Decisions That Save Your Life with Guest: Duaine Johnson | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

Foreign. Hey, guys. I want to welcome you again to Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real, raw, and relevant. And it's fairly obvious this is not Hope.

I'm not passing Hope.

Fairly obvious. So I don't think I had to tell anybody that right out of the gate. I want you to hang around. We're going to take two or three minutes and just, you know, clown around and. And have some pleasantries. But actually, what I'm talking about today is probably as transparent and as. As deep as I got now, actually, probably have to go through one or two of them and try not to get choked up. But we're talking, we promise things on this podcast that you just. You can't get anywhere else. And kind of bringing you behind the veil in our life because I think people like to see the real part of you. Yeah. You know, there's a time where I'm functioning in my gift, but I'm. I am not my gift, and so I don't function in it all the time. It's something that God has given me, and it's to be used for other people, but when I'm disengaged from that, I'm run.

Yes, sir.

I have highs, I have lows. I'm happy. I get disappointed. I can be hurt. I can be wounded. I can be everything everybody else can. And sometime, I think, especially in the social media age, we show everybody our highlight reel and. And we don't talk about our pain. Well, here's the thing that I've learned. I've seen a whole lot more people connect to my pain than they do my triumph.

Yes, sir.

So I'm gonna talk about some of those things now. Here's the topic. So you need to subscribe. If you hadn't done it, you need to download whatever you need to download. You need to, like, you need to share. You need to send it to somebody. I don't know how you're getting this podcast, but go help us out, because whatever you do richly helps us to get this in more people's hands and before more people's eyes. All right, I want to talk about the decisions that have defined me.

Wow. Man, that's so good.

The decisions that have defined me, and.

I don't think I've heard these.

I've never talked about some of them that people may. Well, if I weave some of these stories into a message, nobody tells everything.

Yes, sir, that's true.

You know, like when somebody say, well, I share my testimony.

Well, you didn't tell me all of it.

You don't really share all your testimony.

Wasn'T Craig at all.

That was a PG version of testimony. But there were a lot of triple X things that were going on that we left those parts out. We didn't know if you were ready. And, you know, am I going to vomit it all out here in the next few minutes? I don't know about that, but I want to get. I will say more than I would by far say within a sermon.

Yeah.

I've probably woven at times some of these into my messages, but never talked about it in detail.

Yeah.

But I remember when I root, when I ran this by you, you like, wow. You know, I don't know how many people are doing that. So I love to come on the podcast, especially with hope and laugh.

Yeah.

But I just. This, this is what came to my spirit kind of in my prayer time, you know, Lord, I got this podcast coming up. What do you want me to do? And so I don't really have notes or anything. It's unscripted. Any thoughts that you want to hit me with before we start going?

I got to tell you what, what I love right away is it normalizes our humanity. You know, it's kind of like the professional athlete, Anyone who's elite at what they do, you start just getting associated with the performance and it becomes hard for the normal person to really connect because their life is full of the mundane, you know, and they see you with all of this power and demonstration of such excellence, and they're like, man, Pastor Ron is struggling like me, disappointed like me, frustrated like me. He had to work through this like me.

But can I, can I be honest right now? Can I. Let me, let me. Before we get started in my. In my decision, let me right here. I've noticed that a lot of people struggle when I show them my humanity because they. They want pastor or apostle Ron. Y.

That's good.

And. And when I. When I maybe put something on Facebook or on Instagram or whatever it may be, that's kind of me in a different light. Here's what I've noticed. I've noticed the younger generation. Love, loves it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I've noticed the older generation is like, no, I don't want you to be that. I want you. I don't want you to be. I don't want you to be on a beach. I want you to be Pastor Ron. And I got to be honest about that because I'll just put something very light hearted on there and you can almost. And the thread see the disappointment yeah.

You can feel that.

Wow. You're like me. And there is a generation of millennials, I think, that we want to know our pastor struggles.

Yeah.

I think the generation that I come from and before me, we want to think differently. We want to think they're different.

Yeah, absolutely.

They're not like me.

