An Army of Normal Folks - Bishop Martin: My Small Church Adopted 77 Kids (Pt 1)

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Bishop is the inspiration for Angel Studio’s latest film, Sound of Hope. And we hope his story will inspire an adoption revolution in America.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It don't make no sense that you have 400,000 children in a system and you got over 400,000 churches in this world. Do the math. What is one church? Every church in America would take one child. What we will empty this thing completely out. And if you got to go all the way to Possum Trot, to show where Lil' Troy sitting back in the woods

with literally nothing, to say, hey, look, we're gonna do something about the problem. We see we got the problem and we understand the problem, but we're gonna do something about it. And you get 23 people to adopt 77 children out of the system with nothing? Come on, now let's be real. Welcome to an army of normal folks.

I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father, I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis. And that last part, it somehow led to an Oscar for the film about our team. That movie is called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox but rather by an army of normal folks. Us, just you and me deciding,

hey, maybe I can help. That's what Bishop W.C. Martin, the voice you just heard, has done. He and his wife launched an adoption revolution in their tiny backwoods town of Possum Trot, Texas, until there were no more kids available to adopt in their area. They're the subject of Angel Studios' powerful new film,

Sound of Hope, and they're on a mission to challenge the whole country that if lowly Possum Trot could do this, we all can too. Guys, there are 115,000 orphans currently waiting to be adopted in our country right now. I can't wait for you to hear from Bishop Martin right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. For decades, the Mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene.

It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law and Order, Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order, Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much?

Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio

app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We think of Franklin as the doddering dude flying a kite in the rain, but those experiments are the most important scientific discoveries of the time. I'm Evan Ratliff. Last season, we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk with biographer Walter Isaacson. This time, we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin, another genius who's desperate to be dusted off from history.

His media empire makes him the most successful self-made business person in America. I mean, he was never early to bed and early to rise type person. He's enormously famous. Women start wearing their hair in what was called the coiffure a la Franklin. And who's more relevant now than ever. The only other person who could have possibly been the first president would have been Benjamin

Franklin. But he's too old and wants Washington to do it. Listen to On Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971, a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy shit, we are really here. This is really happening.

They weren't professional criminals. They were ordinary citizens, but they needed to know the truth about the FBI. Burglars forged blackmail letters and threats of violence were used to try to stop anti-war marches. Even if that meant risking everything. I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop the fire. I'm Ed Helms, host of Snafu, season two, Medburg, the story of a daring heist

that exposed J. Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio.

I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsman plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable

evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the Weird Little Guys Trying to Destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. ["Bishop WC Martin"] Bishop WC Martin, welcome to Memphis. Blessed to be here.

Blessed to have you here. For everybody listening, Bishop W.C. Martin is the pastor of Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in the booming metropolis of Possum Trot, Texas. Salute. All right, all right, all right. How many folks live in Possum Trot? About 600. About 600.

Yeah. Is that population up or down from 10 yearsot? About 600. About 600. Yeah. Is that population up or down from 10 years ago? I think it's down. Down? Yeah, it's down. Possum Trot, Texas. Yeah.

Bishop Martin is the subject of Angel Studios' latest film, which I watched three nights ago and I cried like a baby. And it's called Sound of Hope the story of possum trot. Before we get into the end of the interview from the very top everybody listening to me this is you know that we don't do podcast for the purposes of book or movie promotion so So that's not our typical thing. And that's not what this is about. This is another story of a normal person

who's done something extraordinary to change lives, which is what we're about. But on this particular occasion, I am begging each and every one of you to go to Angel Studios, I think it's just angel.com, and pull up The Sound of Hope and spend two hours watching the movie that recounts some of the story that we're going to share with you today. It is uplifting.

It is hopeful. And it is an illustration of what normal people can do to have extraordinary effect on society. I could not wait to meet you this morning. And I think you're the first guest I've ever hugged before ever meeting. But I just, Bishop Martin, I just could not wait to meet you. And when I say this, I am so honored you're here and sharing a little bit of time with me. Yes, I'm glad to be here. Very glad to be here.

