Five Things We Will Learn
- How a lighthearted chat about bows and “deer poppers” opened a doorway into God’s tangible glory and presence.
- The wounds that hardened Blake’s heart—and how Jesus replaced “Shredder” with a new, compassionate heart.
- Why spiritual authority, family, and gatherings (Backlash, Summer Glory, Glory House) were pivotal in Blake’s transformation.
- The 7:48 p.m. intercession: how the Holy Spirit’s burden in a metal shop aligned to the minute with a suicidal man surrendering his gun.
- Practical steps to move from head to heart—embracing God’s love, living under authority, and asking Jesus for a new heart.
From Bows and Backstrap to the Presence of God
The conversation begins like friends on a porch. Brother Greg Lancaster , Blake Barr’s pastor and father-in-law, grins at Blake’s new bow—“like a 70-pound pull,” he says—while Blake explains the 75–80% let-off that allows you to hold just 15–20 pounds after the full draw. They laugh about “deer poppers,” backstrap, and even Bambi—“We don’t kill Bambi,” Blake says. “That’s illegal.” It’s light, real, and disarming—the kind of opening that makes room for a deeper story.
Then the shift: “God’s doing amazing things in your life,” Brother Greg says. He remembers Blake’s encounter at the WHBR Studios in Pensacola, Florida when we were broadcasting from there—when God’s glory enveloped him at the podium and at a table. Blake tries to name it: [it being the Glory Presence of God] it begins like goosebumps in the extremities, a cold-electric rush, but it settles into the heart and spirit. “He’s real,” Blake says. It makes you want to be around Him [God].
Another memory comes to mind. Brother Greg had invited Blake to join him at a pastor’s conference at Church of His Presence (CHP) in Daphne, Alabama. It was there that Nathan Morris—a spiritual son to Pastor John Kilpatrick—was ministering. Blake, still so new to all of this, stood with his eyes closed and his hands lifted high to God. In that moment, Nathan walked over, gently placed his hand on Blake’s forehead, and spoke the words, “Never the same.” Instantly, Blake fell to the floor under the weight of God’s glory and power. Later he wrote a piece called “On Fire,” posted it on Facebook, but when he tried to say the words out loud, he couldn’t get them out. The presence of God overwhelmed him. We were able to locate that Facebook post of Blakes title “On Fire” here it is below.
Blake Barr, wearing a blue shirt, raises his hands during the Pastors’ Conference at Church of His Presence.
On Fire
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“I wasn’t sure if I was going to share this experience or not, but being transparent means to share my experiences regardless of how I feel about them or what others may feel or could say.
I was at the Gulf Coast Pastors’ Conference Saturday night (last night of a 3-day event), and Evangelist Nathan Morris was speaking about the Gates of Heaven and being a gatekeeper. As standard per an evangelist, they don’t sit down or stand still to preach. They walk around and get very emotional/intense. It’s really quite exciting to see someone so on fire, in a nice suit, who is literally drenched in sweat from the raw emotion.
I grew up in a traditional Methodist church. Really, the only time people were prayed for aloud was during your baptism, lol. So needless to say, I come from a background which would generally say, ‘This is weird’ or ‘Really?’ when people are touched and fall to the floor. I was always the guy judging people who fall out and look like fish outta water. Who am I to judge what they are feeling? Maybe it’s acting, maybe they are so hungry for God it just moves them in a way that is uncontrollable. I don’t know, and after my experience, I will not judge ever again.
So here I am, singing and worshiping with my eyes closed, believing Nathan was on the other side of the church. Next thing I know, it was like a light switch. He touched my forehead and said something very profound: ‘Never the same.’ I think if I would have been prepared and knew he was there, I would not have fallen to the floor—but I did. I fell to the floor, an action I just never did understand until it happened to me. I lay there and could not help but be overcome with emotion. I literally felt like my body was on fire. I immediately began to sweat, and it was the greatest yet weirdest feeling I believe I have ever encountered. I couldn’t move. I have listened to sermons regarding the weight of God and the weight of God’s glory, and it was incredible. I felt so convicted for the judgment I had cast upon others. I couldn’t help but be in my head in a time where I just needed to lay there and not think. I kept asking myself, ‘Is this real? Why am I just laying here? Get up.’ But I couldn’t.
