00:00:00 Jeromy Johnson: Dave, zoom. Here we are. It's good to see your face, my friend. It's all yours, man. We have lived life together for a long time. I think what we met over twenty years ago, I would say just estimated it was probably something like that. You get our age and it just all starts blending together. But if it's before yesterday, it's a long time ago. Yeah, yeah, we've been through it. We've been through a lot of stuff in the past almost twenty years for sure, but everything's been good regardless of trending upward. What we've been going through, like even in those hard moments, they've been good moments. They've been moments of, uh, of connection, of friendship and God. If there's one person that that's in my life and has been in my life that I could just call up at any time, it's you. Yeah. Same. Have you ever known a man of Grace? I'm, uh. I'm looking at him. You've lived it, you're living it. You've received it. You're receiving it. Hell, you've even been denied it. Yeah, you would be that guy. You've gone from being a pastor back to being. Well, I would say being back to being a human. I don't know if we ever thought ourselves as human before all that. But you were a pastor. Seriously moved to being a human, and now you're. You're one who walks beside others with Linda.

00:01:29 Dave Everly: And I say with, when we tell somebody we're with you, it's, uh, it's very meaningful to us, and we have to explain it to people sometimes that when we say, when I say I'm with you, It's like, you know, if you're in California, I'm in Charleston, South Carolina. Uh, give me give me eight hours and I'll be there. Like, if you need me. Everybody that I work with, that I communicate with, that I'm working with, we say we're with. And that's how we. That's how we do it. Uh, because that's I mean, not to overspiritualize it or whatever to make it sound weird, but, I mean, that's what's been done for us, not just by friends and family and some folks along the way, but by by Christ, by Jesus, who's been he's been with us. And so that word with is very powerful for us. So it's a long side and it means, um, in it while you're going through it. I'm willing to suffer with you. Yeah. So that's what we have. That's what with means.

00:02:29 Jeromy Johnson: And we've walked with each other, man. We've walked for years and years and years. We've walked with each other. Yes. And I appreciate you offering that. You would be here in about eight hours, but with your knee, I'm gonna say it's probably going to be more like thirty six to forty eight hours.

00:02:43 Dave Everly: Oh, yeah, and I can't travel currently, so.

00:02:46 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, you can't see me? He's been blacklisted. Yeah.

00:02:49 Dave Everly: No, he can't travel till I can bend my leg. So it's going to be another month.

00:02:53 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, man, that surgery. But it will heal, man. You'll be back. Oh, yeah. We're on.

00:02:56 Dave Everly: We're on the way. But the the scripture that says, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you're with me. I mean, it's I don't know how we taught that in the past. It doesn't matter. But what I understand that as now is this, though I willfully choose to walk into the valley of the shadow of death, even though that's my choice. I don't have to fear because you're still with me.

00:03:19 Jeromy Johnson: Mhm.

00:03:19 Dave Everly: And so that's what's been given to me. And that's what I try to give to everyone in my, in my space. Yeah.

00:03:26 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. You're a giver. And it's been my life privilege to walk on this road with you throughout these years. I still remember when I first met you, you walked in this room. We were doing a men's. Just a men's group, I guess a men's gathering. It was just a few of us, four or five of us. It wasn't a Bible study. I think we were past that. And I think we were in the kitchen or something like that. And this thought someone was breaking into the house. This guy walks in and just shrouded in a black hoodie, just sunken and hiding. And I don't even know if you took that hoodie off. And I think that was just the the, the essence. As I look back at that, it was just, was just hiding and sunken. Um.

00:04:09 Dave Everly: The picture of Shane.

00:04:10 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. And we'll, we'll circle back to that. But yeah, just to get people on board with who Dave Everly is, tell us about about growing up. Tell us about Little Dave and what that looked like.

00:04:23 Dave Everly: Yeah. I, um, I was born in Morristown, new Jersey, somewhere sixty nine somewhere love Italian family. My dad was an Italian, but we were in Morristown, new Jersey. That was my mom's side of things over there. And, uh, it was just always family and loud and large groups and a lot of talking with the hands and, uh, you know, cured meats and, uh, things like that and family business that, you know, sometimes they didn't talk about and we don't really know what was going on with some of the relatives and didn't ask too many questions. But, um, all of a sudden, I was probably four years old. We up and left Morristown, new Jersey and moved to Tucson, Arizona. Um, that's not around. Around the corner. That's across the country. We moved next door to my mom's sister, to my aunt, and to my cousins. I remember going to kindergarten in Tucson. Turns out later, much later in life, discovered that something happened with my dad and another woman. And so my, um, what we imagined because my parents, they never talked about anything. So if something happened in the family, it was just ignore until safe period of time. So like, my mom just wouldn't talk to you. And then all of a sudden she talked to you, you know? And then my dad wouldn't talk to you. And all of a sudden they'd talk to you. We couldn't get any answers about why did we move across the country? And, um. And we'll circle back again to this. But my dad passed away in twenty seventeen. And when my brothers and I were going through the garage, his garage, cleaning up all the crap and, you know, saving things, looking for little mementos and, like, I want this wrench. My brothers are like, well, I want this, you know, that kind of thing. Remember my dad? I remember pulling up this box, and in it were these papers. And I'm riffling through all these papers, trying to figure out if there's anything of value. And I found this, like, folder, and I opened it, and there's two poems in there, and, uh, the poems were my dad pining for this other person. My dad was an amazing poet. Very, very gifted and thought and prose. And so he wrote these poems. And it was like one was like two months before I was born in sixty nine. And the other one was like two months after I was born. And we moved to Tucson like a couple of years. Like, it was. So it was weird. So my brothers, I'm the youngest of the family of four. Um, my next brother is six and a half years older than me. He he tells a story of being a little boy and being in the pickup truck with my dad. My dad picked him up from school. Um, we're in new Jersey, in the Morristown area. He drives home from school, and, you know, the garbage cans are at the end of the driveway. And my dad said, hey, bud, jump out and grab the garbage cans, and I'll meet you at the house. And my brother jumps out and gets the cans and goes in. And my dad drove away and he never came back. And he was gone for, uh, we don't know how long. My mom would never say. And then my brother talks about how my mom just sat in the living room. Wow. Looking out the window. Day and night. For whatever period of time this was. And I, I don't know if it's because of the stories or if I actually have the recollection of the silhouette of my mom sitting there in front of the picture window, looking out, just waiting for my dad to come back.

00:07:48 Jeromy Johnson: Wow. And as a kid, you know something's going on.

00:07:51 Dave Everly: But nobody and we still don't know what happened. And my parents are now both gone.

00:07:57 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. But they were they were pretty spiritual and not at that point. Right.

00:08:01 Dave Everly: So my my dad actually got saved when he was a little boy, actually, at a Billy Graham crusade, which is. Which is pretty cool. Yeah. And my mom grew up Roman Catholic, Italian, you know, new Jersey Italians. So my dad was, I would say was a Christian. But, uh, when when I was a little boy in the early seventies, the area we're talking about now, but not not a church goer, we weren't anything to do with church. I remember being in Tucson. My first memory of church is Tucson and mass going to mass with my mom and wondering what the heck this little wafer thing is, and I was not allowed to touch it. And then we, uh, a couple years later, we're in Tucson and we moved back, maybe nineteen seventy four. We moved back to Pennsylvania. So not new Jersey, not the area where whatever happened, happened, um, but headed back to the East Coast. My dad got a job with, uh, Greco children's product manufacturing. They built porta cribs, you know, strollers, cribs.

00:08:57 Jeromy Johnson: Yes.

00:08:58 Dave Everly: Yeah, they definitely still around at the time. I'm not sure what their what the etymology of that company is now, but they are currently. Back then they were owned by a Christian family. They had a deal where if you would go to, uh, go to chapel or whatever, you know, there was incentive to go to they had a chapel and my dad went my dad ended up coming back to the Lord. And, um, we started going to this little Baptist church. Oh, yes. Yeah. Woo woo.

00:09:25 Jeromy Johnson: Woo.

00:09:26 Dave Everly: So I start flinching right there. Uh, we started going to this little Baptist church. I want to say it was called Bible Baptist Church. And, uh, the the pastor's name was Gilbert Keene. Gill Keene. And I remember he drove an international scout.

00:09:41 Jeromy Johnson: You know, back in the seventies. Those are beautiful.

00:09:44 Dave Everly: And I remember just going to that little Baptist church, Sunday school and Sunday morning and then, uh, one day, in fact, I remember the date because it was my salvation story for a lot of years. July tenth, nineteen seventy seven, my parents invited Pastor Keene over.

00:10:01 Jeromy Johnson: To.

00:10:02 Dave Everly: Talk to me about salvation. I remember we sat on the side porch of our big old house that my parents had at the time. There.

00:10:08 Jeromy Johnson: They either really loved you or were really worried about you to, like, have a one on one with the pastor.

