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Ep. 140 – You Gotta Pastor Everyone, Even Straightedge Kids w/ Joe Musten of Beloved/Advent/The Almost
142 Plays2 years ago
This week we’re joined by pastor and musician Joe Musten, member of several great bands including Beloved, Advent, and The Almost! Joe in the south attending an Assembly of God church – the very same church where he’s now a pastor. We talk about friends and music, fundamental spiritual experiences, and what being a pastor is all about. Joe is such a nice dude, and we had a great time talking to him! Follow Joe on Instagram (@joemusten), and enjoy the show!
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Transcript
Cigarette Mishap at a Sleepover
00:00:00
Speaker
I tried cigarettes at an eighth grade sleepover and we went out into the woods across the street from the house and it was dark. You know, we went out like 11 p.m. and we're all huddled around and everybody's got their cigarette. And I went and put the cigarette in my mouth and had the lighter going. They're like, you just inhale, you inhale.
00:00:26
Speaker
And so I was like, okay. Cause I couldn't, I couldn't figure out how to get it lit and I inhaled. And then all this tobacco went straight down my throat and I had my mouth on the, on the wrong end of the cigarette and I was trying to light the filter. And so that was, you know, that went down in the book.
Critique of Jason Aldean's Music Video
00:01:11
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. I'm Casey. And we both just together watch this awesome Jason Aldean video for try that in a small town that everybody is talking about. And my God, after
00:01:29
Speaker
reading the Twitter discourse about it, I was certainly expecting something a little bit more on the nose, TBH. I don't know. It was a really, really, really stupid musical. I mean, fuck man, that is lame as hell. I can't even, it's like,
00:01:57
Speaker
I'm a little bit at a loss for words for just like how fucking lame it is. It's just like a bunch of footage of protests that happened three years ago, bitch. Like maybe be a little bit more, a little bit more current, I guess. But what? I don't know, man. What was your initial reaction to it? What was your? Yeah. What was your initial reaction to that?
00:02:20
Speaker
It just it just rings. It's got the same ring to it as somebody like telling you about how they would like.
00:02:32
Speaker
Okay. It's like a music video from a guy that's telling you how he would grab the gun from somebody who was trying to mug him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it is. It's just that set to music. That's exactly what it is, dude. Have you seen the videos of that guy from Detroit? He's like a black dude with a mustache, kind of a thick boy. He does self-defense videos.
00:03:00
Speaker
Like he has like a studio and stuff, but he just does like. Oh yeah. He's on there all the time, actually. Yeah. And I probably have seen some of his stuff. It'll be like, you know, here's what to do if somebody's, you know, got an AR 15 pointed at your chest and point blank range. And he's just like, you know, they, they always have somebody who's who might as well just be like one of those ballistic dummies holding the gun. And he's just like,
00:03:28
Speaker
you know, like snaps his hands around real fast. And all of a sudden, like he has the era 15 because the person didn't try to do anything. Yeah, it's it's just the dumbest thing. It's like that is apparently that's Jason Aldean. So the first the first thing I'm not going to say who wrote this, but the first thing I heard
00:03:53
Speaker
or read about this at all was it was a post on Instagram and it's a picture of him and his cowboy hat looking like a real cowboy, like a bona fide cowboy. And it says, if you told me a guy who looks like this would write a pro lynching song and then pretend like he was being victimized, I would have said, yeah, that sounds about white. Oh, kill me.
00:04:19
Speaker
So I'm why is this the two extremes that were stuck? I know. If anything, if there's anything that's like reinforced my belief that we just don't deserve to fucking live here anymore, it's this because so I read that and I'm like then I read the comments and people like what do you talk some people are like, what are you talking about? It's like libtards like you, blah, blah, blah. And
00:04:43
Speaker
it's not what this is. And then the responses are like, yeah, I'd expect someone like you to say something like that. And then they comment on their like profile picture or something stupid. And it's just like this back and forth of like, obviously it's super racist. It's all about the proud boys. And then
00:04:59
Speaker
So then I see a post. The reason I'd even check this song out 10 minutes ago before we even hit record was because then I saw a post. I think it was on. Oh, no, it was from actually the same guy that I just read that one from. And it says, make sure Jason that's a picture of a Rolling Stone article. It says Jason Aldean addresses small town backlash at a Cincinnati show, quote unquote, cancel culture is a thing.
00:05:26
Speaker
And the caption that this guy writes is, make sure you send your thoughts and prayers to Jason Aldean today. He's having a tough time. He really misses the good old days when white people could say any racist thing they want without facing any consequences. So look, I know there's a lot of people who have a lot of feelings about the protests and shit that happened during the pandemic. All the BLM protests, some shit got out of control. Depending on who you ask, they'll blame different people.
00:05:54
Speaker
It's whatever people are responsible for their individual actions.
Controversy and Success of Aldean's Video
00:05:58
Speaker
My personal belief on the matter, not that it fucking matters, is that as a whole, not none of the groups that were that were organizing were calling for anything violent, but violence erupts in situations like that. Of course it does. I think it's important for groups to not call for it at like a large scale level.
00:06:22
Speaker
if a few people want to fuck up a best buy i'm not losing any sleep over it but that's just again my personal opinion maybe check and see if any of them work for the fbi though yeah exactly because then you know you do find cool shit like that happening uh but either way i'm like
00:06:38
Speaker
So Jason I'll do me like cancel cultures a thing blah blah, but also fuck you you're a bitch because I Cancel culture if that's what he wants to call it got him 15 million views on his video in less than a week and in a week Or I should say just over a week
00:06:58
Speaker
And not to mention all the other people who like reposted it. So he's getting ridiculous levels of publicity for this. It's probably one of his most successful songs financially, or at least when it comes to monetizing it based on plays and views between streaming services and YouTube. And it's like, so cancel culture is not a thing. It's actually just hilarious that
00:07:21
Speaker
You know, this is the world we live in, right? If you have a problem with something and you try to make it known, you basically, it's called adding fuel to the fire, fanning the flames, whatever you want, whatever way you want to cut it. Like the backlash has made this a bigger success. And it's just,
00:07:37
Speaker
all it does is crea- like all you do is just like pull people from either side and you stoke the flames to the point where like it's getting so much discourse on the internet of people who are obviously not going to listen to anyone from the other side uh but i'll be honest uh other than just being a ridiculously stupid music video showing just news footage from blm protests uh it's not as racist as i thought it was going to be that's for sure did you hear what it is
00:08:07
Speaker
He is. This is the this is the white Christian equivalent of giving back a metal lap dance. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Like, I don't know. I just the the the reaction to like turn everything into this is just the culture that a lot of people
00:08:33
Speaker
from the Midwest, small town, rural America live in. It's, it's not, I don't know, you know, it's, I mean, every, anybody can make an argument that something's racist and stuff, I guess nowadays, but like, I know these people, I'm around a lot of them.
00:08:51
Speaker
They're shocked by crime. They're shocked by footage of riots and stuff like that. Yeah, it's just it's so far outside of their cultural wheelhouse that like that's what they're reacting to. This is not like calling this like he's calling for lynchings and stuff. No, he's he's literally he's the guy that like he he
00:09:12
Speaker
lays around thinking about how he would wrestle a knife from someone that tried to stick him up in an alley. I guarantee that he spends an exorbitant amount of time thinking about that. And most of the people who are nodding along in agreement and think that this song is the coolest and are now going to ceremonially burn CMT merchandise
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, because they cut the video. So they're the same. That is just what this is. Like, it's just they're reacting to something that's completely outside of their their their spectrum of normal. And it's just a dumb reaction. That's just what it is. I mean, it's it's turning it into like some sort of like Ku Klux Klan, you know, dog whistle or something. It's just
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, and of course we're outing ourselves as racist right now I get that but I guess I'm not entirely sure I watched it twice If I miss something shoot us a message. I'm not stuck in your head. I Know it's honestly not it's because it's not catchy enough. It's a fucking shit-ass song. No, it doesn't rhyme It doesn't have like a very discernible melody. It's just a sucky song. It's just bad. I
00:10:33
Speaker
Uh, but I don't see where like the pro lynching narrative came from that people are talking about. Um, I get the, I get that people will say like having this feeling like, well, that's not everything they were about. So just having the belief that like the riots were all about car jackings and robbing liquor stores and stomping on flags and burning it and spitting on cops. It's like, I mean, I would argue that those things are equally, you know, American given, you know, the world we live in, I think it's pretty,
00:11:02
Speaker
I think all that shit has been happening for a very long time, including small towns where so I mean, it is important that it doesn't sound like I don't want to come off as a Jason Aldean apologist because he's a small town sycophant and he fucking sucks. Like, because he's like,
00:11:20
Speaker
It's I mean, that's it. It's like soccer punched on the sidewalk, carjacking old lady to red light, pull a gun, a liquor store owner. You think that's cool to act like a fool? It's like, dude, you sound like you sound like like a white teacher pandering to a group of like black youths at like trying to do like cool rhymes and shit. Like it's it's not fun to listen to his his rhyme schemes here, but
00:11:46
Speaker
I also think it's funny like this feeling of like try that in a small town It's like dude I've been through some of these small towns and a lot of them are meth capitals of the world Like I don't know where you get off thinking That's what's so funny dude is like Because it's just it's crime in general that they're reacting to and they're using like riot footage for the video or whatever But like there's all out of talk about that
00:12:10
Speaker
here you know and dude people are stealing so much stuff from stores here it's it's not like i mean obviously there's like portland and seattle which i mean come on there it's it's pretty nuts the videos that come out of there but it got rowdy it got rowdy there
00:12:30
Speaker
It's like that stuff is happening everywhere. All the time. It's happening everywhere. If you own a liquor store, you probably have been robbed. That's the first thing people rob when they think about robbing something. Isn't it a liquor store? Yeah, I guess I've really watered this down to thinking about shoplifting.
