From Gangster to Child of God with Brian Butler (Episode 290)
Disclaimer: This episode contains thematic material. Listener discretion advised.
2 Corinthians 1:4 NLT “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”
*Transcription Below*
Brian Butler married his wife Pam in 2011. They have four children and eight grandchildren. Brian received his Bachelor of Science degree from Indiana State University in 2009. Arriving in Peoria, Illinois in 2009 Brian began his career working with the impoverished in his community as a Safety Net Monitor at The Salvation Army. He was afforded the opportunity to work with individuals in the community for four years providing case management assisting people to learn the value of work through work therapy and securing income and eventually housing. Brian was called to Peoria Rescue Ministries in 2014 and began his career there as the Assistant Director of the Rescue Mission. In 2018 Brian became the Program Director and in 2021 became the Director of Residential Ministries. In 2024 Peoria Rescue Ministries became Pathway Ministries. Coming from a former lifestyle of drug and alcohol addiction Brian has been able to transform programs at Pathway Ministries that address the needs of the impoverished community he serves to create pathways out of poverty through Jesus with his neighbors in need. Pathway Ministries provides emergency shelter, residential programs, and community services with a focus on counseling, education, and work to help the men and women they serve make transformative changes in their lives. Pathway Ministries is a social enterprise organization and has a partnership with Caterpillar – they reclaim discarded wood and turn it into pallets, mulch for industrial and commercial use, and home décor. Their residents are employed in these businesses while participating in their program.
Thank you to our sponsor for today’s episode: Midwest Food Bank
Topics We Cover:
Growing up in an abusive home
Lifestyle choices leading to prison
God’s miraculous redemption and restoration
Related Savvy Sauce Episode:
143 Prodigal Story: Sexuality, Drugs, and Scripture with Dr. Christopher Yuan
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Gospel Scripture: (all NIV)
Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:24 “and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
Romans 3:25 (a) “God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood.”
Hebrews 9:22 (b) “without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Romans 5:11 “Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
Romans 10:9 “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Luke 15:10 says “In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Romans 8:1 “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”
Ephesians 1:13–14 “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession- to the praise of his glory.”
Ephesians 1:15–23 “For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 2:8–10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.“
Ephesians 2:13 “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.“
Philippians 1:6 “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
*Transcription*
Music: (0:00 – 0:08)
Laura Dugger: (0:09 - 3:30) Hey friends! Thank you so much for joining us today. If you're watching this, you may notice that there's a unique screen that's going to pop up periodically.
So, here's the backstory. We delight in getting to do this work, and we do believe it's what God has called our team to do. And yet, we have a very present and active enemy.
And Satan has tried to thwart the progress of these podcast episodes in so many ways. It's almost uncanny what will happen before a podcast recording. There's almost always something, yet it's different every time.
So, the way it showed up with this episode, first of all, when Brian and I tried to connect, somebody was working in our yard, and they accidentally cut our line for internet. And so, we had to cancel that and reschedule. And then, when we got the episode rescheduled, Brian and I were chatting, and we haven't recorded.
We were just talking for a little while before the official interview began, and everything was great. And then, as soon as I said, “Welcome to The Savvy Sauce.” The screen went a little wavy, and something happened, and my audio quality was completely distorted. So, sorry for the lengthy explanation, but I wanted you to know how much work has gone into this episode.
So, if you ever have somebody that you want to thank, it should be Natalie, our editor, who had to go back and replace everything that I said to cover up the very convoluted form that was originally recorded. So, I hope it doesn't interrupt this episode or make it difficult for you to listen to, because Brian's story is so powerful, and I believe God has you here listening to this right now for a reason. So, please continue.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, where we have practical chats for intentional living. I'm your host, Laura Dugger, and I'm so glad you're here.
Today's episode includes some thematic material. I want you to be aware before you listen in the presence of little ears.
Thank you to an anonymous donor to Midwest Food Bank who paid the sponsorship fee in hopes of spreading awareness. Learn more about this non-profit organization at MidwestFoodBank.org.
Brian Butler is my outstanding guest for today, and he's going to take us on a very real journey with him from an extremely abusive childhood to a life of addictions and eventually to redemption and restoration all because of Jesus Christ. Brian's humility is so Christ-like, and I think that you're going to leave this conversation as a changed person. Here's our chat.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce, Brian.
Brian Butler: (3:31 - 3:33) Thank you so much for having me here. I appreciate it.
Laura Dugger: (3:34 - 3:42) Well, I would just love to start backwards. Where did you grow up, and what was childhood like for you?
Brian Butler: (3:43 - 9:46) I grew up all over the place, really. I'd spent several years in Danville as a child, Hartsburg, Illinois, eventually settled down in southern Illinois in a little town called Bridgeport. My dad was a professor at a local college, and he ended up being a high school teacher.
Where I went to school, my mom and dad were continually in chaos with their marriage. My dad had some severe mental health issues. He was a pretty rough guy to be around.
He was a chronic alcoholic. He was abusive, and I'll just say for this podcast, in every kind of way you can imagine how a little boy might be abused by his daddy, that was my dad. Yet, that was just our normal.
I didn't know if it was bad, if it was wrong, whatever. He was very verbally abusive to the whole family, him and my mom. I think my mother, the whole time growing up, was just trying to salvage her marriage and to save face with her family, so on and so forth.
It was a pretty rough childhood, but I want to say that in those moments, it was just the way it was. We didn't know good from bad. That was still my dad.
I believe that in some weird way that he loved us and cared for us, but there were so many mental health and substance abuse issues with him and the perversion that he had in his life that just leaked over to my little brother and me. It was a different relationship with my little brother. He was very abusive to my little brother.
