Brian Del Turco converses with Keith Payne to explore how lessons from his earthly father shaped his understanding of God’s Father heart. From a tough, charismatic union leader to a redeemed man of faith, Keith reflects on the wisdom, protection, and love he received and how it points to the perfect love of our heavenly Father. Together, they discuss fatherhood, redemption, and the multi-generational impact of God’s favor and guidance. This conversation is full of practical lessons, inspiring stories, and a reminder that God can redeem any situation.
See the complete episode transcript below.
Key Takeaways
✅Keith Payne discusses his new book, ‘Stuff I Got From Dad’, which reflects on the lessons he learned from his earthly father and how they relate to understanding God as our heavenly Father.
✅Be encouraged to recognize that regardless of your earthly father’s qualities, God embodies the perfection that fathers are meant to represent.
✅The healing and understanding of the Father heart of God can be transformative for individuals with complex father stories.
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Resources — Keith Payne
Keith Payne
KEITH PAYNE is a first-time author. He recently retired after a very successful career in financial services. His reputation as a developer of leaders is well known. Keith previously was a founding member of the gospel music ministry the Paynes, a well-known Southern gospel music group during the 1980s. Keith has had many roles: sales leader, coach, executive, music producer, recording engineer, musician, public speaker, and now author. He is husband to Charmaine, father to Justin, TJ, and Kyle. Keith is also grandfather (Big Papi) to seven grandkids and counting.
Carmia’s Window Charitable Fund website
Resources
The Smart Edit (thesmartedit.beehiiv.com). Advance in Christ. Live Smart. Free newsletter every Thursday.
Episode Transcript — Stuff I Got from Dad
Welcome to Jesus Smart X, episode 357. This is Brian Del Turco, and today we’re stepping into a conversation that hits home for every single one of us because all of us have a father story. The gospel music bed you’re hearing is from the Payne Family Group, a gospel group that Keith was part of along with his brothers.
I saw Keith Payne on Facebook talking about his new upcoming release, Stuff I Got From Dad, exploring how he relates his experiences with his earthly father to things about our heavenly Father—things he learned that transformed his understanding of God’s fatherhood. He’s on the podcast today talking about his new book by that title. It’s a great conversation with an inspiring person, and I think you’re going to enjoy it and benefit from it.
Understanding Fatherhood: Perfect and Imperfect
Maybe you had an amazing dad, or maybe your father was present but imperfect. Perhaps your experience with your earthly father was painful or even absent. No matter what your story looks like, your Father in heaven is not a reflection of your earthly dad. He is the perfection your earthly dad was only meant to point to, and God still can use it and show you some things. Please lean in.
God is in the business of redeeming fatherhood. He knows how to re-father us. The conversion experience in Christ is about re-fathering—Jesus introduces us now to God as Father to heal us and to teach us who He really is. This can unlock some healing and breakthrough in your understanding of the Father heart of God.
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A Quick Kingdom Thought: Dusted
Before we get the train rolling, I’d like to share something from a recent newsletter. We have a section called Thinking Above and Beyond. God says in Isaiah 55:9, “My thoughts are higher than your thoughts.” So we need to reason with Him, think after Him.
Here’s a quick hit thought: Dusted. In street language, to be dusted means defeated, wiped out. In Genesis 3, the serpent—Satan through the serpent—was sentenced to the dust. It was really a prophetic humiliation. God said, “On your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life.”
Jesus later said that we would trample on all the power of the enemy. The enemy’s realm is dust level. Don’t forget that our authority in Christ is above that. We can stay and live out of that place of being seated with Christ in the heavenly places in Ephesians 2:6 and enforce the verdict that’s been issued. Remember that because of Christ, his place is now under your feet, eating the dust.
All right, let’s lean into this conversation. I believe it’s going to speak to your mind and spirit in a powerful way.
Meeting Keith Payne: A First Podcast Interview
Brian: I’m excited today to have Keith Payne on the podcast. Some of you know Keith, and some of you will be introduced to him today. We’re talking about a very primal topic, a seminal topic—the topic of your father and also the fatherhood of God. We’ve got a big problem in the world today on this issue. Keith, how are you today? I’m glad you carved out some time for us.
Keith: Thanks for having me, Brian. This is exciting for me because this is my first actual podcast.
Brian: Your first podcast interview?
Keith: Yeah. Back in the day, we did a lot of radio and a lot of TV stuff with our music ministry, but this is the first official podcast, so you are a record breaker, my man.