So let's unpack this whole possum trot story, shall we? And I imagine in the midst of this, we're gonna get some good old fashioned Southern missionary Baptist. Bennett Shappell. Don't leave it, leave it, leave it. Add Pentecost in there. Add Pentecost in there. Heck, I may be waving my arms in the air in just a minute.

Like I just don't care here in just a second. But before we even begin, tell me, your name is WC Martin, and you told me that WC stands for WC, which is funny because I had a football player named OC Brown, who a lot of people know, from a movie, and OC's birth certificate is OC. It doesn't stand for nothing, it's OC. So it was funny when you said that.

Yeah. Tell me where you came up. Tell me how you came up. I came up in a small rural place in Louisiana called Gloucester, G-L-O-S-T-E-R. And I got nine brothers and one sister. And I was listening last night and I know three houses. I know my house where I was living in, that our house and the hen house. Those are the three houses that I was familiar with. I came up very, very poor, very, very poor. And where I came up at, I got nine brothers and one sister, and my daddy was a farmer, and my mama, she was a housewife, trying to raise all them boys. And when you look at the way I came up,

that was back in the woods, I came up in the woods too. It was the same thing that I always felt like that I didn't want to continue to live like that the rest of my life. I wore a hammond down and they were hammond down from one generation to another generation. If you didn't raise it, you didn't eat it. If you didn't kill it, you didn't eat it. So I came up on what was raised on the farm and what we killed out the woods and what we caught out the waters.

And that's what we raised. And I've learned values, our family values in the midst of all of that and what life is really all about. And my mama, she done the best that she could in raising her. And I will say that out of our nine brothers and one sister, none of us ever murdered anybody and I was been on drugs and I've been on alcohol just a drunk.

And we're still here. My mother passed away years ago. And then my daddy did too. I've lost four of my brothers and still got five more left. So, and my sister, she, she's still here. And we just thank God that the way I came up was with some strong family values. Cause that's one thing we did have. We didn't have money, but we had food to eat because we raised all that food. We ate acres

and acres of land of food, peas, corn, tomatoes and stuff like that. So we had a good life. I mean, I think I had one of the best life that you ever can have. It's interesting to hear you say that because fast forward to today's young folks, they got a cell phone, they got a color TV, they got air conditioner. Did you even have running water or electricity? Neither, neither, not anything like that. No, neither, neither, not anything like that. We used to listen to it. Years ago, gun smoke used to come on radio. Wow. And we'd just sit around on Friday nights. And, and my dad a porch peanut and we'll sit around and listen to gun, gun smoke on the radio. And I didn't

know what Chester looked like. Didn't know what Matt Dillon looked like. Because we saw it, we were always hearing on the radio. So we, and then the nights that we didn't look at gun smoke, my mama used to have a preacher that come there and needs to show us pictures every night on Friday nights about Jesus. We came up in that type of environment. My mama was a Sunday school teacher and she also sung in a choir. And when we wasn't at church, we was doing something positive. It wasn't like it is today. You go to school if you want to go to school. It wasn't none of that stuff. You knew that that was your daily responsibility. And one thing about my mama, she didn't play

when it come to you going to school, you're going to go to school. There are two things you're going to do. You're going to go to school and you're going to church. I don't care if you go out Friday night, Saturday night, stay all day, but Sunday morning, you was going to be in that Sunday school on that front row. We don't have those kinds of values no more. They're kind of hard to find. And for people who have really came up the way I did, you know, through them hard times like that, you develop a mindset that look, this is something that has to be done.

So we got to do. So I don't regret my living. I thank God for my living. And the way they brought us up, what they brought us up and teaching us that you don't have to have a whole lot of everything to be something. You can have a whole lot less, but yet you can be whatever you want to be in life.

So you grew up poor. But you grew up well. And to hear you say, thank God for the way I grew up when we got folks out here being victims and crying when they got air conditioning, lights, running water, cell phone, color TV, get around town, help when they needed. It's amazing in just a few generations

how our perspective of if we're blessed or not has changed. And we have gotten away from what I believe what real family values is all about. And because we're getting away because, I mean, a cell phone, look, I was on, I was a married man on a job living in Houston, Texas, before I realized what a cell phone was all about. Color TV? That was a big no-no. I mean, it wasn't, we didn't have the value, the luxuries

of what children have today. Children are blessed beyond measures and a lot of them don't realize how blessed they are because of the fact that they got so much and their parents are working so hard to provide them with so much. But I think my mama taught us what tough love is all about. She didn't raise to get us out of every little thing that we got into it. We got into trouble at school. She didn't run down there to fuss at the teachers and all that kind of stuff. She told us, you go to that school, they got their education, they got their learning.