Different's a great word.

They're not like me. They are very different from me. And I think that was what they cling to, is the fact that the man of God or the woman of God in my life, he isn't like me. And to me, that's what I guess credited them with, their followship.

Yeah.

Is. He's. He's different. And I need to be. Aspired to move in the direction that he goes in. And so I have noticed that dichotomy in my life. I am not the last generation. I'm not the new one. I'm kind of sandwiched between two. We've talked about that.

Yes, sir.

So I kind of. I'm one of those oddballs that. That has relevance to two generations. And so. But those two generations are so different.

Yeah. The extremes of it. And I think for my generation, it, like, it disconnects you because, you know, it. I don't want to say it's fake, but it feels that way. Nope. Nobody. We're all working out our salvation, and I don't need someone to lay their complete laundry list of sins down before me. And they're not living for God. But the fact that you can still walk with him and be real is a game changer.

It's.

The kingdom is a treasure hidden in a field.

And I don't want to be hypocritical. I got to go on. But I even did that. I had leaders that. When I was coming up and I was in my 20s, man, these guys were just.

They're heroes to us.

Oh, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I remember right when I started being welcomed in some of those rooms. I remember one time I went in the very first room with anybody that operated really on a great level. And I remember I was in there, and they told a joke. It wasn't a bad joke.

Yeah, I got you.

Wasn't dirty. Wasn't bad. But hearing him tell that joke, devastated.

It's a different life.

Devastated me. Because this person, you know, this person, they cast out devils, and they heal the sick man, and they're holy, and they got this aura around them, and they glow in the dark when they walk. And when I heard him tell, you know, just kind of A, you know, a locker room type joke. Because he had guys that were his peers and he was in a down moment and he trusted me to see him in that down moment. So I was challenged. I was challenged because. Can I see your humanity but still believe God can use you?

Yeah, that's the thing.

And if you can't. If you can't see my humanity and still believe that I'm God's man when it's time, then that's a person that I probably cannot have a deep relationship with. AB because if. If I got to be apostle all the time. You deplete me. You wear me out.

Yeah.

Because your gift does not replenish you, it depletes you. And so you have to pull out of it to be replenished.

Yes.

That's why I think Hollywood people, their life deteriorates and even suicidal and everything else. Because every time you walk out of their house, they're an image.

Yeah.

You're performing. Yeah. Everybody knows the image that's on the stage or on the movie screen. And the fact is, those are just people. They have a gift.

That's right.

But when they just walking down to get some ice cream and then all of a sudden you throw them in that image and the paparazzi is there and everything else. Nobody can keep that standard 24 hours a day.

Nobody. Nobody. None of us.

And so they get to the place that it almost makes them mad, makes them crazy. So I want to hasten on. I'm eight minutes into it. I meant to spend about five.

I'm sorry.

No, that's fine. And feel free to interject here. I think the now I'm not. I'm obviously getting saved. Obviously marrying hope, obviously having kids. Those are the biggest decisions. I'm talking about my journey.

Yes, sir.

Talking my journey in ministry. And here's what I want, where I want to start. I've been saying this a lot lately. I believe what separates a lot, not all, a lot of successful versus unsuccessful people is two things. The decisions you make in times of failure and whether or not you can manage disappointment. We'll say that again. The decisions you make when everything is falling apart and when disappointments come, can you manage them? There's some people that their life rises when things rise and they just plummet when things plummet. And I'm going to tell you, life moves too much for my emotions to be controlled by that.

That's good. Yeah.

And so I try not to put my emotional health in the hands of things that are happening around me.

That's right.

I try. I can't tell you I'm not affected. We had a deal fall through a while back that was very big for everything, Redemption, and the whole ministry, and it fell through at the last minute after a year of looking forward to this time. And I'm telling you, I had to fight and fight and fight because it was like a kick in the teeth. It was like a kick in the gut, and. But then I. I remind myself of these moments when I get out here and say what you do.

Yeah.

When you're trying to manage disappointment will be some of the things that define you. So the first one is when I was raised in a denomination and immediately graduated Bible school and started an independent church.