Brian: Well, we’re christening it right here. That’s wonderful. This could be the beginning of your podcast career. Who knows? I’m glad to have you here. What can the listener today expect to hear as we talk?
The Birth of “Stuff I Got From Dad”
Keith: The book is titled Stuff I Got From Dad: Lessons from My Father. The whole concept was birthed in the last year or two of my father’s life. He started to get ill, and I started spending much more time up there helping him organize things and take care of family business. As you have an elderly parent, you reminisce.
What came from those conversations was a realization on my part of the many, many lessons through the years that I had gleaned from him. Not necessarily where he sat me down and said, “Son, let me tell you about how to do X,” but it was actually just experiences that upon reflection, I realized there was a real lesson there. I learned what to do and what not to do. There were lessons of what to pursue and lessons about avoiding negative outcomes.
When I started reflecting on those, I said, “Man, I’m going to start writing down some of these stories.” He would reminisce about his childhood or many years ago, and then I started reflecting: I’ve learned some lessons here. Then it made me think of my relationship with my heavenly Father. There are also lessons or deeper meanings even beyond what I got from my earthly father.
Somebody said in a conversation, “Your dad’s life was so amazing, somebody ought to write a book.” As soon as I heard that statement, I felt that voice in my head—through the years I recognize it as the Holy Spirit—giving me the unction to say, “Yeah, somebody should. It’s you.”
On that day, I said to myself, “I’m going to write a book.” I had no experience. I didn’t know where to start or what the proper methodology was. A lot of this was just me writing my thoughts and trying to organize them in a way that would be accepted or easily read by the reader. The whole origin was the last couple years of his life reminding me of the things I’d learned, which then directed me toward even deeper lessons from my heavenly Father.
Fatherhood as God’s Design
Brian: Would you agree with the statement, Keith, that there is no father on this planet who’s perfect, and yet God uses fatherhood to teach us about Himself and to bring blessing in our lives? Maybe, as you say, information or perhaps warnings even about what not to do?
Keith: Fatherhood was important to Jesus. He referred to His Father many, many times while He was on this earth. The example, the great example of what fatherhood should be—influencing your children, providing direction—He lived that example or referred to that example. So fatherhood is important to me. I’ve got three sons.
The great thing about my relationship with my dad, my earthly father, is when I was a kid, I thought he was Superman because he was big and fit and could do things. He could throw a football very far and jump high. When you’re a four or five-year-old kid, you look at your dad who has certain abilities and you go, “Wow, is he fast, is he strong?” I literally looked at him and thought he was like Superman as a young child.
As you grow older, though, the thing that I learned is he wasn’t Superman, but he was more like Clark Kent. He was human. He was a man. He had faults, he had frailties. Learning and accepting the humanity of who your dad is also helpful because it helps you with your own personal relationship with God.
Brian: Accepting the humanity, honoring all that is good that has come down. I know there will be listeners who do not even have a father present in their life, or it was an extremely toxic or dysfunctional relationship, even abusive. Right there, Keith, what would you say to that sort of situation about fatherhood and also about the fatherhood of God?
Hope for the Father-Absent
Keith: I would say that everybody has different situations. If there’s a scenario of a listener that’s father-absent, with no father present, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ will provide a relationship with a heavenly Father. That Father always shows up. That Father never breaks His promise. And that Father is a comfort in time of need.
No matter what situation we face here on earth, the hope and the good news is there is opportunity to create a very close and lasting relationship with our heavenly Father.
Brian: Scripture says He’s the father of the fatherless. So this book ties together your relationship with your earthly father and with the heavenly Father. As you were doing the storytelling—it’s really a nonfiction book, but there’s story embedded in it, the story of your relationship—how did that dual perspective shape the way you approached the writing of this book?
Deeper Lessons From Heaven
Keith: What it did is put a fine tip or focus on the fact that I learned some great things from my earthly father. My dad here on earth provided some things for us—strong will, an example of never giving up, an example of trying to figure things out, an example of how to deal with people, which he had skills in. There were things I learned from my earthly father.
But when I sat down and started thinking about it, I would get a lesson or reflect on a lesson I learned from my dad, and then I would think of the nature of God or my personal relationship with God, and I would say, “Oh, wow, there’s even a deeper lesson there.” In other words, it’s good what I learned from dad, but there’s even a better or deeper way to do that or approach a particular situation.