You go to the school to get what they got. So if you go out there and act up, you gonna pay the price for it. And that's what it is. I grew up with two and three children, boys sleeping in the same bed and stuff like that. But now we got Kings South bed to live in by ourselves and all that kind of stuff.

We didn't have all of that. Running water, we didn't have stuff like that. Inside, it wasn't no air conditioning. What are you talking about? Man, we didn't even have a ceiling fan. So I'm telling you, it was tough living, but it was good living because the value that we have and what we have, we had it all because we

were taught the beauty, we were taught the beauty of what life is really all about. You don't have to have every little thing in line to live a good life. I think you have to have a totally different mindset on where to give a good life. I have to believe, and we're not going to skip forward, but I have to believe the way you came up and those values have so much to do with what ended up being so much of what your story is, but we'll get to that. So you said Houston, so you ended up leaving Louisiana. What did you do next after you do next after you left high school

and you left this little town? I finished high school in Houston. I left that up. My mother died in 64. And my brothers, my baby brother and I, we always used to fuss at each other a lot. We'd get out there and knock each other out and beat through at each other.

Nobody else been out coming and get in the fight. I understand. You know, but we just and so my brother decided to bring us to Houston. So I finished school. I quit high school and started working. But then I got dissatisfied and went back to high school. No one there to make me go back. But I did this on my own. I was 21 years old when I finished high school because I refused to sell off a status quo.

I felt like there was something better for me. So I went and finished high school. I didn't go to college. But then after I got married, I ended up in seminary and I stayed there for six years, you know, trying to learn and do what I need to do and And that's why see where I got married at I used to sing with my brothers We had a group when we when we got to Houston We organized a group called the Martin Brothers and we we sung for it was four of us in the beginning But then again, we got three more of my brothers beginning, but then again, we got three more of my brothers. So we had a group of seven brothers,

eight brothers in a group, seven brothers in a group that we sung all over Texas, all over everywhere. We've been everywhere singing. Was it gospel? Yeah, gospel group. No kidding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Drums and everything.

Drums and guitars and bass guitar, the whole nine yards. Were y'all any good? Oh yeah, we was good. Come on now. We was good now, we was good. Come on now. We was good now, we was good now. Okay. We was good now. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Yeah, we was good. We had a very, very good group. We recorded, at that time it was LP and 245. Like I said, we've been everywhere singing. All in New York, Indiana. We've been here singing, you know, but that didn't give me the years ago. So after that happened, out of the group,

four of us in the group became preachers out of that group. And the other two was deacons in churches. So we didn't go to the same church, we all went to different churches. And we all, but when we got ready to sing, we'd just sing every Sunday evening, get together, go somewhere and sing at some church or some auditorium or something like that.

And we did that for a while. I think we stayed in that singing field about 20 some years. And then later on one Sunday evening, we went, we met a group that was in Louisiana that we met and they carried us to Possum Trot. Never heard of it before, never been there before. We met them and they carried us to Possum Trot. We saw, that Sunday evening when my wife walked

through that door, in my mind, we was up singing. You were at that time, just a girl. Just a girl, uh-huh. And I looked at her and I said, you know, I'ma marry her. That's gonna be my wife. And sure enough. Was she just beautiful? Well, it was just something about it

that she was beautiful, she had a beautiful personality and she just stood up, but she was just a little country girl, you know? And cause I was- Was she from Positron? Yeah, that's where she lived. Downer? Yeah, downer, that's her home.

Wow. And what was so amazing about it, after we got married, we moved to Houston. Well, I was already in Houston, so she didn't move to Houston with me, where I was living at. And afterward, we used to come down to a church. After I started preaching, I'd done two revivals at Bennett Chapel, and the pastor was an elderly man, and he wanted to give the church up and he wanted them. So it was two preachers.

