Welcome And Why Faith Matters

SPEAKER_04 1:45

Go, go, cock, go, cock, yes, sir.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Sorry, y'all don't just so y'all know, um we've been we've been getting this together since it's some we're very busy folks. Obviously, we all have things that we do in and out of of school, et cetera, everything, work, all that good stuff. And we've been meaning to get him in our um audience so that he can explain who he is and what he does. My wife, her family, um, specifically her aunt, um, Aunt Cheryl, her Aunt Cheryl Nance. Um, she's actually been in one of his productions. I've gone and viewed his production, had a great time. Um, very, very important catalog of things that are covered in his productions. Oh, yeah. Um, things that are near and dear to my heart. My wife was very serious when she said, My Aunt Cheryl sent this manual from you better get this done. And so I was like, all right, I'm gonna get it done. Don't beat me up. So I was expecting her to actually be here today, but she's she actually went out to chapin today, so I knew she was gonna probably be able to make it back this way. If she does pop in during the thing, you hear the little lady walk in, that's probably gonna be my wife. Gotcha. But um, we are so happy to have you here with the Hilltop Glove today to share this conversation about um faith, comedy, um the relationship between the two. Um, as we discussed, my brother and I we grew up in the church. Yes. Um, we had other folks here today that we were having these discussions with. Carbon thread. It's and um, we were happy to have somebody with your stature, um, your status, and what you do here to speak on this because there's some questions too my wife had that she wanted me to push on the background talking time. But pressure. Um man, the first thing I want to start off with, if you could just tell our audience a little about a bit about who you are, where you're from, and why you were drawn to what you're drawn to.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

First of all, I want to say thank you for allowing me to be here. I'm I'm glad to be here. You glad to have me, and I'm glad to be here. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, I think it's a destiny moment. Yeah. And um,

Meet Elijah Bradford And His Roots

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I believe there's some folks out there that are gonna be really blessed by what we have to share here today.

SPEAKER_04 3:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

But um, I'm Elijah Bradford from um Sumter, South Carolina. Preach. Born and raised. I was I was raised in a little country part they called Woodrow. Oh, okay. Um that's that's better. Get there.

unknown 4:02

Get there.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

That's between Bishopville and Sumter. Yeah. So I was raised out in the country, um, two-parent household, raised by my mom and my dad. Um I was old since I was little, so I'm one of those kids. I was always one of those kids where they didn't say, get out of grown people company, get on, play with the kids or whatever. I'm sitting there listening to everything they're saying. Um, I'm a church boy. You know, we're born and raised in church. We probably gonna discuss some things here today that might might make you think otherwise.

SPEAKER_05 4:32

Yep, but that's right.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

But I was born and raised in church, and um I love God, and I'm I'm multi-gifted. And um once I turn between 30 and 35, I made a decision to start using all the gifts that God has bestowed in my life. I was kind of boxed in at one point, but now I'm kind of out of that box and I'm using everything He's given to me.

SPEAKER_03 4:52

Good. Oh yeah. Good. Um, and and I like to hear that because we we actually were speaking to somebody earlier about it, and um obviously we want to discuss this. Um uh just jumping into it. The relationship, because what what you do in your production, if you could just talk to our audience a little bit about the productions that you do in the sense of comedy.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Well, let's back up a little bit. So, first of all, I had no clue, no clue that four to five years ago I would be doing comedy and stage plays and all that. I had no clue. No. I thought it was gonna be music, and when I was younger, I thought it was gonna be pastoring, preaching. Okay. Yes. So about in 2022, God spoke to me heavy because he had already been speaking to me, but God spoke to me heavy. I have two groups. I have a female group and a male group.

SPEAKER_05 5:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Female group is purpose-driven. We've been together since like middle school. Uh-huh. And uh the male group, the Valentinos, we've been together since 2012.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

And um, female group, we do mostly gospel, male group we do like Motown Review type stuff.

SPEAKER_05 5:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

But in 2022, God was telling me to slow down and put that down. Well, put it down to do what? Because this is what I do. You know, music is what I do. I eat sleep and breathe music. Yeah. Told me to put it down. So I had a meeting with my groups, um, and we kind of slowed down with the music. And then during the pandemic, um, we had well, we had one last concert in 2022.

SPEAKER_05 6:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

And for that concert, I always choose unique ways to um introduce my events. So I said, Well, I'm gonna do a parody of the color purple with Sophia at the gas station, and this dude from that time period asking her for a ticket to my concert. Oh, so I did the video, dressed like a dude from that period, and that was that. Uh-huh. And then one day something came to me and said, Get online, dress like the dude again, that didn't have a name, and just start talking. So I got online, dressed like the dude, and in the midst of the conversation, I said, My name is Mr. Thaddeus. Came out of nowhere. And um, it caught on.