The Lesson of Outward Appearance vs. Inner Heart
Let me give you a quick example. Dad, very young in life, showed us you need to dress a certain way. He was a sharp dresser. As young guys, it’s like, “Man, dad dresses pretty cool. He doesn’t wear jeans and frumpy clothes. He knew how to tie a tie.”
I tell a story in the book where I ran for class president in sixth grade, and he helped me get an outfit put together. He was showing me the importance of looking right, dressing for success. He was working with me on trying to read the room, see what people are saying and doing so that you can react properly to it.
Those are good things to know. It’s important to know that you should dress properly and interact with people properly. But the reflection of my relationship with God—I started thinking about the story of young David, where the prophet Samuel comes in and he’s told by God, “You have to go to this household, and you are going to anoint one of his sons.”
The first son is tall and big, and Samuel goes, “God, this is the dude, man, this has got to be the guy. Look at this guy.” The lesson there, so clear from scripture, was that God looks on the inside of a man’s heart and not necessarily his outward appearance.
The deeper lesson for me: it’s good to know how to read the room, interact with people, and dress a certain way. But beyond that, more importantly, if you have a heart for God and a heart for helping people, all those other things will take care of themselves.
From Poverty to Power: Dad’s Journey
Brian: Now, your dad came from one of the poorest counties in the country, and he became a powerful union leader. It’s really remarkable. Did he have higher education at all?
Keith: From that part of the country, you would consider him highly educated because he did get through 11th grade. He did not have a high school diploma. He came from McDowell County, West Virginia. If any of your listeners would look up “poorest counties in the USA,” it would be listed in the top five in every search or every way that you want to measure—lowest income, highest unemployment, highest drug use. It’s a very, very tough area, and that’s where his family was from. To this day, it is a very, very tough area.
He left there in the 50s. Historically, there was a great migration from people from the south to the north looking for work in the early 50s—auto plants, steel mills, rubber plants. Cleveland, Akron, Chicago, Detroit. There’s a huge migration of people from the deep south and from Appalachia.
Part of that group came in the early 50s from Appalachia up to Cleveland, Ohio, because it was a little smaller than Detroit and there were plenty of opportunities for what they would call non-skilled labor at that time. He went to work at Ford, and within a year got involved in the union movement there.
Union Leadership and Fighting for the Little Guy
Because of his background in West Virginia, which was very strong with the United Mine Workers, there were a lot of health and safety issues with the mines back in the day. It was birthed in him—it was part of his DNA—to stand up for the little guy and to make sure that the large organization or the company did not take advantage of the worker.
He went from a high school dropout to two terms where he was the president of the second largest UAW local union in the country. There were 15,000 members when he was the president.
Brian: Wow.
Keith: He had to get more votes than most mayors of a lot of these small towns in Ohio to get elected president of that local union back in the 70s and 80s when he was involved in that.
Brian: So do you think that was the primary fuel that drove him—his concern for the little man, making sure that employees’ rights were preserved?
Keith: His nature was that he loved a fight. He loved a good fight, and he loved the opportunity where if somebody was trying to take advantage of somebody, he was going to be the advocate or fight for that person.
He was such a skilled negotiator. Here’s a guy with not even a high school education sitting across the table from trained HR people, attorneys, CEOs, executives from a Fortune 100 company—Ford Motor Company, a very large company. They put their most skilled negotiators on the other side of the table.
Here’s this guy from West Virginia saying, “Okay, we’re not going to do it that way.” He became so famous or noticed for his ability to negotiate these contracts that they finally figured out there was a guy from the same part of the country who was an executive in the Ford world. They would bring him in—his name was Bill Landers. They would bring Bill Landers in because my dad and Bill Landers could talk respectfully but directly with each other because they came from the same part of the world.
Brian: How about that?
Keith: It was one of the ways they negotiated contracts back in the day. They would call in this other guy from West Virginia to say, “You got to deal with this guy from Cleveland because we’re not making any headway with him.” That was his claim to fame.
Brian: He was wired for this. He just had a lot of innate ability. It was just in him.
Keith: His personality was he would light up a room when he’d come into the room, and you would have to quickly assess. You couldn’t ignore him. You either had to position yourself as an ally or as an adversary pretty quickly because he just had that type of charisma. Anybody that met him or got to know him, even later in life, recognized that that was part of who he was.
A Season of Grace and Reflection
Brian: I’m sure those last few years of his life, when you spent a lot of time with him and probably gleaned a lot of the material and stories for this book, was very fulfilling for you, very rewarding. I’m sure it was really a time of grace. End-of-life issues can be really sacramental seasons with people. What was the most surprising thing or inspiring thing that you learned from your dad while you were going through this process?
