Uber With Jesus

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Light, comfy, good to go to. This is Darren Coon with the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it.

Share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome to the Christian Car Guy Radio Show.

I say this calls for action and now! This morning, we appreciate you tuning in this morning. You probably were expecting to hear that wonderful voice from Robbie Dilmore.

But Wednesday, Robbie called up and asked me, Bill Mixon, if I could fill in for him. And it is just a joy. It's a pleasure to be here with you. And I've got a dear friend of mine who's come on to talk to us and spend some time with us, Leroy Canaday. Leroy, say good morning. Good morning, everyone.

It's a blessing to be here. Leroy's son works for the Truth Network at The Light. And you may have heard or listened to Dwayne on the air. Leroy is a dear friend of mine through the Gideons. He's done a great deal with the jail and the prison ministry. He has done a great deal of other things. And one of them is that after he retired, he set up a lot of the Walmart stores across the nation, including the one here in Winston-Salem. He was boots on the ground making everything work from the beginning. And in his retirement, he decided he needed to do something with his time.

And he became an Uber driver. And I don't know how many of you have used that service. I have a few times. I went into it kicking and screaming. My kids left at me and said, Dad, it really isn't that big a deal.

And I've got to say, it really wasn't that big a deal. But there were a number of confusing things that happened to me along the line. And if you've got an interesting Uber story, if you've got an interesting story from using one of these apps for a ride, we would love for you to call 866-348-7884. 866-348-7884. Now, one of the things that impresses me the most about Leroy is all the times on a Thursday morning Gideon breakfast, he would share with us how he had shared his faith during an Uber ride. And I'm hoping he will share some of his stories.

So if you, through your employment, have taken the time to lead somebody to Christ, we would love for you to call and share a story along those lines at 866-348-7884. And the last time I used an Uber was down in Florida. And after that, I decided to rent a car instead of using Uber. And I had some real interesting things pop up when I was trying to rent that car. They had a long list of extra stuff they wanted to try to sell me. And I figured I would read all about these crazy things.

And it was amazing to me what they were trying to encourage me to spend money on. So if you've rented a car recently and you have an interesting story about that car rental or you've got any questions about some of those crazy extras that they wanted to sell you, consider calling in too. But first off, I would like Leroy to share with us how he got into Uber and looking back on it if he feels like it was a smart thing to do. And encourage those of you trying to find a way to make some extra money whether this is something you should research. Leroy.

Thanks, Bill. Just looking back, I got involved with Uber because I wanted to do more with my time just instead of sitting in front of the TV watching Law & Order all day. So someone told me about Ubering and I thought it was a great opportunity to get involved with meeting different people, an open door to share the love of Jesus with some of my riders. And I was involved with a ministry program where I would raise money, use Uber to raise money to help inmates get a job and a place to live once they got out of jail. So that was the opportunities that I saw when I first got involved with Ubering. And during my career, I've had over 4,000 rides, had a rating as high as 4.92. So I had some very, very interesting riders and I would think most of my riders that I had good experiences with was professional people.

I pick up at the airport or I pick up at the hotel going to the airport. So those were some of my most, I guess, memorable trips. Now you handed out little Gideon Bibles to a lot of the folks that got in your vehicle over half?

Absolutely. I tell you, everyone that got in my car at the end of the trip, I would offer them a free testament. And believe me, when they saw that testament, it just lit up their face because I got comments like, wow, nobody ever gave me a free gift like this before. Now you had an opportunity to mention Jesus to, what, half the people that got in your vehicle? Absolutely, because the wallpaper on my dashboard was a wallpaper picture of me doing mission work in India.

And that would open the door to a lot of conversations like, is this your family? Was you on the mission field? And that was the open door to share Jesus and to share my testimony. And my father was a leader in the Presbyterian Church, helped start four different churches, and he always told me to keep my religion and my business separate. And I sort of lived that way for a long time, and I was scared to share my faith when I was on the clock.

And it just thrills me to hear Leroy say that he was able to do that and get some of the very best ratings that an Uber driver can get. So my point is, if you're sitting there thinking about, should I share my faith or should I not share my faith? I want you to err on the side of maybe we should be doing a better job of sharing why we've got an assurance in Jesus Christ and put ourselves in a position to be more upfront and forth front with our faith. Did you have any bad experiences in all those 4,000 events saying Jesus to somebody? I can say that I've had a few, and most of my bad experiences came from not the rider themselves, but they guess because they would bring maybe one or two guests along the ride, and they don't understand some of the programs that Uber offer and the behavior that they should display when they're taking an Uber ride.