SPEAKER_05 6:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

It caught on. And so from that, I started doing videos. I created a whole family for Mr. Thaddeus, his wife, his grandkids.

SPEAKER_05 7:06

Yeah, no, seriously. Seriously.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

His wife, his grandkids, um, built a studio in my garage. Okay. And this is all from God's leading. Like, I had no plan, I had no none of this. This is all from God's leading. Built a studio, and then I believe it was 2023. I had an idea, since I started with the color purple, I did a dinner theater.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

And that's what we did. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

And the dinner theater was called A Color Purple Christmas. Uh-huh. I took the color purple movie and the color purple musical, and I married them together. Okay. And I set Mr. Thaddeus in the middle as the narrator. Oh, wow. And that's how we did that thing. Yeah. That is genius. And so he's been using me. We did a color purple Christmas. Guess who's coming to Mr. Thaddeus' house? Yeah. Um, and then we just did um

From Gospel Music To Mr Thaddeus

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Mr. Thaddeus Barbershop.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

And in my productions, he gives me certain topics that he wants me to hit. And I hit some deep things, I hit some funny things too. But he gives me things that he wants me to hit. I have no um training as it relates to script writing or anything like that.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

That's what I wanted to add.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah, no training at all. This is all stuff that just God gives me, and that's how it came about.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

So, all right. All right, because I know we were doing some research and we obviously your music background is deep. Yes. Like been to the Apollo, yes, all this stuff. Because my brother's like, no, this is very interesting. We gotta we gotta work this into it. So my my question is, did you have any formal training? Yeah. Oh. In the background of music.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Yes. Well, I went to college for music. I went to Newberry College and studied music. Um, but I had been in music from childhood. My my mom sung quartet. Okay. So that's how I I got into it. And because I'm an old soul, like the the music I love the most was like the golden age of gospel. For people that don't know what that is, that's that's the time period where you had um, now y'all might not know this lady, but Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonets, Sam Cook and the Soul Sturs, the Pilgrim Travelers, Dixie Humminbirds, the Davis Sisters, people like that. So that's the first music I started growing up on, is music from that time period. And I got inspired to play around 12 or 13 after watching Twinkie Clark. A lot of you gonna know that name, um, from the Clark Sisters. Yeah, yeah. So, um, and y'all know she's a beast. Exactly. So that's how I got inspired to play, and then um all through school I was in the gifted and talented program as it relates to that. Went to college. Now, me and my me and my professor in college always had had to duke it out because um a lot of musicians are gonna know what I say when I mean um when I say I play by ear, right? Yeah, but I also read. But the issue I had in college was the professor would give us a piece of music, she would say, okay, I want y'all to learn this, and we're gonna come to class and you'll be graded on it. Well, once I learn it, I don't need to read. Read it, yeah. And so that that's a fight. We all she was like, Elijah, you're playing it note for note, but you're not reading it, I can't help it. I don't know what to do. You know, because once once I learn it, it's it's then. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that that's that's my formal training. Yeah. And then of course, church, you know.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

Well, because I can tell, because everything is very like uh and and you'll if you ever go to one of the plays, uh huh, the music is very tight.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 10:33

It's on point.

SPEAKER_02 10:34

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 10:35

Now, when it now outside of doing the the music aspect of it, when you decided to playwright, how and this is especially because like the folks that listen to our podcast, uh-huh they're either trying to figure out how to do something, kind of wanting to try to look for tips and tricks, trying to figure out how do I break into doing something I've never done before.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

How did you figure out how to write?

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Did you did you take, did you go to YouTube university? Did you did you go and find some friends? Like, how did you figure out how to write an actual play? That seems pretty daunting.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

All of the above. So I'll say this. So success leaves clues, right? And what I did mention is that once I obeyed God, because that's extremely important, um, I did not want to, but once I obeyed God and put the music down, a door opened for me to be a part of a stage play. There is a there is a lady um in Sumter's, I think she I want to say she's from Georgia, Miss Um Jackie Um Suttonball. She had me in a play there at Patriot Hall, which opened me up again to the idea of wanting to even be in productions. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Yeah. So she um did her play. So I learned from her, I learned by watching her and what she was doing, and then it was another um lady. Now, some of you are gonna know this name, Miss Beuler, because me and Miss Beuler do a lot of productions together. So um, but her real name is Jennifer Cook, and um Jennifer had me in productions as well, but she wanted me as Mr. Thaddeus. And I was not open to the idea. You weren't? No. Because in the beginning, Mr. Thaddeus was just a guy that sat behind the camera and just told funny stories. So he wasn't supposed to be in front of the camera at all. Oh. So that wasn't a I'm telling you that none of this is my idea. Wow. So she said, I want you to be in my production, but I want you to do it as Mr. Thaddeus. I said, Well, let me think about it.

