Lee McBride- Comedy Never Stops

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This is the Truth Network. Hi, Nikita Kolov here, and I am excited to announce the second annual Man Up Men's Conference, a Champions Summit at Morningstar Ministries in Fort Mill, South Carolina, June 15th through the 17th. We have another amazing lineup of speakers, including football legend Perry Tuttle from the national champion Clemson Tigers, Stu Epperson, founder of Truth Radio, a champion for truth, pastors Chris Reed and Rick Joyner, champions for Jesus, Shawn and Krista Smith, champions for the family, radio show host Robbie Dilmore, and last but not least, comedian Lee McBride. I want to challenge every man to attend and every dad and granddad out there to bring your son or grandson of any age.

We're going to do something special just for you. It is Father's Day weekend, so get registered today. You don't want to miss a Champions Summit. Why?

Because it's time to man up. Go to NikitaKolov.com for more information or to sign up today. This is the United States champion.

He became my personal savior. Ladies and gentlemen, the following contest is set for one flaw. Introducing first, from Lithuania, he weighs 123 kilos, the Russian nightmare, Nikita Kolov. Now, the devil's nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Lee McBride, welcome to the Man Up show.

Man, my honor. Thank you so much, brother, for letting me come. Well, it's great to have you, Lee.

Let's just jump into this for all of our listeners out there who may not be familiar with Lee McBride. How about just take a couple minutes and just kind of give a little back to where are you at today, and what are you up to, and tell us about your family and who you are. Okay, so I'm basically a preacher's kid who started preaching when he was 19, and I was a youth pastor for about 13 years, a pastor for about three years, and always used storytelling and humor in preaching and teaching, and decided to vote the leading of God to go a different route. So for the last 19 years, I've just been a Christian storyteller slash comedian.

I do all kinds of different things, preaching about 45 Sundays out of the 52 a year, preaching somewhere in a different church, and every August do 100 high school football talks in 40 days, and still preach five weeks of youth camp, but all of it based on being a storyteller, and every story, no matter where, even in corporate settings, pointing people to Jesus Christ, God's one and only Son and our one and only hope. I've been married July 23rd. This year will be 35 years. I have two beautiful children, Madison and her husband Cameron's my son-in-law, and they gave me my first beautiful granddaughter. She turned four yesterday. Her name is Leighton Brooks, but we call her Smooch.

And then my son Garrett is 27. He married my beautiful daughter-in-law, Catherine. We call her Cat. She is 50 percent Puerto Rican. And on September 23rd, 2022, they gave me my second beautiful granddaughter, Sophia, and she is our little Puerto Rican.

And man, I'm telling you, God has blessed our soft sauce. Puerto Rican. That's right. I like that. Hey, now, Lee, now, some might already have picked up on the fact that, like, your northern accent, right?

So... When I travel, when I travel, Nikita, it's so funny, people will play, where are you from? I love to tell them Boston, Massachusetts.

They just get to the local. But I'm from LA, lower Alabama, or sometimes I tell people I'm from the Middle East, Alibaba. But I live in Alabaster, Alabama. I was born and raised in Columbus, Georgia, with two of your great friends and mentors. We all grew up in the same church, Jay Stewart, your pastor, and Joe Phillips, who's also one of your pastors. And so really spent most of my life in the deep south. Yeah, I just had, in fact, I just had my monthly meeting with Jay Stewart this morning, actually, prior to coming to the studio here. We do that on a... We've done that for years and years and years. And yeah, and those mutual friends, Rusty Nelson, right, over in Huntsville, Alabama.

Right, right. Another mutual friend. And so we do have a lot of mutual friends there. And of course, I have sat in on some of your stand-ups, some of your comedy, and your gut-busting comedy. It is... You are a true blessing to society, that's for sure, with your sense of humor and all that you do. Hey, tell us for a moment, now, you made reference to something, and you said it so quickly, and I'm like, I don't know that people maybe even caught that. And by the way, congratulations on 35 years of marriage, that's amazing.

Absolutely. Congratulations. Well, I promise you, it speaks a lot higher of Wendy than it does of me. But God has been with us, and we try to keep Him focused.

And it's a grind at times, and it's been a challenge at times, but it is so rewarding, and God's been really good to us. Are you insinuating that she's gonna have some extra crowns in her, extra jewels in her crown than being married to you? No doubt about it. No doubt about it.

Is that what you're leaning towards there? Okay, okay, okay. Well, and speaking of which, though, let me say this too, before I get to the other point I wanna make, or question I have for you. You mentioned Joe Stewart, another mutual friend, and of course, so you guys go all the way back, so you all grew up together in Columbus, Georgia? All right, so you know Joe's story, Nikita. Joe has one of the most powerful testimonies ever, so he kinda grew up a little bit of everywhere. But Jay and I, I met Jay when I was five years old, and our dads were actually on staff together.

