Participants: Jason Bradley (Host), Pastor Carl McRoy
Series Code: UBR
Program Code: UBR000192A
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00:01 Are you tough enough?
00:02 Stay tuned to meet a man 00:04 who can help you answer that question. 00:05 My name is Jason Bradley 00:06 and you're watching Urban Report. 00:32 Hello and welcome to Urban Report. 00:34 My guest today is Pastor Carl McRoy, 00:36 author and publishing director 00:38 of the South Atlantic Conference 00:40 of Seventh-day Adventist. 00:41 Welcome to Urban Report, Pastor Mc. 00:43 Thank you. 00:44 So tell us a little bit about your background? 00:47 Where are you from? 00:48 Were you always raised Adventist? 00:52 I'm originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota. 00:55 I was raised Adventist and, you know, 00:57 we've moved around quite a bit 00:59 so lived in Minneapolis, Kansas city, 01:03 Akron, Ohio, Charlotte, North Carolina. 01:06 Wow! 01:07 We could go on a few other places. 01:09 It almost sounds like you're in a military family. 01:15 You just do what you got to do, 01:17 may be it was preparation for ministry. 01:19 Uh-huh, uh-huh, moving around a lot. 01:21 At what age did you realize 01:23 that you want to become a pastor? 01:27 It's kind of funny because I went to Oakwood in 1999. 01:32 It was about 10 years 01:33 after people have been telling me 01:35 that I should go into the ministry. 01:37 But even when I went to Oakwood, 01:39 I wasn't going there 01:40 with the idea of being a pastor. 01:42 I just simply wanted to improve the talents 01:44 that God had given me. 01:45 Okay, okay, wonderful. 01:47 I went to Oakwood too. 01:48 Okay. At what years? 01:50 So fellow Oakwood, I... 01:52 2005 I believe. 01:54 I went to semester starting in January. 01:57 All right. Yeah, I went then. 02:00 The snack bar 02:01 was one of my favorite places at Oakwood. 02:05 So you've written several books, all right. 02:10 One of them is "Yell at God and live." 02:13 I know that's a, 02:15 that title gets a lot of questions. 02:18 So tell us about that book? 02:19 What motivated you to write that 02:21 and what do you mean at yell at God and live? 02:25 All right. 02:26 I guess of all with the title, 02:30 you know, there's a story of Job 02:33 where he is afflicted by Satan. 02:35 He doesn't know what's going on though 02:37 as he's going through his affliction. 02:41 And extremely low time in his life his wife says, 02:45 "Why don't you just curse God and die." 02:49 So I just kind of turned that around and said, 02:51 "Yell at God and live." 02:54 The idea is that contrary to what Job's wife thought, 02:59 God is big enough that you can go to Him 03:03 with all of your problems, all of your feelings, 03:05 and, you know, even, 03:07 even if you think that He is your problem, 03:11 you can tell Him whatever needs to be said. 03:14 He is big enough to absorb it on. 03:16 And so you can yell at Him and live. 03:19 So let me get this straight. 03:21 You're not talking about 03:23 yelling at God in a disrespectful manner, 03:25 you're talking about taking your concerns to God. 03:28 Yes, what we're saying is stop trying to dress everything up. 03:32 Make it nice and pretty before you present it to God. 03:36 He knows... 03:37 Psalms says that He knows our thoughts from afar. 03:40 Whatever you're thinking about God, 03:43 He already knows what you're thinking. 03:44 So you're not fooling Him by using pretty language 03:48 or worst yet hiding from God, 03:51 afraid to have a conversation with God 03:54 until you're able to fix it up. 03:57 So basically, none of this superficial prayer, 04:00 just be real with God 04:02 because He knows the end from the beginning. 04:04 So I mean that makes a lot of sense. 04:05 I just know that, 04:07 that the title when I first read it, 04:09 I was trying to figure it out myself 04:12 but I know that if I got angry at my mom, 04:15 then I start to yelling at my mom, 04:18 there'd be some consequences. 04:19 Right, but see, God is bigger than your mom. 04:23 He's bigger than your dad. 04:26 And He knows what we're going through. 04:28 We have examples from scripture. 04:31 I often autograph my book 04:32 and I put Psalm 88 and I'll say to Jason. 