They had heard me preach and heard the other guy, but they decided that they were going to vote for me to come and get the church. So I got the church and later on we made a decision to move from Houston. I had been on my job for 26 years. What did you do? I was in a steel mill. We was in a forge. I worked in a forge shop.

In other words, we forged all the bits to make our well too. You did that in Houston with Donna Mary G. All right. So you're in the gospel group. You get drugged a possum trot, which you ain't never heard of. Donna walks in, she looks good and she stands out and you say, well, I'm gonna marry her. So then you do. And then you carry her out of possum trot back to Houston, where you've worked for

20 years making. But during this time in Houston, you go ahead and go to seminary. Right. I was called into the ministry. And she said, and she reminded me of that, she said she never wanted to be married to a preacher, a truck driver and a doctor, because they always on the go. She said, if I'd known you was gonna be a preacher, I never would have married you.

And I said, well, don't talk to God about that. He the one did, that's all in his hand. So after I got married and everything, and I went, and see, I had an unusual schedule. I drove from Houston to Possum Trot for 10 long years. It's about a three and a half hour drive each way. On weekends when I got out, I was at seminary during the week. I worked 10 and 12 hours on my job from 6 to 6 I'll leave the job go to seminary get home about 10 or 11 o'clock at night Get my work my studies and all that stuff for seminary for the training the next day had to be on the job the next

morning I did that for 10 years and Three and a half of those this was crazy three years was every other weekend But seven years I drove every single weekend to Possum Trot to preach. Wow. It was an amazing time. And one of the amazing things about it, I've never had, I broke down out of 10 years, I broke down one time and it wasn't anything major.

The alternator belt got loose and the battery stopped charging. And I broke down right where they just to a place where they went out there the next morning and the hotel was sitting right there. Stayed overnight, got up that Saturday morning, they tightened the belt up. I gave the guy $5 and we went on a possible trip. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors.

But first, I want to tell you about a friend of mine. He's got this awesome music festival in Memphis. It's called MIMFO. This year they have Jack White, Trey Anastacio, Cody Jinx, Sublime, The Roots, and a bunch of other artists performing. It's from October 4th to October 6th at the Radians Amphitheater

inside the beautiful Memphis Botanic Garden. If you love music, I hope you'll check out memphofest.com. We'll be right back. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American

history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement, brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government.

From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law and Order, Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order, Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast, Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our

lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship

between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We think of Franklin as the doddering dude flying a kite in the rain, or wherever you get your podcasts. We think of Franklin as the doddering dude flying a kite in the rain, but those experiments are the most important scientific discoveries of the time. I'm Evan Ratliff. Last season, we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk with biographer Walter Isaacson. This time, we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin, another genius who's desperate to be dusted off from history. His media empire makes him the most successful self-made business person in America.

I mean, he was never early to bed and early to rise type person. He's enormously famous. Women start wearing their hair in what was called a coiffure a la Franklin. And who's more relevant now than ever. The only other person who could have possibly been the first president would have been Benjamin Franklin. But he's too old and wants Washington to do it. Listen to On Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971,

a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy shit, we are really here. This is really happening. They weren't professional criminals. They were ordinary citizens, but they needed to know the truth about the FBI. Burglars forged blackmail letters and threats of violence were used

to try to stop anti-war marches. Even if that meant risking everything. I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop the fire. I'm Ed Helms, host of Snafu, season two Medburg, the story of a daring heist that exposed J. Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds

of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs, from the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsmen plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political closets aren't some unfathomable evil.

They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the Weird Little Guys Trying to Destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. A couple of things. Number one, it was so difficult to pastor the church from where I was living. I can go down there and preach, but I wasn't passing the church. You got to be there with the flock to pastor them. And she wanted to move back home, but she didn't want to leave. She didn't want to move back in the possum tribe. So it taken us about three years to find a place and then to get the money to move back. So when we finally got the place and all of that, it was some years later, we finally got the house that we wanted and the deal that was pretty good. We were able

to make the notes every month, but I didn't have no job either when I got the possible job, no job at all. So what we done, we just had to live on fragments. I'll say it like that. And- It was tight. Yeah, it was tight. It was very tight. I moved and when I moved,

I started moving everything in December that year. What year was that? Oh shoot, I can't quite remember. 20, 30 years ago? Yeah, yeah, about 30 years, 30 something years ago. Okay, all right. And then when we did that, my wife couldn't go because the kids were still in school.

