SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hi, friends, and welcome to the Dreamers Podcast, the show where we explore bold dreams, highlight inspiring stories, and the real journeys behind them. I'm your host, Lydia Ingenieri, and each episode I sit down with creators, founders, visionaries, and everyday people who dared to imagine more and did something about it. This isn't just about success. It's about the setbacks, the turning points, the late nights, and those moments when quitting felt easier than continuing. So whether you're building something new, standing at a crossroads, or simply searching for inspiration, you're in the right place. So take a breath, lean in, and let yourself dream a little bigger. This is the Dreamers Podcast. I am so excited about today. Today is special to me, and let me tell you why. I get to have a conversation with someone who I've known for 26 years, who has literally been uh a mentor in pretty much every season of my adult life, who has been a friend, is more like a brother to me, who I've learned so much from and who is an incredibly inspirational person. Um, his name is Michael Farron, and he is here with us today.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

It's all downhill for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

I don't think so. I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

That's a heck of an intro.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

But listen, listen, I just want to encourage you, those who are joining us for this episode, to lean in and to um to just glean from Michael. We're gonna just have a conversation between friends. We have a lot of history to cover, and uh and I know you're gonna learn something because every time I'm with my brother Michael, I do learn something and I get inspired and I get encouraged. So, Michael, thank you for being here. I know you're a busy guy. No, so welcome. Glad to be here. One of the things that you are most known for is obviously your tremendous gift of songwriting. And uh, I'm not just saying this, I I truly do feel you are the songwriter of our generation. You are incredible. I feel like there's never a bad song that has come from you. Um, even the ones that you might consider just, hey, I just threw this together and popped it up on Instagram. Um, but you are just a master at this craft. I've learned so much from you. So many in our industry have learned so much from you. And I know that every time I have the have had the privilege to write with you, or friends of ours, people that we know have had the privilege, it's always the same thing. Like, I can't believe I just got to write a song with Michael. And this is true. This is so true. You're also very humbled. Um humbled. Yeah. Well, it's the truth. And you're also a husband, you're a dad, you are a mentor, you are a business owner. So we're gonna dive into all of those things today, but I don't want to waste any time with you. I just want you to take the floor and share. Um, if you're able, just to kind of go back to the beginning and how did this all start for you with songwriting and music and take take it away?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Um, well, thank you. I'm glad to be with you. And you are precious to me. Your whole family's amazing. Um I I guess you you said go back the the quick version of going way back. Um, I was raised in a very musical family in Texas. Um my grandfather um who pastored a very uh well, I'll just set this. I'm gonna be nice today. Okay. He pastored an independent fundamental premillennial King James only Baptist Church.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

I've heard you say that so many times, and you've never stumbled across those words, which I think is an absolute miracle.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Uh it was because we knew how to say it well. Wow. Um so I was raised very, very church. Um my grandfather, he was an amazing man, um uh in a very unique river of you know the kingdom, I guess. Um but I will say my my parents are amazing, still alive, and I live very close with them. But very early on, my grandfather and my parents, of course, but my grandfather being the pastor and always, you know, cultivating something musically in the church, uh, made sure that my parents started standing me up on a milk crate uh when I was three, four, five. Amazing. Uh so I was always been around the music thing. It was very southern gospel and hymns. Uh my my family was they were absolute um craftsmen of protecting me from the outside world. They were masters of seclusion. So I never like I was only saturated by church things and Christian music things. I I wasn't allowed to listen to secular music or we didn't have a TV. Like, and they were really good at keeping me away from that for much longer than most parents are. I mean, I I literally did not understand the concept of secular music till I was you know nine or ten years old. And then thank God for my uncle Joe uh started slipping me all these cassette tapes of secular music, you know. And um but my whole life has always been steeped in all things music. I just longer conversations for other days, the uh there's just lots of layers that sent me on the trajectory. There's there's the natural way I was wired for music, but then there was also the culture that helped wrap around that and keep pushing it on multiple levels. So uh it's hard for me to even explain some days who I am or what I am based on how many voices spoke into. Wow, yeah, or or touch points there were with other cultures or other other genres, other styles, other takes on what music is or whatever. So I have enjoyed a long run of chasing music around. And but it started at a very early age. Made my first vinyl record when I was five. You have seen it.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

I have seen it. It's amazing. We're gonna have to somehow get a picture of that up. No, it's it is not. It is I did have hair.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

It is a classic, and I looked good in a leisure suit.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Yes, he was a five-year-old wearing a leisure suit, like five-year-old Bob Barker.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

It was good.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

It's awesome. We will show it. We're just gonna have to. Why didn't you bring it? What was I thinking? Oh my goodness. Wow. Okay, so then the performing part. Okay, so you were performing, and then did you do that all through your adolescence and teen years? When did you make that transition into songwriting?

