Pray Together, Stay Together

Once a world champion wrestler, now a champion for Christ.

Once the Russian nightmare, now the devil's worst nightmare. And your tag team partner, Nikita Kolov. It's time to man up. Today, we have a very special treat. As entrepreneur, Brian Johnson joins me along with his lovely wife, Jamie, a female voice on It's Time to Man Up. Today, she gives us a woman's perspective on a real man.

Just a quick background on Brian. Born and raised down in Aiken, South Carolina. Now they live on a 110-acre farm in Johnston, South Carolina. And boy, him and Jamie, I had the privilege of meeting them just a while ago and just fell in love with this couple and their family, four children. Together, they own a business down in Aiken called Crescent Automotive, an independent auto dealership down there in Aiken.

They've been there for almost 25 years. And the families involved, their daughter Chelsea, they like to say she's our top salesperson. And so just great. Brian, Jamie, great to have you on the show with me today. Hi, Nikita. We're great to be here.

Well, thank you so much. This is a special treat for me. I just love to be able to have a variety of different guests on the show.

In this particular case, people out there in what I call the marketplace or the business world. And it's special to me as well because you are big time supporters of It's Time to Man Up and one of our sponsors, one of our advertisers. And so those of you listening out there, just note to self, if you don't have to be in Aiken, South Carolina, you can buy a car from these guys anywhere.

Isn't that right, Brian? Absolutely true, Nikita. The last seven or eight months, we have literally sold cars all over the United States. Since the coronavirus came out, it really opened up our market.

It surprised us and kind of caught us off guard. But it's been quite the blessing. And we have sold cars in Oklahoma and Virginia and Florida and West Virginia and New York and Indiana. We've been all over the United States with transactions and very blessed with that. That's absolutely amazing.

I mean, I'm just kind of sitting here thinking, okay, you guys got this. You've had this dealership in Aiken, South Carolina for 25 years. And of course, obviously, I know just from us talking, the Lord has really prospered that business for you guys. And then you're kind of, in a sense, if you want to say almost forced into taking advantage of technology and the next thing you know, you're shipping cars all over the United States. I mean, how do they find you?

Brian, what do they do? This worldwide internet web that we're on, the phones in everybody's hands, the Google searches, you know, the traditional way of selling cars, it's just totally changed. It used to be somebody would see something, they drive by your lot, look at it, they test drive it, you get to know them and you'd sell them a car and go from there.

And now a lot of these transactions, been a couple of them, we sold two cars in Texas, we never even met the people, you know, they wired the money in and they sent a holder to pick it up. And of course, when you're able to do that, you have to represent things right. You have to have a good name, you have to have a good reputation, and you have to have good reviews. And we work real hard as a family business to do that. We've been real blessed with some great customers that have provided us with hundreds of good reviews on our website. And it's worked real well.

It's unique. There's some things I don't like about it because you don't necessarily get to sell them their next car because they're that far away. And we like retention and repeat business and whatnot. But it has been a blessing to get us through this tough last six months using faith over fear here in our businesses. You and I have discussed a number of times, we're excited about what the future holds with that technology.

That's right. Well, and I know for me, as a car owner, that yeah, up to date anyway, any car I've ever purchased, I can recall, you know, taking it out, as you said, taking it out for a test drive and seeing if I liked the way it handled and the feel of it, how I felt sitting in it and all those sorts of things. And then, like you said, I would imagine building a relationship with some of those folks and the repeat business of over 25 years. Let me ask this. Do you still have customers like from 25 years ago? Like, are there like kids or something? Are there grandkids coming in now? How does that work?

We do. We have third generation business. The parents have bought cars from us just right before we came in for this interview. We delivered a car to someone local whose son was buying a car.

The father had bought a car from us six or seven years ago. And again, we've seen it all the way down three generations. So it does. It helps us. And repeat business is fantastic, you know, because you have already established a relationship.

The trust is already there. We're pleased to be able to provide that type of service to anybody that deals with us, but especially our repeat customers. Well, that's pretty amazing. And I know from talking with both you and your lovely bride there, I know you say Chelsea's your top salesperson, but I got a feeling now I'm going to go out on a limb here that Jamie is the one that is the glue that holds all this together. Is that right, Jamie? Is that an accurate statement? That's a hard job.

That's a big hat to fill. I'm in the website, Nikita. So I put the cars up and take pictures and do all that as well as the accounting side. So I'm not the salesperson.

I don't have that in me, but Chelsea got it honest from her daddy. So I'm over there. I'm the bean counter and the picture taker most of the time and the hostess. So that's my job. Well, the bean counter is pretty important because obviously you've got to make sure there's money in the account, right? And money coming in and money going out and it's important to know those numbers, correct?

Absolutely. I have to keep them straight. Well, like I said, it sounds like you're the glue that holds this whole company together.

