Friday, February 2nd | The “MMEAT” Program

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We're going to leave some links in the description below so you can do just that. And today we are here in the Clearview Today studio with Dr. Abadan Shah, who is a Ph.D. in New Testament textual criticism, and our special guest from yesterday, Mr. Ken Spellman. Good to see you, sir. Welcome back. Happy Friday.

Thank you. Good to be here. It's really good to see you guys.

We had a great conversation yesterday about your piece of land on Back to Eden. We thought, man, we've got to get this guy back on the show. It's almost like no time has passed. It's almost like only 15 seconds passed since yesterday's episode.

Time flies so much when you're having fun. There it is. So you kind of mentioned yesterday about your time in prison, and it seems like we kind of glossed over it, but we had this idea in mind that we were going to do a two-part episode. Do you want to sort of give us the same – because Dr. Shah and I came, as we heard on yesterday's episode, and we met you, and you kind of took us into this room in the big house, as you call it. Right. And it was your dedication room, and it had an incredible story. Do you want to just kind of lightly dive into that before we go in?

Yeah, sure. The room is a dedication room, and I dedicated that room to my family, first of all, and some of the men that I was able to work with while I was in prison that are success stories. And I was able to work with thousands of men, but specifically right around 2,000 men graduated from a program that I wrote, and it has a 95 to 97 percent success rate. These men either own their own businesses or they are supervisors and managers for other businesses. Wow.

A lot of the families have started businesses that are, you know, countless businesses that through the sessions and the education that they got from the program, they were able to go even further with teaching the children and the siblings of the program, and there's a lot of success from the program. Yeah. And so even in the big house with the slave history and all that, I felt necessary because it was a part of my past, and there was a form of enslavement for me knowing that I was innocent, and so I felt that it was appropriate to at least acknowledge that journey that helped me to be able to be adequate in this journey. That's really awesome.

There is sort of like that narrative parallel there. Dr. Shaw, how did you feel when we first walked into that dedication room and we saw all of the stuff on the walls and we heard that story? Can I be honest?

Yeah, go for it. This guy is for real. I mean, I had heard, and then I was there, and I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, but when you begin to see the evidence, you go, oh, okay, this is the real deal, and this is much more than just a great story or heart-gripping account.

This is real. And when people do walk into that dedication room, they have the same experience. I watched the staff.

When we were there with our whole team, I was watching them, and you could just see all of a sudden it hits them. Okay, we're here. This is it. And so from there on, it was pretty much, this is awesome.

Oh, absolutely. Haven't seen Dr. Shaw and Jon come back from that first initial visit where they met you, Mr. Spellman, and they started talking about this place back to Eden when we met this guy, and I was like, what is happening? What are they talking about? They're really fired up about this, and I don't really even understand what they went to go do.

When someone goes to see a movie and they're super hype on it, but you don't know the details. I was like, I don't even know what this meeting was. So then Dr. Shaw was like, hey, we're going to go out and see this place and meet Mr. Ken Spellman, and I was like, I didn't really know what to expect. I'd heard kind of the brief synopsis, but then to hear you talk and to see your heart and to see the impact that you've had on these guys and to hear you share about, even like you said on yesterday's episode about how you had to die to yourself a second time and surrender to Christ and allow him to use you as a vessel, even while you were incarcerated, it was so moving and so humbling just to hear you and to see your genuine spirit in what you were sharing. I was blown away.

I'm sure my face was just like, this guy is amazing. This is unbelievable the way that God has used you and continues to use you to impact people's lives. Before we continue, I do want to give a 30-second recap, just in case there's anybody on the radio who didn't hear yesterday. If you're listening to the podcast, you can always go back, but if you're listening live on the radio, Mr. Ken Spellman, you were born in Norfolk, Virginia. You did 19 years in prison, is that right? And then afterwards, this is what we talked about yesterday, you were released, came here to Henderson, North Carolina, bought a piece of property and then bought another piece of property adjacent to it, not knowing that there was actually a slave graveyard or slave cemetery right there in the backyard.