SPEAKER_04 12:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

And um, so my out was the weekend that she was supposed to have her play was my birthday weekend. And I said, Well, I probably won't be able to do it because my wife's probably gonna take me out of town for my birthday, you know, so I won't be able to do it. So she said, Well, ask her and see. She said, Well, no, we're not going out of town. Your birthday weekend is gonna be the next weekend when we go out of town. So I said, Well, okay, I'll do it. And so um, I was in the play with Miss Beuler, and from there, Mr. Thaddeus just kind of took off.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

From there.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Question. What year was what year did this happen?

SPEAKER_01 12:57

This was also 23.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Oh, so this is oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

This is so I was in Miss I was in Miss Beuler's play, The Summer of 23. Color Purple Christmas came out December of 23.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

Because this is when I started hearing because first of all, like he was saying, I didn't know, because they were telling me that it was a character. And I'm like, What do you mean character? Just like, this is a character, we ain't never seen him before. I mean, what do you mean? Because the problem is like his wife and he does this, like, no, I'm like, how you not see him before? Now it makes sense. I didn't realize it was just for promotion.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yes, I only was using him for promotion. That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 13:32

Because when I went online and I was looking at a lot of clips for different things and seeing the character, of course, Mr. Thaddeus. He was doing promotion for the boys.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Yep. Yeah. That's all I was using him for.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

But it's a pivotal piece of everything.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Yes. Mr. Thaddeus is the pastor that I thought was gonna be in the pulpit.

unknown 13:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:53

Honestly. That would have been one heck of a pastor.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

I ain't lying.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

I ain't lying. Oh, wow. But and and we'll probably get deeper into it, but I can't tell you how many people, and this, and this may have been God's way of holding me, because we probably get into something later that we can we we can kind of talk about of holding me because I've worked behind the scenes in church a lot, yeah, and I've seen so much and experienced so much that my taste for ministry is bitter. I get you. Okay? I get you. So I bel so Mr. Thaddeus, in a way, saved me in terms of still wanting to minister to people, even though it's a different platform.

SPEAKER_03 14:36

Yeah. And you found that a that's an amazing way to do that. Yes. I will tell you.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

People walk up to me in the grocery stores, different places. I'm going through chemo, I'm going through whatever, and you don't know how your videos are blessing me.

SPEAKER_05 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:47

Um, it made me uncomfortable at first because, like I say, this dude is just somebody. I'm just I'm just fumbling my way through this. You know what I'm saying? And this is what I want to tell people. Obey God, even in the uncomfortable instructions. Because when you do that, you'll find success. There has not been one event that I've done with Mr. Thaddeus that has not been sold out. You're not lying. Not one. I'm not lying. And people think it's because I is like something special that I know, and it's nothing special that I know. It's just only God. I'm just only following instructions. That's that's it.

SPEAKER_02 15:24

So, Mr. Thaddeus, the character. Um, what inspired him? What was it just like who in your life inspired you?

SPEAKER_03 15:32

Like you said, it's the pastor that you which like there had to be somebody because we grew up in the city had to be because we had a um pastor, and I was telling you about this when we had another conversation. He had a pastor named Um uh Mr. Moses Ellaby.

SPEAKER_05 15:45

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 15:45

And he was an old school pastor directly from the Bible. He had one arm because he was in a um involved in an accident on his farm. We lost his other arm. So Bible helped one of that arm. But when he taught us it, he was so cool. He was older, he was, he had to be, he was 60s or 70s, right? But he took us right under his arm and literally taught us the Bible, right? And so, like my brother and I, we know the word well because we were taught it a certain way. And he made us love being in church because the church we went to, we were like the youngest folks. Savannah. That's what I'm talking about. Organic. Right, organic. The the church that we're in, we were like the youngest folks at that church, right? And what he wanted us to understand was that we were in we should be involved in the church, we should be a part of the church, despite our age, and that we could also serve as a church. So he gave us a position, uh-huh. He gave us things to do in the church. And so my grandmother, like she would say, You all have something to do today, we gotta get ready. So once on Saturday evenings, right? And it's funny, we'd watch Showtime at each other. Yep. Like my grandmother, we would we'd have all our clothes ironed, ready to go. She would have dinner ready to, ready, already cooked, and everything. Because she wasn't cooking on Sunday, right? Everything be set so we can get up and go do our duties in church. He made us love and want to be around church. And then we found an even cooler pastor, as I always seen. We were blessed by this. We had a changeover in our pastors at that church, and we were we were blessed to run into a gentleman by the name of uh Robert Fulton. And he came and he became our pastor. And he was a Robert Fulton. Why call him Robert Fulton? I messed that up. Fulton Smith. I don't know why I call him Robert Fulton Smith. But here's what's interesting. This is why I'm tying this into it. He reminds me of what you do with the ministry. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. He took it and updated it for us. Wow. So that we could understand how it could be used in the current day and time. And I thought that was awesome. Yeah. And thought that was awesome. So when I see that, that's why I just wanted to point that out to you. That's why, like, there has to be somebody. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Well, he's a culmination of older men that I I've seen throughout my life. Of course, I told y'all I was old ever since I was could talk, you know. So I was always in older people's company as they like to uh say. Um, but the his name, Thaddeus Jesse Brunson.