No offense, Brian. Don't let her fool you, Nikita. She's the face of the business. We did a billboard campaign a year or so ago and we put a picture on a billboard. Our theme is everybody drives Crestland.

You should too. And our website is drivecrestland.com. And we put her face on a billboard and we literally get a phone call every day. Can I speak to the pretty lady on the billboard?

There you go. Don't let her fool you. And she's done some local radio interviews with some folks here in our market in the Aiken Augusta, Georgia area market. And she's got quite the voice for radio and the face for TV.

Well, that's... I'm pleased to be her partner behind the scenes and follow her lead in this business. And I can't really thank you both enough for, again, for being one of the founding supporters and sponsors and advertisers for It's Time to Man Up. And for our listeners, it may not be often that we get blessed with a female voice, but we got a female voice online with us today. So, awesome. That's awesome. Well, we met a while back and I had just an amazing time. And of course, down on your... I mentioned your 110-acre farm and just, I mean, an absolute beautiful piece of property.

I mean, driving in, I can recall I stopped and took pictures of buffalo there grazing by the fence. And of course, I had a wonderful time, Brian, sitting talking with you by the lake and then our time there in the barn and that got really kind of the ball rolling on this whole thing. You know, my introduction to you, you reached out to me and wanted me to come in and speak to some of the family and some of the employees. And of course, I just felt a real connection to you guys. Love your heart. And I think our listeners out there already just listening to both of you share some of your story that, you know, they can sense just the genuineness of who you are and the heart that you have. And, you know, wanting to not just take care of your customers, but also, you know, the amazing family that you guys have.

Back up just for a moment. I mean, I know you got in the car business 25 years ago. Talk just briefly, maybe Jamie, tell our listeners how you guys met. How did you guys meet? We actually met a long time ago.

Okay. I have a small business and Jamie came to work with me and was in the office. And I actually didn't hire her. I had an office manager that hired her and I walked past her and I said, who's the new girl? It just kind of went from there. The relationship grew and we began to date and began to know each other and grow and, you know, Jamie's just a special woman.

She's a woman of God that God is anointing in her life and she's got a wonderful heart and a wonderful prayer life. And, you know, Nikita, you and I met, I don't know if you don't remember this, but it was about 20 years ago. You came and you spoke at a small church putting on a little wrestling event for the youth. You weren't wrestling anymore, you just retired, but your heart was for Jesus. And this small church asked me to kind of help them sponsor and pay for this thing.

We had a business next door to them. And so we did and we got to meet you and a big wrestling fan in the 80s, I've shared that with you. My Monday nights were spent over at Bell Auditorium in Augusta watching you beat on people in the township in Columbia and watching you on TV late on Saturday nights on Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. And so I knew who you were and I was a big wrestling fan, but, you know, talk about you a little bit. Your heart for Jesus is what really made us reach back out to you again. You shared a powerful testimony that day. And as our walk with Christ grew, Jamie and I as a couple, me as an individual man, because I'm kind of like you, I believe the man should be the spiritual leader of the hall.

You know, Ephesians 5 speaks about that. And I just, raising our children, bringing them up in the church and as this business began to grow and things changed, the role of the man just becomes so important in the home, you know. I saw an interesting statistic. I don't know if I shared this with you or not when we met a few months ago, but the divorce rate in marriages is over 50%. In second marriages it's over 60%. And I found a statistic that the divorce rate was one in 38,000 when this occurred. And it just blew me away. What in the world can the divorce rate be one in 38,000 in?

And it's in a family where the man openly prays out loud daily for and with his wife. And that just really stuck to me, Nikita. You know, when somebody can share that kind of insight with you, that a relationship between a man and a woman can make the odds turn in your favor for once. And as you know, in this world, the odds aren't always in our favor. Well, that's for sure. And you remind me of a saying, and certainly probably it always bears repeating, a family that prays together stays together.

And of course you mentioned early on that you had a, a, a praying wife. And, and so I, and I'm always challenging people. And in fact, I do these conferences, these Saturday conferences called Man Up. And one of my challenges, Brian, for the man is, in each session, I give them a call to action at the end of each session. And in one particular session, the call is, or, and I give them two or three choices. Okay, hey, do this, do this, do that, whatever. Well, one of them is to, to pray, not just for your family and your wife, but to pray with your family and your wife. And, and as awkward as that might be at first, because there is a real enemy who wants to make it real, real awkward usually and kind of weird.

But all that said, you press through that. That's a great statistic. One in thirty-eight thousandth that are divorced when, when husband and wife pray together out loud. That's, that's pretty amazing. Daily. Yeah. Daily. Daily. Daily.

Emphasize. I think it's the one that shared that. I was just in his church in Atlanta one weekend and, and I heard that sermon and he shared that. And it has just stuck with me over the years. And I've shared it with my children. You know, two of my four are married. And it's just, it's just so important to, to not be afraid to have an intimate relationship with Christ and share that intimacy with the one that you're most intimate with. Your wife.

