From Chains to Church: Brady Wright’s Journey of Redemption
Brady Wright will be the first to tell you—his life is a miracle. From overdoses to freedom, from a jail cell to a pulpit, his story is one of radical transformation, made possible by the grace of God and the unwavering support of a community that believed in second chances. It’s a story that started in the darkest of places and now blesses countless others.
A Painful Start
Brady’s story begins in the Shoals area of Alabama, where he grew up surrounded by the cultural trappings of faith but without a personal relationship with Jesus. His life took a tragic turn when he was just three years old. His mother died in a car accident, leaving a void in his heart that he didn’t know how to fill. “If God is good, why would He allow this bad thing to happen to my mom?” Brady would ask himself, harboring a bitterness that grew over the years.
That bitterness found an outlet in substance abuse. By age 13, Brady was already drinking and smoking marijuana, trying to numb the ache inside. His teenage years spiraled into a haze of parties, arrests, and addiction. When he went to the University of Alabama, the pattern continued. “I flunked out with a 0.0 GPA,” Brady recalls. “That’s not easy to do!”
It was during the height of the opioid epidemic, and Brady quickly developed a dependency on Oxycontin. “It just really gripped me. And I was just trying to fill this void.” Arrests began piling up for drug possession and disorderly conduct. An arrest at a music festival landed him 96 days in jail, and it seemed as if he had found rock bottom.
So, he moved back home from college and began working at a Mexican restaurant.
Hope and a New Rock Bottom
During this chaotic time, Brady met Bridget, a server at a local Mexican restaurant where he worked. She was in graduate school, a world apart from Brady’s chaos, but they started dating anyway. They moved in together, got pregnant, and got engaged. They were doing everything, as Brady says, “the opposite of the way God intended.”
Bridget didn’t know of Brady’s addiction until just days before their wedding. She found out he was using and selling drugs and called off the wedding. It was a devastating blow. Brady went to rehab for the first time. “There were a lot of failure stories before there was a success story,” he admits.
The real breaking point came when Brady was arrested again while on probation in Florida. It was a week before their daughter was born, and Brady was in jail while Bridget went into labor. He remembers the moment vividly: sitting in the Tuscaloosa County Jail hearing that he wouldn’t be released to see the birth of his child. He was in the back of the jail transport van, hands and legs shackled, when his daughter was born. “I was trying to not let people see me cry. And I just said, ‘God help me.’”
But rock bottom wasn’t done with him yet. After being extradited to Florida and spending more time in jail, Brady got out and started using heroin. His addiction escalated, and the next few months were a blur of overdoses and near-death experiences. One day, he overdosed, was revived, and the next day took the same amount of heroin, ending up slumped over the wheel of his car at a stop sign. A Good Samaritan pulled him out and saved his life.
The very next day, his father dropped him off at The Foundry Ministries. “He didn’t just drop me off. He kicked me out the car and said, ‘Don’t call.’ And he had every reason to say that,” Brady recalls.
A New Beginning at The Foundry
Brady arrived at The Foundry with no intention of getting better. His first night there, he snuck out behind the little café area and shot heroin. But God had other plans. Over the next few days, as Brady went through withdrawal, something began to stir. He found himself sitting in the intake office with tears streaming down his face.
“I was sitting in this little intake office, and Steve Suns led me in a salvation prayer. I’ll never forget the feeling. I walked out and all my circumstance and situations were still the same. But suddenly it was as if Jesus had breathed fresh hope into my life.” That’s where the name of his future church, Fresh Hope Church, would come from.
From that moment, Brady made a decision to go all in. He attended every Bible study, every worship service, every opportunity to grow. He became known as the guy who would ask anyone wearing a yellow lanyard at The Foundry a Bible question. “I was just hungry to learn,” he says.
Brady’s first experience with fundraising happened at The Foundry, too. He’d collect $1 from 10 different guys to put gas in the van so they could go to Church of the Highlands. “That was my first experience raising money for ministry,” he laughs.
He was filling out prayer cards at church and The Foundry. The prayer was huge. “And so my big thought was if God restores my life I could see my daughter every other weekend. ‘God, I pray that you restore my family.’”
But God had bigger plans. After months of no contact, Brady and Bridget slowly reconnected. She saw the change in him, and they got married in a courthouse ceremony while Brady was still in the program at The Foundry. Their honeymoon was Bridget dropping him back off at The Foundry and then going to tell her family what she’d done.
A Legacy of Restoration
After completing the program, Brady and Bridget began rebuilding their lives. He worked his way up to a senior manager at a restaurant. He dual enrolled into Point University and Highlands College. Despite once believing he wasn’t “college material,” he’ll be receiving a doctorate from Liberty University in five months.
Planting a church is never easy, but doing it during a global pandemic seems impossible. For Brady and Bridget Wright, however, it was simply the next step in the story God was writing. “The enemy was saying ‘Are you sure you’re gonna plant right now?’ But we were saying “Of course this is our story. We were made for this!” In March 2020, just as COVID-19 lockdowns swept the nation, they stepped out in faith to launch Fresh Hope Church in Colorado. They gathered 100 people committed to the vision, and launched with over 250 people in attendance.
Their story has come full circle in more ways than one. Brady’s father, the man who once told him not to call, gave his life to Jesus and was baptized at Fresh Hope Church. He has also baptized three of his kids. Their family has been transformed, and their ministry has extended beyond Colorado—Fresh Hope has helped plant nine other churches and has seen over 200 people give their lives to Christ.
The Power of a Place Like The Foundry
Brady’s story isn’t just about one man’s redemption; it’s about the ripple effect of faithful ministry. “I wouldn’t be here without The Foundry,” Brady says. “I was dead on a sidewalk 24 hours before I got there. The Foundry was the place where I encountered Jesus and found hope.”
He’s quick to credit the people who poured into him—Pastor Bill, Pastor Micah, the volunteers who showed up every week to lead Bible studies, the donors who made the ministry possible. “What The Foundry does is take people society has given up on and give them a chance to rebuild their lives in Christ,” Brady says. “And the return on investment? It’s eternal.”
Brady’s message to donors is simple: “You’ll never know the full impact of your gift this side of heaven. But I’m living proof that your generosity changes lives.”
Today, Brady lives every day with the same prayer on his lips: “God, make me Foundry desperate for You.” It’s a reminder of where he came from, the miracle that God has done in his life, and the mission he’s called to now.
If God can do it for Brady, He can do it for anyone.
“God, make me Foundry desperate for You.”
The Legacy Continues: A Call to Action
Brady’s story is just one example of the countless lives transformed through the ministry of The Foundry. But for every Brady, hundreds more are discovering their own fresh hope.
Your support makes stories like this possible. By partnering with The Foundry, you’re not just giving to a ministry—you’re investing in restoration, families reunited, and generational change.
Join us in building a place where hope takes root.