SPEAKER_01 7:00

So songwriting was pretty early as well. Because I remember writing songs when I was 10-ish. You know, um, like you were very kind and like you don't write a bad song. No, you've just never heard the bad ones, and I hope you never do. That's any songwriter hopes nobody ever hears the bad ones, right? Um, but I remember writing and performing original stuff around the age of 10. Okay. Um, but 17, 18 really went, oh, this is this lights me up. This there's something here. By the time I hit 21, 22, uh, I'd gotten married. I had been voted out of a Baptist church for leading worship music at that time. The crazy charismatic church down the street took me in. Uh, you know this story. Uh I do. They they took me in and I quickly realized I did not have I did not have committed to memory enough songs, worship songs, to sustain an hour's worth of worship in a charismatic college gathering on a Wednesday night. And so the songwriting thing really shifted into gear when I stood on stages and didn't have enough songs. And that really was the catalyst of me starting to dig for songs out of necessity to serve a church. Like the songwriting for me has been propelled by really God in his sovereignty and wisdom knew what would he knew what I would need to pastor those moments. So I was innately gifted, I guess, with this songwriting thing. But then the demand was placed on it in those settings.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

And so Pocket Full of Rocks was birthed out of those moments, the band that we had for a very long time. And I I mean to this day, and most people never realize that the songs we sang on a night, and the Pocket Full of Rocks grew and grew, and it was an amazing journey.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

We would stand on the stage in front of thousands, and every song in the night was written spontaneously.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

And we got so comfortable with that that I just thought that was normal.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

Um I never thought twice about that. This I mean, I knew it wasn't like everybody wasn't doing that, but I just thought I just thought, well, this is what we do.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

We had uh through points along the way in Pocket Full of Rocks, people were like, well, how do people people ask, well, how do people sing along? Well, people like Lonnie Crump and others were back in the day, she was just a road manager for us, you know, before she married the bass player, Jody. Um I would write a song on stage in real time. Yeah, but she would be in the sound booth in a big arena, and she knew me so well that I would she knew when I had something locked in and it would go up on the screens.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Yeah, she would just type it in real time.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

And so the whole thing was a movement from the band to myself to even like somebody like Lonnie out in the booth typing real in real time to keep that moment moving. And so um it the songwriting part of my world to present, like that's my day job. Um I write 250 songs a year, most of those now sitting in a cubicle or an office with people sometimes like today. I'm leaving here and I'm going to go meet a guy I've never met before to write a song.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

But I owe most of that to the early existence of having to just step into moments and be compelled to do those.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

So it's been a wild journey full of all kinds of nuances and when it comes to the songwriting part.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah. So in those days, those early days of Pocket Floor Rocks, that's when I first met you and Elisa and Pocket 2000, 2001. I was 19, 18, 19 years old. And uh I was interning at this tiny little church in Liberty, Texas, halfway between Houston and Beaumont.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

God bless Texas.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

God bless Texas. I have never had so much culture shock in my life, but that is another story. Uh, but I was, you know, it was the best year. It was a crazy year, but it was the best year, and I was an intern through this uh youth missions organization, and and the leader of it knew you. And that's how I met you guys, and I remember being in those atmospheres. Now, I was raised in a charismatic environment as well, with you know the high praise and everything, but it was Maranatha. It was it was the old school stuff that is so good, but it there wasn't a ton of the spontaneous. And when I saw that, it's like my heart just leapt. And I remember in those atmospheres just being so carried away, like into like another, felt like another realm. And it was really from sitting under y'all's worship that I experienced the freedom in prophetic worship for the first time in my life. And that foundation has carried me through now 26 years of worship leading. Um, but somehow I got invited to sing with y'all. And uh I just remember feeling like I had won the lottery, like the literal lottery. I was like, who am I that I get to sing with Michael Farrand and Pocket Full Rock? And I remember, but see, this is what you've always been to me and to so many. You you naturally mentor by the way that you lead and live. And I remember knowing at that time as an 18-year-old, I was called to be a worship leader, but my understanding of worship was it was one-sided. And and and I began to understand and see a whole new realm just by being, and I remember when those prophetic moments, when those spontaneous moments would begin to flow. And I learned that there are times where you just step back and you just you don't engage, you just step back, and then when you catch on, that's when you just engage and go. And but I learned you you modeled that for me, and I learned that from you. And it was, I believe that was the reason, honestly, why I was sent to that internship was to have that experience because even the invitation to go there was so quick, and so I had just moved to Arizona. I'd only been there like two or three months. Um, that alone was a huge transition for me. Why would I go to Texas to this tiny place? But literally, when I got the invitation, it's like something in my spirit just leapt, and I was like, I am supposed to be there. I've never been more sure. I mean, there's a few things I've been very sure of in my life, and that was one of them. Not even knowing that I would meet you guys, and um, but it changed my life forever.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

I you're bringing back memories. Like I haven't had to sit and think about that memory in a while, and I actually remember very clearly those moments. Yeah. And you've you were absolutely meant to be right where you were right then on stage, like you were looking back at it now and hearing you talk about it. There was a lot going on in a good way there. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Yeah, but I mean that was my first training ground as a worship leader. I mean, being able to sing with you in Pocket was my foundation to do that kind of worship. So thank you. Thank you. Um, have you had like mentors that have poured into you when it comes to songwriting?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

Uh, that's a great question. Yes, I've had many. Um very thankful that all through my journey, whether that was 10 years old writing Southern Gospel to 18 trying to be Stephen Curtis Chapman to 25 trying to be whoever Jason Upton at the time.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Oh, he's so awesome.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

So, like I love that guy. I've been influenced by a lot of people on the way. And when you throw in Bruce Hornsby in the range and all the rest of the secular stuff I'm really grateful for. Uh but songwriting specifically, uh there wasn't a lot of mentoring and craft early. There was mentoring in in atmosphere, culture, prophetic, what if you will.

