Called By God Podcast
Called by GOD with Nicson Silvanie & Adnie Gaudin is a podcast that will inspire, encourage, educate, and help people from all walks of life. Each episode will consist of a Christian sharing the inspiring testimony of their obedience to God's call. What ensues is an authentic and transparent spiritual conversation with laughter, tears, and more.
Called By God Podcast
264. Tech Disciple, Part 1
Brother Stephen D Holder shares his journey from growing up with a single mother in Buffalo to finding faith through his grandmother's influence and a transformative experience at Christian camp.
• Growing up with a single mother who had spiritual background but didn't regularly attend church
• Grandmother's pivotal role in introducing him to church at age 8, simply saying "it's time for you to start going"
• Finding spiritual connection at Camp Hunts in Hubbardsville, NY around age 15-16
• Wrestling with feeling "not ready" for baptism despite understanding the gospel
• Experiencing his "first sin" shortly after baptism by singing a worldly song
• Going through a difficult church split that tested his faith
• Drifting away during college years in a "prodigal son" period
• Being drawn back to church by his grandmother's unwavering commitment despite serious illness
• Learning that faith isn't about knowing everything but living authentically in way that draws others
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So I got baptized. I'm here, I'm feeling good. I can't sing that anymore. I can't sing bodies hitting the floor.
Speaker 2:I can't see that, but at the same time.
Speaker 2:I'm seeing everybody who also was Christian saying let the bodies hit the floor, I'm like, no, no, I can't do it. Hello and welcome world to the Call by God podcast. I'm your host, brother Nick, and I'm not here with my dear co-host, sister Adni, but we are joined here today with a special guest, brother Stephen Holder. Man, how you doing on this blessed day, brother, about yourself, man, oh man, I'm blessed. I'm blessed. So we're recording on a sunday, sunday, sunday. So before we get into your episode, you know please, how was worship today?
Speaker 1:would you sing something? I'm not a singer bro. What you want me to do?
Speaker 2:no, no, no, I was, I was where. You know. You know we go, we come together, we congregate, we worship, we fellowship and um, how was worship with the saints?
Speaker 1:was was very good. We had a uh um member who was preaching. Our minister is out of town. He's actually in greece, um, doing like a nice trip. Okay, um, in Greece doing a nice trip. He's doing a whole bunch of stuff over there. I saw some of his photos, but worship was good today. I think it definitely touched some people. Everybody needs to hear something at some point. I caught some glimpses of it as I was working in tech, but it was good though it was good.
Speaker 2:Amen, Amen. Well, I know I just got, I know I just kind of caught you off guard with that question, but, um, for the sake, for the sake of our, our listeners and our viewers, uh, before we get into your initial question, just tell um, our listeners and our viewers a little bit.
Speaker 1:Oh sure, no problem. So, um, my D Holder I use the D because that's very important to me D, not D. But Stephen D Holder is me, stephen Holder is an actor on Netflix and Stephen Holder is a correspondent on ESPN. Stephen D Holder is your boy, okay, so I like to put that out there. I like using my middle initial. It kind of gives me some distinguishes, me. But, man, I mean I guess I never really talked about myself, so I'm going to give this a shot. But I mean, I'm from Buffalo, new York. I did all my schooling in Buffalo under elementary, high school and college grad. Once I finished with that, moved to Ohio with my uncle for a little bit. He got me a job, started to be in IT, I went to school for a teacher but teaching wasn't working out, so got in IT, stayed in IT and just kind of made my own path from there and from Ohio to Cleveland, ohio, dc, detroit and finally moved to Raleigh, north Carolina, in 2015. So this is where I call home right now.
Speaker 2:It's exciting to me just to hear a little bit about the guests before they said yes to the gospel. So my question to you, brother Stephen D Holder. I like how you put the D in there. Now I got to put emphasis on that. Brother Stephen D Holder, give our listeners and our viewers a glimpse into your upbringing and background before you said yes and obeyed the gospel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure. So I mean I'm going to start this answer off in a little strange way. I don't want to go left field. But we'll see how it goes. So the first memory that I can ever remember in my life was I was small and I was by a tree with a bunch of leaves. Okay, I'm saying that for a reason. Hopefully I can get to it. But fast forwarding to when I was getting older. Single mom, you know, not necessarily in the hood, but not the best area In Buffalo.
Speaker 2:She did what she could and you know, love her.