00:10:14 Dave Everly: Well, we had to, you know, we had to get her done so. But I remember him coming over and talking on the back porch, and I prayed that sinner's prayer, as the Baptists are very fond of. And that began my spiritual journey, My understanding of, oh, it's not just me, you know, plodding through this day in and day out. There's there's a god. And apparently, this God loves me. But apparently he's not real happy with who I am and how I am. And I'm a worm, and I need something. And, um, started started in on that journey as best I could. And and being the baby of the family, uh, there's a lot of pleaser in me. And so I always wanted to kind of tow the line. Just did what I was told. We started going to church. We never missed church. Ended up moving to another church that was closer called Calvary Baptist Church, and that is where we attended until I graduated high school. Uh, and when I was in sixth grade, they started a Christian school. I started attending the Christian school. Um, I was told I was going to be a pastor and I needed to learn how to preach. And they started my first.

00:11:18 Jeromy Johnson: Wow.

00:11:19 Dave Everly: My first sermon in front of a whole church of people with about five hundred people was in sixth grade.

00:11:25 Jeromy Johnson: Were you just like, okay, I guess I'll, I guess that's the road I'm going down. Or did you have other dreams or aspirations?

00:11:30 Dave Everly: I mean, I, I was just a everything was sports for me, you know, everything was uh, especially back then. It was basketball. I just wanted to, like, I slept with my basketball. I spun my basketball on my finger so much that it wore through the rubber and into the strings. Like that was my life was basketball and trying not to get in trouble. Yeah, we're a small Christian school, and I graduated in nineteen eighty seven. There was twelve of us in the class, so graduated in the top twelve, which is good.

00:11:59 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. I mean, you can put that on your resume.

00:12:02 Dave Everly: Top twelve.

00:12:02 Jeromy Johnson: Buddy.

00:12:02 Dave Everly: Don't.

00:12:03 Jeromy Johnson: Forget twelve.

00:12:03 Dave Everly: Don't sell.

00:12:04 Jeromy Johnson: Yourself short.

00:12:05 Dave Everly: But I remember, um, always feeling like, okay, there's this church, Dave, and then there's this away from church. Dave.

00:12:12 Jeromy Johnson: Mhm. Yeah, I recognize that. Yep.

00:12:15 Dave Everly: And church Dave needed to look a certain way, talk a certain way, act a certain way, memorize scripture, give the right answers. And away from church Dave was just terrified that God was going to squish him with a, you know, cosmic shoe coming out of the coming out of the sky, like just cosmic. Scrooge was just kind of perpetually frustrated and angry with me because, you know, I'm there looking at girls or I'm lying and sneaking around. You know, I turned into a little sneak because I was a I was trying to please and not get in trouble.

00:12:48 Jeromy Johnson: And fit in with your other. Yeah, yeah.

00:12:50 Dave Everly: Fit in with the other lying sneaks who were trying to do the same thing as me at this Christian school. I remember one time I was supposed to lead some music in our little chapel at the Christian school, and I forgot about it, and, uh, came that day, and the guy asked the youth, our youth pastor asked me, you know, are you ready? And I said, oh, it's not me. I asked so and so to do it for me, and I didn't like I completely lied, so I didn't get in trouble. And then obviously he asked this other kid and they were like, no, he didn't ask me to do it. So that didn't work out so well. It's not all anybody's fault. But that was how I responded to what I was hearing and how I was treated was in order to be okay. I had to act and look okay and to be accepted. I had to be acceptable in my behavior and my thoughts and all the things. Wow. And if I wasn't, then I wasn't. And as a pleaser, that's terrifying. And as a little boy, that's your whole world feeling like it's completely unsteady and unstable at all times.

00:13:51 Jeromy Johnson: Do you think when they said, hey, you're going to be a pastor, you just need to start doing that? Like that pleaser in you kind of kicked in a little bit where you're like, oh.

00:13:59 Dave Everly: Of.

00:13:59 Jeromy Johnson: Course, okay, this is what they want. Yeah, this is what we'll do.

00:14:03 Dave Everly: Yeah. Of course. I mean, I had talked about like with my parents, I remember asking like, what it would be like to be a doctor. Oh, no, you're not going to do that. And I was really wanting to go into the military like, Special Forces was always a thing for me. And my dad was like, no, like very adamant, like almost like pull the. I remember talking about it in the car once on the way to church or something and like, almost like pull the car over type. No.

00:14:26 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. And back then they would just smack you. Yeah.

00:14:29 Dave Everly: Yeah. And it wasn't that. It was just like adamantly. No, you're you're going into the ministry like we didn't ever talk about things. I was just told things.

00:14:38 Jeromy Johnson: Mm.

00:14:39 Dave Everly: We're moving to new Jersey. Why? We don't talk about. We're moving back to Pennsylvania. No questions. You're doing this. All these things. Mhm. And so I grew up that way and um, became a pretty successful in my little world, you know, big fish in a small pond, um winning all of the trophies and number one this and MVP that and sports and like we started playing varsity sports when I was in sixth grade. And by the time I got to high school, we were dominant in our little world again, just a small it was a small world. Preaching and being able to teach and do those kind of things as a young person gave me confidence and I gained skills. And and as you grow up, you understand that you have natural inclinations and natural abilities and natural bents, and you lean into those. And I think God has blessed me with the ability to, um, to communicate and to speak and to relate to people. My favorite thing is sitting down with like one on one with someone who's struggling. I wouldn't be able to do some of the things that I have to do now as I work with people. If I hadn't been through what I was when I was a kid. So it's not all bad. No, I hate some of the. Can we swear on this podcast? Yeah, I hate some of the shit that was that I've been through. But at the same time, like, for instance, uh, we weren't allowed to listen to any music that was secular unless it was. Most people call it classical music, but art music, you know, Beethoven, Mozart or big band? Uh, Nat King Cole? Yeah. No drums. Like, I could listen to big band music. I could listen to Nat King Cole. Mhm. Um, Mel Tormé. I could listen to Frank Sinatra, and because of that, I am extremely well versed in all types of music. Obviously, the rock and roll came along because I would sneak and listen to that. But I'm appreciative of the way I grew up in that way, because I understand, and I'm familiar with probably every single kind of music and like jazz. I can appreciate because that's what I was allowed to listen to. I know a Mozart symphony. I can name it if I hear it, because that's what I was allowed to listen to. Yeah. And so I have that appreciation now that I wouldn't have had.

00:16:54 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. It's nice to be able to look back now and realize that we are who we are and all of our everything because of our story, because of what we went through. Yeah, some of it is bad and painful and but we are the creation of that and that's okay and that's good.

00:17:10 Dave Everly: And I who knows, I may be the person who needed extreme boundaries or I, I would I may be dead and gone. Yeah, I'm not even kidding. Yeah, like I struggled with part of my story. We'll get to. I struggled with alcohol. What if I was unfettered as a high schooler and off to college? I. Who knows?

00:17:32 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. You could have ended up wrapped around a tree.

00:17:34 Dave Everly: Yep. Totally. As a young man, you know, with more bravado than, uh, an older person who starts to drink later in life. Yeah. So I'm thankful for some of that stuff, but it was also very scarring, because I remember the youth pastor coming into one of our youth meetings and getting up in front and saying, all right, we're going to start who who wants to pray? In fact, who's on praying ground? And we're all looking like, well, I'm not on praying ground because I'm just a, you know, I can't do anything right for God. He can never be pleased with me. And so that was the attitude.

00:18:06 Jeromy Johnson: Huh?

00:18:07 Dave Everly: Or you would think, yeah, I am, because you wanted to give the right answer and you'd lie and put your hand up and, you know, say this lovely homily prayer. And it was just all religion And if you spend any time with me, you're gonna understand that I am anti-religion, I hate it. It's the most evil thing on the planet. All of our, in my estimation, all of our fears, all of our anxiety, all of our doubts, all of the troubles that we have in life are because of religion. I'd be willing to have that debate with anybody.

00:18:39 Jeromy Johnson: Mm.

00:18:40 Dave Everly: I remember writing the blog fifteen years ago and it was titled Religion Kills, and it's a picture of the Twin Towers in flames.

00:18:48 Jeromy Johnson: Mm.

00:18:49 Dave Everly: I mean, that's that's what religion is to me. So have no time for it. Don't care about it. Hate it. Um, you spend time with me, you will see I am not a religious person, but I am extremely spiritual. And I am extremely in tune with what Christ is doing in my heart, in my life, who Jesus is. Uh, I want to be in stride with Jesus. And what I see when I look at the life of Jesus is he was pretty anti-religious, too. In fact, the religious people, the religious people are the ones who ended up getting them strung up.

00:19:20 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:19:21 Dave Everly: Anyway, that was growing up Baptist. We were the Baptists that we like to call ourselves the independent separatist fundamentalist Baptist. We didn't associate with anybody. We weren't Southern Baptists. They weren't. They weren't.

