No Sanity Required
No Sanity Required is a weekly podcast hosted by Brody Holloway and Snowbird Outfitters. Each week, we engage culture and personal stories with a Gospel-driven perspective. Our mission is to equip the Church to pierce the darkness with the light of Christ by sharing the vision, ideas, and passions God has used to carry us through 26 years of student ministry. Find more content at swoutfitters.com.
No Sanity Required
Redemption, Betrayal, and Responsibility in Ministry | No Sanity Stories
DISCLAIMER: This episode includes content that is sexual in nature. Viewer discretion is advised.
In this episode, Brody shares one of the most shocking and unexpected stories from his 30 years in ministry. He shares about how a seemingly incredible transformation later developed into a situation that required him to step in and protect students from a manipulative youth pastor.
Brody stepped in to stop a predator in ministry and discusses the responsibility of other leaders to keep people safe. He and JB reflect on the importance of discernment, protecting others, and being vigilant in ministry.
This episode is a powerful reminder of the need for spiritual protection and staying alert when in leadership.
Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.
Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.
Okay, I got JB with me today. Say hey. Hey. So the feedback's been great. Everyone has really enjoyed having JB on and Issa when she's been here, katie last week, kilby the week before I think y'all love it when I have folks here, but with JB being now no longer a guest but literally a part of NSR, so we're going to tell a story today. Yep A crazy story.
Speaker 1:One of maybe the craziest stories that I've ever experienced in ministry and I think where this all started was a conversation we had last week. So ask JB to come on and so get comfortable if you're on your commute or you got a cup of coffee and just listen to this story. Try to keep up. We'll try not to be too confusing with names we got to keep some anonymity with some of the people in this but one of the craziest stories I've ever experienced in ministry and we're going to be bringing you some of these. I think we're going to do a little series of these over the next few months of just wild stories from 30 years of ministry. So you say it Welcome.
Speaker 3:Welcome to no Sanity Required, all right.
Speaker 4:Welcome to no Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters. A podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:First off, the feedback with you on the episodes has been awesome.
Speaker 3:Yay, like literally this morning I got feedback. My mom always gives me feedback. She probably loves it, it's so great.
Speaker 1:Um, uh, this morning. Uh, spencer, he told me he drove back from they went to Knox's game last night. And he said uh, he said I listened to the episode with jb and katie. He's a man. Jb really does a great job. He's like she adds so much.
Speaker 5:That's cool thank you, that means a lot yeah, okay, let's get into this.
Speaker 1:So, um, I asked jb to come sit and and have a conversation with me because and in last week's episode, the three of us Katie Cousins, jb and me sat and talked and what y'all didn't hear as listeners is that when we stopped recording, well, we sat and talked for another hour, hour and a half and it turned into just I was telling them stories, some crazy stories that have happened in ministry through the years, and you have things happen in your life. You know, one of the things that we do on NSR is we tell stories, stories from around the globe and you have things happen in your life that stick with you. Like I remember a story from when I was a little kid and I've never told you this, but I was so when I was a, when I was a child in the 70s sorry, not funny.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I didn't realize you were that old, I mean that young guys, y'all may get to hear jb literally get strangled on this episode get fired. I mean it's no secret, I have children older than JB, so, um, jb is literally, uh, one of my middle daughter's closest friends. So that just so y'all know, if you're, if you've ever listened and wondered, jb is like younger than some of my kids, so, and JB is a dichotomy, because she can be the most mature 22, 23, 22.
Speaker 1:She can be the most mature 22-year-old, I know, or she can be a 12-year-old, which, in this moment, right now, she just was a 12-year-old, literally. You started laughing at me because I said when I was a the statement was when I was a child in the 70s.
Speaker 3:Well, it's like that's like my parents age too. I don't know why I thought it was it's fine.
Speaker 1:So there was and I most people probably not going to know this even that grew up in my era, because this is something from, like, my parents and grandparents era. I remember my granddad used to talk about um, they called it the. I'm going to get this wrong and I know we'll have here, uh, listeners that'll hear this and they'll correct me or they'll tell me, but it's like people were hobos and what hobos would do is they would just work. What was called this? Uh, I think they called it the soup line, where they would just work. What was called this? I think they called it the soup line, where they would just jump on a train and ride to the next city or town, get off and they knew where they could get some food, like at a soup kitchen or something then they'd jump on a.
Speaker 1:So they're just like kind of adventurous spirits, that weren't. You know. You see a lot of people nowadays that are homeless but they're on drugs. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The hobo culture was a big culture coming out of the depression. It's because people I think it started because people didn't have jobs. It was kind of roaming the country looking for work. So it it birthed this whole culture. People would just like hitchhike or ride trains and hitchhiking was a big thing, like when I was a kid. This is crazy to think about now, but when I was a kid we would pick up hitchhikers. I can remember my dad stopping and picking up hitchhikers with the whole family in the car. That's crazy. And then I did that because I grew up that way. I remember doing it with when Kilby and Tuck were small I don't think Lely was born yet, but I remember me and Little were in.
Speaker 1:We had a single cab truck and I remember picking up a hitchhiker in the gorge that we were driving to Waynesville and so he was. I said you can get in the back of the truck. So he got in the back of my truck for, you know, over an hour, but back then it was pretty harmless and you just didn't hear things happening to people. Well, I remember I have this story where I remember my mom. Uh, I was probably kindergarten and a guy came by our house. We lived my.
Speaker 1:When I was in kindergarten there was like a two or three year window where we lived and we lived in a rental house that was right on a main highway and I mean you could walk probably a hundred yards and be on this main highway and it ran right by our house and the guy must have been hitchhiking. And he came up to our house and it was some weather was moving in and he asked if he could sleep in our carport. Just put his bed roll out, he just need to get out of the weather. And my mom I remember my mom we were eating pinto beans. Do you know what that is?
Speaker 1:yes, okay uh, that's when I was growing up. We ate pinto beans once a week. That was like like a meal. You know. Pintos would be like a meal, especially for poor people in the South. And so that night we were eating pinto beans and cornbread. And he comes in, this guy that we don't know, and he sits down and has a meal with us and then he had like his little bed roll and he goes out and puts his bed roll out and goes to sleep. And I remember getting up the next morning for school and I ran to the kitchen door to look out on the carport. I wanted to see if he's that. He was an interesting character. I was like get him to come in.
Speaker 1:Is he going to come in and drink coffee. He was gone. He had rolled his bedroll and left, and I remember my mom gave him a mason jar with a screw-on lid, a I remember my mom gave him a mason jar with a screw-on lid, you know, a mason jar filled with pinto beans to take with him, that's crazy that would provide him two or three meals, you know Dang. So it was a different era. But that story I don't think I've ever told anybody that story.
Speaker 1:I was thinking about it. Something made me think of that the other day and I just thought how many things happen in your life that are that are that you don't pick up on, maybe in the moment that are really like cool stories down the road. Yeah, and I was talking to Kara Jones one time, who you know, and she said Brody, when I listen to you teach, I just think how does so much interesting stuff happen to one guy? And I was like, because I tell stories you know, and I said well, it happens to everybody.