Speaker 1:She's still here. So you know we're doing all right. And I went to a public school. I love public school, but I was a little rough. In went to a public school, I love public school, but I was a little rough in the beginning of public school. I was a little rough and, um, I don't really like conflict and stuff like that. And one day I was just getting you know, kids are bothering me, whatever and my mom's like, listen, you got to do something about this, can't keep doing it. So I said this can't keep doing. So I said, oh, okay, but it went a little too far. And um, some other things nothing like awful, but um, that was an experience. So, um, yeah, I mean I don't want to say stereotypical kid in the hood with a single mom, but that's what I'm going with. Yeah, for right now. And you know, that's normal.
Speaker 1:That's normal between, especially our culture yeah, well, I mean, there was definitely family around to help right, the whole village thing. But people move in different places and you had to get dropped off here, so many to drop you off there, and I don't fault them at all. They did what they had right. But in terms of just living, you know I was living with at least in my early years I was with her. Was your mother a?
Speaker 2:church-going woman yeah, she had any spiritual background yeah, she definitely had a spiritual background.
Speaker 1:Her sister and their brother, they all have a spiritual background. But I guess when she had me and she was working, um, not that she never disbelieved, but I mean it just wasn't not like a regular occurrence of going on sunday, if that makes some sense, right and I think I think this will kind of unveil, as you know, we kind of go, go through the questions and kind of dig a little deeper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the reason why I ask that? Because when I was a kid, same thing I grew up a single. My mother was a single mother. Praise be to God.
Speaker 2:God gave her the strength to raise seven children.
Speaker 2:She had a total of eight children, but God gave her the strength to raise up seven and the only memory that I have of her in terms of the spiritual component was she used to like force us to go to church. We were like little kids and she was like, yeah, you're going to go to church, you're not staying here on Sunday, and there are times that she would go to church, but there are times that she would stay home and then she would just send us to somebody church. So we went to like different churches when we were young. And then that's what I appreciate about my mom was that piece that she tried her best because there was no man in the house, because there was no father figure, she didn't have a husband. She made sure that her children learn about the master Jesus Christ. So, and that's that's going to a nice little segue to the next question. So my question to you is like who taught you the gospel and how long after the teaching did it take you to obey the gospel?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so to answer that, I turned. I think I think I turned eight years old and I was playing over at my grandmother's house and she, just out of the blue, said how old are you? I said I'm eight and she said it's time for you to start going to church. To which I said church, what's that Right? So that's kind of how I kind of got into it and.
Speaker 1:I'm sure my mom said things about God or Jesus when I was younger. Maybe I just wasn't receiving what she was saying at that time, but my grandmother actually stopped me, like how old are you? Okay, it's time for you to start going to church. So that's kind of what got me back into it and I mean it got my mom kind of going back into it too. Right, you know, stephen's this old. Now he needs to start knowing about god and jesus and going to church. I go to church right here. Y'all welcome to come. And that's kind of how I got into into church. I guess. Um, yeah, I think, uh, I think I was going because I was kind of told to do, told to go. Um, I don't necessarily think I fought it really. I know you hear stories about people. I fought it. Like you know, I was forced to go this and that, the other thing. My mom wasn't really a forceful person in terms of that, but she was like, yeah, no, it's a good idea, it's probably good that you go.
Speaker 2:So I started going and I was right at that age where everybody was always too old or too young.
Speaker 1:So I was like 10. And like the closest friend well, the closest friend I had at the time was a minister, but in terms of like my age range, if I'm 10, the closest person is maybe like 22. Okay, and then like the youngest person is like six, like five and six, and then they have siblings. So I would never really have like that. I don't want to say youth connection, but I never had people around my age. I got to talk with everybody. Everybody was very friendly, but I was at that age where I felt it was a little difficult. But I started going to church and started slowly, slowly realizing what's kind of going on. But the thing that really set me on with the gospel was, once I started going to church, my grandfather, who I call dad. He was like hey, you know, you need to go to, you know, a Christian camp. It's called Camp Hunts, hubbersville, new York, and again I'm like camp, what's that, aside from just what you see on television, right, you think of Nickelodeon shows or whatever. Like, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:So I was like all right, let's just go to camp.
Speaker 1:So I went to camp and I actually loved it. It was like this is amazing. You know the activities, the praising, the worshiping, the singing. I'm not a singer by any means.
Speaker 1:But I've just seen other people sing and how different people can come together from different spots around the state. I'm from New York originally, right? So different people from New York come to this camp and it was, you know, it was good for me, right, it was it was good for me because I didn't really have that. So, um one year, at the camp there's a guy named uh uh, uh, will spina. I still know him. He's preacher minister in arizona right now at a church of christ, and he's like hey, young man, let me talk to you right quick. I'm like what you want to talk to me about, man, what you doing? And we started sitting down, opening up the book, going to it. Now, by this time I was around 15 or 16. But I knew that something had to be done. He was talking with me, sitting down, going through things, showing me scriptures and giving me scenarios of you know things. That kind of connect with me, I think.