So where am I going with this? After I got up, it took a little while to finally cool down, but I sit here now and reflect on that moment, and I believe God just wanted to show me a piece of what it’s like to be on fire for God and a taste of that experience. Do not judge others, for you will be judged by how you judge others. God allowed me to experience something which I basically considered fake or exaggerated for the longest time in order to change my perspective.
The Bible talks about what Heaven is like, and we experienced about a 2-hour window of what that was like Friday night. It was the sound of revival. You know the sound in movies when the light shines on a treasure chest that has just been opened and it’s full of jewels? That’s how this sounded—1,000 people worshiping God in their own way, which all had a common ring to it when the sound was put together. It was beautiful. Heaven isn’t kicking back and drinking a cold one. Heaven is about worshiping God. If you think worship is weird and judge those who worship differently—or worship at all—but you want to go to Heaven, why do you want to go to Heaven? Worship IS the sound of Heaven. If you don’t like God, Jesus, or the things of God on earth, why would you want to go to Heaven? That is the question I am faced with, and there was a shift in my life the minute I was told I would never be the same from that moment forward.
When I die and face Jesus at the gates of Heaven, He will hold me accountable for everything I did in my life and show me everywhere in my life where I could have done better or reached out to someone who desperately needed God. I want to enter into the narrow gates of Heaven and be welcomed as a faithful servant who spoke the truth, was kind and loving, and praised God for grace and mercy. Do you?”
Blake’s own words give us a glimpse into the fire God placed within him. Let’s continue with more of his encounters…
Where “Shredder” Came From—and Why He Had to Die
Before these moments, Blake carried a hard heart he didn’t quite understand until Brother Greg ’s message Backlash, at a VFN Pensacola gathering where Brother Greg shared this message about the laws of God that says “for every judgment we judge others with, that same judgment comes back to us.” [Matthew 7:1–2 (NIV)]. They discussed judgments (Newton’s third law, for every action that is and equal and opposite reaction) and the call to empathy. He was honest: empathy didn’t come easy. He had tested it in conversations with his wife, Amber. The root? The death of his sister when he was young. Grief hit his parents like a tidal wave; as a boy he absorbed their pain along with his own. He was nicknamed “Shredder”—he could “do surgery with his tongue,” he admits—and he stopped caring about much beyond himself.
Loss compounded loss. His dad, wrung out, sold the family business—something Blake had hoped one day would be his. “I have no hard feelings toward my dad,” he says; he understands that season now. But those teenage years were tough. His mom’s fear of losing another child put him on a pedestal. He poured himself into sports.
Then came the metal arm: titanium in one arm after two dirt-bike (motocross) crashes five years apart—rod, wrist pins, plate, screws. He still laughs about the “six-million-dollar arm.” He and Amber have a farm in Jay—business, animals, land—“God’s really blessed you,” Brother Greg says. But blessing came through a wilderness: a fifth-wheel RV season, shop moved (five times), friends who weren’t truly friends, and a metal business that wouldn’t cooperate.
“What did you learn?” Brother Greg asks. “Stop digging the rut,” [speaking of when God’s people rebel against Him, He keeps them in the wilderness circling around the mountain, e.g. “the rut”] Blake says. “Give it to God. The longer you think you can do it yourself, the longer it takes to get out.” He chased jobs across the country that never materialized, grasping at straws—until the Lord made a way, even owner financing on their RV when cash buyers offered more. “I don’t want to live in a fifth-wheel again,” Blake jokes. “They look big, but those walls creep in fast.”
Backlash, Empathy, and a New Heart
At the revelation and openness about his heart after hearing the message Backlash, he said the quiet part out loud: “It’s psychopathic not to have empathy.” Before salvation, everyone’s turned inward—that’s normal. But God can give a heart of flesh; you can’t manufacture that.
Days later came the Summer Glory Celebration with Pastor Kilpatrick in Daphne. Their friend and brother in the Lord, Rumaldo—who had just lost his beloved, beautiful young son, Israel—walked in to serve, focused and working. Blake hadn’t seen him earlier, but when someone said, “They’re talking to Rumaldo,” he went straight to him. He hugged him—and felt it.