My little brother had a lot of behavioral issues and rebellion issues. I was more of the compliant, the good kid in school. I made the good grades.
I wanted to please my dad, and yet I hated him from the inside. I just couldn't stand him. I rebelled against him.
There were a lot of drugs and alcohol my parents were. My mother was not an abuser by any means. My mother was not an alcoholic by any means, but my mother went along with my dad.
My whole childhood evolved around parties. My dad was a pretty social guy. He was into politics and those kinds of things.
I was exposed to a lot of stuff at an early age. I can remember being seven, eight years old, going around in parties and just sipping whatever it was out of unknown glasses and enjoying the effect that it had on me as a little kid. I was a big fan of Billy Bear.
I didn't even know what Billy Bear was, but I was drinking Billy Bear. That's a Jimmy Carter beer, so that takes you back in the day. All the music that we listened to back in those days all evolved around afternoon delight and getting high in some kind of form or fashion.
That was just what I clung to as a little boy and as a young man. I was a full-fledged blackout alcoholic by the time I was a sophomore in high school. I was drinking regularly.
I was able to fly under the radar pretty good because mom and dad were always in the middle of crisis. As long as I wasn't in a lot of trouble, that was easily hidden, even though it was really out in the light, if that makes any kind of sense. It was pretty rough.
Looking back on it, it was rough. In today's standards, we would have been taken away from our homes, and those kinds of things would have been exposed. We just didn't know.
That's just kind of the way it was, but it did lead me into a lifestyle. I don't want to say they led me into it. I really chose to and clung to a lifestyle.
When I was a little boy, Laura, I grew up Catholic. We went to parochial schools until I was in fourth grade. I can remember even now.
I loved God. I loved God. He was my refuge.
I didn't know what a refuge meant. I can just say it by language now. I can remember having my crucifix above my bed and I would pray.
I wanted to be a priest. I really did. By the time I got to about 10, 11, 12 years old, the things that had happened and the things that had occurred in my life and my behavior as well just led me to believe that if God was even real because I cried out to him a lot and it didn't seem like he was there.
If he was real, then he really didn't want anything to do with me anyway. I became kind of anti-God, anti-rebellious. I was just a very rebellious young man.
I went to high school. I mean, I'm getting pretty good grades in high school. My dad was a high school teacher in the same high school I went to.
It was very tumultuous. You can imagine our house. There were split-ups and break-ups, this and that. My dad was a party guy. All the students loved him. I hated him for that.
He was separated from my mom. He was a cheater and a liar. There were a lot of things that bothered me.
After I graduated high school, I had a partial scholarship to go to Eastern Illinois University, but I showed my dad. I got in my little car and drove to Wyoming. That just became my lifestyle, drinking, drugging, roaming all around the country as a young man.
Then I eventually got married to a gal I met down in Kentucky. We had three children really fast. I would say that we got along about three times. That was Emily, Amy, and Mark. We were divorced after five years. Then I was just as a young man and a young adult, just wild and crazy.
Laura Dugger: (9:48 - 10:05) Wow. Brian, thank you for sharing a glimpse of your childhood and even into adulthood. Just for clarification then, when you did get divorced, did you stay in the same state or how did all of that work with your children?
Brian Butler: (10:08 - 16:52) Yeah. No. Like I said, when I was 18, I was out in California for a while. I was in Wyoming for a while. I landed in Kentucky and met my first wife. We had three kids really fast, divorced after five years.
Then I always wanted to be in a relationship with my children. I don't know if there's anybody out there listening, but I was really stuck in an addictive lifestyle. I was alcohol and drugs, just crazy in it.
I still loved my kids. Now, people on the outside looking in would say, oh, he doesn't love his kids by his lifestyle, but I still love my kids. I paid child support, crying out loud.
I really did. My relationship with my ex-wife was so volatile that she would prevent me from seeing the kids. After several years, I just gave up.
I just didn't give up on the visits and so on and so forth. I was in Tennessee for a few years. I was all around the country.
Eventually, in the late 90s, I did actually get temporary custody of my kids because my ex-wife had went off the rails bad. I had my kids for about a year that they lived with me. That was a sweet time.
Once again, my alcoholism and drug addiction and the mom came back into play. There were just so many issues there. That's when I really got into it.
After the kids went back to their mom, I got into hard drugs, really hard drugs. I started manufacturing methamphetamine, so on and so forth. There was a time, I'll back this up.
With my childhood and everything that happened there with my dad, before I got divorced from my ex-wife, one of the pivotal moments, I believe, looking back on my life and what led me into just this trajectory of anger and malice and hating God and anything that was good was the moment that my dad called us all together for a family meeting because him and my mom were officially going to get divorced. I was like 21 years old, something like that.
My dad came to tell us that he was a homosexual and that he had been living a homosexual lie for his whole life and that this was the lifestyle that he was choosing. For me, at that age, everything prior to that moment in my life just became a lie. I can't begin to even put into words what that did to me inside because of the perversion that I've experienced with my dad.
My father had made several comments along the way that I was gay, that I was going to be a little queer, a little this and that. I wasn't, but the things that he had done, then you've wrestled with all that stuff. I just became so angry and so fueled with resentment that I really started on this trajectory with my drug and alcohol use that even though I still liked it, I don't want to remove that from it.
I liked being high. I liked being drunk. I enjoyed all the aspects of that lifestyle at the time.
I went at it in a much different way because I didn't really care anymore. That's just from a looking back perspective. In the moment, I think I cared a lot about everything, but I just had really taken this perspective on in my personal life that nothing matters as much as it did.
It just really didn't matter. I was just going to keep moving forward and doing the things that I to the extreme. I was very extreme on everything.