SPEAKER_02 15:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Uh there's some guys along the way that I really learned a lot from. Uh, one man in particular. Uh I I've never texted him at all. I texted him last week and I literally got to tell a guy thank you. You didn't know for 30 years you have been teaching me about the the behind the scenes or the unseen of music. Ray Hughes. Oh, yeah. And and I he posted something last week.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

What a guy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Um on his Instagram, and I read it and it immediately inspired a song. And so I wrote it really quick, and my wife happens to have his contact. I got his contact from my wife and sent him, and I just was able to say because he went to Ireland, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

She went to Scotland with the colour. Scotland, that's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

So I was able to say, Hey, thank you for 30 years of teaching me what I was. Uh I've never met him, but I've consumed so many of those back in the day, his CDs and videos and all this stuff. What I was what was actually happening when I was standing on the stage. He's one of the most brilliant minds and hearts on what happens when you stand there on a stage and open your mouth, or when we as believers start to worship. He he he he just has a different revelation of the unseen, what's going on there. But guys like that, I was deeply I learned a lot from some brilliant minds along the way from cultural things. The actual craft of songwriting, I literally did not dig into the craft till 15, 20 years ago. And that's where a lot of other guys come into play. Um one in particular that I will always note is Tony Wood.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:12

And coming from that world of spontaneity, I I had developed, and I will admit it, probably a bit of spiritual pride that any other kind of writing was lesser. That if you weren't standing on the stage and letting the heavens open and a song fall out of the sky and people responding with that, then it was less spiritual. And that's could not be further from the truth. Amen. I agree with you. And so when I came off of the road 15 years ago and started really digging every day to be the songwriter, songwriter, uh, it took some adjusting. Uh, and I felt a lot of angst because I'm sitting in a room with these brilliant, supposedly brilliant writers who had all these accolades. Yeah, and they're staring at paper and trying to, you know, trying to run face and grace. And I'm like, just give me a guitar. We'll I'll just march around the room and we'll find a song. You know, it's like and Tony Wood, after a few sessions with me, looked at me one day and I said, Tony Wood is the most gracious, kind human. He is. There was a moment he looked at me one day and he goes, You know the difference between you and me? I said, No, do tell. And he said, The difference between you and me is that you write when you feel inspired, and I write until it's inspired. And he said, And he said, You have to learn to do both because that's what you're called to. And it was immediate. One of the most immediate things that's ever happened. Because I think it came from such a father-hearted guy like Tony. There was zero guile, there was no poke, there was no judgment, it was just an invitation into a different thing. And I immediately flipped the switch. And from that moment till now, I've written 250 songs a year at least.

unknown 18:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

And most of them now in a cubicle or in a con in the confines of what would have driven me nuts, you know, all those years ago. And I take such great joy in doing that now. I I remember God gradually breaking my pride over that long run of beautiful spontaneous moments. But also spiritual pride that I probably not probably that I will admit you get comfortable in that. It's almost prideful. Yeah, you know, this is what we do, you know, whatever. And having disdain for songs written other ways or songs that felt more calculated, songs that you know, we purposely did this calculation because this is what culture is consuming now. This is what radio wants. Yeah. Well, this is a story. I don't know, you may know this story. Um I remember the moment God humbled me deeply. It was laid in the pocket full of rocks scenario. We were pushing for a single for radio, signed to a label. And I'd worked two days on a song that I could have in my brain, I'm like, just let me march on the room. I'm gonna be done with this in a few minutes. But two other writers, Tony Woodby and one of them, forced me to set for two days and do the math. And by math, does this fit the template of radio right now, which is revolting to me? I'm like, uh, I'm not writing for radio, I'm writing for the kingdom. And Tony's like, no, this they the label needs this is got this is currently where culture is and consuming what they hear. And I re I was so revolting inside. The song is finished, the label goes, perfect. I'm like, you're an idiot. And they put it out to radio, and it does really well.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

And then Scott Smith from K-Love, years and years ago, pulls me inside and says, I got a story for you. A girl in LA taking her life. Like he literally said she had a gun in her hand, and she hears the lyrics of that song coming out of the radio in her little apartment. Picks up the phone, calls K-Love. K Love keeps her on the phone while somebody else calls a pastor in her area who goes to that place, knocks on the door. And that's where it broke me. I was like, How dare I have disdain for stewarding things? And that's what Tony Wood always meant when he said, Yeah, well, now all of a sudden I worked hard enough and now I've got goosebumps. He said, I he basically said, I will write till I feel the goosebumps. You only write when you feel the goosebumps. You get the goosebumps, I gotta write a song. Well, that shifted everything. So in the last 15 years, it's been a real push into the craft and uh why even more. And and being humbled by brilliant people around me all the time. So that was a long answer to your question.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

I love long answers. A lot of gold comes from long answers. Um I'll never forget the day, and we'll get to that part of. Our little story, but I'll never forget the day when you gave me that same advice. I have shared and it changed everything.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah. The gospel according to Tony Wood, I have shared far and wide.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

And I have given that encouragement and advice so many times to others because it has convicted me so deeply about stewarding my craft and my time. I mean, I remember, I think you told me that back in like 2014 or something, and it changed everything for me. Let's pause on that part, but go back a little bit. I think I kind of skipped over a part with Pocket Full Rocks that I kind of want to dive into. So early 2000s, you're doing the worship thing, it's going amazing. People are experiencing God. And then you get signed, right, as a group, and you become a very well-known Christian band. Um were you a Christian worship band? Or were you a Christian band? And what was that CCM experience like?