Learning Playwriting Without Formal Training

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Jesse Brunson is my great-grandfather, whom I've never met. Okay. Um, I just have pictures of. Okay. However, his wife raised my mother, because my mother passed, my my grandmother passed away when my mother was four. Okay. So he and his wife raised my mother. So I was raised with um raised by who I call my grandmother. She's actually my great-grandmother, but she was born in 1898. So I have a lot of, you know, history in me. Yeah. And I use that as it relates to the character. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

No, because it's very authentic.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Oh, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 18:42

Down to the way they have the words and everything. I'm like, that's too authentic. I was telling my wife, like, we were watching the play, I was just like, yo, where's he get that from? Like, I don't really know old folks just like they're stage. I'm telling you. Because you ain't like you are not 60 years old. At all.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Nowhere close. Nowhere close. But okay, so Jesse Brunson, which is my great grandfather, he had a brother whose name was Perry Peterson. Okay. So Perry Peterson was still alive when I was born. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

And in our church, he was like larger than life. He would sing, he would skip around and dance while he's singing and all this and that. So I pulled his energy into the character. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

That is all right.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Now, how do you learn how to write a play? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Like I said, success leaves clues. So um I'm learning how to write plays. Right? Really. I'm learning. Okay. Um, everything you see, like I said, is just God leading me, but I'm learning. But I also, like you said, I go to YouTube Universe. Yep. And I study, um, I did study Tyler Perry. Yeah. But not in the way people think. I don't I didn't study Medea.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

I know you didn't. And that's what I was about to say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

I studied his writing styles, even down to how long are the scenes? Okay. Um, how many people are in the scene? Yeah, because you got timing. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I I I study things like that. Um, I do believe that um, what's that scripture that um study to show thyself approved? Yeah. So when I walk on stage, I want to present excellence. I don't want people, and I'm that's why I don't call my plays a gospel stage play. I don't want you to come to an event and think you're just coming to a little churchy play, and oh, that was great. No, yeah. We we coming for blood.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

Like it's a real thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Oh yes, I want us to get on stage and I want us to present in excellence, and I want people to leave changed. Yeah. So YouTube universe and studying Taliper and all these people.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

How hard is it?

Comedy That Confronts Church Taboo

SPEAKER_02 20:46

So go ahead. So go back to what you were saying, and I think this part is very important. I noticed that you emphasize this. That you want people to go to the event that you don't want them to go to where they feel like it's a church play. No. Yeah, it's not. Because I do think there are a lot of stuff, especially in our community, when we mention the word church about anything, it kind of not I don't I don't think it is, I don't think it's intentional, but for a lot of people it comes across as being very exclusionary.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:15

Right? Like, okay, this is you know, it's sort of like a way of saying, well, this is for certain people. Right. This isn't for the entire community. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

There you go. I was very careful about that because I wanted to deal with topics that we don't like to deal with in church. Like um like the last play we did, we talked about um polygamy. Okay. We we have talked about um molestation and things of that. Like we we go there.

SPEAKER_05 21:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

And I sometimes when when when you're dealing with a church play and you label it like that, people don't like to really dig or they become offended or you know, whatever. No, so this ain't a church play you come into. This is a stage play. Yes. And uh we we hope to change your life.