So my experience has been mostly with the guests of riders. Now I remember when I heard a really great sermon about sharing my faith, and I started when I was on the phone with a client, and they were having a really rough day, or they were giving me a really rough day. I started saying, you know, it sounds like you're having a rough time. Would you like to take a minute to pray? And there were many, many, many very long silences, but never one of the times did somebody say no, and never one of those occasions did it go bad. So I started doing that at work and outside of work and just saying, you know, I'm going to be praying for you this week.

Is there anything particular that I can be praying for you? And that's opened up a whole lot of really interesting conversations. And once again, what I'd like to do is to encourage you to do a little bit more than just being a really wonderful person and thinking that that's all we've got to do to share our faith. In my opinion, that's great, but you're not sharing your faith unless you mention Christ or Jesus while you're doing those good works. So keep doing the good works, increase the number of good works, but take the challenge of mentioning Jesus when you're doing some of those things.

We need to change this trend so that we've got more people making a decision for Christ on a regular basis than seeing the atheist grab more of our ground. And that comes from making a difference in the communities we are in. Is there a particular story Leroy that you can think of that you'd like to share? You know, what comes to mind is sometime when folks call for an Uber, they don't realize the timeframe involved in a wait.

They will sometime schedule a ride to go to the store or to the quick mark to pick up something. Leroy, thank you. We're going to get back to that story right after the break. Please remember we're a call-in show. 866-348-7884.

Give us a ring. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com Well, welcome back. We're so glad you came back. I want to give you the phone number again.

866-348-7884. And sometimes during the break, you just have absolutely spectacular conversations with the guests and you sort of forget where you were. I know we were talking about one of your favorite Uber stories. Pick up where you were Leroy. One of the stories that I guess one of my greatest memories of picking up a rider, they wanted more than a ride. They wanted someone. They really needed a moving van because they loaded my truck up, my SUV up with a lot of their personal items. And then they wanted me to help them load and unload. And that's not part of an Uber trip. So I had a bad experience with that rider. And then there's other times when I have had bad experience with riders on wait time. I had one lady to schedule a ride to go to Walmart and to come back home. But her wait time is only three minutes. That's all Uber gives you, three minutes. You can't do anything in a Walmart store in three minutes.

So that was a bad experience also. So when we use Uber, we need to take into consideration. We got to treat our Uber drivers properly. I see that we've got a call from Andrew on the phone. Andrew, thank you so much for calling. What you got to share with us this morning? Oh, hey, how are you?

Wonderful. Oh, well, what happened to Robbie? Tammy's mom passed away or something?

Yes, that and I understand that it's dove season. So I've heard two different stories. What happened to Tammy's mom? She just died or something?

I'm sorry. I don't think I don't know. Do you know more than I do?

I don't know. I'm going to do the weather for you. Oh, wonderful. You want to do the weather for us now? Yeah, sure. Please go right ahead.

Okay. Mostly sunny today with the highs in the upper 80s. Southwest winds tomorrow's an hour. Saturday night most cloudy with a change of showers. And for Sunday and Lumbery Day, mostly sunny if you're going to cook out. Sun storms are in the forecast. Mostly sunny, highs near 90 in Tuesday and Wednesday. Look for partly sunny skies with the highs in the mid to upper 80s, lows in the mid to upper 60s. And Thursday and Friday of next weekend will be some showers and thunderstorms across the west.

It's going to be about 84 degrees in the Triad, including Stokesville and surrounding communities. Well, thank you so much for calling in. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and that we enjoy the weather that you just shared with us. You have a blessed day.

You too, Jerry. Leroy, we were talking during the break about how you got into Uber. Both of us do some interesting things to the Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry. That's ForsythJPM.org that does a whole lot of prison and jail work here in town. Leroy's doing some of the Sunday morning services at the prison with me.

We're starting the jails open back up. Our sheriff allows us to go in and spend some time with some inmates. And we do some street ministry.

I do some through City with Dwellings. And Leroy's done some wonderful things with Stu Epperson. Stu is the founder of a lot of the stations and his son runs Truth Network. But Big Stu, Big Stu and Leroy had gone out on the street trying to work with some kids that were in jail.

Tell us about how you got into Uber and how that provided you the money to do some of the things you did. Well, I tell you, Stu and I, we would go into the city and we would see these kids hanging around on the corner. And Stu was very open and he would invite the kids, hey, would you guys like to go to Chick-fil-A for lunch? And I tell you, a big smile come on their face.