So I moved up there during the midterm in December. So she couldn't come up there until in June of the following year. So she would come some weekend and some weekend she did and she'd drive up there and bring the kids. And so that's, and I was right there, you know, we started having service every Sunday cause during that time people didn't have church

every Sunday. You know, we changed the whole thing. They started having service every Sunday. But the beauty part about it is that, you know, she would come when she can, but I kept doing it. And I kept trying to find work up there, couldn't find no work. And I finally got a job as an insurance salesman and I had a debit and a route that I started selling insurance. And because it was a decent living, I wasn't

under-vented but good on work. But you know, I thank God today because what we moved to we still there. The Lord provided for us what we was able to stay. Because when you're doing the right thing for God, He opens some doors up for you. And I never, I didn't miss a beat, didn't miss no meals at all, but it was tight. It was hard, but we survived. Okay, so that sets us up.

Now the kids are out of school, Donnish joins you in Possum Trot. That's your home, you're selling insurance, you're pastoring the church. I think I've read there's about 200 members of the church, something like that. Now, we need to explain church to our listeners. And when I say explain church,

I'm talking about explain possum trot church. I'm talking about explain Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church. Cause see where I go to church, there's these nice pews and the preachers in a row. And we have some announcements from an associate pastor and we sing a hymn or two, nice, beautiful organ music very classical

Very reverent We'll say the Apostles Creed We'll pray we'll we'll pray for remission of sins we'll pray for we'll have a extended corporate prayer for Our country and people suffering in the world. Then we'll have another hymn. Offering plate comes around. And in my church, it's only once, I know building fund. And pastor gets up, has about a 30 minute sermon, which is usually really, really lovely. And then we have a benediction and we leave.

That goes from about 11 or 1050 to 12, maybe 1250. What's church like at Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist? like at Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist? Well, we have a different twist. I bet you do. So tell me what that looks like, Bishop. Well, our church, we start service at 1030 every Sunday morning. And we start church. We don't do hymns. We start church with uplifting songs,

getting people's involved. I mean, really involved. I'm not saying sitting there, no, we don't do that. You gonna get some amens and hallelujahs and thank you Jesus and praise the Lord. And every now and then you might see somebody running across the floor What they doing running across the floor when they feeling it? Okay Okay, they feel the power so

And then afterward, you know, we have our devotional time where they they sing and they Script is and they read, they pray, but then again after that it's on. We don't have a, we used to do regular program, but we don't do that no more. We just let the Lord lead us and guide us. It's all depend on how the movement or the spirit is going in the church. Sometimes when they get through with devotional service, service is is so hot I get them start preaching right then and there. And whilst I'm on the preaching part of it, my sermon by the time I stand up and by the time I sit down it probably

gonna take me about an hour and 15 minutes. But I can tell you one thing, it's not a dull moment in there. I promise you that. Is there a choir or an organist? Yeah, we have a choir. We have organists. We have drums. We have a keyboard. We haven't gotten to the guitars yet,

but we're working on it, trying to get them. And I mean, they playing. They didn't, it's not, they're not hitting just, you know, in our church, we don't have, we ain't reading off notes for it music wise. We're not on notes from the news. We just sing. We just, whatever the Lord permits us to do, we do that. And our services, if we start at 1030, we get out between around one o'clock. And but you don't want to I promise you, you don't been to church. I promise you that. So I have two church stories. And well, actually, I'm gonna say

three things. One is one. Say to it keeps going after 1 o'clock. Do that first before you get your stuff. What do you do after church? After church, gotta be eating and carrying all that. Big time. Big time. I mean, we leave church, we gonna stand around church and talk a while.

And then after we leave them, we go to home. We got my wife, we go to her place down there. And they have, man, they have a spread down there that you wouldn't believe. Every Sunday? Every Sunday, every Sunday. Is it greens and? Greens and peas and hot water cornbread

and smothered chicken and baked chicken and fried chicken and roast. You watch and see that I don't show up at Pops and Pop on Sunday. Man, you talking my language now. Man, let me tell you one thing, I'm serious. I mean- Does anybody cook oxtail?