Wow, man. And you're raised in it. That's all you.

Oh, my dad bled denominational blood.

Yeah.

I mean, my. And you gotta understand, my dad was, you know, here's Jesus and here's my dad.

Yeah.

You know, so a very difficult thing because my dad was a. Was a denominational man to the core. Gave his life for it. Died in office. Jeez. My dad went to be with Jesus in office in a denomination. So that. That tells you. Yeah, that tells you his commitment to it. And for his son to come up through those churches, go to those youth camps, even go to its schools, and then immediately decide what I'm going to do. I need to get outside of it immediately. I sent shock waves through everybody who knew me.

What sparked that.

For me and you, my skin color and your skin color to sit here on this stage and be friends and do what we're doing.

Wow.

And it wasn't that I was a part of a racist denomination. Please don't say. Don't. Don't misinterpret that. It was that that denomination was all white, culturally.

Yeah, I gotcha.

That the cultural distinctives of everything about that denomination, unless it was mission work, was all white, which became a barrier for diversity. So as soon as you threw that on the sign, there were people that were never going to part the doors of that church culturally.

Wow.

They didn't feel welcome. They didn't feel apart. And somehow at 21 years old.

That's what I'm talking about. Exactly.

I made that bold decision that what I want. Excuse me. What God has called me to do cannot be done within this system. I didn't dislike the system. The system's not a bad system because when you leave it, you lose all that support.

Yeah.

So there's all kind of support that I forfeited. In those beginning days that I had to walk out of. But I knew I been in locker rooms. I. I've said this before. I'm going to brag on myself a little bit.

I could ball.

I was a white boy, and I'm tell you, I could play ball. I could play ball. Football, basketball, especially. And. And you know that. That bring. That gives you credence with the brothers.

Absolutely. No doubt about it. That gives you street. I can sit here and deny.

Yeah, that gives you street credibility. And I could take that little rubber Wilson ball, that $8 ball, put it on my hip and go walking down the streets and playing on them city courts where the chains were on there, and it was one white there, and his name was Ron Carpenter. So my brothers and my camaraderie and my world became extremely multicultural. The locker rooms were multicultural. The huddle was multicultural. Everything at the weight room was multicultural. I went to war with my brothers, and then I can't go start a church where everybody looks like me. Do you see what I'm talking about?

Yes, sir.

So I went outside the system, and that was a battle right out of the gate where I lost a lot of friends.

You started out in a battle?

I started out fighting in a battle. I mean, I started out behind the eight ball before I've even had a chance to take a breath. And I caught a lot of flack for that, and I lost a lot of friends because of that. And there were things even down the road by different administrations after my dad passed. And I'm just going to put it out there because on this show, I don't care. My dad, by virtue of being in authority, kind of kept some of the heat off me. He could buff it, but when he was gone, there were some things that happened that, to me, felt like they were highly personal, and I regret that, and I hate that. And you know what? Sometimes people just don't understand why you're doing what you do, so they take offense to it. And it wasn't that I don't like you. It was that I got to do something different.

Yes, sir.

To go where God wants me to go. Let me hold that thought for just a moment. We got somebody that we got to talk about here for just a moment, and it's better help. Okay, so this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You know, how do you feel at the end of your season? Do you look forward to holidays? Maybe you struggle with seasonal blues and anything else, you know, during those times that may get you down or may somehow emotionally Drain you Listen, this time of the year can be a lot and it's natural to feel some sadness or anxiety about it. But adding something new and positive to your life can counteract some of those feelings. Therapy can be a bright spot amid all the stress and change. Something to look forward to, to make you feel grounded and to give you the tools to manage everything that is going on. Therapy is helpful for learning positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. Man, that's so good. It empowers you to be the best version of yourself. And it isn't just for those who have experienced trauma. Really for everyone. If you're thinking about starting therapy, give Better Help a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire, get matched with a licensed therapist, and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge. Okay. Find your bright spot this season with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp. Let me say it again. BetterHope. BetterHelp.com RonandHope today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L P.com RonanHope we appreciate our guys at better help and not being hypocritical. I've been through therapy.