00:12:50
Speaker
But, uh, but still, I mean, it's not, it's not like these things aren't happening across the country all the time, everywhere. You know what it is? You know what forces, you know, it causes people, I shouldn't say force, but what causes people to, to rob liquor stores.
00:13:08
Speaker
or to pull a gun on the, no one's just pulling a gun on the owner of a liquor store without like walking away with something. It's not, he acts like it's just like frivolous acts of violence for the sake of it. And it's not like there's opportunists in every sort of protest that are just going to be like, now's the perfect time to walk away with a grocery cart full of shit.
00:13:29
Speaker
Of course, that's collateral damage. Like, whatever. I mean, I'd rather like, you know, I'd prefer something like that than my favorite TV
Portrayal of Small Towns in Aldean's Song
00:13:38
Speaker
shows to not be happening because of the strike. That's just a personal opinion, though. But it's just funny. It's like this sickest, the small town sucks nonsense. It's dumb. And it's like, it's this like, you know,
00:13:56
Speaker
screw you. I know blah, blah, blah. It's coming from this guy. We were just looking at some stuff about Jason Aldean. Oh my God, dude. He's from rural Georgia and stuff like that.
00:14:09
Speaker
Just, okay, listen to these numbers. This is a guy that's like, like Mr. Small Town America and concerned about crime, you know, and farmers helping each other, whatever, you know, like the everything in there. But it says in 2015, Forbes estimated Aldean's income at $43.5 million. Aldean was the seventh highest earning country musician making about $32.5 million in 2017.
00:14:35
Speaker
In 2017, Aldean was on Forbes Celebrity 100 list, being ranked at 98. Aldean became the sixth artist to receive the ACM Dick Clark Artist of the Decade Award in 2019. The award is given to artists who were consistently on top of the charts over the span of the decade. He can still randomly pull his entire small town out of poverty. Fuck you, Jason Aldean.
00:15:00
Speaker
He could like he could like run, you know, like lift southern Georgia out of The despair that they're in I think If there is one like benefit of the doubt that you can give the guy, you know He was he was the guy at the the Vegas shooting like yeah, that is crazy playing at the shooting he might be a little sensitive to to violence and
00:15:28
Speaker
Some might say he would be more sensitive to, you know, large scale mass shootings and gun violence, but
00:15:37
Speaker
And I don't know, you know, burn in a car, I guess. Maybe that's a triggering thing for him to see as well. Who knows? He's a beauty. And what's funny is like one of the lines is full of good old boys raised up right. And that one got under my skin a little bit. Because it's like when I think of small town, there's plenty of life. I knew a lot of when I was living in Virginia, I knew a lot of small town boys.
00:16:07
Speaker
And they would say things like that. Like, my mom raised me right. And it's like, dude, you asked everybody if they wanted to go fuck a possum with you last week. I want to go out back and fuck the garbage possum, the one that lives in the trash can. You're like, dude, why are you?
00:16:24
Speaker
No, that's we used to do that all the time back in my small town. You're like, all right, but I mean, that's not I mean, that's just you, I guess. But so technically, you're not losing your purity if it's a possum, right? It's it has to be it has to be a human orifice. Oh, man, I'm just saying I've I've been around, you know,
00:16:46
Speaker
Uh, I haven't been around a lot. Uh, you know, I'm still a mostly suburban white kid, but I've, I feel like I've met enough people to know that that sentiment of Southern, uh, not Southern, but small town.
Introduction to Joe Mustin
00:17:01
Speaker
I did do a Southern accent for small town. So apologies to all of our Southern friends. Um, but I've just met enough people where it doesn't matter what size town you're from. You're probably a piece of shit too. So join the club.
00:17:16
Speaker
open roster on that. Uh, let's go ahead and, uh, what introduce our guests? Sounds about right. Do you have any last words on this? Are you good? No, I just think that ridicule is like the best response to, uh, to this kind of thing rather than like, you know, an urgent call for like, uh, anything to suck up and like, yeah, or just let him squall off on his own and, and don't like,
00:17:45
Speaker
makeup What did you say 15 million views? Yeah, it's certainly like pumped it into like YouTube's most Pop it's like you can't I can't go on a fucking social media site without everyone screaming at me about this So I watched it and he got paid so that's how this stuff works. That's the world we live in if you don't like it stop and
00:18:11
Speaker
I don't know. I get it. Silence is violence, so you gotta say something. Otherwise, Jason Aldean will single-handedly murder thousands and thousands of people. I'd say we live in a dangerous world, but...
00:18:23
Speaker
So speak your truth, speak up, whatever it is you gotta do, helps you sleep at night and gets him paid, baby. Yeah, smash that dislike button and share. All right, our guest, I'm super excited, excited to, I was pumped to have him on. Joe Mustin, he was a drummer and screamer for one of the most beloved bands in hardcore, post hardcore history.
00:18:52
Speaker
Incidentally also known as beloved he also was a vocalist in a hardcore band called advent Which as he gets into a little bit towards the end here They get some they got the wheels turn again, so I'm pretty excited about that But I've been a huge beloved fan for 17 18 years I was a little uh, maybe a little late to the game on them, but it was
00:19:16
Speaker
I remember the day I bought their album in Best Buy when I was a junior in high school, the summer after my junior year in high school. And goddamn.
00:19:27
Speaker
I still listen to that album several times a year. It's incredible. So Joe is a absolutely wonderful person to talk to. I had a feeling he would be great just based on his demeanor following on social media. He just seemed like a super nice guy and all of my
00:19:47
Speaker
Feelings were confirmed. He's an incredibly nice person. He was so fun to talk to. I think what was kind of neat is we spent a lot of time talking with people who have left Christianity and big surprise to me. He's currently a pastor and we had some awesome conversations and he's a wonderful person and I'm glad that people like him are still involved in churches and helping to lead some people because he really is a fantastic guy.
00:20:14
Speaker
I hope you all enjoy our conversation with Joe Mustin as much as we did.
00:20:32
Speaker
Hey guys, very excited to have you here. Um, when we have people on who do things that I like, I like to blow a little smoke up their ass before we even get started. So I'm going to do that. Sometimes make people uncomfortable. Are you one of those people who's good at taking compliments or is it awkward for you?
00:20:52
Speaker
I know exactly what kind you are. All right. So your beloved hometown reunion show, me and my buddy made the 15, 16 hour drive down to North Carolina for that because I couldn't miss it. And I also couldn't afford Furnace Fest. So I drove to North Carolina instead.
00:21:14
Speaker
And it was like one of those Grateful Dead tours, but they sucked less gas out of balloons, you know. Siphoned less gas out of fewer tanks, you mean.
00:21:29
Speaker
One, it was just incredible. It was cool because I went to college not too far from there in Lynchburg, Virginia. And so I ran into people I hadn't seen in 10 years, which was automatically a blast. People I hadn't even talked to in 10 years. But one of the things that stuck out to me, man, is just I've never been to a show where people playing it just seemed so fucking excited to be there and to be doing it.
00:21:55
Speaker
I just remember you sticking around for a while talking to anybody that wanted to talk and it seemed like you just loved that night for what it was, the two nights that you had. So I thought that was fucking cool, man. You don't see that every day. So it was one of the best show experiences for me just because I don't think I've ever been to maybe a reunion tour here or there or show, but not for an album that I listened to almost 20 years ago. So that was awesome.
00:22:26
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, man, those nights were so special and it was so fun to get to meet people from all over, you know, the country and that listen to my music. That's so weird. Yeah. I feel like what's strange or must feel strange, I'll let you explain, is that like,
00:22:55
Speaker
That failure on has a huge impact on so many of so many of the budding hardcore kids 20 years ago. Right. So but like music sharing wasn't a thing when you guys started doing that. Spotify wasn't a thing.
00:23:12
Speaker
There has to be some level of just like at some point after you guys weren't abandoned anymore, you realized how much that album mattered to people and it probably didn't feel quite like it had the impact it did when you were in the middle of it. Is that safe to say? What are your thoughts there? Oh, yes, that's very fair. You know, it's easy to
00:23:36
Speaker
lose sight in the moment of exactly what's being, like the ground that's being tilled and everything that's growing because of the work that you're doing. And then you step out a few years later and you look back and you see, you know, what was planted there and the way that people, you know, come and enjoy what you made. And, you know, I could tell by, you know,
00:24:05
Speaker
first couple of Advent shows and tours and stuff, all anybody wanted to talk to us about, they're like, great show. Dude, seriously, Bill, you're on. And I'm like, man, that's so cool. But I'm here to play Advent shows. And, you know, the other guys in the band, the other guys in the band are getting ignored and me and Johnny and Matt are having to have conversations about Beloved and the two young guys are just like,
00:24:32
Speaker
Dude, this sucks. Nobody even knows we're in the band. They're like getting them to hold the phone to take, you know, hold the camera to take pictures of us. You know, it's like, it's definitely one of those things where you're just like, whoa, that must have been something cool. I don't know, it must have been special. They were stuck loading the trailer while you guys had all the conversations. Man.
00:24:58
Speaker
You might have to take that part off the podcast. When are you going to have a load? I'm sorry, man. I'm a man of the people. Have you guys ever seen that clip? It's like, it was like a radio interview. I almost want to think it was like an NPR thing, but you know, Billy Bob Thornton's in like a bluegrass band.
