Welcome to Episode 001 of the Lion of Judah Podcast. In this inaugural conversation, Marcus Green and Benjamin Miller open up about the “genesis” of the podcast, their shared foundation in church, and the real-life moments that shaped their faith—from childhood memories and community roots to miracles, military lessons, marriage, and fatherhood. This episode is the start of a ministry assignment: share the Gospel, strengthen believers, and reach people who feel far from God.

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EP 001 - Show Description

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✅ Turn on notifications so you don’t miss Episode 002

✅ Drop a comment: What part of your faith journey has shaped you the most?

🔥 In This Episode

1. Why Lion of Judah exists (and why EP 001 finally dropped)
2. Childhood church memories that built a foundation for faith
3. The power of community, discipleship, and being “raised in the House”
4. Miracles and spiritual moments that made God undeniable
5. The difference between real relationships vs. “the illusion of friendship”
6. Growth through adversity, life pivots, and military experience
7. Marriage, fatherhood, gratitude, and becoming who God called you to be

⏱️ Chapters (from the episode audio)

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast Journey

03:27 The Purpose of the Podcast

06:24 Foundational Experiences in Church

09:16 Personal Stories and Growth

12:20 Childhood Memories and Church Life

15:29 The Impact of Community and Family

18:25 Miracles and Spiritual Experiences

21:29 Reflections on Upbringing and Faith

24:14 Lessons Learned from Church Life

27:27 Nostalgic Memories and Shared Experiences

36:38 Nostalgic Memories of Childhood and Church

39:33 Spiritual Growth and Community in Kansas City

42:06 Musical Heritage and Family Influence

45:01 Early Experiences in Ministry and Leadership

49:12 Reflections on Life Tabernacle and Spiritual Experiences

53:12 The Changing Nature of Worship and Reverence

57:16 Personal Struggles and Growth Through Adversity

01:14:16 The Illusion of Friendship

01:16:30 Turning Points and Life Changes

01:19:39 Military Experience and Personal Growth

01:22:23 Navigating Relationships and Choices

01:26:32 Faith, Family, and Marriage

01:30:38 Parenting and the Next Generation

01:35:05 Facing Adversity and Gratitude

01:40:45 Reflections on Life's Journey

✅ Key Takeaways (for your week)

1. Your foundation matters—even the early church moments you forgot helped shape your spiritual endurance.
2. God uses real life (family, loss, pressure, responsibility) to forge purpose.
3. Not every connection is covenant—learn to discern real friendship vs. proximity.
4. Breakthrough often comes after “yes”—obedience opens doors you can’t predict.
5. Faith isn’t just what you believe—it’s what you build your life on when things shake.

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🔎 Keywords (Captivate / SEO)

Lion of Judah Podcast, Christian podcast, faith journey, testimony, church community, discipleship, miracles, spiritual growth, Kansas City ministry, marriage and faith, fatherhood, military testimony, purpose, calling, Gospel

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Bye!

Hello everybody, welcome to...

Judah podcast. This is, this is our first go around. This is our maiden voyage into this podcasting sphere. So to God be the glory, we're doing this not as a hobby, but we're doing this for the glory of God and to expand the kingdom. I'm Marcus Green and with me, my tag team partner, my brother from another mother, please introduce yourself.

I am Benjamin Miller, ⁓ known to many as Reg, but we'll just probably keep it pretty ⁓ casual around here, so it'll probably be Reg for most of the audience. But ⁓ we can get into those stories at a much later point in time to reminisce on how these nicknames and things came about. definitely.

excited about this endeavor and just looking forward to sharing the gospel, diving into God's Word, ⁓ helping people find truth and in the process finding the greater truth for ourselves. ⁓

definitely a blessing to be able to embark on this journey with my lifelong best friends from way way back. We got stories that we'll share throughout this journey and stories that we will never share. So this is is this is ministry but ⁓ the Bible says that laughter is good medicine. So if you ought to hear some of these stories you gonna be

good and medicated. We'll try to interject as the subject leads, but as you said, man, we've been ⁓ rolling deep together since, you know, before we could even recollect. We would have to ask our parents to tell us, hey, when did we actually meet? I'm 44, he's 43. And from what I've told, we've known each other probably a...

known each other probably 40 plus years. So you don't have very many people that aren't blood to you that you had ⁓ sticking with you for 40 plus years. So I'm glad to have a brother like him. this is God ordained. God was...

putting this on his spirit and unbeknownst to him, I had already had in my spirit to have some form of ministry with him. I wasn't sure what it was. I didn't even know if it was just me speaking. know, you you have your inner monologue like, that me or is that God? I had that speaking with myself, but lo and behold, he presented this opportunity.

methods of, you know, today, you know, everybody's not going to be able to set foot into a church and everybody may not want to set foot in church. So we're going to try to come at it in a way that is welcoming to everybody. In this endeavor, we're going to speak with Christians, we're going to speak with non-Christians, we're going to speak with non-believers. So the voices you hear aren't just going to be everybody that's on the same, on the same

thought. But we're going to welcome everybody with love with the ultimate goal to pointing everybody we speak with to Christ. ⁓

That's what we're called to do. And this is the way that God has put on our heart to do it. And probably to me might be seemingly a little bit easier than, you know, getting behind a pulpit. Because if anybody's been in that position, you know how it feels to have the eyes looking at you and you're like, ⁓ man, I'm.

I thought I said something good and they sitting on their hands and you thought she was going to get some applause and nothing happens or you see folks sleeping or you see kids playing or you hear. ⁓ It is a completely different game altogether whenever you're behind that podium. Then you see how you normally do. You see people on their phone and all that stuff. ⁓ So yeah, this is a little bit different and really a little bit more relaxing. ⁓ There's no.

pressure and you don't have to worry about trying to, not that you try to, but in church culture, we ain't gonna lie, there's emotionalism and ⁓ you feel like you really did something when the people start acting in emotion. But we're gonna go outside of emotion, we wanna get people to actually know the God they serve.

It is on my heart to go beyond just the preaching. If I don't preach another message, I said this before, if I don't preach another message, I'll be fine with that. I just want people to truly know who Jesus is. And if this is the medium in which we can accomplish that, hey, I'm all for it. So this is this is this is our kind of our test run. Shout out to our ⁓

I don't know, co-executive producer. She'd get a producing credit. My daughter, Myla Green, who's one of the most ingenious little 12-year-olds that I've ever met. And she did that. She gave herself the applause. Definitely a chip off the old block. My oldest child, my baby girl, if I were a 12-year-old girl, she would be me.

She's here, she wanted to stick around. She heard that daddy was coming to do a podcast and I don't know what got in her head. She probably thought of all these YouTubers thing and thought it was gonna be like that. We're not like that yet, but give us time.

Yeah, strap on in and get ready for the ride. We have tons planned and by the grace of God, we're going to explore ⁓ different avenues of this Christ walk with different ⁓ perspectives, with different ⁓ host and guests. ⁓ Man, I'm excited for it. Like I said, we have a lot planned and ⁓ by the grace of God, we're going to accomplish it.

somebody is going to be blessed by it. truly believe that. Amen. Amen. I'm looking forward to it as well. And to kind of echo what you're saying, I for years I have just wondered Lord, like what is the ministry that you have for me? Because I've never really felt

too led to stand behind the pulpit, but I know that there was too much poured into me as a youth, as a young man, and even to this day, there's been too much poured into myself, and I know the same goes for you. We were raised in a very rich background. were...

raised to know Christ from an early age and not everybody gets that. so, you know, thank the Lord we did get that. ⁓ There were things that maybe weren't taught exactly per the Bible. There were a lot of things that were taught exactly per the word of God. And so there's, there's...

still deciphering and digging and searching and you know if you didn't take anything away from Jesus' chapel, you didn't even have to pay attention, you could be asleep in the back pew and know ⁓ that you got to study to show yourself approved unto God.

