Speaker 1: Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome to Claudie Grooves. I'm your girl,
Speaker 1: is your risen? Thank you for joining me. The title
Speaker 1: is stay Sober, Stay awake, right So, if you're n ever,
Speaker 1: does some beloved take a seat real quick, let's talk.
Speaker 1: Get get comfortable, because right now this is not a
Speaker 1: soft word.
Speaker 2: This is a fire word.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about something that has
Speaker 1: been sitting on my spirit for a while now, something
Speaker 1: I can't keep silent about anymore, and that is the
Speaker 1: state of some of our gospel stages, the state of
Speaker 1: some of our pull pits, the state of the people
Speaker 1: we have trusted to carry the anointing, and what happens
Speaker 1: when they show up compromised.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Gospel singers showing up to a sacred events intoxicated. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about pastors stepping into pullpits impaired, And I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the people around them, the promoters, the handlers, the
Speaker 1: ministry leaders, who saw it, who knew it, and who
Speaker 1: let them go up anyway, Shame on the artist who
Speaker 1: shows up altered to sing about deliverance they are not
Speaker 1: currently walking in. And shame shame on the person who
Speaker 1: allowed it. The one holding the microphone standing who could
Speaker 1: have said not tonight, baby, the one backstage who smelled it,
Speaker 1: who saw the stumple, who noticed the glassy eyes, and
Speaker 1: who whispered just get them through the set. That person
Speaker 1: is not innocent. That person is complex because when you
Speaker 1: enable a compromise vessel to stand in a sacred space,
Speaker 1: you are not protecting the ministry. You are protecting a lie.
Speaker 1: And that don't sit well with me at all. This
Speaker 1: is why.
Speaker 2: People don't want to go to church.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about sobriety, actually what it means, Okay, because
Speaker 1: I don't think we've been honest about it. Be sober,
Speaker 1: be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion,
Speaker 1: walketh about seeking whom he may devour. According to one
Speaker 1: Peter five to eight, right, that word, quote unquote sober.
Speaker 1: That's not a suggestion. It is a command tied directly
Speaker 1: to survival. It is tied directly to rather or not
Speaker 1: you get devoured. And when you step they don't want
Speaker 1: me talk. Oh shut up, I'm gonna talk. And when
Speaker 1: you step onto a stage and pair, when you step
Speaker 1: into a pull pit, not in your right mind, you
Speaker 1: are not vigilant. You are exposed. You are exactly what
Speaker 1: the enemy is looking for, an open door. Let us
Speaker 1: not sleep as do others, but let us watch and
Speaker 1: be sober first Thessalonians five and six. Watching requires clarity.
Speaker 1: You cannot watch over a flock. You cannot watch over
Speaker 1: a congregation. You cannot watch over an altar call. If
Speaker 1: you cannot even watch over yourself. If you cannot stay
Speaker 1: sober for one hour on a stage where people are
Speaker 1: reaching for a hope, what does that say about.
Speaker 2: The nine other hours nobody's watching.
Speaker 1: I need us to sit with that, because here's what's
Speaker 1: really happening. We have created a culture, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say it plainly, a culture in gospel spaces where talent
Speaker 1: has been allowed to cover for character, where a voice
Speaker 1: that can hit a note that makes the building shake
Speaker 1: right gets a pass on everything else. We're a preacher
Speaker 1: who can quote unquote bring the word on Sunday gets
Speaker 1: excused for what he's.
Speaker 2: Doing Monday through Saturday.
Speaker 1: We have let the anointing become a costume that covers
Speaker 1: up rots. And that is not grace that is enabling,
Speaker 1: but grace of Yahweh that bringing salvation and has appeared
Speaker 1: to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldliness,
Speaker 1: we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world.
Speaker 1: Accordnatitus to eleven and twelve. So read that again. Grace teaches.
Speaker 1: Grace does not excuse, Grace does not look the other way.
Speaker 1: While you stuffle to the mic, Grace is actively daily
Speaker 1: teaching you to deny what would destroy you. If your
Speaker 1: relationship to Grace has become a rationalization for your relationship
Speaker 1: to substances, that is not Grace anymore. That is a counterfeit.
Speaker 1: And I want to speak now to the ones enabling it.
Speaker 2: You know who you are.
Speaker 1: You're the manager who books the artists, even though you
Speaker 1: know you're the church member who covers for the pastor
Speaker 1: because quote unquote he's been through a law drunk again.
Speaker 1: You're the sound engineer who's been in every single you
Speaker 1: know you're there every single week, right, and just turns
Speaker 1: the mic of Louder to hide the slur in the words.
Speaker 1: You are not protecting the ministry. You are protecting an image.
Speaker 1: An image cannot save anybody. Shame on the person who
Speaker 1: allowed it. I said it, I said it once, and
Speaker 1: I'll say it again. Shame on that person who allowed it,
Speaker 1: because somebody needs to hear it in their own house today.
Speaker 1: If you knew, if you saw the stuffle, if you
Speaker 1: smelled it, if you notice the odds weren't right, if
Speaker 1: you clocked the shift in behavior backstage, and you still
Speaker 1: push that person onto the platform in front of people
Speaker 1: who came hungry, who came broken, who came believing they
Speaker 1: were about to receive something holy.
Speaker 2: You did not pre text them.
