Urban Report

Pastor McRoy Testimony

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Jason Bradley (Host), Pastor Carl McRoy

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Series Code: UBR

Program Code: UBR000192A


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.


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Revised 2016-10-10