SPEAKER_01 0:18

Alright, everyone, welcome back to Testimony Tracks. I'm sorry it's been a very long time without us. We have been in Honduras for a couple of weeks. We haven't had time to do an episode until now, which we have my esteemed youth minister, Mr. Broad Shoulders. We have a a great therapist in the room, someone who I can assure you you can relate to, hopefully in good ways, not about breaking your uh dramatic parts. Fingers as hopefully he will tell us that story in a very shortened version. He has made more he has made multiple um sermons on that story, but you'll hear it later on. But today I give you a very, very great youth minister, stinky toes, Brandon Treat.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Wow. What what a roller coaster of a introduction. I've never been introduced and talked about my shoulders, uh, my sins of my past and my toes, so this is special.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

You never know what you're gonna get from testimony tracks, Brandon.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

We have very wild introductions. But I was thinking we'd hope we'd hope to hear your story as a conclusive thing from beginning to end. Like I started mine off at birth, which I know like dad's lived longer than that, and and you've lived longer than me, so you don't have to start at your birth, because that may make this a two-hour long podcast. But feel free to start off whenever you think your testimony starts, and you start like your faith becomes more of your own, and God starts to actually speak through to you in your life.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

Yeah. Okay. Well, uh, yeah. Don't remember much about my birth, but thanks for asking. Uh to be honest. Uh, I guess the the context of my testimony that is probably first relevant is that I'm a preacher's kid, and at a young age was a youth minister's kid before my dad switched over to preaching. So I have been in the church context my whole life, and probably not a ton to say about that other than when I was up until I was eight years old, my dad was a youth minister, and so I got to be around the youth group, and I would say that was like my favorite thing was being around a youth group and kind of like dreaming of the day that I would be in the youth group, and then as the time came for me to start thinking about being in the youth group, my dad switched to preaching and took an off year, and then we moved from I grew up in Oklahoma when I was in elementary age, and then by the time I was in middle school, we moved to Granite City, Illinois, which is right across the Mississippi from St. Louis. And for those that know, that's moving from the Bible Belt to not the Bible Belt to the to the Midwest. And so I went from being at this church with a humongous youth group that one day I would be a part of, to now my dad's a preacher at a church of 60, and my sister and I make up the only two children in the church. So it was quite a a loop uh thrown to me that I actually, because we ended up staying there for the next 10 years, I never actually got a youth group experience of my own. Uh, I never had peers that were really that I I had peers that were Christians, but I never had peers that went to church with me or that I did life with that were that had a faith. And so I think even from I say all that because I think I I had some bitterness towards God pretty straight away in middle school that you know I had seen youth youth groups and I had seen people flourish in their faith and go on trips and have uh consistent by like youth gatherings, and then that I was not getting that. And so I think a lot of that really let me kind of be frustrated with God because you know I I I saw these other people's faith get challenged and and have people walk alongside of them, and I felt like I was kind of alone in in my crib in my faith context. So the biggest thing that probably hits my testimony early is in middle school. Yeah, we're yeah, that's what I'm building up to. He you can tell Everett's in my youth group and has heard me talk about my story a time or two.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Let him cook, Everett.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

