Brad Church

David W Ebel: Welcome to the God Says Yes podcast. You are welcome here. Hello everybody. This is God Says Yes. It's the podcast where everyone is welcome. This is not a place of judgmentalism. This is a place of open hearts and where we share God's love with everybody. My name is David Ebel and I'm your host. And our purpose is simply this. We all go through tough times. Not everybody gets through life unscathed. Most of us have some rough times along the way and that's where we come in. We want to shine the love of Jesus. and promise hope to those who really want that hope. And so that's what we're here today. I have with me my dear brother in the Lord, Church. Brad is somebody who definitely has a story to tell. And so Brad, welcome. Thank you, David. It's great to be here. And Brad, why don't you start us off? Tell us your story. All right. My pleasure. Well, my story in Christ starts at about the age of six. was we attended a little Methodist church in a town called Junction City, Oregon, where I grew up. And my mother was teaching a Sunday school class. And back then they used the the flannel boards, you know, with the little characters and they'd move them around. And she was talking about Jesus and and how he died for our sins. And I remember very distinctly at that young age. Believing in who he is and what he'd done for us. And that was my first experience in really understanding God's presence and forgiveness. And I didn't grow up a real strong believer. We didn't have a lot of discipleship in those days. being in the, was in, graduated from high school in 1974. And anyone who's studied that period of time knows that there was a lot of wild things going on in the 60s and 70s and lots of upheaval and teenagers did a lot of experimenting and I certainly ⁓ did not short myself on the experimenting and because I didn't have a real strong foundation in Christ, I fell away. ⁓ Not to where I never, where I didn't believe in God, but I certainly wasn't living for him. There's a term I've heard in the last couple of decades called being a ⁓ practical atheist. where we believe in God and maybe even believe in who Jesus is and believe in him. And yet we live as if he didn't exist. And that's pretty much where I was in those years ⁓ until one night, you know, I could think it was in the morning when I was waking up, that period between a good sound sleep and being fully awake. And I had a vision of myself falling down this bottomless pit. And I could tell that the bottomless pit, not because I couldn't see the bottom, but there was this awareness that I was falling and I was never going to stop falling. And along the edges of this pit, it was like dirt and there is roots of trees sticking out from the side and I'd grab for a root and it would break away and I would keep falling. And there was just this sense of God saying, you're falling down this pit. and I'm your only way out. And it was after that vision that I really began to want to get out of where I was. I was doing drugs, I was partying, I was doing all kinds of things that a follower of Christ should never do. ⁓ But we end up doing those anyway, sometimes. within about six months of that vision, I got to move from where I was living in my parents' home up to the Portland, Oregon area and got my first full-time job at the age of 19. And about a year later, I started attending a church. And shortly after that, on August 22nd of 1977, I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and just really started being more intentional about living for Christ. Still had some issues. And one of the things that I look back on with ⁓ I guess a little bit of perplexity and gratitude is that I really struggled with smoking cigarettes for several years after I came to Christ. And I didn't understand why I couldn't break that habit, but I tried everything, everything I could think of to break that habit. My pastor prayed with me and I would try low nicotine cigarettes and I just could not kick it. And in the spring of 1980, I got the opportunity to go down to Los Angeles to our denominations annual convention and it was a focus on youth in that year. I was going to be housed with a family and there was really strict restrictions on no smoking. So I wouldn't have a car, I'd be chauffeured around everywhere and I'd be living in a house where I couldn't smoke. I couldn't smoke at the church where the convention was. So I went a whole week without cigarettes. I left a pack of, I'd like to smoke Winstons back then, and I left a pack of Winstons with 19 cigarettes in it on top of my TV. And when they came home from that week in Los Angeles at that convention, I threw them away and I've never had a problem since. And I looked back on that story and it really speaks to me of God working in His timing and in His way and for His glory. Because, you know, if I had quit smoking cigarettes on my own, I'd be able to say I quit smoking cigarettes. But today I can tell you I couldn't quit smoking cigarettes and God delivered me from them. And I think, you know, as as as a church, I think we sometimes keep condemnation on people that are struggling with things that they did when before Christ. And they're still those things are still hanging on to their lives. And God is Allowing that, I think, for a reason to let us know that we're not the ones in control. We're not the ones that can deliver ourselves, but He is the one that can and will deliver us in His time. And it was just a little bit different than your story, right? Where your deliverance was instantaneous and mine took some time. And it's just the way God works it differently in each one of our lives. And it's really been a reminder to me for about 46 years that God's got this. God's got me. God's got my life. So