SPEAKER_03 21:59

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and speaking about these things, because obviously we want to talk about the relationship between faith and comedy. Yes. And it and a lot of that deals with taking things that you would normally talk about in comedy and putting it into a faith aspect. Uh-huh. This is one question I gotta. I'm crazy on this book. Uh-oh. So you have um, there's a there's a character in one of your uh in your plays.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

I know where you're going. I know where you're going.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

My wife was like, oh, we're gonna ask this question. He calls, he talks about being the holiest apostle. Chris. Chris, Chris. Uh-huh. And my wife was like, you gotta ask him about this character. Like, how'd you write it? Why'd you write it? Why is this character in there? And if you can explain to audience who the character is, this is so Mr.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Thaddeus has a grandson whose name is Chris. Okay. Right? And so what I had what I had noticed, even in watching interviews of pastors and even celebrities, is that when it came to this topic, everybody responded or their response was fear-based. Yes. Right? So if you go on a place like the Breakfast Club, they ask you this question. First, they asked you this because it almost seems like a rite of um of passage. Depending on how you answer this question, depends on whether we're gonna allow you to continue to be successful. Yeah. I don't like that, right? So with a character like Mr. Thaddeus, Mr. Thaddeus can say what I can't say, right? Mm-hmm. While still showing love. Yeah. Okay. For instance, so Chris is same gender loving. And Mr. Thaddeus, his goal is to fix Chris. Right?

SPEAKER_02 23:59

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

So he does things like he gives Chris Playboy magazines and tapes and all kinds of stuff to try to fix Chris, which is what a lot of people try to do with people who are in that lifestyle. They try to fix them, right? Instead of loving them. Yeah. Okay? Now that's a two-way street. Yeah. Because sometimes people want to be loved, but they don't show love in return. Wow. We talk about that another time. But um he um tries to fix Chris. So say for instance, um, there's a they're having a um pride gathering or celebration in Sumter in October. Yeah, I saw that. Okay. So the city is in an uproar about it. Wow. And um, so I I did a video the other day with Pastor Mullins, who is Mr. Thaddeus' pastor. Pastor Mullins calls Mr. Thaddeus and and tells him he needs to get on Chris because he heard Chris is gonna be out there at the prize show, right? So Mr. Thaddeus, um, after he gets through telling Pastor Mullins off, he um allows him to know that, okay, Chris is my grandson. I don't agree with what Chris does. Okay? It's important to say that. I have a right not to agree with what Chris is doing. However, he's my grandson, and it's my it's also my duty to show him love and protect him from arrows that come his way. So I can cuss Chris out and I can tell Chris by the self, but don't you do it. You know what I'm saying? And um, so I wanted to make sure that Chris was involved because I want people to know who are in that lifestyle and people who are not in that lifestyle to know that you can coexist without agreeing with everything a person does.

SPEAKER_05 25:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

You can show love and still have your stance.

SPEAKER_05 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Me not being for that is not me being against you as a person.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think he did it in such a clever way. Oh, yeah. It's so good because it's funny as hell. But he deals with it directly. Yes. And for a lot of folks, and that's why like you said, like you call them a it's a stage place, not gossip play, is that they're coming in there and they're getting this, and it forces folks to think. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

You can't avoid it. You can't get away to it. You can't get away from it. You gotta think.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

You gotta think.

SPEAKER_03 26:10

And I think that's such a good um vehicle to use the comedy to do that. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Um Do you know there are there are so many people who are in churches that have forced them to disfellowship and disassociate with their family members because of whatever ill they have. Yes. So I've seen it. Yeah. So my grandson is this way or my granddaughter is this way, so I can't associate with them. I don't want you to come around because this and that. No, family is family, and and like I said, I don't have to agree. There are people sitting in that audience that's trying to figure out how do I fix this or how do I communicate with my children or my grandchildren when my when when my church has taught me that I that I can't, you know, that's yeah, because of their lifestyle.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

That's a common thread today. Oh, wow. It is. We've had six interviews. Wow. Six. This is button thread. It's real, it's a real problem. This is why we're happy to have this conversation. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

It's having those differences, like accepting people, like accepting people's differences. Yes. And just being and just being able to live with live within the same space. Yeah, that's that's been a common thread.

SPEAKER_03 27:17

Common thread, though. And I know um another thing um that I didn't

Holiness Versus Performance In Church

SPEAKER_03 27:20

want to discuss, and I like how you deal with it. And we well, we'll hit this one later. I want to hit this first. Okay. Fast people. So what I mean by this is obviously people who are out here living life in a quick street street. Yeah, in the streets. You talk about that in your plays. You discuss it, and I like how it's discussed. It's not hidden. And um, I think a lot of times with the church, what will happen is don't act as if that stuff doesn't exist. I'm gonna tell you a quick story, and I'm I want you to uh elaborate on how you deal with it in your plays. So I know we were in church, we're we were younger at this time, and there was a young lady, she had a child at a wedlock, right? And everybody knew that she had a child at a wedlock. And we watched as basically they acted as if that if it didn't exist and the child didn't exist.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

But the child's being bought in with this every day, every Sunday to church. She's coming in, they knew the gentleman at the child, and it's as if it doesn't exist because they don't want to deal with it. Because if they acknowledge it, now they have to deal with the idea that hey, this is what society is, this is what is happening in society. And they could not, it's like their brains would melt. Just discuss a little bit about how you feel about that and and how the church This is how I feel about it.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

God is a good God, He just has some very bad PR people.

