You Are Loved | Pastor Gregg

goal is to share people's incredible stories in the hopes of encouraging you to keep going no matter how hard it is and to show you how loved you are by your Heavenly Father. This week I have the honor of sharing Greg's story with you. Abandonment, poverty and abuse turned Greg into a very fearful and angry young man. To try to control his situation he joined the Marine Corps. Unfortunately this gave him power that he had never experienced before and taught him how to hurt other people. He quickly spiraled out of control. While running for his life and trying to evade the law, Jesus found him in a little church. Greg said he will never forget the tiny lady that scared him almost to death. Wait until you hear the whole story. So tell me a little bit about yourself. Okay I'm Greg Halsey. I'm a pastor. I'm a husband, a father. I'm a Papaw. That's kind of who I am. That's who's, you know, that's how I identify myself. I'm a Christian trying to follow God with everything that I can, doing the will of God of my life, working with the church, working with missions, working with different rehabs. It's kind of my heartbeat. So that's, that's me today. Wonderful. Tell me about you in the past. In the past I guess the best place to start would be in the beginning. I was born in the cold camps of eastern Kentucky. We were very poor. My father left before I was born because he didn't want to have a child. So he just, he bailed basically. My mom and my grandmother, grandfather, that's how I was raised. We were in the cold camps of eastern Kentucky and dirt poor living on dirt floors. Very difficult times and the only way that we could get out of there was or the only way my parents and whatever could see to get out of there was to take a job in Chicago, Illinois. So that was culture shock. I bet. And I went from the cold camps of eastern Kentucky to the ghetto of Chicago, that area where just a rough area of the city, a lot of bad things going on. But moving from the cold camps to this I thought we had like arrived because you know I had like a floor that wasn't dirt. I had indoor plumbing, things like that. And in Chicago is basically you know I was there during the riots. We were right in the middle of all of that going on in the 60s. Actually as a young boy I remember seeing people shot and killed and things like that. And in Chicago also is kind of

when my life got off the rails so to speak. We lived near a freight train yard and we would hop on freights and they used the freights to carry beer and we would steal beer as little kids, 10-12 years old. And that's what we would do kind of for amusement. And that was my introduction I guess to addiction really because that's the kind of thing it became. Also in Chicago that that's really where I see my life. I say it went off the rails. When I was 12 years old there were two men that raped me in one of these freight yards basically while I was there running around. And I guess from then until really until I turned my life around my life was just kind of a blur then because they told me you know that if I ever told anybody this they would kill me, they would kill my family. So for a lot of years there I just lived in the next two years I lived in Chicago in total fear. I was always afraid. Everything and everybody because I thought somebody else would do this to me. I thought these men are actually gonna You know come and kill all the family and all that and Substances pills Marijuana I Just kept I use whatever was available Available when I was 14 my mom remarried She married a man that was in the Air Force and we kept traveling Long story short by the time I was a junior in high school. I was shooting heroin in the in the high school bathroom Nobody knew how out of control my life was I was always a loner Always a very very private person so I kept all my pain bottled up and So nobody really knew how to control my life was and I Graduated high school somehow. I'm not even sure how because I wasn't there half the time. I

Think it's because the high school I was in Was again, we were in a terrible part of the neighborhood and so that high school Was just I guess they had a quota of people that had to graduate so they graduated me And I knew my life was out of control you know, so To fix myself I couldn't think of anything else. So I joined the Marine Corps That would be surely the way that I would get off drugs and get my life, you know The few the proud I'd be I'd be a good man then So Join the Marine Corps and at that time this would been There were probably more drugs in the Marine Corps than out of the Marine Corps. So so Went from bad to worse and My life pretty much spiraled out of control I was court-martialed and in the brig a Lot of the time I was in the Marine Corps. I was in trouble. I Had learned that I Had learned that I could hurt people and I did that a lot and I enjoyed doing it and It was like the power that was taken away from me as a young boy. I was getting back by Taking it out on whoever wherever it really didn't matter Got out of the Marine Corps under some really bad circumstances And My life just spiraled more out of control And by that time I was 22 23 years old Mainly a heroin addict, but I would do whatever was available and That's kind of where I found myself How did you?

Finally or come then and get your life on track. Well Actually, I didn't But uh, I hear people say all the time and I think it's incorrect They say I found Jesus well, I didn't find Jesus because I Honestly, I wasn't looking for it He found me though I Was in the outer banks of North Carolina I Was a prospect for a motorcycle club, I was involved in all kind of Craziness Got into all kind of trouble The police were looking for me to arrest me. The motorcycle club was looking for me to basically in my life, I guess and So I ran from there to Tennessee And that was to get away from you know And I had some family in La Follette, Tennessee. I ran there and I Had an aunt and an uncle Bob and Pearl I Seen how this was gonna work right off they were church people So, you know, I had no problem playing church games. I had no problem putting on a facade line. I had no trouble with that. I could do that and do it well. So I thought I'll play this church thing out and use them for money for whatever else that I need. And so I did this for a little while. I even went to an altar and said a prayer because that's kind of what they expected.