Speaker 2:And you know, the question came well you know, do you think you're ready?
Speaker 1:And I'm like, oh, I don't know. Well, you don't know, but you just answered all these questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, you know the water's not going anywhere. We have a pool right here you can go. So I mean I was back and forth a little bit with it but ultimately I did commit and hopefully.
Speaker 1:I did say Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior and Son of God. I went down into that water, came up saying taking care of business, I think is what I said. Something like, something like that. I don't, I was, I was, I was happy, I was happy. I do want to add one thing to this, because I do think it's important to to know Um, I don't want to say I didn't want to say I felt pressured, or I want to say it was coaxing me or pushing me. I don't want. I do not want to say that because that wasn't the case. But in myself I wasn't sure if I was ready. But then, especially getting older and looking back and stuff, but you're never going to be ready, that's kind of what faith is right. I'm believing in you, I'm putting my trust in you. So, whether you think you're ready or not, if you're answering these questions and you're studying with a gentleman who's taking time out to really study with you, you're ready. Yeah, we're ready. I'll stop there.
Speaker 2:I like that you said that because when I was young, and how old were you when you got saved?
Speaker 1:I want to say 15, 16. It was July 15, 1998.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good age too, Because when I was around that age, somewhere around middle school, high school-ish people used to talk to me about Jesus Because, as I mentioned, my mom forced us to go to church, so I knew a little something about Jesus. But people over time used to come to me here and there. We had this young kid in middle school. He used to walk up to us with the Bible and the crazy thing about it, he's the Church of Christ. So it was like a little kid in middle school. He's like, hey, man, do you know about Jesus? And he would do this faithfully. So he wasn't like no, no, cold Christian, he was like a Christian that was on fire for the Lord at young, at that age. So if I'm 15, he must have been like 13, 13 years old with the Bible, preaching the gospel, and I would never forget like he would like walk up to different individuals.
Speaker 2:But I knew a little thing or two about Jesus, but in my mind I would say that I'm not ready, and so I used to try to play with God, you know, cause I don't know if people do this, but I'm saying this is what I did. I said let me get all the sin out the way, Cause you think about the do's and don'ts. I don't care what nobody said, You're going to think about the do's and don'ts like man. If I obey the gospel, man, I can't do this. I can do this Especially when you're young.
Speaker 1:You're like I can't do this. I can't do it.
Speaker 2:So I say to God internally I'm going to give my life to you when I'm like 30 years old. Let me get the sense. So did you think about that? I'm just saying that. Did you think about?
Speaker 1:that Absolutely. I talked to Will about this too.
Speaker 2:I was like well if.
Speaker 1:I'm not ready now. What about later? He's like well, yeah, you can do it later, but is that guaranteed? And at the age of 16, I wasn't thinking about it, oh, I didn't think about that.
Speaker 2:And you don't want to get dark and gloomy, like you know what happens if I'm not seeing the sun happen.
Speaker 1:It looks at me. I was like well, what's the book say? Now, there's more to it, Like I'm kind of not not glossing over it, but these were the this was studying, this is called studying Right. And um you through that. But yeah, I absolutely did.
Speaker 1:And I mean, I don't know if you remember so, when I this 98 and after I got baptized, um, you know, we went to a campfire it was camping, we did all this stuff and the song um, the song by drowning pool called bodies was out and it was just people getting hyped up saying let the bodies hit the floor over and, over and over again but it was like a thing where everybody like right it was, soccer was huge at this camp. Everybody loved soccer and teams.
Speaker 2:Oh, let the bodies hit the floor so I got baptized.
Speaker 1:I'm here, I'm feeling good. It's like I can't sing that anymore. I can't sing bodies hitting the floor. I can't see that. But at the same time, I'm seeing everybody who also was Christian saying whoa, that's a body. I'm like, no, no, I can't do this. But ultimately I joined in and for me that was like my first sin after baptism, which this was Wednesday, this was probably like Thursday, All right, so like a day after.
Speaker 1:It was so quick and I'm like, oh, I'm like, oh, I failed him, I failed him and you know, I kind of I think I don't know if I told will or I told somebody, and they're just like all right. Well, I mean, it's a song, you'll be okay, you're kind of brushing it off. But like I'm like new and you're brushing it off and I'm like I messed up already. It hasn't even been 24 hours already I messed up singing. You know, let the bodies sit on the floor when it's not what I think maybe humans would consider sin right, because spiritual sin and what the flesh thinks are sin, sin is sin. But you know, in the human world, oh okay, you take that penny, it's okay, no, it's sin Is that yours?