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Uh, it's a great question. And you know you're being nosy. Uh well, not nosy. You know you're shoving me out on thin ice, is what you're doing, and you're doing it on purpose. I love it. Uh uh We were a worship band. Yeah. Who was for lack of a better word, uh caught or blessed to be in a window in culture where nobody knew what to do with that. So CCM at that time, by CCM we mean what you hear on radio. K Love Radio. Great, and whatever the modern worship thing is is I mean, your kids don't know anything different. My daughters don't know anything different. But in 2000, there was I mean, it's even absurd to think that it was a thing. In 2000, 2005, it was still the worship wars. There were churches were still splitting over whether they should sing hymns or as the deer pants for the water. So I got kicked out of a church in 96, right? And so there was there was very clear delinea uh the there were it was just different. There was church music, there was radio music, uh CCM and worship. We were a worship band, but there was nothing to really propel worship platforms or ministries, but we felt like we were supposed to be involved with some partnership. So Word Records, you know, uh partnered with us. And quite frankly, really great people. They just didn't have the tools and resources at that time to know what to do with the worship band. So we didn't fit that hence my revolting and trying to like I don't write radio singles, just you know, let me go stand on a stage and try to pull people into a different place with Jesus. I and so we were definitely a worship band. Yeah. Caught in a CCM system. And it was at the front of that. So it was there were a there was it was fraught with angst. Uh good people on all sides, but it just trying to figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 25:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

At least from my perspective. Other people will have a different perspective. Early 2000s, like Tomlin couldn't get played played on radio. Like literally, like Tomlin, Tomlin couldn't get a song on radio. And then it just shifted. And what shifted it was what the church began to consume more and more and more and more of the church church culture in the United States did shift from hymn books to this Tomlin and company worship on a broad spectrum. And all these other, you know, the Advent of Hill song and all these other things starting to happen. And then radio could no longer not play what the church was singing loudly on a Sunday morning before they got in their cars on Monday, going, well, and so radio made the smart shift. Well, now you've got a lot of ticked-off CCM guys, even to this day, because worship now is the consumed thing on a lot of radio. There's not a lot, yeah. So from my own personal story, I had the privilege or the oh my of being caught early on in the in the in that in that firestorm, but we were definitely a worship band.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Yeah. And your music felt worship even in that, like your songs were different, and they felt very worshipful. And I never felt like you fully conformed to that, actually. Just saying.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

I couldn't. I tried, I tried. I at one point I'm like, well, I'll try.

SPEAKER_02 26:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Unfortunately, God did bless some things along the way.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

But for sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

I will say, I enjoy I've enjoyed being able to be a voice in other people's songs or music in CCM world. I don't have to carry it. I can give them the authentic, beautiful things they want to say.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

I just wasn't built to carry that.

SPEAKER_02 27:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

You know, as a just an entertainer with great songs.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

I'm too pastoral.

SPEAKER_02 27:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

That is the truth. Uh and so I really do think that's the dividing line for some of us is I'm too pastoral to be a good entertainer. I I like to think I'm a good I like I love doing what I do now as far as songwriting. I'm doing a record this year as a I'm doing a country record this year. But even in that, yeah, I can't turn off the pastoral. Even on my messiest day, my messiest years, my messiest seasons, I can't turn off that pastoral thing. And that's why I think people that really know how to foster moments in worship, at the end of it, it doesn't even matter how musical good they are or not, the pastoral gift is what's driving that.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

And pastors don't generally make great entertainers. Entertainers are entertainers, and there's thankfully we got great ones. Like I love great entertainment. Sure. I I'm I'll swipe the card and buy the ticket for anything that really entertains me that I love. But worship in particular, I think, is best carried by pastoral DNA. And so I never did I personally never do fit well into a platform. Yes, it's ministry. Christian music is ministry or whatever. Yeah. And maybe podcasts or conversations for other days. I don't have a line at all between secular and sacred. It's gone. That's just it's all sacred. Everything I do is sacred. Period. If Jesus is in you and you touch something, it's sacred. It doesn't matter if it's corporate worship or s country or polka or hip hop, it doesn't matter if you touch it, it's sacred. If it's traditional Texas country, if it makes somebody dance in a s in a honky tonk on Friday night in Texas because God knows they needed to dance. How dare I say that's not sacred? So that's sacred. So good. But there are people built uh I I was best as a pastor leading worship. And that's where that rub always was.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Anyway. I forget where all that was going.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

That was so good. Some of us are gonna have to go back and listen to that. So let's talk about this pastoral gift that has always been in you. Um that you can't run from.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

No, you cannot.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

You cannot run from. Um Good luck. Yeah. And this transition out of Texas into Tennessee, where you then became a worship pastor at a church in Franklin. We we talk us through that season and and just that time.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Yeah. So I never wanted to leave Texas, unlike you, who ended up in Texas going, what has happened to me? Uh offense to Texas, by the way. What is this place I have ended up in? What is this place and who are these people? I just that's all I knew. I never I'm five generations deep in Texas, Tex Arcana. Yeah. My dad and I are still very my my family, we're all close. They're all still there. I'm the only ones overlap. But when I came to Tennessee in the early 2000s, it it was uh begrudgingly. I didn't want to come. I I did have I had already felt the angst between worship and record labels and all that, and I was feeling that, and yet God boxed us in.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

And what year was this?