Yeah. Uh yeah, let my testimony cook, Everett. E-money. But I in middle school, I really, and this, you know, I know this podcast is about music as well. I really, I I did get into truly the emo music scene. I got into punk, punk rock, even though they're not that emo, but Fallout Boy was the posters on my wall, my chemical romance, bands like that. And furthermore, I shopped at I was in my emo phase, so shopped at Hot Topic and War War Bantees and things like that. That was kind of the vibe that I was going for. But it was accurate to the people, the the time that it was, and the people that I was around. Uh, again, not people of faith. And I I definitely began to begin, my mental health began to decline. I was never clinically diagnosed with depression, but I I had a very, very low self-esteem. The person that I am today, you would not really associate him with the person I was then. I was very quiet, sat in classes, did not speak to people. And so much of that was just me in my head, really believing the worst about myself. And that, as Everett alluded to, that really culminated in eighth grade. I was introduced by some of not I I will even say even the music kind of introduced me as well as people to the concepts of self-harm. And I began engaging in a little bit of that, had a few episodes of that, which was indicative of I felt very far from God at that time. I felt very small. And that really all came to a head my eighth grade year, and at the eighth grade formal. It took a lot for me to get excited for formal, being that I was much more of an introverted person who did not want to be, was not social and did not attempt to be social because I was so in my head. Went to the eighth grade dance, and everyone was dancing. I didn't dance, and and it was almost just like a mental block. Like I could not like physically get myself out there. And then I got a lot of attention on me, and and the reason I got a lot of attention on me that night is because I had gotten caught in a lie that I had told. And all of a sudden, you know, I'm already very self-conscious. Now I've got all these people really letting me have it and say even, you know, worse things about me. And so that night was I I ended up fine, running out of the eighth grade formal. And that was the night my parents came and picked me up. And sparing more details, I I made it clear to my parents and and I intended it for myself that that was the night that I intended to take my life. My parents, as any parent would, took me very seriously at that and took uh basically stripped my room of everything that, you know, could be utilized, took the door off the hinges, and really kind of, you know, began to watch me over the next period of time. And it was really a culmination of just that that narrative I had believed about myself that just I wasn't enough. And now everyone saw who I was, the world would be better without me. It's hard for me to put into words what happened because I I ended up having to spend so much time alone. Like I essentially only had a Bible and other books that my parents allowed to be in my room because that was right as summer began. So that weekend, and then leading into the summer, my parents really kind of shut it down for me. I don't want to over like I was reading scripture and I was listening to Christian music as well, but it really was just like a slow burn of feeling more and more that God loved me. Like my life did matter to me, and he showed me that through the heartbreak of my parents, the heartbreak of my sister, the way even at church, like people didn't even know that I was going through all that I was. And yet there was just a sense that I went to a church with primarily old, old people that all identified as my grandparents. Like they loved me really well. And it was just like upon reflection and kind of getting to that tipping point, it just became very clear to me that I could see God's love shown to me through the people he had put in my life. Like I had been looking for love in these wrong places. So then I joke with the teams, but it's a true part of my testimony. My parents that summer sent me to every church camp that they could find. They looked up any church camp, like the all the ones I had gone to, and then just random churches. I was going to church camp that summer, which was really hard at times because I didn't know people and I wasn't very good at being social at that time. But the camp that I grew up at that summer, a youth minister who had begun to know me pretty well came up to me and really pushed me to tell my story. So this really ties in well to testimony tracks. He challenged me to lead a devotional, and I said, I don't know what I talk about. Like I'm working through my relationship with God, and he really was like, then make it about that. Like tell your story. And he asked me that like on day one of camp. And I just remember every day during free time, I was just taking notes. And it wasn't notes about the Bible as much as it was just notes about my life, writing different things I thought. And on the last night, I told him I need because I told the youth minister, I need all week to prepare this. I can't do this uh unless you give me every day. It was a boys' devo in a bump devo. And when I told my story, I wept uh as I told it. The guys around me wrapped me up and like held me and prayed over me. And I just told them the thing that I had said a moment ago of like, I'm beginning to truly believe that God just loves me. I will, I don't even, I can't even fully remember that devo. But for me, that was like my moment that I felt like I encountered the Holy Spirit. I was not, I did not feel that I was in the driver's seat. I felt like God was in the driver's seat of that night because I don't even know what I said. And all I knew is by the end of the night, I had cried a whole bunch. There were all these other people telling me their story, saying me too. There were other tears in the room. And it was just like, it was in that moment that I was just like, well, first of all, that was a moment where I'm like, I think maybe one day I want to be a youth minister. Because this is pretty, this is pretty awesome. Like this guy really pushed me to do this, and I have now experienced God and love in a way that I don't know that I've ever experienced it before. But also, it was just like I feel God, like I I believe in God, and and I I won't backtrack too far, but I had gotten baptized in sixth grade, and the reality of my baptism is it was a moment where I was about to get in trouble, and I told my parents I'd get baptized. And I questioned that for a long time did that baptism really count? And it wasn't until that moment in eighth grade where I even felt the peace of God when I felt the spirit in me. God worked in my baptism even when I wasn't there yet, you know, and so I never got re-baptized or anything. There was just a peace that came over me that night that like God really does love me and his spirit really does dwell inside of me. That was eighth grade. And what I wish I could say, what I wish my testimony did was like from there on, it was it would mean God were firing them on all cylinders. That's actually not true. I started to experience God's love that summer, absolutely. It took me out of my emo phase big time. But there were people that came into my life, uh, especially my freshman year of high school, that really, again, still not having a youth youth group to really like I had that summer high, that that spiritual high, and went into my ninth grade year, and I was on the basketball team, and all of a sudden I started receiving all these attention from people, and I started to really just give in to what it means to be popular. Like, I'm gonna do anything I can to live this popular life. Well, whatever, what's that face for?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Just a sigh. Just a sigh.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

