I met with a great man of God, Pastor Ron Carpenter in Greenville, SC today after speaking at Gardner Webb this morning. He’s had a big impact on my life. They call him Apostle Ron at his church, Redemption World Outreach Center. This bothers a lot of people. More about that in a minute. He fires me up like only about 10 other people can. I love the guy and look forward to spending more time with him. I’ll bring up something interesting and sad he said to me at the end of this post.

Then I headed back to Charlotte to go hear Bishop Eddie Long preach at my friend, Pastor Terrell Murphy’s church, New Birth Charlotte, in the University Area. It was good. He was a little lower energy than I’ve seen him on TV, but God spoke to me (Luke 5):

1: Mend and clean your nets for what God wants to do next in your life

2: Have others around you who can help haul in the catch so the net won’t break

3: Even if you’ve thrown out the nets so many times you feel like it’s not worth trying again, throw them out one more time.

I took my boys, LB, D, and C-B wit me. We rolled ghetto fabulous in Larry’s mini van. It’s bad when the pastor has reserved parking for you and the parking attendant doesn’t believe you because you are 4 white guys in a mini-van at a 99% black church where pimped out cars are par for the course. Funny stuff. To me, hearing preaching is more fun than a Panthers game. I’m weird, I know. Back off. I’ve never been to a Panther’s game by the way. Get me tickets somebody at Elevation. I’ll buy you nachos.

Anyway, back to what Pastor Ron told me (by the way, he spent over 3 hours with me, which was really kind of him). This is actually the point of this post.

I was talking about having him come speak to our people and he felt worried that being associated with him might hurt me. Because they’re Pentecostal and we’re not (for the most part). Because he’s a pretty radical guy, and a lot of people think he’s cocky and over the top. Because he drives a nice car and some people think pastors should be poor and use public transportation or donkeys, whichever is cheaper. Because our churches are totally different styles and people might get confused about what Elevation is and isn’t if they associate him with me.

Clarification: he’s not worried about what people will think of him being with me, he’s just worried for my sake. He’s scared that people will get the wrong idea about me if I hang out with him. Like they’ll get mixed messages.

The thing is, I don’t care if people misjudge me about this. I will associate with godly people of integrity with awesome ministries anytime I can. Period. It would kill my spirit to hang out only with people who think like me and talk like me and preach like me.

Or to live my life to please the people who want me to.

Yeah, it was odd for me to be around 2 major church leaders who run in primarily charismatic circles today. It isn’t my normal company. But just because we don’t talk in tongues at Elevation services and I disagree with some of Pastor Ron’s views (say, on certain points of healing), doesn’t mean I’m not inspired by him. He loves Jesus, and his people, and his wife, and he’s a common sense genius with a lot to teach me.

And I’m not going to be some suburban white kid with only suburban white kid pastor friends. I’m going to stretch. And eat the fish and leave the bones (a life principle for me). And appreciate the gift of God and ministry distinctives about every style of ministry. And choose to see the good in the people I’m privileged to know.Apostle Ron, you’re welcome at Elevation any time.