God had sovereignly answered Blake’s cry for a new heart. It was a work of the Holy Spirit, Pastor Kilpatrick later shared, in response to hearing this amazing transformation. Not an emotional meltdown, but a deep movement of the Spirit: “He needed this; I needed this.” It broke something in Blake. For the first time, he could feel his heart—his spirit—in his chest; he was alive. His spirit, once dead in his sins, had become alive—born again.
The prior weekend hearing the message Backlash, he had prayed, “God, give me a new heart.” That night, he knew—God had done it. God had taken Blake’s hard heart—a heart not fully given to Him—and replaced it with a new heart: a heart of flesh, a heart of compassion, a heart that could feel, for the first time in his life, true compassion for others.
Brother Greg names it: Spirit over mind. The Holy Spirit says, “Go this way,” and the head scrambles to catch up. Compassion overflowed like virtue leaving Jesus when the woman with the issue of blood touched Him. “I’m not an emotional person,” Blake says. “I wasn’t.” But God was doing something new.
Tangible Glory at Glory House—and a Word: “Restoration”
At the Glory House in Daphne, where Brother Greg and VFN Pensacola rent each year while attending the Summer Glory Celebration, the presence of God was “tangible” as Brother Greg was praying for everyone who was at the house close to midnight our last night there. Blake’s daughters were touched—bent over, weeping in God’s power. He audibly heard God say “Restoration” while Brother Greg prayed for Pat—a first for him. He tested it in his heart—“Was that really God?”—and knew it was. The father in him wrestled a second question: “Are my girls playing a role?” But this wasn’t play; it was Presence. Mallory’s worship is blossoming—Blake sees her watching Adrianne Blackledge and remembers the prophetic word Brett Holderbaum spoke over Mallory while she was still in her mother, Amber’s, womb: a worshiper. Their home is full of dreams about Jesus—even Mallory’s dream of Him seated in a specific chair at church, where she later sat and encountered Him.
“Don’t Give Up on Me Yet”: A Man on the Brink
One week later, a man—mid-40s—was brought to the fellowship. He’d been days from suicide, even that very day considering using a gun to end his life. The first worship song—“Don’t Give Up on Me Yet”—felt like a rescue signal. His head hung low; he was trapped in his thoughts. Brother Greg drew him in with love and a father’s hug. “I’ve never hugged a man,” the man confessed; his dad never had. Brother Greg asked him to “hug me like you want to be hugged,” and the man clung like a branch in a storm. Love—Jesus’ own—flowed.
The love of God alone breaks the enemy’s lies that drive you toward self-destruction. Under their weight, you feel unloved, detached, alone, and filled with self-loathing—but His love cuts through them all. When it does, you discover that God is Love (1 John 4:16), and you can “live for Love”—loving God, loving others, and leading others to do the same. (Matthew 22:37–40)
Blake and others gave him space to vent for an hour, then told him the truth in love: he needed to get under authority because he couldn’t think clearly alone. Real authority is relational—pastors who know you, guide you, even God speaks to them for you, sometimes in dreams. The church family at VFN Pensacola secured him a hotel room, gave cash, and Scott, a brother in the Lord, stayed near.
7:48 p.m.: The Burden Arrives—and a Gun Is Surrendered
Monday in Blake’s metal shop, the Holy Spirit stirred him at the end of his workday. Thirty, forty-five minutes passed; it intensified with the Holy Spirit increasing the burden for this man on his heart that he could hardly text anyone and could barely speak. Although he was able to text his (Christian) customer: “I need to pause—Holy Spirit’s on me.” He typed Brother Greg a message—“Something’s going on, can I call?”—and then tears came out of nowhere. “I’m not a crier,” he says, “especially alone in my shop.” This wasn’t in his head; it was in his chest. He called Brother Greg , struggling to speak. First Brother Greg says, “What’s wrong? Are you ok? Is your family ok?” Responding to Blake’s in ability to speak because of his weeping. Then, realizing it was the work of the Holy Spirit touching Blake’s Spirit to intercede for the man who was at church the day before and was wanting to take his life. Brother Greg explained that it was the Lord giving him a burden for this man and both prayed together specifically for the suicidal man. It lasted about an hour and a half and then lifted.
Later, Adrianne Blackledge, a member of the VFN Pensacola fellowship, confirmed the timing: around the moment Blake called (7:48 p.m.), the man contacted Scott in tears and handed him the gun. Heaven had synchronized an intercessor’s burden with a life-saving surrender. “God used me,” Blake says—stunned and grateful.