04:37 Psalm 88 then I sign my name. 04:39 Psalm 88 is and it's, 04:42 it's the centerpiece of this book. 04:44 And as you read it, 04:46 the author is just accusing God 04:50 of one bad thing after another. 04:53 It doesn't seem very pious at all. 04:56 And so sometimes we have ideas about God 05:01 about how we need to present ourselves to God. 05:04 But the unfortunate thing is that many times 05:07 those ideas don't come from His word. 05:11 So where, what do you think those ideas are coming from 05:14 or who, like so you think, 05:17 basically it's coming from people 05:19 but it's not based on the word of God. 05:21 Okay. 05:23 Now in Psalm 88, 05:25 I remember reading in your book that basically there was like 05:30 one positive thing at the beginning 05:32 and then it went from worse to the worst. 05:36 Right, yeah, he blames God. 05:39 He blames God for being depressed. 05:41 He blames God for losing all of his friends. 05:45 He blames God for everything. 05:48 And most of the Psalms, 05:52 while they might compliant about situations in their life, 05:56 at the end, they give glory to God. 05:58 Psalm 88 doesn't do that at the end. 06:01 It leaves you in a dark tunnel. 06:04 Man, let's see, 06:06 it's like there's so many times where we go through tough times 06:10 and it's not God that's causing the tough times. 06:12 He may be allowing them to happen 06:16 but there's a blessing 06:17 at the end of the tunnel, there's... 06:19 He is helping to shape our character and refine us, 06:23 so I could see that. 06:26 And also one of the things is that, I mean, 06:29 I could have called it Comforters Incorporated. 06:32 Comforters Incorporated, 06:34 which is the final chapter of the book. 06:39 But I wasn't writing this to church people. 06:43 My primary audience is outside of the church. 06:48 And there are a lot of people 06:51 who are skeptics, atheists 06:53 because of some situation in their life. 06:56 It caused anger. It caused grief. 06:59 And they got superficial answers from the church. 07:03 And they're told things 07:04 of how they need to talk to God and how, you know, 07:09 they need to dress it up, make it pretty. 07:13 And so questions start arising, you know, 07:16 well, if God is so big, 07:18 if He's everything that you say He is, 07:20 why can't I ask Him a question? 07:22 You know, but often we're told not to question God. 07:26 But again the Bible is full of people 07:28 who questioned God. 07:31 And you also brought up a point in there about Jesus 07:33 questioning the Father, touch on that a little bit? 07:39 Well, in the chapter "Yell at God and live" 07:44 I say that Jesus yelled at God and He lives. 07:49 Jesus yelled at God while He was on the cross. 07:51 He said, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" 07:56 Now the Father hadn't really forsaken Him. 07:59 He's following through with Father's plan, 08:02 but in the moment of anguish, 08:04 these words come out of His mouth. 08:07 And the Bible says furthermore that it was with a loud voice, 08:11 He cried, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" 08:15 He didn't whisper it. 08:17 It wasn't a whimper, He yelled. 08:19 Yeah, yeah. 08:22 When you think about that sacrifice, 08:23 when you think about being separated from the Father 08:27 like that and what Christ did for us 08:29 by coming down off the throne, 08:31 coming to earth to live as we did 08:34 and to take on the sins of the world and die for us, 08:37 a bunch of undeserving people. 08:40 I mean, it's amazing. 08:43 Now you did a book called "R U Tuff Enuff." 08:46 Yes, yes, that was my second one. 08:48 Now, what is that book about? 08:52 Basically this was designed for men's outreach. 08:57 Again my primary audience is not for the church people. 09:02 So I took a lot of flack 09:04 for the cover on that book as well. 09:06 You know, the gothic letters, 09:10 you know, it has a cross 09:11 but it's surrounded in barbwire or whatever, 09:15 you know, it's just a crazy looking cover. 09:17 And so a lot of church people have said, "Wow! 09:22 You know, I don't, I don't want to deal with that, that's, 09:26 it looks Satanic or something." 09:28 And, but my primary audience 09:31 is not people already in church, 09:34 it's the majority of men are here 09:37 who are not going to church. 09:40 Across denominational lines you go to from church to church 09:45 and you have 60, 70, 80 percent women feeling abuse. 