Matt Messer decided the best way to save his marriage and reputation was to look for a way out of his business. What started as a hobby building drum smokers in his basement had grown into an uncontrollable wildfire that had begun to singe the edges of his most important relationships.
What Messer didn't know at the time was that God would use the very thing threatening to undo him to reshape his calling and restore what mattered most.
Messer, a 2008 Union graduate, had often dreamed of starting a business. Over the years, he had held onto his love of cooking, smoking and all things barbecue.
When he shared the idea of starting a catering business with his wife Chelsie, who was often hesitant when he pitched random business ideas, she was on board. They had always enjoyed catering together, and the business had potential.
Before 2020, Messer had built Cotton Gin Smokers into a small business that he ran as a hobby alongside his work with Life Action Ministries. As a self-funded ministry worker, the business was a helpful addition to their finances.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic brought his role at LAM to an abrupt halt, Cotton Gin Smokers caught fire and began to rapidly grow.
Back in his Texas high school shop class, most of Messer's classmates gravitated toward ranch and cattle projects by building and repairing pens and fences. Messer, the son of a Southern Baptist pastor, didn't have cattle to manage or fences to repair. Instead, he decided to build something he could use.
After gathering a worn boat trailer from a neighbor and a set of donated pipes, Messer hauled everything to school and got to work building a smoker. It was the first smoker anyone had ever built in shop class, and he had no way of knowing that the sparks flying from that project would follow him for the rest of his life.
Because of the COVID-19 shutdown, Messer's calendar, once packed, went blank. He had to cancel a whole season of events for his LAM team. Disheartened and confused by the drastic change, Messer found himself at home with no events on his calendar, no team to lead and a basement full of tools.
"I called my boss and said, look, I'm just going to do some stuff. I've got to keep myself busy," he said.
So he went to the basement.
Messer set a modest goal that first year — build one smoker a month. He built 26. The hobby was becoming something else entirely.
A picture posted on social media pulled in an order, then another and another. Soon, Messer moved out of his basement and began recruiting friends and family to help him with the business. They outgrew their space three times in a matter of months.
The quick business growth left Messer scrambling to take care of basic business needs.
"I was just surviving from one sale to the next and robbing Peter to pay Paul, not knowing how I would pay my employees from week to week or even keep the power on," he said.
There were times when Messer and his employees would be working in the shop and the power would go out. Embarrassed because he hadn't paid the bill, Messer would try to play off what was really happening and act like he didn't know why the electricity was suddenly off. But it all pointed back to him.
"I couldn't keep my head above water," Messer said.
The stress didn't stay at the shop. Messer's family often paid the price for this growth as work pressures followed him home.
Parenting three young children, balancing a marriage and trying to manage the roller coaster of running a business left Messer facing a battle in every direction.
"I always felt like I was driving home to World War Three," he said. "I've got to get my armor on, get my arrow sharpened and be ready for battle. It was me against everybody."
Messer became an angry husband and father, grew distant and began making decisions that pushed Chelsie further away.
Messer admits that there were times when he would find reasons to stay late so he didn't have to face the chaos at home. Soon, Chelsie grew weary of his long hours and began to resent the business.
They sought counseling, but Messer knew the truth: he wasn't living according to the faith on which he had built his life.
It was a version of himself he barely recognized and one that stood in sharp contrast to the young man who had once buried himself in Scripture at Union and watched God show up in dorm rooms and tornado wreckage.
Messer had transferred to Union, where his younger brother Tim was already enrolled, after spending two years on a road crew with LAM and two years at a local community college.
Union pushed him in ways he hadn't anticipated. He studied Scripture, wrestled with theology and found his faith taking on new depth and weight.
"It helped my roots grow deeper," he said.
Tim usually said no. Then one Sunday, he said yes. Mostly, he admits, to get his brother off his back.
"It was really just to pacify him," Tim said. "But God used that particular day to wrestle with me and not let me keep wandering away."
Messer's persistence and intentional investment in Tim's life helped draw him into truly following the Lord, he said.