If it was drinking, I'm going to drink more than you are. If it was smoking something, I'm going to smoke more than you are. If it was snorting, look at the schmoz.
That's just the way I lived my lifestyle. It really took on that trajectory in my adult life until the law started becoming an issue when I was in my 30s. After I'd had the kids for all my life, I tell folks, in those times, I was like a functioning zombie.
I was still getting high, still drinking, but golly, I was the dad that got up and had breakfast for the kids. I was a strict disciplinarian. I was over the top on so many things.
I was abusive in some ways like my dad was, the way that I spoke to the kids, the way that I treated my children. I didn't certainly know sexual abuse or anything like that with my own children, but I was a really strict disciplinarian. I regret that now.
It's one of my biggest regrets ever, the way that I treated those kids. I tried to make a good life for about a year. Then when they went back to their mom, it just really, really flew apart my life.
It was me doing it. I was flying it apart. I just destroyed everything around me.
If you've cared about me, then that would make me hate you even more. Anyone that cared about me, I would get you to care about me, and then I would hate you for caring about me. It's crazy making stuff, but that's the way that I live my life.
I eventually was introduced to a fellow that knew how to manufacture methamphetamine. He taught me the method. Of course, being the extreme person that I am, I went all in.
I became a methamphetamine manufacturer and dealer and lived that lifestyle for quite some time. It's not like it is now where you're driving around in cornfields with a five-gallon bucket making methamphetamine or Mexican methamphetamine. I had a lab down in Southern Illinois, and I sold a lot of methamphetamines, which is disastrous to me now, but I really became an in-my-own-mind gangster kind of person.
It was a very violent lifestyle. It was very awful, certainly nothing that you would want to glorify, but that's just who I became. And I lived my life for a number of years, and it was disastrous.
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Well, I'm hearing all of this for the first time, and it's unimaginable what you were endured growing up, and my heart just aches to hear what happened and then hear the choices that were produced out of that and see where that lifestyle was leading you. But Brian, I just appreciate you for so many reasons, and one of those is for being transparent and vulnerable but also sharing the truth that there was some pleasure in it. You were enjoying it for a while, and the Bible does talk about pleasures of sin for a season, but we all know that that trajectory leads to death, even if it's death of relationships.
So, looking at your relationships at that time, were you still in contact with your mom or your brother or your dad throughout all of this?
Brian Butler: (19:28 - 21:37) No, not really. My brother, it's an interesting story. My brother had married a gal right out of high school.
He got born again. He became a Christian. So poor guy, I just tortured him my whole adult life.
I just made fun of him, and I called him weak, and he was a crutch, and we got in even physical fights over it a couple times, but we didn't have much of a relationship as you can imagine. I think that there were several times that we tried to reach out and be in contact, but it just didn't work due to my addictions and my alcoholism and his pride and all those other kinds of things. My mom held on to me for years.
I put my mother through, I tortured her. I was arrested seven times for driving under the influence. I had five DUI convictions.
I was in and out of trouble. I was always in the forefront of her mind, and I've experienced this with my own children after I came to Christ, continually worried that she wouldn't get the phone call that her son was dead, basically. The last two or three years of my being out there, I had no contact with my mom because she finally said, you're dead to me.
I'm done. You're not my son. I don't want to hear from you, and I was like, cool.
I don't care. You've been dead to me for 40 years, right? I blamed her for allowing things to happen.
It just wasn't true, right? I mean, it wasn't her fault at all of any of my childhood, and she was just trying to be a good mom and save her marriage, and she was being abused mentally and stuff that whole time. But you know how we are as sinful creatures.
I didn't want to take the blame on me because it wasn't my fault, so I was blaming everybody else around me. So, I didn't really have any solid relationships as far as family, anything like that goes while I was out there in my addiction. It all changed when I was arrested in 2003.
So that's a story.
Laura Dugger: (21:38 - 21:43) Are you willing to take us back to 2003 and share that story?
Brian Butler: (21:45 - 38:08) Yeah, yeah. So I was, like I said, I had become, you know, I was living a gangster life, so I was in the drug world, and I don't know if anybody knows anything about the drug world, but it's not like the movies. It's worse.
It's worse than they depict in movies. So, I was living that lifestyle for several years. I had a lot of money. I had a lot of guns. I had a lot of property. I had all the methamphetamine I could possibly use because I was manufacturing it.
I was selling more than I could possibly imagine. I was using more than that. I was king of the world is what I thought while everything around me was burning.
I was the king, if that makes any sense. And so that was the lifestyle that had led up to 2003. I'll never forget one time I had married another gal after my first wife and I had divorced several years later, and that was just a relationship based on lies and substance abuse.
So, it really wasn't a marriage at all, but I had been arrested in Vincennes, Indiana for dealing narcotics, and I had some other arrests down in Kentucky for dealing narcotics, and I made bail and all this. And so, what happened was in 2002, I went on the run. I still had my meth lab, and I was still selling lots of methamphetamine, but I had these warrants, and I was king of the world in my mind, and nobody was going to catch me, and I was going out like a gangster.
They were never going to take me alive, this fact. So, she went with me, which is great. She was crazy.
And we went on the run, and we just lived from casino to casino. I would make methamphetamine. I would sell $20,000 worth, and then we just kind of traveled around and lived that kind of lifestyle.
And I'll never forget one time down at the Casino Queen in St. Louis, Missouri. There's a casino down there. I just done a pretty big dope deal, and the casino was hot, and the air conditioning was down, and it was like 5 o'clock in the morning, and I just had to get out of there.
I just had to get away, and I got in my van and took a spin down in Belleville, Illinois, and I ended up in a cemetery on top of this cemetery, and it was looking down this great big hill. And I haven't been there since, but people from that area are like, yeah, I know that cemetery. I'm like, yeah, well, that's where I really had my Lieutenant Dan moment with God almost.