SPEAKER_01 30:34

So that would have been we signed a deal 2000. I'm gonna get corrected on this by someone.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Well, ish is fine.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

We signed 05-ish, maybe 04, 05.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

And that's around the time that you came to Tennessee.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Yeah, we moved here just I moved we I moved here just a little bit after that.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Okay. So that is ideally what brought you here.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

I've been here 20 plus years. So you're right around 2005. Okay. Um so um the the journey of getting to Tennessee was not expected. Like it happened. I told numerous record labels no. I remember Otto Price calling me, and that he had a short stint at as AR at Word Records. He called me. I remember pacing, I can go take you to the driveway where I was pacing back and forth one night. It was a Sunday night, and I'm pacing back and forth. And on one hand, I'm like, holy cow, I've got Otto Price, Sugar Bear from DC Talk, on the phone asking me to sign a record deal, and I'm telling him no. No, dude, I'm not interested. Because I'd already felt angst, you know, between what I did and what I knew the music industry was becoming or trying to be. And I'm marching up and down the driveway and I heard the Lord say, I won't open that door for you again. And it wasn't mean. And it wasn't like, it was like, I'm giving you a choice and I'll bless whatever. It wasn't like you get to choose here. And for some reason I went, All right, I'll come up there and we'll talk. And the rest is history in that I got here, we signed a deal, that is what it is. But more importantly, what happened? So Apocalypse Rock signed the word records. We did three records with them. But more importantly, what happened? We moved to a neighborhood. I moved to right here in Spring Hill. Um I didn't know anybody. I did not know a soul. At least a home. We hadn't been there long. House next door is empty, it's been for sale for a while. I'm sitting on the front porch one day, a car pulls up, a guy gets out, he waves, comes over. I said, Hey, I'm Michael. He goes, Hey, I'm Charlie. I said, he says, I'm moved, I just bought the house next door. I said, Well, welcome to the neighborhood. I said, What brings you to town? And he gets sheepish. He's like kicking the dirt. He's like, I'm a pastor and I'm moving here from Atlanta to start a church. And internally I'm like, oh crap. Because the next question is going to be, what do you do?

SPEAKER_00 33:07

I thought you were gonna lie about it and not say what you did.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

I did. I lied. Did you? Because it was the first it was the first time in my adult life, even with all the years of Pocket Florox, I was always on staff at a church.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

It was always birthed from a staff place at a church. I'm for the first time in my adult life enjoying not being on staff at a church. And he goes, So what do you do? And I went, I'm in music business. And he's like, Oh, yeah, what do you do in the music business? Um, songwriter. He's like, Well, what kind of songs do you write?

SPEAKER_00 33:40

You're like, stop asking me questions. Who are you? For the love of God. Matt Luck.

SPEAKER_01 33:45

So before long, he's like, realizes who I am. He's familiar with Pocket and songs. And he wisely dropped dropped the subject and said, Well, I look forward to being your neighbor. And over the next six months or more, uh, we were just neighbors. Uh and our daughters, my youngest daughter Micah, and his daughter Annie became best friends. They were nine, I guess, at the time. And um after months and months and months, my much uh wiser wife said, You know you're supposed to help launch that. I said, I guess you're right. So four families and a house in Spring Hill that launched uh Gateway Church.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

And I led worship there until 2018.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Uh resigned in the end of 2018, not just for life reasons, not church stuff any at all. Yeah. That's in my opinion, still the best church in Franklin. Um, my daughter Micah is the worship pastor there. So that's why I say it's even more important. Was band stuff was the the catalyst to get us here, but banned stuff was seasonal. But it had launched that this move has launched so many other things is my is even my family. Yeah. You know, it's like my daughter, you know, my both of my daughters, Madison and Micah, are doing great. Yeah. Uh but Micah as as the now the pastoral part of that church where I used to be is yeah, pretty special.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

