Cigars and Calvinism: A Unique Christian Testimony

Welcome to the Rap Report with your host Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeeternity.org alright, so here we are. Fight, Laugh, Feast. A lot of new brothers I've gotten to meet. One of them has a very Calvinistic name. That's Chance. That was the thing.

So I walked up to you when I asked your name especially because someone whose seat I'm sitting in right now kept calling you Chase. That's okay. And it kept confusing me. Yeah, but you made it clear when you said it's really not good. Reformed name, Chance. Yeah, yeah. So chance is with 1689 cigars.

So let's talk about first you before we get to your business. But you know, how did you come to Christ? So grew up in a pagan family. And so long story short, I hated God. Like prior to my conversion I would go out and flip off the sky and curse God. And I was a hard kid. Fought all my life. Most of my teeth are fake because of that. And super angry. Never had a dad like Wilson. Did his talk on a bastard nation. I'm a product of the sin of America. Never had a father figure and so really upset.

My mom just married, I think it was her fourth or fifth husband that she married in with and she married into a Christian family and that nobody knew. And this, this is my conversion is odd because I went to like a Freewill Baptist church after that and they were like you, you chose, you ascended up to God. But I was about to blow my brains out and the pastor from the family came over and he shared the gospel with me. Like I literally had my note written out, put it on there.

I was about to take a shower and that's where I was going to do it so my mom wouldn't have to clean up a huge mess. And Christ came and sought me and saved me. And then my journey from the Freewell Baptist world into the Reformed community, it came by taking up and reading. And so as I read, I didn't even know what Calvinism was. And later on I'll get to that. But some people are still trying to. Figure it out, but they know they hate it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was not a provisionalist, we'll just say that. And so I started my journey and then I'm going to Independent Fundamental Baptist Church. Very all law, no gospel. And so I'm learning all these Things I'm learning all these standards. And in my head, I think Durbin says this, by what standard? And so I would say, show me in the Scripture. And so they would give me a theological point in the scripture that just was absurd. The hermeneutics were bad.

And I wasn't well educated in the Christian faith, but I just knew it was bad. And so I would start studying myself. Skip on to, you know, three or four years after my conversion, I'm at my small Bible college in Louisville and we're going through. It was either hermeneutics or church ed. I don't know which one it was. But they got to John six and they're going through it and we get to like 642 and you know, all these passages.

And I was like, christ calls us sheep as sheep hear his voice and they come to him. And like, I'm deducting from the passage, my theology is growing. And so my professor gave me an F on my hermeneutics. And he said I was a Calvinist. And so. And you're going, what's a Calvinist? Yeah. So I instantly looked up what is a Calvinist? And the first sermon that popped up is Every by John MacArthur. Every Calvinist should be a pre millennialist. And so I cut my teeth on John MacArthur and RC.

And then you go down the rabbit hole and you're like, oh. Then you find, like, truly reformed people. And I love MacArthur and I love RC. RC would be truly reformed, but. Well, actually, RC is a Baptist today. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I agree. And so I start going down these rabbit holes and my faith strengthen. But as my faith is strengthened, I'm causing issues in my church. And I don't know why, because I'm challenging their positions. And it wasn't out of, like, unteachable.

It was like, just curious. Just like, I'm trying to understand this stuff, but they're thinking, well, you do understand it's against what we believe. You're just going, like, what? Yeah. And so I start reforming, and my wife and I, we get married, we leave that fundamentalist movement, and we start attending every denomination. And so I was just like, I have to find a church that believes the Bible.

And so we started going, and it was preached at our independent Baptist circles to be scripture alone. And that's what led me to my positions. And so it wasn't just horrible teaching, it was just bad application from them. And so they taught me that. And then we went a year and a half just visiting churches and you know, we would go to the big EVA churches, we would go to the. I mean, we even went to some Lutheran services just to figure out, like, what are we?

And as we did that, more and more, I even tried, you know, I tried being a Presbyterian. I was like, I just don't see covenant, you know, theology in the way they see it. And so as I would go through, finally land solidly in the 1689 camp, our church about two years ago recognized that I was a gifted brother. And then they called me to be an elder at the church. And so now I'm an elder at a small church plant in Tennessee, Kentucky state line, and that's where I'm at now.