Yes, sir, me too.

My marriage has been through therapy. I've taken my family through therapy. So I am big on this and these guys have found a way way to do it right. So we appreciate you better help. So I think had I not made that decision at 21, I would not be sitting here with has to be one of the top five most multicultural churches in America.

Absolutely no doubt about it.

I might be being. It might be number one. But I'm just trying to be nice.

Absolutely.

But I, I don't. I've never walked into a church where more nationalities are represented than the one I pastor right now.

And that's just incredible prophetic instincts at 21 years old.

And I've never really felt like my dominant gifts were prophetic. But I just something in me, something in, you know, something in me knew I can't do that here. And I love those folk and they're still my heritage and I'm grateful for every thing that they just drove in me that became a virtue.

How did you posture that conversation for somebody who might struggle with man, I might have to leave this to get where God is calling me.

I've had conversations about that today.

Yeah. Did you talk to your dad today?

Yeah, me and my dad had a lot because I couldn't let me and my dad made sure to not let it get us sideways in the family.

Yeah, yeah.

And a lot of that my dad. I'm going to tell you, my dad took some heat. I think there was one election in that denomination. They elect their state officials and their national officials. My dad was the top man. And I think there's one election, honestly, that he lost, and I think he lost it because of me. And I told my dad, I said, dad, I really got to pull back from being seen with you all the time, because they think that if they elect you, you're going to slam me down their throat. And so we've got to quit sending that message. And I mean, with tears, we had that conversation and realized, you know, for him to do it, he's got to do. Ron's got to get away from him a little bit. So these things. These are things people don't know. These are conversations nobody's ever talked about. And, man, I love my daddy with a passion that is unreal. But we had to navigate through troubled waters because I think a little bit at first, he didn't even really understand, you know, you can do that here. But I knew. I knew I couldn't. So that was one of them. And every one of these things, stuff I could talk about for an hour. Yeah, there's a lot of details in that right there. And one of the second things, I. I typed them. I didn't type them. I just put me some things in here that I want to make sure I hit the right ones. Confronting a money guy. When I started my church, we had nothing. Nothing. And because I wanted to start an outreach church and I wanted to create a home for the people nobody wanted. The people that came were takers. They were not givers. They couldn't help that that was the place they were at in life. But it's just the nature of what I had. So we struggled a long time with resources, and I had Mr. Deep Pockets come through the door. This gentleman was retired. He had had a very successful life in Michigan. Sold the company that he built millions of dollars, lived in the most prestigious neighborhood in all of Greenville county at that time. I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars, RV parked outside, vacation homes in different states. He had really done well, started coming to my church. He was the only guy and the first guy like that I'd ever had, making a lot of stuff short. Well, his tithe alone funded the vision at least 50%. He's probably 50% of our operating revenue. And he was generous, quite honestly, and.

He probably knew it.

That's where I'm going. But as time went on, he kept wanting to have little meetings with me, telling me what he wanted me to do and what he wanted me to do was not a part of the vision. And one of them was Sunday night services. I was committed to midweek. I was committed to different forms of discipleship, and I was committed to multiple Sunday morning services. Sunday night services, to me, I grew up with them. And to me, they were always anti climactic. People went there out of obligation, not out of passion. Usually people were tired. People usually wanted to have already gone home from church and be with their family watching football. So to me, it was always something. We got to go to church tonight and I don't want the house of God to ever feel like that.

Yeah. Amen. Yes, sir.

So it was a part of my vision. I'm not going to do Sunday night service now. There's people out there, most servants, most churches anywhere don't do Sunday night anymore. So you're sitting there saying, what's the big deal? I'm talking about in the 19 early 90s.

Yeah, absolutely.

Coming out of a denominational background, we're saying, I'm not going to have Sunday night service was right up there with blaspheming the Holy Spirit.

Yeah.

So these are. You can understand the weight of these decisions within the pressure of the Christian community.

Absolutely.