Speaker 1:No, you, take it. It's called stealing. So, um, take it, it's called stealing, so um, so yeah, I mean. So that that was my point, right there, right away. Like for me partaking in that song with everybody else, even outside of christian camp, even though these are christians me coming out of the water to that was trying to fight it, I was like oh and then, and then it's like the itch like it's gonna be okay, it's not gonna be so bad.
Speaker 1:You know it's like ah, so right, right, that's it's going to be okay, it's not going to be so bad you know it's like, ah, so that's a long-winded way of answering your question.
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, you're good. You're good. We could chop it up, because I like how you clarified that nobody forced you into giving your life to the Lord. I think most people, they think they're going to live for a long time. They think they're going to live for a long time. Even kids, you know young kids middle school, high school you talk about the gospel. They sometimes think that they have tomorrow. We know the Bible clearly says that we don't have tomorrow. Tomorrow is a gift. So even if we make it tomorrow, that's a gift, that's a blessing, you know. So I like the fact that you brought that up, because if somebody is talking to you about the gospel today, like you should obey the gospel today.
Speaker 2:That very same day, we talk about Philip in a unit. He didn't waste any time, right, he didn't waste any time. So being baptized so young. You know a young Christian convicted of the worldly song that you was listening to, and then you watching, looking around other Christians saying the same thing, but you had a conviction in your heart. So were there any times in your life to watch the journey in your early Christian walk or even later, where you find yourself in the wilderness, where God had to try you in your faith and where you had to grow from faith to faith. Could you share a story?
Speaker 1:Yeah, sure. So, um, this is still in Buffalo. Um, I'm just going to kind of get right to it. The church I was attending was going through a split, okay and, um, you know it happens all the time, unfortunately but this one was pretty bad and really divided the people that were at this building and there was, you know, side A and side B, and I stayed with side A, which was staying at the building, and side B went off and eventually formed their own congregation. Now, I stayed because I was friends with the minister and my friends were there. I knew it was familiar to me, but come to find out later and by later I don't mean too much later because my grandmother, my dad, kind of got with me and said hey, listen, according to the scriptures this is wrong and I know you like going there, but this isn't right. Because my grandmother left, I can't, I can't, I can't, I understand. And then I started kind of getting like not in a whirlwind, but, just kind of like the ground shifting beneath me Right.
Speaker 2:Like oh.
Speaker 1:I'm going to church, I'm doing all this stuff. I was just baptized, like how is?
Speaker 2:this happening? How is this?
Speaker 1:happening and I'm still young, I'm only 16 or 17 now at this point, but it still happened and yeah, it did. So I did a little studying with my dad a little bit, and you know, I tried to ask the minister at the time questions, but I just wasn't, honestly, I just wasn't strong enough to ask the right questions and why they chose what they chose. So ultimately I left right. But I left because of what I got at home and saying hey, this is what they're saying and this is what the word says, this is what the book says, but this is what they said. And if you don't believe me, you know, because back then they still sent out letters to churches. I'm going to still do that now. It's probably emails, but they sent out letters to other churches, at least Churches of Christ, about what's going down, so you'd know what it is. And that's like I'm not hiding that. That's what people did. You know more than if you went from one congregation to another, you had to get a letter of not reference, but like a letter of something to say, hey, this person's coming from my congregation. You know, this is what they've done, so they can come to your congregation. There's a word for it. I'll follow up with you on that. But yeah, I mean, this is what he said in the letter, right? I was like, wow, okay.
Speaker 1:So I wound up leaving and you know I got a letter from this church saying, oh man, yeah, you know, we'd love to have you back and this and that, but you know, if it's not the book, it's not the book. So I didn't go and that kind of messed up my church regularly going routine I guess, if you want to call it that where I wasn't really going to any church and at that point all I had was that Christian camp, so I would look forward to the Christian camp, and that kept going on for a while. All I had was that Christian camp, so I would look forward to the Christian camp, and that kept going on for a while. And then I'll just fast forward to maybe ending high school college.
Speaker 1:I just I just prodigal son, without the money, oh yeah, oh yeah, without the money, cause he had money, I didn't have the money. I just prodigal son. And when I say prodigal son, I don't mean like out on the streets, I just mean like I just stopped going, like entirely. Just, I just stopped going entirely. I was in college, freshman, sophomore, whatever, and I just wasn't Brother Stephen. So for the unchurched people, what is a prodigal son? When you say prodigal son, what do you mean? Could?