Speaker 1:But I think people don't pay attention to the mundane little details that make stories in the day-to-day life that we live, Because there's something happening every day. But the story we're going to tell today is not a story that happened in the mundane little details of everyday life.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:Today I want to tell what I believe is one of the most shocking stories that I've experienced in 30 years of ministry. Yeah, and when I told this story to you and Katie last week, y'all's jaws were just on the floor.
Speaker 3:I mean seriously, like he's not exaggerating, like my mouth was wide open, like in disbelief.
Speaker 1:Multiple times yes.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Cause there were, there are going to be, times when we walked through this story where the listener's going to go, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:And then I'm going to go and then we're not done there.
Speaker 1:there was a point last week it was like the third time when I was telling y'all the story where I go oh, we're not done, where I think. That's when y'all thought, okay, surely that's the end of the story and it's like nope, it's not yeah, yeah so we're gonna call the main guy in this story John P.
Speaker 1:John letter P not gonna say the whole. I'm not gonna say his name. You know we'll call him John P and I'm gonna mix some of the. I'm gonna mix some of the names up to not, because there's some people that I don't want to be hurt by this story being told and then, as we navigate it, you just stop me and ask for more details. So I asked Joy Beth to come on. I asked JB to come on this episode just because talking straight into a microphone to tell a story like this can be difficult. I want you to contribute, but it's fine if you're just mainly listening, but looking at somebody and telling the story makes it easier to tell the story.
Speaker 1:And then I also, just like this is still so fresh for you that you might think of something that you want to pause, and hey, what was this like? Or explain this so one of the most shocking ministry stories that I don't even think this story is over yet, by the way. Yeah, who knows? Yeah, in the early days of Snowbird and this first part of the story. It takes one story to set this story up and the story that sets this up I've told on here before. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it was a story that when Little and I first got married, I had a very aggressive, angry, vehement attitude towards people from the same-sex community. Yeah, particularly homosexual males, just um, I don't want to use a word, like I won't say hatred. I would say it was hatred, yeah and no. I don't know if it was because of, uh, experience I had as a child, when I was about six years old, with a 12-year-old dude, 13-year-old dude that I've briefly mentioned before, but it was a single event. I don't think it was that, because you'll hear people say something that happened to them when they were a child really changes the way they view certain. I don't think it was that. I think just probably grew up in a very masculine culture and you know.
Speaker 1:And so I had a, I had a run in little and I were together. We were, we were together and had a run in with a same sex couple, two gay guys and one of them, I and one of them to keep it short, I think one of them. I perceived that he looked at me wrong and said something to his partner and it fired me up and I caused a scene. It was in a very public place and I caused a scene. So two gay guys were walking by me and them were walking by by. One of them says something and I just blow up and it got really intense, like security comes over and so and I was like probably 24 years old, I was a young man. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And and so we started Snowbird. I had a similar encounter. We were about two years into, two or three years into getting Snowbird going. I had a similar encounter and the Lord convicted me of it and through that conviction I just committed to the Lord. Hey, I want to really. I know I can't have a heart for ministry towards teenagers and families if they're segments of humanity that I hate. So take that hatred and help me to be more loving and to just want to share the love of Jesus with everybody yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's funny because the way I tell stories that a couple days later I was actually the next day I had this sleepless night where I was just up wrestling with the Lord, praying over the vision of SWO and where God was going to take this ministry, and I was excited. But it was early and you know, is it going to get off the ground? I mean, I think what people don't know about, people probably don't think about now, seeing where swole's at is, years of sleepless nights, is this going to happen? Are we going to pull this off? Is god really going to do this?
Speaker 1:I mean, it was lived by faith day to day for those first few years, for sure and I remember wrestling with the lord one night and and he convicted me that I had this real prejudice towards gay people. So the next morning I'm. At the time there was a m was a McDonald's in Andrews which has since shut down. You want to know what a a destitute economy looks like, a town that can't sustain a McDonald's but can sustain $2 generous. Yep.
Speaker 1:Yep, Um, so I'm in McDonald's Keep in mind Hardee's in the morning, McDonald's in the morning. It's all just local working guys and I would go in there and get a biscuit and a coffee and sit with some local blue-collar dudes. It's just 7 in the morning and these two gay guys walk in Now. There's no gay people in Andrews at that time.
Speaker 1:I would have known if there was some gay dudes living here and this gay couple walks in they're and these two gay couple walks in there, obviously together, two guys. Um, it was a very awkward moment and the lord compelled me to share the gospel these guys. I went over and sat down. It had to freak them guys out.
Speaker 1:I think about it yeah I went over and plopped down across from them at their booth they were sitting on the same side of the booth and I plopped down on the other side and, uh, and I ended up just sharing the gospel, a three-minute gospel, which I think all believers need to be able to do. That like just roll out a three-minute gospel, and I left them with a business card with my name and number and I said, if you have any more questions, I'm local, I live here. Uh, the ministry that I'm, that I'm with, is local. If I can answer any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. So that was it. I got up and walked out and then about three, maybe four, maybe five years later, several years later, we had a group of students and they were out, going door to door in a housing project and they were sharing with people and asking for prayer requests. A guy comes to the door, rob Conte, who was a summer staff guy then. That's how long ago that was yeah.
Speaker 1:He takes some students in the housing project in Andrews, the housing authorities going through the projects, and a guy comes to the door. The guy's very emotional. Rob says can we pray with you? And the guy says, yeah, I've just been diagnosed with AIDS, I've got AIDS. And Rob had never seen this guy and he said, well, can we pray with you? Can we share the gospel with you? The guy pulls out that business. It was the dude from McDonald's four years earlier and he's got the business card. I had given him.
Speaker 1:He said I've had this thing for four years. He said I first came back to the area, grew up here, had moved away to somewhere in Atlanta, had come back to the area. Around the time I had that encounter with him at McDonald's, him and his partner had come to the area thinking about moving back here. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because this guy had a child by a heterosexual relationship from when he was younger, gotcha, I think. He had been in and out of the homosexual community, had been with a woman for a while. They had a kid. So he'd come back here to be close to that kid and anyway him and his partner had since split up. This guy had been diagnosed with AIDS, thought he was dying, was desperate. We ended up. He prayed to receive Christ. We baptized this guy. Yeah, dang Crazy story. So I'm sharing this story to a group of student pastors. So that's the first story I think I've told it on NSR, maybe at some point, I can't remember.
Speaker 3:That story in itself is crazy, it's crazy, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 1:That story's wild, so I'm sharing the story to a group of student pastors. It's like a breakout. I'm leading a breakout session with student pastors Sharing that story Wait how many years after that happened were you sharing this?