00:19:34 Jeromy Johnson: Can you say that again? That was beautiful. You were the.

00:19:37 Dave Everly: Independent separatist, fundamentalist Baptist.

00:19:41 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, yeah. With each word, you're just gonna like.

00:19:44 Dave Everly: Our circle was so tight.

00:19:45 Jeromy Johnson: Because Baptist wasn't tight enough. No, fundamentalist wasn't tight enough.

00:19:51 Dave Everly: We were all alone. We were. Our circle was so tight. Even Jesus wasn't welcome because he had long hair and sandals and wore dress. So that's not happening. Yeah. In high school, I was dating a girl that went to our Christian school who my parents didn't like. Um, she had a single mom, so, you know that that that wouldn't cut it.

00:20:11 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:20:12 Dave Everly: And And. But there was another a deacon in the church. Their daughter was the one that was approved for me.

00:20:20 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, good. Basically good.

00:20:22 Dave Everly: Yeah. And I was allowed to date her. Started dating her the last couple weeks of our senior year of high school. We ended up going to the same Bible college together, which was an independent, separatist, fundamentalist Baptist Bible college. We weren't allowed to date.

00:20:38 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:20:39 Dave Everly: Unless you had a chaperone. And if you wanted to talk to your girlfriend or the opposite sex on campus, you had to sit in the first floor of the girls dormitory in this lounge. And they had a lounge monitor, a person who would sit there and make sure you weren't too close, you weren't touching. And the only way. Yeah.

00:20:56 Jeromy Johnson: That was you guys are breathing the same oxygen. You guys need to stop that.

00:21:00 Dave Everly: Yeah. Your your breaths. Your breaths are copulating. You should. That's not okay.

00:21:04 Jeromy Johnson: Not approved. Like little breath babies floating around.

00:21:09 Dave Everly: But then I ended up marrying this person, uh, two weeks after.

00:21:13 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. Because that's the that was the story, right? Like you, you grow up in a church, you go to Bible college for some of us, and then you, you meet the person that you're going to marry. You marry them. You have kids. Because to be a pastor like you need a good wife. Yeah. You need to have probably kids because there aren't many divorced or single pastors floating around out there. Even to this day.

00:21:36 Dave Everly: Yeah. And so I that was that was it for me. I mean, we got married, you know, uh, it that was extremely difficult. You know, this is this is a person that we're talking about. But I don't know that left to my own decisions, that would have been the person that I would have married.

00:21:54 Jeromy Johnson: Mm.

00:21:55 Dave Everly: Um, but that's that. That's history. We can't go back. It is what it is. It's part of the story. Yeah. And then that was. We got married in nineteen ninety one.

00:22:06 Jeromy Johnson: And you were, what, about twenty one, twenty two, twenty?

00:22:09 Dave Everly: Let's see, nineteen ninety one. I'd have been twenty two years old.

00:22:12 Jeromy Johnson: Okay.

00:22:13 Dave Everly: My wife got a teaching job at a Christian school in Garland, Texas, and just so happened to be I was working at getting into grad school at SMU Southern Methodist, which is in Dallas. Okay. And I was running from ministry at that point. Like I did not want to go into ministry. I'm like, no, thank you. And so we moved down to Garland, Texas, right after we were married all alone. Didn't know anybody on this Baptist church, Southern Baptist church, Lavon Drive Baptist church. And I remember, uh, you know, everybody in the Southern Baptist church down in Dallas, they call you brother this and brother that. The youth pastor was Brother Tommy. And brother Tommy was this young, athletic guy. You know, like most youth pastors, he comes up to me and get to know each other a little bit and he's like, hey, do you want to be on the men's softball team? I'm like, oh yeah, I'd love to. Again, sports was my thing. Uh, first practice is, uh, Thursday night and we practice at nine thirty because it's so hot here in Dallas. So we practice at night under the lights. And then our first game is going to be Saturday night. And I said, cool. So I show up at nine thirty for practice on Thursday night, get done. We're having a good time. And at the end of the practice, brother Tommy goes, all right, guys, our first game is Saturday night. We're playing whatever the other Baptist church down the street men's team. So men against men, and he goes and remember guys, no shorts. We want to be a good testimony. Jeans only.

00:23:38 Jeromy Johnson: Jeans only. Dude, it's.

00:23:43 Dave Everly: Sorry. It's freaking one hundred and ten degrees. And they're concerned about being a good testimony, playing other men in softball by not wearing shorts.

00:23:52 Jeromy Johnson: See, because they knew there was some Baptist guys. They're gonna be looking at you going. Mhm.

00:23:56 Dave Everly: Or some ladies in the crowd who will be fawning over my, you know, young, uh, virile thighs. I don't know what the. So I just remember going home from that practice and having a thought for the first time in my life. And it went like this. Like, okay, I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and the Baptist there said, girls and guys like in, you know, in youth group could swim in the same pool, but everybody had to wear t shirts. And the girls, even if they're wearing t shirts, had to have a one piece bathing suit. Okay. Then I went to college in Minnesota. The Baptist in Minnesota said, no mixed bathing. They called that bathing. So if it's swimming, this guys go at their time with a t shirt on, and girls go at a separate time with their t shirt on. And now I'm down here in Texas, and the Baptists are telling me that I can't play softball in shorts with other men because I want to be a good testimony. And I remember thinking, for the first time in my life, what do I believe? Like, that was like this formulative thought. And a very treacherous thought.

00:25:00 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, dangerous.

00:25:01 Dave Everly: Very dangerous.

00:25:02 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:25:03 Dave Everly: Like I didn't get struck with lightning. I don't know why. And I just started down that path of like, what do I believe? And, um, it didn't go well at home. Like, I started bringing home, like, contemporary Christian cassettes, you know, Steve Green, Sandi Patty, Larnelle Harris.

00:25:24 Jeromy Johnson: Wait, so even contemporary Christian music wasn't allowed?

00:25:27 Dave Everly: Was not allowed. I remember my wife saying, you know, why do you have this music? Uh, because I was hiding, like, those cassettes. Because her her parents were coming. My in-laws were coming to visit us, and I'm putting those back behind something, and she goes, you shouldn't have to hide something if it's okay. If you have to hide it, it's not okay. And I'm like, we don't have sex on the kitchen table when your parents are here. Some things are for us and some things are nobody's business. Anyway, it didn't go well, but.

00:25:53 Jeromy Johnson: So what I hear you saying is you guys had sex while listening to Keith Green.

00:25:57 Dave Everly: Yes, baby. It just turned us on. That was it. So that fostered some discussion, and it put me on this path of, again, what do I believe? What what do I hear in my spirit from God? You know, being the pleaser, trying not to rock the boat. And, uh, also, you know, not being honest because I wasn't willing to go through all those corrective conversations regularly being told I was wrong, that I was thinking incorrectly, that I ought this and I should that. And, you know, you know what's right and all that kind of stuff. Like, I get really tired of that. I'm a very independent person. It was just the beginning of, yeah.

00:26:36 Jeromy Johnson: That little crack. Yeah.

00:26:37 Dave Everly: This little crack of stepping away from the my faith origin story and turning it into something that was specific to me and what I was hearing from God. At the same time, knowing that my wife was not in stride with that in in a different place in the journey, though, willing to have conversation. So I kind of tempered my slowed my roll a little bit, you know, because I didn't. Yeah, we were married. And, uh, the right thing to do is to, you know, agree on these things. So the SMU thing was very interesting because I, I had a scholarship in the first fall, the fall of ninety one to start SMU. And I get there and I go in to get ready to go to class and they're like, we have everything you need. We got your scholarship. You're all good, but we don't have room for you this semester, so you gotta wait til January. I said, oh, okay. So I was working a job anyway, so we just waited and January comes around and they said the same thing again. And so then it's February March and I'm thinking about next fall starting. And then I'm thinking, what if they say the same thing again? And then I'm thinking, because of the way I was growing up. Well, I'm the Jonah, and, uh, I've been thrown off the ship, and this is what's. This is the whale that's going to eat me. And this is never gonna. They're never going to let me in. And so ministry must be what I need to do. And and I think that was good. Although the way I got to that point wasn't the Yeah.

00:28:03 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, because.

00:28:04 Dave Everly: It was just a little. My thinking was skewed. My thinking was religious.