That's awesome. Jamie, let me ask you. So, I'm talking about husband and wife praying together. He mentioned earlier that you're a praying woman and I was kind of teasing you that you're the glue that holds his family together or the business together. Okay. So he, he's the spiritual leader of the home.

You're the glue that holds the business together. But let, let me ask you, Jamie. So, so you hear these two men talk, real, real talk with real men and we're talking about, you know, men leading their families as servant leaders, praying with their wife and children. How, how do you feel about that? How do you feel about having a, a praying husband who will pray not just for you, but also pray with you and pray with you daily out loud? How do you feel about that? Well, Nikita, for one, it gives you, number one, the most confidence because you know that someone literally has your back daily and you are set forth in the world with a whole different mindset. You're not, you don't feel alone.

You don't feel like, oh, I've got to go tell my husband that my worries or tell, you know, whatever my family, my worries. You've been prayed for in advance. And that's, that's powerful to me. And I teach, you know, my daughters and my sons, you know, this is how, this is the way it's supposed to be, regardless of what the world says. It's popular right now.

This is what works. We're a testimony to that. I don't know a lot of husbands and wives that can work together daily and own your own business and go home and learn how to leave it at the door and become husband and wife again and go back into the family unit and continue to teach your family. But it's got to be my most, the closest virtue is the crown in my family. We could not do what we do without it. We know God's the reason why our business is successful, our marriage is successful. There's no doubt in either of our minds. And we stop sometimes and say, you know, this might be going bad this week, but let's stop and remember all the good because the good usually outweighs the bad. And we know that prayer is a huge reason for that. I mean, of course, we're given free will and we go out about our day making our own choices. But you just have the utmost confidence as a woman out in this world, especially in my line of work. We were joking earlier. I live in a man's world.

I'm in the car business. But our daughter has been taught to be a leader. And I go out every day and I try to be a leader as well because my husband gives me that confidence. And I've got that beautiful background backing me up and I've got that prayer backing me up. And that's so reassuring sometimes. Sometimes there are days when that's all you have.

No, that's powerful. All right, for our listeners out there, I know the show is called It's Time to Man Up. And I know we get a lot of men who dial in and listen in to this show.

And I imagine some ladies as well. And so perhaps there's some ladies out there that what Jamie's sharing is just really resonating with you. And maybe right now you don't have a praying husband, but you can be encouraging. Jamie, what would you say to that woman out there that doesn't have a praying husband? What would you say to encourage her?

How could she not necessarily, you know, beat him over the head with, hey, this is what I want. But what would you suggest to that woman listening out there that would love to have a praying husband but doesn't? I think the number one thing would be pray for it. That sounds like we're going around the bush there, but you pray for it. You really do. And you also be his number one supporter. And I think that's so important in everything he does, whether it's business or home life. And just show that you've got it back and you pray without ceasing.

Absolutely pray without ceasing to have that. Seek guidance and seek wise counsel and surround yourself with people that do have husbands that are spiritual leaders. That's one of the main things that started us off on the right track in our early years of marriage, was surrounding ourselves with knowledgeable, not always elders, but usually elders that have been married longer than us. So we try to set an example and the root and the foundation always came back to the man being the spiritual leader of the family. So certainly if you surround yourself with married, you know, let's just say a couple has been married, you know, 30, 35, 40 years.

I mean, there's certainly there's a track record there that can certainly speak into those who are brand new married or recently married or newlyweds, right? And so that's pretty good advice, Jamie. I thank you for that. Very good wisdom, very good insight.

That's kind of Proverbs 31 insight, I'm thinking right there. One more question. We got a few minutes left here.

One more question for you, Jamie. So you come into this job, into this office, and meet Brian and begin to, you know, to date. What was that moment that you're like, yeah, okay, I can spend the rest of my life with this guy? Well, it took a bit because I was coming into the car business. You know, that was very new to me.

I love cars and I always have. So that was the interest there. But he was just a genuine gentleman to be around. And at first sight, he is just a very warm hearted person and just was a very loving person in his business, as well as to his work family, which is what we call everybody at Crescent because you're at work so long, they become your family. But he just had an air of confidence. And I tell him that all the time. He thinks it's a good look. But I fell in love with his confidence.

And I don't think a lot of men, you know, they want to throw around these, you know, looks or muscles or whatever they think is confidence. But when you see someone's true heart and the confidence is there in their everyday life and any circumstance they're put in front of, that's very attractive. And that's, you know, that's the root of the person and that's the heart of the person. And I really fell in love with his heart. That sounds very corny, but the confidence got me.

No, not at all. In fact, you just remind me of a story in the Bible. Let me think.