So that's what I did. I went and I said the prayer and I played the church game. And finally there was a young man in the church. He said, hey, why don't you go to revival with us tonight? And I said, okay. Well, everything I knew about church revival at that time meant maybe we're going to have a dinner. Maybe we're having a get together. I don't know. They call it revival, whatever. Okay. And I'll never forget this. I went up to the, at the time, it was the Stinking Creek Church of God up in Stinking Creek, Tennessee. And Pastor Delmas Bruce, who he's still there by the way, he's pastored there, I think 55 years now, man of God. And I remember going to that church, but it was different. I got to feeling really, really uneasy. When I got there, I remember it was a little bitty church. There might've been 50, 60 people in the whole building. Little, basically one room church. They had a couple of back rooms. And I remember walking in the door and in the back room, I could hear people pray. And they were just calling on the Lord and they were asking God to save and to deliver and to heal. And the sound was like, it was messing me up. I guess that's the first time I ever really felt the spirit of God, even though I had been in church.

The spirit of God was there to do business with me that night and it was terrifying. It really was. And in my life at that point, I had not been afraid of anything in a long time. Fear is something that I had in my own mind overcame a long time ago because I could take care of myself. And I'll never forget this. There was this little lady, probably about four foot tall. And she came and came up to me and shook my hands and looked me in the eyes. And looking at her terrified me. And I always said that the God in her scared the devil in me to death. But I'll never forget that. And anyways, the sermon was basically the preacher was telling everybody about my life. I wonder even at some points who he had talked to because he was just exposing me to the world. Because he was just exposing me to the world, you know. And he began to give an altar call. And I was thinking in my mind, different things. I thought, well, when I get out of here, I'm gonna make this right. And I would no sooner think that than he would say, now somebody in here is thinking you'll make this right later. But there may not be, I mean, it was like, it was a Holy Ghost thing taking place in me, you know.

And so anyways, finally I decided I can't stand this. You know, I really can. And he was saying, come on, come right now. And. I felt a hand push me toward the aisle. And it really kind of, in that moment, it made me angry because I thought there is somebody, you know, I'm head down, eye closed, gripping the pew. And I thought, who is this person that's trying to push me out in this aisle? This is, we're about to have trouble right here in the church. So I put my head up and opened my eyes and looked over, and no one was there. Wow. So I ran. I got out of the aisle and I ran to the altar. And then I wasn't raised in church, didn't know anything about church, but there was a guy in the altar and he said, you need to confess your sins. And so I don't know how to do this. So I just started laying them out there. So I just started naming all kinds of stuff that I'd done. Later in life, this young man, he was a few years younger than me. He was a teenager at the time. And we both became ministers and he would tell me later in life, he said, man, you scared me to death. He said, the stuff you were telling that you did, he said. I don't know if you noticed or not, but I left you there in the altar because I was just afraid of you because of all that you were just, well, I didn't know. I was just, Jesus saved me. If I need to confess, I'm in, you know? And so then at this point, this little lady came up and they had a thing in the church then, sometimes I think we need to get back to it and say, you need to pray through. You need to pray until this is all worked out.

And so I'm like, all right, let's work it out. I mean, at this point, the Holy Ghost is all over me. Something is, something dramatic is happening in my life. I don't understand it. I don't understand born again. I don't understand new creature in Christ. I don't understand any of these things, but I know something is transforming in me. For the first time in a lot of years, I feel hope, just some hope, you know? The little lady came up that I'd seen earlier, and I'll never forget this either. She put her hand on me and she did like this. She said, you foul, unclean spirit. She said, come out of him. And when she'd done that, I felt something come out of me and I felt total freedom. I didn't know what to do. Again, I'm lost. I don't understand anything about church. But the one thing I do know is I'm clean. I'm free. So I get up out of the altar and I sit down in the pew and I lean back and I just laugh. And that would be real significant in my life because I hadn't laughed in years. If I had an evil laugh, if I saw somebody hurt, I would laugh. If I hurt somebody, I would laugh. But this was a different laugh. This was, I'm free. This is, I've got, I'm clean. And of course, they asked me. To testify. And my testimony was I don't understand what's happened, but something's happened here. Uh? You know, God had changed my life. He had set me free.

And I didn't understand a lot of things, but I I went down. From the stinking Greek church that night and I threw bags of heroin out the. Out the window of my car and I was supposed to meet some people. And I called them and I said I can't do this anymore. And. You know, one of them was a lady and what do you mean? I said I don't really understand what's happened to me. I know I got saved tonight. I know God set me free tonight. And I can't do. I can't live like this anymore, so I'm just going to. Anne. I went to the store and I got jugs of Gatorade. Because I knew the withdrawals and what I was going to go through was going to be terrible, but I was ready to go through that. To hold on to the freedom that I had just found. So the next morning I woke up and I felt great. The sun was shining. It was a great day. Uh, and I never got sick. I never had withdrawals. Uh, from that day to this day, and I spent over 40 years now. Uh, I've never had a craving, a desire, a want to a maybe I can. Uh. God totally set me free and. One trip to the altar that night it changed my life forever. Tell me about your your change to life. How did it look after that? I went to school. I was actually headed into a medical profession. I also felt like God was calling me to preach. And finally I was going back and forth and I said, well, OK God,