Speaker 1:I think it was that same summer. Okay, Maybe like the next year. Yeah, Maybe it was the next year, within like a year, Okay, and so I'm sharing it. And this guy walks up to me afterwards and says, can I talk to you? And I said, yeah, man, we can talk. And so we kind of go around the corner. This is before we had the coop, so I had done this breakout session in the current SWO Snack Shack, so students were in the metal building in the breakout. I had youth pastors in the Snack Shack breakout. So we go around behind the snack shack just to talk. He said can we talk in private? We go around there. And this guy he's single, probably 25 years old, student pastor. He said I've never been married. And he said I've always had same-sex attraction. He said it started when I was about 12. I think it started with pornography and it progressed Pornographic addiction that led to same-sex pornography. That led to these and I'm not implying that people with same-sex attraction always it starts with pornography.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but just for this case For this context, and I do think that's a pretty normal trajectory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a pretty normal trajectory. So he says I never acted on it. He said I've been a youth pastor of this church and I had known him. I had met him a couple years prior. He came with another church when he was interning there. He was in Bible college, gotcha. He'd come with another church as an intern. So he's come back. Now it's a couple years later. He's come back with his own youth group and I said what's going on? He said well, about 18 months ago I had my first same-sex encounter and what he had done is he had started. I don't know if they still have these, but back in the day people would meet online in what was called chat rooms. Now I think people just use social media.
Speaker 1:But back before social media, you would hear, I've never been in a chat room yeah but I my own father had a porn addiction and was very promiscuous and I remember having a conversation with him where he said he would meet women in chat rooms and they meet virtually and then they would meet up somewhere. So this, this guy started in this same-sex sort of world of online connections. He starts meeting up. So in 18 months, jb, he had had over 30 same-sex encounters. So it's just purely physical promiscuity and he's a youth pastor and he's a youth pastor. So and I think the Lord had taken me through that one situation and softened my heart to this moment, and so in that moment I didn't like lose my junk with this guy. I just said, hey, man, let's get you some help. Gotta, get you out of ministry, get you restored in your own walk with Christ Like probably not gonna be in ministry, let's get you the help you need. So I actually go to where he was from, connect with his pastor and said we, snowbird, want to help y'all, as his church, walk him through this, get him what he needs. So got him into some counseling, into a program where he was being discipled. He seemed to be repentant and I mean it was like he wanted to do what he needed to do. It was six months of working in this program.
Speaker 1:I stayed real connected to the guy. He was out I won't say where he's at, but he was a few hours from here and so I was talking with him once a week. How's it going? We kind of drifted from contact Snowbird and him, but I stayed in touch with the pastor and they were staying connected with him. So we ended up, I think, like back at his parents' church and got a job like at, say, best Buy or something like that. He was a tech guy, so he got a job at like a Best Buy or something like that.
Speaker 1:And then the next summer we reconnected and he was struggling but doing okay. He came up to camp and he came to SWO. We sat down, had a couple of sit-down conversations. That was kind of the end of it and then I just kind of lost touch with him after that. So maybe five years later six years, I think six years later we were going to do what eventually would become a youth, an annual youth pastors conference that we used to do. The first one we did we called it a youth pastors round table. We said anybody that works in student ministry can come, this guy shows up and he's got a wife and a pregnant wife and a baby.
Speaker 3:It shows up. You said this is like five years later, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it shows up. I'm like you said this is like five years later. Yeah, like five years later, okay. So I'm like this is awesome. Yeah, yeah, you got married to a girl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the idea man it's where you know, and so we're excited and we're, he's excited. The Lord gave me a wife. It was a cool story. They had a really cool story how God had brought him back. Just a very redemptive story. Then he had ended up there at a church and the Lord just opened up the door for them to be in ministry. They needed a youth pastor. It's just a beautiful picture, I thought. At the time of redemption and reconciliation he and his wife are serving at this church. They were booked. They brought students that summer, brought students, I think, the next summer.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the next summer, john p and his bride bring their students to snowbird yeah it just happened that that summer we had two young men who had come to us, independent of each other, and said that they had struggled with same sex attraction. So we had a team of our guys and gals, uh, that were that were addressing sort of counseling these. These guys, just discipleship. Now one of them had acted on it. Um, I think he had. He had, like his previous year at college, he had had an experience with a guy on his hall or something in his dorm, something like that, and God really convicted him and he said I can't go down this path. And so he really wanted to get help. And so he came to us and he had worked a previous summer.
Speaker 1:We had no idea, dude, did not like like you wouldn't have thought it, and you know what I mean when I say that yeah you kind of you just wouldn't have picked up on it yeah and then, uh, so he came to us and so we're working through this with and when I say he had an encounter, it was, it was mildly physical, I think. It was like something happened. It wasn't sexual, but it was physical, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:And then he it freaked him out bad enough, he's like I can't get on this path. He came to us and said, hey, I need some help. So we had him here that summer not working with students and nobody knew. But but I think me, maybe Zach Mabry and we're kind of just helping him navigate.
Speaker 1:Just helping him navigate, getting strong in that area, and he had been doing really well and he was in a support role here driving a bus or whatever. Then another boy came that summer young man and said, hey, I've got a struggle with this, so we start working through things with him. They ended up being friends and sharing that with each other, which is very dangerous. Yeah, when two gay guys or two, two same-sex attracted. Uh, men or women become friends.
Speaker 1:It's dangerous yeah but felt like we had really good parameters and we're helping these guys. So we we had pulled both of them. Just in case people were wondering, we didn't have them working with students. The second boy that came to us had never acted on it. Now I will say this. I'll pause here and say one of the things that came out of this is if we have a staff member that says they have the same-sex attraction, we remove them from ministry because of this story. There's too much of a chance for something to happen. So even in the, even in the hiring, like the application process, if someone says that this is a struggle, they have that sort of changes. The course we go on in terms of whether or not we'll bring them in and how we might help help them. So we're very guarded in this area, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, even just like in the summers, you know you're living closely, like even people who are just have like codependent friendships you know, those are very serious, and so I can definitely see why, that is such a big deal.
Speaker 1:That might be a good episode to do too, especially with girls. It is such a trend and a tendency with girls to have codependent relationships, and we've dealt with it so much. We had one of our missionaries have to leave the mission field because of this. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So anyway, we're keeping these guys here and in a supporting role. So this guy, this youth pastor, john P, comes to camp, arrives at camp with his students, and on day one I'm talking to him and I said I said, hey, man, I've got a couple of young dudes that it might be good for you and your wife to have a conversation with. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they're discouraged. One of them is struggling with these same-sex attractions. The other one is struggling with the attraction and has acted on it, and so it might be good to have you all sit down. Well, this guy, he had told me one time he said I can pick out another person in a room.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he said I can pick out another person in a room, he said I can pick out a person who's same-sex attracted. I can pick out either a gay man or a man that's struggling with same-sex attraction. When you wouldn't be able to, he said he made the joke, not my joke. Gay guy made this joke.
Speaker 1:He said gaydar is a real thing. My brain went right to the office. So he saiddar is a real thing. Yeah, my brain went right to the office, yeah, so yeah, um, he said we really. He said it's crazy. And these two boys, young men, did not, they weren't, they weren't effeminate, maybe a little bit once you knew it's like, okay, I can see a little bit, but for the most part they were just dudes they're not wearing crop tops, and that's right.