09:50 When we talk about reaching the un-churched, 09:53 a large part of what we need to be talking about 09:56 is reaching men. 09:57 Why do you think that is? 09:59 Why do you think that it's mainly women 10:01 that are in the church and the men aren't? 10:02 What do you think that's about? 10:05 Well, I think part of it is... 10:08 I mean, I'm sure it's very complex 10:10 but part of it is emphasis of the gospel 10:14 with the parts that deal with love, 10:18 and mercy, and gentleness, meekness, humility 10:22 and what about the power of God? 10:25 What about His sense of justice? 10:28 You know, what about the toughness of Jesus? 10:31 Talk about the grace of Jesus, what about his toughness? 10:35 You have a fisherman whose hands are callused, 10:40 whose backs get beaten by the sun 10:42 as they're out on those boats, 10:45 and the carpenter walks by and says, 10:48 "Follow me" and they follow him. 10:51 You've some soldiers that were sent to arrest him, 10:55 and they go back empty-handed, 10:56 and the people they sent him said, 10:58 "Why didn't you bring him back? 11:00 What are you doing? What are you thinking?" 11:02 And they said, we can't help it, 11:06 we never heard any men speak like this man spoke. 11:09 Wow! He must have spoken with power. 11:12 His very being demanded respect from strong men. 11:17 Yes, yes. 11:18 And that's what we bring out in "R U Tuff Enuff?" 11:23 So what inspired you to write these books? 11:26 And how long did it take you to write each one? 11:31 People ask me that especially about "Yell at God and live." 11:36 "How long did it take you to write it?" 11:37 And I tell, 11:39 I simply have to say, over 40 years. 11:43 Really? 11:44 Because there's lot of experiences, 11:46 lot of heart-break 11:48 that is distilled into those 64 pages. 11:53 Now we want to, we want to touch 11:54 on some of the experiences that you feel comfortable 11:57 with sharing on the air 12:00 but we want to touch on some of those experiences 12:02 and what you've learned from them? 12:04 What you took away from them? All right. 12:06 Well, when I was young, 12:10 I remember of my grandmother dying, 12:14 I remember seeing her in the hospital 12:15 when she couldn't respond. 12:18 And there wasn't really a conversation 12:23 that could take place at that point and so, 12:26 and that was my last time seeing her before she died. 12:31 And I would spend summer time with her 12:35 and sometimes cause some trouble and there was this, 12:41 there was an amount of guilt after my grandmother died. 12:44 Yeah. Yeah. 12:46 That I wish I would have said sorry 12:48 for some things or what have you. 12:50 And then, you know, 12:52 different stages, different people dying, 12:54 and just the different grief experiences you go through. 12:59 And then as a pastor, 13:03 I started my ministry at Atlanta Berean church. 13:06 I was the assistant pastor there. 13:07 Really? 13:09 I was just there not too long ago. 13:10 Okay. Yeah. 13:11 So from 2002 to 2004, I was assistant pastor there. 13:14 We had weekly funerals there, weekly. 13:19 There were sometimes where Elder William Winston 13:22 who is now our conference president. 13:23 He was the senior pastor at that time. 13:26 He would officiate one funeral at the church 13:29 and I was at a funeral home with another family 13:32 taking care of that funeral. 13:34 So you come in contact with a lot of grief. 13:38 And I think of the word, Charles Spurgeon, 13:42 he wrote that, 13:45 "A sick person's point of contact 13:48 with the physician is illness. 13:51 A sinner's contact with Jesus is sin." 13:57 And I think to large degree 13:58 that the church's point of contact 14:01 with the un-churched is their pain. 14:05 And so that's, 14:07 I learn that people are open like no other time in life 14:10 when they're going through guilt, 14:12 they're open to the gospel. 14:14 But if you, if you approach them wrong, 14:16 you can close their hearts to the gospel. 14:18 Yes, so what do you... 14:21 Can you describe the approach 14:24 that people should take in order so that, 14:26 so that they're not approaching them in the wrong way 14:29 to make them closed off to the gospel? 14:33 Sure. 14:34 I think Job's friends for instance, 14:37 they started out well. 14:39 In the Book of Job, he went through these problems. 