00:25:23
Speaker
And there's this NPR interview where they're talking to him and the host, I guess was told not to mention Billy Bob Thornton's like acting career. He's like, talk about bluegrass. The interviewer said something about it and he's just, he's furious. And he's just like a snotty little prick the rest of the
00:25:49
Speaker
so awkward dude that feels like an L sketch than an actual it's it's hard to believe it's real but yeah similar sort of vibes dude i used to do like what kids at shows would do to me i would do that to bands like further seems forever when we played shows with him and then eventually toured with him as beloved johnny and i did not stop talking to them about strong arm to the point where i think they were like
00:26:18
Speaker
They either had to love us or hate us at that point, but they were really nice and eventually became our older brothers, that kind of thing. But we stayed on them. We stayed on them and punished them into the dirt about their previous band. It was a fraction of the size further. You don't know how good your art is until you regret it.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah. That's good. I like that. Dude, I was listening to a podcast that you did an interview with, kind of a music podcast, sort of like heavy music focused earlier in the today. I guess I didn't realize that you were a pastor.
00:27:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's what I do. Oh, wow. That's what you currently do, huh? Yeah, that's what I'm currently doing. That's crazy. I didn't know that either. I think in the podcast, you had just recently stopped being a pastor. That's why I paused there. I'm like, did I get my facts right here? No, no. I did a sidestep to try and go cut grass for a living.
00:27:43
Speaker
And that just didn't, it's awesome. The guy that I was working with is a really good friend of mine. And the work just kicks your butt, dude. It just wears you out. And I was like, man, it's not easy starting at 40 in the landscape, in the landscape world. And, you know, that coupled with just, you know, kind of your heart's just in a different place. And I just ended up doing a, you know, a test, test run.
00:28:13
Speaker
little, little lap there and came back on the, on the track. So I'm back in the church. Did you get, do you get something so bad that like your tattoos blistered? Oh, I mean, I was dude, I had, yeah, I was, I was tan and I'm a white, I'm a white kid, man. I'm like a, like a little milky, milky white kid, man. So I went out with him last year. Yeah.
00:28:40
Speaker
But I lost a little bit of that now. I look like a crab again, so. Well, the tattoos help cover up a lot of that. Don't worry. It does. All right, so obviously, we're a little on the nose with the podcast title, Growing Up Christian. Well, you've talked at length. I've heard stuff here and there about kind of the whole history of Beloved, what kind of brought everything back.
Joe Mustin's Musical and Spiritual Journey
00:29:06
Speaker
We'll touch on that a little bit, but we're really, you know,
00:29:11
Speaker
We don't need to reinvent the wheel here. You've had plenty of those conversations. But as far as how you grew up in between all the music ventures, interested in where life's taken you and especially what brings you to be, how you got...
00:29:30
Speaker
into being a pastor and whether like how your faith has evolved shifted over the years and things like that so why don't you just kind of give us like a quick snapshot of like your like where you grew up it maybe it varies from place to place but kind of where you grew up and the type of family you grew up in yeah so i grew up in the the town that i'm currently sitting in i grew up about two miles down the road take a right take another right you're at my own house
00:30:00
Speaker
Yeah, so I'm still here after all these years. Is that because you like the town or is that because you don't want to tell new neighbors that you're a sex offender? Oh, man. Yeah, not option B.
00:30:23
Speaker
I just, I meet a new person. That's a question. I love this podcast already, man. This is, this is so different from, um, what was the, okay. Yeah, I grew up, you're worried about the rest of your career in your future now. So I'm, I'm, uh, I grew up in this town. It's called Turnersville, North Carolina. It's positioned in between two bigger cities, Winston Salem and Greensboro.
00:30:53
Speaker
They're not big cities, big er, emphasis on er. It's like a little tobacco town, you know, all of my family's here.
00:31:06
Speaker
And I grew up going to church. I was just a little Christian kid, you know, my parents were pretty faithful to the church, you know, 50 Sundays a year, pretty much we were, we were there. And it's a, it's an assembly of God, church. So it's not the more charismatic kind, right? It is, it is. It's a, you know, it's in the Pentecostal vein of, you know,
00:31:34
Speaker
denominations and grew up going to that church. You know, I was a Sunday goer until probably middle school when I started playing the drums and getting interested in music and meeting kids. And I met some kids in the youth group that were into punk and hardcore. And they were way further along than I was. And I was just kind of new to it. I just, I liked Pantera. I liked the Pantera CD that my brother had.
00:32:03
Speaker
And they were like, nah, that's cool, but let's show you some, you know, let's show you some real stuff. And so I went to their house, they were in the youth group, went, you know, from left on a Sunday and we had like a little band practice, but up in Josh and Isaac's room, they were showing me ska CDs and hardcore CDs and punk. And they showed me strong arm and living sacrifice and
00:32:28
Speaker
earth crisis and strife and you know some Christian bands some not Christian bands and Josh had band posters all over his walls like it looked like you know a venue you know it just I thought they were the coolest people in the world and they honestly were they were doing something no one else in our town was doing and yeah so I kind of got
00:32:55
Speaker
got more involved in church just because I was finding friends there and you know I played the drums and you know the youth pastor finds out you play drums he invites you to be on the youth worship team and um so I started doing that playing you know playing terrible terrible songs for the youth group all those
00:33:16
Speaker
At that time, there were really late 80s worship songs, but we're playing them in the late 90s because church is about 10 years behind at that point on anything, cultural music. I always had a love for God and Jesus and was always so interested in all of that. My parents were
00:33:46
Speaker
faithful to one another, faithful to the church. My mom really is my mom and dad were both people of, you know, good character. And so I had a pretty normal upbringing, an older brother, younger sister, five years and five years, five years older, five years younger, pretty much, I mean, like a year run of the mill, middle class family, you know, my dad,
00:34:12
Speaker
came home from the service in the Vietnam era, war era, just kind of climbed his way up, starting at the bottom and climbed his way up. And really, there was nothing, there was not a lot of challenges in life other than like, you know, internal things that we all deal with, you know. Like the girl you like doesn't like you back, stuff like that. Yeah, yes. Oh, yeah.
00:34:40
Speaker
That was my youth group experience in a nutshell. Yeah. Mom and dad want you to do your homework. You don't want to do it. You know, that kind of stuff. So, but yeah, that's, and then here comes 12th grade. And then I had, you know, somewhat of a, you know, I had a, I had a real spiritual experience and from there it was like, um, you know, it just
00:35:07
Speaker
one step at a time, you know, getting older and in a way becoming more faithful to the faith itself, you know, becoming adhering more to that and trying to follow God closer and also, you know, getting more active with my band, graduate high school and take off, you know.
00:35:34
Speaker
So when you, so you mentioned a spiritual experience, I know for some people it's like, they don't like to really try to put words to that. So if you don't feel like it, that's fine. Um, is there, do you, what, what, if you don't mind talking about, what did that experience look like and how did that impact you? You know, so it's a, it's an assembly of God church. So if y'all have any, um, any knowledge of that, it's going to be different than like you group on a Wednesday night at
00:36:05
Speaker
First Baptist Church of Kernersville. It's going to look a little different. That would normally be after your youth pastor talks to you about how you need to repent for looking at porn. That's when you rededicate your life to Christ for the 13th time. That's a lot of, if you're in a more conservative experience. That's the Baptist route. That's the Baptist. Come to Jesus moment there. I was not a cool kid at school.
00:36:33
Speaker
I feel like I had tons of friends who were Christians and tons of friends who were not. And so I was always kind of the kid in the middle of the lunch table, you know, like kind of bringing the two together. I feel like that's kind of been like my life thing. Bridge building. Yeah, I guess that's a good way.
00:37:02
Speaker
for someone like me who is challenged to come up with good strong words there. Bridge Builder, I like that. Bridge Builder, that's my new youth group name. Bridge Builders.
00:37:16
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you for that. It could be a band name too, whenever you decide. It's for sure a band name. Well, I guess we'd have to harken back to our pre-recording conversation of not great band names. They're a Crab Corps band from Davenport, Iowa. Oh man. Wow. Okay. So 12th grade.
00:37:45
Speaker
You know, I was going to youth group and I enjoyed it. But, you know, there's always that part of you that's kind of like, hey, this is kind of stupid. You know, like, I like it, but I kind of hate it. And that's kind of where I was mentally. And I was at a, it was the goofiest thing. And I always, I've said it the same way for, you know, 24 years, 20, 23, 24 years. Like, I felt really goofy.
00:38:14
Speaker
being a part of this, but I went to, you know, the North Carolina Assembly of God Youth Convention that was actually hosted at our church. I go to a rather large church. You know, I go to one of the big, the biggens in town. And it was the youth convention and I was up in the balcony by myself so that no one could see me. And it was just one of those moments where it's like,
00:38:43
Speaker
you know, the guy on stage is like, all right, all right, students, I just feel like everyone in here needs to raise their hands and just start singing this song with me, you know, like y'all it's about to do something. And I just was like, okay, I'll do it. And so I did it. And it was like a moment of getting over my own, maybe a moment of
00:39:13
Speaker
where you just kind of put your pride down for a second. And you just step into something that's really not, you don't feel like it's you and then you find out there's a place for you there. And I think God, I honestly believe that God touched my whole being in that moment with something that I was so uncomfortable with. I was not like a,
00:39:39
Speaker
you know, a hand-raiser kind of kid. It just was not me. And, you know, I did that. And, you know, I was pretty much about five minutes later, I was on the floor, just kind of like crying, not like rolling around and barking like a dog or anything. I was just on the floor kind of weeping, and I don't even know how to describe it. I just kind of got up.
00:40:09
Speaker
and went home and you know your mom's like how was it? You're like oh it was cool. I yeah it's crazy and the next morning I was like you know what I'm just gonna open up the Bible. We were on our way to go visit my granny up in Virginia and not far from Lynchburg and I was like I just want to open up my Bible and started reading and dude it just something
00:40:38
Speaker
something had changed literally overnight in an instant, in a moment. I don't know how to tell you. I don't have the words for it other than, you know, like I think the Holy Spirit, you know, touched my life and I've had faith that that's what happened and
00:41:02
Speaker
As dumb as it may sound, that Bible came to life and then it just incrementally grew. It grew fast in my heart. Something changed. You'll still pinpoint that as the start of your trajectory.