in 1980, in the fall, I moved to Los Angeles and attended Life Bible College in Los Angeles. And was there for five years, got married while I was down there, and ended up staying in Los Angeles. When I finished Bible College, I didn't I wasn't ready for ministry. My options were to find a way to go into ministry, go on to seminary, or go into secular work. And I'd had enough of studying for a while, after five years. And after five years, I'd had enough of studying, and so I didn't want to continue on in education. So I ended up going into secular work, worked in a... machining trade where I made tooling for mass producing golf club heads and worked in that industry for about 10 years. Three years of that work, had a partner who was a good friend in college. Met him my first day of college and we've been friends ever since. So it's been a good relationship, but we went into business together. And in 1995, We lost our business. Everything in our industry went to ⁓ Taiwan in a matter of about six months, and we lost everything. Not only did we lose everything financially, but I lost a sense of who I was. so many of us, especially as men, when we invest ourselves in something, it becomes our identity. and that was definitely my identity. And for a period of about eight years, I was lost. I hadn't lost my faith in Christ. Still went to church part of the time, but I was just devastated and lost. And we ended up coming back up to Oregon. Had a three-year-old daughter, and this was really struggling here ⁓ with work and ended up going back to work. as a temporary warehouse associate, making $6 an hour. In the industry, I had just left. I had the skills, if I had been able to stay busy, I had the skills to make over $120,000 a year. And so I went from that potential to making $6 an hour. in a warehouse. And it was a real blow to my ego, a real blow to who I felt I was as a person. ⁓ But God, when God puts us in His crucible, He does good work. And the grass of my life was getting burned out. I came out of that time with a much stronger faith, a lot more empathy for people. I was pretty judgmental as a younger man. I thought I was pretty smart as a younger man. Now I realize how stupid I am. Interesting thing that I think of every once in a while is one of my theology instructors. use this phrase that as the circle, as the diameter of the circle of our knowledge expands, the circumference of our ignorance increases. So it's another way of saying the more we know, the more we realize we don't know. And totally. It's just I live there. Yeah. I think I think young people, ⁓ at least for me, when I was younger I thought I knew a lot more than I know I know now. Yeah, I appreciate that. I was there. was me. When I gave my life to Christ I couldn't imagine why anybody didn't want him. I wanted everyone to know him. ⁓ my knowledge was the size of a thimble and I kept trying to put all of God in that thimble. And I wondered why I kept running off the edges. And instead of winning people to the Lord, I was running people away from the Lord because of my rules, my way of seeing it. as God became more real to me and I learned about His love, I learned that you love, you don't shove. You don't need to force people into something. You're not offering them green bologna, you're offering them prime rib. So you don't have to force it down their throats. You just love them to it, let them fall in love with it. So after a nasty divorce in 2002, and the divorce wasn't nasty, but the child custody battle was afterwards, my wife, my ex-wife was struggling with mental illness. it was not a pleasant time. ⁓ I ended up getting full custody of my daughter in 2004. She was 11 at the time. So being a single dad with an 11-year-old daughter, ⁓ There was a point before I got custody of her that I was up late watching TV one Saturday night and saw this advertisement for a new church opening up in a theater in a town not far from where I lived. And the pastors of that new church were pastors that I had met in the church I attended in Portland back in the late 1970s. didn't know who I was, but I certainly remembered them. They were really good friends of my pastors there. And I got to meet them and spent some time with them back then. And they were starting this new church in a town not far from me. And I thought, well, it'd be kind of, it'd be nice to go there and just, you know, check it out sometime. I remember very clearly one Sunday morning I woke up and I just, I wanted to be in God's presence. I wanted to go someplace where could worship the Lord and just know His presence again and get rid of all the junk that was in my life. I said, God, I want to go to church and worship You, but I don't want to get nailed. because we can go to a church and somebody can come up to us and, ⁓ you go to church and how long you've been saved and, ⁓ you better get to church, you know, you don't want to be a sinner, right? And I just didn't want to get nailed. I've been around those kinds of people. I ended up going to church that morning and it was in a theater, so was sitting up, the pastor was down in front talking about the sermon and he wanted to just emphasize some basic truths of Christianity. And it was a good review for me at that point in my life. And he wanted the ushers to ⁓ pass the baskets around, he instructed everybody to take one of the things out of the basket that was in there. And as the basket came around, I just had to laugh because what I pulled out of that basket was a six-inch nail. And that morning, I didn't want to go to church because I didn't want to get nailed. But God's nail, right? And that nail is hanging up on my wall as a reminder of God hears me, God knows me, and He knows how to reach me. And He knows that for you too. know, you're