Huh? Oxtail, anybody? Oh man, we have, man, I love me some oxtail. Me too. They expensive, but I love them. So tender. And I guarantee you 90% of the people listening to us right now don't know a thing about

it. No, don't know what Oxtail is, but man we have a spread, candy yam sweet potatoes. I mean, and with that hot water cornbread man, I don't know how many people know what hot water cornbread is. You know what my middle name is, my nickname? Cornbread. Oh, well you love it then. Yes sir. Yes sir. So we have this amazing, amazing, amazing dinner. And the thing of it is, at my wife's home where she grew up at, they got a big spread there. Then over here at our sister's house, you walk right here, our sister's stay there,

they got a big spread there. So you can just pick whatever house you wanna eat at and dive in. Church is an all day thing. All day thing. Because in the end what we do, a lot of the members come up there and we just sit around and talk about how the church service was and what points they got out of it and how everything, how the Spirit of the Lord touched them. Our church is one of those kind of church you see on TV where the

Spirit is moving and everybody's on their feet. You don't sit down in that church. It's one of those kind of church you see on TV where the spirit is moving and everybody's on their feet. You don't sit down in that church. It's kind of by the time you get out, get home, man, your knees and ankles is wore out because you're just standing on them all day. So, all right. Sorry, you got to show your chicken line. Sure. Chicken line. Bill, what do you say about chicken? Oh, well, what we tell them every Sunday is that many chicken have died.

We might live. Man, and I bet there's some folks around possum trot know how to fry some chicken. Lord Jesus. I say it once has a Lord you kept anything in a better than this you must have kept it for yourself. I said once, I said, Lord, you kept anything in the bed, then you must have kept it for yourself. On this show. Yeah. All right.

So one of my, and I will call him a brother, Tim Russell, passed during COVID. And he came to Memphis from up north. Went to, he was, I believe he was the Dean of Geneva College, one of the most brilliant learned men I've ever had the pleasure to know. His vocabulary was otherworldly and his devotion to his faith was an inspiration to me. And he said to me one thing that I'll share with you, which is that in America, Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in the United States. And that is a sin of the church. And that is a sin of the church.

And I have never forgotten what that means. And one of the reasons why I like to talk about the differences in our churches is because it is funny and it is interesting, but it is wrong that I've only rarely experienced what you're talking about and the vast majority of people that are listening to us right now have either experienced what I explained to church or what you explained to church, but have rarely experienced both. You know, one of the things that we need to understand is that, and I think this as well,

we have lost so many of our young people. You have to create some type of environment for children to make them want to be partakers. Young folks is not going to be interested in what I call the box type, no movement, just church. Church is more than just church. In Psalms 100, it said, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye land, come before his presence with singing and being joyful. Joy, when you are joyful, then there's a different expression on your

face. There's a different feeling on the inside. And when we go in churches now, you want to go in there with some, you want to, this is going to ought to be a place of a release, a place of regeneration or rejuvenation. In other words, all this stuff that you done went through all week long, when you go to church there ought to be a time of release. And when you release, it's kind of like there's a joy come in your heart and you are so joyful that you begin to express it outwardly. See, praise and worship is something that God desires. Praise is for us, worship is for Him. And it takes both of them because you have to worship God. Now, we do both of them. We have a time of worship, we have a time of praise. And when we praise God,

I mean, you might see dust coming out of the floors and everything else. We've been to tear that place apart. And that's what praise is all about. We'll be right back. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people.

But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end, sparking a chain of events that would ultimately dismantle the most powerful crime organization in American history. It sent the message to them that we can prosecute these people. Discover how a group of young prosecutors took on the mafia, and with the help of law enforcement,

brought down its most powerful figures. These bosses on the commission had no idea what was coming their way from the federal government. From Wolf Entertainment and iHeart Podcasts, this is Law and Order, Criminal Justice System. Listen to Law and Order, Criminal Justice System on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast, Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America.

I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks?