00:41:24
Speaker
I don't know if you guys heard, there was a guy in a metal corps band that just passed away, the singer of Remembering Never just passed away. I told him the same story back in 2003. He laughed. He was like, you're crazy, man. You're stupid, dude. And I was like, nah, I'm serious, man. And then we went and, you know.
00:41:45
Speaker
pretending to hate each other at the hardcore show. I think that's the funny thing about spiritual experiences. I tell that same story to everybody. With spiritual experiences, it is often simple. It is hard to explain. Even for me, having
00:42:05
Speaker
Yeah, a few that I would still look back on and say that they were distinctly spiritual experiences. Despite shifts in beliefs, I still look at those as pivotal, even if I'd picked new vocabulary to describe them in a way that works for me. But it's goofy stuff sometimes.
00:42:30
Speaker
I'll remember just driving home from work one day here in a song and heard that song a million times and something like, I don't know, right place, right time, right feeling, but I listened to a song on repeat for the 45 minutes I was in the car and pretty much cried the whole entire way home for like 45 minutes.
00:42:53
Speaker
I don't really know what that was, but it was just like something felt different after that in a lot of ways. They are hard to describe. Whenever you do try to describe them, it sounds really simplistic, but I think that's what's neat about them. I think that is what's neat about them.
00:43:19
Speaker
Almost the lack of extravagance for something to impact you in such a deep way is what makes it particularly meaningful. I've raised my hands up to reach for, I've done this motion a billion times in my life.
Impact of Small Spiritual Moments
00:43:39
Speaker
And something about that one time changed everything, dude. I'm telling you, what? The green cup? Okay, bam.
00:43:48
Speaker
uh and next time you grab the ramp not that one life will change pattern interruption yeah yeah what okay so i don't i don't feel like i've ever i never had one of those moments you know and uh i've always thought about i'm not trying to compare these which would be kind of rude i'm just saying like i've always thought about like
00:44:18
Speaker
You know, you meet people and you start talking about like ghosts and there's always somebody that's like scenic ghost, you know, in the, in the crowd and always thought like.
00:44:28
Speaker
I feel like if I saw a ghost, my brain would just like every 20 minutes away from that experience that I got, my brain would be talking me out of the significance of that against my will. I would want to keep that like experience. I would relish like some sort of supernatural or like impactful thing like that. And I feel like my brain would be like, you know, you are probably just
00:44:57
Speaker
It was probably just an ingestion. It was gas. I don't know. When you, when you have something like that, that's like a foundational experience that really like changed your life and stuff, uh, like a touchstone moment. Do you feel an anxiety around? Like, is there like an anxiety around like keeping that?
00:45:25
Speaker
the way it felt, like trying to recall the way that felt when it happened. Do you, do you find yourself like trying to achieve that state again and relive it? I mean, what? Dude, that's such a good thought and a good question because I think over the last 23, I mean, I was 17 and I'm 41 now.
00:45:54
Speaker
Help me. What is that? 24 years? That's 24 years. Yes, 24. Yeah, 24 years. I've had that exact thought run through my head. Like, am I ever going to feel that again? Am I ever going to be that young, zealous, you know, teenager who wasn't afraid to go like, hey,
00:46:19
Speaker
You mind if we talk about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ? To every, I could, I did that all. It caused that. That moment caused me to live in that for two plus years of just never putting it down. I couldn't go to sleep without thinking about the next person that I wanted to tell about Jesus. And then, you know, time just has a way of like, it doesn't erode anything.
00:46:49
Speaker
But it changes it, but then you have those moments where you go, am I ever going to feel like that again? I think so many people in the church, in Christianity, in love, in relationships, they wonder if they're ever going to feel like they did the first time. Like they did the first time they saw that person. Like they did the first time they thought they heard
00:47:13
Speaker
God speak to them like they did the first time he did speak to them like the first time he touched their life like the first time they said the prayer like but I I cannot remember the name of the book but it's a very old I mean it's like a it's a three two to three hundred year old book I know that's a big difference 200 or 300 years somewhere in the middle this French Jesuit
00:47:40
Speaker
Uh, it's talking about idolizing those moments and making those moments sacred, so sacred that everything after that seems to, um, you know, it just lacks. It's lackluster. And, um, he's reminding someone in a letter to not let those, those first moments to cause the moments that we live in now to lose their significance. So, but dude, I, I, that's so.
00:48:11
Speaker
That's something that I've gone back and forth with just internally for so many years. So often I ask myself those kinds of questions. But I don't know how to answer that for myself. But man, I've grown. The person that I am today is so different from that 17-year-old kid. Sure, I was passionate about certain things.
00:48:40
Speaker
And I'm still passionate about those, but now I have some type of greater understanding. My obedience, the obedience level in my life that I have ascribed myself to live into is on another level from where I was 24 years ago, but it should be if I'm still following Christ. But man, I cherish that moment and I thank God for that moment.
00:49:08
Speaker
I feel exactly what you're is that something that you have actually that that you thought of or struggled with or You know Hmm Yeah, I mean in in different and lesser Situations, I feel that way about concerts, you know, like Mmm, everybody looks back. I remember like the first
00:49:37
Speaker
really impactful concert that I went to is like the first like metal core show that I went to it was like haste the day was the headliner and I forget who is even on the rest of it it dies today and some other bands but yeah like that set the course for my identity for like you know I don't know I mean maybe still to some extent today like I still love that music it's still like
00:50:03
Speaker
And I've been to a million concerts since then. And there's a lot of times where like, I feel, I don't know, it's weird. It's like, uh, you ever, you ever go somewhere, you're doing something like that where you're like, this is a fun thing that I'm doing. I should be having fun, but I'm not.
00:50:24
Speaker
I feel guilty that I'm not having fun. I feel disappointed that I'm not enjoying this more. I don't know how to like snap out of it, but I just, I don't really care about this right now. And this is something I've been looking forward to for, you know what I mean? That's, that's super. I got a song for it. But you know what I mean? It's like,
00:50:52
Speaker
I hate that feeling and it's such a less significant thing than like, oh, this was a spiritual turning point in my life, you know? I feel like there's a similarity though to what has been talked about in the sense that like people, I mean, in the same, I mean, it's a different path. It's part of your, you know, it's more of your identity or, I mean, I guess for some people it's as much of their identity as someone else's faith, but like,
00:51:20
Speaker
That's that same feeling. That is chasing the same feeling. I had this feeling at this concert, and that made me feel on top of the world. That gave me what I needed at the time I needed. So you go, and then when you don't have it, there's a disappointment. And I think, Joe, what you said is, comparing it to relationships,
00:51:41
Speaker
really spot on in that like when you first fall in love with somebody, it's like all feelings. But like, I mean, I've been married for 14 years. Sounds like, I mean, you've been married for how long? Since 2004. So 19 years this year.
00:52:08
Speaker
It's like, you get to a point in life where you're like, you're on the same page, you have the same mission, you still love each other, but it's not like, if you spent your entire fucking marriage chasing that feeling every day, that's probably why people end up getting divorced so quickly, so frequently. Probably the only reason.
00:52:26
Speaker
It's like they find those feelings somewhere else, so they chase those feelings. And I think for me too, I found Charismatic Christianity at Liberty University and I chased it. Every week I was hoping to have that same feeling and I started to feel like a real burnout simply because I felt manufactured or forced. I felt like a fraud by trying to have the same feelings that everyone else was.
00:52:53
Speaker
It kind of fucked me up a little bit to the point where like I felt and before I kind of like intellectually that sounds kind of like a negative way to say it but like
00:53:07
Speaker
I was going to say intellectually drifted away from it, but not to say that you can't intellectually drift towards it either. Because you can, you can. So not trying to make it sound like a slight, but- He's an academic. I felt pulled away from it and I couldn't engage on an authentic level. And I eventually found that again and was able to re-engage.
00:53:36
Speaker
on an authentic level when I gave up on that, like, dream of just, like, feeling that all the time. Because, you know, our bodies are not designed to maintain that level of heightened emotional state all the time. There's more life than that. So I think your comparison to it, as far as relationships go, makes probably the most sense. And I think it's pretty good parallel. Here's the thing.
00:54:05
Speaker
is that I believe that it is ultimately, it is relationship. And so that's what it's meant to be. And so I think it's the easiest comparison that we can make, or that I can make at the moment. But nah, man, I feel you. Yeah, dude, I've never had anybody ask me that before. That's so cool.
00:54:30
Speaker
I'm very good at this. Yeah, I mean, he goes, I don't want to be rude, even though I just asked if you're registered doctor. But are you sure about those feelings? Yeah, try to maintain a level of decor. I mean, oh, man. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna send you this book. I'm gonna figure out what the name of the all I have to do is go back
00:54:57
Speaker
about five or six years in Amazon order history. That's a lot of orders for most people. If you looked at mine, that's too many scrolls. That's a lot of Bill O'Reilly books ago, you know? Killing Mussolini, killing Hitler. My dad. Yeah. Killing Lincoln? Was there one called Killing Lincoln?
00:55:22
Speaker
Okay. I think my dad had one of those back in the day. He was like, man, you should read this man. I'm like, no, I'm good. Oh, the parents book recommendations are always, always fun. Parents are fun because it's like, there's, they'll never
00:55:41
Speaker
Maybe some do, but a lot seem to, especially for us who grew up in Christianity. They never lose that feeling of needing to speak truth into your life. You can't just be pals so easily. It's like, well, let me tell you, you should read this book. It's like, I'm on my own path now. I appreciate everything you've done for me. You've taken in any new information in two decades.
00:56:10
Speaker
If I hadn't taken all my dad's advice, I would have only yeah, I would read, I would have read those kind of books and bought all my shoes from Kohl's. So rocking the white new balances. Yeah, there's all something just a little different about the ones you buy from Kohl's.