not there in the audience, listen, He knows you and He loves you. And He knows how to take care of you. He knows how to lead you and guide you and watch over you. So take heart in that. Well, I didn't start going to church. then right away, but a few months later after I got pesty to have my daughter, yeah, now it's time to get back to church. And I've gone through some emotional healing. One of the pastors from the church had been following up with me and praying with me and just me in their thoughts and prayers. So I started going to that church and I attended that church for probably 15 or so years. second wife there and we got married in 2006. We've been married almost 20 years and finished raising our kids. She had two kids from a previous marriage and they were young adults by the time we got married and my daughter was in middle school I think. And so I continued to work. I got a degree, a second degree in business management and worked for a distribution company for about 22 years total. and stepped away from that in September of 2024. So it's been over about a year and a half since I left corporate work and just enjoying doing more freelance stuff, writing my own books. I've got a lot of things I want to write. Just kidding around with you a little bit before, I'm living my 70th year and feel like I've got 50 years worth of work left to do. We'll see how that God lets me get done. Well, God owns the clock, so you're right on time, whatever you're doing. That's right. Yeah. Well, one of the things that I think that our listeners need to be reminded of from time to time is that God never made a mistake. That's right. We were custom made by God to love. Now, you aren't made for the outside of us, but the inside of us. We were made in His image to love. to forgive, to be forgiven, to mature, to grow, and to make a difference in this world. And sometimes we, the situations that we come into our lives in, we've been beaten up. We've been disappointed, we've been abused, we've been betrayed, all kinds of different reasons, but we get to a point where we don't want to trust anyone, not even God. And sometimes you've been hurt by the church, and that makes it even worse because though God didn't change, We run into some knuckleheads along the way which give God a bad name. And so people don't want to go back to church because of that. But if we can get past the point that the reason for a church is it's the emergency care room of the body of Christ. It's not for the perfect, it's for the ones who need perfecting. ⁓ And their frailty and their mistakes, they need to be there. And at the same time, we need to be there. And part of what we need there for is we need to be forgiven and we need to learn to forgive. And we need to learn to go beyond where we're at. But if we can be reminded that we're custom made to love, that there's not, you can't fire God. You can't put him on the shelf. You can't say, I'll get to you later. Doesn't work that way. He never leaves us there for sakes as he's with us always. with that in mind, ⁓ everything you're telling us today ⁓ just fits that model so beautifully. Yeah, amen. Yeah, there's a psalm, I can't remember the number of it, but it talks about, you know, if I go to the depths of Hades, you are there. If I go to the heights of heaven, you are there. If I go to the mountaintop, you are there. Man, you can't get away from God. You can try to shut him out, but he loves us so intensely and so intently that it's like... ⁓ Another illustration a professor of mine shared was that he was walking down the street with his little four-year-old granddaughter and he was holding her finger and she came to the curb and she stumbled on it and skinned her knee a little bit. Well then he not only just, she was holding his finger, sorry, and she stumbled a little bit because she let go of his finger when she stumbled. So when he picked her up, he wrapped, She held onto his finger and she wrapped the rest of her fingers around her wrist so that he was now holding onto her. So that when she stumbled on the next curb, he was able to lift her up. And that's the way God is. It's not dependent upon us holding onto him. It's the fact that he's holding onto us. And Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room, these are the disciples that you gave me and I have lost none of them. And it's that kind of intense love. and holding on to us by God. But I think we miss sometimes. ⁓ yeah. I feel like I'm not good enough for God to love. not, you know. Well, congratulations to the rest of life. None of us are good enough. None of us is right. Not even one. You know, the thing that makes me feel better is he says he'll never leave us or forsake us. He'll be with us always. Man, always is a big word. And you know, when I feel good, he's with me. When I'm not feeling good, he's just as much with me. When somebody disappoints me, he's with me. When I'm having victory, he's with me. That's wonderful because my relationship with him is not conditional based on performance or how I feel or how good I did or how bad I did. He loves me, just like a good father does. ⁓ good word picture that I'll throw in and then I'll hush for a little while. ⁓ I remember really well, was standing on the street corner and this dad and his little three-year-old daughter saw the ice cream truck and ⁓ she wanted that ice cream. ⁓ she threw a chocolate covered hissy fit. I mean she was all over the place wanting it and her dad kept saying no. And she finally let go of him and started running for the street. And he reached out and grabbed her just in time to prevent her from getting hit by a car. And she still threw the fit. And he said, honey, if you want ice cream, I've got a freezer full of it. If you want anything, I'll provide