00:28:07 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:28:08 Dave Everly: The religious thinker is very self, uh, is very concerned with self preservation. That's what religion does to to me. It makes me not want to be in trouble with God. So I'll act and think and do things as best I can to stay out of trouble. And it's like it's no way to live. So I said to my wife at the time, like, I don't see this thing happening, and I think I should get back on track to get into ministry. And so we ended up moving up to Minnesota summer of ninety two. My brother was pastoring a little country church up there, and he was like, well, if you guys are just going to work in Texas, why don't you come up and just work here? And then you can help us at the church and get some experience? And I was like, cool. So we went up there and, um, we, my wife and I each got jobs at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and I was started looking for ministry positions, helping my brother in this little country church which, like when I say little, there was like probably forty people. About a year later, I came home from work one day and my wife said, hey, are our youth pastor called. Our youth pastor is Pastor Collier. Pastor Collier called. And I was like, oh, cool, what do you want? He goes, I think she said, I think he has a church that may be interested in you, but I think he's kidding about the Alaska part. And I.

00:29:26 Jeromy Johnson: Was like, what.

00:29:27 Dave Everly: Do you mean? She goes, well, he's talked about a church in Alaska that's looking for somebody like you. And I was like, what's the number now?

00:29:34 Jeromy Johnson: Was she saying that because she's like, she did not want to go to Alaska? Or was she just like.

00:29:38 Dave Everly: No, she did not want to go to Alaska and was just and you were like, thought it was a joke.

00:29:41 Jeromy Johnson: When can we go?

00:29:42 Dave Everly: And. Yeah, and I'm a I grew up hunting, fishing outdoors in Pennsylvania there. And I was I wonder what it'd be like to visit Alaska. I never thought about actually visiting it or living there. And so this was ninety three, um, our firstborn child was due in September. And so I got called Pastor Collier. This is like, maybe August, you know, mid-August. I don't remember exactly. And he said, this church in Homer, Alaska, is looking for a youth and music pastor, and I think you're the guy. You'd be perfect for it. And I said, like, what's the number? So he connected us. I called up, talked to the pastor, Rick Wise, who just retired last Christmas.

00:30:23 Jeromy Johnson: Wow.

00:30:23 Dave Everly: After over forty years. And he's still like, one of my favorite people on the planet. I get together with him as often as I can in our busy summers up there. I love that guy. Got got Ahold of him, and we decided that after the baby was born because again, we were imminently pregnant, that they would fly us up to visit and to candidate, you know, for this position. And so David was born in September. September nineteenth, nineteen ninety three. And two weeks later we flew, flew up to Homer, Alaska. You know, at that point in my life, I didn't fly a whole lot. You know, I might have flown from Pennsylvania to Florida with my parents as a kid for vacation or, but never very far. Yeah, Alaska is far. And we left Minneapolis early in the morning. We got to Anchorage late in the evening, and one of the deacons and his dad picked us up at the Anchorage airport and they go, okay, where's your stuff? Here's our bags. And there's the little baby. And I was like, so how long is the drive? He goes, oh, we're not driving. My dad has a plane. We're flying down to Homer in a little plane. And I'm like, cool. It's dark. It's it was like middle, mid October of ninety three. And so we yeah, we go out and get in this little airplane. Like, we just walked out and got in a plane and left. Very Alaskan.

00:31:45 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:31:45 Dave Everly: And my, my wife at the time tells the story of clutching onto her newborn baby in that flight down to Homer in the middle of the night, thinking, we just need to let him get this out of his system so we can go home at the end of this week and forget this ever happened.

00:32:00 Jeromy Johnson: Do you think I'm gonna die in my kid's gonna die? Yeah.

00:32:03 Dave Everly: So we.

00:32:04 Jeromy Johnson: We.

00:32:04 Dave Everly: Get down to Homer.

00:32:05 Jeromy Johnson: It's dark.

00:32:06 Dave Everly: They dropped us off at this. One of the families of of the church that we were staying with. And there was, like, a two story log cabin that he had built. And they kept talking about how beautiful the view was out in front of the cabin. And we'll see it the next morning when the sun comes up. And I got in bed. We went to sleep and I kept I remember getting up and looking out the window like as I remember it, it seemed like a lot of times maybe it was two or three times, right? But I get up and look and it's dark and I go back to bed, and then I get up, looked again, and it was dark. And I get up and looked again. It was dark. And then finally, like nine o'clock in the morning, we're doing something. And I look out the window and it's the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. I'm looking out on the from the side of this hill at the sun coming up over the Kenai Mountains with water. This is the Kachemak Bay, snow on the hills and on the mountains. And just like being dumbfounded at what I was looking at.

00:33:07 Jeromy Johnson: Wow.

00:33:08 Dave Everly: And I was just, like, blown away. I went and got my wife. I said, you gotta see this. And we just, like, stared at it, like, what are we even like? It was mind boggling. So it just blew my freaking mind. So that that began the week. It was. It was a week, like a Monday through Friday in Alaska. And every lunch and every dinner, we were at another family's house. And it was wonderful. Like by the end of the week, we were both like, we want to be here. And at the end of the week, my wife was like, yeah, I could definitely live here.

00:33:41 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. That's huge.

00:33:42 Dave Everly: And we we moved there in December of nineteen ninety three, and I started my first position as a pastor. Fell in love with ministry. Fell in love with Alaska again to circle back to Pastor Rick. I don't think I could have worked for and with a better human being. It just it became a really cool way of life. And I fell in love with it and discovered that I had I was gifted in what it and what I needed to do to be a shepherd. Uh, and it looked different back then, you know, as a Baptist boy and, uh, growing up that way. But it was good. It was a good season. It's about six years into that. I felt like being led to do the type of worship that wasn't Baptist. Um, you know, we had traveled around a bit. The church there let me go away to graduate school, and I went to Portland, to Multnomah Seminary, and I got my master's there. And so I was exposed to other, other ways of doing things that were more, for lack of a better word and to use what the Baptist would say more contemporary. Yeah. You know, or whatever. More evangelical, not so Baptist.

00:34:51 Jeromy Johnson: And this is, uh, late nineties, early aughts.

00:34:53 Dave Everly: Yeah. No. Late nineties. Late ninety six. Ninety seven. And got my masters. And we built a house in Alaska. And. But I remember a year and a half after being in the new house, coming home and saying, like, I think we need to leave. Mm. And she was like, why? And I was like, I feel led to do worship in a way that does not belong here at this Baptist church. And this is not a battle I want to fight. This is who they are. And I think we need to go to a place where what we want, what I want to do fits in. So we we left there. We went to, um, in in nineteen ninety nine. We left and went to northeast Indiana to a seeker sensitive church. So a Willow Creek style church. When I got there in ninety nine, there was one hundred and fifteen people. And I was, uh, when I left in two thousand and five, we had eighteen hundred. Every, every weekend.

00:35:51 Jeromy Johnson: And you were just doing worship at that point?

00:35:53 Dave Everly: Uh, no. Started out with worship and just just to kind of a general associate pastor, uh, two years in the lead pastor that hired me left. We hired a new pastor, but he was from Minneapolis. And these little small town Indiana people didn't really accept him. And so I kind of got grandfathered in as the guy. So I was preaching, teaching, marrying, burying, teaching the classes. I was for all practical purposes, I was the lead pastor.

00:36:21 Jeromy Johnson: But getting paid as a worship pastor, getting paid the worship pastor. But.

00:36:26 Dave Everly: Uh, we were we were very, for lack of a better word, very successful. Like I said, we had one hundred and fifteen when I got there a few years later in a town of like maybe between eight or eleven thousand people, we have we had eighteen hundred every week.

00:36:39 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:36:39 Dave Everly: Wow. And it ran me into the freaking ground.

00:36:43 Jeromy Johnson: Mm.

00:36:44 Dave Everly: So, uh, in like, January or February, I remember praying, saying, God, I hate people. I'm tired of this. I want to move to California. I want to be a worship pastor at a very large church, where all I have to do is lead on a Sunday morning, and I don't have to do anything else. Just give me a team of people and. And God said, okay. Yeah. What you want? Go for it. And so August of two thousand and five, we moved to El Dorado Hills, California, which is Northern California, uh, the eastern suburbs of Sacramento, on the way up to Lake Tahoe. So this is on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada's beautiful place.

00:37:23 Jeromy Johnson: five minutes from my house. And I'm living in right now. Yeah.

00:37:26 Dave Everly: And it's, uh. Yeah, El Dorado Hills was a lot different, you know, twenty years ago than it is now. It's just this little community didn't have much going on. Now it's a thriving, um, city, but got there in, like I said, August of two thousand and five and, um, I lasted one year and I had to resign, uh, because I had an affair.

00:37:50 Speaker 4: Bom bom bom and that.

00:37:52 Jeromy Johnson: All right, everyone. Well, thanks for listening. Have a good day. Join us. And, uh. Okay. So early aughts, move up to El Dorado Hills. You have now ministry of your dreams. You're just the worship pastor. You are only doing that. You're in a bigger church. You're in a thriving area, thriving community. I mean, it's growing like gangbusters here. Yeah, seems like everything's going really well from the outside. And then you said you you had an affair while on staff. Mhm. And I'm sure they, they heard that and they recognized there must be something more going on with Dave. So let's, let's really talk to him and really figure out what's, what's going on deeper with Dave. And let's come alongside him. Let's, let's walk with him, see how we can help him navigate this, this stage of his life and really bring him the into restoration and healing, right?