Speaker 1: You sacrifice them, and you sacrifice the people in the
Speaker 1: seats too awake to righteousness and sin, not first Corinth,
Speaker 1: then fifteen thirty four, awake, not asleep at the switch,
Speaker 1: not looking away because it's uncomfortable to confront somebody with
Speaker 1: a platform. Awake means you see it and you say something,
Speaker 1: even when it cost you the relationship, even when it
Speaker 1: cost you the booking, even when it cost you the
Speaker 1: tide from the ministry, even when it cost you a
Speaker 1: community of frauds.
Speaker 2: Let it leave you.
Speaker 1: I know this is heavy, but heavy things need to
Speaker 1: be said in the light, not a whispered about it
Speaker 1: in group chats about the fact I was a raging
Speaker 1: alcoholic for over twenty years, so I know how to
Speaker 1: get out of there if you're ready. So I know
Speaker 1: the subject is very heavy because a lot of people
Speaker 1: aren't there yet. They're not there to face themselves yet.
Speaker 2: But heavy things need to be said out loud.
Speaker 1: Here's what I want to leave with the artists, the singers,
Speaker 1: the preachers who are hearing this and know it's you.
Speaker 1: You were not called to perform sobriety. You were called
Speaker 1: to live it. There is a difference between hitting the
Speaker 1: notes and being in right standing with the God those
Speaker 1: notes are supposed to glorify. People can feel the difference,
Speaker 1: even when they.
Speaker 2: Can't name it. They can feel it. It's a frequency.
Speaker 1: They walk away from a set feeling empty, not because
Speaker 1: your voice was bad, but because what was behind the
Speaker 1: voice wasn't real in that moment. Be sober in all things.
Speaker 1: Indoor affliction two Timothy four and five in door. That's
Speaker 1: the word. Not perform your way through the affliction. Not
Speaker 1: mask it with a substance another type of subtence, and
Speaker 1: go sing anyway.
Speaker 2: No endure it.
Speaker 1: Sit in the discomfort of getting help, Sit in the
Speaker 1: humility of stepping back from the stage until you are
Speaker 1: actually well. That is not failure. That is the most
Speaker 1: honest worship you could possibly offer, stepping down instead of
Speaker 1: stepping up, compromise and to the ones enable, I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you a way forward too, because shame without
Speaker 1: a path is just cruelty, and that's not what this
Speaker 1: transmission is for.
Speaker 2: The way forward is one sentence, not tonight. That's it.
Speaker 1: You don't need a theological like defense, right. You don't
Speaker 1: need to have the confrontation conversation perfectly rehearsed.
Speaker 2: You just need the courage.
Speaker 1: To say not tonight. When someone is not fit to
Speaker 1: stand in a sacred space. I had to tell somebody
Speaker 1: today not today, because I know you coming from a
Speaker 1: dark place.
Speaker 2: I'm not there no more.
Speaker 1: That single sentence protects the artist from doing damage to
Speaker 1: their own testimony, and it protects the people in the
Speaker 1: room and deserve the real thing, not a performance covering
Speaker 1: up a crisis. I want you to imagine for a second,
Speaker 1: the person sitting in the fourth row, the one who
Speaker 1: drove two hours because they heard this ministry changes lives,
Speaker 1: the one who was one bad night away from giving
Speaker 1: it all up entirely, and they watch someone stumble through
Speaker 1: worship impaired, and they think to themselves, if this is
Speaker 1: what the anointed look like.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's nothing.
Speaker 1: To this after all, and that person walks out of
Speaker 1: there and ends their life.
Speaker 2: That is the cost.
Speaker 1: That is what's act on the line every single time
Speaker 1: we let this slide.
Speaker 2: So here's my clothing word.
Speaker 1: I want you to receive it exactly as it's meant.
Speaker 1: If you are the artist, get sober, get help, get honest,
Speaker 1: and step back from the platform until you can stand
Speaker 1: on it clean.
Speaker 2: There is no shame in stepping down to heal.
Speaker 1: There is only shame and staying up their compromise and
Speaker 1: calling it ministry. If you are the enabler, grow a
Speaker 1: freaking spine. Say not, tonights protect the room more than
Speaker 1: you protect the relationship or the reputation.
Speaker 2: And if you are.
Speaker 1: The one sitting in the seats watching all this happened,
Speaker 1: you are allowed to ask questions. You are allowed to
Speaker 1: expect sobriety from the people you trust with your spirit.
Speaker 2: That is not judgment.
Speaker 1: That is discernment, and discernment is a gift, not a sin.
Speaker 1: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
Speaker 1: of my life, according to Psalms twenty three six. But
Speaker 1: goodness and mercy are not an excuse to stay stuck.
Speaker 1: They are the reason we have the strength to get up,
Speaker 1: get clean, and do it right the next time.
Speaker 2: I've been where many of you are.
Speaker 1: I was a dedicated alcoholic for twenty plus years.
Speaker 2: I'm almost fifty now, but.
Speaker 1: More than half of my life was gone to alcoholism.
Speaker 1: Stay sober, please stay awake, Stay accountable to yourself and
Speaker 1: to each other. I've been where you are, and there
Speaker 1: is an exit when you're ready, but nobody can force
Speaker 1: you through that open door. This has been a cloudy,
Speaker 1: gruse transmission, and I'm out.