And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We think of Franklin as the dodging dude flying a kite in the rain, but those experiments are the most important scientific discoveries of the time.

I'm Evan Ratliff. Last season, we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk with biographer Walter Isakson. This time, we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin, another genius who's desperate to be dusted off from history. His media empire makes him the most successful self-made business person in America. I mean, he was never early to bed and early to rise type person. He's enormously famous. Women start wearing their hair in what was called a coiffure à la Franklin.

And who's more relevant now than ever. The only other person who could have possibly been the first president would have been Benjamin Franklin. But he's too old and wants Washington to do it. Listen to On Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Late on the evening of March 8th, 1971, a group of anti-war activists did something insane. Holy s***, we are really here. This is really happening. They weren't professional criminals. They were ordinary citizens, but they needed to know the truth about the FBI.

Burglars forged blackmail letters and threats of violence were used to try to stop anti-war marches. Even if that meant risking everything. I just felt like I was living in the heart of the dragon and it was just my job to stop the fire. I'm Ed Helms, host of Snafu, season two Medburg, the story of a daring heist that exposed J. Edgar Hoover's secret FBI. If it meant some risks that were involved, well, that's what citizens sometimes have to do.

Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Molly Conger, host of Weird Little Guys, a new podcast from Cool Zone Media on iHeartRadio. I've spent almost a decade researching right-wing extremism, digging into the lives of people you wouldn't be wrong to call monsters. But if Scooby-Doo taught us one thing, it's that there's a guy under that monster mask. I've collected the stories of hundreds of aspiring little Hitlers of the suburbs. From the Nazi cop who tried to join ISIS, to the National Guardsmen plotting to assassinate the Supreme Court, to the Satanist soldier who tried to get his own unit blown up in Turkey. The monsters in our political

closets aren't some unfathomable evil. They're just some weird guy. And you can laugh. Honestly, I think you have to. Seeing these guys for what they are doesn't mean they're not a threat. It's a survival strategy. So join me every Thursday for a look under the mask at the weird little guys trying to destroy America. Listen to Weird Little Guys on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The second thing my brother Tim taught me was this. We are often confused by the building. I looked at him like he was crazy as he was eating on a barbecue rib at Cozy Corner, which by the way, Cozy Corner got some barbecue.

That's in Memphis, you needn't hear about that. But anyway, well, I'll digress. I said, what you mean we're confused by the building? He said, well, you go to the movie theater, or you go to the orchestra, or you go to a concert, and you've got a stage and you've got seats. And you either pay a ticket or you go for free and the people in the seats are entertained by the people on the stage. And that is a very normal atmosphere. And he said, but because churches are set up that way,

people inside the church are often confused. And I said, what you mean? And he said, well, because you got your pews or your seeds, and then you got the pastor and the choir up front, you think that that is like a typical human auditorium. And he said, church is not. He said, if you're in the pews, you are not there to be entertained.

And if you are a preacher or choir, you are not to entertain the people in the pews. Rather, all of you together are there to entertain an audience of one. And he said people go to church and then they leave church oftentimes critiquing the sermon or critiquing the music or critiquing the atmosphere when they don't understand that they are the ones to be critiqued because as a corporate group of people inside our church, they are to be worshiping and praising and the only audience is God. You see, the praise and worship, and I don't believe that you ought to come to church

one way and leave the same way. I believe if you come to church, you receive the word, you worship and praise God, there should be some change in the way you go out the door. In other words, you should, if you come in there burdened, you ought to leave out happy. You come in mind confused, you ought to leave out of there with a different type of mindset. Because why? The Lord doesn't visit you. And when you're thinking about God have allowed his spirit

to visit you, there should be some change. We had a young lady come in the church on the sunny hill and she just sat there and she just wept through the whole service. But then when I got through preaching, she came up and we began to lay hands on him and pray for him. And that girl released all of that anxiety that she had in her. She said that she just couldn't go to, she just couldn't go another day feeling down and out. So I believe that it's not, church should not be a place of entertainment, but church ought to be a place where you can release and you can receive. Once you release, then you receive because if you come to church and listen to the Word of God, the sermon may not all be pertaining to you or something you're going through it,