And so if you didn't come out with anything else, you surely came out with that. And so we're just trying to continue our study, ⁓ trying to walk as close as we can with the Lord. And to do that, you've got to be studied up. And so that's what this is. ⁓ I'm as excited for my own ⁓ expansion of understanding and just ⁓

from gleaning from the people that we will end up having on the podcast, gleaning from each individual, ⁓ listening to questions from non-believers, listening to questions from ⁓ believers that believe in a different manner than I do. Just being able to take all these questions, all these thoughts, all these concerns, and dig for clarity in the scripture because

the word of God has answers to anything we could potentially ask. We just have to go seek it out. so looking forward to that for sure. I don't know on this maiden voyage here how deep we'll get into.

stories but I think the intent here is to kind of introduce ourselves to the audience and so we've got a long ways to go to kind of get through where we come from and what's kind of molded us into the individuals that we are today and how we're effectively here. We've given you the why but

We want to walk you through the how we got here and some of those experiences that have shaped and molded us to this point in life. So I'd be surprised if we get ⁓ up through age 12 or 13 with the episode today. we'll at least get started. We'll get it kicked off and get as far as we can.

until we get tired and decide to call it an evening. yeah, just pardon our backgrounds and our low lighting and whatever else we got going on. This is literally the first recording we have attempted to do and it will only get better from here. Dude, I honestly forgot.

Literally, honestly, I forgot that there was a camera right in front of me. It is literally in front of my face and I totally forgot. I just thought we were talking. I totally forgot that there was a camera there. So when you said, excuse the low lighting, I'm like, lighting? Oh yeah, there's a camera. We've been broadcasting for 15 minutes and I'd already forgotten something. But this is gonna be, actually this is our very first one. This will be like.

If somebody found, have you ever seen that baseball card, that old, like first baseball card, like Honus Wagner?

is gonna be valuable. It's rare, no one sees it. This is gonna be the Wholeness Wagner card, where someone's like, yeah, did you ever hear about that first episode of Line of Judah podcast? It's gonna be like the urban legend where they said that it exists, but no one knows about it. This will be one that's in the archives. This is our, like we said, our maiden voyage. This is us on our training wheels, but.

to the glory of God, everyone's got to start somewhere. So what you see now was not how it's always going to be. Not that we're in a bad place. This is already more technologically advanced. I've been in, ⁓ I remember when I was a little kid, we had a...

Bluetooth capable equipment and microphones and cameras that follow you wherever you go. So Yeah, we're starting off but we're not we're not ⁓ starting off with nothing. So I think we need to As Ben said that ⁓ let y'all know about ourselves. So ⁓ You want to tell them about yourself first or what I say right now? I'm I'm not a big talker about myself

whenever we have in class, whenever we have to, every class we go to, gotta stand up and introduce ourselves, where we come from and all that. like, oh, we gotta do this again. I just don't like doing it. I don't even like the sound of my own voice. Like, hearing this, if I'm gonna go back and listen to this, I'm like, ew, that's what people gotta listen to? I can stand speaking if I don't have to hear it, if I don't have to hear the playback. When I hear the playback, it's like, ew.

Man, I don't know how my wife, how I got her with this voice, but I don't enjoy too much talking about myself. So I'll let you start. Give them a history of you. It doesn't have to be a, you know, from February 1st, 82 all the way to now, but let them know, we're gonna let us, let y'all know who we are and how we got to this point. So you wanna go first, man?

Yeah, I don't mind going first. think so. I'm not just yapping on about myself or eternity here. Maybe I can hit a subject and then you can chime in with kind of a similar topic or maybe we kind of hit on the same things. I'm trying to think.

where to even start with my story. I don't need to start from day one, but I guess I'll start with the earliest memory that I have with you. that was, it's not even a clear memory. It's just, I remember being at Jesus Chapel at a very young age and just,

just kind of the typical things that stand out in my mind about being a kid at church. ⁓

we both came up, it was a very unique setting if you really consider what it was. We grew up in a little country town, Cameron, ⁓ about, I don't know, probably 5,000 people at the time, and a couple thousand of those people were in prison, so they counted them towards the population, but really small town. ⁓

mostly, I would say 99.9 % of the community is white folks. Yep, and the rest of them were in my household. Right, so ⁓ somehow my mom ends up at a church in this little country town that...

oddly enough we go in and we're the minorities in the church. So you couldn't even fathom the situation that it was, but it was great ministry and

You know, we got lots of great biblical teaching coming up under Elder Johnson, and he would travel back and forth from Kansas City to Cameron to pastor our church and thank God for him and his family for doing that for so many years. It gave us kind of the rich foundation that we both have in our lives as it relates to Christ.

But yeah, the memories of Jesus Chapel, I can remember sitting, we always sat in the pew behind Marcus's family. And I can always remember getting in trouble for talking, getting in trouble for.

Just anything you could think of that was a distraction from paying attention, we were getting in trouble for it. And it wasn't like there was, we didn't even have cell phones, so it's not like we had something to play with. We would just grab pens or paper out the back of the pew or grab the Baptist hymnal and be flipping through the pages doing who knows what. playing the dot game. Yeah, just nonsense.

Asking to go to the bathroom in the back and just killing time back there. That stereo bathroom with the furnace getting hot down there using the bathroom. It was scary. There was a curtain in that one bathroom and I was always afraid what was behind that curtain. Well, none would clean a surprise, but you'd still swear that somebody's hiding behind there.

And the one thing you know, if you're getting pulled into that women's bathroom, it's a bad day. There's a switch or something coming your way if you're getting drugged down to the women's bathroom. And everybody could hear you getting whooped. It's like there was two big old vents on the on the pulpit. And you could hear the holler and screaming through them vents. whenever they took you out, everyone knew you got whooped.

You were crying on your way to the door to go to the hallway to get to the bathroom. So it was a scene already. And it was just, that was the culmination of it all is them hearing you through the vents getting whooping. And anybody can give you a whooping, it didn't have to be your family. It could be somebody else. That church was such a community where everybody...

looked out for everybody else, they looked out for everyone's kid, make sure you weren't doing something you weren't supposed to be doing. I don't know, I got whoopin' from folks that went in my bloodline. And my parents were just cool with that. So that's the kind of place it was. You don't have that now. You can't even whoop your own kids now. Let alone whoop somebody else's. Yeah, so it was an experience to say the least. But a very good one. Other than those whoopins.

a really great experience. Made lifelong friends in that church. ⁓ Obviously we're still here to this day talking ⁓ and doing this together. So yeah, it was more family than it was just show up to church. And there was, it wasn't a whole lot of us. I mean, it was probably 20 people on a strong Sunday, maybe 25, but it was very tight knit.

And so that was kind of our upbringing or my start with church and being introduced to Marcus and his family. And I very quickly just became another member of their family as well. So it was... ⁓

It was church, it was family, it was everything we knew, and it was so frequent that we were there that it was almost like the bulk of our free time. We were either at Sunday school or Sunday regular service or afternoon Sunday service.

Wednesday night service or revival. Revival. or occasionally Sunday night service. It got to the point as a kid where you're worn out. It's like we got another church service. Do I have to go and and so it was just we all got drug in there so we just.

we were together so much that you couldn't help but be family at that point. So I don't know how much we were paying attention. I know I can admit I wasn't paying very close attention at that time in my life. Wish I had paid closer attention because I'm playing catch up now in my studies, but it was enough to build a foundation.

The few times you were paying attention, you were always getting a good word. And so just by frequency of being there so often, it really kind of, it just put us on a strong foundation for understanding that what God was and what he was capable of. in that setting, in that ministry, we were blessed to be able to

witness some really ⁓ Just miraculous things go on absolutely see healings Very frequently you'd see healings you'd hear prophecies You would see demons cast out of people at times

you just, you can kind of see it all. was a Pentecostal church, so of course they're speaking in tongues and not all churches ⁓ honor that or believe in that, but that was certainly foundational to our church. And so we kind of saw a little bit of everything. ⁓

that really helped to build the faith that we've got. And then I can speak for myself that I have today in what God is capable of doing because I've seen it. ⁓

even so much so that I've had a healing prayer done on my leg before and seen it miraculously healed. And so it's not that I've just watched others, I've got my own personal experiences ⁓ as a testimony. it's just to a point now where

I have faith that God can heal anybody from anything at any time. It's just up to His will and what His divine purpose is. ⁓ I think that a large part of me having that kind of faith is that I've seen Him heal people. I've seen my own leg healed. I've ⁓ countless healings throughout the years of being up under that ministry. ⁓

That's kind of my Jesus Chapel ⁓ foundational rant, if you will. I I guess I kick it over to you and I'm sure you got some experiences that are similar, probably different, but what do you remember from the chapel? ⁓ I don't ever remember not being there up until we moved.