Oh, it's so special. It's incredible. The legacy. So, you know, we met in 2000, 2001. It's now fast forward 14 years to 2014. You've gone through all this stuff with a pocket full of rocks, you're now in Tennessee, you're now begrudgingly a worship pastor again. Um, you know, I meet and marry Scott, we plan a church, we have four kids, uh, things are going great, we're planning churches. God begins to speak to me uh deeply, wildly, almost like you can't escape it. This is what you're called to do, is I want you to write songs for the church and be bold and start really pursuing this. This is part of your calling. And not feeling like I had the resources, had incredible church, incredible worship teams, incredible family people that believed in me and saw this in me, but I didn't have a mentor. And uh I had just been through this incredible discipleship season, been through a cohort for female pastors that had changed my life completely. The Lord had just confirmed in my heart, you need to launch out in your music. And I remember Scott asking me if you can work with any person in the whole wide world, who would it be? And of course, I said, Michael Farron. I'd followed your journey, you know, from that time to what you were doing now. I knew you were a worship pastor, but I knew that nobody could write like you. And I knew that nobody could go to places in worship like you could and facilitate these moments. And I was like, I need to talk to Michael. But it's been 14 flipping years. He probably has no idea who the hairy heck I am, or why would he answer my call or respond to my text? I had your number, but had no idea if it was still your number. And one of the instructions that I'd gotten in that season from the Holy Spirit was when I tell you to do something, girl, just do it. Stop asking all these questions and talking yourself out of everything. Just do what I tell you to do. Yeah. And sometimes that's through the voice of God, and sometimes it's through the voice of your husband, which sometimes that's really annoying. Um and so anyway, we're we're in the car. We're driving home from California. It was, I'd been ordained. So I'd been a, I'd received my pastor's license in 2008, got my ordination in 2014, wild stuff happened at my ordination, just downloads from God, people coming up to me and saying all sorts of crazy stuff, prophesying, stuff that nobody would know. Like literally, only Scott and I knew some of these things. We hadn't even told like our family. So I knew that I knew that I knew that this couldn't wait any longer. So we're driving home. The kids are little, you know, the twins are like three at the time. We're an hour away from home. Kids are screaming in the car, like, we just want to get home. And Scott's like, who would you work with? Michael. He's like, call him right now. I'm like, get behind me, Satan. Do not talk to me. I'm not calling anybody right now. This is insane. He doesn't know probably who I even am. He's not gonna respond to me. He's gonna, you know, because I got that whole Nashville thing in my mind, and knowing that you're an artist and an important person and all these things. And and Scott's like, well, you know, didn't the Lord say when I give you an instruction, you need to just do it right now. Dang it, Scott. Want to poke his eyes out. So I chickened out and I didn't call you, but I texted you. And I gave you every out in the text possible. Like, there's no expectation. Uh, it's fine if you don't have the time. You can just delete this text, whatever. And I hit send, and I just, my heart was pounding. I mean, I was so scared. It's so funny. Isn't it though? It just is. And and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's who's had those moments where it's like, you know, you're supposed to do something, your heart's pounding out of your chest, but you're freaking yourself out, talking yourself out of it. And within two minutes, now here's the real miracle, folks. I'm laughing about this because we know what a miracle this is. And I'm so sorry to any person who's ever waited for Michael to never call you back. I'm gonna apologize. We're just gonna forgive. It's fine. But somehow I was the blessed one in that moment where Michael called me back. And I was so shocked that I didn't answer the phone right away. I'm like, answer the phone. Like, this is literally what's happening in the in our minivan as we're driving across the Southern California, Arizona desert. And I pick up the phone, and I don't even think I said hello. I said, I think my exact words were, I never thought you would ever call me. And you laugh. You you you laugh like you're laughing right now. He giggled. And he's like, Lydia, he's like, I saw your text come in. You caught me at the perfect moment. I've got 10 minutes, I'm driving to the studio, and he's like, What the heck is going on in your life? And that was the phone call that started it all, really. And I was so nervous. I don't know why I was so nervous. I just, I think I just I had so much respect for you and and was so, and just everything God was showing me was so new and scary and exciting all at the same time that I was just trembling in my boots. I was like, this is wild, what I really feel God wants to do. And I just remember asking, can you just listen to one song and give me some honest feedback? I just want to grow in my in this gift and steward it well. And your response was, I don't even have to pray about that. The answer is yes. And I just remember I was fighting, I mean, I wanted to ugly cry. I mean, I was holding it in so bad. And but that was that pastoral part of you that saw an opportunity in me, saw something in me and that pastoral heart, and you said, when can you get to Nashville? So this was October of 2014, and just the first weekend of December 2014, we found ourselves on a plane flying from Phoenix to Nashville. You and Elisa picked us up. We got in on one of those evening flights. I remember we drove to Cool Springs and had pizza at, I don't know, Bricktops or something like that. And after 14 years, and you just listened to us share. You gave us the space, the time, you let us stay in your house, you fed us, you drove us around everywhere, told us about just the culture of the place, the community, just, and it was just like this instant crazy God thing. Also, another thing that Michael had done, which I did not know. I thought I was just coming to show him my songs, which I did do. Um, but I did not know that you had set up like three days worth of songwrites with people like Tony Wood and Chrissy Nordoff, and like the best of the, and you obviously, Benji Cowart, um, all these people. And when I realized that, again, I had that moment of where I was just shaking in my boots, wanting to literally vomit. Like, I know you probably haven't even heard the depths of like, but like there were real emotions involved here, like running to the bathroom to cry because I was like like hyperventilating almost. Like, I am not worthy to be in this room with these people. Why am I here? I've just started songwriting, and these are like like the giants that are writing all the songs we're singing. What have I gotten myself into? And that's when I got the privilege, the miraculous privilege of discovering the heart of those who are writing worship in this town and their heart to partner with local church pastors like myself at the time, middle aged moms who who know they have a gift but don't know what to do with it, and creating safety and inclusion, and taking my one little song start or my one little chorus melody and helping show me how to craft that into something. Something beautiful that turned into 12 songs on my first record that you produced. And I mean the story is just wild. And I I I don't even know how to thank you. You have, but the the the platform that you build. He's Michael is a platform builder. You you are you are a platform builder in the seen and the unseen. And and I think that's what has made your influence so effective. And I think why God has blessed you and honored you the way that He has, both seen and unseen. But honored your family. And and and I am only one of many, one of many who I know you have done this for. But you changed my life.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Um grateful.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