14:42 Job's friends hear about his problems 14:44 and they go to meet with him. 14:47 And for about a week long they just sat with him, 14:50 sat in silence. 14:52 It was after they open their mouths 14:54 and started trying to give him explanations 14:56 for his suffering that he ended up saying, 14:59 "What miserable comforters you are!" 15:02 So sometimes it's just the ministry of presence, 15:04 just letting people know that you're with them. 15:07 Okay, okay. 15:08 So just being supportive and not spewing negativity... 15:12 Right, listening... 15:14 And all that stuff. 15:15 And trying to enter in to their pain with them. 15:17 Absolutely. 15:19 Now you wrote another book "Impediments to Power." 15:23 Tell us about that? 15:25 Design again for outreach, for prayer outreach. 15:28 There's lot of churches that have discovered 15:33 an easy way of breaking the ice with people in the community 15:36 is just going and praying with people. 15:39 Oh, really? 15:40 So what we do is just make it little simpler 15:44 or just add little something to it rather. 15:47 So I can go through the neighborhood, 15:49 "Hello, my name is Carl 15:51 with Thompsonville Adventist Church, 15:54 and we're in the neighborhood praying with people. 15:56 Do you have any prayer request?" 15:58 And you say, "Yes, pray for my father, 16:03 you know, he just had an accident 16:04 and just need healing." 16:07 So I'm, "Dear Lord, please bless Jason's father. 16:11 You know how much he cares for him. 16:13 We need you to be the healer 16:14 that you've been to so many other people. 16:17 Be that healer in his life right now in Jesus name, amen!" 16:22 And then, you know, we would share the book, 16:26 Impediments to Power. 16:28 And, Jason, 16:29 I just want to keep you encouraged 16:31 in your own prayer life with this gift, 16:33 and I trust it's going to be a blessing to your life, 16:36 and I would like to check back and see how you enjoyed it, 16:38 would that be all right? 16:39 Yeah, and so they respond yes. 16:42 And then that establishes that relationship. 16:45 Exactly. 16:47 And then you invite them to the local church and... 16:50 You know, you ask them, 16:52 when is the good time to return? 16:54 Or you know, what's your number 16:59 and a good time to give you call? 17:02 And you know, just building bridges. 17:05 What are some amazing, like, kind of like, 17:08 miracle stories or stories 17:12 where you've reached out to someone like 17:15 I've been glowing before and it was, 17:19 I've never in, I enjoyed that so much 17:22 because you realize how hungry people are for the gospel. 17:28 And then some of them don't know 17:29 what they're missing until it's presented to them. 17:32 Right. 17:34 And what are some stories 17:35 where you've experienced that type of joy? 17:39 Sure. 17:40 Well, first of all 17:42 I started doing literature evangelism in 1999. 17:45 And I was so nervous 17:46 when I knocked on my first door. 17:49 The gentleman was very accommodating. 17:51 He was friendly 17:52 but his kids were running all over the house. 17:54 It was supper time and so he told me 17:56 I needed to come back at another time. 17:58 So I had my paper out and a pen, 18:03 and I asked him what his name was, 18:05 and I couldn't even get through his first name 18:08 because both of my hands were shaking so much. 18:11 So I handed him the pen, and paper, 18:13 and asked him if he could write his information down for me. 18:17 And he chuckled and he said, 18:19 "You haven't been doing this very long, have you?" 18:22 But later on, in that same summer I knocked on a door, 18:27 this is in Charlotte North Carolina, 18:29 and I knocked on this door, that a neighbor, 18:33 he told me not to knock on. 18:36 He said, "No" I wouldn't bother with him, you know, 18:39 he didn't explain why, he just said, 18:43 "You might want to skip over that door." 18:45 Well, that guy had bought anything for me, he just, 18:49 you know, made up a lot of excuses 18:51 of why he didn't want what I had to offer. 18:53 Okay. 18:54 So I was going to listen to his advice 18:56 about whose door I should knock on. 18:57 Yes, yes. So I knocked on the door. 19:00 And it was quiet, and I knocked again, 19:04 and then I heard a feet stomping. 