00:38:49 Dave Everly: That's that's exactly.

00:38:50 Jeromy Johnson: How it happened. Yes.

00:38:53 Dave Everly: That's exactly how I remember. You have the gift of sarcasm.

00:38:57 Jeromy Johnson: That should be. That should be the story. But it wasn't.

00:38:59 Dave Everly: It wasn't the story. So, um, like maybe two or three months into my time there in Northern California, I remember going into the auditorium, sitting down at the piano, just like being sad and lonely, uh, in this new place and, um, not having the connection or the impact in ministry that I had just come from, like, where I was the dude everybody loved Pastor Dave, and Pastor Dave was killing it, and I was honored, and I was kind of riding on all of that, you know? And then all of a sudden, I'm in a place where it's like going from high school to the pros in sports, like, you know, you're nothing.

00:39:38 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:39:39 Dave Everly: Like maybe in time you'll earn something here. But, you know, no, I didn't have any of the honor or the respect, and that was part of it. And but I was empty inside, burnt out and didn't know what burnout was. Never was allowed to, uh, admit that we didn't talk about it. We never knew it. There was never any sabbaticals or anything about rest the way I grew up. You know, we grew up in a church that would sing a hymn that had the words, let me burn out for thee.

00:40:06 Jeromy Johnson: Dear Lord.

00:40:07 Dave Everly: Burn and wear out for thee.

00:40:08 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, God.

00:40:09 Dave Everly: That's what we would sing. And I remember the pastor getting up front and saying, I'll rest when I'm in heaven. And so that was how we lived. And that did not work for me. And so I remember a couple of months in, I sitting there at the piano in the auditorium, I just started weeping as I was playing something. And just like, God, I am empty. Why am I here? What's going on? I don't want to be here. I don't want to do this. But we were building a new building and I was in charge of all of the media, lighting, sound systems, stage everything for the worship arts department. And I couldn't ask for sabbatical like I'd been there for a couple of months. I couldn't ask for time off. Yeah, like I was just. And I remember thinking, all right, I just need to get this building done. And then when we're done with that, I'll take a break. Never even set foot on the stage of the new building.

00:40:58 Jeromy Johnson: Mm.

00:40:58 Dave Everly: There was a lady there that was on staff when I arrived. Worked for me. We got to become very good friends, worked very well together and successful in what we did there. And that turned into something more. Um, she was in the, um, a poor relationship and a very tired marriage. That was it's a her own story that she could share at some point, but, uh, not good and on the verge of divorce. And it was just ripe for what happened. And we had an affair and we resigned in October of two thousand and six. But yeah, the church did not respond gracefully. The pastor got up the following Sunday in front of, you know, two thousand five hundred people and said, we usually try to hire for character around here, but we've missed it on this one.

00:41:47 Jeromy Johnson: Jeez.

00:41:47 Dave Everly: Yeah, we really we really missed it on this one in all three services.

00:41:51 Jeromy Johnson: Oh, God.

00:41:52 Dave Everly: No calls. No. And not that I wanted it. Uh, I don't know what I wanted, right? That was a long time ago. It was in a dark space, but there was no reaching out. I reached out to one of the elders and said, I want to be restored. Quoted the scripture that says, if anybody is overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual, restore such an one the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted. And he said, no, we can't do that.

00:42:18 Jeromy Johnson: Wow. Like just no.

00:42:20 Dave Everly: Just no. Yeah.

00:42:22 Jeromy Johnson: And it's funny how even in that space, like, they were thinking about themselves. Like we messed up. We.

00:42:29 Dave Everly: Yeah, we hired the wrong guy.

00:42:30 Jeromy Johnson: We hired the wrong guy. We should have done better. Right. So they're still even living in that space of should of and and we failed and not how can again we can come alongside someone.

00:42:40 Dave Everly: And we just built a new building and we need to have people attend and give their money so we can keep the doors open. And we got to keep the business going. We don't have time for casualties. So left, left me and Linda by the roadside there and, you know, so then we were just out on our own. Didn't have anybody else. My brother in the Bay area was, like, the only person that, um, remained in contact with me. There was a couple, couple of couples from the church who helped us, and they got kicked out of their, uh, volunteer ministry positions because they helped us, gave us jobs. And but this became a period, a very dark night of the soul for me. Uh, this was two thousand and six. Skip ahead. Two years, two thousand and eight. Linda and I ended up getting married. So Linda's the one I had the affair with. And we got married. We're still married. Uh, we. It'll be eighteen years in April. Yeah.

00:43:35 Jeromy Johnson: And we met just shortly after. Um, shortly after that, again, we walked in. You had your hoodie. Your. Yes, your you had no life in you. You were sunken, you were hiding.

00:43:46 Dave Everly: So this would have been about in late two thousand and six that you and I met, or maybe early twenty seven, two thousand and seven.

00:43:52 Jeromy Johnson: I think I said like, dude, let's let's meet at Chili's.

00:43:55 Dave Everly: Yeah, we met at Chili's in.

00:43:57 Jeromy Johnson: Dorado Hills, and I just I just want to. I just want to get to know you. I just want to hear your story. And I remember us sitting across from from each other. And it still echoes to me, is like just a powerful moment. Don't think at the time felt like it was doing anything special or unique. It was just like, yeah, I just want to get to know Dave and get to know him and his story. But probably one of the few people who wanted that.

00:44:21 Dave Everly: Yeah, I mean, literally you, my brother, uh, like I said, a couple of couples from the church that went out on a limb to help us, uh, with jobs so that we could take care of our kids. And then some guys that were in that group that you referenced, like, I got to know them over time, but you were really the only one that said, hey, let's get together, huh? I ended up getting together with Jonathan. Yeah. Christian. Counselor John Holmes. Yeah, I don't remember how. I don't remember how I got connected to him, but he was a very gracious.

00:44:53 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, he's a good guy.

00:44:54 Dave Everly: Very gracious, still and loving human being. And he said, you need to get to know Jonathan Brink. And he introduced me to Jonathan. And Jonathan is actually the one who told me about the group. Mhm. Where you and I met.

00:45:08 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. Because he wasn't even a part of that group. It was just. Right. We were using his curriculum, a couple of ragamuffins that just got together and and you, you fit right in. It was just a magical time. But I still remember that. And, you know, it just goes to show, like, you never know, just by offering an ear, just by offering again, walking with someone, just by coming alongside them. What's that with what that could mean to someone? You're like, oh, there might be love.

00:45:35 Dave Everly: Yeah. You were the really the only one that, like, was proactive with, like, I want to get to know you what's going on. And without even being, like overtly that got to know your family. And yeah, here we are twenty years later. Yeah, like you said.

00:45:49 Jeromy Johnson: Here we are. So things like, you guys got married. I think Jonathan married you guys. You were all there. Is it the chicken park in, uh, Fair Oaks. Fair Oaks, California. Yeah. And it's called the chicken Park because there's, I'm gonna say trillions of chickens running around that place.

00:46:05 Dave Everly: April twelfth, two thousand and eight.

00:46:07 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. You know, we, uh, we repressed a lot of things growing up, right? Like we weren't allowed to do a lot of things. You weren't even allowed to wear shorts on a softball field. You had to wear jeans. Um, but that also included drinking. And that also included, like, maybe finding a healthy relationship with with alcohol and drinking and and just enjoying it. And I remember, like, you and Linda, like, gosh, we can just, like, drink now and you and I and Jonathan and a few others, we would meet almost. I don't know if it was weekly, but we would go to the streets of London. Um, not actually in the UK. We didn't fly out to the UK every week to just couldn't afford it. No, but there was a pub in Folsom that was called The Streets of London and now it's called, uh, Churchill Arms, which is ironic and beautiful because that was church for us. I remember us even saying like, this is more special and we feel more connected, and we've had way more honest, genuine talks about ourselves and about God in that pub. Yes. And and even to this day, when you come to visit, like there's only one spot that we're going to go hang out and it's it's Churchill.

00:47:13 Dave Everly: Churchill arms.

00:47:13 Jeromy Johnson: Churchill arms. But you also and I think you hinted at it, you also, uh, experienced the underbelly of alcoholism and drinking. Yeah, yeah. And that's part of your story. Just shortly after, um, your guys got married.