for you. You don't have to put yourself in danger because I already have thought of that. And that's how it is with us with God. We are that three-year-old running into traffic because we don't see the big picture. We only see what's right in front of us. But God has thought of everything. And even though it may not happen instantly like we'd like it to be, like the three-year-old, He does have an answer. And it's a good answer for every chapter of our lives. Yeah. Yeah. Amen. So, you know, as we're talking along here, what's the next chapter going to be for you? Well, I've kind of put my own writing on hold to pursue some other writing that I'm doing that I'm working on a second book that I want to get to later this year. Probably, hopefully get it published late this year, early next year. ⁓ My first book was called The Stranger's Conflict, and it's about the inner conflict that we all experience between that ever-present sin nature that tries to bring us into disobedience to God and the working of the Holy Spirit who wants to conform us to Christ. And it's a conflict that we'll experience throughout this life. And the second book is going to be called The Stranger's Choice, and it's about how we how we make choices between God's command to love him and to love one another and to follow him in faith versus making choices out of self-interest and fear. So I'm excited about the concept of the book and I've got a portion of it written and we'll be looking at ⁓ the history of Israel from their escape from bondage in Egypt to when they conquered the Promised Land. Because in there, there's a real great example of a generation who chose disobedience to God out of fear and self-interest, and a second generation who chose obedience to God out of love for him and faith in him. And it's just a really powerful illustration that I'm going to draw off of for that book. That's exciting. I look forward to reading it. Thank you. Now, you know, so you've been married 20 years now. And your little toddler girl now is how old? She will be 33 in May. ⁓ She's got kids of her own now? No. She decided not to have kids because she inherited some of her mother's mental health issues. That's a responsible thing? Yeah. She's working through her issues and hopes one day to be married and maybe adopt some children, but she won't be having any of her own. That's responsible way to do it. You see, with me, because I was dying at birth, they used a medical experiment on me, and the side effects included sterility. So I never imagined I'd get kids. Matter of fact, at 16, they tested me, and they told me I didn't ever have to worry about birth control, because there was nothing to control. yet, when God gave me a mate, and we'd been married about three years, we all of a sudden realized we wanted a child. Now, as illogical as that is, we still believed. And we began to... She would place her hand on my stomach and I placed my hand on her, where her womb would be. And we would pray that God would fix whatever was broken. Whatever was not where needed to be, that He would repair that so that we could raise a child for Him. And wouldn't you know, four months after we started praying, she was pregnant. Wow. And ⁓ we now have three children and nine grandchildren, which is pretty good for no chance. That's right. Yeah. Wow. That's amazing. know, my kids are healthier than I've ever dreamed of being. And, know, they're hard workers. They have integrity. But, you know, it's funny. could, especially preacher's kids, if you raise them in the church. Sometimes they go crazy for Jesus and sometimes they just, they want a break. right now my kids are at the, I think I'm past the break and I'm starting to get interested stage. you know, God's got time. Now I'm not worried. But the key is that God was right on time for me and He'll be right on time for them. And whatever chapter we're in in our lives, God's just in time. Just in time. I've heard people say that God's... Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, go right ahead. I was just gonna say that I've heard it said that God is never early. But he's right on time. When I was learning to be a minister, I went to a youth camp in the summertime in rural Georgia. And there was a retired pastor there who was easily in his 80s, still vibrant, but he was a character's character. He was the kind of person, if you wrote a Southern comedy about, he would be in that comedy. And he sat me down one day and said, son, I got something to say to you. And I said, yes, sir. He says, God owns the clock. So why are you in a hurry? Yeah. And I went, but I don't know how long I've got. He said, So what does that got to do with nothing? God owns the clock. If he wants it done, it'll be done. If you help him out, it'll slow the process. And you know, he was right then and he's still right now. 50 some years later, he's still right. ⁓ What that ⁓ quiet little man in rural Georgia told me is still right because ⁓ Our culture has got us hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. We get a computer so we can do more and then we work harder and faster so we can keep up with the computer. And whatever we do, we've got to do more and we've got to do more and we've got to perform harder and faster. And eventually we wear ourselves out. But God was right on time to begin with. And that's a big deal. That's a big deal. Definitely. So as we spend our time together here, I was wondering, is there a golden nugget, something as our listeners are with us today, that you'd like them to take home and mull about and meditate about and chew on a little bit? If they went to take one thing home from this interview, what would that thing be that you'd want them to take with them? You know, I'm asked that question, or a similar