No way. So I've known Jay my whole life, basically. Wow. That Joe I met, Joe I met Labor Day, 1982, because he fell in love with Cecilia, and was coming to Columbus to see her, and he was playing basketball at Columbus State University. So I've known him since Labor Day, 1982.

Okay. But yeah, those guys, and me and Joe roomed together two of my five years of college. I don't know if you caught the five-year deal there, I was on an extended plan.

You were on the extended plan. Well, hey, that's better than some who are on the seven-year plan, Lee, or some who are lifetime students. You know, I mean, there's a couple of those. So, wow. And of course, you and Joe over the years have done some comedy together as well, right?

That's right. Joe is really more of a true comedian. I was I'm a storyteller. I mean, they're just, you know, that's what I tell people. I grew up with two heroes, my dad and a guy named Jerry Clauer. And he was a great storyteller. And I had so many uncles. And so many guys that I grew up around church that were just great storytellers. I fell in love with telling stories at a young age. So we're a good combo. I mean, he's really kind of the true comedian.

And I'm a storyteller. And we have, I mean, this is not a pat on the back, Nicky, this is just the truth. We have led a bunch of people to Jesus Christ. I think people don't understand sometimes that a laugh is just as valid as an emotion as a tear. And when you can get people laughing, they allow you to speak into their lives. And we've led a lot of people to Christ by first of all, you know, getting into their heart by making them laugh.

Well, and I've witnessed that. And of course, you know, the Bible makes reference, right? The laughter, it brings merriment to the soul, right? And, you know, the soul being the mind will in our emotions. And so your laughter, your guys' humor appeals, right, as you said, directly to the soul of an individual. And it taps into their heart. And again, and I've witnessed that.

I've witnessed you guys with your stand up, but then also how you've weaved, have weaved the ability, the gifts and talents that you guys have to weave into the conversation, you know, the Bible and scripture and verses and who God says you are and leading into an invitation or as some would say, an altar call and seeing many people make that decision. Yeah, I know there's no, I know Joe is, he, man, I think he documents and writes down everything, you know, including what time he goes to the bathroom, I think. I make so much fun, I make so much fun of him because he writes what he's going to do, then he does it and then he writes what he did. He is, I promise you, he is the best documentary slash note taker on this earth.

I know, I can't imagine, I bet he's got about a, I don't know, a thousand composition books or more of his life journey, which is amazing. Yeah, which is amazing. But, and so for those, I'm going to go ahead and just say it right now, too, and maybe repeat it towards the end of our conversation. But we're actually in June, in June of this year, we're going to have you do, display some of your comedy down in Fort Mill, South Carolina.

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm excited to have you and at the Man Up Conference, a Champions Summit, that's kind of the underlying theme there, and a lot of emphasis on it's Father's Day weekend, so we're going to have a lot of emphasis on fathers and sons. We're hoping a lot of dads are going to bring their sons of any age and or maybe we'll even have three generations there, grandfathers and fathers and sons, and we're going to do something special just for the guys who bring their sons, something special just for them. We're still working on the fine-tuning that, and can't wait for that audience in Fort Mill to hear your comedy. And so, do you have a favorite, do you have like a favorite venue or a favorite particular audience? I'll just say this, I'll say this, I don't have necessarily a favorite, but where I seem to do the best is, alright, so when I was pastoring that church, the second, year number two of the third year, and this is going to sound so bizarre to so many people, but I wrote a hunting poem called When the Woods Wake Up, and it's a seven-minute description of being in a deer stand before daylight and watching the woods wake up, and Nikita, when I went to Bible college, I never thought that a deer hunting poem would be what God used to launch me in evangelism, and it connected so hard and so strong with hunters that it got me, it gave me favor in the outdoor industry, so the place that I am the most comfortable, and definitely the place where I've seen more guys begin a journey with Christ is at these wild game suppers. A church will bring me in on a Saturday night, we'll reach out to the outdoorsmen, and you know, the churches are full of people whose wives, the mom attends church and the kids, but the dad's kind of nominal, you know, he's there at Easter and Christmas, but if they tell him we're giving away a hunt or a gun, and this guy's an outdoorsman, I don't know it, God's just giving me tremendous favor, so really speaking to outdoorsmen and or you know what we used to call just a good old redneck, that's where I seem to thrive the most in telling stories and pointing people to Christ. Well, and you have, I know you've gathered again, and I've heard you recite, I think I want to say it was at my home church, The Refuge, where you actually recited...

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, where you recited that poem, which that in and of itself is like jaw-dropping, or at least it was for me, like I thought, you know, okay, this is going to be like a minute long or two-minute man, and then you went longer and you went longer, and I'm like, I don't know that I could memorize that, but I'm sure as many times as you've done it, but you definitely nail it when you do it, so I totally can understand. So if there's a church out there even listening to this interview today, to this conversation, of course that day I will make sure people know how to get a hold of you, your website, or how they can contact you and bring you in, whether it's a wild game dinner or to just preach on a Sunday. You mentioned, Lee, you said something, I want to tap into this too here, you said something about 100 something in 40 days, what was that about?