00:56:31
Speaker
And the one I'm telling you, man, I know it. I know it's the truth, something. They don't make them the same way. Something is just not the same. So I'll never buy a pair of vans.
00:56:43
Speaker
from Kohl's, man. Don't do it. Sorry. All right. By direct, I buy straight from Van's website. I had this cool thing happen to me. So I've always been that guy who just has one pair of shoes and wears it until they're ruined and then still takes too long to buy another new pair of shoes. And something about turning 35 made me feel like I need to change some of my ways and maybe
00:57:06
Speaker
have more than two pairs of yeah maybe so i got orthopedic shoes is where this is going no i uh i should get the inserts and dr sholes those motherfuckers would probably make me feel a little better but um yeah they probably would
00:57:22
Speaker
I was like, all right, I'm gonna upgrade. I'm gonna buy a new pair of shoes. I found this pair of shoes on Van's website that I loved. I was like, these are the sickest fucking shoes I've ever seen in my life. Add to cart, buy, I get an email, order was canceled. That doesn't make sense. So I go back in, I order again.
00:57:41
Speaker
It goes through the next morning. I wake up to an email that my order was canceled and I, then I got it. Then they sent me a coupon for 50% off your entire order and free shipping. So I bought four pairs of shoes. I'm like, I've never owned more than one pair of shoes, but I got four pairs of shoes for like a hundred bucks. It was 120 bucks, something like that. And it was, uh,
00:58:03
Speaker
That was a pivotal pivotal moment in my life. So it was a touchstone talking about fans Not to not to one-up you man my brother-in-law works for the company that owns and so I get Personal point of privilege
00:58:29
Speaker
I do feel like they like if you wear them excessively, they last like a year and then they start getting a little wrecked though. You got to get the MTE ultra range. That's the van. Yeah, those are nice. We need that van sponsorship after this. Dude, I'll take it.
00:58:47
Speaker
I'm going to take a pivot, and this question might fall flat, but you mentioned being a tobacco town. Did you work on a tobacco farm, and did you start smoking cigarettes at 13 years old? Straight up, Devon. I worked on a farm, but I worked in the little dog pits. The guy who owned the farm, he raised dogs. But I also fed the donkeys and worked on kind of maintaining the barn, like the barn roof.
00:59:16
Speaker
had a bunch of projects, shoveling gravel, you know, doing the driveways, doing the lots. Did you wear proper gear when working on the roof or did you just like, freak out? I was a little, no shirt, shorts, a pair of boots. 45 degree incline, no anchor, hell yeah. Oh dude, yeah, terrible.
00:59:41
Speaker
So actually, what's crazy is there's a field like, oh, it's this way. It's this way. So Dusty from Beloved, his grandpa owned this massive tobacco field out this way. He owned tobacco all over this town. Lewis Dollar Height. Shout out to Dusty. I love you, man. Yeah, his
01:00:05
Speaker
grandfather owned all of that at one time. Massive plots land and farm tobacco all over this town. But I tried cigarettes at an eighth grade sleepover and we went out into the woods across the street from the house and it was dark.
01:00:27
Speaker
You know, we went out like 11 PM and we're all huddled around and everybody's got their cigarette. And I went and put the cigarette in my mouth and had the lighter going. They're like, just, you just inhale, you inhale. And so I was like, okay. Cause I couldn't, I couldn't figure out how to get it lit. And I inhaled and then all this tobacco went straight down my throat. And I had my mouth on the, on the wrong end of the cigarette and I was trying to light the filter.
01:00:58
Speaker
And so that was- That's awesome. That went down in the books. So that was my first experience. And I smoked some cigarettes at the bus stop, but when I found like straight edge and all that kind of stuff, man, I was like, this is for me. I want to do that. Now I punch people who smoke cigarettes. That's right.
01:01:22
Speaker
No, this straight-edge kid moved to town when I was in the 12th grade. He was wearing a straight-edge varsity coat, like Letterman's jacket with a big X in the front. You did not see that in Kernersville. And so I saw him right away, and I wasn't even straight-edge yet. And I was like, dude, you're straight-edge? Come eat lunch with us. And then this guy who was kind of like the town metalhead, but he was like a pothead.
01:01:52
Speaker
And he fought also. So he was a pothead, a metalhead, and he liked to fight people. He didn't fight with everybody. He saw Chris, the straight edge kid, sitting at the lunch table with a big X jacket on and straight edge across the back. And he walked up to the lunch table and I knew James. And I was like, so James is the pothead, Chris is the straightest kid. And he walked right up to the table and he was like, hey, you want to fight me? I smoke weed.
01:02:19
Speaker
And Chris, Chris is like looking at him like, huh, no, man, I don't want to fight. And, and I'm like, James, go away, man. I'm like, I'm like, it's like you're a little annoying, like neighborhood kid. You're just trying to push him off and you know, he won't hit you, but he's trying to hit the guy behind you. And like, yeah, I remember those, those moments of everybody's like, dude,
01:02:44
Speaker
know, the straight edge kids in Salt Lake, like they beat up everybody. And I know some of those guys and they didn't be crap out of some people. I love you guys. I love Salt Lake. It's just so funny, man. Respect to all those dudes. But that's, that's, yeah, it's a real thing, but it's also a funny thing because it does get blown so far out of proportion. So far out of proportion. Oh, yeah. We used to hear stories about like,
01:03:10
Speaker
We were so far removed from any of that real intense hardcore scene stuff anywhere that I lived ever, but you would hear stories about like, yeah, they saw this guy smoking and so they jumped him after the show and blah, blah, blah, blah. There's always something like that.
01:03:33
Speaker
I know because people talk about third-hand fight stories. They're the only thing worse than first-hand fight stories. I remember kids in my youth group being like, Bane would come around. They're like, you don't want to be caught smoking cigarettes outside of a Bane show. I'll tell you what. That's it. That's it. Okay. Not even in the smoking section? Crazy.
01:03:58
Speaker
I did straight edge was awesome because I was like a kind of afraid to like, I wasn't a rule breaker at all. I was like a very straight lace kid. So even when I like wanted to like try fucking around with that stuff, I was like scared to like something awful might happen. And then straight edge gave me an excuse. Like I gave everyone in that scene an excuse to not have the peer pressure to get involved. Like
01:04:23
Speaker
If you were just like, yeah, I'm straight edge. People are like, oh, okay, no problem. Like there was no, there really wasn't a lot of peer pressure to do stuff you didn't want to do for me. And it saved me from just feeling like I had to go along with shit. It gave me like something else other than just feeling like the dorky person is like, Oh, I'm a Christian. So it's like, nah, I'm just straight edge. And they're like, Oh, tough points too.
01:04:49
Speaker
Like you paint the X's on your fingers.
Influence of Straight Edge Movement
01:04:52
Speaker
That's like open carrying, you know? That's like two years of krava gah if you like paint the X's on your fingers.
01:05:00
Speaker
Yeah, I was gonna say it's like people who tell you that they had to register their fists as a deadly weapon because they got a black belt in Taekwondo. You're like, okay, pal. My sensei taught me news that are legal in this state. Were they doing roundhouse kicks in the pit at beloved shows or advent shows? Oh, yeah. Heck yeah. I used to do roundhouse kicks, man. I was looking for it.
01:05:31
Speaker
You said after high school is when you kind of started the whole tour and took off touring, kind of gotten more heavily invested into that. Throughout playing music and going out on tour, were there points where you felt like your faith was really challenged or it was tough to
01:06:00
Speaker
Maintain what you would have felt like would have been like Your level of like faith integrity just because it's like the people around or the people you're on tour with or anything like that Dude, I literally I just had this conversation on Sunday night with a kid in the youth group. So But yeah, I Iron sharpens iron. I think that's a true statement whether you want to apply it
01:06:27
Speaker
in a scriptural biblical sense or just a piece of wisdom that anyone can live by. You get around people who are not just of like mind but who really have something to offer and you're willing to for your life to rub up against theirs in a way and stay around them long enough you become sharp just like they are and so
01:06:55
Speaker
I, you know, the guys in Beloved, there was Josh, our singer. He was a couple years younger than all of us. There was Matt, our guitar player, Dusty, our other guitar player, and all three of those guys played guitar. There's Johnny Long Arms and myself. And Johnny and Matt and I, we went from Beloved to Advent. And so there's,
01:07:23
Speaker
All those guys have things that, you know, ways in which they live their life by that I respect each one of them for. The relationship that probably impacted me the most as far as like my having spiritual conversations with someone on a daily basis was and is Johnny, you know, and Dusty and
01:07:53
Speaker
and Matt and Josh, but Johnny, dude, I think we gravitated towards each other somehow once he joined the band in 2002. And even before him, a guy named Mitch Britt, before that, but they're all some of my best friends.
01:08:15
Speaker
Him and I just kind of clicked and we made it a thing, man. We go together and we go places. We didn't put ourselves in any kind of weird scenarios that things could just get dicey. He always stood up for me and he called me out on my crap if I needed to be called out. We just stuck together, man. I think that's a biblical thing.