question a lot, and I always go back to Genesis chapter 3, when Adam and Eve sinned. The first thing they did is they covered themselves and they hid from each other. The second thing they did is they went and hid in the bushes from God. And I think that's a real typical response to human failure, is that when we feel like we've failed, when we feel like we're not good enough, we hide from other people and we hide from God. And I'm here to say that while there's probably certain people we want to not bear our souls to in life, God is not one of them. You know, when, when in times of my life when I felt I'm not good enough to take this to God or this is too, too bad of a thing to take to God, that is just a lie from the pit of hell. There's nothing that you and I can ever do that would alienate us from the love of Christ. Exactly. What we need to do rather than go hide in the bushes is to come out and just bare ourselves before Him. Because John says, when we sin, if we confess our sin, He will be faithful and justified to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And that's when life happens, is when we are vulnerable before God. with anything and everything. Repent, ask God, I want to change, I want to live for your glory. Please forgive me. Continue to restore me. you know, sometimes in life that happens every hour. Sometimes it happens every day, you know. ⁓ I don't think I've ever lived a day where I didn't have that opportunity to repent of something, whether it's a wrong thought, a wrong motive, or wrong choice. But the worst thing we can do is to hide in the bushes, because when we hide in the bushes, we're missing out on the life that Christ has for us. And the love that he exhibited on the cross is a love that is greater than all of our sin, all of our insecurity, and all of our failures. And so, the nugget I would leave is just open up to the one who loves you more than you love yourself. Absolutely. You know, when you were talking about the Adam and Eve piece, you know, hiding themselves, the third leg on that stool is the blaming. Adam says, it's her fault, she did. Sheep. And one of the things that we do when we're hiding is we will find someone else to blame instead of owning ourselves. And we can't take it to him if we don't own it. We can't admit to him it's wrong if we're not honest about it. So in that same process, ⁓ he already knows. There's not a thing that we can say or think or do that he already doesn't get it. That's right. But it's not to get it that's the problem. It's the own it that's the problem. have to get to the point where we look in the spiritual eye and say, God, you know and I know and I'm owning it. I am wrong. I am weak. I am this. I am that. I am. And that's the problem. I am. Please fix I. Fix me. You know, use your Holy Spirit and do what you need to do so that I can be more pleasing in your sight so I can live better for you, to give you more glory. That's absolutely the third leg in that stool. And it's so important because, you know, hiding isn't going to fix it. And ducking from God's not going to fix it because until we own it, we can't stop ducking from God. That's right. And so I am grateful for our time together and I'm grateful for you spending time with us. Now you've got one book out and if they, can they get that on Amazon? Or can they your book? They can also go to www.bradchurch.com and there's a page on there that has a link as well as some blogs that I've written. That's probably the easiest way to find it. Okay. ⁓ Well, as we conclude our time together, I am so grateful that God gave us time together, and I'm grateful for the time we have with each other. For those that are listening and are doing this on Spotify or the listening channels, ⁓ know that Brad's work is not done. God's not finished with Brad. The book that he wrote, the blogs that he writes, and the other pieces that I've read of what he's contributing to the Kingdom is amazing stuff. And I highly recommend you to take a look. For you that are watching, at the end of our podcast, the picture of the book will be up on the screen so you can actually see what you're ordering. But I highly encourage you to order the book. and ask God to give you some time and to slow down and read it. Let it speak to your heart. And as we close our time together, let's pray. Shall we do that? Heavenly Father, we're grateful for this chance we have together. We're grateful for Brad and the story he has to tell. We're grateful, Lord, for the lives that we each have to live for you. Jesus, we're grateful that you died on the cross and shed your blood so we could have our sins forgiven and washed away. So that we don't have to die on our sins, we could be forgiven for our sins. And Lord, we ask that you would change us through your inside and out through your Holy Spirit, through the blood that you shed, that you give us a new beginning. Not based on people, not on places, not on things, but on this new relationship we have in you. If it's one we had before, restore it to us, Lord. If it's new, help us discover it and find out how to live for you. But Lord, in any case, I pray that you would just do a mighty work of grace and blessing and love. in all the lives that are listening and are watching today. We pray these things in Jesus' name and together we say, amen. Amen. And thank you so much, Brad, for taking time with us. And thank you to those that are listeners and watchers. We will be back with another one next week. And as I always tell people, keep seeking. There's more to be found. Thank you and God bless you. This has been the God Says Yes Podcast with David Ebel. Connect with David, email him at GodSaysYesPodcast.com. You can get his latest book, When the Doctors Say No, God Says Yes at Amazon.com.