Truth, Hell, and the Narrow Road
Blake didn’t mince words with the man: ending your life apart from Christ leads to hell—“not a good place to be.” The devil convinces you to escape pain only to claim your soul. He also corrected a misconception: attending a church doesn’t equal being under authority. If leaders don’t know you—really know you—you’re still under your own authority. Under real authority, you can finally hear; that “deaf-and-dumb” spirit can be broken.
When the burden lifted, that Monday Blake told Amber, his wife, the whole story (after she had wrangled the kids all day!). The following Sunday, at church, he shared this praise report. He was learning to live from the heart, not the head.
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” Romans 1:20
Nature itself—his favorite part of hunting season—preaches the Creator’s reality (Romans 1:20). Blake talks about walking in before dawn, joking about Bigfoot, that one time a sound “not far from me” sent the hairs on his neck standing and hurried him to the truck. Even the woods remind him: God ordains the details—deer running whether we watch or not.
Counsel to the Numb and the Overwhelmed
Brother Greg asks Blake to speak to the person whose heart is locked down, whose mind is ready to blow. Blake’s counsel is direct:
- Commit to the journey. Chase after God; He can use anyone, but you grow into usefulness by faith.
- Get out of your head. “God is not in your head—He’s in your heart.” Your head will lie to you.
- Get under spiritual authority. Real, anointed authority that knows you, speaks into you, and bears fruit over time. Test everything by God’s Word; Jesus’ people are known by the manifestation of the Spirit on their life.
- Beware of fakeness. Some churches will not preach the full gospel—will not warn about hell. Jesus confronted religion; sinners who knew their need ran toward Him.
- Choose God now. Do not wait until rock bottom forces your hand. It’s still a choice—He will not force you.
Brother Greg adds: Openness matters. Blake was transparent before the entire church family as we discussed the Backlash message about his inability to show empathy. That honesty helped everyone learn and led him to ask the Lord for a new heart—and within four days, God answered. Come now, that is awesome, Brother Greg proclaims!
A Prayer for a New Heart
Blake prays for all those watching him share all of this amazing journey in God on VFNtv: “Thank You, Lord. Take a mustard seed of faith and make it a tree. Get people under spiritual authority and right with You. Place Yourself in their path. Thank You, Jesus.” As Blake was praying the room,’ “Filled up with the Glory presence of God’… thank You for Your presence.”
“If you’re watching,” Blake says, “this is your call. Get right with Jesus.”
Honoring a Spiritual Grandfather—and the Power of Summer Glory
Brother Greg, invites Blake to speak to Pastor John Kilpatrick—Brother Greg’s spiritual father, and calling him Blake’s spiritual grandfather. Blake chuckles: he had not wanted to go, to the pastor’s conference, at first, but after his first conference with Nathan Morris, he was grateful. He honors Kilpatrick’s discernment to host God’s presence, to vet voices, even to skip an offering when “God’s here.” “We love the presence of God,” Blake says. “Thank you.”
Please do not stop Summer Glory Celebrations, he urges—they are needed more than ever. People from traditional churches come and truly experience God. He recalls the recent Summer Glory Celebration, where a man who had been hit by an 18-wheeler while in his service truck—barely able to walk—was healed and began to dance. (“You could tell he’d never danced like that,” Brother Greg jokes.)
Why We Rent a House (and Why You Should Too)
Blake recommends getting a house together rather than scattering to hotel rooms when you attend the Summer Glory Celebration at Church of His Presence in July of each year: “The miracles of God are working mostly outside the conference in the Glory House where we stay.” Eat, talk, witness to one another—relationships are where God moves. People are filled with the Holy Spirit around the table, between meetings, in late-night debriefs. They laugh remembering the “shredder” moment last year: it was late, conversations looping downstairs under Blake’s room, until he stuck his head in—“We’ve got to go to bed now!”—a pre-new-heart cameo that makes him smile today.
“God, Give Me a New Heart”
Brother Greg closes: Jesus wants to do this in your life, in your church. You won’t walk on water by willpower—but when God touches your heart, you can. Say it out loud, with Blake: “God, give me a new heart.” And believe He will.