Yeah. And so I think most of the folks here know you for your business, for the company. You create. 1689 scars. I first found out about that because I was entered into a contest that Dead Man Walking did, and Dead Man Walking had a contest for podcasters. And so it was really kind of funny because it was all. The winner was getting a box of cigars. And I do find it funny. The winner of it is someone who's known to always have a cigar but never smokes. And that's Kit Spolsky.

He plays different characters. So the Presbyterian is the guy with the cigar. And so it was kind of fun being like, hey, you know, here's, you know, we have the. I forget how Greg worded it, but it was like the Christian podcast, like cigar smoking preachers or something like that. And it was like, okay, well, vote for me anyway, even if not cigar smoking. So it was kind of. I made it through round two. To round two and then died. You know, he likes to put me up against James White.

And, you know, I did everything I could to get to pass round two, but, you know, he plans it that way. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, so that's where I first heard about you. Yeah. And then I know that some others started, you know, talking about your cigars. You know, there's. There's plenty, especially in here. Fight LA Feast. Apparently, people that smoke cigars and really enjoy. I mean, clearly they enjoyed it. You sold out, like, before, what, before the day of. Before the first.

Almost pre conference. Yeah, pre conference. You almost sold out. Yeah, so. So, I mean, for folks who do like cigars, you know, describe what. What is different with. With your company, with your cigars? Well, so with our cigars, we launched about six to seven. Well, I'd say six months ago when we were really going hard. But the company's two years old. We did our blending process. It took about a year and a half to just kind of figure out like what's the best quality.

And so when you say it like, you know, I had Squirrely Joe's coffee on my podcast a couple weeks ago. And so when he came on, I asked him specifically, because when you say the blending process, same thing with the coffee. I didn't know all that. I learned about that. Yes. And I don't know much about tobacco, how you do it. So what do you mean the blending process? What's involved in that?

Yeah, so you have like a Connecticut leaf, which would be like a thinner leaf and it's going to give you more of like people use terms like creamy or silky or smooth smoke. And so you have a Connecticut wrapper and then your binder and filler. It can be maduro, it can be habano, it could be scraps from the factory floor. I mean that's the essence of your cigar. And when you're saying, you know, habano, you're using this. What exactly are those?

Yeah, so habano would be like a Cuban seed origin that's grown in the Dominican or that's grown in the Nicaraguan region of. So that tells you where it's grown. Yeah. And so the soil gives the, the tobacco leaf flavor. And so a habano would be a two to four year old cigar, aged typically, sometimes they're pushed out a little bit sooner. And so we like to be in that two to four year age on our tobacco. Then our maduros, we like to be in the five to six year age tobacco.

And then our Connecticut's, they could be as new as 90 days off the floor. And so there's the makeup of the cigars. And if you think of blending, this is how I always tell what blending is like. It's like a mash build for your bourbon, you know, 74% corn, the rest rye or whatever, whatever you're doing for your bourbon. So I don't do anything for bourbon. Yeah, I don't really drink too much spirits. But the blending process, it matters by the grade of tobacco.

So you have B grade and B grade would be like a Swiss or sweet. A grade would be like most of your boutique cigar companies are going to be A grade tobacco and then you have a. It's the tobacco that people covet, tobacco that people gatekeep. And so to get past the gatekeepers, we had to, we had to go to no name factories and we had to figure out where the gatekeepers are. Getting their tobacco from the farms. And we did that and then now we offer the best cigars that you can get.

And, and they're super expensive like the gatekeepers do, right? No, no, no. They're affordable and we made it that way because we, we wanted to. Obviously we want to move units, we want to move product, but we also wanted to offer a product that's as good as Opus, as good as Davidoff. And I would say our flagship confessional line, we could put it up against any of the top name. Undercrown David Off Drew Estates is underground.

But we could put it up against them and it's going to be as good quality, good construction, good burn, good tobacco. So, so I'm, you know, I'm on Daily Wire, you know, I follow Daily Wire and stuff. So they, they keep talking about the, you know, the Mayflower Scars. Yeah. Michael Noel does the Scars. Yeah. And he talks about similar. Like you, is the idea of having a good quality cigar but at a cheaper price.