00:47:27 Dave Everly: Uh, alcohol was a way for me to stop the noise in my head and to take some pain away. I was in a lot of pain. I remember praying, God, I, I don't know who you are. I feel like I've been pursuing the wrong version of you my whole life. Please show me who you are and I'll wait. And, um. Just. We lived our crazy teenage years in our, you know, late thirties and forties. Early forties and, um. Yeah, just for me, the alcohol became became too much of a crutch. It became an addiction. And it became something that I had to stop because it was impacting my my marriage. My relationship with Linda was impacting my myself physically. It was just bad. Yeah. Like it was just bad. And, um, yeah, I haven't had a drop of alcohol in a lot of years. And, um. Um. It's okay. Yeah. That was something that became. It could have easily been something that would have taken my life if I'd have continued down that path. Yeah. Yeah. If this was a it was not good. And, um. I'm glad to be past that. Yeah. My. When you're when your identity. When my my identity was Pastor Dave. Pastor Dave. Yeah. I woke up one day after I had resigned. I woke up one Sunday and had no church to go to, so Pastor Dave ceased to exist. Mm. And that's all I thought I was. And that was a very dark and lonely place. Come to find out, that's not my identity at all. That was just an assignment. Just a job. And my identity is beloved son. Mhm. That can never change, no matter how many affairs I have, no matter how much alcohol I drink. No, how many, no matter how many relationships I squander, no matter what, no matter how many times I get it right, I'm still beloved, son. Yep. And that's what I rest in right now. And, um, that's a whole different place to be in.

00:49:27 Jeromy Johnson: It changes everything. Because even growing up, we were taught as a Christian, right? Oh, yeah. You're you're a beloved child of God. There's a whole lot more to it. But just being only. Yeah, but but just I remember as we were going through that deconstruction phase and, and I think we both kind of landed on this was like, like being human first. Yeah. Like just being a human that's loved of God. Let's start there. And how that changes your view. Um, of everyone else.

00:49:57 Dave Everly: Yeah. My brother said one time in one of our many talks back then. Human beings are magnificent creatures, and it's quite a journey to become one. And that has always been stuck with me, because it's like the way I grew up. I was driven to get the human out of me. Yep. Yeah.

00:50:16 Jeromy Johnson: And the human is the thing you can't trust.

00:50:18 Dave Everly: Yeah. And this is what God created. The most creative, infinite source of creativity in the universe came up with his best prized creation. And it was the human being. And all religion does is spends its time doing is telling us that's not okay. Don't be that. And obviously, you know, there's some very dark and evil sides of humanity. I get that and we all get that and we don't need to go into that's not what we're talking about. This this whole bit of identity is what, as we get into what we're doing now with the respite in Alaska and down in the lower forty eight, one of the big things that we talk about with men and women in ministry is the fact that you're not your identity is not pastor. So and so your identity is beloved son or beloved daughter. Yeah. Because that that's just an assignment. Pastoring is just an assignment. Oh, and I have pastors telling me, well, no, that's my calling. God's calling me to be a pastor. I'm like, well, I know a welder in Homer, Alaska. Call him up today if you want me to. He's called by God to weld. But it's just a job. And pastoring is just your job, and it can change tomorrow. And if that's all you know and understand, then it's going to be a dark and hard time for you. Yeah, yeah. Your identity is different than your passions even or even your your assignment.

00:51:39 Jeromy Johnson: You mentioned that your parents have both passed on now, and, um, your dad was a big, tough Italian. He, uh, didn't talk a whole lot about stuff. Just kind of pushed it to the side. Like we don't talk about that. You said that you're you're a son. You were also a son of your dad and no longer with us. Can you share that a little bit?

00:52:00 Dave Everly: Yeah.

00:52:01 Jeromy Johnson: What happened?

00:52:02 Dave Everly: My dad. My dad was always the John Wayne, you know, macho type. And he was a pastor. He became a pastor in my. This is my judgment and estimation. He became a pastor because he was trying to prove himself worthy of love. He didn't have that from his parents. So his whole life was about being right and straightening out other people because he wanted to be loved and he wanted to be seen as valuable and as making as being a valuable part of a group, or even just to be acknowledged for who he is. Yeah, never had that. So it was a deep wound for him. And he lived every day with this inferiority complex, but always had to be right because he was always trying to prove himself to everybody. And, um, he got a tumor in his leg but never told anybody it was cancer. And it was like a year later and it was like the size of a softball. And he was like, well, apparently this isn't gonna I can't hide this anymore, and.

00:53:04 Jeromy Johnson: This isn't gonna go away.

00:53:06 Dave Everly: Ended up going to the doctor. It's like, yep, it's cancer. Went into the hospital, had it removed, had a horrible experience in the hospital, like freaking out. Uh, they had to tie him down to the table in recovery from the surgery there because he was just losing it. Uh, all his fears just kind of came out of him. He, um, just went spiraled downhill into depression, and he was on antidepressants and on some Xanax or some other kind of anxiety type medications. And he never took medicine for anything. I remember sometimes he'd, like, chew up an Advil if he had a headache or something, like.

00:53:41 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, yeah, it's that generation.

00:53:44 Dave Everly: I remember getting a call on Friday evening, uh, June sixteenth of twenty seventeen, and a friend of my parents called and said, your dad's gone. I was like, what? And he said, your dad's gone. He took his own life. And, uh. I was instantly as angry as I think I could ever possibly be. Like that was my reaction.

00:54:12 Jeromy Johnson: Wasn't angry at him or just the situation. All of it. It was just like.

00:54:18 Dave Everly: Like I. The, uh. I was home alone. Linda wasn't back home from work yet. I had the neighbors had asked me to come over to fix their cabinet. There was a problem with their kitchen cabinets, I did that. I came home waiting for Linda to get home like she was gonna be home any minute. And then my phone rang and it was. It was a seven one seven number, which was Pennsylvania, but I didn't recognize the other number. And I had just talked to my dad like literally thirty minutes before I talked to my dad.

00:54:46 Jeromy Johnson: Jeez.

00:54:47 Dave Everly: And it was he hung up. We hung up from that call, and it was the first time in a long time that he didn't say, I love you, boy. At the end of the conversation.

00:54:56 Jeromy Johnson: Really.

00:54:56 Dave Everly: Just hung up and I was like, oh man, he's not doing good. But no inclination of anything deeper than that to me. And I was like, I'm just going to call him again tomorrow and just keep calling him every day and checking in on him. And then a little while, half an hour later, the phone rings. Maybe an hour later, I don't remember the time frame. I took a picture of his cell phone's screen when he called me, and it was thirty minutes before he he took his own life. And so the neighbor, the friend called me, and the first time he called me, it was a bad connection. I think this is a God thing because Linda wasn't home yet and I couldn't understand. And the call failed and I was like, all right. And then like five minutes later, Linda pulls in the driveway and I'm like, hey, babe, um, I had a call from a seven one seven number, and I don't. Something doesn't feel right. And I lost the call. And no sooner than that, but my phone rang again. Same number. I walked inside, I took the call, and he told me that my dad had shot himself and again, just instantly became as mad as I could ever be. I remember going out on the front porch and I threw my glasses across the yard, and I was just mad at my dad, mad at the situation, mad at just everything. Uh, but it was interesting that that was my reaction was anger. Wasn't sorrow or sadness or tears.

00:56:21 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, that is interesting.

00:56:22 Dave Everly: Like, I don't think I cried over my dad's suicide for years. It was a long time. It was just anger. And I still deal with anger to this day. I might add, for bailing out my mom and, um, it so that again, that's what religion does to us.

00:56:40 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. You gotta wonder, like had your dad at some point realized, like you, he is a beloved. Yeah, son. Period. No buts. No ifs. That's just.

00:56:51 Dave Everly: That's the beginning, the end and the entire story.

00:56:55 Jeromy Johnson: But he never, no, never got there on this side of the this side of the line. No.

00:57:00 Dave Everly: And, uh, blew his brains out and. Yeah, that's that's a pretty unreversible action. And it just sends shockwaves. And that was on a Friday evening, and I didn't sleep at all. Obviously that night, Saturday morning we're heading to the Sacramento airport and got on a plane. Saturday afternoon, we're in Pennsylvania with my mom and figure out what the hell just happened in shock. Sunday, the pastor comes over and is meeting with us, and the pastor is like saying to my brother Joe, who's the pastor? Hey, if you want to speak at the funeral, you can. And saying to me, if you want to sing and speak, you can. And we both looked at him and we're like, no.

00:57:42 Jeromy Johnson: No kidding. Yeah, geez.

00:57:45 Dave Everly: Like we don't even understand what just happened. So that was Friday. He shot himself. Saturday we get to Pennsylvania. Sunday we meet with the pastor. Tuesday is this funeral at their little church there in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. And then it's done and he's gone. And it's just like, wow, what happened? I had always had not dreams, but that's a weird word to say. But like a vision of my dad's funeral where, you know, I would get up and talk about him and what he meant to me and maybe seeing something that I wrote or, and be a pallbearer with my brothers and my sons and my nephews carrying this man of honor from our family out and putting him in his, in his casket, in his hearse and watching it pull off and going to the cemetery with a military salute and putting him in the ground in this place of honor. But instead there was this box of ashes of this man that was just disintegrated, because he couldn't understand that he was okay and loved for who he was.