01:08:43
Speaker
We're meant to live life together. That's what the church is, is a community of people that are happy one day and they cry together the next. They meet together and they talk about spiritual things, but they also break bread. And both of those are in fact deeply spiritual. And so you do that with someone on the road long enough and you become like them, they become like you. And you walk down a path together and Johnny and I,
01:09:13
Speaker
21 years later, he lives a mile that way, behind my house. That's sick, man. That's really cool. We're still doing it. We're still doing it. Yeah, we're still doing it. And with Jordan and Mike and Advent,
01:09:33
Speaker
You know, and Jay, that was in the almost with me and Dusty, we were in almost together. We just, we were there for each other, man. I think, I think friendship is one of the biggest parts about my faith that actually kept me intact was having such good friends and believers that would call me out on my crap if I needed to be. To be a little bit of yourself, it's funny because I feel like for every story there is that that goes well. There's a story in which that can go, like goes awry to because someone's like,
01:10:03
Speaker
on their high horse or something like that about shit. So the fact that you were able to do that together for that long and that you're still close friends is like, that's a special friendship, man. That's not shitty youth group accountability partner nonsense that gets fucked up. That is a real thing that is... I feel like
01:10:27
Speaker
I have a lot of friends still from when I was in high school, or I shouldn't say a lot. I have a couple friends from when I was in high school. And there's just a lot of people who don't. And it's like, yeah, yeah, there's some challenge. I mean, there's signs where you just like get on each other's nerves or something like that. But I feel like, but a lot of my friends, we weren't like,
01:10:50
Speaker
on each other. We weren't, we never had that level of like commitment of like that. Let's, let's hold each other accountable for this or that. You just kind of, you just stay friends and everyone just did whatever they did. But that's a unique experience. I think your experience that you're talking about is, um, is unique. I feel like not a lot of people have that. And that's a special friend, man. Oh yeah. You guys had a Jonathan and David thing going.
01:11:20
Speaker
Absolutely. I didn't realize until recently that you were doing drums in the almost the almost was a band that wasn't so much on my radar, but that's cool. I had no idea that you're like you've
01:11:48
Speaker
Kind of been in and out of like several bands over the years that was has was music a From advent through like through I guess the almost Almost you were in that to like I think was a 2015 and then advent that went to like 2011 was music a full-time gig for you or you work in stuff on the side to so with
01:12:18
Speaker
I just tried to turn on the lamp and the bulb just busted. With Beloved, we did... I've always had side jobs, dude. I still have side jobs now. I teach drum lessons now and I mow yards and do other landscaping stuff on the side. I'll do anything just to make a little bit of extra walking around money.
01:12:48
Speaker
That's what it's called by the way walking around money have a $100 bill in your in your wallet at all times. That's like the goal Yeah, but But yeah, I I Think I did it full-time I could have done it full-time I just always Wanted to stay busy so in between tours I would go to the drum shop work on drum repairs or sell drums or
01:13:17
Speaker
You know, do drum lessons and do private lessons with people. And that was during the advent almost years, but with beloved, I worked at, I worked at the gap. Um, and at a car watch, uh, 50% off blouses, huh?
01:13:38
Speaker
Were you wearing a lot of polos at that stage of life No, I was wearing like turtlenecks and stuff. I was like the juliana theory meets turnstile poison the well, yeah Bring internal legs back. It's a turnstile
01:13:57
Speaker
Man, hopefully they do. Somebody needs to do it. Just do like a little chin strap that connects your turtle neck straight to your bucket hat. Yes, that'd be sick. It's like a sock guard under your head. Hopefully one of them will hear this and do the turtle neck thing, man. I don't know. Shout out, turn style. Turtle necks. I have a question for you. And this may just be more my experience,
01:14:27
Speaker
in church and stuff like that. So, yeah. My pastor growing up, like the main pastor that I had was like the best dude, loved the guy. I haven't talked to him much in a long time, but he was just like a great, great dude. The other pastors that I ran into, not so much, I mean, there were bad guys. There was just like,
01:14:55
Speaker
The first pastor, you know, he really like had a relationship with the people in the church and he invested in people and stuff like that. The other pastors that I had were a little reclusive. They were kind of like mostly just involved with their family and they didn't seem to really want to get out and fraternize with the congregation much. They kind of made it seem a little like a nuisance if they had is
01:15:23
Speaker
Is that a, okay. Cause there's, I'm in sales, there's traps that you fall into as a sales rep. And, uh, and that's most of what ruins people in that job, you know, is that a trap that like kind of reclusive. Hermit that comes out on Sunday and Wednesday. And like, why is it that people fall into that? Because it seems like it kind of that's losing sight of really like what your role is in the community that you talked about.
01:15:54
Speaker
Dude, you're on it tonight with the good stuff. I'm not going to be able to get my head out the door here. I think that here is a truth. Okay, you obviously both know. I believe in God. I believe that God picks people that other people wouldn't pick a lot of times.
01:16:23
Speaker
four things that they- Greg Lock, for example. Yes, what a great, what a great. We recently spent an hour and a half making fun of Greg Lock, so. Yeah, my last episode was, yeah, an hour and a half of- I still got the clips queued up. Man, I'll tell you what. I think God picks people, and that's the narrative of scripture is like,
01:16:53
Speaker
If you really look at the people that, you know, the stories we're being told about, you know, there, a lot of them are failures or a lot of them, um, are really screw up and have big consequential moments of their life that could have gone one way or the other, but by the grace of God, that's kind of how the, you know, the story has a turnaround when it comes to pastoring. I think that, I think that sometimes we're really good at picking out who should be a pastor.
01:17:23
Speaker
We feel that way. Personally, I believe that pastors should be people who feel called to people. To people. And they shouldn't... I think you have a decision to make. You can feel called, but you can also make a decision like, hey man, I really hate people. Maybe I shouldn't do this.
01:17:53
Speaker
But it's weird because there are a lot of people who pastor that are predisposed that type of personality or whatever that might be. I don't know if that's a personality, but that I have friends that I work with that they're like, dude, it's like, for me, it's not easy to be here all the time because I want to go and run and hide in my cave.
01:18:22
Speaker
But I have to put a coat, like a new thing on to come in here and give all of my energy to the people. And I think that is what separates a good pastor from maybe a pastor that's not a great pastor is one who's willing to do the things that are hard for them rather than just the ones who want to do what they want to do.
01:18:50
Speaker
And so your experience of like, I met a good pastor who, you know, was relational and was approachable and new people's names and was involved in people's lives versus the other ones, the stinkers that you met that just kind of hide and don't want anything
Joe's Unconventional Path to Pastoring
01:19:09
Speaker
to do with the people. And it seems like it's like the last thing they might want to do. Maybe they should, maybe they should think about it. That's the way I feel, but I love people.
01:19:18
Speaker
Um, but I also run out of energy for people too. And I think that's where, I think that's where I have the opportunity to step up and be a real leader is when I'm done is I, not that I'm faking or pretending, but I'm deciding to be about people when I've run out of all my energy. I think that's what a good pastor, you know, can decide to do. So, um, it's funny cause that's like what I usually tell. I'll tell guys that.
01:19:48
Speaker
in relation to sales is like the difference between somebody who does really well at this job and somebody who will eventually have to find something else to do is like a person who's going to be good at it continually gets up every day and makes himself do the thing that they don't want to do. And it kind of applies to everything, but like, I think it does. Everybody's got different, uh,
01:20:15
Speaker
things that they struggle with like that. What is hard for you about being a pastor? Man, my stuff is so stupid. I'm so, like, I am the least qualified. You're both probably more qualified to be pastors than I am on- I did get a biblical studies degree from Liberty, so watch out. There you go. Sam's my job soon.
01:20:41
Speaker
There you go. I still have yet to get my first plaque on the wall, working on it, very slowly. What was your question? I'm about to go down a rabbit trail. What's hard for you that you have to make yourself do? Yeah. Dude, for me, I can be really stupid about it.
01:21:08
Speaker
I love the people part. It's the administrative part, but the administration of the church is so important because people need to feel connected and reached out to and checked up on and
01:21:23
Speaker
And so like, dude, I have a hard time sending emails. I get apprehensive over just sending one email. Like I decide I was, I was apprehensive about texting Sam earlier tonight on the, you know, the Instagram page. Like, Hey man, I'm having a hard time finding this. I didn't want to look like an idiot yet. I was like, you know what, I'm just going to do this so that I could be set up for this podcast. But, um, you know, I, I, uh,
01:21:53
Speaker
Really right now, man, I feel so fresh and so young in this because I kind of came back and the church is in such a healthy place. Our leadership is in such a healthy place. We have an amazing pastor and his wife and they really do everything they can to make not just me feel like I'm a part of it, but the person at the very back of the room. And so it's when you're in like a really good
01:22:21
Speaker
When you're in a really good scenario and everything is just, you're just like, I feel like I'm floating some days. Um, I feel like I'm high, like I'm high on Jesus, bro. I'm high, so high that it's hard for me to think about the things that are hard, but the things that are hard for me are the things that other people are like, man, you are, you need, you need help bro.
01:22:48
Speaker
your little something something's off because I can't send emails. I can't remember meetings. I can't. I'm just I'm like a I chase butterflies sometimes man. So maybe too often. But how do I love the people side? I love the study side. I love ministering to people. Yes, I love that part. But administration is hard.
01:23:14
Speaker
So you're, you're getting a, you're in school right now for like seminary or something like that? Yeah. Well, first off, I need to, I need to be credentialed in my actual denomination. So in the AG, they want every pastor to actually have, uh, you know, um, credentials in the denomination. So that's what I'm pursuing right now.
01:23:40
Speaker
If that wasn't the case, would you feel it was important for you to get that? Oh dude, I mean, probably, probably not in my own, in my own thinking. No, but having a leader that has kind of helped me to, you know, uh, shift my perspective a little bit, you know, it's, it's helped me, you know, and I don't know everything dude. So, um, I wish I honestly had a.
01:24:09
Speaker
you know, a bachelor's and, uh, you know, and then went to seminary and had a divinity, went to divinity school and all this stuff. I wish that I had done that, but I was too busy freaking mashing, bro. That's like saying, I wish I was a little more unbearable. Is there, um, okay. So it's AJ, so you're still with assemblies of God. Is there anything that you have to, um, so I, okay, forget
01:24:39
Speaker
I was gonna grab a trail. So I'm just gonna ask you, is there anything that you have to sign off on?