So you've turned it into sort of a history oasis called Back to Eden, and that's where we left off yesterday. But today we wanted to kind of talk about what led up to that, that time that you actually did in prison for a crime you didn't commit, and the program that you wrote for prison reform or for, I guess, inmate behavior reform. Right, right, right, life skills. And one of the things that really sparked me and my spirit to start writing and start working with these men, and I mentioned it yesterday, was that I was one of the people that felt like before I went to prison, why do these guys keep doing things that they shouldn't do?

Why are these kids standing on the corner with their pants around their knees and their shoes not tied and their hat turned around backwards? They are not getting jobs, they're not doing this. So I was one of those people that said, I'll give you a job. Get off the corner, I'll give you a job, because I owned a construction company for over 30 years, minus 19.

Of course. So as I started talking to these young men, I realized that a lot of them did not know why they should do anything different than what they were doing. When they went down a road, there was only a left turn, because that's all they knew was a left turn. Their dad made a left turn. Everybody in the community was making left turns.

Their peers were making left turns. And God just told me to give them an option, give them a right turn. And as I would talk to these young men about why do you feel this way, why are you continuously coming to prison, why don't you have a relationship with your kids, I started writing their answers and responses down. I wrote on the back of my hand, the front of my hand, I wrote on canteen receipts and paper bags and napkins and paper towels. Wherever I could document it, wherever I was, I wrote it down. And I would put them in my prayer bag. I had a paper bag that I called my prayer bag, and I'd get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, and I would take this bag in my Bible, and I'd sit it on the table and dump all these questions out, and I'd go to the Scriptures and find ways to respond in a spiritual way. And sometimes I had to speak their language in order for them to comprehend it. I couldn't tell them what chapter, what verse, where the Scripture came from, but I put it in words and phrases and ways that they could get it.

And it started working. So I started documenting the successes of these conversations when I told them that they should write their kids regardless of what their baby's mother was doing. They should do outreach in prison. A lot of inmates want to go out and speak to kids when they get out.

They're hyped about it. I said, but you have to start your outreach here. I mean, you just turn a guy down that asks you for a pen, and you say, no, I got two pens, and I'm going to keep both of them. Your outreach starts with giving that guy a pen so he can write his family.

So it starts right here. So these are some of the things, and I was basically just trying to help some young men to reconnect with their families, to stop going to segregation, stop doing things they shouldn't, and I had to give them reason. And one of the benefits that I had was that I had started 27 businesses before I went to prison. I had coached junior Olympic gymnastics. I had worked in the recreation department. I had coached wrestling.

I was a research director for Shell Law Company for five years. So I came into prison with a, you know, I had the same clothes on, but I had something else inside of me. So because I had the same clothes on, they listened, and they said, well, let me see what this old school guy has to say. And what I said, I made sure that it lined up with Scripture so that way I didn't have to worry about how they took it.

I had to deliver the mail. So whether they opened it or not, it was on them. I think that's key. And Dr. Shaw, I know you would agree with that, keeping Scripture and keeping the text, the word of God at the heart of your life, will ultimately benefit you even if you find yourself in a very unpleasant place. Well, it's the manual for life. This is God's word for the world. And so if you want to know how to live, you want to know how to make right decisions, you go back to Scripture. And I can be wrong.

I mean, I may give you advice, but there's no guarantee. But the word of God is not going to be wrong. It's an inspired word of God.

So, yeah, I 100% agree with that. And that's also, I noticed, in the MEET program, and I'll come through your manual for a few moments, and just to see that even if Scriptures are not plastered everywhere or pasted everywhere in that program, the principles are coming from Scripture. So they're done so well that in a sense they're getting the word of God.

One of the things I ran into was that it started off with just a few men at a table, and then other men started having success stories and sharing with their friends. And we found out that we had the blacks, the whites, the Hispanic, the Asians. We had the Bloods, the Crips, the Aryan Nation, the Christians, the Moor Science, the Muslims were all in the same room or at the same table outside because we all had in our hearts that we wanted to be successful in something. And I searched the Scriptures and I talked to God about, you know, how do I speak to this many races, religions, gang members? How do I speak to them one language that is truthful and I don't turn my back on what you have commanded me to do? And that's the walk in the footsteps of Christ and lead by example.