SPEAKER_03 28:49

Yeah, that explains, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

The church, going back to Chris again, the church is good at if I ignore it, it'll go away. Act like it doesn't exist, or I'll put you on Front Street so you don't do it again. Thus, where they have like, um I don't know if y'all ever heard of churches that make not the man, they make the female stand up in front of the church and apologize when she gets pregnant or get found in a fault, or um, or even if it's not church, it might be like the Jehovah's Witnesses, they disfellowship.

SPEAKER_03 29:21

That's what we talked about today.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

And they and they make an announcement, you know, you don't talk to this person, this person is disfellowship, and I mean it's been people 30 years that have been a Jehovah's Witness that have not talked to their family in 30 years. How can you give somebody that much that much control over you? Yeah, you know what I'm saying? But it's good to talk about it because people are people. And let me just say this when you quote in Psalms 23.

SPEAKER_03 29:50

Oh, get him.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

The man that wrote that, that man had a whole lot of flaws. A whole lot of them. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. And it's like they look over there and it was like, no, but you you gotta be perfect. And God doesn't want us to be perfect. Um, He doesn't require us to be perfect, He He requires us to be holy. And and holy is not perfect.

SPEAKER_03 30:12

That's a good can you explain? I'm happy you said that. Because reading the Bible over and over and going through the scripture, you would think that people would have an understanding of it. Yes. Especially in this day and age, there's so many ways that you can go and search and research and try to understand it, remind people to help you. Can you explain that difference between being perfect without flaw and being holy?

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Being, he said, Be ye holy, for I am holy, right? Which means it has absolutely nothing to do with you. Right? That's it. Your beingness is because of who he is. Once you accept who he is and he's in your life, then you don't have to try to be holy. You're already that.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

You're there.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

You know what I'm saying? But um in church, they teach us per performance. So if I'm if I perform good enough for God, then uh then then I'm in his good graces. But if if that was the case, then we wouldn't need him.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

If if he required perfection, there would be no need for him.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

But put him where the ghost beginning. That's so that's where it's how you're supposed to do it.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

And I'll go a step further. The reason the also the reason why, and I'll and I'll talk about the black church for just a moment, the reason why we we tend to operate that way is because a lot of our churches operate from a realm of deception. Right? Meaning a lot of what you you said you would think that when people read the Bible, they would see, but people don't read the Bible. You gotta think. I want you to go back to slavery, right? So during slavery, we talk about people like Nat, excuse me, we we are talking about people like Nat Turner.

SPEAKER_03 31:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Nat Turner was chosen by the slave master to be the preacher for the people and told what to preach until he got tired of doing that.

SPEAKER_03 32:02

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Okay, so they they received a slave gospel. They could not read, they could not write, they only got what the person was preaching to them. That has been passed down from generation to generation, right? Which allows you to be to sit in deception and not study for yourself, sit in this in deception, and because this person says I'm called by God, everything they say, it has to be from God because they say they call from God.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

Yeah. Good point. Good point. That history, that legacy. Oh, yeah. Just rides on down.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Yeah. Wow. That was that was part of um, and we might get into this and we might not, but that was part of what um my exodus was last year from get into it.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

Don't you play with it? Get into it, because we get into it. One one thing we always talk about too, is just like, um, and I know you dealt with this in your um stage play

When Church Starts Feeling Bitter

SPEAKER_03 33:00

in with the barbershop with men and mental health. Yes. And one thing we don't always do is talk out or explain or express things that happen.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Man, talk about what what occurred. So, and I've I have not discussed this publicly.

SPEAKER_03 33:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Um, so last year, it it'll be a it's a year this month. I I have only been to church maybe five times since last year. And that's gonna shock a lot of people who are gonna see this. Um, I was a minister of music for 20 years, and probably about, I would say right before COVID, I started shifting. Like I started, it was if God started dealing with me differently. So I started to see things. So I'll I'll give you an example. Um at the church where I played, uh, they have these big murals on the wall, right? Of Jesus. Yeah. Okay. I don't think it matters per se how Jesus looked, per se, but I think that when you if I say the if if normally if I if you talk to a person and you say Jesus, the picture that pops in your mind is the picture that you've seen all your life, which is the white man, blonde hair, blue eyes. Yeah. Right? That picture is there. I started to it started to come to me that you can sit in deception for so long that it becomes truth. And in many of our churches, they are they are dens of deception, and we're trying to hold on, especially after COVID, we're we're trying to hold on to a false hope that church is gonna be what it used to be, but church is actually over.