I sat on top of that. I was so, I can't explain it. I had lived my life in that addiction, loving that addiction, and loving getting high, loving drinking.
At that point in my life, I was still doing it. I hated myself, and I wanted to die, and I didn't like it so much anymore. I just wanted it to be over, and I kind of had it out with God.
I was drinking a fifth of whiskey, and I'm smoking methamphetamine. I'm a nine-millimeter pistol, and I'm putting it in my mouth. I was too much of a coward to pull the trigger, so that made me even more angry, and I thought for a moment that God might be real, and that there might be something worth living, but it was just a moment, and I kind of gathered myself together, and I went back to the casino, and just like as if nothing had happened, and just a few weeks later, I was arrested in Washington, Indiana.
I had made arrangements to see my kids. I had my kids for the weekend, which is crazy to think that I was in any kind of shape to be around my kids, but I was. I was always a functioning guy, and I was a gangster, so we had the kids for a weekend, and when the kids left the location I was at, my ex-wife called the police and told them where I was, and so that led into a great big chase, and there was all kinds of SWAT teams and all kinds of things.
I was holed up in a house at one point, and police were banging on the windows and trying to get in the house, and eventually they called on the telephone, and it just kept ringing and kept ringing and kept ringing. I'm stuck in this house. I didn't have my guns.
I didn't have any drugs. I didn't have a cigarette, right, and the crazy thing about that whole thing is, I'll just back to the subject, so I'm in this chase, right, on foot from the police. I tried to pull a guy out of his pickup truck.
Of all things, God put this guy in the pickup truck. He was an off-duty police officer, and so I'm trying to carjack an off-duty police officer. He's having none of it.
I get away from him. I get in this. I'm running through a residential neighborhood trying to get any door open that I possibly could to get away from the police who were chasing me, and I made it to an open door, and I opened up that door, and it was an insurance company, and there were a bunch of little ladies sitting around computers in this room, and I was just like, hey, can I get a glass of water, and out there I am sweating profusely just in 10 o'clock in the morning with Harley Davidson boots, Hawaiian t-shirt, obviously in distress, and I scared these ladies to death, and I'm hearing them call the police anyway, and I just grabbed a glass of water and went out on that front porch, and some fella drove up in a pickup truck and got out of the truck to come in to do business with the insurance company, and I went and stole his truck, and I was able to get away and get to a safe spot.
I think it's safe because I'm only there for about three or four minutes, and the police show up all the way around that house, and so they're calling. They're banging on the windows. We know it's you in there.
You need to come out, and eventually after about an hour or so of that, I did answer the phone, and the police officer said, I had a fake ID, and they were like, we know you're not Bill Berkshire. We know that you're Brian Butler. You need to come out of that house.
You need to come out of there now, or we're going to come and get you, and I said, well, try it, because I'll kill the first three of you through the door. Now, they had already confiscated my fan and guns and all that kind of stuff, but they didn't know what I had. I didn't have anything.
There was a six-foot decorative simmer I swore on the wall that couldn't cut butter that I was arming myself with, and it took about another hour or two, and the SWAT team showed up, and they eventually got me out of that house. I was arrested and facing 120 years in the 20th century. I had multiple carjacking, dealing, manufacturing, every possible imaginable that you could possibly imagine of illegal substances.
I had those on me in my van and the property, and so there was the chase and all that happened, so they were unwilling to run any of those charges concurrent. They took four major charges and said, we're going to run a consecutive, and I was facing 120 years in prison. Honestly, when I was in jail, it was kind of like a relief in a way.
I was so angry. I was delusional. I really thought that the people who owed me money were going to break me out.
That's how delusional I was. They didn't, but that's where I had a moment, and I come back to my mom. I'd been in jail about a month, and what had happened was my mom came to the jail, and she didn't come there for a visit.
She came on a Saturday morning, and the police let her in, and she wanted to know if I would sign papers because I still had temporary custody of my children on paper and if my brother could have legal custody over my kids while all this was going on. Because my children, I'll back that up, my children were in Kentucky with their mom, my youngest daughter at that time. I was 14 years old, and she was using methamphetamine.
She was into alcohol. She wasn't being supervised. She was in abusive relationships with her mother's friends.
She was cutting herself because her daddy was going away forever. That was my daughter, and I loved her, and I was just taken aback that my brother would go down and rescue her. The whole story of how I came to Christ is all involved in this.
I'm kind of all over the place, but the Friday night prior to my mom showing up at the jail, back in those days in jail, there was no overcrowding in Indiana, and there were 16 of us in a six-man cell, and I had been in that jail for, like I said, three or four weeks, and on Friday nights, they would have the Gideons come in. Now, the only thing I knew about a Gideon was those Bibles that they put in hotels, and I was none too interested in any God talk. I didn't believe in that.
I just didn't want anything to do with that. As a matter of fact, I was mad about it, but after three or four weeks of being in there smelling nothing but feet and urine, I was willing to do anything for 15 minutes to get out of that cell, and so I agreed to go, and me and two other guys went up to a visitation booth, and there was a little fella in there, and he was very nice, but I couldn't tell you anything he said for the 15 minutes, nothing.
I wasn't paying attention. I was just sitting there looking around, just glad to be out of that cell, but at the end of that 15 minutes, he knocked on the window, and he pointed at me. He said, can I pray for you, and I said, hell no, you can't pray for me.
I don't want your prayers. I'm not here for your prayer, and whatever language it was, I was very vile. I said, but if you want to pray for something, you think that God of yours is listening, you pray for my daughter, and I kind of told her a little bit about what's going on with my kid.