Was huge.

Yeah. At a formative time in your ministry.

You know, very, very formative. And I'm. And, and so this gentleman really wanted Sunday night services. And he. The meetings were a little more intense and a little more. At first, they were suggestive. And it then came down to, if this don't happen, me and my wife will leave. And basically here was the threat. When we go, you know what's going with us? Our money goes, wow. And he knew that. And for the first time in my life, God was testing me. Will I serve God or Mammon? Because I went and looked at the books and I knew if that guy walked, I didn't know any way that church could stay open, man. But I was confronted. Will I please man, or will I please God? And I believe this was a test from God. I really do. I look back on it, God tested me. Are you going to cower under the pressure of men? Are you one of those men of God like Elijah, you'll stand before Ahab and say, it's not going to rain until I say it's raining?

Yes, sir.

Which kind are you? And I'm not going to sit here and try to tell everybody. Ah, man, I struggled.

Yeah.

And I called a meeting with him and I'm in my 20s, you know, and he's late 60s.

Yeah.

And I'm very respectful. I'm a country boy, Southern Christian, so I'm big on respecting my elders. But I had a meeting with him and we didn't have a conversation. I said I needed to talk to you face to face and tell you I'm going to stick with the vision God gave me, sir. And I looked at him and said, because I cannot be bought and my vision cannot be bought. And so if that means you have to go, I said, then I speak blessings over you, but we'll have to part ways. And he left. And guess what? And we struggled. God didn't back a Brinks truck up to my church the next day, the next week.

Yeah, exactly.

We struggled. But I look back on it, had I had kneeled to that, yes sir, I would have had a lid on my ministry the rest of my life because everybody that would have been a heavy contributor. I would have been a man pleaser the rest of my life.

And there's a potential precedent that even as we grow to 20,000, what other opportunities am I given that I won't be willing to. That's incredible.

Exactly right. Well, guys, you know what? Coming up around here at the holiday season, nobody wants to hear about credit scores, but I've had to rehab my credit score actually several times. Yeah, school loans. I remember one time, I remember one time, doctor bills took me down. I didn't have any insurance when we had our first child. I did everything I could, but man, they just started turning me over to collections. And I mean, it just, I mean my. So I've had two or three times in my life where I've really had to totally completely rehab my credit. You may think credit score is no big deal, but if you're dealing with a low credit score or no credit score at all, this would really be a problem for you and your financial goals. That's why millions of people swear by Chimes. Secured credit card builder. Visa Credit Card Credit Builder is just a better way to build credit. You build your credit score safely and with everyday purchases and on time payments. Plus there's no annual fee or credit check to get started. You can use it everywhere. Visa credit cards are accepted. And build credit using your own money. Your credit's a big deal, so build yours up with chime. Just open a Chime checking account with 200 plus qualified direct deposit to get started. Get started@chime.com runandhope that's chime.com the Chime Credit Builder Visa credit card is issued by Stride bank in a member FDIC Chime checking account and $200 qualifying direct deposit required to apply and out of network ATM withdrawal fees may apply on time. Payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score and late payment may have a negative impact on your credit score. And results may vary. But take it from two people who know you need good credit in this world. I know Dave Ramsey has said some other things, and I certainly respect what he's done, but I think you need good credit in this world. Thank you, Chime, for being a partner with us. We're grateful. Everybody go check that out. I don't like to go much over a half hour and we're at 27 minutes. So the last two are the biggest, but I'll try to do them in the quickest amount of time. And maybe we don't get to the last two. The third one was the FBI investigation. We were doing a subdivision for single moms. Redemption was a huge church in a small city. And we had a lot of horsepower. Not just resource horsepower, but we had a lot of manpower. We had a lot of volunteerism. And we were a force for Jesus. We really were. Excuse me. And so we did a lot of community things. We had grant writers. We did George Bush, did the Faith Based Initiative. We did a lot of partnerships with government programs and had a lot of success. Tons. One of my newest ventures was I was trying to help mothers that really didn't have a prayer of ever owning property, have a home. Because your position financially shifts when you are a property owner. And so we started an endeavor. I got a company out of Charlotte, North Carolina, to come and head it up. We wrote out a business plan together. I did all my due diligence. We checked that company out. They passed with flying colors. I went to my. I knew all my government officials. I went to the state attorney general, put the plan in front of him. He checked off on the plan. He said, this is amazing. If it works, let's do it in Columbia and Charleston, too, man. So we did. I want to say we did everything.