Because I guess, I guess that with the scar industry, it's like you want the real good stuff, it's really going to cost you. So. And he sold out in record time. You know, he keeps, it seems like he keeps getting them in stock and they're going out of stock. Yeah. You're talking about the aging process and all. Do you have to go buy the tobacco from some other. Some from like a farm? Are you actually rolling them yourself or is it all. So it's rolled in Nicaragua and rolled into Dominican.

Okay. And so how the factories work is they keep aged tobacco on hand. And then you. It's kind of like build a bear. You go in and you pick and choose what you want. Okay. Yeah. So they're rolling it there and you're getting it. It's all rolled. Yeah. And then I guess you're putting your. Because you have your own bands on it, which were cool looking. I mean, you got your John Calvin and Knox, which I thought was kind of neat. Yes, really cool.

Yeah. So the John Calvin, the Knox and the Spurgeon, that's. That's reformed cigars. So they're a separate company from, from us. They're actually a nonprofit that all of their proceeds go to church plants in Atlanta and Nicaragua. Really? Yeah. So. And so. So you're getting, you're getting the bands from there. So you're just getting the cigars and putting your own band on. Yeah, that's. That's what we do. So we banned all of our own cigars. We do it because of Quality control.

So sometimes we'll do a thing called reject cigars where we, we have cigars that are cracked or maybe they just, they look ugly. So we sell them for two bucks and as soon as we post them, they're gone. You know, so the, so you're essentially. Since they're wrapping them there, where these top grade cigar companies are doing it, you're actually getting the same quality. You're just charging less. So how is it that they just have huge markups and you decided not. To do huge markups or correctly.

Okay, yeah. And so everything in the cigar industry is branding. That, that's, that's what it is. And so like, you think of like. And you decide to brand yours Presbyterian. That's why you did 1689, right? No, no. Branded Baptist. Wait, wait, do Baptists smoke cigars? You know, well, obviously they do in. Private and nobody knows. So. Yeah. So. So the company's grown. We're at like a 10% or 10,000% growth rate from January.

Wow. And we've, we've done really well. We've hit our target audience and we're branching out into the non target audience world. And so how, how we're, we're explicitly Christian, but we're not gimmicky. You know, we're not, we're making the best product that we can. You know, that's a really good point. Because when, unfortunately, when Christians do things. Yeah. Like when Christians do movies, it's like, really, do you have to be that cheesy? Yeah, yeah.

Oh. Because that's what Christian movies are. They're cheesy. No. How about we do better than what the world does? Yeah, right. It's, it's a thing where I really value people that say, look, I'm gonna do excellence in whatever, whatever God has gifted me. Yeah. I want to do it with excellence. Yeah. Rather than just get by.

Like one of the, one of the criticisms I have about Christian business, you know, in the service industry, businessmen, you know, you get like a Christian, you know, plumber or electrician. Right. They go to work for another Christian. There's two problems. You got the Christian going, well, I'm going to hire a brother in Christ because he's going to give me a great rate. You should give me, you should charge me less than you do other people. Yeah, right.

And then the guy that's there is like, well, you know, this is a brother in Christ. So, you know, I could do bad work, shoddy work, and it's okay because, you know, he's going to forgive me. He's a brother in Christ. Yeah. Right. Now, the Muslims, you know what they do? The Muslim will hire another Muslim because he goes, I'm feeding a fellow brother's family. I'm feeding a fellow Muslim's family. So I'm going to pay you more than what you'd normally get paid.

And the other, the Muslim who's doing the work says, I'm working for a fellow Muslim. So I got to do a better job than I would for someone in the world. We in the Christian world, we don't think that way. Yeah. You know, like, I had a guy, so I do podcasts, and there's a guy who I work with. He's actually a hall of fame podcaster, but he. He will consult, and I needed some help that I was beyond what I could do.

Yeah. And so, you know, I called him up and said, hey, can I schedule some time with you? You know, and, you know, pay your consulting fee? And so he gives me his co consulting fee. He goes, but for you, you know, I'll do like, $50, $100 less. I said, absolutely not. Yeah. I said, I'll pay full price or more. Yeah. And so I'll pay you $50 more than what the people in the world are charging you. Yeah. You know, because I'm helping feed his family.

