Episode 7- Chad Merrell: I Should Not Be a Pastor

Chad Merrell should not be a pastor.He was a 22-year-old warehouse supervisor married to a full-blown opiate addict. He found his 3-year-old son locked out in ankle-deep snow, in a diaper, while his wife watched from the window upstairs. He lost his driver's license. He drank himself into oblivion every weekend his kids weren't with him. He was the guy in your church you'd quietly wish would stop showing up.Then his pastor and his dad called him within 16 hours of each other and told him the same thing: "It might be more sinful for you to stay than to leave."Then a Pennsylvania judge, in the most father-hostile family court in America, wrote him an airtight custody order so unprecedented it's now illegal to write.Then a hungover Saturday morning happened in a pool house in Pennsylvania, where a woman named Amy grabbed his face with both hands and prophesied that he would one day pastor God's people.Six years later, he was sitting in an auditorium when the pastor of First Baptist West Monroe announced, to him and everyone else, that he was their new recovery pastor. He had no idea.This is one of the most honest pastor stories we've ever put on this channel. If you've ever felt like your past disqualifies you, this episode is for you.