01:24:47
Speaker
publicly that you don't personally agree with. And can you even mention that, I guess, because you'd be outing yourself as disagreeing with it on a podcast, I guess. But I feel like that can be the case with like Southern Baptists. Like, oh, I got a job at a Southern Baptist church. I have to sign this. I have to reinforce these beliefs. You gotta agree to keep quiet. Yeah, my ND. What is it? Is it called an NDA? Yeah, they made you sign NDA.
01:25:13
Speaker
I'm not signing a non-compete clause. You can never work at another church again. No, but is there like the, cause I mean, that's, churches are set up in a very structured sense, especially a denomination like AG. So you're signing, I mean, you're, you're signing in their statement of faith. Is there anything where you're just like, that's tough for you to sign off on? Hmm.
01:25:39
Speaker
I'll let you reread it and get back to me. Yeah, I don't think so. I'm actually, one of the courses that I'm supposed to be taking is a course where I go through all of those fundamentals of the EG Church and learn all those. I'm not there yet, but I don't think so. I mean, I'm still here after 40 years. Not a lot of surprises, I guess.
01:26:09
Speaker
It's the same one that you were at as a kid. It's the same church. That's wild, man. Same town, same church. You're an anomaly. That's for sure. How'd the pastor thing come about? How'd that come your way? And was it like an apprehension to it at first? Did you have a resistance to that idea at all?
01:26:35
Speaker
I guess I was just there like playing drums. Can y'all still hear me? Yep. These were, these were fully charged. And this one, this was the only one going right now. But I, uh, I, you know, it was just on the worship team and, um,
01:26:57
Speaker
I guess I just, oh, the almost ended. The almost ended. I took a job at a rebar shop. Like the almost ended on a Friday that next Monday I was working at a rebar shop in Winston. Cause I was like, I was just doing, you know, music at that point touring and stuff, you know? And that ended because Aaron took a job playing for Paramore, you know, making,
01:27:27
Speaker
making dollars and being a big boy. That was a good move. Yeah, it was a good move. They're doing all right these days. Doing all right, I guess. That was a Friday. I run into the guy who owns the rebar shop on Sunday at church and then by Monday.
01:27:56
Speaker
I was working at his shop, and over the course of that year that I worked there, close to a year, that business was being sold and transitioned and all this kind of stuff, and I was more involved with volunteer leadership, and I was just friends with the people on staff.
01:28:21
Speaker
job pretty much ended. They came in the office and they were like, listen, the company that was buying us, they were like, some of you are going to lose your jobs. And I was like, Hey, can it just be me? I'll, I'll step out. And sure enough, literally by the end of the day, um, I was in conversation with, you know, starting the church. So, and so I started as like just fixing holes in walls and wrapping up microphone cables and, uh,
01:28:51
Speaker
cleaning toilets and whatever they needed to be done. And in about six months, I was the middle school pastor. So, um, but I think from the time I was a kid, my, you know, my parents would ask me like, what do you want to do? And I was like, I want to be a pastor. You know, so it was, I don't remember a lot of those sayings that I, you know, but my mom, my mom and dad would tell me, you know, tell me that kind of stuff. And, uh,
01:29:21
Speaker
So sure enough, yeah, in 2015, I started that in like, uh, August of August to 2015 and did that until 2022 mode yards for a year. And now I'm back. Mowing lawns just didn't compare to the glory of middle schoolers. That takes a personality type because
01:29:50
Speaker
Middle schoolers are tough. When I went back to school for counseling to work in a school, middle school is pretty much the only grade level that's completely off the table for me.
Challenges and Changes in Church Post-COVID
01:30:06
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah, I was doing middle school. Now I'm doing young adults, which is like 30 all the way down to middle school. Okay.
01:30:21
Speaker
Young adults, college, high school, middle school. So I'm in charge of all of that. It's not all going yet. The lead pastor is like, dude, don't try to get all this going and like, let's take a year and like kind of incrementally get things going instead of you like feeling like you got to get this thing, you know,
01:30:49
Speaker
90 days is not even realistic in and of itself. You'd be on 10 Bible studies a week on that trajectory. Yeah, I can't handle that. But dude, I've got... This is what's crazy. It's like we have... Our church went from... We're like a 2000 seat church. That's a big room. It's like one of those arena looking churches built in the late 80s.
01:31:19
Speaker
but barely finished, not up to code. You know, the guy who designed it, you know, he's one of those like, he starts building it and then he gets the heck out of town and changes his name. You know, the church was like, huh, what's going on? You know, like, and so they just did the best they could to like finish everything up and like, you know, go up into the catwalk on this 40 foot ceiling and it just
01:31:46
Speaker
in the middle of the catwalk, it just ends and there's nothing there. And you're like, whoa, that's when the construction ended. That's when the construction ended. Like, so all kinds of, all kinds of really interesting stuff, but amazing church, but we went from, you know, thousands of people in the, in the eighties and nineties to, you know, probably a thousand, 1500 people down to the time by COVID hit and
01:32:14
Speaker
the fallout there in 2021, there's probably 250 people on a Sunday morning. And now, you know, new pastor comes in, you know, and people are, it's like people are, and this is what happens when you bring a personality into the room, and he's a huge personality, but he's also a fantastic leader and a great human being.
01:32:44
Speaker
great pastor, he's a pastor of the people. And our church is now infused with, we've got 400 people volunteering and starting up ministries and doing things that they feel called to do. And so we went from like 15 people available to help the church run on like a shoestring thing to you've got more volunteers than some people have at their entire church.
01:33:14
Speaker
you know, um, making, you know, making life happen and, um, and it's just, it's just healthy. It's great, man. So, um, super, super thankful for that. But that's cool, man. Can I hit you with some, with a, uh, a rough one? So hit me with, hit me with the rough ones. So we're kind of in that, uh,
01:33:44
Speaker
that realm of people who grew up in church and stuff and have just sort of drifted out over time. It's obviously a pretty healthy contingent in the US. There's kind of a thing going on, right? Yeah, for sure. Why do you think that is? Man.
01:34:14
Speaker
You know, there's, I think there's spiritual, there's a spirit of the age, there's spiritual undertones, all this kind of stuff. But, you know, I think the way that we, how old are you? So you're 35, Sam. How old are you, Casey? 36. Okay, so we're all in the same, really the same generation of like the way we went to church had to have been similar. Yeah, yeah.
01:34:43
Speaker
And so I think the way we grew up, the performance based light show church, and man, we got, we have lights in our church. We have, we have a screen in our church, but the, the, but the way that the American church gravitated towards, um, the facade, uh,
01:35:11
Speaker
and just putting up beautiful leaders in front of people and making it look like if you follow Jesus, your life will be A-OK. You'll never experience pain. Suffering, what's that? You know, like that kind of theology dominated church culture for so long. And I think, you know, there was an underground
Social Media's Role in Church Reflection
01:35:39
Speaker
rumble for probably 10 to 12 years of, you know, the, what's the, what's the, there's a word and it's escaping me right now. The deconstructing thing. Oh yeah. I was going on tours with guys who were deconstructing, you know, back in the early 2000s. And so that was happening at some level, but then, but then the world experiences.
01:36:08
Speaker
something together, you know, like COVID, you've got COVID happening, and then you've got TV preachers who are making a mockery of everything and, and making these predictions about political figures and this and that. And I think everything that was happening under the surface for people where they're like, man, I don't know, this just doesn't feel like it did.
01:36:36
Speaker
when I was a kid and I saw, and my pastor did this and our church fell apart because he made this decision or he had sex with this woman behind his wife's back and you've got all these life experiences for believers our age and then COVID hits and then, and I'm not saying this is how it happened for everyone, but this, I think it's come into light more and more, you know,
01:37:07
Speaker
with the advent of social media, all of this combined, man, I think people are just, I think we're all just processing out loud. I think we're just processing out loud the way that we felt for 15 years, for 10 years, the doubts that you may have had, the hurts that may have been there. And I don't think any of these are unfounded.
01:37:37
Speaker
But obviously my perspective would be different from you guys. And I have tons of friends on the spectrum from where you're at to where I'm at to where someone way down the road is at. But I think we just got hurt and we didn't know how to get up as the American church. And we heard a lot of people and
01:38:03
Speaker
We stayed quiet on a lot of things, and I'm not talking about political issues. I think we got way too involved in political idolatry, and I think that was just the last
01:38:30
Speaker
the last hit that it took, the last chop of the tree for a lot of people. The tree is a good way to put it. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that was the final people. Some people will cite that as the problem that was escalating for years. And I think there was problems stemming from that in the nineties also. But the past six, seven, eight years, that's that was feels like the final nail in the coffin. I think I
Church's Loss of Influence and Adaptation
01:38:59
Speaker
am. I am.
01:39:00
Speaker
pretty and and I'm actually probably I'm not risking anything but I'm pretty apolitical just just in general that's the way I've always felt but I have tons of friends who are very political and their faith is very tied up in their politics and we're still we're we're friends and they see things differently than me and you know I have lots of people who have actually
01:39:26
Speaker
told me that I'm wrong for being apolitical. You can't be an apolitical Christian. You have to be one way and not the other. But our church is made up of, our church is a very diverse church in a lot of ways. And we're made up of a lot of different kinds of people and types of people and people who speak different languages and people who come from different neighborhoods. And so just in our little church alone, it's
01:39:55
Speaker
we are diverse yet unified on Christ. And I think the church in America is just so split up, broken down, you know, has kind of lost its power and lost its voice and culture because it gave it up. And hypocrisy helped it to give up its own voice. You know, hypocrisy will spill your voice out of people's ear really quick. So I think
01:40:23
Speaker
I think our culture in America now is just so, we're also skeptical of everything that, dude, the moment somebody screws up, we label them, they're done, and the church has gotta be a lot wiser with the way it positions itself in the world. Not in a manipulative way, but in truly a wise way of fearing God
01:40:53
Speaker
fearing God first, living properly amongst itself, the church, and living properly amongst its neighbors. I think it would be in a different place if it had done that for the last 20 years. More of a Lockian stance. A Greg Lockian stance. Yeah.
