Steve Gaines enters hospice care, 2026 Resolutions Committee announced, An interview with Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman
Download MP3Welcome to SBC This Week, a roundup of news and events from across the Southern Baptist Convention featuring interviews with today's top church leaders. I'm Brandon Porter. Laura Erlinson is here with me. Hi, Laura.
Laura Erlanson:Hello. How's it going?
Brandon Porter:Good. How about you?
Laura Erlanson:I'm okay.
Brandon Porter:Good deal. It is basketball season. Lots of, conference tournaments going on, so that's always a fun time of year. And, of course, March Madness just around the corner.
Laura Erlanson:I know. And here in Nashville, it is SEC championship time. Mhmm. So that's always fun.
Brandon Porter:Yep. Yeah. It's been fun seeing all the folks in their SEC colors on the sidewalks through the week. So Absolutely. We've got
Laura Erlanson:basketball lots a little bit today on
Brandon Porter:We are. That's right. We've got lots to talk to you about including basketball. We'll touch on WMU, how they are beginning their search for a new president. They have announced a search committee this week.
Brandon Porter:We'll touch on that. The twenty twenty six Resolutions Committee was announced this week and we also heard from the chairman of that committee through the Road to Orlando video series. And then a little later in the podcast, Laura, you are going to talk with Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman.
Laura Erlanson:That's right. Both of them. That was a lot of fun for me. Yeah.
Brandon Porter:Yeah, absolutely. So looking forward to hearing that a little later in the podcast. Stay with us. First up though, lots of folks are aware of this. Lots of folks praying.
Brandon Porter:Lots of folks very concerned. Memphis area pastor Steve Gaines, such a well known Southern Baptist pastor and leader, has entered into hospice care, Laura.
Laura Erlanson:That's right. You might remember back in November 2023 is when he announced that he had been diagnosed with kidney cancer. He was still the pastor at Bellevue at the time. Mhmm. Been there.
Laura Erlanson:He had been there, like, eighteen years or something at that point. But he continued to serve at Bellevue for another year and then sub left Bellevue in September 2024, and transitioned to more of a pastoral type out of pastoral ministry into more of, like, a traveling ministry Mhmm. And also just for his health, taking care of his health. And that's, of course, Ben Mandrell came from LifeWay. The presidency there at LifeWay became the pastor of Bellevue.
Laura Erlanson:And so just this week, they sent out a letter to members at Bellevue, a letter from Ben Mandrell saying that doctor Gaines had entered hospice care, and so his health is declining. And we'll just continue to follow that story and and give you updates as we have them.
Brandon Porter:Yeah. So continue to pray for his family and that entire process. Alright. Let's shift down to Birmingham where this week we learned that the WMU has announced their search committee. You might remember a while back, Sandy Wisdom Martin announced a transition plan that she was going to be retiring, giving them a notice, a runway to begin that process.
Brandon Porter:And so this week, Laura, they told us who would be on that search team.
Laura Erlanson:Mhmm. Yeah. She announced back in December that she kinda gave them a long runway. Mhmm. She said, I am going to retire, but you have a little over a year to find my replacement.
Laura Erlanson:She's not actually leaving until January 2027, but they have begun that process. And so Candice McIntosh, who's the executive director of the Alabama WMU, will be the chair of that serving committee, of course, of that search committee. I mean, of course, Linda Cooper, who's the current, president emerita of National WMU, very familiar name to Southern Baptist. She will be on that committee. Sandra Hughes, president of California WMU, Phyllis Rogers, Louisiana, Odell Caldwell, former president of Michigan WMU.
Laura Erlanson:So kind of a good representation from around the country of WMU leaders looking for their next executive director.
Brandon Porter:Mhmm. Yeah. So continue to pray for them as they move forward in that search. This past week we heard about an event that happened the first week of March down in Alpharetta, Georgia, just outside of Atlanta there at the North American Mission Board's headquarters, Laura. They had 170 church planters attend their sin network training.
Brandon Porter:Now these were folks from all across the country. I mean, the Northeast, the Northwest, the Midwest, the South, the Southwest, like you get it all across the country. A 170 church planters there representing 30 states throughout North America. Just a fantastic event to see how God is at work raising up the church.
Laura Erlanson:Mhmm. I love the picture of all a 170 of them out in front of the NAM building there in Alpharetta. And it's just encouraging to think of. These are people planting churches all around North America. They feature pretty heavily in the story of a church planter in Rochester, New York, and he talks about just his time, as in growing up.
Laura Erlanson:He was very at risk, very inner city Mhmm. Growing up and how the Lord has has totally changed his life, and now he's planting a church in Rochester, New York. And so just encouraging stories, really a lot of fun to to read those and then to think about, once again, the partnership of Southern Baptist to make to make this kind of ministry possible.
Brandon Porter:Absolutely. So check out that story. Lots of great details about how the Lord's at work there, and then you'll hear from a number of those church planners throughout that. Alright. A couple of things, annual meeting related.
Brandon Porter:First of all, we wanna tell you that the listing of the events at the annual meeting, you know, so the seminary luncheons, the ethnic fellowships, the NAM lunch or breakfast or whatever they're having this year, and the IMB event. All those things that
Laura Erlanson:All the things.