I'm gonna. I'll give you one year to show me that this ministry thing is not me going crazy, but it's really you. And. You know, 40 years later, I'm still on that one year so, but God has opened so many doors, uh. Marriage was something I've ever seen happening in my life before. Uh. He brought my wife into my life. Children, grandchildren, something I never thought was never interested in before. It's become the joy of my life. Ministry. The Lord, I always say the Lord tricked me into going into missions so. That's kind of. I've been pastoring for several years. Ann. I had a youth pastor that said I want to take the youth group on a mission trip. I said great, where are you going to go and he said? We met this guy that takes people to the Amazon River and I said, oh no. I don't want to be that pastor that has to call mom and dad and say we lost your child on a mission trip, you know. So I said, mean you'll go first, check it out, see what's what. And we went into a mission trip, and I said, I don't want to be that pastor that has to call mom and dad and say, we lost your child on a mission trip, you know. And we went into. We went to a little village called Augusto down along the Amazon River Basin. And I'll never forget. I just preached Jesus to a group of people that had never heard his name before.

And watch the power of the gospel transform an entire village right before my eyes. And I was like. Wow. Look at this. This is just magnificent. This is just powerful. And so. We're on the way back and the trip was not for the faint of heart. And I remember my youth pastor. He said to me, he said, pastor, he said. He said, I can't. He said, I'm not, I'm never going back there again. And I told him, I said, God has used you because this is, I can't not go back. And since then, I've probably been, I don't even know, over a hundred trips to all kind of, one day I'm hoping the Lord will give me a city. So far he's given me jungles. God works okay for me. And you know, life is just great. Life is good right now. So God has been especially good to me. Awesome. So there's a lot of people who are going to watch this interview and relate to some of the things that you went through. And there may be still in the place where they're living a life like, like you did before this amazing experience that you had where Jesus found you. What could you say to them, advice or just something encouraging? What would you say to somebody in that situation? I tell people all the time, I don't have anything to give you but Jesus. You know, I don't have fancy words or great explanations.

I don't have anything like that, but my advice would be give it all to Jesus. I was a life without hope, had no direction and turned it over to Jesus. And right now I got a great life. You know, right now things are just wonderful in my life. So it may be that you're not looking for Jesus, but I can tell you, he's looking for you. One question we always ask everybody that I like to talk about is love because we know God is love, but the world also has their definition of what love is. And so I'm curious when you were living in the world and you're in your old life, what you thought love looked like and now that you've experienced true love, how it's different to you. Well, I guess that's a hard question for me because I really didn't, when I was in the world when I was, I really had no concept of love, honestly. I don't know, I didn't know what love was. I didn't, it's something that I guess I had given up on. But when I realized how much Jesus loved me, that's, that's always been my idea of love is giving, not taking, but giving. I was a taker all my life and hopefully the Lord has turned me into a giver. And to me, that's what love is, is giving of yourself to others. It's beautiful. Talk a little bit about some of the ways that people could get involved in coming alongside of you in some of these projects that you're working on or things that you're doing. Well, our projects, basically years ago, when I first got involved in mission, the Lord gave me outside the gates ministry. I didn't know what it would turn into then. But it comes from the scripture in Hebrews where it says, Jesus, that he might sanctify the people. He died outside the gates of the city. And the basis of that ministry is we go outside the four walls of the church, bearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. We do it through missions.

We operate a faith-based rehab at our church and, you know, we have a website that people could go and check out and find all the information they'd need on that. But that's kind of our ministry. That's who we are. I've been going outside the gates for a while now and wouldn't have it any other way. Fantastic. Well, I'm really grateful that you came and shared this story. I know that tells a lot. a lot of vulnerability to open up about the things that happened to you and who that made you into. But I think it's going to be so encouraging because so many people go through a lot of trauma and then think they can't come out of that. And so to hear your story, and then not just did you come out of it, like you've dedicated your life to the Lord and to reaching people. And it's such an encouraging, just amazing story. And we're just really grateful that you came and shared it with us. Thank you for having me. The Bible says where much is given, much is required. I've been given a lot, so I got to get a lot. Wow. We appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for watching. Wasn't that dramatic encounter with the Lord absolutely incredible to hear about? It is amazing how meeting Jesus can so radically change your life. Greg is the founder of an organization called Outside the Gates Ministry. They have a faith-based rehab center in Knoxville, Tennessee that currently houses 12 men who are going through a one-year program and four men who are transitioning back into the world. They also serve in Peru, Costa Rica, Brazil, Cuba, and Nepal. Their mission project this year is building a ministry training center in the Himalayan mountains. This center will make it possible for American missions and medical teams to work in this remote area. Please check out their website for more information or to be a part of making this happen. Join us next week to hear another incredible story and be sure to subscribe or follow so you never miss an episode. Most importantly, I pray that you know no matter how far you have run from God, it is never too late. There is always hope because you are loved.