00:58:47 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

00:58:47 Dave Everly: Drove him to just shoot himself. And we were all in shock for a long time. Um, it was brutal. It was heavy. I still deal with it every day in some way, a small way. Some days are even bigger. Like, I still I still wrestle with that and have a friend who's fifty one from our church in California who moved out here to Charleston, and he just shot himself the week of Thanksgiving. Um, friend, thirty three, who was one of my son's roommates, who I've been working with for over a year now, and he just died. He just drank himself to death. Just died last Monday. And I'm like.

00:59:36 Jeromy Johnson: Uh.

00:59:38 Dave Everly: Just overwhelmed at the. At what we can do to ourselves just because we don't understand how much we're loved. I mean, my son's friend Austin, he known him since middle school. They were roommates, and my son just bought a house last year. So my son moved out last summer, and, uh, the other roommates came home and found Austin at the bottom of the steps, yellow and unresponsive, and was in a coma and never came out. Thirty three years old and he's gone. And I'm thinking, how close was I to that?

01:00:28 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. Pretty close.

01:00:30 Dave Everly: And then the darkness my dad carried in him and what he ended up doing. How close was I to that? Who am I to deserve to be sitting here breathing and healing and feeling the sun on the South Carolina eighty degree day. Two days after Christmas. Like who am I?

01:00:55 Jeromy Johnson: You're a beloved son.

01:00:57 Dave Everly: Yeah, and they were too. So I have a lot of questions, but I'm not in the place where my questions derail me. My questions actually. Um, now, further my faith and further my pursuit. And, um, if I don't have questions, it terrifies me.

01:01:12 Jeromy Johnson: Mhm.

01:01:12 Dave Everly: Uh, I keep telling my wife, I keep telling Linda I want to die with only questions. I don't want any answers. I just want to have questions because I know that my answers are very, very shallow and they pale in comparison to the answers that will see, feel, understand, and receive with what's next. And um, yeah, another kid, thirty years old, my daughter's age, died last summer, a friend of mine from alcohol. And it's just like it's been a very since the last six months has been a very hard season, uh, in some ways. But it's been very good, too. So, uh.

01:01:54 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

01:01:55 Dave Everly: Um, yeah. My dad's choices are something. My dad's choice and what it's led me to do is wonder if it's all worth it. Like, what's it? What's eighty five going to be like for me? And so I am perpetually looking for older gentlemen that say look and act and live like, yes, it's worth it.

01:02:18 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

01:02:19 Dave Everly: And I just met a guy a few weeks ago who's seventy seven, and he he's just full of life, full of grace, full of an understanding of how beloved he is and just, uh, a beautiful human being. And that's who I want to be. That's who I want to be. And so, yes, it is worth it.

01:02:44 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah.

01:02:44 Dave Everly: So, yeah. So this is hard to talk about. And it kind of waylays me from any train of thought. So you have to kind of be the guide back into in on the tracks here.

01:02:52 Jeromy Johnson: But yeah. Well thank you for for sharing that Dave, because I know you're not alone in that. You're not alone in your anger. You're not alone in your feelings. You're not alone in some of the fear. You're not alone in in asking the questions. And I feel like questions are always better than the best answer, like they just are. And I don't think we were ever given permission to embrace the mystery, to embrace the unknown, to embrace the questions. And I know you and Linda moved up to Alaska. So much of your story, right. As we've all heard, has led to this space of respite. Yeah. Right now you're on an you have a house on an island next to Homer. Mhm. And it's called the it's it's the respite.

01:03:40 Dave Everly: Yeah.

01:03:41 Jeromy Johnson: Can you tell me, can you tell me about that. Can you tell me a little about that, that ministry. And you know I think, I think that's going to be a great spot to end of just this is, this is where this leads when we embrace the questions, we embrace our loved ness. And we say, okay, where can my voice, where can my presence shine?

01:04:02 Dave Everly: Um, after like the initial five or six years of after Linda and I got married, after the affair, After the partying. So I'm trying to settle down a bit. And, um, I remember praying. God, do you want me back in ministry? Like, would you ever consider me to be okay? To be in ministry again? Like, even just like, groveling? Not even sure if I was allowed to ask that question, really. But knowing that, yes, I was. That's a good question and a good prayer. And I remember striving a lot of times early on to get back into ministry, because I was trying to get back to Pastor Dave. Yeah, but this is later. And, um, praying and saying, God, do you want me back in ministry? And I didn't really hear an answer. It was just quiet. Didn't hear anything. And so I remember having a dream one night. It was vivid. And one of those dreams where you kind of wake up sweating from it and, um, walking, like, side by side with God. With Jesus. Uh, we were on this beautiful grassy hillside, and there's this tree. And so we went and we laid down underneath the tree in the shade, and we're talking and just kind of chilling out. And after a while, I'm ready to go and continue on the journey. And I got up, brushed off and started walking and I turned to look. And he's just laying there and I was like, I'm ready, let's go. And I remember he looked at me and just looked at the seat, looked at the ground next to him where I was, and put his hand there and patted it and said, come and sit down. And then I woke up, and that was my answer. It was like.

01:05:36 Jeromy Johnson: Just wait.

01:05:37 Dave Everly: Just stay right here in this place.

01:05:39 Jeromy Johnson: Don't strive.

01:05:40 Dave Everly: Yeah. Don't strive. Um, in twenty sixteen, Linda and I got to a place financially after two divorces where we could afford to go on a vacation. I had been showing her this show on TV called Alaska the Last Frontier. Uh, I'm not a reality TV show guy, but I would put it on because it was filmed in Homer, Alaska and in the Bay around where I pastored in the nineties, and I wanted to show that to Linda. She had never been to Alaska, never had any dreams of wanting or any thought of even wanting to go there. We'd watch that show and I would pause it and say, there's the glacier and there's the bay, and that's the Homer spit. And and so I showed Linda this. And in twenty sixteen, again, we were able to go on vacation. I was like, what if what would you think about going to Alaska?

01:06:25 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, totally.

01:06:26 Dave Everly: And Linda's like, okay, but you know, I have no desire to live there. I'm like, I didn't have any desire to live there either. At that point. It was just like, I want to show you this place and let's go. And, um, so we decided to go there. I called one of our friends who they were in the church where I pastored in town. They would live in, in town in the winter. And I called her and I said, hey, Lucinda, it's Dave. You probably have heard our story about my divorce and all. And I was like, I'm married to Linda now, and I'm coming up to Alaska. I'm wondering if we can come over so that she can see how the cove for an afternoon and just meet you guys. And she goes, no, And I was like taken back. She goes, you're staying with us. You're not just coming to say hello. Cancel your other plans. You're staying with us. I knew Lucinda. She's very. She's very much a force of nature. You have to be a a force of nature to live the life she's lived. She's lived in that little. She's lived in remote Alaska as a single and married woman since nineteen seventy.

01:07:28 Jeromy Johnson: Yes. You said yes, ma'am.

01:07:30 Dave Everly: You do not tell Lucinda?

01:07:31 Jeromy Johnson: No.

01:07:32 Dave Everly: So we agreed, and I was terrified. I remember talking to my counselor, my therapist, about the fact that I was going back to this place in small town, and I was very well known, and I was terrified people were gonna see me as shame. Yeah, the shame was there. And, um, so we went and in June of twenty sixteen and we had a wonderful time and, you know, beautiful sunny days, warm seventies and catching king salmon, catching halibut eagles everywhere. We saw whales and just having a blast living on this little fairy tale island, and at the end of the week, Linda says, I could live here. And I'm like, well, that's a far cry from what you just said last week before we were coming up here. And she goes, I know, but it's like, not in Homer, not in town, but on this little island. You know, we've been doing like a minimalism journey.

01:08:26 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, yeah.

01:08:26 Dave Everly: Getting rid of stuff and moving further and further away from the trappings like El Dorado Hills is very, uh, it's very stuff oriented, and we just want it out of that.

01:08:37 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah. Jerry. Barberio.

01:08:38 Dave Everly: Yeah. This type, type of living all of a sudden appealed to Linda and had been appealing to both of us. So she saw that in Halibut Cove. And I was like, well, are you serious? Are you just saying thanks for a good time. Like. And she's like, no, I'm serious. And I was like, well, if you're serious, then we need to come back in the winter because this is not like this here in February or January.

01:08:58 Jeromy Johnson: Yeah, yeah.