Brandon Porter:We would love to go to, but we are a little busy doing other things,
Laura Erlanson:Yeah, never get to go
Speaker 3:to any of the fun stuff.
Brandon Porter:Yeah. You get to go to it, folks. You get to attend these great events. And they are now online at sbcannualmeeting.net/events. You can find them there.
Brandon Porter:Registration for some of them has become a
Laura Erlanson:require registration or tickets. And I tell you, I think this, every year that list gets a little bit better and a little bit more interactive, allowing you to kind of really find the events that you're looking for. And, it's really well done. So I would encourage everybody to go. It's not just one long list of things.
Laura Erlanson:You can look by day. You can look by type of event. You can actually click the link to go register right right right then for a particular event that you wanna go to. So it's it's it's really good and really helpful.
Brandon Porter:Yeah. Absolutely. So lots of neat things there. Make sure to check that out. And then Laura, also in annual meeting business this week, it was announced to the members of the twenty twenty six committee on resolutions.
Laura Erlanson:Mhmm.
Brandon Porter:Hunter Baker, who is the provost at North Greenville University, will lead that group. And, let's see. Laura, who else is on that group with him this year?
Laura Erlanson:David Crowther, senior pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Wichita, Kansas. Abi Tyler Todd, pastor at Cross Community Church in Beaufort, South Carolina. Hank Garner, executive pastor at Lone Oak First Baptist Church in Kentucky. Landon Dowden, lead pastor of Hebron Baptist Church in Tequila, Georgia. Nisha Grubaugh, a layperson at Jersey Church in New Albany, Ohio Ryan Hefelbein, vice president of communications at Liberty University Jeremy Pierre, an elder at Clifton Baptist Church in Louisville, and dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism at, Southern Seminary Evan Lenow, assistant professor of Christian studies at Mississippi College and, Jeff Goodyear, executive pastor at Highview Baptist Church, also there in Louisville.
Laura Erlanson:So that rounds out this year's Resolutions Committee.
Brandon Porter:Yeah. And so we are recording this, and we'll release this, Lord willing, on Friday, March 13 as being the podcast. Monday, March 15 is when the submission portal opens.
Laura Erlanson:Mhmm. Sunday. Actually, March 15 is Sunday.
Brandon Porter:Sorry. Yeah. That's right.
Laura Erlanson:It's my wedding anniversary. That's why I
Speaker 3:know that.
Brandon Porter:That's a good thing. We'll see if Chris remembers that.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Brandon Porter:Tune in next week to find out.
Laura Erlanson:Everyone teases me that I got married on the March.
Brandon Porter:Oh, yeah. There you go.
Laura Erlanson:You know, it was just the date that worked out. So I I made a joke about being the brides of March.
Brandon Porter:Well, so you will share your anniversary this year with the opening of the Resolutions Portal. Yep. So maybe you can write a resolution on marriage and submit it on March 15. Sure.
Laura Erlanson:Yep. Yep. Well, that's what I'm gonna talk about later on with Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman. Mhmm. That's right.
Laura Erlanson:Yeah. A lot of good tips for marriage.
Brandon Porter:Yeah. Absolutely. Alright. A couple of things going on around the country that we wanna make you aware of. First, Texas and Ukraine.
Brandon Porter:So this is the BGCT. Mhmm. And they have entered into a partnership with Ukrainian churches to try to come along and strengthen them, and they are now expanding that partnership as the war between Ukraine and Russia drags on.
Laura Erlanson:Mhmm. So a memorandum of understanding was signed back in November between the Ukrainian Baptist Union president and then the BGCT executive director, Julio Garneri. So that happened back in November and churches have been signing on to that. And right now, 44 Texas churches are committed and 41 partnerships have already begun. And it's BGC churches, BGCT churches that are partnering directly with churches in Ukraine, Baptist churches in Ukraine, to help them in whatever way they need.
Laura Erlanson:And as we know, as Baptist press is covered now for four years, the Baptist churches have been devastated in Ukraine. So this is a really exciting partnership and very much needed.
Brandon Porter:Yeah. Absolutely. So we're we're grateful for that and for their work there. Mhmm. Alright.
Brandon Porter:We mentioned a little bit earlier, it's basketball season. And so for those of you who are basketball fans and sports junkies, this this next couple of things will I think resonate with you. First of all, Laura, let's start with this one. So Midwestern Seminary now has Spurgeon College.
Laura Erlanson:Mhmm.
Brandon Porter:And their team has done a phenomenal job the last couple of years. And this year in particular, Laura, they have a player who is quite a standout.
Laura Erlanson:Mhmm. Joseph Allen is a senior and a guard slash forward, there for Spurgeon College, men's basketball, the Spurgeon Knights, and he received a pretty significant award. He was named, National Player of the Year and Regional Player of the Year by the National Christian College Athletic Association. And so Joseph Allen, I don't think any relation to Midwestern president Jason Allen, but, seems like just an amazing young man and a really good basketball player. Mhmm.