Speaker 1:you explain that, and that's kind of the attitude I took a little bit With church. It's going to be okay, I can pray and I'll be forgiven. I'll just kind of move on out there. So that's what I was operating under. That's what I was operating under. So college, then you went off to college. Also, I've got to take some accountability here.
Speaker 1:By this time I'm driving. It was very easy to find another church of Christ, which I ultimately did do, but in the meantime I did not. And what got me, what reintroduced me back into church, was the same person who asked me how old are you? My grandmother, but it was a little indirect. She got extremely sick, extremely sick, and there are a lot of health conditions, a lot of health, this and that, but she always went to church.
Speaker 1:By this time she was with Group B from that original split that went to Form your Own Congregation. When she got really sick, I was like I want to go, I'm going to go and support her and stuff. I went back to the church A lot smaller, different building, but still kind of the same I won't say format, but still kind of what I was used to, being familiar from before and I think that was like wow, okay, not only am I supporting you know her but I'm also like I need some of this, because now I'm a little older, I understand a little bit more and, yeah, that got me back into it and buff.
Speaker 2:We need more grandmothers like that. You know, because and thank god that nothing really crazy happened to you, like when you had your prodigal son moment. You know because sometimes people don't make it back to the church or sometimes people have like crazy stories, they've got internal illness. God had to beat me up you know what I mean and ordered me to get back in fellowship. Obviously, you know your grandmother was in well, but you know through that circumstance it got you back in alignment and even back in fellowship.
Speaker 1:And when I say indirectly because I knew she was getting ill when it was kind of starting. But the thing that really got me and this kind of really, I think, pricked my heart was, through all her ailments and everything she was going through, she still found a way to make it to that building. It wasn't even like, hey, stephen, you know you should come to church. I mean, she probably said some stuff in passing, but what got me was like how is she still going to church when all this stuff is happening to her? She's still making it right. And it was kind of rough. This new building was rough conditions. It was in the neighborhood. There was no parking, one-way streets, you know almost everything. The devil's putting up all these barriers to block you to the building, you know. And she still made it. So, um, I was like, yeah, I need to get, I need to kind of get back in, you know, back into this, back into this.
Speaker 2:So, um, that's, I think, kind of yeah, wow, no, that's, that's amazing Cause. Um, that's a testament of her faith, because that tells me that you've seen her faith and that's ultimately led you back into fellowship. Because I was going to ask you this question, I was going to ask you if there's any biblical figures or Bible verses or Christian figures that have played a crucial role in shaping your belief. But, man, if I can, I think I can answer that for you. We're going to give a shout out to grandma.
Speaker 2:I'm not even going to ask you that question because you brought up grandma twice, so I'm going to I don't think there's anybody else that's going to highlight your grandma, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we called her. We called her Bunner, grandma's fine, but like we called her, like all the the um, her grandchildren called her Bunner, but uh, yeah, no, she definitely did and it was always something that, like you know, it was just something about her Because, like, even, like you know, we'd be over her house and she was that old. You know, she's from Louisiana, right, and so, just like you see in the movies, where you know, things are just going awful just awful, awful, awful.
Speaker 1:And you just see a woman sitting down in a chair just singing that old hymn. I don't know what she's singing, but it's singing something.
Speaker 2:It's singing something, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, I always stuck with me and this is like throughout my life, right, and it's like man this is yeah.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I mean for sure, my grandmom is the one who you know I got a lot of people I love and you know my dad took care of me. He taught you know when it come down to like paper and pencil, pencil and or pen and paper, you know he's like write this down. You know you need to have some. You know you need to have some knowledge because even though I got baptized at that age and I moved on, I continued life. You know, if you don't use it and I may use it, I mean like study it, you kind of lose some stuff and even now today, there's some things that I probably should know, that I just kind of don't, and when you get caught on it it's like oh. But then you go back and you read it, it's like oh yeah, I knew that.
Speaker 1:I knew that.
Speaker 1:I knew that, but you didn't know it then and that's okay, that used to get with me, that used to get me a lot. I didn't know something that I should have known, or people said I should have known. But then one person said to me well, you know, it is good to know all this stuff, but not everybody is necessarily built to be a preacher or an educator, or you know, that's fact. It just may not be your. Just you doing what you do and people see your aura. And then you say you're going to church on Sunday. That is maybe what you're here for, to get somebody else in. Right, you don't have to explain the gospel to well. Let's say explain, but you don't have to try and capture everybody.