01:08:59 Dave Everly: And she's like, I'm in, let's do it. And so between June of twenty sixteen and February of twenty seventeen, we were talking about what could it look like to live on this little island? Like, how would we make a living? Is that even possible? Yeah, we had all these thoughts and questions. It was a little bit of a weird new adventure. And February of twenty seventeen, we went back there. We stayed with Kevin and Lucinda again. They were more than willing to have us. There is a house for sale and our friends Kevin Lucinda had the key and we got permission from the owner and they took us to the house. We walked down there and snow up to our knees, wasn't plowed, all overgrown and we went in the house and looked. It was cold. It was just a summer cabin. It was kind of rundown, not much of a thing, but, um, very intriguing. And then I asked if the next day Linda and I could go back by ourselves, and they said, sure gave us the key. And we went back and we were in that house. I was in the house. We looked at it together again, and I was in the living room, leaning up against this old couch that they had and looking out the window, and I looked down. Linda was out in front of me outside, down on the beach, maybe forty yards away. Just that low tide just kicking around the beach. I remember praying, looking out that window, looking at the mountains in and the water saying, God, is there anything in this for us? And it's clear as day I heard God say to me, what if? What if you bought this place and moved here and opened open the retreat so that for pastors so that your story isn't repeated?

01:10:31 Jeromy Johnson: Mm. Wow. And instantly I had the.

01:10:35 Dave Everly: Answer to the prayer of God. Do you want me back in ministry?

01:10:39 Jeromy Johnson: Mm.

01:10:40 Dave Everly: And, um. And I just said yes. I said yes, and, um, and little did I know that at the same exact moment on the beach in front of me, Linda was praying the same prayer and hearing the same answer from God. Wow. And that night, I didn't say anything. I'm a Muller. Like I put things in my head and think about them for days. And Linda didn't say much, but she did mention in passing that evening. I wonder what it would be like to live here and, like, take care of hurting pastors. And I was like, oh yeah, just wow. And then the next morning, I brought her coffee in bed and I was done thinking, man, I remember the restless night and just thinking about what I had heard. And I brought her coffee in bed and said, babe, I got to talk to you. And she says, I gotta talk to you. You go first. No, you go first, that kind of thing. And we both said the same thing. We both told each other what we heard from God, and it was the exact same thing. And so we cried and we prayed and we said, yes, we're in. And the respite, the respite was born. And so we set ourselves to, uh, find a way to buy that house, to form this organization and to create something that would be a place for pastors and pastor spouses to come and not go through a program. Not go to a conference. Not go to counseling. Not read a book. But to come and have a conversation. To listen to our story of hurt and brokenness and destruction and chaos. All of the things that the enemy meant for evil in our lives, and to see that God turned them into something good. Mm. And offer that hope to people who are in a dark space in ministry. And the statistics of people in ministry are astounding. There's a lot of burnout. There's a lot of suicide. It's, uh, it's become something of an animal in and of itself that we need to figure out. But, uh, yeah.

01:12:41 Speaker 5: But you're doing what you can do, and you're opening your doors. You're not. You're not officially sponsored by any denomination or any church. You guys are independent.

01:12:51 Dave Everly: Yeah. We don't have a sending organization. Um, so we just we heard from God and we said yes. And we're like, everything else is secondary. So support practicalities. Any of that will happen.

01:13:02 Speaker 5: Yeah. And it did not at all.

01:13:04 Dave Everly: Yeah. And it continues.

01:13:05 Speaker 5: To continues to come together. It came together like that's a whole nother podcast right. Of the whole building of of the respite at Halibut Cove is the official name. And just talking about the ministry and the hearts that have been changed. But it's, it's, it's a nice little nightcap and sorry to use an alcoholic term, but a nice little nightcap on the story.

01:13:26 Dave Everly: Of I can handle.

01:13:27 Speaker 5: You living and walking and receiving grace and guidance of God. And this is where you're like, I'm spiritual and I still love Jesus, and I still love God, but I hate religion. Yeah, anyone who's been a paid minister or a pastor knows exactly that story of, oh, it's not all that I thought it was going to be. Oh, it's different and I'm burned out. And there's things that you have to do that you don't want to do. And there's things you have to believe that you don't believe, but you have to believe it because you need a paycheck. And yeah, and then you get these pastors up there, and some of them even try to pray at the table.

01:14:02 Dave Everly: Yeah, we.

01:14:03 Speaker 5: At the dinner table and you're like.

01:14:04 Dave Everly: Well, we do things a little differently again. We were very non-religious. We were deeply spiritual and attuned to the, uh, what what Jesus has to say. And, um, like, I'll sit down. We'll sit down dinner and was like, well, I grew up and my dad would pray the same exact prayer at dinner every single night. So we're not going to pray tonight. So we're just going to dig in with a grateful heart. And everybody, sometimes they look around and I have I've had pastors where they do the napkin drop where they'll put, you know, lower their head. They have to say a prayer.

01:14:35 Speaker 5: Yeah.

01:14:36 Dave Everly: They have to thank God for the food they're about to eat. So it.

01:14:39 Speaker 5: Can't just be in your heart just to be like, I am grateful for another day.

01:14:43 Dave Everly: You live. If you live in gratitude, you don't have to rely so much on, um, the currency of of words. Yeah, at a specific time. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a prayer, right? That's that's not the point. But if you feel like you can't eat. Yeah. So yeah. So we bring men and women up there and we talk, tell our story, and we talk about pace and we talk about identity, and we show them, uh, a world class vacation because we're God's put us in a place where a neighboring lodge is three thousand three hundred dollars per person per night. That's their starting rate. And we are, um, about seventeen hundred bucks for, uh, a person for an entire week, all inclusive in this beautiful place. So that's what we do. And, uh, we're been praying from day one for God to send us people and money. We need people to help us, and we need money to make it work and slowly happening. And, um, we're currently right now looking at a property in northern Alabama. It's thirty five acres, which seems like it's going to be our, our, um, lower forty eight property where we'll be functioning starting next fall.

01:15:47 Speaker 5: During winter, because everything shuts down in Alaska.

01:15:49 Dave Everly: Yeah, Alaska's only friendly in June, July and August. And so we'll be in Alabama, seemingly that could fall through, but we'll see what happens. And that will be like mid September through May. Every year that will be our. That'll be our stride.

01:16:02 Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, maybe we'll continue this conversation at another time about the the respite and some of the lives and some of the things that you've heard and and. Yeah, there's lots to tell. But Dave. Thank you, brother. You you go deep in my heart. You will always be deep in my heart. We can go six months without talking. And it doesn't matter because we just connect right where we left off.

01:16:24 Dave Everly: Yeah, that's what brothers do.

01:16:26 Speaker 5: Thank you so much for coming on. And as always, just sharing your heart, sharing your story, sharing your tears, sharing your your wisdom. And it's not a wisdom from memorizing scripture. It's a wisdom of living life. Battle scar earned. Yes. Yeah. There's a wisdom that just comes. And I appreciate you, brother.

01:16:47 Dave Everly: I appreciate you, uh, if anybody needs info, the respite net and my number's on there, and I'm always available. Deeply. appreciate you. I love what you're doing, and thank you for allowing me to step in and share my and our story. And yeah, more conversation to follow, if that's what you want. I'm with you.

01:17:04 Speaker 5: Any last words to those listening? I don't know, it's just.

01:17:08 Dave Everly: Uh, we're just a little over impressed with ourselves, and we overemphasize the fact that it's up to us to please God. Like a fish only survives because it's swimming around in water. It's completely unaware of the water, but it can't live without it. Like that's how I want to live. Just in Christ. I want to live in Christ with having to feel, without having to feel like everything I do and everything everything has to be, uh, acknowledging that, um, what's that saying? Like, just slipped my brain, my tired, medicated brain from my knee surgery? Uh, the glory of God is a is a human being fully alive. And when we're fully alive, we're living into the things he's given us to do in the way we've been given, to do them with the people we've been given to do them with and around, and that glorifies God. We don't have to say it right. Do it right. Pray it right. Uh, he's he's very, very pleased with us.

01:18:04 Speaker 5: I'm writing that down. The glory of God is a human being fully alive.

01:18:08 Dave Everly: Linda and I live at the crossroads of, um, naivety. And what's the other word? Now I'm totally brain dead. I have to edit this. Uh. Hang on. It's good. It's really good. Going away from you for a second.

01:18:25 Speaker 5: Well, I gotta pee really bad, so hurry up.

01:18:28 Dave Everly: Okay, give me a second.

01:18:29 Speaker 5: And we're not editing this. I'm getting about to get a red solo cup.

01:18:33 Dave Everly: Okay. All right, I got it. Uh, Linda and I have are learning to and have learned to live at the intersection of naivete and audacity. We're just stupid enough to do this, and we're audacious enough to ask for it and believe it's going to be done. And that's how we want to be known, and we want to be known as people of faith. And that's, I believe, what that means naivety and audacity.

01:18:59 Speaker 5: All right, brother.

01:19:00 Dave Everly: All right man.

01:19:01 Speaker 5: Well, I still think you guys were deceived by Satan with that vision, that mutual vision. But because, you know, God only speaks through scripture, so. All right. Love you, brother.

01:19:10 Dave Everly: Love you too. Thank you.