Laura Erlanson:So the the men's basketball coach, Billy Livesey, he said it comes as no surprise. Joseph Allen is the best player in the league. No question in my mind, the coach said. He is talented enough to play in many different leagues and schools in the country, but he chose Spurgeon College. Many people in life are where they have to be.
Laura Erlanson:Joe is playing at Spurgeon because he wants to be here, not because he has to be here. And then he just goes on to just talk about what a stand up guy he is, what a leader he is on the team, and just what a respectful young man he is. And so it was just neat to see this recognition and makes me wish that I lived closer. Could go watch some games.
Brandon Porter:Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So so he is the regional and national player of the year for the National Christian College Athletic Association, just to give the details there in case folks are wondering, keeping up Mhmm. With Absolutely.
Brandon Porter:Alright. And then so with basketball, with all things sports, these days comes gambling. And not that it's not been a part of sports in some form or fashion for many years, but you know, with the recent Supreme Court decision and with technology and app based gambling and things like that, it just really seems to be on the increase. And so, as the March Madness tournament kicks off, it just gives us an opportunity to shine a light on that and what a problem it really is. And so, Scott Barkley wrote a story on that this this past week.
Laura Erlanson:Yeah. Statistics show nearly two thirds of those over 21 years of age report participating in at least one form of gambling before turning 21, and that includes, of course, lottery tickets and playing maybe poker at home or whatever. But for a lot of those, twenty three percent, it's playing a sports bet or playing fantasy sports. And so it's affecting a large contingent of young men, especially, even at Christian colleges. And so Scott talks about in his story a recent, editorial or op ed in the Wall Street Journal written by a student at North Greenville University Mhmm.
Laura Erlanson:Who's which is, you know, one of our Southern Baptist schools. And he talks about even among his friends at school, it's becoming a problem. It's just, it's so pervasive everywhere you go. It's so easy to do, and it's so marketed and just in your face all the time. And so Scott wrote a really good story here.
Laura Erlanson:He talked to Jared Pinson, who is at a different Southern Baptist school, Cedarville University in Ohio. Really good stuff from him. He also talked with, Rashawn Frost, the research fellow at ERLC, about it. And, of course, the ERLC has a guide Mhmm. For people to deal with this issue, and so they talk a lot about that.
Laura Erlanson:Just a really, really helpful, and eye opening story from Scott about this issue that is getting worse this time of year because there
Brandon Porter:are Yeah.
Laura Erlanson:Literally so many games. I mean, March Madness, all of those games that are played throughout the whole month, and there's opportunities for betting on all of them. And so it becomes a real problem.
Brandon Porter:Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely. So thank you to him for writing that, and we believe that'll be a help to you. Share that with someone.
Brandon Porter:Share it with folks who are maybe talking through this with their with their kids. I think that that would be very helpful. Absolutely. Yep. Definitely.
Brandon Porter:Alright. Well, that brings us to our CP Impact Moment. And today, we have the privilege of hearing from a pastor in the Charlotte, North Carolina area who not only talks about the importance of giving through the cooperative program, but just what it means to them and their church as they have missionaries who have come from their church serving on the field because of your partnership through the cooperative program.
Speaker 3:My name is Carson. I serve as one of the pastors of Arlington Baptist Church, just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. And the cooperative program has meant so much to our church because we have several North American Mission Board missionaries and IMB missionaries that are members of our congregation. And if it had not been for the generosity of those who gave to the cooperative program, they would have not been able to go and take the gospel to different parts of the world, in Indonesia and Africa and other places. So we are so thankful for, the cooperative program and what it was able to do to provide for the missionaries who call our church home.
Brandon Porter:Alright, fantastic to hear that strong testimony from him. Laura, that reminds us that it is Annie Armstrong Easter offering season. That's a little bit of a tongue twister, but I got it right there. So, the AAEO is in full effect. Hope that you are giving or planning to give generously through that, that your church is leaning in as we work together to reach North America with the gospel.
Brandon Porter:Also, March 22 is church planting emphasis day just around the corner. You get resources on that emphasis Sunday at nam.net. Well, that brings us to this interview, Laura, with Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman.
Laura Erlanson:Well, we are so, so thankful to be joined today by Steven Curtis and Mary Beth Chapman, a a twofer today just to take a have
Steven Curtis Chapman:That's right.
Speaker 3:Both of you. What a blessing.
Laura Erlanson:Thank you so much.
Steven Curtis Chapman:I don't know if it's double trouble or double define, but it's probably a little about that.
Speaker 3:Probably a
Mary Beth Chapman:little about. Yeah. Thanks for having us.
Laura Erlanson:Well, I I actually got to read the book last night, most of it. And just what an encouragement as someone who's been married, you know, twenty something years myself. It was a lot of relatable things in there. Also just some encouraging and some maybe things to ponder and things to think about and to maybe even emulate. And so so this book is about marriage.
Laura Erlanson:It's called Still Here. And you were you say in the book you were kind of hesitant to write a marriage book, but you changed your mind. Why did you why did you change your mind?
Mary Beth Chapman:Well, yeah, it was really important, I think, for both of us when they began, gosh, I guess we've been talking about this off and on for what, several years, really.