19:08 And, "Who is it?" 19:11 And I said, "It's Carl" like he should know me. 19:14 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 19:16 He said, "Who?" 19:17 I said, "It's Carl." 19:19 And then I heard the feet stomping away from the door, 19:23 then the feet stomping back towards the door. 19:26 The inside door flew open. 19:28 And then the gentleman kicked the screen door open, 19:33 and leveled a shotgun at my chest. 19:36 Wow! 19:37 And he said, "What do you want?" 19:40 And I had a Desire of Ages in my hand 19:42 and I held it out to him. 19:44 And I said, "I just want to share 19:45 the love of Jesus with you." 19:48 He lowered his gun, and we ended up having prayer, 19:51 and he got a Steps to Christ from me. 19:54 Wow! 19:55 So... 19:57 I know your eyes got really big when you saw that shotgun. 19:59 Yeah, my heart got real big too, 20:02 right in the middle of my throat. 20:05 You know, it just dawned on me, 20:07 some of our viewers might not know what glowing is, 20:11 so I've been glowing, it's, you know, 20:14 it's those little glow tracts that you pass out, 20:16 that you share with people, 20:17 they have some of those tracts... 20:19 Some stands for it gives light to our world. 20:20 Yes. Yes. 20:21 And you have ones on health, 20:23 you have ones on like, there's a tract 20:27 and I don't think this is a glow tract 20:28 but it's similar, love letters from Jesus 20:32 or a lover letter from Jesus, absolutely amazing. 20:35 Like, when you read it, it's very conversational, 20:38 it's very practical, and it's very personal. 20:41 Right. 20:43 And so what our viewers need to know is that, 20:48 they can go out, they can witness, 20:49 anybody can go, be a witness. 20:51 Right. 20:52 You know, just share with others 20:54 what Christ has done for you, 20:56 give them a Glow tract or you go to a restaurant, 20:58 leave a glow tract in the check presenter. 21:01 Yes, and what we do in our conference 21:03 with our pollution department, 21:05 we emphasis something very similar to what Glow is doing. 21:08 But we've managed to get some of our magazines and books 21:14 almost down to the range of a Glow tract. 21:16 Really? 21:18 All right, Glow tracts are typically going to be about 21:21 five cents a piece. 21:22 You're going to buy a pack of 100 for five dollars. 21:25 Well, say for instance, Impediments to Power, 21:30 we've gotten this at such magnificent deal 21:35 for people that you can get these as low as 15 cents. 21:40 Wow! 21:42 So there's lot more substance for the price. 21:43 Yes. 21:44 And it covers a variety of subjects. 21:47 So it's talking about prayer, 21:50 how to build your relationship with God in different ways. 21:54 It introduces people to the health message. 21:57 It introduces people to the stewardship principles. 22:00 It introduces them to righteousness by faith, 22:03 and several other little things in there so, as low again... 22:09 As low as 15 cents a piece, 22:10 you go to the website ShareWaves.org 22:14 and you order them right there online, 22:17 deliver it to you a few days later. 22:19 And that's where they can purchase all of your... 22:21 Books, correct? Right. 22:23 That's where they can purchase them in bulk... 22:25 Okay. Okay. 22:26 We have another website that we can, you know, get one, 22:30 you just want to get one copy at a time, 22:32 go to familyhomechristianbooks.com. 22:34 Okay. 22:36 What are some other creative ways to do outreach? 22:41 Okay, one of things 22:44 we've done with "R U Tuff Enuff, 22:46 " we did a print run of about 22:47 50, 000 of them a couple of years ago 22:49 and they're just about all gone. 22:52 And one of the places that we dispersed them 22:54 at is football games and things like that. 22:59 So where you have sports minded people 23:01 because you've a sports theme that goes through the book. 23:05 And so we just, we go out to the ball games, 23:09 and advertise free souvenirs, 23:11 and people come and scoop them up. 23:13 And then sometimes we get people that come back 23:16 after they've read a couple of pages 23:18 and ask if they can get a couple more 23:20 for different people in their lives. 23:21 Nice. 23:23 "Yell at God and live," 23:28 couple of different ways that I've used this. 23:30 The first way that I had in mind 23:32 even as I wrote it was 23:34 when you have a funeral at your church, 23:36 you have a lot of people 23:38 that are not members of your church 23:40 within your church walls. 