You changed my life. And we weren't looking to move here either. And I'll save that story for another time, but you were a bridge. We didn't move here actually for music. We moved here for many other reasons. Um, but you were a bridge. And we remember calling you saying, How does this feel to you? Like we reached out to you on a pastoral level. Like, how does this feel to you? Does this feel right? Does this feel weird? Does this feel, you know, just to be a sounding board? And I remember you saying, I think, I think this is right. And I know you don't say that to everybody. I do not. Um, that is actually a rule that you love people that you tell them actually not to move here.

SPEAKER_01 45:31

Nine out of ten is don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Yeah. It has to be God for sure.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

I love I love hearing the nuance that I don't get to hear from your side of that.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_01 45:44

You belong, y'all belong here, obviously.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

So praise God. It's been an incredible eight years. Eight and a half years. Yeah. Wild.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

And yet we don't get older. No, it's weird.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

We are not getting older.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

It's weird.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

So the crazy thing that's happened in the last two years, year and a half, two years, has been that we both have launched into some entrepreneurial endeavors. Uh if you want to call it that. You you actually started a writer's round called the Bourbon Gospel years ago, actually.

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Yeah, three years ago.

SPEAKER_00 46:20

Yeah. Which is just phenomenal. And I want you to talk about that. But I want you to talk about what the Bourbon Gospel has grown into, which has become the vibiest, coolest, most amazing place in all of Tennessee. Uh, Columbia, Tennessee. You just opened uh back in April, right? Yeah. Uh it's been almost a year. That's crazy. The Bourbon Gospel, Main Street, Columbia. Will you tell us how that happened?

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Yeah. So um you've known me longer than most. Um you would have to admit that outside of just the comedy of God, that that 20 years ago you would have never dreamed I would be doing what I'm doing now. Yeah. So it's just the comedy of God.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

Or me doing what I'm doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:12

So um podcast for other days. Uh catalyst of how I ended up here, the super short version, 2018 and 2019, I will just describe as the years of my unraveling. The wrestling uh with the Lord, if you will. The walking away with the limp, if you will. Uh, the understanding that I was probably after really the late 2019 being deeply affected by the kindness of God and changing me in ways that no other moment had ever changed me. Uh realizing that I would never quite fit where I used to fit as a worship leader, even, or as some figure in a standardized church, which I have no issues with, other than issues that we all have with it. Uh I bless the church. I'm not an anti-church guy, I bless the church. Um but I just knew that I was not going to ever re-enter that space the way I used to be perceived in that space. Yeah. I didn't know what that would be. You can't turn off spiritual uh calling. You can't turn off spiritual DNA. You can't flip off the gifts and callings of God are given without repentance.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

You're born. I I I'll just say it this way. I believe every single person that's ever been born is born with some aspect, some wiring of the fivefold ministry. There's there's a piece of apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher, evangelist, somewhere tucked down in there. Whether they ever it whether it ever activates or not, whether you like that's that's it's there. It's there. You don't it's given without repentance. I mean God never takes it away because you're an idiot, right? Or because Michael's dumb. He it's still there. So I can just say this season of my life, all that stuff still exists, but the way it works itself out now looks very different and um almost offensive to some very, very religious, legalistic people in my world. How dare you do something and own a bar called the Bourbon Gospel? And it's like that's fine. But what it has become is the holy place in in which I get to simply open a door and invite and curate and foster this amazing um uh brick and mortar that our byline is holy moments and unlikely places. And the simplest, and this is and I hope I don't offend anybody on your podcast, but it's like people are like, What what is the thing? I'm like, I love Jesus, we like bourbon. Yeah, so it's the bourbon gospel, but it's a writer's venue in that I love songwriters. Yeah, I love songs, I love the stories of what songs do in the kingdom. I love the songs, I love the stories of what songs do on in anything, in any version. Nashville as a whole has been known as the songwriter city for decades. In the last 10 years, and I know this well, the last 10 years, Nashville proper, where there used to be venues of writers' rounds where dedicated venues where you would go and you would lean in close and listen as some writer who's written massive songs tells you how he wrote those songs or the story of what and you lean in and you're just wow, and then you hear some less sometimes a less than stellar voice singing the song that you heard on the radio a thousand times, and it means something so much different.