Let me think here. 1 Samuel, I think 16th chapter, something about Samuel. He's been given the task to anoint the next king of Israel. And one of the sons is standing before him. He's like, surely, surely, this is the next. And God's like, uh-uh.

Kind of paraphrasing here, but he's like, no, no, no, no. Don't look at his outward appearance and what you're seeing. You know, and for those listening out there, right, we have a tendency, even as you hear Jamie share, to look at man's outward appearance or another's outward appearance. But man, did she nail it on the head that just like God looks at the heart, that's where in relationships, that's where we got to get to, right? We got to get to understanding the heart of a person, not just based off the looks of a person.

Because they can look like, as Lex Luger used to be called, the total package, but be absolutely heartless or not have, you know, something's missing inside, right? So that is awesome. Well, in our last couple of minutes here, Brian, let me ask you. So I had a first ever experience when I was down on your farm there a while back, and I'm there. I'm going to hang out with some of your employees, some of your family, had a wonderful dinner together.

And of course, I love it. We were kind of joking. I was kind of teasing Jamie because, you know, she had all these plans laid out. And then, of course, you know, things don't always work out the way you intend for them to work out. A pretty good thunderstorm rolled in and kind of, we had to be flexible and change.

I like to say a missionary taught me in 1995, blessed are the flexible, for they shall not break. And we had to be flexible. But I'm in the midst of this presentation, and we were disrupted. We had an uninvited audience. Brian, take a minute. We don't have much time left here. Take a minute to talk about that.

What happened? Well, you know, if we had figured this out in the 80s, you probably wouldn't have held on to that United States heavyweight belt as long as you did. But Nikita is scared to death of skunks. And I believe we had four show up, did we not, Nikita?

Well, yeah, I lost count, actually, but go ahead. Well, we have found the kryptonite for you there, Nikita. The Russian sickle was of no power against the mighty four skunks that came out of the barn stall that we were having dinner and a wonderful presentation, by the way, by you, Nikita. But yeah, that's one for stories for a long time. Four skunks, thank goodness nobody got sprayed.

That's right. For the record, just for the record, Brian said I was scared to death. I don't know I'd take it that far, Brian. It was more like I just... Nikita, there was fear in your eyes. I didn't want to be sprayed. That was the deal. So anyway...

If the goal was on the line that night, you would have lost. I love it. Well, listen, give our listeners out there one more time. Your website, how can they find you guys? DriveCrescent.com. Very simple, DriveCrescent.com.

We have a good selection of vehicles there, a lot of testimonies about us, a little bit about who we are and how we got started and whatnot. Again, I want to thank you, Nikita, for the opportunity to be a part of this ministry. We are so excited about what you're doing with the man up, the man camp.

My advice to the lady that can't get his husband to pray would be, hey, man up, send him to man camp, whatever it takes. There you go. Be an encourager. Yes. Absolutely. Thanks again for letting us be a part of this. You're just so dear to our heart. We love you to death. We look forward to you. You're so encouraging to me. I love hearing from you.

I look forward to just seeing you take this to absolute new heights. I appreciate it, Brian. Thank you, and Jamie, thank you.

That's right, ladies. If you're listening out there, again, don't beat your husband over the head, but just encourage them. Hey, go check out mancamp.info and encourage them to consider.

If you give them your blessing, there's a much better chance they'll actually come to the camp or come to the conferences that I host. I always like to end on a story. Let me just share this. Nikita, I don't know if I can keep this to one or two sentences about what man camp has done for me. Hey, how about that?

Look at this. Since I've returned home to my family, they can tell a difference in me. I learned at man camp to listen more carefully to what God is telling me to do in my life. I made incredible friendships with great people. I learned life lessons I can use to teach and lead my own family. I learned how to worship the Lord, how to pray more clearly.

I feel more free than I have felt in years, like a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders and I can finally breathe. Man camp was an experience I will never forget and will tell everyone about. I think every man, see what Brian just said? I think every man, young and old, can benefit from what you and Lex Luger are teaching men about God and life. Thank you for this wonderful experience. God bless you both, you and Lex, in ministry to men, Shannon Edge. Folks, that's where we're at today.

Brian and Jamie Johnson in Aiken, South Carolina. Listen, it is time to man up and just remember this. It's not about the duration of time, how much time you get to live. It's about your donation and you just heard from a couple that is donating back to God and God is blessing them. Until next time, it's time to man up. Men, I would like to challenge each of you to consider spending five days with Lex Luger and I at man camp, pursuing the heart of God. Ladies, if you're listening, we'll send your men home better equipped to be men of God, godly husbands and godly fathers. That appeals to you. Give them your blessing and encourage them to sign up today at mancamp.info. Masters, if you would like to bring Koloff for Christ Ministries and Man Up Conference to your community, go to koloff.org and email me. And remember this, it's time to man up.