23:42 You don't, you didn't put out a flyer 23:44 to bring one of them in. 23:45 Yes. All right. 23:47 And they may never be back. 23:49 This may be your one main time to make an impression on them, 23:53 a lasting impression. 23:54 So at the end of the service for a dear friend of mine, 23:58 I told people what the book was about. 24:00 I went through the five chapters in that. 24:03 I showed how this correlates to the various stages of grief. 24:07 And that we have a free gift 24:09 for each person at the back door, the usher, 24:13 if they want one, the ushers have them, 24:15 so they can freely take them. 24:17 And I'm so, 24:19 there was about 300 people at the funeral 24:21 and everyone took a book on the way out. 24:25 I make contacts in the community 24:27 with funeral home directors 24:30 and set up displays in their establishments 24:33 'cause it's another way that they can add value 24:36 and minister to the people that come through their doors. 24:39 And funeral home directors eventually they get to know 24:43 everybody in town. 24:44 Yes, unfortunately... Yeah... 24:46 Unfortunately on death. 24:48 You know, we know that death is appointed on to man once 24:52 and then the judgment. 24:53 So that's our common denominator. 24:56 And so this is a way to reach a lot of people. 24:59 You get a nice display of these in the funeral home 25:02 as people are hurrying and passing 25:04 through those doors, they pick it up, 25:07 you can put your label inside of it. 25:09 And so they know who to thank after they've been blessed. 25:13 Now what advice would you have for someone 25:16 who wants to become a writer? 25:19 Advice for writers, I like to think about writing 25:24 as in one respect as doing pottery. 25:30 So when you're doing pottery, 25:32 you get a piece of clay and you put it on the wheel, 25:35 you just bring a big lump of clay 25:37 and put it on the wheel. 25:38 You know, you're going to have more 25:40 than what you need for the actual vessel. 25:43 But don't spend a lot of time trying to worry 25:45 about the details 25:46 of what you will cut off later on, 25:49 just get the lump on a wheel. 25:51 In other words, start writing, and just keep on writing. 25:54 Don't worry about fixing it up until later on. 25:57 And then after you've gotten it on the wheel, 26:00 after you've gotten your manuscript together, 26:03 then you start shaping it in, 26:04 you can start playing around 26:07 with the placement of the paragraphs, 26:08 and the chapters, and then find a good editor, 26:13 I know there's lot of ways to self publish today 26:16 but the editor is someone 26:17 that you don't want to bypass... 26:20 Yes. Yes. 26:21 Because they help you make, 26:24 they make you look better than you would've looked, 26:27 you know, it's like coming out on to the set, 26:29 I had to stop in make up room, you know, 26:33 she knows what she's doing, I just sat there, 26:35 and let her do her thing. 26:37 Yeah. Yeah, to take away the shine, yes, yes. 26:39 Well, take away the shine 26:40 and there's something's in your manuscript 26:43 that you don't want to shine, they're not shine worthy. 26:46 Yeah, like mistakes. Yes, definitely. 26:51 In the short, short time that we have left, 26:54 who were some of your mentors? 26:56 Some of my mentors... 26:57 Well, I stay in touch 26:59 with the lot of people at Pacific Press. 27:01 I had an internship back in 2001 at Pacific Press 27:05 working in the editorial department 27:06 so people like Randy Maxwell, Tim Lale, Jerry D. 27:11 Thomas as far as writing mentorship goes, 27:17 those are some of my top people. 27:20 One of my old professors at Oakwood, Keith Burton, 27:24 you know, somebody that really sharpened my mind 27:27 and pushed me to write. 27:30 So he kind of motivated you to start writing. 27:33 Yes, yes. Okay. 27:35 And well, I would be remiss if I didn't say my wife, 27:39 she's one of the first people that saw samples of my writing 27:42 and really encouraged me to do more with it. 27:45 So yeah, the support. 27:47 Yes. Yes. 27:49 Well, thank you so much for coming on. 27:52 Thanks for tuning in. 27:53 Join us next time and remember 27:55 it just wouldn't be the same without you. |
Revised 2016-10-10