So I stopped worrying about it and I said, I am going to just be the best Christian I can be in their eyes. So even when Muslims would come, we had Scriptures, and if you look at the manual, there's Scriptures throughout the manual. For every session it starts with a Scripture. And as some people know, in prison when you take classes, the institution and the state gets money from the federal government because inmates are taking classes, they're being educated, being rehabilitated.

And it would be, you know, 10, 12 guys in class and they get paid for it. But I'd have 150, 160 guys on the yard in class and eventually they started locking me up while I was locked up. So they put me in a six by nine cell for six days and to kind of, you know, water it down a little bit and I would get out and do the same thing that God told me to do, and that was to teach, preach, spread the gospel in the way that he gave me. And then they locked me up for 10 days and got out and I went back to preaching, teaching, spreading the gospel. It went all the way up to 60 days. I ended up doing 60 days over 12 years period of time. They locked me up periodically because they felt that I had too much influence on the inmate population and that we could actually take the camp over.

I understand that, but there were so many success stories, even with the officers that were listening in, there were officers that were starting their own businesses and resigning from the prison, Department of Corrections, and they started their own businesses because of this program. The program is MEET, M-M. So I was going to bring that up later. Like typically when you start a program, you always got to go with that acronym, right? You see debate, hope, trust, love, MEET. I saw that on your wall, I was like, MEET.

Okay, let's hear it. Yeah, it wasn't, we didn't have a name for it. I didn't set out to write a program. I was just a guy in prison that knew some things and knew some things about God and I didn't quote the scriptures until they were ready to be able to receive that. Hey, go study the scripture. Show yourself approved.

Go study this scripture. But initially, I had to just speak it in a language that everybody could comprehend it and apply it to their lives. After a year, the superintendent had found out about it and this was a thousand-man camp. So there was about 25% of the population at that time involved in sitting at the tables, not a name, not MEET, sitting at tables outside and I started sending stuff out to my daughter to type up and it wasn't a curriculum, it wasn't a program and the superintendent said, look, I need for you to write a proposal so I can send it to Raleigh and see if we can get this thing sanctioned because I retire in four months. He said, I've been looking for 30 years for something that would bring all the races and religions together for one purpose and he said, I think you found it and I want to support it. And so when I went to the chaplain, I said, well, this is what the superintendent asked me to do, you know, how can you help? He said, well, you can do all your work, everything you need to do, do it in the chapel. And then the superintendent said, he called me back in and said, look, what's the name of it?

What college did you get it from? What prison is teaching it? I said, it was designed and built right here on this compound and he said, no, I thought you got it from another prison and I said, no. He said, well, what's the name of it?

I said, it has no name. He said, well, you got to come up with a name. He said, I'm talking to people already, you got to come up with a name for this program and I went back to the chaplain and I said, okay, what are we doing? And I sat down and we had prayer and I said, well, we're ministering but ministry, people relate that to Christianity when you're in prison and I took a Webster's dictionary and I said, okay, ministry.

The act of serving, that's what we're doing with serving. So we used the M for ministry and then, well, teaching guys how to manage their lives and so with two Ms, it wasn't a word at the time, it was just going to be letters. It was going to be my meat, I got you.

I got you. And then I said, well, we're teaching guys to be self-starters, teaching them entrepreneurship, not necessarily a businessman but how to manage and control your life. So we put the E in and it still wasn't a word. We didn't even know it was going to become meat and I said, well, we're holding people accountable for their actions. We're holding people accountable for their past, their present and their future and we put the A down and it was M-M-E-A. I said, that's good. And then before we walked out, I said, but we're training people. So we put the T and when we looked, it was two Ms, E-A-T. It was M-M-meat.

But that's how the name came about. We wrote it on the front of the manual that I was working on, the proposal and it stuck. Ministry management, accountability training. Ministering the act of service, managing your life, your affairs, entrepreneurship, being a self-starter, accountability, being accountable for your actions, for your family, for your future and training, being able to be proficiently trained and to be able to train someone else once you've got it. It's a really wise way to go about it because one of the things I've learned from you, Dr.