Meanwhile, the Union community wrapped loving arms around both of them. Lambda Chi Alpha brothers packed into their dorm rooms, wept with them and refused to leave them alone in their grief. Dean Kimberly Thornbury quietly arranged for 13 friends to make the drive from Jackson all the way to Amarillo for the funeral. The university extended generous financial aid so both brothers could finish their degrees.
Less than a year later, the 2008 tornado ripped through campus.
"Both times I was faced with a literal need for a comforting, healing savior," Messer said. "Getting to see God move in the way he did through both of those situations impacted me for the rest of my life."
After graduating, Messer channeled everything into ministry, first as a bi-vocational youth pastor in Clifton, Tennessee, then back with LAM, traveling the country and sitting with pastors who carried burdens much like his father once had.
"After seeing some of the hurt and pain that he dealt with and getting to be there for some of those pastors and hearing their stories, it really did mean a lot to me to be able to serve in that way," Messer said.
It was during those years that he met Chelsie Rademaker, who would become his wife.
For a while, life moved the way Messer had always imagined it would. He and Chelsie built a life and family together, and ministry occupied much of his time. He assumed he'd spend his life in fulltime ministry.
Although 2020 brought a temporary halt to his routine, Messer would step away from LAM the following year and focus on building Cotton Gin Smokers.
Over the next couple of years, rapid growth caused manufacturing lead times to grow longer, and over time, customers began to express their frustrations on social media.
Since he wasn't a businessman by nature or training, Messer admits that he needed more people around him who could point him in the right direction and help him make smart business decisions.
The stress of it all settled on Messer,
and he wore it like a tattered coat. Disconnected
and frustrated at home, his
unhappiness was visible. To add to the
family complexities, Chelsie decided to
enroll in nursing school so she could focus
on something other than the smoker
business, which had begun to feel like a
weight the whole family was carrying.
With lives going in different directions, Messer turned his attention to a relationship at work and made choices that nearly broke his marriage.
"There was a lot of darkness in our home," Messer said. "Not a lot of joy, not a lot of peace."
During his half-hearted counseling attendance, he told Chelsie that he didn't know if he wanted to work on their marriage any longer.
Looking back, Messer sees that he and Chelsie weren't on the same team.
"I had done so much to destroy my reputation, my marriage, my family and my business," Messer said.
One night, after Chelsie quietly confronted him, he blew up and left the house in anger.
By the time he returned, she was asleep on the couch with her Bible open beside her. He stood there in the silence, and for the first time, he realized the gravity of his actions.
"I knew what I had done was wrong," Messer said. "God began to convict me. He began to break me down and rebuild me."
Repentant and broken, Messer relented and let God do what only he could do: redeem.
Many difficult months followed. He and Chelsie returned to counseling. He recommitted to his role as a husband and father, and he began looking for a way out of his business.
Messer reached out to Aaron Norris, of Norris Thermal Technologies, whom he knew from the barbecue competition world. Norris owned two companies, so Messer pitched him the idea of buying Cotton Gin Smokers.
Instead, Norris offered him a second chance.
Norris saw the strengths Messer brought to business and saw his heart for people. Although Messer was honest about the fires he had walked through, Norris could see his faith in Jesus.
In January 2025, Messer took the opportunity to partner with Norris. Messer now helps manage Cotton Gin Smokers and Norris' Tribal Fire Grill while Norris helps manufacture the smokers. The arrangement has changed more than just the business structure.
Working alongside fellow believers shifted the atmosphere in ways Messer hadn't anticipated. The stress that once followed him home began to lift.
"It's a whole new setting," Chelsie said. "His business is flourishing again, and there's not the weight or pressure that was there."
Messer sees the change as part of a larger work God has been doing in his life.
"Each chapter of life has been one that he has used to refine, mold and sanctify me," Messer said. "God's not done with me. I've got to keep moving forward."
That forward movement has shown up in tangible ways, with a stronger family, a deeper faith and a growing business. Today, Messer lives in Niles, Michigan, where he and Chelsie are raising their three children. What once felt like a fire that could consume everything has, in time, become the very thing God used to refine his life and rebuild it by grace.
"God is a God who redeems," he said. "He loves to redeem things we've messed up."