Speaker 3:You know they weren't like that's right.
Speaker 1:they weren't cross-dressing. Yeah. Putting on makeup yeah, and they weren't. What's the word kids use now? Saucy or spicy.
Speaker 3:Zesty, zesty, yeah, zesty, that's the word, they weren't. They weren't even zesty.
Speaker 1:So I said hey, man. I went back to him later and I said hey, forget it. I don't want you to talk to those boys and I know you said you know who is who, but just forget, I said it. I think the Holy Spirit put that check in my spirit. I talked to him on Monday night at camp and literally before my head hit the pillow Monday night it's like the Lord said no, no, no, uh-uh, don't go there.
Speaker 1:So I found him Tuesday morning at forget it, we're, we're dealing with this. I think it'd be better if we just didn't. Yeah Well, this is where the story starts to turn crazy and get dark. He sought those boys out. He figured out who they were. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Cause he? Well, I'll tell you right now, this guy's a predator, so just go ahead and insert that in a story. He's a predator, yeah, and lot of people. By getting married and having a couple of kids, by this point they've got their second kid. So this guy, he secretly seeks these boys out, connects with them, gives them his phone number and gets their numbers and says, hey, if I can help you. And he does it under the guise of like. On Thursday night he connects with them and does it under the guise of hey, I've been there and I know what you're struggling with, I can help you. Well, I found out and I confronted him on Friday. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I said hey, man, I told you not to do that and I'm telling you right now, I forbid you communicating with these guys.
Speaker 3:Like the Lord just intensified the check in my spirit, Especially after you know already sneaking around and pursuing them, seeking them out, Yep.
Speaker 1:So I made it real clear you're not to have any communication, correspondence with them after this. So he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand, I'm sorry, and he left. Yeah, well, what he did was he continued to communicate with them and one of those young men stayed here and was going to be, was going to intern with us for the next year.
Speaker 1:So he what he does is he goes back to the town he was from and he stays in correspondence with these two young men and then he asks them to come work a student ministry event at his church. Like a D-NOW weekend where he needed some extra help.
Speaker 3:But just them two. But he only asked them two. Yeah.
Speaker 1:He said hey, we're doing a student ministry event. I need some help. I don't really have any volunteers at my church. Could you all come out and take part in this? So they say yeah, yeah, we can do it. They go out there. It's like a friday night event, a saturday event. Saturday night they're gonna, they're staying and then go to church sunday with students and then come home saturday night when his wife and and two girls get him. I think he had two.
Speaker 1:I think now this part yeah I'm, but I think he had two daughters, two little girls, I think. Thank. God yeah. I mean, I don't know, that's just where my mind goes. Like what you know. So which doesn't mean them two little girls were safe Predators are predators. So he gets those boys and basically introduces them to some internet pornography. I think Some same-sex they start watching. I don't know the details, but I think they started off. They watched a movie, the wife and kids were in bed and they go up into his man cave study room, whatever game room.
Speaker 1:I think he was a gamer, so I think they went up in his game room that's where he had them stay in and it turned. I don't know what went on, but they had a gay, three-way gay experience, homosexual thing, okay. So then the next day they got him to go to church yeah, when he's a youth pastor.
Speaker 3:It's baffling.
Speaker 1:Now the one boy, so both these boys. This was their first sexual experience in that same-sex world. The one boy had had something happen before, but this is their first. This is their like in one evening, immersed into the same-sex world. I will pause here and say those boys that took them down that path and they've not come back from it.
Speaker 1:Years later I mean it's ruined lives. So about I think it was about maybe a month later, I get a call from the pastor of the one boy. He said, hey, this young man just came and confessed this and told me this story. He said there's a youth pastor that he met when he was working at Snowbird. And here's what happened. And the pastor, who's a good friend of mine, a good, not a close friend, but a close ministry partner. So I trust this guy, he trusts us. He called so he said here's what he's saying happened. So I went and got the young man that was here. I went it was late at night.
Speaker 1:I went and got him out of his bunk I mean, I'm not even living on campus or whatever, I go and get him out of his bunk and I said we got to talk, did this happen? And he said yeah, and he just kind of spilled the beans. He told me everything. He was crying and he said you know, I feel like basically my life is completely upside down. So I reach out to this youth pastor and I said you're done, yeah, you're done Like no more ministry, you're stepping away. Yeah. We can't charge you with anything because these are legal adults, they're not minors, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yep. But you're done in ministry and he's like freaking out and I said you go resign tomorrow. I called him that night, woke him up and so he goes the next day, talks to his pastor. Pastor is an older guy, like in his 70s, and he's getting ready to retire. In like six months he's retiring from ministry. So they've already got a pastor search committee. They're trying to find the next guy and he tells this youth pastor, he tells John. He's like hey, it's okay, everybody makes mistakes. There's grace in this, let's just get through this.
Speaker 3:Just trying to like sweep it under the rug. Sweep it under the rug.
Speaker 1:Golly. So I called John P that night and I said all right, did you resign and did you tell the pastor what happened? He said, well, I told the pastor what happened and he doesn't want me to resign. So then I said okay, and and I think this was now on like a Saturday, friday or Saturday but I said I'm going to be, and this was not a short drive to where this church in this town was. I said I'm bringing some snowbird guys. We're coming to church Sunday. We're going to come into your Sunday morning worship service and announce what you have done.
Speaker 1:And I promise you and I think this dude knew I would do it I said I will stand up in the front of your church and announce what you have done as soon as right when the service is about to start.
Speaker 1:And that turned into I ended up back on the phone with I ended up on the phone. I'd never talked to the senior pastor, but I ended up on the phone with this older pastor who said we'll have the police there, and I was like, perfect, yeah, great, that's great, that'll draw more attention, yeah. And so I mean it was.
Speaker 1:I said, and I'll have a whole team of folks come with me that know, what's going on, and because at this point there was a team of us on this side that knew what was going on. Yeah, so the guy ended up he said, no, no, don't do that, I'll resign. So he resigned, but he didn't tell anybody why he was resigning and I'm like it's fine, I don't care, just get out of ministry and I said don't you, don't go back in ministry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this guy agrees to resign. And then I just said to him now keep in mind, I'm not doing this solo. This is involved in this, where Spencer Davis, rob Conti, zach Mabry Um, I brought them immediately into it, um, and so I just said you're done, don't ever, I'm done with you. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, and so I just said you're done, don't ever I'm done with you. Yeah, you're done Like you're done. This is uh I think it's uh first Corinthians five, first, or second Corinthians five, where um Paul says, hey, this guy who's having an affair with his dad's wife, um, and is unrepentant and still keeps trying to go through the church motions or whatever, like, cut him off and have nothing to do with him, treat him as someone who like, as an enemy.
Speaker 1:So in my mind there is I'm careful to say this because we always you know, galatians 6, 1 and 2 says brothers, if any of you is overtaken in a fault or a sin you who are spiritual work to restore that person. It's a very powerful instruction for the church and it's very confrontational.