Yeah. And so when we get a guy like you who wants to produce something with excellence, I think there's value in that, and people recognize that. Yeah. Yeah. And you could go check out our reviews. I don't think we have a bad review. Maybe for a challenge. I think that's the only one star review we have on our website, and we keep every review up. So if somebody comes and leaves a bad review, I might write a bad. Review just so I can see it. Yeah, yeah. We keep them every review up.

And the reason we do that is because we want complete transparency. Yeah. You know, we want. We want everybody to see that our product's good, and that's what we've done. We've created a premium cigar line that's. It'll stand up to any other cigar company. Yeah. That's good. Well, I appreciate having you on. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Good to talk to you. Great to get to know you. I mean, it was fun hanging out with you this week.

Yeah. And I hope we can, you know, hang out more, maybe do some more stuff together. That'd be good. Yeah. Maybe up at the war room conference. Oh, that's right. And that's not too far from you Right. No, I think it's like an hour and a half, maybe. Yes. That is the open air theology conference that Jeffrey Rice puts on. Well, open air theology is the podcast and they put the conference on. It's called war. It's being called war this year.

It's going to be on sanctification. And so I think it's going to be a really good conference. They're really good. You know, this conference here, I like, they do a similar thing to what Jeffrey does. When Jeffrey did the first open air theology, it was one hour preaching, one hour fellowship. One hour preaching, one hour fellowship. And so you really got a good fellowship time, which is what this they're doing here.

They may have two speakers in a row, but a long period, like 40 minutes of fellowship time. Yeah. And that's really what people come to the conference for. Yeah. I mean, the preaching right now, you can get all that. Every message here will probably be online. Yeah, but it's the. It's probably surety online. Yeah, it's the fellowship that really makes the conference. I mean, you know, we get to see each other here.

We'll go to another conference and be like, hey, now all of a sudden we're brothers in Christ. We know each other. It's like family reunion time when we get together. Yeah. And that's what people appreciate about a conference. Yeah. Community, man. Yeah. Yeah. And you're helping that community by getting everyone smoking cigars afterwards, right? Yeah. Down your phone, smoke cigars and talk about, you know, like last night we were, we were at underground. I don't know. I did not go. Yeah, yeah.

So we're underground. And so over here they're talking, they're, they're debating theomony, and then over here they're debating baptism. And then these guys are over here singing a psalm. Yeah. That's what I love about open air theology conferences. They end it by five. So we all go to dinner and I mean, the dinner is like a theology throwdown. You know, it's just everyone is debating different theological positions, but we're doing it as brothers in Christ. This is what I really enjoy about it.

And I've had the same experience here where a lot of guys here I would disagree with. Yeah. I wouldn't be in line with them theologically. But so far, all the people, we will go out, we'll argue, debate, you know, even if it gets heated and excited. But then afterwards, like, hey, let's, let's go to Buffalo Wild Wings, get food. Yeah. You know, that's how it should be. And that's how it should be. Like, let's. We could. We could fight it out. We can have some laughs, you know, and.

But we're brothers in Christ. Yeah. And that's the thing that I appreciate about certain conferences that have. That a lot of conferences are just like, oh, no. We have to have everyone that agrees the same thing. And you can't be speaking against what we say, you know? Yeah, I don't want. I like having the disagreement. You like free speech, right? Is NSA listening? Because, you know, free speech is. You know, it depends how you define it these days.

You know, I mean, my definition of free speech is that we would both have the freedom to say what we think. Yeah. And we could disagree with each other. You know, the Marxist definition of free speech is you agree with us, you're free. Yeah. Yeah. So it depends how you define it with. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm not a Marxist, so, yeah, I'm there with you. Well, I appreciate you coming on. Thanks for it. And thank you. So, guys, do check out 1689 cigars was 1689 cigars dot com. Yep, that's what it is.

There we go. I mean, great marketing there. So check them out if you enjoy cigars and get it. Get a nice smooth smoke or. Yeah, whatever you want. We got it. So there you go. I got a challenge coin. Just for the record. I got the challenge coin. Yeah. Although. Although you gave one to Greg. I had to buy mine, but that's okay. I'm not taking it personal. I'll throw some extra cigars in your order. Yeah. Thanks, man. Appreciate you coming on. Thank you.

This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministries. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to Striving for Eternity dot org.