Yes.

Okay. I wasn't stupid. I'd been around the block a couple of times, and we did everything. We got into this, and I was in San Francisco, of all places, way back then, had no idea I'd live out here. One day doing a pastor's conference, and my CFO called me, said, you need to get on the Next plane home, I'm like, what's going on? He said, I just really need to talk to you when you get here. So, you know, that sent a chill down my spine. I don't get many calls like that. I flew. I think I took a red eye and flew back. And the guy who headed up the company out of Charlotte that was helping us with the business model had been having coffee shop meetings with people in the church and getting them to invest in his company in North Carolina without my knowledge.

Oh, man.

That was not a part of the business model. That was not a part of the plan, nor would I have ever agreed to anything like that. And he was doing it with unseasoned investors, with no paperwork.

Jesus.

So by the time I found out about it, this was $1.2 million.

What?

And people. 4,000, 2,500, 5,000. He had had that many meetings. You know, we had a church of 22,000 members, and he was just working it. I had no idea. Well, the guy's gone, and we've never seen him since. To this day, we don't know where he is. They found a car, a Ferrari, in a storage shelter in Raleigh, North Carolina. And that's the only thing I've ever heard they found.

Wow.

So I don't know if the guy's a pro or what. But anyway, he was gone and the money was gone. And so these people went and got a lawyer, and the lawyer said, this guy's a professional. He's gone. You're never going to see him again. If you want your money back, go after your preacher.

Oh, my goodness.

And that was a blow. So they all get. They all lawyer up and they sue me. They don't sue the church.

Not the church.

They sue me. And these are my people. I'm pastoring. This ended up being, I think, about 200 people in a class action lawsuit against me. Taking me to eeoc, taking me to Better Business Bureau, taking me to sled, which South Carolina Law Enforcement division. Then eventually they turned me over to the FBI. Wow. And FBI was. It was. It was the most awful time. I can't explain it. Crawling through every hole we had. And, I mean, because you got to understand, when somebody like the government shows up, you're fighting someone with unlimited resources and time. They stayed there three years. They would walk in with badges and make everybody in the administration building go stand in the parking lot, and they walked out with all the computers. I mean, they were trying to lock me up. I'm just telling you, they were trying to lock me up.

My God.

Because once they make that kind of investment, they don't lose.

Yeah, exactly.

And I'm sure, you know, they don't do government compliance in Bible school.

Yeah.

So I'm sure if you looked all over me with that kind of scrutiny, you'll find something I didn't do, right? Yeah. You know. You know, we do everything we can to run a clean organization, but I'm sure. I'm sure I've done something somewhere that wasn't right. And, I mean, I literally left at home the anxiety. And that's really when Hope started falling apart.

Oh, I can't imagine I'm falling apart.

The pressure on my home, the news taking it up because we were such a big church, and people loved to believe all kind of crazy perversions and lies about big church preachers.

Yeah. It's almost like they wish.

All they got to do is accuse you. All they got to do is accuse you. And you're fighting.

I didn't find you guilty.

You're fighting for your life. And so, I mean, I'm going and having interviews. I went to the most popular radio station, did a call in show live, man. And people are eating me alive. FBI. All of our money going to lawyers. All of our money going to accountants.

Wow.

My. My kids. I'm having to get my kids and take them out of school and homeschool them was bad. It was really bad. And. And, you know, you got to get up every Sunday morning, preach. Preach with a smile on your face and. And hug broken people, you know, And. And it hurt me because, honestly, all those people knew better.

Y.

This time. I've been pastoring 20 years. I. I didn't. I didn't show up yesterday.

Exactly.