Speaker 1:It's like, hey, you know, paul says there, but for the grace of god, do I go in that same path, path or pattern of sin? And he tells the galatians if someone's overtaken and sin, help them, help restore them. But he also in his letter to corinthians says there's a time where you have nothing else to do with a person. I think for listeners I don't want to paint the picture that on that day we just said we're done with this guy.
Speaker 1:There had been a lot of effort gone into restoring this guy. Multiple there had been on the front end of this at the beginning of this story. There had been a year of us really being involved in helping restore this guy just as a believer and and so we had been involved in his restoration process. Then we had been involved two years of ministry together with him coming to Snowbird. We had, we had re like reignited that partnership and his wife was now involved. We're at a point now where I'm going this dude, this dude's an enemy, he's a, he's a wolf in sheep's clothing, and now my responsibility is to protect the people God's got us entrusted with him. He's not coming on our property.
Speaker 1:He's not welcome on our property. He will not step foot on this property.
Speaker 3:Well, even like, not in not as serious of a context, but this weekend I went back to college and helped with the D now and I was with sixth and seventh grade girls and one of these girls like just was so spun out, even just like the way her parents her parents, from what it seemed like to me, are just like big, almost like conspiracy theorists and aren't really walking with the Lord. But just how like that even just spun her walk with the Lord out and she's so confused and like and I've just been thinking like even something as silly as like a conspiracy theory or like like her parents, she literally said well, my parents believe that the earth is flat.
Speaker 1:Oh, they're flat earthers.
Speaker 3:And that has like spun her out and has put so much doubt and stuff in her brain. So even something as like that has spun this girl's walk with the Lord out. So much I'm with you. Like very heavy precautions need to be taken, especially with this.
Speaker 1:Because, like you said, those boys have, you know, it's spun them out and they've not returned to the Lord of the actions of this, back to, if you're a parent, yeah, a small group leader, yeah, an older sibling, um, a pastor, a youth pastor, we have a responsibility. Anytime you're in a position of influence and leadership, you have a responsibility to some degree for the protection of those people. You've been entrusted with spiritual protection, emotional protection, of course, physical protection, and so in that story you're telling I mean, yeah, this girl is, she's being destabilized in in some ways where you think, dang man, these people are, they're creating, if nothing else, they're creating a a very suspicious, untrusting, like there needs to be a level of suspicion I think, yeah, um, I don't want to just trust what somebody says, but they're there, so I want.
Speaker 1:I want to teach my kids to be uh, don't believe everything you hear, don't believe everything you see yeah but you don't want to create a complete, overwhelming attitude of suspicion and doubt where nobody can be trusted.
Speaker 1:So there's always that fine line. But in this situation I'm saying this guy, we're done, we're not restoring you to anything, you're the enemy. Don't ever come back, even if you come back in an attitude of repentance which I told you another story that we're not gonna get into here today but with that the young man was repentant but I said, okay, it's great, but you can't come back to Snowbird ever again, because what you did you? You forfeited that right. I'll meet you halfway somewhere for coffee once a month and or we get a burger. Well, I'll be your friend and and help, mentor and disciple you, but you are not welcome on the property of Snowbird Outfitters because you've posed a threat.
Speaker 1:And even if you no longer are that threat, the people here that I've been entrusted with need to know that I'm going to protect what God's entrusted me to protect. So I told that guy, you can't come back. And I said not only that, but the students that you were leading. Snowbird's partnership with churches is that we get to speak into those students' lives so they become our students as well. We're sharing in that discipleship and I feel a sense of responsibility to the students that you were leading, and so I just told him you better never enter student ministry again, and I said I'm going to be watching, and by this point we were in the era of social media was just getting going and so you could use.
Speaker 1:I want to say, Facebook was around by this point and I've never been on Facebook, but I knew we had Snowbird has always had social media accounts, like so. So what I did was I just committed to start once a year checking up on this guy, where's he at?
Speaker 3:following through.
Speaker 1:So about I don't know. I want to say maybe three years go by and he's off the off the radar. He finally resurfaced, maybe like he had. Maybe he'd gotten on facebook or social media and I was using I was having snowbirds media person, just like I would say, hey, look for this guy. And so, uh, one day I talked to her the gal that was doing media at the time and I said, hey, see if you can find this guy. And she says, hey, I found something interesting. And I circled back and he is the new student pastor at a large first baptist church, and when I say large, I mean a good-sized church so I know he's got a good-sized youth group. He's like what?
Speaker 1:the heck. Yeah, so I call that pastor. Yeah, it's been like three years. I call that pastor and I said maybe it's been a year and a half, two years. It hadn't been that long. It was long enough that I think he thought I'm under the radar, I can resurface. So I call that pastor and I said, hey, before I get into this conversation, I want to tell you my name, the name of the ministry I'm a part of, and I want to give you some references from within the Southern Baptist denomination. And I'm not going to say those names here, but I put out the names of some very influential leaders one who was the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, maybe at that time or had recently been.
Speaker 1:One who was a vice president with the North American Mission Board, and one who was a vice president with the North American mission board and one who was a vice president with the international mission board. So these were very influential people. I'm like these men will speak for me to my credibility. Yeah, um, and I'd like to. I need, I need to have a conversation with you about your, your new student pastor. So just lay it out there.
Speaker 1:Well, the guy, the guy took it very serious and he was freaked out and he said here's, here's the problem. He is currently in the UK leading a mission trip of young of of college students. So I'm like my blood starts boiling. I mean, my blood was boiling, I wanted to fly, boiling, I wanted to fly, I wanted to fly to london. And I literally said to this guy hey, like literally told this pastor hey, I'll get on a plane and fly to london right now if you know where he's at. Yeah, I'll go confront this. Yes, because if not, the danger is if you've got a young man on this trip that's struggled with, yeah, same-sex attraction or who's real unstable, because a lot of young dudes they've been damaged or wounded, they carry daddy wounds and they're not gay, they don't have same-sex attraction, but they're very manipulatable easily manipulated and they're vulnerable in their weak place in their lives as they're forming their way into adulthood.
Speaker 3:That's the kind of guy predator is going to go after and I don't know, in a area of a mission trip or church group, like you're, even more vulnerable. You think you can trust these people.
Speaker 1:You know exactly your guard is down yep yeah, and you know as well as I do from doing camp ministry on those trips that guy guard is down and then starts to lean into late-night conversations. It starts playing out in my mind so. I tell this pastor I'm so serious about this I'll fly to. London right now.
Speaker 1:He said well, I'll get back with you, Let me make some calls. So I talked to the pastor the next day and he had sort of cooled off on this. He was no longer like he seemed very. He was seemed very freaked out, alarmed and urgent that first day. The next day he said, hey, I think you know we're gonna let him get back and we're gonna have a conversation.