Steven Curtis Chapman:I found files the other day on my computer. I didn't even tell you this, but I found some transcribed files from the first time you and I sat down with a guy years ago, a guy named Mike Yorkie, who wrote a lot of articles for campus life, and I mean, magazines and things back when there were magazines, and there was no internet even, pre internet. These were like cassette tape recordings of us doing conversations with him about maybe doing a book, and that would have been thirty years ago, So maybe we've been talking about it for a long time, yeah, and it never materialized into a book because we just kept saying, I don't think we
Speaker 3:know how
Steven Curtis Chapman:to do this Right.
Mary Beth Chapman:And yeah, so yeah, Yeah. All those years ago, I don't I don't feel like we really know how to do this yet. And then all of a sudden, you wake up one day, and you've been married forty one years and go, oh, I still don't know how to do this.
Steven Curtis Chapman:So But we've done it.
Mary Beth Chapman:But we've
Laura Erlanson:done it.
Mary Beth Chapman:And so there must be something here. And so anyhow, when we were talking with LifeWay about potentially doing this, was really important for Steve and I. We feel like we don't I never refer to Steven as having fans, I just refer to them as family, friends, know, people who have, followed along on his journey, our journey, they're like family, they're friends. And it was really, really important for he and I to go, look, there are a lot of great how to marriage books and all those are good and well and we have gleaned information from them, but it's very important for people to know that we can't write a how to book. We can write an in spite of book that that, you know, there we have been married forty one years, so there's a reason we've been married for forty one years.
Mary Beth Chapman:Those reasons are a lot of of redos and a lot of bearing with one another and a love a
Steven Curtis Chapman:lot of forgiveness, a lot
Mary Beth Chapman:of thankfulness. And so the reason we were hesitant is we didn't want someone to say, oh, great. Another book of telling us how to. That we wanted it to be very invitational to go, look, we all struggle, we are all sinners, we married sinners, and what does it look like to, you know, redemptively walk that journey? Mhmm.
Mary Beth Chapman:And so anyways, that's why the hesitance.
Laura Erlanson:Well, I one thing I appreciated about it was just how candid you are about how different your personalities are and how much conflict that that's caused over the years. But you talk about kind of learning how to deal with that. What are what are some tips to, like, us fighting well in a marriage or or having healthy conflict?
Mary Beth Chapman:Well, all men should remember that the woman is right. No? Yeah. Okay. That's it.
Mary Beth Chapman:I mean, that's That's really it.
Steven Curtis Chapman:You shouldn't have said that that you just gave the whole that's like the spoiler. That's it. That's done. Thank you. Thanks.
Laura Erlanson:Yeah. There's just one page. The book is one page.
Speaker 3:There it is. Yep.
Steven Curtis Chapman:No. You know, we we do talk in in really a pretty honest way about just the fact that for us, you know, I think often the the challenge of even writing a book and and, you know, talking about it is that sense of, gosh, you know, you don't write a book unless you just really know how to do something. You know, you write the book, or, you know, or you write the book, I always think about, you know, the the mountain climber who, you know, writes the book about this is what, you know, it looked like once I reached the peak, you know, of Mount Everest or whatever, and I told the story and the struggles and the steps and the missteps and the sliding down and crawling back up, but I made it, and here it is. Let me tell you my story, and there's that victory moment. And for us, just being on this journey and marriage is, as we say in the subtitle, the long way home.
Steven Curtis Chapman:But being on this journey together for these many years, and the things that we have learned that are really so simple and basic, and yet so difficult and so challenging, but it's all part of what we really believe. And again, Tim Keller, it's hard for me to say a lot without quoting him, one of the guys that I just have felt like gleaned so much from in his teaching, he talks about marriage being God's design, I think, is a whole lot more about making us holy than it is about making us happy. And we don't really enter marriage, at least we didn't really with that understanding. I mean, I think sort of somewhere down in there as believers, knew that that was part of the God bringing two people together. But, you know, to really understand there is something so much more epic and mysterious and cosmic, you know, going on than just, you know, two people coming together.
Steven Curtis Chapman:And the you know, that that's an amazing thing, and yet we're not, you know, as we explore in the book, we're not fighting a battle against flesh and blood. We've had to remind each other of that many times. You know? Sometimes some of our most heated arguments are, you know, ended with, you know, I am not the enemy. You're not the enemy.
Steven Curtis Chapman:But there is a real enemy who is trying to take us out. And that is I
Laura Erlanson:appreciated that. Yeah.
Steven Curtis Chapman:So much. Not to be trifled. I mean, that enemy is not to be trifled with.
Mary Beth Chapman:Yeah.
Steven Curtis Chapman:We we know one who has defeated that enemy, but he he's not he's still, you know, the roaring lion and all that stuff. It is real and it's true. And I feel like, you know, the the you know, for us just being able to be honest about that process with hopes that it will encourage people in their own journey, and that it is a bearing with one another. You know, we talk a lot about that throughout the book because when people say, what's the secret? What's the key?