SPEAKER_03 34:48

Oh, wow, man. That's heavy.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

That's heavy.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

It's actually hearing back, you hear about it. It's right here.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yeah, church is actually over as we knew it. Yeah, as we knew it. That's what I would um you can bring your question back up again about faith and comedy. Yeah. But church is over as we knew it, and it is because people are waking up. And it ain't just church, yeah. It's in kingdom halls, yeah, it's in mosque. Yeah, people are waking up. And I believe it's God that is waking us up. So what started happening to me was I was sitting in church and I would hate to hear my keyboard play. Oh no. Okay. I would hate to hear me play. Um sometimes the preacher would be preaching, and inside I'm saying, mm-mm.

unknown 35:40

That ain't it.

SPEAKER_01 35:40

That ain't it. And then it started getting to the point where sometimes he will say things and like I would become cynical, like I like almost chuckling to myself, like, this can't be real, like, this, this can't be real. You know what I'm saying? They'll say, okay, I'll give you this. We should all be safe. I get that. They'll say, you can't come in this church when we was coming back in from COVID. You you you can't come in this church if you don't have on a mask.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

But we trust God. We're not gonna let COVID dictate to us. We trust God. I think that don't make no sense.

SPEAKER_01 36:18

That don't that doesn't go together. But and I'm still working through some through some things, but I I did make a make an exodus um a year ago. And I'm I'm I'm I'm kinda the first Sunday in October. I don't know when this is gonna come out, but the first Sunday in October, I've been invited to speak at a church. And I'm like, God, but what you trying to do? Like, did you are you tricking me again? Yeah, yeah. What you trying to do? So maybe he pulled me out to give me time to to you know to to be with me, and then he's gonna send me back in to be able to speak the way that I need to.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:54

That's a big revelation. Um, that's an honest revelation. Yes. Truthful. And as you heard out there, they say, yeah. Because I think what you're saying is is very true. Um, I

Why Younger Generations Walk Away

SPEAKER_03 37:05

know we got 10 minutes. We got we will do it part two, and we already discussed this. But um I think just updating what is going on with church, like you said, making church church is not going to be what church used to be. Um, would you speak a little bit on church and the generational divide? I know this is one of the things um that I wanted to make sure was here on this first part um before we continue conversation on this in part two, but church and a general generational divide. Can you expound upon how you have witnessed, and I've seen this, watched youth leave the church. Yes. Yeah. So that the church is not there. And what's sad about it is this um my brother will tell you, we come from a long line of people, we're talking about civil rights, et cetera, having that understanding and knowing the importance of the church in the black community, how important it is for political development, allowing women to have a place to do and be front lines for our our um our communities and making sure we're educating, getting people voting, um, making sure we're there as a protect place of protection as well. It's not that way anymore. No. What can we do to either heal it or where are we going with the church and where it will be different but still utilized?

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Well, let me start here because you said a whole lot just now. First of all, I think the divide started in the 1950s and 60s. And what I mean by that is this so let's just talk about letting young people take over the reins as far as ministries, deacons, trustees, leadership. You gotta think, okay, 1950s and 60s, you got black men who went to work every day to make a living for their families, but were not viewed as men.

unknown 38:47

True.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

So the only place you got the utmost respect was when you had a good position in the church. So if this is my source of where I feel like I'm somebody, it's hard for me to let that go and pass the baton on to somebody else. So you will have somebody in position for 20, 30, 40 years and not training nobody else to come up under them, right? So then we get to maybe we get to late 70s, 80s, 90s, when young people graduate high school and they go to college, they don't return.

SPEAKER_03 39:21

In large numbers.

SPEAKER_01 39:22

Large numbers. And that number now is even larger. It's hard for me to come to church. My grandmama has given to this church all my life. But the community is not growing. The only thing that's growing is the church. And when I say growing, I'm not even meaning spiritually. I'm talking about they're buying up land or they doing this or doing that, right? Okay, my grandmama passes away. My grandma got sick, maybe. She wasn't able to pay in church like she used to. Well, church is a business now. Yeah. So if she hasn't been paying here, she can't have her funeral here. Why would I come to your church?

SPEAKER_03 40:08

You said something that's so real. We know what that is. That is real. That really happens. I watched it happen to people.