Shy, is that when you assess yourself as a leader, you start with your core values, your identity. Not only what are we doing, but who are we? And I know we've certainly done that at Clearview as well. Right. I had to do that for my own life.

This is in the early 2000s. I was pastoring here, of course, doing my doctoral work, but still I was fuzzy about the mission and the vision of my life. I knew the overarching mission was to be in ministry, but how exactly am I going to do that? And so that's when I began to read and study on how to craft a vision, how to have core values. What are the things I'm not going to compromise on? What are the things that will become my specialty? This is what God has gifted me with, my circumstances, the influences in my life, and how I'm going to now use that. I'm not going to go out there and try to be a basketball player.

I know Coach Ken can play basketball too, but I'm not. That's past my time. Right.

So how am I going to do that? And then I crafted my own mission and vision for life and core values. And then the same thing we did with our church. Back in 2008, we actually had just a small group of people.

We had only 20 people here. And we took those 20 people and said, let's craft our core values. Then let's decide what our mission is and then what is our vision. And now we are in a new stage of our church's growth. Our mission and our core values are not going to change, but our vision will change because we have met our goals. And now it's time for a new vision.

But based on the same core values and mission. So what Mr. Ken is sharing here is just right on target. I mean, that's what it takes. Well, I can see sort of a parallel in you, Mr. Spellman, because when you get out of prison and this MEET program has sort of, in a way, come to fruition, it's like what do I do with my life now? You know, I'm out. The last 19 years have been building up to this moment, but I still have the rest of my life to live. Exactly. So what does my life look like?

What is the trajectory of the impact, not only the impact that I leave, but what I do with the rest of the time given me? Right, right. Well, you know, when I got out, all I knew, I had taught the program for 17, going on 18 years of my incarceration. So I knew nothing but to do what I had taught. And a part of my success, a great part of it, is that I followed the principles of the program to the letter. When I got out, they handed me a $45 gate check. Then they gave me a bill for $52,000.

So you owe us this for restitution, and you got to wear an ankle monitor until you pay us. And I started applying the principles of the program from that day. The day that I got out, I did outreach.

I did marriage, family, and public relations. I took that $45 and took my wife to San Jose Restaurant in Raleigh, and the bill was $42. Wow. And I had $2 and some change, and I gave the waitress the change, and I said, I'll bring your tip in about two weeks. I promise you.

Yeah. And so I had $0, but within two years, God blessed me to buy 22 properties and a trailer park within two years. And within six months, I had that $52,000 paid off by using the principles of the program. God first, the motto, others second, and then yourself. That was the first principle I used. Amen.

God first, others, and then myself. And I planned, I organized, and followed through. That's one of the other mottos for the program.

But the program has had great success. It helped me to get back in court after 12 years. They discovered that they had made some mistakes, that they had the wrong guy. They called me back to court. The DA said, we're going to let you go.

You got to go before the judge. And by then, I had a second proposal or manual done for the program. And the judge looked at it, and it was about 50 people in the courtroom that I had taught or that had experienced the program by being officers or inmates or volunteers coming into the churches. And he said, wow, you've helped a lot of people. He said, why should I let you out of prison when there are a lot more people that need help?

He hit the gavel, took off his robe, laid it on the chair, went in the chambers. And we all looked at each other like, this can't be real. And I did another seven years in prison. But that seven years was where God needed to complete what he was doing in me and the program.

I went right back to doing the same thing, did another seven years. But my wife's cousin had heard about the program. He was working with the prison system in Chicago. They had some connections with some senators in Maryland, and they invited me to speak, be keynote speaker at the 2019 recidivism conference in Chicago. They flew me out, put me in a hotel, and I spoke in front of representatives from all over the world, and they offered to buy the program, and I turned them down.

A couple million dollars, I'll just say that. I'm not going to sell out something that God gave me for money. So as people were saying, don't go to Henderson, don't go to Henderson, the crime.