Steven Curtis Chapman:You know, and it's like, this isn't gonna sound like much of a key or a secret. And in the current world, and Mary Beth does a, I think she really talks about this a lot, and you know, the current way of thinking in our culture is, you know, so, you know, me focused and self care, which again, self care is a good thing and I think can be a very biblical thing, but I also think it can be, you know, it walks a very fine line of Mhmm. Of, you know, being, you know, something that when I read scripture that talks about, if you're gonna follow Jesus, you take up your cross, you know, die to yourself, lay down your life, Follow me. Mhmm. You know, bear with one another in love.
Steven Curtis Chapman:That implies bearing, carrying a weight of of the another person's sin and and failures and flaws against me, and yet running back to, well, how has Jesus loved me? Okay. Is it possible for me to love another person that way? Well, it must be, but only through him, and only by his grace and by his strength. And so those are all the things that I feel like we're at least learning.
Steven Curtis Chapman:I can't say we've learned, but we're learning.
Mary Beth Chapman:I think any of us would be I think in our most honest moments, at least for me, I can say when I am just wanting to pull my hair out at at Steven, it's just like I'm like super frustrated or he's just the last straw or he's irritated me. I think if we can be honest with ourselves, where I normally go, it's because it's like, well I, well I, well I need it to be this way, I want this, I, and it becomes this really selfish thing. And so I think if there's any central piece of this book to be relational with people, it is. What does it mean to stop and go, wait a second, Jesus called us to again, bear with one another in love. Yes.
Mary Beth Chapman:And to look at the other person and not see their faults, but to see what we fell in love with in the first place and how do we, and again, obviously, I'm not speaking of of things that are dangerous and things that you shouldn't, you know, submit yourself to or Sure. Stay in. But I'm I'm just talking about it is very easy in I think 2026 to go, well, he wasn't doing this for who? Me. I wasn't getting this.
Mary Beth Chapman:I need to be that. You know? How many times do we go? It's just you know? I mean, I'm super guilty of looking at Steve going, okay, listen, my whole life has been about your career.
Mary Beth Chapman:I will do It's like, okay, well wait a second, God called me to this marriage. He's called me to bear with him in love and Steven's been so gracious at going, how can I help you fulfill some of the longings in your heart? And so it is so much giving, it's way more about giving than this give and take. Know, we hear about, well marriage is give and take. Well, if marriage was all give, give, give.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's give and give, yeah.
Mary Beth Chapman:Give and give and and give more, and not really expect the receiving, if we were both willing to do that, I just think we would see potentially a lot of healing. And that's a hard thing to do because we are sinners and we are selfish at the core.
Laura Erlanson:Well, one thing that you say in the book, the phrase that you use is winning by losing, and I really appreciated that that you're you don't have to lose yourself necessarily, but you do have to lose your need to be right all the time or your need to have it your way all the time. You have to just lose that. And in losing sometimes, in losing the argument or losing the point or losing your way, that's when you can win. That's when your marriage can grow. And I thought that was a really neat way to say that.
Laura Erlanson:Something else that you talk about lot is just changing over time and how nobody's the same person after five years or ten years, and certainly after forty years of marriage. How do you how do you adjust to that? How are each of you different now than you were when you got married?
Mary Beth Chapman:Well, I always tell him there's a whole lot more of me to love.
Laura Erlanson:We can all relate to that one,
Speaker 3:I think. Yeah.
Mary Beth Chapman:Not. Oh my gosh. All the questions for God, right, on how women change and men don't physically. That's a good one to to ponder. No.
Mary Beth Chapman:Yeah. You know, I do we talk a little bit in the book about this this the triangle. I don't know if you remember that Mhmm. Reading. You know, I think that was some for us, that was some advice for me, you know, on the on the plus side of changing, I Steven and I were so polar opposite.
Mary Beth Chapman:I think the Lord does that sometimes early in your relationship. It's like you fall in love with something you you're not. Right? Mhmm. I I was so enamored with the free spirit and the creativity and the all the things that I didn't identify with in myself.
Mary Beth Chapman:Those are what I fell in love with. And then you get married and it's like, wait, you don't do anything like I do, and it becomes quickly it can it can become quickly irritating. Right? But what's been beautiful about our marriage is this triangular approach, it's been like, I feel like Steve and I have been those low corners of the triangle. And as we've really focused on our relationship with Jesus, not perfectly, I'm the first to admit, you know, not perfectly at all, over these forty years, if we can focus on growing closer to God, what that does as it moves us up the triangle, it pulls us closer to each other, and so I think it's important that then instead of letting those differences keep us apart or pushing us apart, it allows us as we grow closer to God, we grow closer to each other.
Mary Beth Chapman:And it's been amazing in our marriage, again, we can be super frustrated with each other, but it's amazing for me to see things that I used to do all the time that now Steve does and I don't do anymore because we've kind of completely flipped places. And it's things that I think, I don't know that you would call it learning from me as just much as we've become more one and you know what's important. Yeah. You know that I love the idea of, you know, having the bed made and now you pop up and do it and I can't even get to it because you've done it. And just little things, some bigger things, some, you know, not so meaningful things that are meaningful.