And so anyway, we went. We went on with the. The lawsuit, and then we ended up in mediation. And it's three years of this. It was awful. I was so defeated. I'd lost weight. I was 35, 36, 37, those three years. And I literally. This gray right here and all around my ears started coming out in my mid-30s. This distress and the. Am I going to jail? You know, so we handled. I remember three days after Christmas, December 28, we went into mediation, and me and Hope had just paid off our house. Nobody in my family's ever owned a house, ever in my bloodline, ever. Jesus and me and hope, 20 years, and we just paid off our house, and we went into mediation. And I did that because my lawyer, he said, ron, if you go to court, you're going to win. He said, but you're going to lose. He said, because these people desire is not to win a court battle. These people's desire is to so crush your integrity that your church empties out and you go bankrupt. He said, so if you want to take it, because I'm a fighter. And when he told me that, I remember I just broke down and started weeping because I was so angry. You know, people would do that.

Yeah.

People I love and people I cared about. These are people who. Most of them, I could call their name. What were they trying to prove? They were trying to prove that I had given this guy entre to my people to help them, and then he was going to give me kickbacks. So they were going through everything. We had to try to see where Ron Carpenter had made a nickel off this thing.

Nothing.

That's ridiculous. Yeah, but that's why they were there.

Yeah.

And. And, you know, and they didn't stop. It was relentless. Just. Just ruthless the way they handled it. And so we went and we settled for an amount that meant I had to sell my house and give every dime of it to them people. So the first house I had ever owned, that took me 20 years, I.

Had to sell it because they came.

After, and I had to give it because they came after me. And so the church had to pay half the money, and I had to pay half the money. And after the mediation was over, if you've never been in it, you got you in one room, you got the plaintiff in the other room and the defendant, one plaintiff. And you got lawyers that go back and forth. And so this was about 11 hours of exhaustion. And then we finally settled. And I remember after we signed the papers, I was just. Just numb. And I just sat there in a room like, couldn't believe what was going on. Dreading going back, tell him, hope I got to sell my home, you know. And one of the people, the church members who got the money from me, knocked on the door. He said, I want to see Pastor. And our lawyer said, that's not. That's not kosher. We're not going to do that. And I looked down, I thought, not let him in. And he was the class action. Had got 12 people to represent them. They didn't have 200 there, they had 12. And he was the leader of the 12. And he came in and I just looked at him. Known the guy for years. I was his pastor. And this is what he said. He looked at me and said, we know you didn't do nothing, Pastor. We Just had to get our money, man, if I've ever wanted to quit. And you know how the enemy knows how to work that thing. Look at the level of blood you have spilled for them and for this and the first chance they got. And I'm just going to tell you, man, that stuff was running through my head. It was running through my head. And I was going home and my kids were a mess and I was going home and my wife was falling apart. My integrity was shot. My church was suffering. We were financially exhausted. And I ain't even dealt with the FBI part yet.

Jeez.

So then I get called in by the FBI to the headquarters. Now, Dwayne, this is like. I feel like I'm freaking in a James Bond movie.

Yeah, this is amazing.

I'm just a country boy from Possum Kingdom who went to Bible school and wanted to get some people saved.

Yes, sir.

And so I go to headquarters and it's just like the movies. It's stainless steel furniture, it's bolted to the ground. There's a two way mirror just like the way the movies are. And I'm sitting in there, I felt like Al Qaeda. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, how the mess did I get get here? How did I get here? What in the world has happened? And so the two FBI agents came in and it was just as intimidating as it. And I remember having a meeting with Hope. If I don't come home, here's where this is. Here's where this is. I didn't know if I was going. I didn't know why they called me up there. Were they going to cuff me and lock me up? I didn't know, man. And so I went and had that meeting and the guy said, well, we declared you clean.

Well, that makes me feel great.