SPEAKER_01 40:13

That's why you got them out here. Yeah. Why would I come to your church?

unknown 40:19

Damn.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

But well, God is here. That's that's the kind of God that y'all serve. Shh. You know, so that's the divide. Voting, they can't talk about certain things they can't talk about because they got in bed with the government.

SPEAKER_02 40:33

Gosh, you spitting real.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

You see what I'm saying? Yeah. You can't, yeah. The church, Martin Luther King, all those folks, they met at the church. They started the marches from the church. From the church, yeah. You can't do that now because I have to protect.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

501c3.

SPEAKER_01 40:47

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_03 40:47

Yeah. That law did not exist before.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

You get what I'm saying?

unknown 40:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

We got away. We got away. And because we got away, now our churches are suffering from it. I there have been several times that I have gotten in trouble for opening my mouth. So, number one, I probably was maybe 12 or 13 years old, and in my home church where I grew up, we were having rally Sundays. Right. And I got up, I felt like God told me to get up on a rally Sunday. I asked the pastor, I said, Can I make an announcement, please? Can I make an announcement, please? Sure. So I got up and I gave my spiel on how we're raising all this money, but the community is not growing and your young people are not growing, and you're gonna look around in the years to come and you won't have any young people. How old were you when you did this? I 12 or 13. Oh, bad. I told you I was old since I was young, you know? Yeah. Um, and they thought, first of all, they thought I was absolutely insane. Then they thought a grown person had to put you up to saying this because you wouldn't know to say something like this. Yeah. But it wasn't. All right. The church where I was minister of music, probably about I'll say about maybe eight to nine years ago. Yeah, I stopped in the middle of me singing, and I made the same statement. That's another thing. I was not in the place I was supposed to be in. But I made a statement that you're gonna look around, and the church was full of people. You're gonna look around, and you're not gonna have any members, and you won't have any young people.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

Because we're not incorporating them and we're not moving forward and doing what God has called us to do. Fast forward to today is true. Yeah you know? So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:41

Man. Alright. We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna slow it, slow the pace, because I we do got to complete this. We're gonna come back for a part two. I got you. Before

Advice Card Upcoming Show Closing

SPEAKER_03 42:50

we I want you to grab one of these cards. Oh boy. Let me see. Before we wrap up.

SPEAKER_01 43:00

The advice card. If you could sit down with your 18-year-old self, what's the first thing you would tell them? I would tell my 18-year-old self to buy some land.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

You right?

SPEAKER_03 43:15

This is cold, good advice. Y'all just good advice. Buy some land. They don't make any more of it.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

They don't make any more of it.

SPEAKER_03 43:23

Man, that's some grown man advice. Um man, all right. So before we wrap up, we always like to do this. This is your camera here. Yes. I want you to tell folks what you got going on, what's coming up, um, so that we can put the information out and where they can find you.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

All right.

SPEAKER_03 43:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Okay, what I got coming up. October 24, 3 p.m. in Florence at Florence Dollarton Tech S-I-M-T Auditorium. My stage play, guess who's coming to Mr. Thaddeus' house in honor of breast cancer awareness month is going down. You can find information about that on my website, www.elijabrafford.com.

SPEAKER_03 43:59

Awesome. Awesome. Now, obviously, we're gonna have a part two. We'll coordinate it and get together so we can complete talking about these ideas because I think it's very important for our community. Oh, yeah. Um I want to see if we can get this done before before the election, if we can. If we can talk about it again, because I think like the the effects of the things that you're talking about, they're so systematic systemic, they affect our ability to be a cohesive group and to be like we can't we can't function. We are dysfunctional because of it. For real, right? And to hear somebody like you speak about this from the position that you're able to, because if you're experienced, I think people will take it with that grain of salt that they need. Oh, yeah. You know what I mean, brother? Man, I appreciate you. So this is DJ and what? Skip.

SPEAKER_05 44:44

Tamaya.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

She's been with us all day, so I had a little shout out. And then our esteemed guest, Elijah Bradford. And we will be back. Yes. We'll have a part two on this. But until the next time, please tell somebody next to him that you love them. You appreciate them. Um, uh, one other thing, too, um, as we're talking about this, and I like when my this guy says this. Man, I know everybody isn't religious or quote unquote in faith, but speak to the spiritual advisor that you need. Yes. Um I'm telling you, and I'll just say it just to be plain with it, they're looking to hear from you. I know y'all don't always think that it's something necessary, but in this day and age and where we work, if you ain't got no faith, Lord Jesus, you ain't got nothing because money sure ain't there for you. I'm telling you. Till next time. Peace. Peace.