Okay, here's what happened. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. If you would like to support Kolah for Christ Ministries, for a gift of $25, Nikita will send you his two CDs, Adoration and Declaration. For a gift of $50, Nikita will include his book, Wrestling with Success. And for a gift of $100 or more, Nikita will include a signed copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.kolah.net and donate today.

You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. August was always a really tough month to stay booked. People are coming in from the summer, schools getting ready to start. So Nikita, both of my granddads had passed before I was born. So I kind of latched on to a professor in Bible college named Dr. William C. Richardson, he grew up in Panama City. And he was like my spiritual granddad.

And so when I would kind of hit a hard place throughout the years, I called him and I called him. I said, Doc, we all called him Doc. I said, Doc, I can't stay booked in August. I don't know what to do. He said, well, just give it away. I said, what do you mean? He said, just give it away. Go do something. Don't worry about getting booked.

Just stay busy and God will take care of it. And about 30 minutes after I talked to him on the phone, I was coming on I-20 between Atlanta and back to Birmingham. And a kid that grew up in our camps in Georgia called me and said, Hey, I'm the middle school football coach in Bowden, Georgia, and I want you to come before practice today and do a five minute talk. He said, I saw you know, I don't know how he knew I was coming. But I can't remember all the details.

But that's what I did. And when I was walking up the hill after that talk, God spoke me as clear as a bell. This is what I want you to do in a week or August. So I made a goal to try to do 100. We call it water break ministry.

I asked the coach for one water break, five minutes. And I'll tell a story. I'll try to motivate them a little bit because of the key to ninth and 10th grade kids that are in, in the south that are in summer football camp. It's the hardest thing they've ever done. Physically, it's by far the hardest thing they ever done. And some of them don't know they can even survive it. And I'm like, so you I just try to motivate it.

And then I always point them to Christ. And what started out with that little talk, I said, I'm gonna try to do 100. It took me three years. And but for seven years, the last seven years from August the first of Labor Day, I've done 105 minutes football talks every year. Oh, I'm just like in my mind trying to logistically figure that out. But it's a tough, tough grind.

And to be completely transparent. There are times when FCA will bring me in to do a padded camp, and there'll be eight or nine teams there at one time. So I can knock out this and that doesn't happen often.

But two or three of those are big groups of teams. But a lot of times, it's two or three in the morning and get in the car and buzz it somewhere else and do two or three that afternoon. You know, Nikita, here was what was funny about that to me. If you knew how many church people that I love told me, you'll never do that. It's impossible.

And they said, first of all, schools ain't gonna let you do that. And Nikita, in nine years, you know how many schools have told me, no, you can't come to a five minute talk in our football team? Not many. Zero. Zero. Zero.

Wow. I've had a coach tell me, that's not a good day for us, Lee. You know what I'm saying?

I've had to move days around, but I've never had a coach tell me no. I just think sometimes we just believe the lie of the world instead of what God has out there for us. Come on, all those encouraging voices, right, that are well-meaning, right? They're well-intentioned, so to speak, at least in their mind they are, but... Well, here's what I've learned a lot about those voices.

When they say, you can't do it, it means they wouldn't do it. And that sounds harsh, I don't mean it hard, but that's just the simple truth. Yeah, that's a very valid point, right? And it's an interesting dichotomy of life, right?

Because sometimes people do seem to be well-intentioned or well-meaning, while at the same time, the truth is, as you said, as much as we want to succeed, there are others out there who don't want to see us succeed, right? So a five minute... The water break, the water break ministry, five minute... So do you have a short story, Lee, that you can tease our listeners with so that if there is a pastor or someone out there, they might want to, I gotta have this guy to do our water break or come to our church.

Right. Here's one of the very first stories I started telling growing up, and this will give you an idea of how you take a funny story and you make a point. Now, this is one of the first ones, and the only reason I'm telling it is because it's one of the shortest ones, but when I was in the third grade, my dad received a call to preach. He had a very successful local business in Columbus, Georgia, an auto parts business, two in Columbus, one across the river in Phoenix City, Alabama. He sold those businesses and we moved to Lakeland to Southeastern.

He wanted to go to Southeastern. And when we moved to this new neighborhood, there was a kid lived a couple houses down from us. He was a bully. Now, I know that word gets thrown around a lot and I want to go on record as saying I ain't for no kind of bully, not physical, not, you know, with your words, not on social media, none of that, but I'm just saying in the seventies, a bully was somebody who hurt you.