Mary Beth Chapman:And so I think it's just, you know, there's two kinds of changes. We change, we look different, we are different. I'm, you know, still the same person that, you know, he married all those years ago, and some of those changes are for good because we do become more like each other.
Laura Erlanson:Right, because it's a decision every single day, you make a decision, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you talk Yeah, about that think
Steven Curtis Chapman:that's one of the things that, you know, we inadvertently, I don't even think we meant to do this, but it's kind of become, I've thought more about it even as we have talked about the book, but that title, Even Still Here, is obviously playing a little bit off of the song I Will Be Here that I wrote for Mary Beth five, six years into our marriage when we went through a difficult time with my parents' divorce and it just kind of was one of those first sort of earthquakes in our journey together that shook the foundation, and like, wait a minute, what do we do with this? And if this happened to my parents, how do we know that this won't happen to us? Because my parents had said for many years, divorce has never been, not even a word in our vocabulary, not an option, said all the right things. And so that to still be here after all these years. But also, you know, the reality that, and this is, we have to work at this and remember with the, you know, bearing with one another and all of the challenges that come in our journey that there are radical changes.
Steven Curtis Chapman:People will say, you know, well, that's he's just not the person I married. She's just not the person I married. And you go, duh. Yeah. You're right.
Steven Curtis Chapman:Because Yeah. We didn't marry a a mom, a dad, a a, you know, a a person who had carried the weight of providing or carry the weight of raising children and heartbreak and sadness and parents getting older and grief and life, hard, just life changes us. And yet also remembering, you know, that the person that I fell in love with is still here, is still that person, and that's still there in that person. Sometimes, you know, we take a moment and you know, just sort of look I'll look in my wife's eyes and say, there she is.
Speaker 3:You know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Steven Curtis Chapman:There she is. There are those brown there are those beautiful brown eyes that I fell in love with, and, you know, and she'll usually roll those eyes and say, well, just want more people to love, or whatever. I'll say, no. It's not. It's just but but to remember that too, because those are the ways I think the enemy works against us because those things are are real and true as well.
Steven Curtis Chapman:And while God is, you know, it's laying our lives down, it's all those things of bearing with one another and trusting Jesus to give us what only he can give us, you know, in this journey, because we're not fighting a battle against just flesh and blood, but there's an enemy, a real enemy that trying to destroy us. But one of the ways I think we battle it too is just to, yeah, remember, we've changed a lot, and we're gonna love each other through that, but we're also, you're the person I fell in love with. You're the person that I committed to. And I want to be in this for that long journey and see where that journey's going to take us.
Laura Erlanson:Well, something that I think maybe a lot of our listeners could relate to is being in a ministry marriage. Being maybe a little bit in the spotlight where people are looking to you almost as an example of how to be a good husband or wife. We have a lot of pastors and ministry leaders that listen to the podcast. And how would you let's say there's somebody out there listening. They're really struggling in their marriage.
Laura Erlanson:Nobody knows. Everybody thinks it's fine. How would you encourage that couple? And then how how do you know when it's time to seek help? Because you talk about in the book several times that you sought help of a counselor to kind of help you get through a rough patch or whatever.
Laura Erlanson:How how would you encourage that person, and how would you tell them, here's here's when you should probably talk to somebody?
Steven Curtis Chapman:Well, you know, it's it's for us, the it was pretty early on in our marriage that we realized and it was probably actually, I guess, around the time of my parents' divorce and writing an I Will We Hear song that we first, you know, the idea of counseling therapy, whatever, was so kinda like that's only, that's what people do that, you know, are really, messed up, really confused, really can't do it. We can do this. We just need to pray harder. We need to trust God and read the Bible and pray. We, thankfully, God put people in our lives, I'm thinking of, you know, Scottie Smith, our pastor, friend for But years, Al people that would encourage us, you know what, letting someone speak into this is probably a really wise thing.
Steven Curtis Chapman:There's wisdom in the counsel of many, you know, You know, he who walks with the wise grows wise. I wrote a song about that once actually, because that's just one of those verses like, oh, we need to have wise people around us on this journey who can just speak into it. They're not gonna be, you know, think the challenge with it, sometimes for me, they're not the fourth member of the Trinity or the Holy Spirit, and the ultimate counselor, the wonderful counselor, the only one who really, that will always give us the truest counsel, although it didn't come as quickly and sometimes in the form that we want it, we like to have a person speaking real words across from us. They're not always gonna be, you know, they're not always gonna know and be right, and we have to factor that in. But I think the answer, I guess to answer the question, when would someone know?
Steven Curtis Chapman:I think if you even ask the question, it's something to at least be willing to put yourself in a room with someone else to say, hey, can you just help us navigate this and speak into it? Now Marybeth and I would say that our experience, we've had many, many, in fact, we would say probably every person who has counselor on their door, we probably know them pretty well in Nashville, because we felt like we've darkened their door of just about all of them. And many of them, honestly, at some point have looked at us and said
Mary Beth Chapman:Probably fired us.
Steven Curtis Chapman:They kind of fired us. They're like, you know, wait up. You guys, you defy all the, you know, with the textbooks, we've gone through every page. Y'all, you guys are off the book. You don't, we don't know where to even help you.
