Lewis R. Brown III
By day, Lewis Brown measures the risk of pesticides for the Environmental Protection Agency, but in his off hours, the 39-year-old becomes a radio personality on WFAX-AM 1220, “Christian Radio for the Nation’s Capital.” On his broadcast pulpit, “The Gospel Train for Jesus Christ,” he hears callers’ problems and promises that, with God, he will help them. Brown spoke with The Examiner about why he can feel so confident.
Do you consider yourself to be of a specific faith?
I am a Christian and I have faith in Jesus Christ. And as long as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are recognized at the church I attend, and the church teaches that you cannot get to the Father without going through the Son, and that you have to repent for whatever it is that you have done — and that repentance is more than accepting, but living right — then I’ll be a member of that body of Christ.
Have you experienced any miracles in your own life?
On October 14, 1985, I got into a very bad car wreck. I was 14 turning 15, living in Louisiana, down in New Orleans. And I was testing out a Pontiac Trans Am back when they first hopped them up. I wrapped it around a utility pole and my back was broken. The doctor told me I would never walk again. I said, “I appreciate your concern and diagnosis, Doctor, but sooner or later you’re going to have to find the Word. My Lord is real.”
I had to learn how to walk again and to balance again. Each day was hard, but as I prayed, each day got easier and easier. As you give yourself over to Jesus, you will feel yourself change.
You see God at work in so many places. Has there been a time when you’ve struggled because it feels as though he’s not working?
I don’t want to call names, but there was a recent situation in which a person who professed to be of the Gospel of God went around stabbing me in the back, and I prayed to God to seal it up and heal it up. But it’s still going on. Well, we don’t always get what we ask for from God. Sometimes he has other plans for what’s coming along.
People come to you with problems that seem insurmountable — broken families, evictions, lost jobs. Where do you begin?
We always pray first. And the Bible does tell you that the poor will be with you always — and the poor of spirit. But for those that come to me, if God enables me to help them — which 99.9 percent of the time he has done — I get them to a point where they can make it on their own. Most of the time it’s difficult at first, but nothing that’s worth having in this world is easy. If it’s too easy, you’re not going to want it. So I approach it from a Christian, sympathetic, loving way — the same way Christ would approach it. I pray first, and he gives me the guidance to do what I need to do.
Are churches doing what they need to be doing to address parishioners’ needs?
A lot of churches are not preaching reconciliation, forgiveness, repentance and living right. After you accept God, you can’t live any old way; you have to live the way he wants you to live. You have to be a shining example. A lot of churches are teaching prosperity religion — that it’s all about the dollar. And it’s not all about the dollar. It’s about teaching and studying and serving and living the way God wants you to live. There’s no sin in having a lot of money — my father was a millionaire, and I’m not yet, but I’m close. It’s no sin having, but it’s what you do with it. It depends upon what path you take — if you take the wide and crooked path, you’ll always find trouble.
At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs?
I believe that we all need God. I believe that God is in all of our lives, and every aspect of our daily routine centers around God, no matter what it is.
