Matt Barnes Found Faith at 45 After Old Church Invitation on Candace Cameron Bure Podcast

Matt Barnes wanted to slip into church unnoticed, so he found a spot in the back corner. He was 45, retired from the NBA, and walking into church alone for the first time in his life.

Barnes told that story to actress and podcast host Candace Cameron Bure on her podcast, in an episode published on October 27, 2026. Movieguide reported the conversation on October 31, 2026, about an old church invitation opening a new chapter of faith. Barnes and Bure had got to know each other as castmates on Season 5 of Special Forces: World's Toughest Test, filmed in the Malaysian jungle.

Barnes had played 14 NBA seasons and won a championship in 2017 with the Golden State Warriors. What he had not done, he told Bure, was build a faith of his own.

Faith has been a huge part of my life, but just recently.

Those were Barnes's words to Bure, as reported by Movieguide. He described finding faith at 45, digging up an old invitation, and taking a step he had put off for months.

He was not looking for a spotlight that Sunday. He was trying something new, on his own.

Growing Up Without Faith, and Losing His Mom in 26 Days

Barnes did not grow up with faith, the podcast episode explains. Sundays were for football, and he could count his trips to church on two hands. He calls himself an '80s baby whose parents were deep in the party scene, and he saw drugs and violence early.

When the family moved from San Jose to Sacramento when he was eight, he ran into racism for the first time, according to the podcast description. In his senior year, after a classmate harassed his younger sister, Barnes confronted him, was suspended, and the family moved again after threats against his life.

His mom was his safe place, the podcast account says. She watched him break through with the Golden State Warriors during a historic playoff run, and at the start of the next season she was diagnosed with cancer. She died 26 days later.

Barnes drove from the Bay to Sacramento nearly every day to be with her. At 27 he became the one holding the family together as his dad sank into depression and drinking.

The loss opened a door, too. After his mom died, his dad told him he loves him, the first time Barnes can remember hearing it. As his father opened up about his own abusive childhood, Barnes started to understand him, and says he lost his mom but gained a dad.

The Months-Old Text and the Back Corner

By late 2024, Barnes recalled, people kept asking him to church, and conversations about God kept coming his way. Anansa had always wanted the family to go, and Barnes admits he was the reason they did not.

Then, in the spring of 2025, his infidelity ended his relationship with Anansa, the mother of two of his kids, according to the podcast account. After the breakup, he found a friend's recommendation for a church in his old messages. The invitation was months old, but he decided to go anyway, arriving one Sunday without announcing his plans.

That first visit on his own felt different from tagging along for a holiday, Movieguide reports. Barnes described feeling that he was in the right place, and he began attending consistently.

He asked pastors where he should start reading the Bible, and began reading passages from the New Testament. Bure helped identify the old-fashioned wording he described as the King James translation.

The begining, as Barnes tells it, was not about having answers. It was about showing up regularly, opening Scripture, and becoming more willing to learn.

The podcast's own telling puts it simply: God meets us right there, in the back row. Barnes calls himself a beginner who is still learning.

An Empty Feeling, a Wedding, and Leading With Love

Things started to turn, but the emptiness stayed. His business grew and new opportunities arrived, yet he tells Bure he still felt empty because he had no one to share any of it with. So he asked Anansa if she wanted to come to church with him.

She came two or three times, and when he saw her eyes fill with tears, he knew she was proud of him, the podcast account says.

In December, Barnes asked Anansa to walk this road with him, and she agreed, with a list of what she needed to see. As he checked each item off, she told him that if he was serious, he would marry her.

They planned a wedding in about a month and married on New Year's Eve with about 20 people there. That night they hosted a black-tie party, and Barnes took the microphone to introduce his wife.

Bure honoured Anansa's humility, especially since the infidelity became public, according to the podcast account. Barnes calls her a soldier and asks for prayer as they reach nine months of marriage.

At home, he is working to break the pattern of tough love he grew up with. He wants his sons to know it is okay to hug, to cry, and to talk about what they feel, and his message to all seven kids is simple: lead with love.

On Special Forces, Bure saw a different side of the man known as the NBA's bad boy. Barnes explains that his on-court fights were almost always about protecting teammates. He signed up to test his mind, to see whether he could take someone yelling in his face without reacting.

Barnes's story sits alongside other public faith stories on this site, including Josh Baldwin sharing the story behind his new album, Kirk Franklin releasing his first double album, and Chris Pratt saying faith is the most important thing he will pass on to his kids. Readers who want the music side of the same conversation can also see Forrest Frank announcing a new album and a 2027 movie.

What happens next for a beginner in the back row is the part no podcast episode can finish. Barnes has a wedding behind him, seven kids watching him, and a Bible he is still learning to read, and the question that follows him out of that back corner is the one every new believer has to answer for themselves: will the man who showed up alone keep showing up when nobody is watching?

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.