I said, and so you pray for her, and he did, and I can't tell you what he prayed because I really wasn't listening, but it was nice, and I remember that night going back to my cell, and with my Catholic upbringing and everything that had happened, I think I probably said a little prayer myself that night to this God that I didn't believe in, and then a week later, my mom shows up telling me that my brother in Cleveland, Ohio, born again Christian, that the very night that this guy was praying, my brother and his wife decided to come down to Vincent's, Indiana, and they got my mom, and they drove to Owensburg, Kentucky, and literally kidnapped my daughter and took her back to live with them, and I wasn't, I was just kind of in a haze.
I wasn't putting all that together in the moment, and like I said, mom wasn't there for a visit, and I was just like Mark, would you do that for me? He went and got Amy. I just couldn't believe it, and she's like, yes, I just need you to sign the paper so I can get out of here, and so I did, and that night, I was back in that jail cell, and all those lights were off, and man, the Holy Spirit of God fell on me, and he told me he was real, and to the best of my ability, I confessed my sins.
I repented for my sins. I was just, I just spent the whole night as a 40-year-old gangster, blubber, and idiot in a jail cell just crying about everything, just about my dad, about my lifestyle. I missed my kids.
It just came crashing down on me, and I believe that that was the night that I was truly born again. I believe that God had his hand on me before the foundation of the world. He knew me, and that he loved me, and he chose me, and that I loved him as a little boy, and for whatever happened in my life that I chose to ignore him and run away from him and hate him, but through his mercy and grace and through even facing 120 years in the penitentiary that he saved me, and I believe that night that I got saved, and I just told him, I know we're not supposed to make a deal with God, but it was just kind of like, man, I believe you're real. I don't know anything about you.
I don't know what, you know, my Catholic brother, I don't know if Mary has anything to do with this. I don't know nothing about you, but I believe you're real, and I'll do anything you tell me for the rest of my life if you just take this taste out of my mouth. I just don't want this addiction. I don't want all this crap anymore, and in that moment, he did.
I really believe that he took that away from me, and I've been following him kind of ever since. The next morning when they opened up the cell, we went out to the day room. I'll never forget. There was a Bible there. Now, that Bible's been there the whole time, but it's the first time I see the Bible, and I kind of, you know, I'm still struggling.
I've been up all night, and I'm kind of wiped out anyway, drinking instant coffee and, you know, having a God experience, and there's a Bible, and I pick up this Bible, and it was in Romans chapter five. I'll never get it, and I'll just paraphrase, but I remember reading the verses that having been justified by faith, and it just kind of hit me that I wish I really believed God was real, and I don't know what that means, and I don't know anything about it, but I went on to read that I was no longer his enemy and that I could have peace with him and that he was going to give me good character and that I could persevere. It didn't matter what I had in front of me, so it was just God speaking to me in those moments that I'm going to be with you through all this, and it was just a wonderful, life-changing experience. It didn't, you know, sanctification takes a long time.
I still was sentenced to 15 years in prison, which was a miracle, right? I was facing 120, and there it was nothing that I had done prior to my conversion. I had been in front of a judge, and I had a $1 million full cash bond.
I was in front of the judge, and I'm like, I want a bond reduction. The judge is like; you're telling me you're going to pay $100,000 to get out of jail. I said, angrily, you could reduce my bond, and he said, denied.
We're not going to do that, and that was the last time I really talked to a judge or an attorney, and I sat in jail for six or seven months, and this attorney that was appointed to me after the one that I fired, he came to me one time and said, hey, they're willing to give you a 15-year sentence in prison if that's what you want to do, and I said, okay. I wasn't concerned about prison. I wasn't concerned.
I just wanted to do what the Lord wanted me to, and that's been my whole life since. People will ask me about prison. It was horrible, as you can imagine.
I was in the state of Indiana. There were no separation of offenders at that time. I was in a medium-max facility, so I was doing time with guys who were doing life, which were the best guys to do it with because they were just doing life, and then little gangbangers from Indianapolis.
It was a terrible affair. Every kind of drug possible, every kind of perversion possible was there, but it's where I met Jesus, and it's where I learned to follow Christ, and I had a godly man come alongside of me in the prison, Pastor Woodcocks, who just assigned my guy, and he helped me to work through so many things and to be a man of truth and integrity and all the different things that he taught me, so while I look back at that, and I say, yeah, prison sucked.
It was awful, and I never want to go back again in that capacity, but it's where I learned to follow Christ, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I wouldn't trade that time for anything. I needed every ounce of that time to become closer to him and to be less about me, and then I got out of prison in 2009.
It was a shock probation here to Peoria, Illinois, where my oldest daughter was at that time, and I moved in with her. She's been following Jesus ever since. It's not been an easy road, right?
It's not been being a convicted felon and having all those things, but God does, if he is for us, who can be against us, right? He has really, really, really been by my side. There's been so many things that have happened.
I could go on for hours and hours and hours, but that's how I came to Jesus and where I got to know Jesus and where I really solidified my relationship with, I believe, and he's saved.
Laura Dugger: (38:10 - 38:55) What an incredible journey he took you on.
Did you know you could receive a free email with monthly encouragement, practical tips, and plenty of questions to ask to take your conversation a level deeper, whether that's in parenting or on date nights? Make sure you access all of this at thesavvysauce.com by clicking the button that says join our email list so that you can follow the prompts and begin receiving these emails at the beginning of each month. Enjoy.
So, then Brian, as a freed man at that point, once you were out of prison, how did you eventually find your way to what is now Pathway Ministries?
Brian Butler: (38:57 - 45:56) It's been a wild ride. I got out of prison thinking I was going to be a prison minister and there was going to be all kinds of things that were going to happen. You kind of buy into that prosperity stuff while I was locked up.