But see, but here's the thing. I'm. I'm ex. My hair is gray. Yeah. I'm broke. I'm exhausted. You know, I've lost so many people. I'm hemorrhaging reputation, everything. And. And I just kind of sit there. I didn't even have a response. I'm like, why now? After three years? And this is what they told me. They said, well, for starters, you are the first person in history to ever walk in here without a lawyer. Wow. I said, do you know why I walked in without a lawyer? I said, because I don't have any more money. I said, and you don't have a question I can't answer.

I haven't been trying to hide anything.

I haven't done anything. I never had done anything. I was trying to tell you I hadn't done anything. You don't have a question, I won't answer. I hadn't ran from you one day and I'm out of money. That's why I don't have a lawyer. And secondly, they told me, you know, they couldn't find anything thing and they declared me clean. That was the only time I looked at walking away from ministry forever. I'm not talking about walking away from my church, walking away from what I do, because it. The enemy really got in my head. You know, look what you've given and now look where you're at, man. And can I tell you something? I had a hard time pulling out of that. I think if you were to listen to my preaching between 08, that was January of 08, 08 to around 2010, I think you would have seen my preaching kind of take a dip. I struggled. I struggled. I struggled with God. I struggled with myself. I struggled with ministry. I struggled with everything because it was so brutal. And number one, it was brutal and cruel the way it was carried out. Number two, I suffered tremendous loss. Number three, devastation in my family. And number four, it happened from people I love dearly.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so that made it hard to weather. I don't have time for number four, which is obviously fighting for my marriage. I was going to end on that one. We don't have time. But those are three decisions in my journey that I think defined who I am and where I am today. And so I'm not going to take. I'm not going to turn this into an altar call. But if you are in that season of managing disappointment, and if you are in that season of failure, I'm just going to tell you, in all three of these, the money guy, the pulling out of the denominational system, the FBI investigation, all three of those had the opportunity to either take me out or get me off course.

Yes, sir.

So the decisions you make during those difficult times when life has so disappointed you will be the ones. Do I stay on course or will this knock me off track for the next 10 years? And quite honestly, the decision is yours. And you got to find the grace in God to weather those moments. Any comments on what I've said? We kept them far too long.

Oh, man. Pastor. I'm trying to hold back and keep it together. That's. Yeah, that's unbelievable.

Tough days. Tough days. And those are things a lot of people would never know. There's probably people Watching this say, man, I would have never dreamed. Yep. Because, you know, I got up and I did my job.

Yep.

But there was a couple of years out of that. I was plowing. I was plow. I was plowing for revelation, plowing for inspiration. And I was angry and I was hurt.

I wish I could ask how you can hurt.

I was angry and I was hurt. And there's nothing worse than a bitter preacher because he gets in a microphone and he spews his poison all over everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't want to be that guy. Yeah. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to spray my poison everywhere. Nothing worse than a bitter preacher. So to find the grace in God to overcome that and continue to love, not let that thing rob me of my ability to love people.

And I imagine the folks kept coming to church.

Well, we started after that. We started our greatest day.

Yeah. Yeah.

So it was probably used as a revealer because God, when you think you're losing God, is usually revealed. The people who can't go to the next place. Wow. But it was painful the way the filtering happened. I love you guys. I appreciate it. I hope you hung in there with me. Don't go lay in the road because you're depressed after hearing my stories. That ain't what I want you to do. I just wanted to encourage you that there's. That you've seen me do this, but you didn't know what I was going through while I wasn't in front of the microphone. And I believe what I did while I wasn't in front of the microphone has qualified me to be behind the microphone.

Yes, sir.

Because this God we serve and the promises he gives, it's real. And I have been restored more than sevenfold, like the Bible says.

Yes, sir.

And I'm in a place that I never could have been without God. So I had to pillar my pillar, pillow my head.

Yeah.

On his promises in my most desperate hours. And God will do what he said he will do.

Yeah.

I love you guys. I love you, Pastor Dwayne. I appreciate you for being here with me. And next week, maybe we'll bring hope back on this thing and light. Make it. Make it a little lighter. All right. I hope you've enjoyed it. If you know this will help somebody, let them know. Until next time, it's Ron and Hope. Real raw and relevant. Unfiltered. We'll see you later.