I had never been to Henderson. But I said, God, that's where I'm going to Henderson where I can apply this program to the lives of others that may need it. And that was my reason. That was it. That was basically it. You just wanted to continue the MEET program. I wanted to continue it in real time and not just have it on paper that I could hand it to somebody, take the money, and run. That's not how it was designed.

It was designed for us to learn it and teach other people, and God wouldn't have been pleased with me if I had done anything different. Wow. That's awesome. That's incredible.

Man, so important. And Dr. Child, you've preached this many times from the pulpit, but it's so important for us, no matter what life throws at us, to keep our eyes on the mission, to keep our eyes focused on what God has called us to do. And no matter what pitfalls come our way, trust that God is in control over every step of the way. That's right.

I preached a message a few years ago called When You Are Where You Don't Want to Be. Do you remember that? I think that was our first message in the new building. That's right. Well, what is now our current building.

Right. And we talked about how the Jewish people, the people of Judah, were in exile. And it says in Psalm 137, by the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. And we hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For those who carried us away captive asked of us a song. And those who plundered us requested mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. And their response was, How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? Now that sounds spiritual. But to the contrary, if you read the book of Jeremiah, it's actually the opposite. God was telling them, You're in exile, I'm not going to bring ye out right now. You are to bloom where you're planted.

That's right. So in chapter 29, it says, Take wives, beget sons and daughters, plant gardens, eat their fruit. And so seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive. And pray to the Lord for it, for in its peace you will have peace. If you want peace, you seek the peace of the place where I have placed you. Stop looking at it as your captivity. I mean, the parallels are so real.

Oh, they're endless. And so, you know, my strong encouragement for people is to just come to Christ. Number one, come to Christ. And then, whatever your circumstances are, if you have Christ with you, you're not a loser. That's right.

You are more than victorious. Amen. Yeah. And this is why I love Clearview. Amen, thank you. This is why I love Clearview. Amen.

The pastor can hold a regular conversation and he can preach to you and teach you at the same time. That's right. That's right.

That's right. Oh, wow. But I just want to, you know, just say that Clearview, being supportive of where we are now, when I didn't have that support in there, I didn't have that support when I got out. So when, you know, people say that they're going to do something, it's hard to believe because you don't get that in there. Because people know you're stationary. You're not going to move. So I'm not going to lose focus of where you are.

And when you get out, it's kind of the same thing where you're out there and you're okay. And a lot of people have promised to do things and spoken to do things and then follow the truth. So I'm accustomed to that. But when I meet genuine people and a church like this, I come here.

And not only do I love the singing and the preaching, I love the love that's here. And I've turned down a lot of interviews. I've turned down a lot of places to speak and go, but I can't turn Clearview down. It's just too close to what my heart is saying. And they're going to do a movie on my property soon.

One of the producers is in the studio today. But that's a blessing. And Clearview has offered whatever assistance that we need. And I just love it. It's genuine.

It's genuine. I turned down $2.5 million. It's not about the money. I just want to be around the right people that are God's people so that I can lay down and get up and know that I'm still in the will of God with what I do. And I miss it sometimes. I make mistakes. I make bad decisions.

But my heart has to be in the right place. Amen. Amen. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today, man. It's such an encouragement for us.

Such a reminder to bloom where we're planted and to shine when we find ourselves in exile. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, if you want to learn more about Mr. Ken Spellman's life, about the meat program, write in and let us know 252-582-5028. Or you can visit us online, ClearviewTodayshow.com. Don't forget you can partner with us financially on that same website. Be a part of what God is doing through the Clearview Today Show family. I also want to encourage you to visit MightyMuscadine.com. Check out their products and use that promo code today.

T-O-D-A-Y. When you check out, it's going to get you a discount and a portion of those proceeds are going to come right back here to the Clearview Today Show. Jon, any thoughts you want to leave our listeners with this weekend?

It was an incredible weekend. Make sure if you're not plugged into a church somewhere, you get yourself into a church. I think we need to start saying that more and more as we go. We end our Fridays. Make sure you go into God's house worship and we will see you right back here again on Monday for the Clearview Today Show. That's right. We love you guys. We'll see you Monday on Clearview Today.