But it was so pivotal, and not just my spiritual walk, but just in who I am as a person. ⁓ Of course, you already mentioned that we grew up there. ⁓ My grandmother was our late pastor, Clarence Johnson. My grandmother was his first member. So our families...

were so connected. I my grandmother was our pastor's first members. So my mother and my uncles and aunts, they were all in that church. after there was some time, my mom grew up and...

Went to California and met my dad and somehow she talked him into moving back to Missouri after they got married. I'm like, why would y'all not just stay in California? I don't know if she twisted his arm or what, but she got him to move back to Cameron, Missouri and raised a family there. And man, I just remember, excuse me, ⁓ talking to some of the

older saints and they said like, man it seemed like every year, y'all was coming in with another sibling. said, y'all stair-tip, stair-step children and y'all dad would always walk y'all in and be stair-surfing from the oldest to youngest from Rip Me, Vinny down to Carissa and all them. ⁓ man, was a life experience that I would not trade for nothing. Cause like you alluded to, we saw so much there. ⁓

healings and miracles and prophecy and really ⁓ Elton Johnson was I'm gonna say ahead of his time but he was doing stuff that not a whole lot of people were doing I remember having a conversation ⁓ one was children and he was not a flashy guy but he wasn't a like run-of-the-mill regular pastor they said that he they used to think

before they knew him, they thought that he was a pimp. of suits that he wore, they thought that he was too flashy, but he was not a flashy dude. He was the most humble, humble servant that I'd ever met. some of the teachings that he had, it stuck even from my youth to now. I remember some of the stuff. And we were there from...

No, that's my entire life up until they left in I think 92 whenever the ministry kind of picked up root and moved down to Kansas City. But man, those those days, these chapel, I remember we know you're baptized on the same day. I have the date in this big old family Bible sometime in I think 88, 80, 89. And it was this.

except it was in rural Missouri. So wasn't no fancy baptism pool that y'all got now with the heated water. No, this was like a horse trough. That water been sitting in there for 10 years. There's no way they could change it.

They had to move it in there being empty. And I don't know how they filled it up. There wasn't no water spigot outside. They had to be getting some pitchers or something, run a hose from the bathroom faucet. I don't know how. I'm picturing Herbie carrying buckets of water from the bathroom. Or Del Reese. Somebody with a strong back. Right. But that thing did not move. ⁓

It was in there forever and I got baptized there and know having church revivals where we lined up chairs on the outside of the church because people would come from the city and fill up that little old church to where we would have to sit chairs on the lawn and I was excited about that because then that meant we could run around outside and not necessarily have to sit down and serve.

Man, so many of those things, it brought us to where we are now. Some of the teachings, the in-depth word study, the discipline. ⁓ You yeah, we got whoopings there, but we knew how to act. And if I be honest, man, I wish so much of what we experienced then, I wish that some of it would be prevalent today.

But at the same time, man, it was kind of strict, but that strictness, if that's a word, kind of paid off. ⁓ It had its place and now that I'm an adult, I see it now. I see why they did some of the things they did. I see why they wanted to keep the kids, know, the, ⁓ by my parents, wanted to have us sit next to them to listen and learn. And although we had, ⁓

like kid church or kid Bible study every now and again was your mother was our teacher. And I still remember the book of Bible stories that she had and the pictures they were drawn in such a way it kind of scared me because it just looked too real to be illustrations for kids. ⁓

You're like, Sister Pearl, are you sure this is a kid's Bible study book? And they had all of us sitting on that bench in the hallway across from the bathrooms. But man, some of those things, it translated and stayed with us from from adolescence, pre-adolescence to an adult. And, you know, as as the ministry moved from Cameron to Kansas City.

and we got older and experienced more things. And after I left home, after graduation, I went to the Air Force and I'd been around different churches all over the world. And there was nothing quite like I experienced in them early Jesus Chapel days. And even into ⁓ Life-Travel No. 37 to Brooklyn, the works of the Spirit, the miracles, the...

a lot prophets, I didn't see anything like that. Like I said, I'd been to so many different churches and I'm thinking that everybody should be like the churches at home. But when I'm seeing it, I'm like, man, this is kind of, I don't say whack, but for lack of a better word, it's kind of whack. Ain't no miracles going on. People's ⁓ still leafing the church on crutches and everything. There's no, there was no...

presence of the Holy Spirit there was just I don't know ⁓ Rituals there was just ⁓ It was just dry and seemingly it just seemed like it was dead and ⁓ It made me appreciate

how we grew up, it made me appreciate the things that we were exposed to at a young age, because then I knew what to look for in the operation ⁓ of the Holy Ghost. ⁓ So man, although we spent so much time in church, and don't even think about going somewhere on a Sunday, don't, I got a ball game, no, you don't, you got church on Sundays though. ⁓ It was so... ⁓

I'll say regimented for that. But ⁓ man, I wouldn't trade it. I really wouldn't trade it. And even when sometimes I was just, as I got older and you start to try and make friends and you're trying to be cool, like, man, I want people to think I'm going to church all the time. Cause really that's all it did is go to church all the time.

I used to try to run inside the church so nobody would see me come in like, he's going to church again? So I used to try to run inside there, but man from the wind. got slacks on you like, nah, I'm not going to church. What you wearing that tie for? I got an interview. You're 10 years old. Interview for what? And we used to have boxing practice. We boxed growing up and the YMCA was a couple blocks up the street from the church.

And we had practice on Wednesdays, and after Boxer practice, we had to make sure we got down to the church. We had no excuse. It was not even three, four blocks. I remember... You ever have experiences where you think something happened one way, and it may or may not have happened, but you remembered a certain way. I remember...

One time you had a scooter, this like red scooter with white wheels. You remember that thing? I used to love that scooter. There was a, we had a Napa auto parts on next door to the church and it was a decline going all the way from the YMCA down to the church on Walnut. And right, used to, I remember one time you had your scooter.

and we riding it down to the church and do you, don't know if you remember, there was like this little ramp that was, it's just, it's just change in pitch in the sidewalk going into the.

Napa parking lot. There was like a ledge. There was like a art church, Napa, and then like a small engine repair shop on the other side of Napa. I think I remember what you're talking about. Because like right before, it's like the engine repair shop to Napa. Yes. Yes. That's where it's at. Yeah. And there was like a drop off where since you can go down that decline, you could build up some speed and hit that little drop off and jump the ramp and wind up in Napa's ⁓

parking lot and maybe this I remember this happening a certain way it may it may be accurate it may not be it was my we're taking turns and I was riding down there and I hit that ramp and I think I just closed my eyes as I was doing it and I want to open my eyes I was like

about right up against the wall at Annapa. In my head, I thought I jumped all the way from that ramp to the wall of Annapa, which was a good...

15 feet. There's no way and little kid legs that I could generate enough speed to jump that ramp and go all the way. It's probably more closer to 20 feet and go all the way in air and land in front of Napa. But I just remember it's a certain way. So in my head, that's how it happened. Even if it really didn't happen like that, but ⁓ stuff like that, man, just going. My memory from that was for whatever reason, the two things that stick out to me.

about going from boxing practice to church was going to come and go playing Street Fighter 2 and I don't know why this is burned into my memory but getting those pizzeria chips ⁓ snap those things were so good but those chips those were the heat

Man, and yet, I remember my dad would give us quarters to put in the offering, we could save them and go up to come and go after church.

play Street Fighter II and then later on they moved Street Fighter and put Mortal Kombat in there but oh this was probably the only gas station with arcade games in there and man there's so many kids that came up from the church and like I said at Jesus Chapel is the only place in town where the majority of the folks there were black so after church all these black kids come walking up to the gas station getting whatever from offering money that they didn't put in offering

and going to play the video games with, ⁓ my God. You triggered the core of memory. Should I pull up a scripture? How have we robbed you? ⁓ Through ties and offering. I gotta go back, Lord. You know my heart is an eight-year-old, nine-year-old kid, But I wanted some Funyuns, Lord. ⁓

And that's when they first had combos, the little roll of pretzels or something with cheese in them. One time, I'm ashamed of myself for this. I don't know where they came from, but I found some outside. They weren't open yet, but huh, didn't look good. I opened that package up. They were just laying outside and I ate them all. They ain't open, that's fair game. But I regret it still. I think it just messed with my head. It still tasted disgusting. I regretted it.