It's just thinking about me and how I've always been unbearably popular. Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're kind of, yeah. Jason's kind of like what you think of as the stereotypical popular guy in movies.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Actually, when you were talking about emo and punk, I thought maybe we had more in common musically than I had realized in the past.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

I I I envisioned him with bangs, which I cannot envision. That did happen once. But I can I cannot envision my dad with bangs because he had curly hair and now he has no hair.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Wow, you've come at toes, shoulders, hair, nothing safe. Nothing safe on testimony tracks. Um to fast forward a little bit through high school, I became more the personality that you see today, a little more outgoing and more comfortable in the spotlight. In fact, at the time I felt like I was really seeking the spotlight. And that took me to just a lot of a lot of dark places in terms of like partying, and really, there was like a two two sides of a coin where I'd go to church camp in the summer and I'd be like the I'd win the heart of a servant award, and then I would go to school, and then I would be the party guy who is getting in trouble at school and whatnot. And it kind of just culminated at a point that I just and my parents asked me too, because they caught me multiple times. Like, who are you? Like, who is the real person? And that's a question that I was asking myself over and over again. Am I this person who's in the summer who believes in God's love, who cares for other people, or am I this guy who parties and this is my lifestyle, is you know, the pursuit of popularity. I really struggled to find an answer to that until I made the decision to go to Oklahoma Christian. And I I did that. I wanted to go to, I'm not just plugging Oklahoma Christian, but I chose to go to a Church of Christ school because I'm like, I really want my life to go to keep moving in that trajectory. I want my life to look more like a summer camp, a church camp where I can truly live in that and have that community I never had, as I missed out on a youth group. And I I also acknowledge that that community can exist in state schools and non-Christian schools as well. But for me, I knew it was important that I find that. At that point, that was a huge turning point for me of actually living into that uh Christian faith, 24-7, obviously sinning and making mistakes along the way, but but choosing that that's the that's the person I wanted to be.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Well you spent you turned the card on Well, okay. I'll I view it as a very important part of your testimony.

SPEAKER_03 19:34

I I think it's you just glad it.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

You just you just went over it. Um like it never existed. No, it did exist.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

Yeah, okay. Well So the story Everett's referring to, I've told many times because it was a moment where I had to really think about what mercy and grace means. Because, like he said, but an abbreviated version, I was hanging out with a group of friends one night, and I was fighting over shotgun with this girl who is half my size, and we both ran into a car, and after a series of events, I accidentally slammed her hand in the car. And come to find out, I actually broke the finger uh in the process, and I had a like I hyperventilated and I almost had like a panic attack when that happened because I was so overwhelmed by this moment where I had done something so horrible.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

And don't forget about her boyfriend who's uh bigger than Brandon, by the way. He was bigger than Brandon at the time, even broader shoulders.

SPEAKER_03 20:49

Broader shoulders than me, football player. No, hockey, hockey captain.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Hockey captain.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

Yes, who that was her boyfriend who I thought in the moment I might get beat up by, but he showed me mercy and did not beat me up. And then she proceeded to show me mercy by not pressing, I don't even know, pressing charges, making me pay for medical bills, anything that I deserved in that moment. But the story has been told many times because it's very shocking because you would not guess from knowing me that that would ever have happened in my life.

SPEAKER_00 21:32

Everett said you broke somebody's fingers. I thought he just meant your ongoing advocacy for BAML football games. Yes. Oh, yeah. He I am since we tried at least a couple of broken fingers and a broken foot.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

Yes. Broken fingers, and Jason's referring to his own wife who had a broken finger, and then you know, not to digress, but a man from our church literally had to have a finger. Finger removed as a result of the flag football game. But we are we're no longer flag football doesn't exist anymore. In your defeat.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Praise be to God. It was a tradition before you arrived at NAML and you have phased it.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Right. I, you know, because I care, because I care about people. No show, no shade thrown in the past. Uh yes. Also because I value my job and the church's uh insurance. But I will say that I've already told the most important parts of my testimony. In the end, I tried to kind of run away and not do youth ministry, but it became clear to me that God had opened that door for me. And I've I there's been moments where I felt burnt out or I questioned this calling over the past 10 years, which is how long I've been in youth ministry. And somehow, somehow, it's felt like God keeps pulling me back. I think my story makes me uniquely relatable to students because I understand what it's like to be on the fringe and to be kind of that more silent, not in the spotlight person, and I can relate to them, but I can also relate to the person on the other end of the spectrum of popular or outgoingness or whatever you might say. That is where I've landed, and then I now I've also am in my residency phase of counseling, so I've loved working with teens and families and individuals and couples in that regard.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

So Okay, so we're running out of time here. This is meant to be a 30-minute podcast, and I'm thinking we do more like quicker answers, and I think me and me and my me and the co-host can rotate questions. This is the first time we're doing this, by the way. But my question to you is when we were talking about you you broke this girl's finger, uh and she showed and she showed you mercy. And then the next year right you danced with her? Am I getting am I getting that right?