We ended up going to Chick-fil-A. We was able to share with them about Christ, about ways they can change their lives. And we would ask questions on what can we do to help you? And that opened up a conversation for a lot of opportunities because a lot of these kids, they didn't have any skills on how to fill out an application or how to apply for a job. So that's where my background as a Walmart manager came in handy. I was able to work with some of these young men and teach them how to apply for a job, what to do for, what to say during an interview process. And I tell you, it opened up a lot of doors and a lot of those young men got some good employment. And Leroy's retired, not a big chunk of money coming in and needed a little bit of extra to be able to contribute to the Gideons and to the different organizations and to help these young folks.

And he used Uber to come up with that extra money to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. We've got another really neat organization in our county called CityWithDwellings.org. CityWithDwellings.org. And it works with the homeless. It works with the folks that are almost homeless. It works with the folks that have gotten out of jail. And they do the same type thing. It's amazing how difficult your life can be if you wake up and you don't have a birth certificate, you don't have a driver's license, you don't have your Social Security card.

To even get a prescription filled is almost impossible except right after you come out of the hospital. And we have the opportunity to encourage people and to point them in the direction of different organizations that can help folks through those difficult times. And it's just wonderful to see people in our community that are trying to make a difference, trying to be Christ.

Leroy, you've got another story that you'd like to share with your Uber and where you actually saw somebody accept Christ. You know, I wish I could show this on the radio, but I met this young man with Stu Eferson. And he had long dreads. He had just got out of jail. He had long dreads.

He had on jeans with holes in them. And when I met him, we was talking and he said, Mr. Leroy, I've been all around trying to get a job, but nobody would even give me an interview. And I asked, are you willing to make some changes? And he said, I would do anything, Mr. Leroy. And I tell you, I can finish that when we come back. Come on back. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com Music I want to thank you for tuning in. We want to remind you the call in number is 866-348-7884. And we want to say that if you shared your faith while you were on the clock, if you've had an Uber experience you'd like to share, that we'd love for you to call in. I don't let everybody know this, but I was part of the AFL-CIO for a very brief period of time.

And so was Leroy. This is Labor Day. And I want to encourage you, if you get a chance to check, Labor Day grew out of National Workers Day. And in the United States, that came out of something called the Haymarket Affair.

So if you want to learn something really interesting about the United States, you might Google Haymarket Affair and see what the seeds of Labor Day was and how we got to have the opportunity to have Monday off. Leroy, you were in the Meatcutters Union. I was in the Laborers Union.

You had a really neat story. There was somebody you knew that was very famous when you were starting out as a meat cutter. As a matter of fact, I was working in a slaughterhouse up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a place called Cross Brothers Slaughterhouse.

And we was part of the AFL-CIO, Local 195 at that time. And I had a very good friend. His name was Joe. And he would always try to convince me that I should maybe get in the gym and start training. But I didn't listen to Joe. I was more involved with street life. But Joe Frazier went on to be the heavyweight champ of the world. But we worked in the same slaughterhouse together for a couple of years. And Joe was a very great inspiration for a lot of the young men coming up in North Philadelphia.

When he won the gold medal at the Olympics, that was a real, real good experience and encouragement for a lot of the kids coming up in the 60s at that time. I bring that up because you and Stu have been doing a really neat ministry together in one of the more interesting parts of Winston-Salem. Tell me about what you and Stu have been doing. Stu and I, we would go into the city and we'll see a group of kids. And we would invite them to come lunch. A lot of, well, mostly boys. That's what we was, teenage boys. We would invite them to come to Chick-fil-A or McDonald's.

And we'll take them out to lunch. And during our lunch, we would ask them if there's anything that we can pray with them for or something that we can help them with. And most of them had bad experiences on trying to get a job. So my experience as a Walmart supervisor, I would work with these kids and help them to sharp tune their skills on interview. Interview skills, how to dress, what to say during the process. One fellow that I met, he had long dreads, almost coming down to his waist. And he said, Mr. Leroy, I've been everywhere looking for a job and nobody will hire me.

They just take my application, but I never hear anything from them. Well, I asked him, I say, are you willing to make some changes? He said, I would do anything, Mr. Leroy, to get a good job. First thing that I did, took him to the barber shop and cleaned his head.

And next place I took him, we went to Goodwill and I've spent $15 and he had a nice outfit. And the first place that I took him, he walked in and the lady at the desk said, you look like a clean cut young man. Are you looking for a job? He said, yes. She said, fill that application out.