I really thought that there were big things in store. After I was out of prison for about three months, it was 2009, and so the economy in Peoria was really bad. The cap shut down.
Places weren't hiring. I couldn't find a job anywhere. I remember going to Kroger in Madison Park.
If anybody remembers Madison Park Kroger in Peoria, it was a really rough part of town. They were banging out in the parking lot. I'm here.
I called the manager and he said set up a time for an interview. I went to the interview, and I took him my resume. They taught us in the penitentiary and in classes.
I got a bachelor's degree in prison, by the way. I filled out my resume, and I filled the time up in my resume with the prison ministry I was involved in. Just so you don't have that slack of time.
The manager said, oh, I see that you were in a prison ministry. Man, that's amazing. Did they let you in there every day?
Well, I lived there. I was in prison at that time. This is what I was doing while I was in prison.
His words to me shook me to the core because he handed me back that resume and he said, “We don't hire your kind here.” I'm telling you, after all the disappointment I have for two or three months of not being able to find a job and rejection after rejection, I walked out in the parking lot. My daughter took me back to her house and I remember sitting on the end of her bed.
I'm not a crier, really, but at that time I think I might have been crying a little bit. She was bawling and I was just like, “Just take me down to the shelter. I don't want to be any more of a burden to this family. Please, I got to go.”
She's like, “Don't give up, dad, don't give up.” I'm like, “I'll give it up, oh God, I just don't want to be a burden.”
She said, “Just wait, just wait, just give it a little more time.” I agreed to do that. That week, through the grapevine, one of the friends of a guy that she went to church with, John McCormick, at McCormick Auto Place in Belleville, Illinois, called and said, “Hey, I heard through the grapevine you're having a hard time getting a job. I need somebody washing cars.”
That was a far cry from, you know, I'm a 46-year-old man and I'd walk around with briefcases full of money. It was a humbling experience, but I went to work for John, and he ended up, you know, as a Christian, he was just a Christ follower.
He accepted me into his family. I went from 10 hours a week to part-time. I eventually got a part-time job at the Salvation Army.
They called me. It was one of the first places I put in a resume. Paul Cousin called me from the Salvation Army.
He's like, “Hey, I don't know why we never saw your resume before, but we need help. Would you like to come to work at the safety net working with homeless guys?” I'm thinking, well, you know, I've been homeless, so sure.
And I went down there and I started working there. And so eventually that turned into a full-time job at the Salvation Army. And I stayed working washing cars.
I washed cars for 12 years with John. He's just so great. He's one of the greatest Christian dudes you ever met.
He just, he was so vital in my Christian walk in my life. But I was at the Salvation Army. I was running, believe it or not, the lead case manager of Drop-In Center for the Homeless.
And I had conversations with Peoria Rescue Mission at that time, Peoria Rescue Ministries. Now, I'd never been there. I thought they were religious zealots.
You know, it was everything. It was so religious that the guys couldn't be there. But I did know that they did not allow drugs or alcohol.
And so, when I would meet a man that was struggling with addiction and they wanted to get out of them, I would call and talk to Lee and say, “Hey, listen, I got a guy I think would be good for your fit. Can I send him down there?” And so, we kind of built this bond.
Lee and I had this relationship over the phone. I'd never met the guy ever. Back in those days, Lee was really into sending those funny little emails.
You know, they always have a little cartoon or a little message. You know, the email knows that when you're really busy at work, you kind of start deleting after a while. And one day he sent me an email, and it said, “Are you interested?”
And for some reason, I opened it. And I know the reason is God. And he said that they had a position as the assistant director of the rescue mission, but I'd be interested in coming down and applying for the job.
And I went down and met with Lee. And one thing led to another. My wife, Pam, who I'm married to now, I consider my wife.
I can't believe that I'm married to somebody who loves God. Now, I know we're supposed to stay the way that we are, biblically a single and all these things scripturally as we come to Christ to stay that way. But this is my first marriage.
This is my marriage. In Christ, we're in marriage. She is the most wonderful. She's my gift that God just kind of gave me to care for and to nurture and to love her the way that I should. But she really encouraged me. At the time of the Salvation Army, we were HUD funded.
I couldn't openly share my faith. I always had to take back doors to it. And she's like, this is what you've always prayed for.
They'll let you do that there, take the job. And so, I did. And that's how I came on at Peoria Rescue Ministries.
Eventually it became Pathway Ministries. I just kind of worked as Mr. Rokey, came on board in 2016. And then in 2018, we're really trying to do some things back there.
And from the way we used to do them, meeting people in crisis, I had a lot of good ideas. And John had a lot of great ideas. And we're on the same page.
And he asked me to be program director. And I'm like, well, I'd love to, if I can write a program. And so, he just gave me free reign.
And then now I'm the director of residential ministries at Pathway Ministries. Just being able to allow God to blow that whole thing up. And he has to meet people just like me, just like so many other sons and daughters out there that need to have a God block put in front of them while they're in their crisis.
And so, it's just been a beautiful thing. And I just praise God for all the leadership and just what we've been able to do. And that's how I came to Pathway Ministries.
Just being able to do God's work there. It's incredible. It's crazy.
Putting it in a nutshell is really hard because there's been so many things that the Lord has done personally and through the ministry. It has just been incredible, the path that he's had me.
Laura Dugger: (45:57 - 46:35) You do such an amazing work there, and it is a worthy ministry to support. We'll definitely put links in the show notes for today's episode for Pathway Ministries. And that's a whole other conversation to talk about the miracles witnessed there.
But just to go back and close a few loops, I'm sorry, I'm going to throw a few things at you. So, when did Pam come into the picture? And what's a current snapshot of your life with your children now?