SPEAKER_03 24:15

I I I include that part of the story to suggest that I was fully forgiven. Her and I went to homecoming together the next year, so it was not as if I that was the end of a relationship, but yes. That is what Everett is referring to.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

But please don't take this as advice because it is not Riz. It is the opposite. Don't break don't break a girl's finger because the answer I know for sure is not every girl will dance with you next year if you break their finger the former year. So yeah, just don't don't do any of that.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Yeah, and that that's the official position of testimony tracks. Do not break a girl's finger. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

In order to get a homecoming date, yeah. Okay. This concludes the dating advice section of our podcast. Okay. So not to rewind too much, but Brandon, you talked about when you moved away to a smaller town having resentment towards God. You didn't get the youth group experience you had been looking for and that kind of stuff. I'm curious if you expressed that resentment to anyone, to God or to others. Do you feel like you got a chance to vocalize that?

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Or yeah, I mean, I think my parents got it the worst. Uh, obviously, as as most students or kids that don't want to move, let their parents know. My parents knew my feelings. Yeah, I I would just say it it really was like in the summer is when I got to experience God and peers and communities and camps. And you know, so much of what I would be saying is telling everyone how much it it sucks that I'm gonna go home to not this. And then when I was back home, when I would pray, I would be like, you know, I'd ask God, like, why did you do this? Like when I'm there and when I'm with people, I feel so close to you, and then now I'm back in this desert far away from you. So yeah, I would there was definitely some wrestling that took a lot to get me out of.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Okay, so my next question for you is that you've been called to youth ministry, and you've been called to this church's youth group in particular, uh Bamel Church of Christ, who we can both agree on is a group of rowdy teenagers that have no idea what they're doing in whatsoever. And then we have we had recently, as I said in the first part for the intro, we had uh a mission trip in Honduras, which we had at the end of every night, nine-step plan for the next day, and that there's the there's this one specific nine-step plan that was specifically for my birthday, which you kept uh showing up on with long long face, broad shoulders. What what what do you think of that? And also what do you think of just the youth group in particular?

SPEAKER_03 27:28

That's exactly where I thought that question was going, obviously. The nine-step plan, uh, you know, again, like I said when I was younger, I used to, you know, believe bad things said about me, but you know, now as an adult, I uh sticks and stones don't break my bones, nor do drawings, you know. No, it was fine. Anyways, yeah, the drawings they can stay in Honduras. But uh the the the youth group, I think it is uh I I said God, it feels like God pulls me back, and I think God uses the students in particular to to do that because anytime I question my effectiveness or if I am questioning does this matter, there's a moment that I get to witness or be present where I watch a student in worship and just see the spirit moving in them, or I hear an answer in class, or I hear a conversation that happens away from me, and I'm just like, wow, like they are so much farther down the road than I ever was, and like you know, it's a humbling feeling to get to be a part of it. So long story short, I think I my love language is making fun of each other, roasting each other. Um, but I I think that the students are what keep me keep me around and keep my my cup full in ministry.

SPEAKER_00 29:00

And the parents, of course.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

And the parents, of course, if you're listening, parents, love you too. Thank you for all that you do.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

I mean, the kids can't financially support the YouTube. It has to come from someone, right?

SPEAKER_03 29:17

Yeah, and I mean, and that's what you know, the thing you haven't asked me about yet, but the Bam Bam Boys, they're what they're what funds the church and funds the ministry, really.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah, I wasn't sure if we were gonna go there now and have a later special, but we've teased it. Yeah, the the Bam Bam Boys, um, which we can relate this to the musical side of the podcast is so much. So, how did the Bam Bam Boys get together? How do you think the Bam Bam Boys would have gotten together if they were an actual band and not just uh a preacher and a youth minister parodying popular songs and making them holy and sacred?