It still happened, man, those those were early early Jesus Chapel days and man, we moved on from Cameron to Kansas City. ⁓ Where another growth, more development in our spiritual walk went to and man, that church on 37th of Brooklyn where the the ministry expanded and.

Man, that's where I got the Holy Ghost. That's where, as many miracles we saw in Cameron, Kansas City, that was the mecca for me. Of course, you start to remember, as you got older, you start to remember more there. In our formidable years, where we really ⁓ forged a relationship with God for ourselves. And I probably...

I probably name everybody that was on there. shade to that Jesus Chapel choir. Absolutely no shade. My mama and sister Denise Von Bay singing Take Me Back is a duet. Even now, if I hear that now, I'll be in a puddle of tears. That's from my mother. She played the piano there. She was the first minister of music that I knew. This old stand-up saloon style piano. Oh yeah, I mentioned my dad. She used to do a solo on that piano.

I'm trying to what that was. She used to sing... I go to the rock. Anything Andre Crouch, she was singing. And I didn't know until later on. I used to think that she wrote these songs. My mom is a genius. Like, man. my gosh. I thank God for the mountain.

never had a problem. never know guys, never do. Through it all. Wow, it took me so long to do that. Through it all, Between take me back and through it all, all it takes is just me hearing a little bit of that. And I don't know if she still plays the piano, but that's man, I have a love for music and that's where that started. Hearing my mother play the piano there and she would play whenever my dad was preaching.

That's where I came from. We had nothing but preachers and ministers in my family. My grandmother, my mother, my dad. Even now, ⁓ myself, ⁓ two of my brothers, my youngest brother's a musician. It's in our blood. ⁓

Man, that just stuck with me. I can't imagine growing up another way as much as we thought it may have been restricting like a regular social life. Like, man, why I gotta go to church? I gotta go to vacation Bible school in the summertime. I wanna be at the pool, but man, it had its place and it has kept me all these years. And like I I wouldn't change it. I'm trying to make.

I knew how restrictive it could be and I'm trying not to impose that upon my kids, but that's how it goes. Can't play it because it'll probably kick us off. Yeah, we ain't got the money for that yet. Whenever we get sponsorship, can, you know, pay, play maybe about five seconds of our opinions. I think, yeah, he's still Maybe we can get your mom to sing one version for us that we can put up.

She's claimed she doesn't know how to play the piano anymore. So I don't know Probably not ⁓ cuz I tried to pick my trumpet up a few years back and it did not sound good Yeah, yeah, but after you know our teenage years we learned ⁓ Being placed in in in life tabnacle in Kansas City man, that's that's where we're up until

Well, we kind of bounced back and forth between ⁓ Kansas City and Cameron because we would drive to Kansas City, but we lived in Cameron. And after Ed Johnson left Cameron to to Tabernacle, ⁓ for a while my grandmother took over the church in Cameron and then ⁓ your father took over from her. And really, whenever...

the vast majority of everybody left Cameron in Kansas City, that's when we were kind of thrust into the forefront. ⁓ We learned how to run services. We were doing testimony service. We were doing the scripture. We were doing the prayer as kids. ⁓ But my wife, she's like, man, you seem so comfortable going up there, but behind the podium are doing, because I've been doing this since I was, you know, prepubescent. Try not to.

It's of my life. Everybody say at the end, may the Lord have a... May the Lord have a blessing to the blessed. Rest his soul. Oh man, but man, we... That's what we learned. Like our first piece, our first experience into doing anything for Christ came at a young age whenever, like out of necessity.

the majority of the adults were gone and even if there were some that still came, we would beat them to the church because we lived in town. They were coming from somewhere else. We lived not far from the church. So ⁓ while they're making their way into town, we're doing prayer requests. We're doing a testimony service and reading scripture. I remember

I would always, whenever we were told to read the scripture, I'd always pick the shortest scripture I could find in Psalms. Like ones that only had a few verses or read, there was a John 11 and 10 or 11 and 12 with Jesus whip. It's a two word verse, so it counts. ⁓ So I'd try to find a short way out of it, but we would still be put in those positions. And...

Man, as uncomfortable that that would seemingly make a little kid, it made me more comfortable as an adult. ⁓ So like, yeah, I could do this. I really don't have a whole lot of problem public speaking. I've been doing it since I was a child. ⁓

And the only thing was I just had to keep from looking at you to keep from laughing. And that carried on over into working together at KFC, which is a different, a whole nother episode within itself. Us talking about our work experience, we worked at Dairy Queen and KFC together. It has nothing to do with Jesus. And you would probably question our salvation if you just know some of the shenanigans we did, but it was just...

Teenage Boys being Teenage Boys, but that's a whole nother podcast within itself. It would be good for laughing. I don't know how much it'd do for drawing folks to Christ. That may be some of those stories I mentioned that won't be shared. At all, yeah. I'm trying to think, is there one that I could tell, but I'm not.

Shout ⁓

started off working there and I remember every day he'd come home and I know he had to get tired of it. We call it grip. Bring home some chicken littles, a little bucket parfait, chicken strips and a red pop. So he'd come through the door with two big old bags full of chicken and man, it probably wasn't the healthiest to eat that every day but man, without those times, ugh, I don't know, we would've...

My mom would have to tell us we were fasting because it had been rough out there in them poverty streets. But thank God for a ram in a bush and an eight piece in a bucket. All right.

that's so many different directions we could go. ⁓ But hitting back on Life Tabernacle, I agree with you on the idea that it was kind of the mecca, if you will, or the culmination of... ⁓

What I saw anyway, the culmination of the apex of Elder Johnson's ministry and how God was using him, ⁓ there was just so much more going on. I think it's probably part of it was because there were more people ⁓ with more issues that were showing up. And just because of the location, were seeing ⁓ different issues that people were bringing that you didn't really see people coming off the streets at Cameron.

rolling in with a drug addiction or some kind of demonic possession or whatever it might be. just the location of that being what it was and people coming in and getting healed or getting delivered, was definitely powerful. sometimes I wish that

I could have experienced it even at a little bit more mature age to be able to appreciate it even more because I think at the time it was, it almost became normal ⁓ for us and it's not normal. It's not, I think when I say that, I think I can speak for myself that I took it for granted that, know, this is just, this is what happens at a church. Right, right. Until the point

that we had moved on and know, Elder Jay had passed away and we were trying to find something that was similar to Life Tabernacle or to Jesus Chapel and it was just... It's not the same. You just couldn't find that. And so at that point it's like, this is not what everybody is doing. As a matter of fact,

there's a whole lot that others are not doing that to us seem like, this is just, this is how God operates in the church service. I remember the first church that I attended outside of ⁓ Life Tabernacle, just kind of looking around to see where we might attend.

and I showed up and there's people in the sanctuary drinking coffee and they might've had like a donut or something. And so I was thrown off from the jump because.

The way we grew up, you don't have no snacks in the sanctuary. Go to the fellowship hall with that. And if you see the usher coming to you with a napkin, you know they caught you and you're not gonna be able to keep that gum throughout the service. So it was like, it wasn't none of that. So it's just different. But the biggest difference is not the simple things like a snack or having a coffee. mean, I...

I don't really have an opinion one way or other necessarily on that at this point in life, but it was the gifts not being present. Exactly. And to your point, ⁓ service is almost just kind of seeming hollow or just lacking the Holy Spirit basically. because of that lacking these moves of God where you'd see healing or where you would get prophecy. ⁓

or just break out in ⁓ half the congregation shouting and praising. It was like, this doesn't really exist in very many places. yeah, man, think I know personally I took it for granted and wish I could go back and just go to some of those services again. ⁓

experience it and I know God still moves like that and I know that there are ministries that still operate in those gifts but it feels like they're few and far between at this point. I remember what was on the sign, painted on the sign out front, Jesus Chapel, the scripture.