Speaker 1:And I said well, I would like to come to your church and bring my leadership team yeah bring three brothers who we would like to make a formal biblical accusation against this man in the room with him and with you and your elders from your church. We want to do this right. We want to do it biblically. I want you to know how serious we are. I'm going to make a phone call and say what I say.
Speaker 1:So the pastor said I appreciate that. So I won't get into the weeds of what happened in this part of the story, but the dude didn't stay at this church, yeah it. The pastor didn't handle it the way I wish he would have, yeah, but it got taken care of and I think what he did was he let he let this guy give an accounting, and the guy knew that the pastor had talked to me. Yeah, and the guy, the guy just moved on. But the pastor didn't really. Anyway, yeah.
Speaker 1:So he moved on. So that was the end of that. Well, a few years later, we're sitting around the fire one night at camp, Me and a guy that was working at SWO at the time, Gar Bozeman, who our listeners will know. Gar Bozeman was preparing to go to the mission field we were going to send him out and he was going to go with an organization that SWO was looking to partner with. And so we're having a conversation me, Gar, I think, Rob and Spencer there, and a guy, a pastor, a friend of ours, a pastor named Duncan, who pastors a church in the same town as one of the young men that had been swept up in this thing yeah we're having a conversation about this guy and I said I haven't looked for that guy in in probably a year yeah um, let's see if we can track him down.
Speaker 1:I don't have facebook, I just google the guy's name yeah and I don't really get anywhere. And in the Gar starts looking for the guy and finds out the guy is now working for the missions organization that Gar was partnered up with. And Gar was in the fundraising stage and Gar had gone through all the background check stuff and the psych evaluation. Most missions organizations do a big psych evaluation because you're going to go live in another culture yeah and so um.
Speaker 1:In the conversation gar said man, this dude's working for this organization and he was working for this organization has two or three other organizations under their umbrella that are sort of independent operating. And he was. He was, with one of those who listen, work in London with college-age students doing mission trips. Yep, I'm like okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Which come to find out four years prior, when I called that pastor from that First Baptist Church and they were on that mission trip. That was the organization they were going through. So when this boy, when this dude, left that church, he just went with that he had made connections, so he joined up with that organization which told me he had made it through their psych evaluation.
Speaker 3:Yes. So this turns into Even just thinking of, like your references on your what's that thing called?
Speaker 1:On your application.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like how easy it was for him to manipulate and jump through those hoops. Yep Golly.
Speaker 1:Which predators are master manipulators. You see that I think I told y'all this. Maybe I might not have tell me if I didn't where the guy that was a predator who was a gym coach yeah, yeah, we were talking about that, yeah so for our listeners is there's a an interview it's probably seven or eight years old and a news uh it's. It's like a news um story where this lady, she's like a news reporter, she's interviewing this guy.
Speaker 1:It's like one of those shows like 48 hours or something and she's in his home and he is probably in his 70s and he did like 30 years in prison for sexual assault of children and he was a pe teacher and coach yeah and he was doing it uh, doing that when he was like in his 20s and 30s and he was sexually abusing these boys.
Speaker 1:And now he's in his 70s. He got released, he's home and she's interviewing him and he's just very candid. I mean it's, it's disturbing how casually he's talking about it. She says what were your targets? And he said I looked for for boys that I knew were vulnerable. They were poor. Um, that you know I would. I would start the grooming process by using treats, candy gifts, gifts, things like that win them over. But he said something that was interesting. He said I never messed with a boy that had the presence of a father in his life.
Speaker 1:He said if he had a dad who was invested in him, who was present, who was a strong presence in that boy's life. I didn't even go down that path. So he looked for boys that were vulnerable, and that's the way predators work. So, the point being, predators are master manipulators. They study situations and they manipulate people, and so this guy had manipulated his way into this organization, still married with two kids. I didn't even get into this, but part of that, the first blow up, was I said your wife's going to know, and he told her and I communicated with her and she knew.
Speaker 1:So he's still married with these kids and he's now working for this missions organization. By this point I want to say his youngest kid is like college age. So this has been years of this process, and so I want to wrap the story up. I want to wind it down, but what ends up happening is I end up in conversation in meetings with the president of this organization. I end up on a Zoom call with the person overseeing the team leader for all of the missionaries with this organization for.
Speaker 1:Europe and then the direct team leader for the team. This guy's on in London yeah, I'm on a Zoom call. I can still remember where I was at. I was coming out of West Virginia, I had been on a ministry trip. I'd been up to Chesapeake Mountain Ranch, I think, and I'm driving back and I had pulled over at a coffee shop where I could get good internet because I had to do this Zoom call. The head of the team in London, the VP over that organization, the regional European, like all Europe, this is a big missions organization. I'll just say it because they did their job well in this.
Speaker 1:It's Converge International. Converge is the organization and the way they handled this impressed me. I've got like four Converge officials a country guy, a team guy and then like a VP, and we're on a zoom call, yeah, and I told them the whole story. They said all right, we're gonna address it. And the the guy, the London guy. He said actually, um, I, I think he's gonna resign because he said I told him that we had something we were going to have to address, something that had come to our attention and I've got a meeting set up with him. And the guy said did you talk to Brody Holloway or the people from Snowbird Outfitters?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so he walked in his office.
Speaker 1:Walked in his office and knew that In London, england, he's in London, he's in the UK when you first told me that story.
Speaker 3:me and Katie were like it literally sounds like a scene out of like Taken or some like movie. Like he knows you're tracking him down, like you're not relenting.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, yeah, yeah, I think he knew it and he's, you know, he's living with a guilty conscience conscience looking over his shoulder.
Speaker 1:And so he resigned and they fired. They removed him. I think they fired him, removed him, yeah, and they removed him. I think they fired him, removed him. He didn't get to resign. They said you're done, and then they dealt with it. And so I ended up in Orlando, which is where the headquarters of Converge is, in a meeting with their new they call it like head of security. It's the guy when you go through the psyche valve. This is the new guy and he went back. He's the guy that you go through the psyche vow. This is the new guy and he went back. He's the guy that pulled all the records and he said he should have never made it into our organization. The person that did his psyche vow is no longer with that organization. He got fired. He got removed yeah converge is I.
Speaker 1:I give them thumbs up the way they handled it for sure um. So I'm still tracking a dude yeah uh, we, I recently tracked him like, found him. He's got an online presence. I had I had some folks in our media team yeah, um, look him up and yeah he's not working a ministry that I know of, but his children are now adults.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude's a sicko and a predator yeah so the point being um I if, if you're, if you're going to be in any kind of leadership like there's no days off. Yeah. And there's not like. You don't ever get to retire from it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's going to be some degree of commitment you've got to maintain and, jb, you know as well as I do the hundreds and thousands of young girls and boys that we've had to fill out reports on do mandatory reporting. We see a lot of abuse victims come through here and a lot of times the first time they've ever shared it is with us. And then also I will say this we're careful how we navigate that because kids lie too. We'll have a kid come in and make up a story and then we find out real quick. This is a very short story. We had a boy accuse another boy in the youth group of something and this boy was like a ninth grade kid and he accused this kid, who had just graduated from high school, of doing something inappropriate in the room and we addressed it and and ended up calling the. Uh.