The Transformation: From Tough Guy to Servant of God
Keith: When he was in his heyday of being the union leader, think of every negative stereotype of the union boss back in the 70s, and he was probably that person. He interacted with people that we would call mob ties. He was beat up. There were contracts taken out on him to shut him up. He had his political opponents one time accuse him of kidnapping to try to destroy his career.
What I’m trying to describe is a tough guy. When I was a very young child, my dad was not around a lot. When he was around, he commanded respect. Within the community, he was considered a tough guy.
One of the things that was just so amazing about these last couple years of his life was hearing about these old stories and reminding myself about who he was, to see who he became after he accepted Jesus as his savior at age 65.
Brian: Amazing.
Keith: My mom prayed for him to be saved her entire life.
Brian: How about that?
Keith: We were out in a music ministry, traveling the country, my brothers and I. Mom is a praying woman, and her husband is this charismatic, tough union official with a lot of success. She was the patient one, and she’s the one who was the forgiving one.
But later in life, he gave his heart to God. In the last nearly 20 years of his life, he lived it serving God, loving and supporting my mom, and just, I think, fulfilling the legacy of what he should have and could have done years earlier.
That was the most exciting thing about this project—being able to see how God can miraculously take anyone and change them and truly change them, change their nature to where they become softer, more loving, more understanding, more forgiving. God truly did that with my father.
A Redemption Story Worth Reading
Brian: I love that you say in your book, Stuff I Got From Dad, in your subtitle Lessons I Learned from My Father—your book is becoming available during the first week of November 2025. From that point forward, we’re encouraging everybody to get a copy of this. You say it is a redemption story, right?
Keith: Absolutely. The way that I attacked the book was I felt if I just jumped right into the lessons without giving the background and perspective of who we were or are as a family, it wouldn’t have been as impactful.
I started with Dad’s story—I started with his father, giving a background of McDowell County, West Virginia, who my father’s father was and who he represented in that area and the part of the world they came out of. Then just telling Dad’s story about his childhood, coming to Cleveland and his career, just to give you a background of who this person was.
The second section of the book, I basically tell my story. I reflect on my relationship within my family and my relationship with my father, from my point of view. The third section is the actual lessons.
Brian: We might get to that.
Keith: I use stories to try to tell what the lesson is.
Growing Up in a Non-Typical Family
Brian: You describe your origin family as a non-typical family. What were some of the challenges and also some of the giftings of coming up in your family?
Keith: Non-typical family—my father did not have a 9-to-5 job. He was gone a lot. From the time I was 12 years old, two of my brothers and myself were involved in a gospel music ministry where we traveled at first locally, and then it branched out farther and farther to the point that we were gone more than we were home.
I missed a lot of school, my high school years, because we were on the road a lot. We traveled 38 states. We had the bus, we had employees. It was a viable music ministry. My brother was a songwriter. There are songs that he has written that I’m confident you or people that would listen to this podcast have heard.
A non-typical family—we were gone, Dad was busy at work. When we were home, we went to a local church, but it was not uncommon for us to have some people over. We’d be playing basketball in the driveway and then going into the family room and working on some songs. I’d fall asleep and then wake up at 1 o’clock in the morning and there’s three or four other people there that weren’t there when I fell asleep.
We were the household that people involved in our music world would come and go. There wasn’t a whole lot of strict rules because we weren’t out running the streets and doing bad things. We were actually spreading the gospel through song. It was a high focus for us growing up, but there was not a whole lot of structure—that’s the best way I could describe our household.
Brian: So it’s unusual in that sense, non-typical, but I can see the legacy and the blessing through that.
Ten Lessons From an Earthly Father, Five From the Heavenly
Brian: In Part Three of your book, you mention these lessons that you learned from your earthly father. I think it’s 10 lessons from your earthly father, five from your heavenly Father. What are some of the lessons that really stand out for you and that were transformative?
Keith: That’s a great question. When I think of some of the lessons, I tried to break down the lessons in groupings. Like, basics of life was don’t listen to outside noise, be careful the company you keep. Those are basic lessons.
A quick or early basic lesson I learned from my heavenly Father is that He’s very quick to forgive us, but we aren’t. We hold forgiveness.
Another grouping was integrity—tell the truth, say what you mean, mean what you say. I have stories to support those types of lessons. But my heavenly Father lesson was God never breaks His promise and He’s faithful to us.