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever. That speaks to today. God's not changed. Though we said we don't see a lot of that stuff anymore like we did back then. God hasn't changed. We have. So if we don't see that stuff, it's not God's fault. That's us. We become so lethargic. We become so lazy. We become really

desensitize to the presence of God because we've filled our life with so many other stuff to take its place. ⁓ We've not given it the reverence as you were alluding to. People kind of treating the house of God like it's, you know, like they had Starbucks. And again, yeah, I'm not saying, you know, going to hell because you got a Danish and an espresso in there. ⁓

But even now, this may be some of the old school in me, you've got to treat the House of God with a certain reverence. You can't just treat it like the frat house. You can't treat it like your office or treat it like whatever. This is where the presence of God resides. And unfortunately, a lot of places today, they're just like, it's a meeting place. It's a...

1130, good singing, ⁓ good music, and at the last of their list of maybe like six qualifications was good preaching. Like the word is the last thing that you that you list what you're looking for and that's just how kind of how society is nowadays, how these so-called Christians and they treat this like it is entertainment, like it's ⁓

you know, anything other than what it truly is a place and time to commune with God. If you didn't have no other opportunity to throughout the week, you should be able to come into the house of God and just bask in his presence, not just to go there to see who's doing what, just to meet up with your friends. Yeah, fellowship is good. And the Bible says it's good for us to fellowship and whatnot. But I didn't come for nobody else but to come for God to hear.

⁓

Sometimes it takes me, it's only the grace of God that I made it through the week without choking somebody. I need to be replenished. And I didn't come there just to hang out. I didn't come to see who's got on what. I come for the presence of God. And unfortunately how people just treat it so...

Blase, like it's like, like they're doing God a favor. Like, ⁓ man, I got the game on at 12, but ⁓ church starts at 11. And they debating on, should they go to church or should they watch the kickoff game? It boggles my mind that people really have to go back and forth and decide of what they want to be important to them.

If you want to know God and have a deeper and true relationship with him, then show him. I always hear that old ad, take a step towards God, he'll take a step towards you. I don't necessarily agree with that because even before I was thinking about him, he was thinking about me. But I just don't get how people can treat the creator like he's

just a dude on the street. Maybe you'll see about him, maybe you won't. Maybe you talk to him, maybe you don't. I don't get it. I don't get it. ⁓ God bless the folks. I pray that their relationship with God is fruitful, that they know him in the part of their sins and know him in the beauty of holiness. I truly do wish that, but I just don't get how we can treat the house of God and our time of worship. Just treat it so flippantly.

I don't get, that's not how I grew up. And I grew up with enough old school folks. Like I said, the ⁓ usher will come and you got some gum, you spit that in a napkin, let alone having, walking up in there with a latte and ⁓ Danish and whatnot. I can't get it. I'm not saying you going to hell for that, but you ain't gonna find me doing that. We'd be lucky to have, to be singing, to be in praise of worship with a choir and get a bottle of water.

The only person I always, that I got used to having a drink in the sanctuary was the preacher. Remember them little cans of apple juice in Jesus Chapel? I always wonder one of them things so bad, but they were the only ones that I knew to have any kind of refreshment in there. The preacher and babies, that's it. And you might get a mint.

because you're talking so long or you're saying it and whatnot, you get a mint. But that was it. It wouldn't know, I got some chips and whatnot to munch on and what. Man, out of a break and go out to these concessions then. Right. With my nachos. I was at a service one time in, I think it was Greenville, South Carolina. The church I was attending when I was in the Air Force, I was stationed in South Carolina. We went to see Eddie Long.

and it was at like an arena and they had a concession stand and folks was eating nachos in the church. And I was kind of bewildered, but then I was like, okay, this is not really a church. So maybe I can eat nachos in That's the only way I was able to justify it. Like, okay, this is not a sanctuary per se. So I don't feel so bad about doing it. know, whenever you brought that up, that triggered a memory of mine.

Yeah, those times there, that's at Jesus Chapel, man, that was, that was formidable. That's where I preached for the first time just before I graduated. I was 18 and ⁓ after I got back home out of the Air Force, then... ⁓

It was like a sink or swim. You either grew up and learned how to stand on your own or you wouldn't. And at the same time, I was away from home, away from people that knew me. At the same time, I also was in situation, put myself in growing up in my 18, 19, 20 year old.

self doing whatever I thought I was big and bad enough to do but at the same time there was a line that I didn't cross. I'm on the other side of the world, mom can't see me here, Johnson can't see me, I can do whatever but at the same time I knew, man that's too much, you're doing enough but.

After I got out, that's where I went back to, Kansas City. ⁓ after I felt like I had come out of the wilderness and went into it a boy and came out a man, ⁓ man, that's where even more so.

started focusing more on my walk with God and being productive, not just calling myself a minister, but actually bearing fruit for the kingdom. And I know after high school, you went to college and spent your time in Warrensburg. Tell us about your time after leaving high school. Yeah, man.

Warrensburg was a fun time. I'm not going to deny that. ⁓ But similar situation. was ⁓ definitely a period of ⁓ wilderness, as you put it. My wilderness kind of began a little earlier, feel like. ⁓ And ⁓ I tried to go back and process some of this. And Keeta kind of talks me through some of it with her life coaching stuff.

It makes me go back and think about some things and what all transpired in life. But ⁓ there was a window of time when I look back on it that I really, when I was actually talking to her the other night about it, and I feel like, and she's kind of experiencing things differently, but ⁓ still feels like she was under attack early in life. And I feel like the enemy was out. ⁓

to get me early in life as well. And so I feel like that kind of, some of that kind of kicked off, kind of backtracking before I even went to, to ⁓ Warnsburg to school, but it would have been, I think it was eighth grade was.

when I felt like I was looking back on it now, I wasn't viewing it like this as a kid, but I feel like I was kind of under attack from the enemy. ⁓ And that was when the first thing, the first major attack I feel like was when my sister died in that fire. ⁓ so I was, I was 13, I believe. And man, I'll never forget.

that evening is like I was at my grandparents house with my dad and there's a knock on the door. were, think I was sleeping in the living room. I don't think my dad was in the bedroom, whatever, but there's a knock on the door at my grandparents house at like two or three AM. I'm like, this is weird. Who's at the door? And it was the officer there to tell my dad what had gone on. And so that, man, that whole situation was like.

I don't even know how to put it into words. It was like a shock to my system that I don't know if I was ever completely the same after that situation. It just like, it did something to me that just totally floored me. was just, Keita was asking me about it. And I...

can't even really recall other than I was just, when I was trying to explain to her what it was like going through it, I just felt like I was just numb for like, I don't even know how long. And so I was just kind of going through the motions, because I didn't even know how to grieve that situation as ⁓ a young teenager like that.

So that was kind of the first big attack that I felt like had come against me. And then it wasn't maybe a couple years later that we found out, well, I had this knot on my clavicle.

and it kept getting a little bit bigger and little bit bigger and I was like showing my mom like, what's going on with this? And eventually it got to a point where she's like, well, we need to to the doctor and see what's going on. So we went, they didn't think it was that big a deal, but eventually they ended up testing it and finding out that I had bone cancer when I was like 15. At that point, it was another situation where I'm just like numb to it. I'm like, I

It's almost like this can't be real. a 15 year old kid, 16 year old kid, how I got cancer? So I don't even think while I was kind of there and going through it, I don't think it ever really registered. Like there was never a point that I can recall where I'm like, man, I could actually die from this. Dude, I remember you telling me about it and I was like, how is it so calm? I never could get like,

I said you had like some bone cancer and I was like, man, I would be like, you can't console me, but I remember talking to you about it and you just seemed like it was like, this is what happened. I...

full of life and I could not figure that out. I'm just now, you know, hearing about it, hearing you talk about it now, it makes so much sense now how you trying to process that as a 15-year-old kid. How does that happen? Yeah, and I'm still, I don't think at the point that that came along, I hadn't dealt with really anything.