And what did forgiveness look like with your family of origin?
Brian Butler: (46:37 - 52:04) Yeah, so my father passed away while I was in prison. It was an amazing story with my dad. He met me in prison and wanted to meet with me.
And I hadn't seen my father in years, and he came to the prison lot. I had worked through the forgiveness of my dad, I think, before we met, but he came to ask my forgiveness. And I'll never forget, he said, Brian, I made the wrong choice.
My whole life, I've made the wrong choices. And I'm just really sorry. And so, it was a sweet moment with me and him.
I'm not saying that we had a, you know, it wasn't like we're father, son kind of stuff. But when he passed away, there's no false guilt. There's no guilt.
There's nothing I'm trusting. He even actually became a minister of the Catholic Church in the place that he lived. And I believe that he came to faith in Christ and Christ alone.
So, it was really something to see that transformation in my dad, even though he was, you know, he saw a lot of stuff. But I truly believe that the father entered his heart. My mom, shortly after I was incarcerated, after that experience at the jail, started to come around a little bit and supported me.
You know, and I think the biggest thing that helped me in or helped our relationship in the prison was I didn't ask for things. When I was able to talk to my mother, I was able to say, how are you? And just kind of relieve her of the burden.
It was bad enough that her son was in prison. It was bad enough that she had to see her son on the evening news and everything that I put her through. I just wanted to mend that and just to comfort my mom and just love my mom the best possible.
So, our relationship really grew through those days. And it's so amazing. So, here's a woman that said, you're dead to me, and I don't want around anymore.
In 2019, my mom and stepdad have been since Indiana, and they're aging now. They're in their early 80s. But in 2019, we had a family conversation, and she wanted to move to Peoria, Illinois, so that my wife and I could take care of her and him in their old age.
So, they lived two miles away from us, and we were able to meet my mom. It's crazy. And just to be able to be in a relationship with her and to be able to care for her, getting ready to take a trip down to Kentucky to see her sister, and all that entails.
So, it's just been a wonderful blessing for a relationship. My mom knows God's real because he's changed me and my children. While I didn't beat them over the head with the Bible, they know that God is real because they've seen him work in me.
They've all struggled with addiction and all those kinds of things. But I'm happy to say that all three of them are clean and sober. Right now, my son followed in my footsteps.
Unfortunately, he grew up, even though I wasn’t there. I was divorced from his mother when he was two years old. But he always looked to me, and he always saw the tough guy and the gangster.
And I think that's what he really wanted to be. He ended up getting a prison sentence, and he spent 13 years in prison. And he is getting out in February.
So that's encouraging. But all three of them are clean and sober, and those relationships have been restored. Pam and I, you can imagine, Pam had no idea about addiction or lifestyle or gangsters.
So I am completely off the rails, foreign to her. But she tells me all the time, she doesn't know that old guy. All she knows is me.
And she can hear stories, and she can hear testimonies. And of course, my mom is very open to share anything at a family dinner about Brian, which I'm like, please, mom, don't talk. But she hears those stories, and she just says, I don't know that man.
I don't know who that was. This is the man I'm married to. And so, it's just, we have a wonderful relationship.
She's my biggest supporter, my biggest fan. We pray together. We love the Lord together. It's really something. I'm not saying that we haven't had a lot of hurt because my kids have been in addiction. I'm saying it hasn't been really, really hard.
But through those sufferings, that's how Jesus makes it more like him, through those sufferings and through those hard times. And he's given me an avenue personally to be able to help others. So, I love that scripture.
It gives us this comfort. We needed the comfort so that one day you can comfort others with that same kind of comfort. So, he's enabled me to be in a position where I can comfort other folks in addiction and build great teams here at Pathway that are ministering to the folks that we serve in a meaningful way for the Lord.
And then I've been able to serve my wife. I've been able to serve her and that's what I want to do.
Laura Dugger: (52:05 - 52:31) Oh, it is evident to see you two at church and see you two holding hands and just your gentle way of interacting with each other is even a testimony. So how incredible that God has restored so much that was broken. And even going back to your brother Mark, was he rejoicing to hear you were now walking with Jesus as your Lord and Savior?
Brian Butler: (52:32 - 54:07) Yeah, well, at first it was kind of like the prodigal son story, and he was the big brother rather than me. I think at first there was a lot of, and rightfully so, I was no good. And so, I had the hearing officer tell me one time in Springfield Illinois when I was trying to get my driver's license back, which was another God story.
And I have a driver's license after five DUIs. I had that hearing officer tell me, even though I had been clean and sober for seven years, he said, you know, talk is cheap. He said, walking it is different.
So, you come back and see me in a year and when you've walked it, then we'll have a talk about giving you a driver's license. And I've always kind of stored that in my heart with my relationship with my brother. And now after my brother has seen me walk it, we have a pretty good relationship.
We're in cahoots because I'm taking care of mom. And so, we have a pretty good relationship there. Yeah, so it's been really a miracle.
Miracles of what has happened in relationships. Now some relationships that I've had, even with family members, you know, hey, that Brian Butler is still nothing but a no-good dope dealing maniac. And we're, you know, we're done.
And that's okay. That's God's job. My job is to keep walking the walk and talking the talk and sticking close to him and not letting anything get in the way of that and doing whatever I can to restore relationships and then let God do the rest.
And so, it's been, it's hard, but good. Yeah.
Laura Dugger: (54:08 - 54:22) You are a new creation. And Brian, I know you could continue teaching us so many things. Is there any encouragement you want to share before our conversation comes to a close?