The Most Impactful Lesson: Love and Protection
Probably the most impactful part or impactful lesson was in a section where I’m talking about love and conflict. I tell the story about how Dad, my earthly father, one time at the local union hall, a political opponent pushed my brother, knocked him down. My dad owned a gun, and he was a tough guy.
He grabbed the guy that knocked my brother down, grabbed his collar, pulled his head down to the desk, put the gun in his face and said, “If you touch my kid again, it’ll be the last day you live.”
Brian: Wow.
Keith: Just literally threatened him. The lesson was fight for your kids. If somebody tries to attack your child, you fight for them. There’s a lesson there. I don’t condone using a gun. I don’t condone how he did it. But his nature of “I’m going to protect my kids” was a lesson.
The deeper lesson was my father loved us so much he would fight for us. My heavenly Father loved us even more to where He would actually sacrifice His only son to allow us to be adopted into His family. That is a much deeper level of love.
I think about Jesus, fully man and fully God, coming to this earth and not having to go through that but willingly did it from His perspective. But then think of the Father’s perspective, allowing it to happen. In the scripture where Jesus is talking to His heavenly Father, “My God, don’t forsake me”—that moment where Jesus felt alone.
When I think about probably the most impactful lesson: my dad loved us the best way he could and displayed it the best way he could, and he demonstrated that by protection. My heavenly Father loved us the only way or the way that only He can—He loved us to such a level that not only would He protect us, but in order to adopt us into His family, He would sacrifice His only son.
Brian: Would you say, Keith, that with our fathers and even ourselves as fathers, we quite often imperfectly reflect the true fatherhood of God? Like with your dad in this instance, he’s protective, but maybe the way that he expressed that was not quite appropriate, but it still reflects the protective nature of God.
Keith: Yeah, absolutely.
Make Things Happen: Independence vs. Dependence on God
Keith: Another thought or lesson—there was a section called “Make Things Happen.” There was a story that we had bus troubles back in the day. We blew our engine, we had just replaced it, we didn’t have the money to replace it. We’re stuck.
My dad actually came to us and said, “Don’t get stuck, there’s always a solution.” He helped through our uncle—he arranged a temporary loan to get us actually to replace that old bus with a more modern bus. It really kickstarted us to be able to go across the country.
He was the guy that planted those words in my head as a young man: “Don’t get stuck. There’s always a solution.” I learned from Dad to be independent, to make things happen, move, don’t be dependent on other people. “If it is to be, it’s up to me.” All those good sayings. Western culture teaches us as men to be the person who’s the provider, the man, the take-charge guy. All good lessons.
Brian: Absolutely.
Keith: God—Proverbs 3:5—”Trust the Lord with all thy heart. Lean not into your own understanding.”
God taught me that He wants me to be more dependent on Him. Look to Him, trust in Him. It’s almost against what’s natural as far as the way we’re taught. So don’t be independent, be dependent. Don’t figure it out yourself. Pull Him in to help you figure it out.
Brian: Bring Him into the mix.
A Supernatural Intervention
Keith: Bring Him into the mix. I tell the story of when we were trying to build houses in our old neighborhood and we couldn’t get it through council. I worked on that thing for a year, literally trying to get the city council people to vote on it, just to get them to vote.
I’m thinking we’re supposed to have a vote. I go to the meeting and they hit the gavel and they say, “We don’t have enough people here because this one council person was not notified.” Laws say if they’re not notified, you can’t have the meeting.
I kind of exploded and said, “What kind of Mickey Mouse operation is this? You guys can’t even put a vote together.” They said, “Why are you so anxious? Do you think we’re going to vote yes for your project?” I said, “I thought so.” One council person said, “I was a no.” Another said, “I was a no.” “I was a no.”
Supernaturally, I watched God create an environment where my brother and I were able to speak, not in a structured forum, but just talk to these guys because the meeting was canceled. We told them our heart, what we were trying to do, and literally won them over to what we were trying to accomplish so that we could build houses back in our original neighborhood.
That evening, I’m walking around the block praying, and God spoke to me clearly and said, “Are you ready? Are you finally ready for me to help you with this?” I went, “Oh, my goodness. Yes, Lord.” My brother Mark said, “Are we going to ever get this through?” I said, “Mark, write it down. It’s going to happen.” I told him the story. Within two weeks, it was voted through and we built the houses and everything worked out.
Brian: Wow.