Still probably to be quite honest I probably need to go and have some therapy to talk through my my sister's situation even to this day But I think I was still dealing with that to some extent so it's just like here we go Here's a here's another little piece of bad to me it seemed like bad news at the time, but still looking back I feel like I was under attack from the enemy and I feel like that is because

the enemy can see God's plan, the big picture plan. And I think he's got greater things. ⁓ I've been able to several family members come to Christ, but I think God's got even bigger things on the horizon. But dealing with that and then ⁓ shortly after...

My sister had passed, my grandmother on my mom's side passed, and it was like...

I can remember, because I felt guilty, but I didn't even know how to process this either. I didn't even cry. I couldn't really mourn for her, because I was just still devastated by the other loss. And then this cancer thing hits, and it was just like not knowing how to process it then. So I think when that came about,

I mean, I'm sure you can, you could share stories about me from, from high school, about 16, 17, 18. I started going pretty wild. You was wild. And I was, I was like off the rails in some situations. And I think it was just because I didn't, I didn't really know what I was, how to, how to deal with everything that was going on. So was like, well, I mean, this is, this is the way I'm going to do it. Um,

So the next thing, the next big thing was, because I was wilding so much and because we were coming up in such a strict upbringing, me and my mom are just button heads like no other. And I'm out doing all kinds of stuff that she doesn't agree with and I completely understand. And from a parent's standpoint now, I would have probably reacted very similar to how she did. But it got to a point where...

We just, there was no reconciling our relationship at that point in time. She was like, you're going to do this. And I was like, no, I'm not. And so I moved out of the house and moved in with my grandparents, which opened up the opportunity to even wild out more because I just had almost, you know, complete freedom to do whatever I, whatever I felt like doing. And that's a bad place to be in for a 16 year old.

And so I did a whole lot of partying and ⁓ drinking and all kinds of nonsense that I had no business doing. But I think ⁓ by the time I got to Warrensburg, ⁓ when I got there, went there and

It was like six or seven guys that we had gone to high school with that we all went to Warrensburg, all joined the same fraternity. it was kind of most of those guys, it was their first taste of real freedom, which I had had for a couple of years because I'd been in my grandparents. And so I had kind of gotten through my...

wild wild stage. was, don't get me wrong, I was still out there, but these guys had just got their first taste of it. And so I was kind of watching them go wild wild. And I was kind of on the tail end of it, like still doing whatever, but starting to work my way out of it. And then, ⁓ you know, the Lord allowed me to, ⁓

on my summer back, I believe it was my summer after my freshman year, was back in Cameron and got in trouble, got arrested. ⁓ by the grace of God, my record was expunged. It wasn't anything major, but I had to go spend a week in jail at the old Maysville County Jail. Forgot about that. And that place, man.

I wouldn't say it was like scared straight. It was more like...

looking around the room at all these guys that are in the Maysville County jail with me and just thinking, you know, this is, this is going to sound terrible, but this is, this is my thought process. So I'm just going to say it like this. I don't, I don't speak about people like this anymore, but my thought process is I'm sitting in this jail is like, man, these guys are a bunch of losers. I do not want to end up like these guys. And so it was just like a wake up call for me as I'm sitting there and

just hearing how, you know, there's grown men in ⁓ there, 30 year olds, 40 year olds, that you could just tell that they weren't doing anything with themselves or their lives. man, coming out of there, it was like, it's time to get right. It's time to turn it around. And so that was kind of...

That was not kind of, that was definitely the turning point for me that the Lord gave me some time in jail to really ponder what I wanted my life to look like and what I didn't want my life to look like. And so coming out of there... ⁓

man, I can only imagine what my fraternity brothers thought when I came back the next year to school and I was like, I was on the straight and narrow because through that situation also, I had been put on the two year ⁓ probation. And so I couldn't get in any trouble or my record was going to be, I would have a permanent record. And, ⁓

So I was on the straight and narrow number one because I knew I had to get my life right. But if that wasn't enough, I knew I had to keep my record clean. And so I had double motivation. So when I get back to school, my freshman year was, it was a wild year, probably like most people's.

You know, it was a total turning point for me when I got back. I'm not doing none of this stuff. it was eye opening in the sense that you go from, in a fraternity, think we had, man, 50, 60 members. And so when you're in that setting,

and you guys are going to all these events together and having parties together, ⁓ you feel like, man, I got all these friends. And I can remember the worst part, the hardest part for me coming out of all that, and I'm like, okay, I got to clean up. I'm not doing none of this stuff. I got to stay out of trouble. I got to get my life right. ⁓ It was like everybody disappeared. And it wasn't...

It was just because I couldn't or wasn't going to do what I used to do. But I couldn't, in my mind I'm like, I've got all these friends. But they kept doing what they were gonna do because that was where they were at. And I think it was kind of a wake up call for me. We were friends.

And I'm still friends with some of these guys and we still get together and periodically we'll go out and do some things together. you realize real quick it's like, I think that was an aha moment for me where I realized you don't get that many friends in this life.

It's a whole lot of people that are doing the same things as you. And so when you do those things together, you feel like we're a group of friends. And the fact of the matter is, if you're not doing those similar things, most of those friendships just kinda fade away. And that's nothing, that's no slight on anybody that was in my fraternity. ⁓

they were doing their thing and I was doing mine and we just had different paths. so that just kind of separated us ⁓ at least for a period of time. getting to college, college was an odd situation for me because I went through those things.

Decided that it was time to turn my life around kind of kind of forced through this situation and then You know, thank the Lord. He brought Keita into my life Who had been through some similar troubles and so obviously, you know for those that don't know my wife We grew up in the same church as well with both of us and ⁓

We dated for a very short period of time and I just knew, I had no intentions, quite honestly, no intentions of getting married until I was probably in my 30s in my mind if I were to plan it out. But I just felt like the Lord was telling me she was the one and I needed to do it and she was great for me. so,

We got married in my junior year, summer after my junior year. ⁓ looking back on it now, it's a wild thing to even think about getting married at 21. And my wife was 19. And thinking if my kids came home to me, ⁓ my son's 20 right now, if he came home to me next year talking about getting married, I'd be like, are you sure about that, young man?

⁓ And my daughter's 18 so it would be like she would be the same age as my wife was when we got married come next year, so ⁓ Thankful to God that he brought her in my life because ⁓ You know it it definitely made Getting right much easier

when you got somebody with the like mind and has grown up in the same faith and believes the same things. I firmly believe that she prayed me through a lot of things when I wasn't really that strong into prayer or fasting. ⁓ So it's...

I mean, she carried the load through some things for us. so, yeah, man, we got through college. She ended up, she was going to Missouri Western and I was at UCM. And then once we got married, she came down to Warrensburg with me. And then once we got out, we came back to Kansas City and started going back to Life Tavernacle. And that's kind of where we reconvened when you got back from military. ⁓

in your wilderness and I got back from my wilderness and so it's, man that was an interesting time in life and I'm thankful to be on this side of it at this point in time. It's amazing whenever you look back on stuff and like.

And I made it out with my right mind. military gave me some money because they jacked my knee up and whatnot. ⁓ you know, I'm in my right mind. can still ⁓ able bodied regardless of my my knee. And technically I'm a disabled vet, but I can still, you know, I'm not in a wheelchair or nothing. ⁓

man, it provided me ⁓ a good life. It paid for me to go to school, it paid for me, or helped me get a house and VA loan. man, I thank God for the things that he, how he directed our path out of school. man, that's what really kept me on the straight and narrow, but of course, God, but no. ⁓

I would come home on leave and see all of our friends. I'd come home every summer when everybody would be home from school. Everybody else would be partying and whatnot. And I kind of had to get past that stage to the desire to do all that pretty quick. Because I know once I got back on base, it was, you you a man, you can be sent off to war at any time. And so like the stuff that

kids our age like to do, I was like, that didn't even interest me because I faced a greater challenge and it kind of makes you grow up quick. And not that I was looking down at anybody, but I was just like, I can't afford to do that. Even my first time coming home, you remember that road trip, you and Kristen came down. I was gonna bring that up.