And he got hired on the spot. One of the things I enjoy doing is going in and spending some time in our detention center in our county jail. And one of the things I like to say to the gentleman is, you know, there are very, very few people in this world that want you locked up. That most of us want you out with a nice job, with a nice wife, with nice kids, with a nice home, a nice car, making so much money, you're complaining about taxes like the rest of us.

We don't want to be paying for you to be in here. And a lot of times what people need to hear is everybody's not against them. Now, one of the things I like about City with Dwellings is it's a place for people to come in and for folks to love on them, to tell them that they're important, that life can get better, that if they will figure out what they need, that finding the assistance they need is a whole lot easier than when you have absolutely no idea what you've got to have to make your life successful. Also connected with City with Dwellings is a church, and the church is called The Dwelling. And in the same center, in the same building that we work with folks on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and help them get driver's license and social security cards and birth certificates and to find the answers to the different things that they need to accomplish, there's a church that has a wonderful service Sunday morning. Some of the neatest sermons I've heard have been there, but the parking lot's full with not only homeless, but people that come down from some of the low-income housing projects. And then they have a wonderful meal after the church.

It's sort of what I imagine the original church being. I bring this up because Emily, the pastor, was mentioning that one of the things that the center really needs right now is a bus or a van, because part of what we do is we transport part of what City with Dwellings does is transport people from there to a place to have lunch every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. And they'll take people to go get their driver's license and they'll take people to get their social security. They'll check people into the mental health center. And one of the things that actually I think they've got a good bit of the money that they need to buy the vehicle.

They just need to find a really good deal on a used bus or van that would be large enough for, say, 12 or 14 people. I want you to pray for this need. I also would love for you to go and look at citywithdwellings.org and see what we do in our community and find a way to reach out in your community to make a difference. I'm not forehanding cash to people that are standing there with a card.

They call that flying a flag. And some of those folks use the money properly, but a lot of those folks don't use that money properly. So what I like to do is I've got a few resources. Right now I've got a card that says if you're homeless, consider contacting citywithdwellings.org and the phone number and the hours that they're in operation.

And then a coupon for a McDonald's or a chain, some close place that you can go to get a meal, not cash. The other thing is if you've got a deep heart for helping people that are homeless, instead of giving your money to the homeless, find an organization in your town that is making a difference in the homeless population and give the money to that organization and then consider giving some of your time. I always like to give money to organizations that I actually spend some time helping.

Then I really know how the money's being spent and if it's being spent wisely. Are you making a difference? An awful lot of us crawled into a hole and hid from the world when this COVID hit. And I want to encourage you to see that are you getting out and making a difference in your community like you did before COVID? Are you out there being Jesus's smile? Are your shoulders Jesus's shoulders? Are your hands making a difference in your community?

We need to demonstrate our faith and while we're doing it, we need to mention Christ. Leroy, you've got a couple other neat stories. Do you want to share why you've decided not to keep doing Ubering? Well, I'll tell you, after 4,000 rides and different experiences that I had, things began to have a lot of very bad riders. And I had a couple of incidents where someone attacked me from the back seat and I shared that with my daughter.

And one of them, she went out and she bought me a two-way dash cam so they can record everything that went on in the car. But I just felt like it was time to make a change. And that's what I did because of everything that's happening in our society today, attitudes are changing. I think it was just time for me to quit. You mind me asking how old you are?

Seventy-nine. At the Thursday morning 7 a.m. Gideon's breakfast, we usually chuckle trying to figure out where in the world is Leroy. He travels all over the nation giving motivational speeches and talking about his life and how he makes a difference with Christ and the Gideons. There's few people I know in this world that does as much as Leroy does. I want to encourage you folks to keep Leroy on your prayer list too.