Keith: But that was what I’m trying to say—the deeper lesson is God wants us to depend on Him.
Brian: Depend on Him. What I hear you saying is bring Him into the mix, but it doesn’t mean as a man that we’re not supposed to initiate, be aggressive, take risks, and make it happen, as you say.
Keith: Those are all good lessons that you should do, but if you try to do it independent from the Lord, from God, you are going to be swimming in some deep water, and a lot of times it doesn’t work out.
Brian: Conversely, what would you say about the approach where somebody would be praying about it and depending on the Lord, as you say, but would not actually do anything to make it happen?
Keith: I would point them to the children of Israel and say that God put manna in the field every day, but you have to go out and go get it.
Brian: Whatever that application is.
Keith: He didn’t open your mouth and put it inside your mouth. He said it’s in the field—go get it.
The Crisis of Fatherlessness and Masculinity Today
Brian: Keith, we have a lot of problems today in our culture with masculinity, as you know, with fatherlessness. We could probably make a case that there’s a clear connection there—the feminization of our culture, the over-feminization of our society.
We have young men coming up who really have not been initiated into masculinity, who don’t have either a biological father or any credible male figures in their lives that could help them with that. It’s a real need, isn’t it?
I’m hearing that women increasingly want men who are, as one podcaster says, protectors, providers, and presiders over their family. There’s a great need for this, isn’t there? Masculinity, fatherhood.
Keith: I think so because you can read statistics where father-absent households, the children are more likely for failure than when you have both parents at home. I think that what God built as marriage—husband and wife designed to raise children—I think that’s a beautiful creation appointed by God.
I think that, quite frankly, as a society we have demonized and tried to demasculate the man in these relationships. What happens there is if you don’t have that protection, that provision, and also to provide guidance—if you don’t have that in place, what happens is the kids a lot of times find themselves in environments and doing things that don’t turn out well.
I’m saying the beautiful combination of husband and wife, male and female, raising a family—that is the optimum thing.
God Redeems the Broken: A Family Restored
Keith: From my perspective, in my household, my father made mistakes. I have half-brothers and sisters that I did not even know until I’m a grown man. What God has done for me in this story is when I looked at that situation where they had less of a father than what I had because he wasn’t there—I thought he was gone a lot, but to some of these other brothers and sisters, he was there even less or not at all.
Your first thought is you just get angry at your dad. You say, “Man, how could you do that?” The beautiful thing about this is we are as a family navigating through and creating relationships and getting to know each other. What God, as He so often does in our situation—He’s faithful on this—He takes something that’s horrible, it’s burnt up, it’s nothing.
The outside, I would say there’s nothing good that’s going to come from that. He’ll take ashes and He’ll make beauty from ashes. In our family, there’s restoration. There are relationships being formed and built. It just reminds us of the legacy of this family.
As I got to learn who my new brothers and sisters were, what I discovered was they were involved in ministry, music, boards, just the stuff that we were involved in. They were in different states, different parts of the country. I thought to myself, “God, you are so amazing.”
Here’s the thing: the legacy of my dad is not his union days. It’s not the contracts he negotiated or the many people he helped. The legacy is not necessarily all the mistakes he made and the pain and heartache that he caused my mom or even all the kids and the people involved. The legacy is not necessarily just the latter part of his life.
The legacy of my dad is that it’s a pure and clear example that no matter how much we can mess something up, God can restore it. God can miraculously save a person and change their life.
A Multi-Generational Kingdom Impact
Keith: The legacy lived on because my dad was a high school dropout who was not a Christian most of his life, but his children and his children’s children and his children’s children’s children are on the ministry side. They’re pastors, they’re youth leaders, they’re worship leaders. They’re people involved in the technical side of supporting ministry. They’re songwriters.
On the marketplace side, they have degrees. They’re presidents, vice presidents, attorneys. They are professional people. They have doctorates, they have master’s degrees. You just look at this family, the original family and the extended family.
The legacy of my dad is that God provided favor for this family in spite of all the ways and things that we messed it up. He created this beautiful thing that not only has success in the marketplace, but quite frankly, also has had effectiveness in furthering the gospel in ministry.
Brian: You mentioned your mom and women as well. God uses men and women together, obviously. It says in Genesis that God said, “Let us,” as the Godhead, “make man in our image.” He created them male and female, and He started a family which reflects the Godhead in community. You’re saying that God, sovereignly, in spite of the mess of things, He is sovereignly in the faith family doing something. The fruit of it multi-generationally is there.