They came down, Ben and another friend of ours, ⁓ who we might get her on show too to hear her testimony. ⁓ They came down and from Missouri drove down to South Carolina and swooped me up and we driving back to Missouri. And, you know, back then elected.

engage in recreational activities that are legal now, but you know, it wasn't exactly legal back then, but thank God for deliverance. And I was like, y'all, can y'all wait until we get home to do all that? Just don't do it in the car with me. Because I was told, this was my first time going on leave, they were telling me.

Whenever you come back on leave, the first thing they do is drug testing. So don't be around nobody smoking. All right, cool. And so I tell them, please just wait till we get back to Missouri so I don't have to be in the car. And they're like, okay. And we take off driving from Charleston back up to Kansas City. And I remember I was taking the first shift driving. I was following this white van, because it was speeding.

I'm like, all right, I'll get behind them. So, no, I won't get stopped. They'll get stopped. They're going above the speed limit. And all of sudden that van, I just got tired of me following them. They slowed down and I passed them. And then whenever I passed them, they turned on the red and blue, the berries, they turned on the lights. yeah, they, y'all was engaging in.

They doing this, I'm gonna get a contact. I'm thinking the worst case scenario of everything. As I pull over and I just put my head on the wheel, I'm I'm dead to rights. And I look up and that van had pulled around us and kept on going. I'm like, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus. Thank you for your grace Lord. But man, that kind of stuff, because I couldn't engage in that stuff legally.

and get away with it. It kind of kept me from wanting to do a lot of the stuff that a lot of kids our age did. And man, ⁓ God saw me through those years, me through seeing war, saw me, kept me from lasting psychological, I know guys that are, they call it ate up. Their head just like, dude, what happened to you? I got to do what I used to work with.

He's like a psychopath. And he wasn't that way before he left. Of he was in the Marines I was there for. know, mentality is a little bit different, but man, some guys did not come back the same that they, as they left. ⁓ And, you know, that's a whole nother discussion, a whole nother subject in terms of, you war, the military industrial complex and all kinds that's a whole nother discussion, but.

I came back and I was fine and ⁓ God shielded me from some things and I'd been engaged once before and God said, no, you don't. ⁓ kept me from making a big mistake. ⁓ But man, I was so grateful that God prepared a way for me that I couldn't even see at the time. And got back here and... ⁓

through God's divine directing and ordering the steps allowed me to meet who would become my wife. And ⁓ I felt like I had come across the only girl in Kansas City that was single, no kids. I was in awe the first time I met her. She didn't have to, it wasn't a whole lot of talking me into it. No, as soon as I met her, I'm like, okay, this is...

She probably the one here. Of course, she didn't like me. You had to do the convincing. Man, was, I couldn't, there's only God, because I could not convince her. As much as I tried, I couldn't convince her. But I thank God that he opened her eyes and man, we've been married 15 years and.

And I cannot imagine my life without that woman. I thank God for her. Maybe one day we'll have Mother Shante Green on there. We'll call her Mother because she desires to be one of old church mothers. She wants to get to that point where, you know, them old ladies in churches be telling you whatever they want. They don't care about your feelings. She wants that. So we're calling Mother Green. But, she's she...

She captured my heart whenever she invited me to. ⁓ She was supposed to be given like a little sermonette or whatever speaking. And she before she started speaking, she sang a song and I was.

You couldn't tell me nothing. It would only have to be God himself to come down and said, Marcus, she ain't for you. Otherwise, I was locked in. I was already locked in. I was already convinced, yeah, she must be it. But after that day, when I went to go see her preach, she grew up in church too, and her family, they have churches and all that kind of stuff, and she's preaching at her uncle's church. And whenever she sang the song, I was like,

There's a GIF. Is it GIF or GIF? G-I-F, what is it? How do you pronounce that? However you want to call it. I'm good either way. There's a GIF. And if I'm saying it right, y'all correct me. If I'm saying it wrong, correct me. From the show Futurama, where the main character Fry, he holds up this money and says, shut up and take my money. I was like that, like shut up and take this ring. Whatever you want, you can have from me after I sit there and listen to her sing.

And she just captured my heart from there and man, she has stuck by me and I'm stuck by her and it made me through her, it made me appreciate God even more and what he wants marriage to be, what he wants for us. It made me cherish the word of God even more through her. we faced

ups and downs and man come out stronger than ever and I would love to say that I've been the best husband and that all the problems we have were not my fault. I'd love to say that yeah Shontay this was you. Yeah well if I be honest with myself I know I share I shoulder a lot of the blame if not most of the blame in any problems we've had ⁓ but

And it's only the grace of God that's kept us together and that will keep us together. In 15 years, I thank God that if it be as will be 80 more years. If either one of us check up out of here, I'm like, going to, I cannot see my existence here now without her. And with her, no, we have our.

two beautiful children, my needlessly intelligent daughter. I don't know how she became such a whiz kid. We were just looking at her grades today and all of them are A pluses besides one, it's an A, she's got a 98%. And so I'm like, God, this kid is just, she has been so, you ever meet those people that like everything they do,

they do it awesomely. Like whenever Tarell plays sports, like, dude, how are you so good at this without even trying? My daughter, she's like, without trying, she teach herself how to play the flute. She ain't never picked up the flute before. She's playing by ear. She can't read music yet. And just playing music well, she taught herself how to play a little bit on a piano and how to make videos and edit this. I'm like, dude.

where are you getting this intelligence from? I just don't get how she is so gifted at so many things and she dances and man, I feel like if nothing else, she was put on this earth to dance. I watch her dance and I start crying and like not even a recital, but just watching her practice, I'm like, it's so.

She moves so gracefully and beautifully and I'm like, why am I crying just watching this little kid dance? And our son, he's not, whenever he gets older, if he's not somebody's pastor, I'll be completely surprised. He's the only kid I know that at seven years old, he's trying to get people to get baptized because he got baptized. We might have to have him give a little...

many sermons or something? This dude, he asked questions about he'll ask questions about heaven and hell and wanting to know about God. And I'm like, dude, where did you come from? I know, you know, he's got a bloodline of church folks, but he didn't, he grew up in a church, he's only eight, so, but he didn't grow up like us. Our kids, my kids aren't in the church like how we were.

And I'm like, dude, why did you get all this, like, wise beyond your years mentality? They had something going on at school. ⁓ He said, you gotta make up three or tell three truths and make up a lie. No, no, not Michael Green.

He asked my wife, like, what kind of school is this telling me to lie? He was not about that at all. This dude is saved for real and eight years old. it tickles me, at the same time, I knew, I know what he had to go through.

Mm-hmm.

just for him to be here. ⁓

sirens and alarms start going off and I'm sitting in the hospital room with her and Shante's not, she's not like acting like something's wrong. She's just sitting in the bed and nurses come running in there and looking at all this stuff and run out and come back in with other folks and like, we gotta get him out of there now. It's like, his heart rate completely dropped off of any monitor.

and he will not survive birth and...

when faced with the mortality of your child.

I, ⁓ anybody who's had to go through that, ⁓ God bless them because it's, I don't even like thinking about it, let alone have to actually face it. ⁓ They said, we gotta get him out because he won't survive. And I, at that time, I never prayed so much like I had from the time that.

whenever they told us that to the time where we got him out. I never prayed so much. ⁓ And he came out small. At first they was like, yeah, before this even happened, like, yeah, it looks like he's six pounds. But whenever he was born, he was barely four pounds. And I remember when they took him out, they was like, where's the rest of them? I don't know.

What are you talking about? They had a little sheet up because they're doing the surgery, the cesarean and whatnot. So they had a little sheet up. So I couldn't see. I was sitting there by my wife's side and I heard that and he was just the tiniest little thing. And ⁓ in both my children's birth, well, my daughter was born.

Man, you would have thought it was revival in there. I was worshiping in the delivery room and even more so when my son was born because they were both small. My daughter was a little bit bigger than my son and she had to spend three days in the NICU because ⁓ she had.

Was it like low, low white cell count or something, low platelets or something like that. But she was okay after three days. ⁓ my son, he was in a NICU and then transferred to Children's Mercy. First three weeks of his life he was in the hospital. And we were there every day.