Brian Butler: (54:23 - 56:46) Yeah, I would just say if you're, I had some, when I was going through it with my daughter, I had a lot of good counselors around me. And then I got some advice that I didn't follow. And I'm so glad that I didn't.
I certainly think that if when we meet people that are in living destructive lifestyles, or you have a child in addiction and alcoholism, and they are just burning everything down around you, absolutely to set up boundaries and to limit communication to where they're draining you to death. But if they're still breathing, then there's still hope. And we should never forget that there's hope and that God is so much bigger, and we can trust him with them more than what we can do with them.
I struggled for years with my daughter in addiction and being up in the middle of the night, just waiting on a phone call and praying and pleading and even thinking, Lord, it would be better if she was just gone. If you just took her, would you? It's so harrowing.
But I never cut off communication completely because when she came out of the pig pen, I'm going to run. Now there were several runs that I made that, you know, she wasn't really out of the pig pen, but I don't regret that. And my daughter will say to a lot of folks, even though inside I kind of gave up in certain times, but I didn't make the life to end.
And she'll say, my dad never gave up on me. My dad was always there for me. And so, I just want to encourage people, if they're breathing, there's still hope and you can still put up boundaries and be strong and not give in and not give money and not do all those things, but there's still hope and our hope was in Christ.
And then we can hope that he does that work and that he'll do that work in us as we're hoping him to do it in others. So that's what I would just leave with folks that are really going through it because I've been through it. I've put people through it.
It's a tangled web and there's a whole lot, but you need to be around people that are going to love you and care for you and come around to you. You need to tell the truth to other people so that you don't hide it because it will destroy you.
Laura Dugger: (56:47 - 57:22) That's so good, Brian. How special to have her daddy never give up on her. And it reflects that greater truth that our heavenly father never gives up on any of us. And he died for us even while we were still sinners. Thank you for sharing that.
And you may be familiar that we are called The Savvy Sauce because savvy is synonymous with practical knowledge. And so, as my final question for you today, Brian, what is your savvy sauce?
Brian Butler: (57:24 - 58:36) I would say my savvy sauce is living in a daytight compartment, living this life one moment at a time, one day at a time, certainly making plans for the future, certainly living that life out. But I'm going to do what the Lord wants me to do right now. And then what he wants me to do next and what he wants me to do after that.
But just really staying in that daytight compartment. You know, I teach our students all the time at Pathway Ministries, really when we come to faith, this is really simplistic, but after we come to faith in the Lord Jesus, it really is about doing the next little right thing. And then the next little right thing after that, and the next little right thing after that.
And no one does the next little right thing all the time. But when you don't do the next little right thing, you get up and do the next little right thing. Understanding that sometimes doing the next little right thing might be the hardest thing you've ever done in your life.
And so, if we stay in that daytime compartment with Jesus, he'll help us through that next little right thing. And so that's my savvy. So, I was just staying in the moment and doing the next little right thing.
Laura Dugger: (58:37 - 59:08) Oh, I love that so much. Ryan, you are an admirable man who walks the walk, and God has gifted you with such passion and such a compelling story. So, thank you for continuing to faithfully obey him.
You are certainly shining in our community and faithfully serving our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, thank you for being my guest.
Brian Butler: (59:09 - 59:11) Thank you so much, Laura Dugger. We love you.
Laura Dugger: (59:11 - 1:02:28) We love you, too.
One more thing before you go, have you heard the term gospel before? It simply means good news. And I want to share the best news with you, but it starts with the bad news.
Every single one of us were born sinners, but Christ desires to rescue us from our sin, which is something we cannot do for ourselves. This means there's absolutely no chance we can make it to heaven on our own. So, for you and for me, it means we deserve death, and we can never pay back the sacrifice we owe to be saved.
We need a savior, but God loved us so much. He made a way for his only son to willingly die in our place as the perfect substitute. This gives us hope of life forever in right relationship with him.
That is good news. Jesus lived the perfect life. We could never live and died in our place for our sin.
This was God's plan to make a way to reconcile with us so that God can look at us and see Jesus. We can be covered and justified through the work Jesus finished. If we choose to receive what he has done for us, Romans 10:9 says, “that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
So, you pray with me now. Heavenly father, thank you for sending Jesus to take our place. I pray someone today right now is touched and chooses to turn their life over to you.
Will you clearly guide them and help them take their next step in faith to declare you as Lord of their life? We trust you to work and change lives now for eternity. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen. If you prayed that prayer, you are declaring him for me. So, me for him, you get the opportunity to live your life for him.
And at this podcast, we're called The Savvy Sauce for a reason. We want to give you practical tools to implement the knowledge you have learned. So, you're ready to get started.
First, tell someone, say it out loud, get a Bible. The first day I made this decision, my parents took me to Barnes and Noble and let me choose my own Bible. I selected the Quest NIV Bible and I love it.
You can start by reading the book of John. Also get connected locally, which just means tell someone who's a part of a church in your community that you made a decision to follow Christ. I'm assuming they will be thrilled to talk with you about further steps such as going to church and getting connected to other believers to encourage you.
We want to celebrate with you too. So, feel free to leave a comment for us here. If you did make a decision to follow Christ, we also have show notes included where you can read scripture that describes this process.
And finally, be encouraged. Luke 15:10 says, “in the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” The heavens are praising with you for your decision today.
And if you've already received this good news, I pray you have someone to share it with. You are loved and I look forward to meeting you here next time.
Welcome to The Savvy Sauce
Practical chats for intentional living
A faith-based podcast and resources to help you grow closer to Jesus and others. Expect encouragement, surprises, and hope here. Each episode offers lively interviews with fascinating guests such as therapists, authors, non-profit founders, and business leaders.
They share their best practices and savvy tips we can replicate to make our daily life and relationships more enjoyable!
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