Keith: It’s amazing, 100%. In other words, He knows the present, He knows the future. My dad did not accept Jesus as his savior till late in life, but the wheels were put in motion that ministry was going to happen from the time that we were kids.
Brian: God’s at work.
Keith: Literally, the things that we accomplished and are still accomplishing as a family—I believe that God has provided favor for that to occur. I don’t think that was out of our will. I don’t think that was just because we’re gifted in a certain way. I think God has looked upon us as faithful and said, “You know what, I recognize that.”
Even though my dad wasn’t serving Him, He saw in the future that he would, and He’s seen in the future what could come from this. I believe that sovereignly He kept His hand on this situation.
An Eternal Perspective on Fatherhood
Brian: Dallas Willard has a statement where he says that our lifetime now is a seed of what we always will be doing ever increasingly in the new heavens and new earth. Even though your dad during his earthly time—20 years at the end of his life where he knew the Lord and walked with Him—yet it is a seed. We could expect even continuing great things from him in the new heavens and new earth.
I believe we’re going to have creative assignments, Keith. I don’t think it’s going to be an eternal church service and rest home experience in the sky. We’re going to be involved in Christ’s kingdom. But we’re already seeing that effect now in your family multi-generationally—that multiplication, that continuing kingdom impact. I love that.
What Readers Will Discover
Brian: Keith, what do you hope that readers will take away from your book, Stuff I Got From Dad? It’s going to be available the first week of November 2025.
Keith: Well, the first thing that I would hope that they get from it is just an insight to our story and our family and how God took something that could have been a mess and, quite frankly, has created something that’s beautiful that will live on.
I also hope that there are people that will read the book and look at the lessons, the life lessons that I gleaned from it, and be able to apply some of those to their lives. There are some real common sense lessons that at first glance, you’ll say, “Well, that’s kind of a simple lesson.” But then when you really reflect on it, you say, “Oh, my goodness. I can apply that here, I can apply that there.”
A lot of the stuff that I learned growing up, I applied in my business world. I had a business career. I retired just a few years ago after 39 years. We were involved in music ministry, but I also had a business career that, quite frankly, I was favored and blessed in. I accomplished many things.
I’m a high school graduate who went to work for a company at 21 years old and ended up reporting directly to the president of the company. I almost have a story where you go, “Well, how did that happen?” I say it happened only because God ordained it.
The lifestyle that my family led and the schools I sent my kids to and what we were able to do—quite frankly, it was more than my background, my education, or my skill set should have allowed us to do. But we were blessed.
Practical Lessons, Redemption Stories, and Laughter
My takeaway is that there are lessons that can be applied in people’s lives. There’s a redemption story that’s inspiring. And some people who read parts of this are just going to laugh about what a crazy family we were. When I tell stories of us growing up, some people will say, “How did those boys survive?”
Brian: How did they survive, let alone find success as an adult?
Keith: Yeah.
Brian: I’m just curious—was your mom the first person in your family line that came to know the Lord?
Keith: It was actually her mom. We called her Mama, and Mama was like the matriarch of the family. Of course, Mom in our immediate family was the first person to come to know the Lord. Soon the kids were going to church with her.
Dad would never go to church with us, but he was always respectful and he always loved our music. He would promote our music to his friends and people he got in contact with, but he would just never live the life or go himself.
But Mom was the praying one. Mom made sure we were in church, made sure that we stayed doing the right things as we were growing up. As I said, early on we started traveling, and next thing you know, we’re in multiple states, and she’s at home praying that we don’t get in an accident while we’re out on the road.
The Power of Praying Women
Brian: I tell you, those praying women—in some sense, they rule the world when women start praying like that. The stuff that comes out of that prayer closet is unbelievable.
Keith: For sure, for sure. I tell the story—my Mama, my grandma, when we would visit her, before everybody would leave, she would always pull everybody together for a prayer. As she called it, “traveling mercies.”
One time we all visited and for some reason we left and didn’t have the prayer. Us grandkids made such a ruckus: “Pull over, pull over, pull over!” This was pre-cell phone days. We stopped at some gas station or some store and got on the phone so Mama could do her prayer before we went home. That’s how much it was part of the culture of us growing up.
Brian: Wow. You felt security in that, right?
Keith: Oh, yeah.
A Closing Prayer
Brian: Well, Keith, would you lead us in prayer right now? Just about some of these themes and what the Lord may want to bring through your book to people. Would you pray for us?