SPEAKER_03 30:01

So, to be honest, how do I think we would have gotten together? I don't think I, in a different context, would be anywhere near a band because I do not make I do not boast any musical talents to my knowledge of singing or playing an instrument.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Pretty great dancing skills, though.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

So in the real world, I don't think we would make a band. But in the church context, I I've always parodied songs, like since I was even in elementary school, I was rewriting nickelback songs into parodies. And then in college at OC, I was a spring sing director every year where I parodied songs and rewrote them for c for the performances. And then I didn't get to use that skill for six years in San Antonio, and then when I moved here, you know, there was an idea of what could we do, what could what could the youth ministers do in order to make money. And I the the options on the table were like shaving your head or something crazy to raise money, and I was like, I do not want to do that. So I came up with an idea to write some parody music, and I asked David to do it.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

The preacher for those who are into the youth group listening, right?

SPEAKER_03 31:24

Yes, yes, David Ayres, who will be on a future episode, I believe. But I asked him to be a part of it, thinking maybe reluctantly he would say yes. But it turns out the Bam Bam Boys fulfilled David's dreams, lifelong dreams that he had been uh waiting for. So he very willingly uh joined the Bam Bam Boys. So I would say I am the creative mind behind the the band, and uh I am the creative mind of the the writing process. David is the the showman who keeps it going and keeps it very interesting. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Well, speaking of lifelong dreams, I also remember that you treated the men's ministry to a stand-up comedy one. Does that sigh imply that we're not expecting more stand-up in the future from you?

SPEAKER_03 32:24

I think you actually were witness to my entire stand-up comedy career. Uh I think I think it will it was the flash of the pan. It was a it was a I mean I I I received some decent feedback, but I have a lot of I have a newfound respect for stand-up comedians for after my experience of doing it. But yeah, I I don't have any intentions to do it again, uh Lord willing. You know.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

Alright, okay. So this is gonna be my last question. I don't know if it's gonna be dad's question, but uh my question for you is who's better, David, the preacher, or Dave, the otherwise cool guy and second member of the Bear Band Boys? David or Dave?

SPEAKER_03 33:14

Well, first of all, I feel like for the listeners, Everett has spent the majority of this podcast referring to inside jokes. So I'm doing my best to give you context, uh, people. But uh yeah, we David Ayers is who we took to Honduras, and I think we tried to bring back Dave. So, I mean, I've had some good times with David, but I'm really excited for what what the Dave we brought back. So I'm just waiting for Dave to do the backflip um that he promised.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

So I I feel like I feel like Dave has always been there because he I feel like he's the guy in the music of videos. Am I right?

SPEAKER_03 33:57

Yeah, no, there's been some sparks of Dave all along, um, but we'll see if if he can just live into it. It's kind of like my testimony, you know, you kind of gotta pick which one's the real one.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

So all right. Well, I'll uh I'll wrap us back around to music. So what's dominating your Spotify these days?

SPEAKER_03 34:18

Probably Noah Khan, which is a pretty basic answer in the world to today, but I I still enjoy some guitar and kind of more folksy music. Like I think though that when I'm really like in my like I loved the A Vitt brothers. I listened to them for long periods of time. And then, you know, I'll I'll be honest, and Everett Everett knows this probably my I have my number one most listened to artist almost every year is Taylor Swift. He's a Swift people. Here's here's the caveat. I am a youth minister, so I play that for the youth group a lot. It's on the playlist. And my wife and I both enjoy Taylor Swift, so it will be played when I'm at home a lot because of that. But all that to say, I do enjoy Taylor Swift. Not everything, but I do. I'd be lying if I didn't say I was kind of a Swifty. Yeah, I have a harder time finding new music these days, but Everett's always pointing me back in the direction of Christian rap.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Oh, in July. Everybody's gonna have a suggestion for you. He's always got a playlist ready. Yeah, no, no. All always. Always. Well, thanks for being a good sport and uh jumping into this chaos with us.

SPEAKER_03 35:41

Oh no, it's been great. This is my first podcast ever be on. I've been told for a long time I had a face for podcasting, so it's great to get to live that out today.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Well, you know, we have a huge following, so I'm sure that your life is just gonna level up at this point. Um you'll you'll probably be recognized in public just by your voice alone. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Yeah, we're gonna give you a couple of a couple of fans.

SPEAKER_03 36:07

Yeah, no, absolutely. I've been I've been waiting for this moment. My I mean my testimony kind of builds to this moment right here.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

So it's all downhill from here, Brandon. That peaked.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

I peaked you young. Uh make sure to uh play this episode, hype it, share it with your friends.