Speaker 1:We had a, a, a police, a sheriff's investigator come in and talk to the boys and we got pretty far down that path and including I had a conversation with the accused older boy's dad. He called and I ended up on the phone with him and anyway, come find out, the little boy made the whole thing up. The ninth grade boy made the whole thing up, just to get at this older kid. So you know, we always we press into these things. We had a, we had a staff member in uh 2014. We had a summer staff member on week one of camp, on night one of camp. Let's see, no, it wasn't night. One Camp starts on Monday, a week of camp. So it was like I think it was on Thursday evening. It was either Tuesday night or Thursday. What night did we used to do the dunk contest and the block party?
Speaker 3:I think Tuesday night, because Thursday was rodeo.
Speaker 1:That's right thursday was rescue, so it was tuesday night. So camp started on monday, tuesday night of week one.
Speaker 1:This kid who's gone through our background check all of our staff training he's got a small group leader who's he's got a community group leader, a fire team leader. He's like very handled and he had on day one of rec on tuesday. He had isolated a, a girl, 14 year old girl, and really shown her a lot of attention. I think she's a little bit boy crazy maybe you know like just like getting attention from a 19, 20 year old dude, and so he had sort of done this like super fast, grooming with this girl and then that evening during the, during the block party, at slow he gets her off in a dark spot and it's just kind of putting the moves on her.
Speaker 1:I mean he didn't like full-on try to rape this girl yeah but he goes hands-on with her, yeah, gropes her breast, and one of our staff girls, thank god comes walking up as this girl it. It freaked this girl out enough, she pulled away from him and it created an awkward scene. So our girl comes walking up and says what's going on? And then he just kind of stumbles over his words and gets out of there. And but, we had him arrested that night Once. We we drilled into the situation, got all parties involved and he admitted to it on camera. We set up a camera, start recording, we interview him.
Speaker 1:You see, I did it, um, and we had him arrested. Yeah, and um, I was not allowed to interact with him. I think you know mugs and um rob, and and some folks realized it wouldn't be good for me to be in a room with that guy and so I was not allowed. They got before, they called me, they already had a sheriff's deputy and an investigator here, so I wasn't allowed to interact with that guy, which I think was wise. I think I had a problem. I don't know if I could have controlled my temper, but we had him arrested. I went and talked to the sheriff and said, hey, he's not welcome on property. I want to. I want to restrain an order or whatever. Yeah and uh, his granddad or dad or somebody came. He was a pastor's kid, but they came and picked him up from jail. They bonded him out within a few hours. He didn't spend the night in jail, I think he spent five hours in jail.
Speaker 1:They got him out of there and then I tracked that case and they pled it out to a misdemeanor. It should have been sexual assault of a minor. But it takes diligence and vigilance and a commitment, no matter how long it takes. Sad story, that young lady. We ended up her dad was a cop and we flew her dad and mom from their hometown. We flew them to Atlanta, rented them a car. They came on up we met with him.
Speaker 1:What do we need to do? How do we need to handle this? It was great. They were very gracious.
Speaker 1:They were thankful for the way we dealt with it yeah um, but that young lady I was killed in a car wreck last year. She would have been like 24, I think. Yeah, she got killed in a car wreck. I was talking with her. Her youth pastor is a good friend of mine. Yeah, but those you know. If you are in ministry long enough, you're going to have some heartbreaking stories, but you're also going to have some stories where you're going to need to act.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, I think when we're talking through this, there's a couple of things that come to mind, the first being, of like, at the very beginning of those two boys and even that youth pastor, you know being open with you and others, you know, to get help, I think, like that takes so much courage and like vulnerability and, like you said, it had the potential to be such a redeeming moment. But I was just talking with one of my friends of like there's some stuff that you are going to struggle with your whole entire life and we can't be naive to that, like you know. Like whether that's same-sex attraction or self-harm thoughts or like whatever it is, and so like I'm bad about, you know, dealing with something really heavily when it first arises. And then I'm like, okay, I can kind of take a step you know I dealt with that and then kind of like taken off the reins a little bit, but then it's like realizing, no, like I have to stay on top of this.
Speaker 3:So kind of like my heart breaks a little bit, cause it's like it the Lord has that redeeming power and but it's like you have to stay on that Like if you're almost in that position, of like you are struggling with same-sex or like whatever it is, even if it's gossip or lying, whatever it's like. Just you can't be naive to those things, you know, just staying like if it. It takes already so much boldness and courage to open up about those things and that's's such a great thing. But it's like even just in this story of like how Satan even turned that and use that and wrecked it. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes.
Speaker 3:And then also, um, a couple of years ago I watched this documentary on YouTube. It's called sheep among wolves and it's about I think it was made like 10 years ago, so it's about, um, the persecuted church and like Islamic and Muslim countries. Um, it's about, um the persecuted church in like islamic and muslim countries. Um, it's a pretty raw documentary.
Speaker 3:It's kind of a hard watch, but they're talking about, you know, obviously like sheep among wolves and in that instance they're talking about like I think when I in my like westernized america, american brain, I think sheep among wolves kind of like this story of like you know, kind of a sneaky person who might be like entrusted. You know they have like bits of truth. Like you know, they're just very manipulative, but in this documentary they're talking about, you know, like isis and like like very, I guess more like aggressive, like wolves per se. Um, but they interviewed this woman who, um, her family was under attack and they were able to move her family to america for protection and she said, within like two months of being in america, she said she almost wanted to go back just because of like the manipulation of you, you know, like, wow, like wolves per se quote unquote in Muslim and Islamic countries.
Speaker 3:You know, you know who they are. They dress like wolves. You know like they're. They're outwardly coming for you. They're not hiding that. They're coming for you.
Speaker 3:But she said in America within two months, like I just felt such like a sneaky attack on my family of these like wolves that are just so hidden and so manipulative, and when we got started talking about this, I was thinking about that like wow, like very scary and like eyeopening of like, yes, there are two very different types of wolves and are going to attack in very different ways. But it is like I think I just keep thinking like we can't be naive in situations Like, like you were saying, we have to have some sort of suspicion always. You know you don't want to always live like on edge or, like you were saying, like um in doubt, but it is like very crucial, especially if you're in a leadership position of any kind, you know, very crucial, especially if you're in a leadership position of any kind.
Speaker 1:You know. Yeah, I think you have to. You know, one of the things that we try to teach our staff and that I've tried to do in my own life and that I've tried to teach my kids is live, live, knowing. Just don't be naive and don't be paranoid. You know, I don't want to be paranoid and think everybody walks through the door as a wolf in sheep's clothing. Yeah. I don't want to think that everybody comes here as a manipulator. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't want to think every time I see a preacher on TV or on YouTube that he's that guy. Yeah, but I also don't want to be naive. Yeah, and there's people that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, swims like a duck, flies, it's a dadgum duck.