I'm a wife more than I did because I know how to get back to work and whatnot. But I would show up after work and as hard as that was, we met a family there who's also with The Last Name Green, whose child was in there for a year. And so I was like, God, as much as we're facing, I thank you for what didn't happen.

that we're not the family that's in there. And our son was bigger than this baby who was a year old. And I'm like, God, just thank you for your grace. Thank you. Regardless of what we're facing.

Y'all God is faithful even when we don't know it. We don't understand it. We can't see it. God is faithful and ⁓ You know, he's he's good now. ⁓ It took us like said three weeks to get him home But he grew up. Yeah, he's a little smaller than everybody else now, but man, you can't tell him that this dude he's

He goes to this little thing on Saturdays, the Kid Strong. At first it had it advertised as superhero training for kids and he loved superheroes and he was younger. And so was like, ⁓ well, this is perfect fit for him. We like superheroes. This is superhero training. It's like that show, American Ninja Warrior, but for kids. And I'm like, this kid, his athleticism is off the charts.

I fully expect him a couple things I expect out of him in his life for him to be preaching somewhere someday and this dude's gonna win a State track title somewhere. This kid is so fast to hit for him to be so much smaller than everybody else He blows all these other kids. I don't know if maybe these kids are just

deficient in any kind of, there's a couple kids there that are, no lie, there's this one kid, he's my son. I'm over 200 pounds at 44 years old. This kid, this age group was like from seven to 10. He's every bit as much as I weigh. I'm like, how are you still living?

Him and he's got a little brother too that's probably about 170 pounds being eight, nine years old. But these other kids, like my son is just.

blow him away, they're supposed to run laps. He doesn't get tired. I'm like, go on Micah. And yeah, I kind of take pride whenever all these other little kids are walking or doing slow. Micah's still going and it's like, it's nothing to him. Push-ups, do more push-ups than everybody else, doing pull-ups. And I'm like, this dude is amazing. And I...

I'm like, yeah, I played sports growing up, but I was never this athletic. It's like he was born with this stuff. And so I expect him to have some kind of state title and something, but man, God has just blessed us tremendously. you know, my heart is full. I just thank God for. ⁓

what he has blessed us with, that I don't deserve none of it. I was on track to go a completely different route with the wrong person. And I thank God that he tore that up even before it started. My mom used to pray when I was younger. You know, we call ourselves having little girlfriends and whatnot in middle school, high school. My mom used always be like, Lord, if it's none of you, tear it up. I'm like.

Man, I'll be praying them same prayers. They're like, stop hating, mama. I mean, I thank God for the prayers now, but at the time, I'm like, mom, seriously? man, you can't see what you can't see when you're in it. But parents can see it. It's like. And I prepared that for my daughter. I already told her.

I'm gonna beat anybody and little boy to try to talk to her. I told her, know, I'm gonna beat the brakes off him, I don't look forward to that. I pray that I never have to introduce a friend I have named Artemis in a safe in the closet, that I never had to introduce him to any little knucklehead as a result of running a foul of my daughter. But.

⁓ I'm just grateful to God for where he's brought us from man. We got we've got tons more stories hours that we could talk about ourselves but the bottom line is God has brought us so far from rural, Missouri to you know a flourishing life you as an entrepreneur and everything that you've done and man I've never been

I don't want say I've been envious of you, but I saw how God has brought you from so much and where we're at today. in your basement that is bigger than a lot of people's houses right now. And to know where we came from. Dude, I just got to chime in one second on that note because I can remember when we first moved into this house, like...

Again, we grew up in a little small town,

that to my recollection, there weren't even houses like this Cameron. And so you were, you were, you know, doing real well if you had a house in Cameron, it didn't have to be anything fancy, but if you had a house, then you were rich in our eyes. And so when, when God blessed us with this place, I can remember walking around just feeling like,

I mean, just having conversations with God, walking through this very basement, like, Lord, I don't deserve this. I don't even feel like I should be in this place. And so, definitely a blessing. That's all I can say. ⁓

no greatness of my own. The Lord has blessed us with some very good situations and I've always just tried to do the best I can with what he blesses us with.

So yeah, was nothing but God that we're sitting here where we are today. And we kind of lose sight of it at certain times. the ⁓ Vaughn Bay girls kind of, they crack me up because they'll bring me back to reality sometimes. We get used to being in a nice house. so they're like, we're talking about having a Bible study. And so right now we're going through John the Baptist.

We've got seven weeks of John the Baptist Bible study. And so we're talking about when we get through that, we want to all get together and watch, find a movie or something on John the Baptist. so they're like, yeah, let's, let's do it at the, they call it the palace. Let's do it at the palace. Inside this crack up because, you know, it's to us where we grew up, is a palace. Again, Lord, I don't deserve any of it.

thankful but I didn't mean to interrupt but I just wanted to chime in there because I've when we first got here it was just like is this real? There's a long way from from the house on corn hill. My goodness. My goodness. It's we've for the most part we've generally lived not far from one another. ⁓ lived on what street was that South Chestnut when you lived on corn hill.

Then I lived on Prairie and you live,

what's that house? The house you lived in when you dropped my grandmum's greens in the street. That was Prospect Street. That was Prospect Street. ⁓ I didn't even drop the greens once, but I dropped them twice. I mean, it was bad enough. I'm riding my bike.

Your grandmother gave me greens to take to my mom. Just the logistics of it is not going to work out. You're carrying a pot of greens and trying to ride a bike. I don't even think it was a pot. You know how we used to take like those, ⁓

was it? Like country crock, plastic, big butter dish. the, you know, we're recycling butter dishes and it's full of greens. Your grandmother gives me these greens to take basically four blocks to my mom. So I'm riding my bike and carrying it. One hand I got the country crock bucket of greens. Going uphill.

Yeah, and I, somewhere along the path, I dropped the greens on the street. And so you think I would just call it a loss at that point, but in an effort not to have to explain why I didn't come home with greens, I scoop them back into the concrete bucket and continue on the journey. And so I make it home, get into the house and...

somehow dropped the bucket of greens again on the carpet. It's, ⁓ I guess at that point my logic was I've scooped them up once. What's one more scoop up? scooped them up again. ⁓ I don't know if I delivered them direct to my mom or just stuck them in the fridge, but. Dropped them in the street, then dropped them on the carpet. I can remember my mom being like. She said.

She's eating these greens. She's like, pull that hair out of her mouth. She's like, there's hair in these greens. And she's like, and it's white people's hair. So she's like, she knew it wasn't your grandmother's hair that was in the greens. So she's like, how did white people's hair get in greens that came? ⁓

from your grandmother.

don't know if I ever came clean on this. ⁓ my God. I suppose if she ever watches this, the truth will come to light 35 years later. I'm sweating. I'm sweating. But that's one I probably should have gotten a whooping for. We got to put a pin in it because.

This will just turn into even more, more stories. One leads to another. Like when you dropped your mama's bowl of ice cream and it was chipped up pieces of the bowl in the ice cream. That's probably worse. That could have done real damage. ⁓ but man, I know we've been going for about an hour and a half now. It's a school night still. But again, this is our first.

our first venture into this. Man, we enjoyed it. Had some laughs, hearing some victory reports, some testimonies, and hopefully y'all just know a little bit more of who we are. ⁓

and know who's going to be talking to you here in these ⁓ next upcoming sessions. ⁓ We again, we intend on having friends to the show come in and join us. ⁓ Guest, host, whomever. But look forward to that, man. We just look forward to what God is going to produce from this. The lives that will be touched, the lives will be changed. Those who ask, what must I do to be saved? How do I know this? Jesus, you're talking.

about. So we plan to bring it all to y'all. We're gonna call it a night for now, but look out for us and we will definitely get back to you all and you we're gonna have a good time and learn to laugh and enjoy. God's got a sense of humor and ⁓

We gonna expose that sense of humor through some of our life lessons and whatnot, but we love y'all. God bless you. Thank you for joining us. Look forward to us some more. Like said, we're gonna bring it to you as much as we can and we pray that it blesses each and every viewer that partakes in it. So we out for now. God bless you. God bless y'all.

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