866-348-7884. We look for you. You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com She's real fine, my 409 She's real fine, my 409 She's real fine, my 409 Welcome to the Christian Car Guy Radio Show I say this calls for action and now We want to welcome you back, we want to thank you for being a part of the Truth Network and Robbie Dilmore's The Christian Car Guy Show I want to encourage you to pray for the station and Robbie, I want to encourage you to pray for Leroy I want to encourage you to pray for the city with dwellings and the homeless in your community too And I want to talk a little bit about the Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry Leroy's been helping with Sunday morning services at our Cherry Street Prison And we're getting ready to start back and do a program Saturday mornings at the Forsyth County Detention Center In my mind, we're a whole lot better off having folks that have spent some time in jail getting out, finding employment And having a nice life instead of paying for those people to be inside, incarcerated, locked up, costing us a small fortune I would like to encourage all of you to remember that we can either be sheep, so we can either be goats And we've got a responsibility according to Christ to make a difference for those people that are incarcerated And to make a difference for those people after they come out of incarceration We had five gentlemen accept Christ last month at one service in the prison It's amazing to see some of these guys transform their life But if you get out and you don't have a way to make money to support your kids It really makes making good decisions almost impossible So I would like to say to you, if you've got anybody that's been in your family that's spent time in jail If you have spent some time in the jail, figure out how you can make a difference in your community Make some phone calls, see what you can do to help In most correctional facilities, they're not provided soap or shampoo, deodorant, combs And they've got to pay a ridiculous amount of money in the commissary to have those simple things There are chaplains in your area that would love to have a great big box of soap or a great big box of little shampoos Or some bibles to be able to pass out to the inmates that they come in contact with on a regular basis If your church was willing to put a box by the office door, by the minister's door And do a list in your weekly or monthly newsletter for the church And say these are the items that we're collecting for inmates And you be willing to take those items to the local chaplain in either your jail or prison You could make a tremendous difference You could make the ministry that that chaplain's trying to do so much more powerful And you might find after you talk to him or her that there are opportunities for you to pray That there are opportunities for you to provide specific needed items There may even be opportunities for you to go in and to be a leader in a bible study There are also organizations in our communities that help folks when they get out And I promise you there's not a community in the country that could not use a little bit more help Being a big brother or a big sister or an advisor to some of those folks that are getting out Find those organizations that you can connect up to and then figure out what a reasonable amount of time to give them would be We need to be praying for those folks that are incarcerated And as much as that we need to be praying for the children of those that are incarcerated There's got to be a difference in those kids' lives That's one of the areas where we can make a big difference in our communities Where we can save money and we can make lives better Are you praying for those that are incarcerated in your community? Are you looking for opportunities to walk up to somebody and say, you know, I was thinking about you And thought I would introduce myself and pray for you this week Is there something specific I can pray for you this week?

Or say, you know, if you're willing to walk over to that restaurant I would be a pleasure to buy you lunch And just sit and talk for a little bit Would that be alright? What are we doing to make a difference for Christ and those that we're coming in contact with? I encourage you to look at gideons.org and see if that might be a ministry We've got something called Friends of Gideon's So there are people that become an auxiliary part of the Gideon ministry And contribute a little bit of money that allows us to tell people that when you give donations to the Gideons All of that money is spent to make a difference in the world and to share scriptures That comes from the Gideons giving money, like Leroy does, to cover those costs And it comes from Friends of Gideon's that are willing to make a contribution It also allows people the opportunity to purchase their own little Gideon bibles to share with people We've got wonderful tools to help people share their faith with others It would be a scary thing I also encourage you to google something called Share Jesus Without Fear Absolutely wonderful resource on how to do a really good job Having the opportunity to ask people would you like Jesus to be the Lord and Savior of your life Leroy, can you remember a time when you've led somebody to Christ in the last couple of months Maybe with your Uber or maybe not Yes I have I remember I had one young man that was struggling He was on his way to work I was driving him to work When he got there he kind of hung his head and said Boy this is going to be a bad day And I asked him, I said do you believe in Christ And he said I believe but I don't know what to do And I said can we pray, have you accepted him as your Lord and Savior And he said yes I would be willing to pray And we had prayer right in front of the mall Where he was about to get out We prayed, he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior And I gave him a little testament And he said mister can I give you a hug So I got out, walked around the passenger side And I tell you what that kid just gave me a hug Just like he was my grandson So I praise the Lord for that opportunity You know it's not a bad idea while you're still in bed You feel warm and you got a smile on your face And you're talking to Jesus You're saying what today, what are we going to do today What are you and I going to do today How can I make a difference in the world with somebody else Open my eyes and my heart to see an opportunity To be a time of refreshing and a light on the hill Take a moment and say I would really like to share My love of you with somebody else today Jesus Help me see an opportunity to share my faith And to see somebody through the Holy Spirit accept you And become a member of the family And I challenge you You do that three days in a row I will be amazed I don't have an opportunity To see somebody accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior How do you start your morning? Do you start your morning with a really wonderful conversation With the Creator of all Think about it tomorrow morning See how you can change your day See if it won't be one of the most exciting days you've ever had Be a time of refreshing and a light on the hill To those that you come in contact with Keep Robbie in your prayers in this station Leroy, Citywood Dwellings, Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry and the Homeless We love you We hope you find folks to love around you In Jesus' name, Amen This is the Truth Network