Speaker 1:But then, there's also people where it's not that cut and dry. You know, when you got these guys that have a track record of infidelity or they're multi-m, multi, multi-millionaire pastors who are, who are making a lot of money and you can, you can sniff it out, but then there's people like there's guys, that I just don't like. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like the like that verdict dude in Charlotte. I don't like that guy. Now I don't. I don't have any accusation against that guy where I can say, hey, that dude's manipulatingation. Against that guy where I can say, hey, that dude's manipulating me. But that guy lives in a $14 million house and wears a $2,500 sweater on Easter Sunday. I don't like him. Baby, I don't like him.
Speaker 1:Me and him don't need to be in the same room. I don't care how much he bench presses and curls looking at the mirror at his spray tan tank top to body, I don't care.
Speaker 1:I don't need to be in the same room with that guy. I don't like him, and that guy is an example of sometimes it's not like oh, I know that guy's a manipulator. I know he's an abuser or a wolf, maybe not. I think he's just lost his way. The main thing's no longer the main thing. So we need to not be paranoid where we think everybody's a predator. We need to not be naive where we trust everybody and so it's kind of living in that sense of discernment as Christians. The scripture says that the spiritual man is discerned. So trust the Holy Spirit to speak discerning discretion to you and if something feels off, trust that and press into that. If you get a weird feeling from somebody, maybe look into that and, as a dad or a mom, be vigilant, know what your kids are watching and who they're communicating with.
Speaker 1:As a youth pastor, speak the truth and pay attention to who's around, your students Like we got to be involved and I can tell you this I take my job very serious. We've got to be involved. I can tell you this I take my job very serious. I take my calling very serious. I take the fact that if 12,000 teenagers would come through SWO this year, that's 24,000 parents and 48,000 grandparents that are entrusting us for anywhere from two to five days with their kids. I take that serious.
Speaker 1:As a dad and a granddad, as a husband, as a pastor and a leader, I take it serious and I'm going to protect them while they're here I can tell you that and I'm going to protect them when they leave here if there's an opportunity to, and I think that's the mindset we've got to have.
Speaker 3:Yeah, A couple years ago, I think, at a Winterswo, spencer had one of his sermons about like sheep among the wolves and something that's always stuck with me is he uses the example of people who study like counterfeit money. They don't study all the fakes, they study the real, like US government, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:The real bill so that they know when a fake or a fraud comes in. That's not right. And so same thing with like. Like even sometimes I'll listen to documentaries or podcasts about like cults and it's like, it's crazy how kind of like you were saying like they start with truth, like it doesn't sound crazy, you know. Then they just slowly start to lose their way and then you know like it's just crazy Cause I'll even listen to like Colton. I'm like, no, that is like some of that aligns with what I believe, like you know, at the beginning of the cult and then they just start to lose their way. So it's like really just knowing truth and studying truth and like you were saying, I think that kind of combats of like not being paranoid, but if you know the truth in God's word, then you'll know when something comes across, it's like you know raises some red flags, or you know yeah, the closer a lie is to the truth, the more believable it is yeah.
Speaker 1:You know it's. It's those subtle little twists on the truth. Yeah, my cousin Scott, who we had on after the trump assassination attempt the retired secret service guy. That's where he's the one that was telling us about counterfeit money. And I because when? So secret service is now under maybe like department of homeland security, but when his career started it was under the department of treasury and he has some crazy stories where he's working counterfeit, they're busting counterfeit rings. And I asked him I was like how do you know?
Speaker 1:He said oh, I think I asked him how many types, how many counterfeit operations. He said thousands. He said you can never keep up with all the counterfeit stuff, so all you got to do is keep up with the real thing. You know what the real thing is. It doesn't matter if there's one counterfeit or 10,000 counterfeits, they will all be exposed because they're not the real bill. That's where the phrase the real bill came from. So, yeah, I think that the Lord has made it clear that, and by their fruit you'll know them. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1:And I think one of the things that has stood the test of time and legitimizes Snowbird so well is the fruit of those people that have come through this ministry and are now mamas and daddies, and leaders.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Even just this past summer, I think, we had four people that had originally worked with you back in Virginia circled back. Their kids are now working on staff.
Speaker 1:That's so cool, it's so crazy, yeah yeah, that we uh, harry and I finishing up the, the last the books going to the final edit. This Friday is the deadline, then it'll head off for the final edit. But in the intro there's a section where and we've got a picture where, in 1997, I brought a work crew down from that camp. I was working at.
Speaker 1:And the Fletcher kids their mom was on that trip, the Rays their dad and mom were on that trip Josh and Danielle, and then the Rammels Austin Rammel was on that trip. Crazy. So, crazy. Yes so generations now of ministry, almost 30 years later, 28 years later, crazy, yeah, Crazy, crazy years later 28 years later.
Speaker 3:Crazy, yeah, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 1:All right, everybody can keep your head on a swivel. There's crazy people, people out there. Oh, one other thing I want to say before we wrap this up. Uh, no, two things. Two things to wrap it up. One, the the two young men in that story. I want people to know that we stayed very connected to them. Eventually, we lost them, they walked away. But the young man that was here as an intern, we had to remove him.
Speaker 1:Um, he wasn't able to stay in this because we got guys living yeah in dorms together so quarters, very close quarters, and it just it was too much to try to, there was no way we could could really. So what we did is he moved off campus and got a job and we met with him weekly for that next year and then he went off to school or something like that. So it is important to continue to do the hard work of you know, I think a lot of people are like, yeah, I want to be the tough guy that chases off the predator. Yeah. Oh no, that was the easy part. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Telling that guy I'm going to crack his skull is easy. Doing the hard work of trying to pick up the pieces and minister to those boys over the next year was very difficult. Yeah, and then, just so people know how serious we take security. Um, just so people know how serious we take security, I mean we just went through a three day security training, our annual training here, where we bring in class of guys that we can't even post their name because they donate the time. They are state department employees who train federal agents. One of them has written the curriculum for active shooter training for government agencies and law enforcement agencies.
Speaker 1:Um, and so, just so people know we take every aspect of this serious, we have, in a worship service at the Super Coop, at Snowbird Outfitters, we have six armed people in strategic positions. I'm not talking about just oh, I've got a concealed carry permit and I've got a gun. Like no. We have six people positioned strategically around the building For people to know what this means. We have two long guns. That means not just somebody with a pistol in their belt. We have two long guns in strategic positions in case an active shooter shows up. We go to those lengths, but where we're going?
Speaker 1:to see damage done is going to be a youth pastor. He's a predator, or? A dad or a you know what I mean, yeah, so anyway, I want to do another one of these. I've got a couple other stories I'd like to tell one that I want to tell. Uh, maybe when we get offline here I'll go ahead and tell you and see if you think it'd be a good one, okay that's crazy um but stories from around the globe.
Speaker 1:That's part of what we do and I think people connect with these. So thank y'all for listening and we'll catch you next week.
Speaker 4:Thanks for listening to no Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at SWOutfitterscom to see all of our programming and resources, and we'll see you next week on no Sanity Required.