but somebody in that church, that word of God gonna hit them some type of way. That's the way God does it. Because God bring up people together, He wanna bring everybody. So I think that what is happening now, that's why you see churches now begin to explode. Because you got a lot of young people in that church that they are coming looking for something we are losing and have lost a generation of

children we got to do something now to turn this millennium around and if they gonna be in the church what are you gonna do they're not coming in and sitting fully armed and not somebody that and sitting folded arms, they're not coming in and sitting in this little, they're not coming in and sitting, but there's got to be something that's gonna trigger their mind to help them to go forward. So, as you listen to Bishop Martin, you understand his fire, his passion,

and what his church is like. And so you and Donna and your two children are living in Possum Trot. You're selling insurance, you're running your church. You have a passion of fire to inspire people. Sundays are what they are in Possum Trot with Bennett chapel and you're living your life and then something really drastic happens in your lives, especially Donna's. She loses the matriarch of her family? She lost her mother, which her father had already passed.

I funeralized both of them. And I'll never forget it. That Saturday afternoon while I was up preaching, and there were so many people in that little church. It was a small place, very small. And so many people in that church, the one side of the church caved in while I was up preaching. A whole just separated from the wall and caved in. Pews was laying on the ground. And I didn't even know it. I heard the pop, but I

didn't know what went on. So when Donna Mother passed, I think three or four months later, reality set in. And when reality set in, she began to feel lost. She began to feel empty. She began to feel that it was no hope. So one day she said, Lord, if you not gonna take this burden off me about my mama, I don't want to live in this world no more. Let me die. But then what she looked for and what she got were totally two different things. And you know that's where God always work. He don't never work the way we see it in our head. So what happened was he just said, spoke of wood, give back. And she said, well,

He just said, spoke of wood, give back. And she said, well, what? He said, give back. You talk about all the love that your mama gave you, give it back to a child that don't know what love is about. But that still wasn't quite clear. Because for us adoption, for us foster, we didn't even know anything about that. I mean, we had zero understanding. Wasn't Donna one of, how many,

Donna was one of how many kids? I think it was 17 brothers and sisters. First of all, one woman giving birth to 17 children. I remember watching when Donna's mom looked at Donna and said, I want some more grandchildren. Y'all need to have more than two. And she said, I got two kids. That's all I can handle. And she said, two kids. That's cute. You haven't even started yet. But I guess when you had 17 kids, you can say that. But the point is. When Donna thought of her mother,

she thought of a woman who loved and raised 17 children. And so it feels like as she was going through her despair over her mother, she found a connection back to her mother thinking I could give the love to other children that my mother gave to all 17 of us. Is that right? And that's what the Lord say, give it back. So, and then, like I said, it was so clear.

17 kids, I'm sorry. I can't even get that out of my, we have four kids and I thought I was gonna lose my mind and I know Lisa damn near did lose her mind. 17 kids. Yeah, yeah. That's, I mean, if you take a four month break between each kid, that's still 21 years of having kids. That is phenomenal.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that concludes part one of my conversation

with Bishop Martin. And you don't want to miss part two. That's now available to listen to. It's his adoption revolution. It's coming. And I'm adoption revolution, it's coming. And I'm telling you, it's inspiring. Together guys, we can change this country. And it starts with you.

I'll see you in part two. For decades, the mafia had New York City in a stranglehold, with law enforcement seemingly powerless to intervene. It uses terror to extort people. But the murder of Carmichael Lonti marked the beginning of the end. It sent the message that we can prosecute these people. Listen to Law & Order Criminal Justice System on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Ever get the feeling someone's watching you? We know they're looking for us. Well, in 1971, a group of anti-war activists had that feeling. I was in the heart of the dragon and it was my job to stop the fire. So they decided to do something insane, break in to the FBI and expose J. Edgar Hoover's

dirty secrets. We had some idea that this was pretty explosive. I'm Ed Helms. Binge the full second season of Snafu now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads.

Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life because the more we know about what's running under the hood, better we can steer our lives. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What happens when a professional football player's career ends and the applause fades and the screaming fans move on? I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. For some former NFL players, a new faith provides answers. You mix homesteading with guns and church, voila, you got straight away.

They try to save everybody. Listen to Spiraled on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.