Keith: Be happy to. Father God, we just thank You for an opportunity to talk about what You’ve birthed in us. God, thank You for Brian and the work that he’s doing.
Lord, I ask that everybody that has an opportunity to hear this, that Your Holy Spirit would just pierce through their soul to where it would comfort them or provide, Lord, just the spark for them to take action, to do what they need to do in their particular situation. God, I ask for comfort, but I also ask for wisdom.
God, You know that I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to book writing and that type of thing, but I’m faithful to You to take action when You give me the unction. I ask, God, that everybody that has an opportunity to read this book, that it blesses them, that they see that there is hope. There’s hope, God, because You can redeem any situation.
God, I ask for the men that would listen to this or be exposed to this book, that they would be reinforced to do their role, to take their rightful place as the spiritual head of the household, of their family—to lead, to guide, to protect, to provide. God, these are things that You built, that You ordained in us as men.
God, I ask that You continue to bless Brian’s ministry. God, I ask that You touch the book, that You bless everybody that comes in contact with it. And God, for Your glory, not for mine. I ask these things in the name of Your son. Amen.
Brian: Well, thank you, Keith. I’ve loved talking with you. I appreciate you.
Keith: Well, thank you once again for the opportunity to do this, and I appreciate your interest. I just hope that good things come from this. I know that God is faithful and that there was a reason that I put three and a half years of my waking moments into this. I know that God has got a purpose and a reason for this book to be birthed.
How to Get the Book and Connect With Keith
Brian: Hey, Keith, how can people easily access your book? Do you want to share anything like social media handles or ways to stay in touch with you?
Keith: The first week of November, the book is going to be available. It will be available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and we are working right now on an audiobook. It’s not going to be released the first week of November, but soon after.
If you want to get in touch with me—I’m not a social media expert, but I do have a Facebook page where I will be giving some information about that.
Carmia’s Window: A Family Foundation
I also have a Facebook page for a family foundation that we started a few years ago called Carmia’s Window. Basically, my mom was a praying woman, as you know, and when she had a real serious prayer, she would go in front of her kitchen window and really petition the Lord about that need.
The symbol of Mom praying at her window is the visual of when there’s something that really needs God’s attention, we take it to the window. We created a family foundation that allows me to give and to help people in need. We started it in partnership with the Warren County Foundation, so it is a 501(c)(3).
There are three initiatives that Carmia’s Window is responsible for or charged with:
- Spreading the gospel
- Keeping families together
- Helping those who are in need
This last year was our first kickoff year. There was a family that needed a van—Mr. and Mrs. Pitts. He was wheelchair-bound for 10 years, and they could only get a ride with a wheelchair-accessible van once a week. God laid on my heart to get them a van.
We raised money and I donated some money, and we got them a wheelchair-accessible van so they could go out to dinner, visit their kids, and go to church more than once a week. It’s a beautiful thing. God birthed in my heart to help ministries, help people, help situations.
There is a website for that called Carmia’s Window. If you jump on Google, it’ll take you right there. I also have a Facebook page for that. I’m looking to create a page for the book, Stuff I Got From Dad. It’s not out there yet, but it will be in the first week in November. You can hit me up on Facebook.
Brian: Keith Payne, right? P-A-Y-N-E?
Keith: Yes, yes.
Brian: And how do you spell that window name?
Keith: C-A-R-M-I-A-S. Carmia’s Window.
Brian: Okay. We will have a show notes page for this episode with these links. People can click through and go right to these sources. Every podcast app that you’re listening on will include these links too, right on the podcast app. They can see those URLs that they can go to and your Facebook. Appreciate you, Keith.
Keith: Super. Thanks, bro.
Final Thoughts From Brian
Thanks for joining us for episode 357 of the Jesus Smart X podcast. My prayer, my hope, is that something in our conversation today awakened a fresh awareness of the Father heart of God.
I encourage you to get Keith’s book. You can go to the show notes page at jesussmart.com/357 and maybe even begin to redeem some perspectives. You can order the book and redeem some perspectives shaped by your earthly father experience.
I will guarantee you something: your Father in heaven—you may not feel this way necessarily, but He is pursuing you. He is bringing you to a place. He is shaping you and calling you into daughterhood, into sonship. That can transform—it will transform—everything.
If this episode added value to you and meant something to you, would you share it with a friend? You just never know who needs this word today.
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Until next time, live smart, live strong, and stay anchored in the Father’s love.