Critique of Transactional Faith
01:41:15
Speaker
You mentioned people getting hurt and not being able to get back up and then just the church culture that we were sold of what God will do.
01:41:22
Speaker
And I think there's a lot, I agree there a lot. I think we were kind of sold a bill of goods at the church or Christianity couldn't really deliver on, which just resulted in, it was like a, it was very, it was like a transactional type faith. It's like, if you have your faith in this and I didn't grow up in prosperity gospel, but that leaks its way and everything. You're not, no one's promising me money or anything like that, but they are promising you like a successful life, a happy,
01:41:53
Speaker
marriage they're just promising you a lot of things on arbitrary stances like having faith in God and you're like but what does that look like how is that and then they might they might have a one-for-one on that like for a biblical marriage and then people follow those rules and their marriage falls apart because that was your church's perspective on it and not really
01:42:12
Speaker
uh you know you're not really there's other perspectives that might result in uh something healthier and but what what i think you're probably i don't know i feel like what's common though is like
01:42:25
Speaker
people left because of these things and they found and I think so like you mentioned social media provides like that community like people found a community of people who went through similar things heck that's why we're doing this I mean I think it's just fun to talk to people who have various experiences regardless of where they end up there is a there's camaraderie and and
Misuse of Scripture in Church
01:42:50
Speaker
in this shared life of growing up Christian because it is unique. And if people didn't, it's hard for them to really understand what that looked like for some people. So I honestly, I think this is like one of the best pictures of what happened is like when I think about the most overused scripture
01:43:17
Speaker
in all of like Christianity in America, one of not the and one of the most out of context scriptures used. I think about I know y'all gonna know this Philippians 4 13. This is a picture of what the American church did.
01:43:38
Speaker
for so long. Philippians 4.13 says, for I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. And we took that and we were like, man, I can slam dunk basketballs because Christ gives me strength. I can outsell, I can outsell Terry over here at the car lot and win that Lamborghini because Jesus gives me strength. I can have a successful this and that and the other because Jesus gives me strength.
01:44:03
Speaker
But what we did is we took that out of context and we took our faith so far out of context that we forgot that Paul was actually, this is a prison epistle. He was writing this from prison. And if you take that verse out of context and you consider what the church offered
01:44:24
Speaker
people for so long. If you follow Jesus, you're going to be able to do whatever you want and get whatever you want. You know why? Because it's Christ who gives you strength. But you put it back into context and it says, I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little, for I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.
01:44:55
Speaker
Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present sufferings. That's the context of scripture. That's what the real context of faith is. And yet, I think when people were given the happy, bubbly, pop version of Jesus, when life came and knocked on the front door, and it was, oh, your mother has cancer, oh,
01:45:24
Speaker
You've never been able to get the job that you were promised because you went to four years of college. Oh, your best friend was killed in a car accident. Oh, like that doesn't sound like what we were sold. But what the scriptures are telling us is vastly different, is that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But what are those all things? I can survive when there's pain,
01:45:54
Speaker
and suffering because Christ is within me, helping me through those difficult times. Oh, I can survive when I have barely anything to eat. Oh, I'm shackled in prison writing this letter to you. That's, you know, that's like, that's the actual context of the story there. And, and, and we did it wrong, I think for a while. You know, who could have used that verse?
01:46:24
Speaker
God, if only he had a time machine. Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, exactly. Dude, put the headsheets down. You can make it through your term. You can serve the spending. You can make it. Come on.
01:46:39
Speaker
I mean, another, I was thinking, cause another verse that's often, you know, that's often quoted that doesn't, you know, it's out of context.
Balancing Politics and Ministry in Church
01:46:51
Speaker
I thought you might've been going with Leviticus 20, 15 to 16. And it says, if a man lies with an animal, he shall surely be put to death and he shall kill the animal. And if a woman approaches any animal and lies with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal. You pig.
01:47:07
Speaker
They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. And I think that's also where we've gone wrong, too. You know, just out of context, just ripping that verse. So out of context. Similar feelings we have here. I have one more other question. I'm glad that we line up on a few things. Okay, one last serious question. So you said you're
01:47:37
Speaker
Pretty apolitical. Yeah. You talked about political, you know, political idolatry is a part of what's led the church astray. We've talked about that a lot on the show because, you know, a lot of us grew up in families that, you know, if you said, hey, what, what, you know, give me a list of your priorities in life and they'd say, well,
01:48:01
Speaker
It's God first, you know, and it's my wife, then it's my kids, and I try to keep things in that order, which is fine, right? Very little conversation or talk or sharing about faith and stuff like that outside of the church building.
01:48:21
Speaker
But they have like this just, I mean, you know, I grew up, you know, for my house, I mean, Fox News is on every night. That's what the conversations at the dinner table are about. That's what everything, I mean, like, there's so many people in the US, especially that like, will tell you up and down that like, God is first in their life. But like, what they talk about, what they're passionate about,
01:48:48
Speaker
is just like this political turmoil that's just ongoing and just seems to like never go away in the U.S. You're an apolitical guy that wants to invest in people and you want to make that the center of your ministry at your church and stuff like that. I have to imagine that you have people constantly trying to drag that stuff into the church and make it a focal point. Oh, yeah, yeah. How do you deal with that?
01:49:18
Speaker
You got to pastor everybody. You got to pastor the Republicans. And I have plenty of really good friends who are Republicans. Like I said, their faith and their politics, they're interwoven to a, to a certain level. And I, on a, you know, I respect it to a certain level. And, um, then I have people who are, we have Republicans at our church, we have Democrats at the church, we have
01:49:50
Speaker
Libertarians, or is that what they are? You don't have to mention that. Is that the same thing? They're like, don't tread on me, but you can also put on this pair of high heels and stomp on my balls. That's their public affiliation. I refuse to have a driver's license. It's not because the state took it. Indeed, new eyes are just pieces of paper. We have all of the people
01:50:17
Speaker
And so my job is to pastor everybody if they'll allow me to. I don't get to pastor anyone who doesn't want to be pastored by me. And our head pastor doesn't get to pastor anyone if they reject his leadership in their life. So that's fine. They can come and sit and hopefully they'll hear something that challenges them and changes maybe the way they think.
01:50:43
Speaker
you know, politics is not going to be what I'm going to focus on. Um, and I'm not going to try and convince people not to care about politics, but I am going to try and convince them to care about something else first. Um, so, but I'm, I'm okay with, with people who try to drag me into things because I'm equally going to try and drag them that I think, that I think their life needs to go to. So we'll just see who wins in the end.
01:51:13
Speaker
There we go. I just remember one of the last Sunday school classes I went to at my church that I grew up in, it was like an all ages one because I had outgrown the young people's class.
Humor and Music in Church Life
01:51:30
Speaker
I remember going and sitting in this classroom and it's everybody. It's people my age, it's senior citizens, it's everybody.
01:51:39
Speaker
Yeah. And I remember like this old man in the front row and he like, he made multiple attempts to like completely commandeer this class, but because he was like so fired up about people only using King James.
01:51:57
Speaker
We could just totally derail the point and you'd be like, you know, the problem that we've got today is that there's these people with all these other translations. And he's got one of my favorite quotes of all time from church. He was like, he's like, I'll tell you what, King James, if it was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it's good enough for me.
01:52:18
Speaker
And then my pastor like trying to explain to him like, well, you know, the Bible's been translated a bunch of times. How do you think Paul got in it? How do you think Paul got in it if he already had it? It's pretty good. It takes a real level of government and stuff. That's good. I like that.
01:52:43
Speaker
Before we let you go, Joe, thanks for being so generous with your time. Do you have stuff on the horizon, music? I know you're doing, you just put out some new music with ends of sanity. Is now that you're doing the whole pasta roll, do you still have like
01:53:02
Speaker
music on the horizon or is that kind of put on hold? Yeah, so Advent just recorded four songs and we're looking to put that out probably sometime in the fall. Oh, hell yeah. It's probably the most, like the most moshy Advent that we've ever written.
01:53:23
Speaker
It's not as fast and blistering as some of the other stuff, or I guess for us, it would be blistering. It's a little bit more like it's got some balls on it. Nice. Can't wait to hear that. Yeah, it'll be interesting. We're playing some shows. We're playing in front of a space pre-show, and then we're playing a show in North Carolina, and that's pretty much all we've got right now.
01:53:52
Speaker
We may book a little bit more later in the year, but I'm moving church buildings. We're moving from one building to the other, so we're kind of on like a blackout. It's a lot of work, so we'll see how the schedules all line up. All right.
Conclusion and Reflections
01:54:15
Speaker
Well, Joe, thanks so much for joining us, man. This was a blast talking to you.
01:54:20
Speaker
Thanks for having me. I feel so cool that you guys reached out to me for real. I was like, dang. Did you still talk to me? I mean, it's crossed my mind a bunch because I just grew up on Beloved and then obviously listened to Advent, went to some Advent shows in Lynchburg.
01:54:44
Speaker
Yeah. And so after start, you know, start the podcast, it's like, it's always crossed my mind. And then I drive all the way down to North Carolina. I'm like, I need to ask this guy to do the podcast. But I'm like, I'm not gonna
01:54:56
Speaker
There is a weird time to do that. I have this podcast you so it's like I'm not gonna do be weird about it but then I was just like You just booked stuff out and you booked stuff out and it's like that It's so funny because the day that it crossed my mind Incidentally was the 20th anniversary of failure on I like looked at your stories after I messaged you and it was just like you resharing everyone's like
01:55:19
Speaker
Putting this on for the 20th anniversary. Oh, that's so cool. Like it's I cannot be it's 20 years but yeah, it's been on my mind for a while and Super glad we made this work. So thanks a lot, man. Yeah, thank you. So Alright everybody. Well, thanks for listening. See you next