Mary Beth Chapman:Off script.
Steven Curtis Chapman:Off script. And part of that is, you know, the uniqueness of just our journey, our life. You know, we are the challenge that I think often we've struggled with is we're just we're so much more complex. And I don't mean we, Mary Beth and Steven Chapman, I think all of us. I think books are great.
Steven Curtis Chapman:Counseling methods are helpful. I don't wanna, you know, take anything away from some of them have been probably lifesaving, marriage saving, and I'm sure, Mary Beth said this earlier, you know, that there are definitely things we have taken from, you know, counseling and conversations we've had for sure with others in books we've read. But we've also, sometimes they can also be really discouraging because we feel like, well, we've screwed all of this up. We read the book and it's like, we've messed up, you know, every page. Whoop, didn't do that right.
Steven Curtis Chapman:Whoop, didn't do that. Didn't you know, we messed that up. Is there hope for us? Maybe we're just too far gone. And even I think there have been situations even with counselors where they've kinda looked at us, and without saying it but implying it, I don't know if you guys man, this is this is pretty broken.
Steven Curtis Chapman:And
Laura Erlanson:Mhmm.
Steven Curtis Chapman:And yet we sit here, still here, I think, as an example of just saying, but if God brought us together, and we're not fighting a battle against flesh and blood, but there's a real enemy that wants to take us out, especially people in ministry, you referenced that, and people that are in a position where, you know, I don't know how it all works, certainly don't theologically understand, but sometimes you feel like, man, Satan has a refrigerator door, I think our picture's hanging on it with a target on us as a family, because how many things you know, it just can feel that way. And I think people in ministry can definitely feel that way. And and so I think, you know, certainly being willing to just be able to acknowledge, and I guess if we've done anything well and right in this process, it has been very willing to acknowledge humbly that we don't have it figured out, that we need help. We need, ultimately, God's help, the ultimate counselor, the wonderful counselor, and I've many times reminded the Lord in prayer. God, this is your name, wonderful counselor.
Steven Curtis Chapman:So you're the one ultimately that can counsel. Now it may come through a friend, it may come through a counselor, you know, or your word, or whatever, however you choose to give, but we are desperate for it. And just being willing to humble ourselves, not pretend that we have it figured out because everybody might think we should or do because we wrote the song about it, or wrote the book about it.
Mary Beth Chapman:I do think too when you you end up in a counseling situation or decide to take that step, I I for me, I I had to man, those early days of just sitting on the couch going, yeah. I'll go to counseling because he's gonna tell you all the things you're doing wrong. Mhmm. And he's you, not me. Watch this.
Mary Beth Chapman:Be great because I've got a case
Laura Erlanson:Yeah. And
Mary Beth Chapman:this is gonna be awesome because I'm gonna get this guy on my side. And I think there has to be a posture of we are both broken people, we are both sinners, and how do we get godly theologically sound help to go, hey, we're two broken people living in a broken world, and then how do you, you know, how like minded can you come together to be bearing with one another and love? And then that ultimately because we have graced the hallway built wings onto counselors, building whatever.
Steven Curtis Chapman:I
Laura Erlanson:mean The Chapman wing. Yeah.
Steven Curtis Chapman:Chapman wing.
Mary Beth Chapman:You know, Chapman wing. You know? But I think, ultimately, there's a decision to be made about, you know, hey. I'm gonna choose to love the person I was so madly in love with when we got married, and then yes, changes happen, things happen, but how do we continue to bear with one another in love? And obviously, it goes without saying, I always feel like I have to say, there are things that obviously are much more serious, need much more help, there are times when things need to be different.
Mary Beth Chapman:But I'm just talking about, know, a merit, it's hard, it's hard because it's imperfect people living in an imperfect world and how do I choose to love in spite of all those little irritating things that add up to something that seems monumental, but it's really not when you start looking in the mirror like, the reason this is irritating me is because I'm honestly a selfish sinner as well. Oh. And I want it anyway. Mhmm. So, yeah, it's it's it's all of that kinda wrapped up into a a willingness to to not sit on the couch and go, yeah.
Mary Beth Chapman:He's gonna fix him, and this is all gonna be good. You know? Just willing to see into my own self as well.
Laura Erlanson:Well, again, I would really love to thank, Steven Curtis and Mary Beth taking that time with me. I enjoyed it so much, and I really did learn a lot from them, from reading the book and from talking with them. And just about how it's okay for marriage not to be perfect all the time. I think sometimes people are afraid to really talk about the nitty gritty of marriage, and so I think it's really helpful, the book that they've written, and hopefully it can really help a lot
Brandon Porter:of Yeah, absolutely. We've talked about this since you've recorded a couple of times, just the rawness and the realness of what they shared, not only in the book, but even more in that interview that we've just listened to. So thank you for doing that. Well, brings us to our history moment and she has kept me in the dark. Laura has intentionally kept me in the dark this week and so I'm
Laura Erlanson:expecting I great learned something. You know, I always learn something in the history moments. Okay. This is kind of fun. Okay.
