And they were like, thank you.
They were shocked.
And the guy said, gosh, nobody ever says that to us.
And I said, the reason I'm saying that to you is because my dad was a firefighter.
I grew up in a first responder home.
I get it.
And he said, man, thank you so much.
And it was my privilege to do so.
So the reason why we had a little faux pas there is I turned over my peri-a on my desk
and I accidentally muted.
You sure did.
Yeah, yeah.
Smooth move there.
So anyway, it's a little production for a faux pas.
I think I'll just leave this in.
This is real.
This is us.
This is real life.
We're messy.
Yeah, we're messy.
Messy people.
So anyway, Patrick, thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you for your heart, for being the person you are and responder and lifesaver.
And we want to encourage you in your walk with Jesus.
Well, babe, that about does it since I just made a big old mess.
I know.
Yeah, we're all good.
I think we're all.
It's just one of those.
I'm a goofball.
What can I say?
I'm clumsy.
It's just water.
I know.
Thank goodness.
It didn't go on anything vital other than just making a mess.
I know.
I was worried about all the electronics right here.
When it went off the air, I was like, oh no.
But it was because I mashed the mute button trying to keep it from...
I made a bigger mess just about just trying to stop it.
That's okay.
Well, folks, thank you.
We love you guys and we're here for you.
Hey, there's a Straper Boost when it should have been this.
Wow.
I'm on a roll.
I'm totally discombobulated.
Hey, this is real.
I'm not even going to edit this out.
Nope, don't edit it out.
This is life since we know it.
Life is messy.
We love you guys.
Thanks for joining us.
Have an amazing week on purpose.
Please let us know where you're listening from.
That's real interesting to us.
Yeah, we want to hear your story.
Because no one can stop us.
We love you guys.
No agenda, Curry and the Keeper and us, we're going to be doing meetups.
Yeah, in Austin coming up.
Super excited about that.
We'll go anywhere.
I know.
We love you all.