You know what I'm saying? He tried to hit you or hold your face and I ain't me. I mean, this kid was just me and he put the word out. He was going to wear me out if he caught me outside the house. Now he, he was, he wasn't any bigger than me. He was a couple of years older than me. I was scared to death of him.

So I would check to see if he was outside. You know, I'd like to tell you a story of how I put the theme to rock in my ears and started training, you know, but that ain't what happened. I just dodged. I tell people all the time. It was like the Andy Griffith.

I don't know if you've ever seen the Andy Griffith where the guy tells Barney, once he catches him out of his uniform, he's going to wear him out and Barney just wears his uniform everywhere. That's what I was doing. But one day I wasn't paying really good attention. I walked out the front door and there he was. And the old boy made a tactical error. He said something about my mama and you know, you can leave Bear Bryant Earnhardt and my mama out of it. I mean, all the fear left my body.

I loaded up. And when I went to swing, I missed his whole head. He took my momentum, put me face down in the dirt and he is wearing the back of my head out. I can just still hear the sound effects. And I'm thinking, man, I hope he gets tired.

This is embarrassing. The whole neighborhood's watching these kids wear him out and out of nowhere. I heard strangest sound. It was a hollow metallic sound.

It was building momentum and it was coming from a distance. All of a sudden, boom, he flies off of me and I turn around and look. And my six year old brother had hit him in the head with a pogo stick, hung a pedal in his ear, drug him off.

And we beat him like a rented view right there in my front yard. And you know, there's a scripture says, Jesus is a friend that stays closer than a brother. Now I don't make a lie to the scripture. I've dedicated my life to rightly divine description, but I do believe God takes stories from our life and teaches us spiritual truths. So I tell people all the time, maybe you are spiritually where I was physically. Enemy's got you down, wearing you out. You just hoping he'll quit. If that's true, I would say to that guy, Jesus is a friend that's closer than a brother.

He's got a pogo stick and he will knock the devil off you. Just simple little stories that we can identify with that try to teach us spiritual truths. You know, I actually can identify with that. I remember when I moved out of the hood of Minneapolis, like out of the projects in Minneapolis, out to the suburb, there was an older guy, older boy in the neighborhood that was kind of bullying and to your point, came that day where it was put up or shut up, where I'd had enough. I'd had enough. Well, I know exactly what you mean, because when I moved out, when my mom moved us out of what I called the, what was the hood, the ghettos, the projects in Minneapolis out to the suburbs, man, there was an older boy in the neighborhood and you bet your bottom dollar, he was a bully. But it came that day, it came a day when I like enough is enough. I'm not going to take it anymore.

And the whole, as you said, the whole neighborhood watching. And fortunately for me, my punch didn't miss. It landed. But I never had a problem after that. Not another problem. Yeah.

And I earned his respect and I earned the respect. Yeah. That was, hey Lee, that was way before the Russian sickle too, by the way. Just want you to know. I got you.

I got you. That was a precursor to the Russian sickle, I guess. Anyway, what a great story. Oh my gosh. How many, Lee, how many, take a ballpark, how many stories would you say you even know?

Or do you have favorites? How do you do that? Well, I measure them in minutes. Okay. Because, you know, Nikita, for the first four or five years, I had 45 minutes of pretty good material. And it, you know, it was like a wheelbarrow.

I just pushed it down the hill and it went now. I've kind of, I could drive the control and turn and stop, but I think I've got somewhere between four and a half and five hours. I've been doing it so long in different settings. So, I mean, I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I told you through preaching and through storytelling and comedy, I've got a hundred probably stories, you know, that are kind of like that. And they're not all growing up, but just something that somebody can identify with that, you know, kind of builds a little nostalgia and camaraderie. And then they, you know what I'm saying?

You can make a point at the end. That's awesome. Well, hey, let me ask you this and we got to get a website. Where, or where can people find Lee McBride? I am the easiest guy in the world to get in touch with, and I have to keep things simple. So the website is leemcbride.com. And the best way to get in touch with me on planet earth is just lee at leemcbride.com through email. And, uh, you know, I, I want to say this, Nikita, I never have charged the church a fee.

I don't have a pre-desk, you know, preordained price. Uh, I, I, I minister in a lot of smaller rural churches. So I just want guys to know my heart is right. I'm humble and I'm hungry. You do things for the Lord.

So just give me, you know, reach out to me and if there's anything I can do to help, that's what I'm going to do. You'll go wherever the Lord opens the door. And then God is faithful to provide. He provided, he provided manna for 40 years and water from a rock, right Lee? And, uh, exactly right.

Exactly right. Lee, thanks for joining me today. Love you brother. Thank you. It's my honor. God bless you. Love you too, my friend. And thank you for tuning in each and every week to the man up show. Why?

Because it's time. God bless you. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to Koloff.net and donate today.

Hi, Nikita Koloff. Be sure to check out The Man Up Show, now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to MorningStarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today.

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