Laura Erlanson:Okay. Dateline, 03/17/1963.
Brandon Porter:Saint Patrick's
Laura Erlanson:nineteen sixty three. Yeah. It has nothing to do with Saint Patrick's Day,
Speaker 3:but yeah.
Laura Erlanson:Okay. A few months ago, Howard Payne College student Mhmm. Ray Hildebrand asked if he could live in a gymnasium dressing room to cut expenses. So this is Brownwood, Texas, Howard Payne College, which is now Howard Payne University, which is still affiliated with the BGCT.
Steven Curtis Chapman:Right.
Laura Erlanson:Okay. Recently, he helped send okay. After a few months ago, he asked if he could live in the gym because he he's broke.
Brandon Porter:Okay.
Laura Erlanson:The next paragraph, recently, he helped send the Howard Payne basketball team to Kansas City to participate in the basketball tournament of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics.
Brandon Porter:Okay.
Laura Erlanson:Alright. Third paragraph. Hildebrand's rags to riches story began this winter when he and Howard Payne coed Jill Jackson recorded Hey Paula, which soared quickly to the top of the hit parade. Hildebrand wrote the song. Okay.
Laura Erlanson:Okay. Do you know the song Hey Paula?
Brandon Porter:I don't.
Laura Erlanson:You don't?
Brandon Porter:I don't think so.
Laura Erlanson:Okay. It was a huge song
Brandon Porter:Okay.
Laura Erlanson:In 1963. Huge.
Brandon Porter:Alright.
Laura Erlanson:I am familiar with it because my sister's name is Paula.
Brandon Porter:Okay.
Laura Erlanson:And she was born in the late sixties, and so she got sung the song a lot. People would walk up to her and sing, hey, hey, Paula.
Speaker 3:Hey. Hey, Paula. I wanna marry you. Hey.
Mary Beth Chapman:Hey,
Laura Erlanson:So it was a huge song. Ray Hildebrand. They went by, Ray Hildebrand and Jill Jackson. Their their stage name, if you will, was Paul and Paula. Okay.
Laura Erlanson:So if you look up Paul and Paula, you'll see them. That was that was what they went by, although that was not their real names. And they were not a real couple. They were just friends that went to Howard Payne College together, and he was a songwriter, and he wrote the song and asked her to sing on it. He actually wrote it about a real girl named Paula, but not not the girl that sang it with him.
Laura Erlanson:And they ended up having a pretty good success for a few years. They recorded a full length album not long after this. And so he took the money that he made from recording Hey, Paula in 1963 and helped the Howard Payne College basketball team go to a tournament in Kansas City because they didn't have enough money to send the team. And I looked a lot of this up last night, and I had no idea that number one, that song was recorded by a Southern Baptist and that he used his proceeds from the song to help, you know, send the basketball team to a tournament. They recorded a 12 song album later that year called Paul and Paula sing for young lovers.
Laura Erlanson:Oh. And, that was a pretty successful album. They sang together. They didn't sing together, for very long. They didn't tour for a long time, but they did occasionally sing together up until just twenty or so years ago.
Laura Erlanson:They were still doing the odd event here and there with each other. And, I saw, you know, footage even last night. I was watch you know, just googling around and finding different recordings of him, and I found a recording of him from not just within the last few years. He has now died. But just even a few years ago, he's saying, hey, Paula, on the Ray Stevens at the Ray Stevens theater here in Nashville.
Laura Erlanson:And Ray Stevens, like, introduces him, and he comes out and sings it. And you can see that. It's, like, on YouTube or whatever. So it's pretty cool.
Brandon Porter:There we go.
Laura Erlanson:So if you don't know the song, Hey Paula, because you're probably too young, I only know it because of my sister being Paula, I think. But but it was a huge song in the sixties.
Speaker 3:Interesting. So look look it up.
Brandon Porter:We we listened to a lot of Elvis growing up, but but no Paul and Paula that I can remember. No.
Laura Erlanson:Well, Paul and Paula, which was their aliases, it was really,
Speaker 3:let's see.
Brandon Porter:What was
Laura Erlanson:his name again? Ray and Jill. Yeah. It was really Ray and Jill, but they were students at Howard Payne.
Brandon Porter:How about that? The school let him live in the locker room?
Laura Erlanson:It doesn't say. I guess it doesn't say, but he didn't need it. You know? Just a few months later, he was he was doing okay.
Brandon Porter:Okay. Well, good. Good for him. I I I don't know if you've ever been in a men's locker room at a high school or a college.
Laura Erlanson:Yeah. It's probably not where you wanna live. I wouldn't think. You you He was getting desperate.
Brandon Porter:Even wanna visit it.
Laura Erlanson:Right? So no. Absolutely. Well, it was a really fun story. And if, yeah, I I would encourage everybody to look it up and and listen to Paul Hey, Paula, if you if you've never heard the song.
Laura Erlanson:And you just never know where you're gonna find a Southern Baptist, you know, influencing pop culture. So there you go. And, as always, we had many, many, many things this week that we didn't have time to talk about on this podcast, but you can read all of that and much more at baptistpress.com. Thanks for listening.