SPEAKER_02 50:43

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

Well, that used to exist a lot in Nashville. They have now the culture has shifted to more bars and bachelorette parties, and that and those venues, dedicated venues, have all gone away. Bluebird Cafe and the listening room are all that exist now at all, that are true dedicated songwriter venues. I have been operating the last few years with a strong belief that that culture has to go somewhere. So I I had already started the round called the Bourbon Gospel, where I was just hosting uh this round in a in a venue down on Music Row. It wasn't my venue. Uh I did it once a month, but it was packed out every single time for two years. And my wife and I and some others were like, let's do this in a permanent space that's ours, but let's do it better than uh songwriting rounds have ever been done. Meaning let's do really great food, let's do really great beverages, let's do an atmosphere that makes people go, Oh my god, what is this place? And so last April uh in a building on the square in Columbia, we launched into this crazy now. Uh since we since it is you and it is this podcast, we can say it this way. Yes. I I stepped away from ministry in December of 2018. I had always been on staff somewhere at a church. Um I thought I was done with that. And saying that I was never going to re-enter min ministry again the way it used to be, uh, that is true. I don't I don't engage the way I used to, in the sense of I don't quite belong the way I used to. However, the parallels of running a venue, bar, restaurant and being on staff at a church is wild.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Actually, so true.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

So if I own a restaurant, bar, venue, blah, blah, blah. People come in, they eat great food, they have great drinks, and they listen to great music. Uh-huh. It's basically pastoring a restaurant now. Because if the service is good, the money goes up. If the service is bad, the money goes down. If they don't like the music you're playing, they will tell you. There's a lot of therapy and counseling and prayer at a bar over communion of types. It's all the parallel if your staff is happy, everything's pretty good. If the staff isn't happy, you got problems. So far, we haven't we haven't any haven't had any bar splits. But the parallels split. I tell people the only difference now is that I just don't have to have any filters.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

I thankfully have no filters of like I don't have to walk on eggshells around people anymore in the venue that I actually own. And yeah, so it's the parallels are in K.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

No, that's some wisdom right there.

SPEAKER_01 53:19

It's most in some restaurants, some guys can own restaurants out there going, crap, am I a bastard? Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah. Like it'd be helpful to know that.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

Well, well, I I will say it is our date night of choice. We were just there on Friday night, and we've been there many times. We've brought many people. Scott was there on your opening. I could not be there on your opening, which made me so sad that Scott was there. And he sat at that table and he said his words were, it was so Michael. It was so Michael. It was just all the things you just said with all the amazing conversation and just everybody was your friend, which is how it is when we're around you. It's just like everyone is your friend. You make everyone feel like they're your friend. And um, it is it is beautiful. And if you are in this area, you need to go. And if you're not, and you come here, you need to go. You need to support the music that comes out of that place. It is so true. It is it is bar none. It is it is the best, it is absolutely the best. And you have done an incredible job. And I'm proud of you. Thank you. That means a lot. And you're fam Alisa, I'm proud of you, Micah, Madison. I'm so proud of you guys, and because I know it's been a family thing. It's a family thing, it's all in. This has been everybody coming together and giving their blood, sweat, and tears to this.

SPEAKER_01 54:40

And I love the fact that um we're setting in your beautiful gift of venue here, just you know, yeah, seven miles down the road. And I just isn't that funny.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

The seasons it is wild. It's it's been like almost parallel, you know, and it's just crazy.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

But I'm watching the same thing happen with you and Scott. I just walked through a a coffee shop that is nothing more than a holy place. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

I'm proud of y'all.

SPEAKER_00 55:09

Thank you. I love that we can support each other in these ventures and um just be a voice of encouragement and yeah, just cheer one another on. It is such a gift. Thank you for your time today. I'm grateful for you. This has been your family. It's been amazing. And we are for you. We are for you. And uh I hope that those of you who are listening or watching um have been truly inspired by Michael's story and um just challenged to not be afraid. If you heard anything of what I said, is don't let fear stop you from making the call, from doing the hard thing. Um and and really lean into recognizing the gift that is within you. I I think that is a key part, is and that's something as a 44-year-old woman that I am even now, I think owning that space even more and even greater, hence, even this podcast is part of my calling is to champion others and help release the voices of other people and to come alongside, and that that really is the heart behind this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 56:18

So if I may just compelled to say uh maybe somebody needs to hear that you're not going to do the next big thing that God's called you to do until you are willing to shake off the parameters that have been put on you.

SPEAKER_02 56:34

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

And so uh part of that fear thing is maybe the confines that you think are confines really aren't. Uh so be brave enough to think way outside of the box and don't let religiosity and uh legalism. I just think it just hits me that maybe if one person needs to hear it is okay. You need to shake off the the thing that little religious voice in the back of your head that says, well that that'll never fly, or that won't be. That's right. Just most people have bravery. Yeah. What stops them is confines that they're scared to break or whatever. And so you can choose to step out of them yourself, or God will do the hard, he'll do the hard work to help you get there with a swift boot kick in the butt so that's right.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 57:25

Be brave. I love that word.

SPEAKER_00 57:26

That's right. Be brave, keep dreaming, keep going for it. You can find Michael on all streaming platforms under Michael Farron. His music, his original music is incredible. You can look up, obviously, song credits and see all the amazing songs he has written and is currently writing. Lots of new music coming out in the country world. Look up the Bourbon Gospel. I'm telling you, do not miss an opportunity to go there. Support this business, this incredible place. And uh, Michael, thank you. Love you. I love you too. Dreams don't come with the roadmap, only courage, curiosity, and the willingness to keep going. If today's story resonated with you, let it remind you that your journey matters, even if it's still unfolding. Thank you for spending this time with me today on the Dreamless Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs a little inspiration today. Until next time, keep dreaming, keep moving, and trust that the story you're writing is worth telling. We'll see you on the next episode.