America's Worship Pastor

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How about it, brother? Oh man, this is what I call my office right here. I hang out at Starbucks a lot. I like Starbucks.

I like every location in town, and I'm frequently at all of them. We're just talking about what God's doing in your life. You're buzzing around all over the country doing events with Women of Joy. You've got a record coming out, man.

Of course, right across the street, you light it up quite frequently with some worship right there at Thomas Road, too. What's God doing in Charles Billingsley's life right now? Give everyone an update, man. Oh man, it's exciting days. I've got this new project coming out May 13th, which is interesting because for 30 years, I've just done nothing but Christian albums and worship records and things like that.

But this is a new venture for me. We're actually moving into the Symphony Performing Arts Center world. Of course, I'll never leave the church.

I'm always in the church and part of the staff and the team at Thomas Road and Liberty as well. And it's great, and I love it. But this is a little bit different twist in the sense that this record is all big band classics. It's kind of a cross between Michael Buble meets Andrea Bocelli. Got some classical stuff on there. A lot of it is all very well-known standards, but our new arrangements. And I'm having a blast singing these things.

On May 13th, it comes out. We've got a big concert we're doing downtown Lynchburg with a full symphony, and we're hoping to do more of that across the country as it progresses. That's awesome. So let's catch everyone up. Maybe some folks listening haven't met you at Truth Talk.

Who is Charles Billingsley? How would you introduce yourself? How would you describe yourself?

I set you up with a few accolades there. Well, you know, I guess you'd call me a vocalist who leads worship. I do a lot of teaching these days. Songwriter, singer, teacher, writer, whatever. But, you know, I mainly just consider myself a Christian who likes to do good music, and most of the time it's Christian music with worship songs and things like that. But once in a while we get to rare back and just sing some good patriotic stuff or a classic of two, whatever. But my thing is I just really want to use the voice that the Lord's given me to reach as many people as I can for the kingdom of God.

That's it. Amen. You know, we were driving down the road listening to the Truth Network not too long ago, and we were listening to the Jonathan Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road. We were listening to the hour service on the radio, on the Truth Network. And my wife is like, wait, who's that preaching?

It was a week that Pastor Jonathan was out. And he was bringing some heat, this guy was, and it was you preaching the Word. You like to preach the Word too, huh?

How about that? Oh yeah, I love it. In fact, Pastor Jonathan has me come up about, I don't know, once every five, six weeks and teach, and it's an honor for me. In fact, that's actually my title at the church is teaching pastor.

But I love it. It's a privilege and it's an honor. I tell Jonathan all the time there's no way I could do that every week of my life. But he gives me a few weeks notice, and it's nice because it gives me a time to really study and hone in on some topics that are really interesting and, you know, can just be life changing for folks. And so the privilege to do that, it all comes from him and the team at Thomas Road, and I'm very grateful for it, and I love doing it. But, you know, it kind of brings a nice balance to all the singing that I'm doing all over the country, so it's kind of fun.

Awesome. That's the voice of Charles Billingsley. I'm Stu Everson. We're at a coffee shop in Lynchburg, Virginia on a beautiful day. I get to sit down with this guy who many of you have heard and been blessed by.

My daughter's a student here at LU, and she gets to hear you a lot. Charles, how did you come to know Christ? Take us back a little bit into your testimony, and for those that may not have heard, we'd love to hear that.

Well, it was early for me, you know. Sometimes God saves people out of things, and then he saves other people from stuff. I'm one of the really blessed ones that I got saved in at an early age. I was six years old in a little Baptist church in Salt Lake City, Utah of all places.

And, you know, the pastor just gave an invitation at the end of the service, and I came down the aisle and asked the Lord into my life. But, you know, I was raised in the home of an evangelist. My dad's always been in ministry. My mom is solid as a rock believer, so I was kind of exposed to the gospel early on.

But, you know, even if you're exposed to it doesn't mean that you have, you know, that you've come to know Christ in a personal way. And so that happened to me at six years old, and from there I moved all over the country with my parents and watched my dad and mom do ministry for, you know, 50 years. And got called into that myself when I was in high school and been doing it ever since. So cool. And some things that you're really passionate about right now that really get you going. And those are the cars we're hearing driving by, trucks and all things, but I love being outside. I love talking to Charles.

This is kind of cool. Charles, you know, our country, goodness, we've been through this pandemic. That's affected worship leaders like nothing else. I mean, this has caused a lot of turnover in ministry, a lot of folks struggling. People are angry because they got to wear a mask. They're angry because you're not wearing a mask and you're going to kill grandma and vaccinated. I know you've had about 15 shots, and I respect that, Charles.

I don't know why you're shaking. But anyway, talk about kind of where you see God working today and maybe what's your message to the church, people listening, kind of your passion. Where do we need to go? What is it that God's put on your heart in that area? Well, I mean, it's been this case for hundreds of years, but I just I think the pandemic really just opened my eyes again to the severe need we have as church, as believers. I almost said churchgoers, but really as believers to reach outside the walls of the church. I mean, God blessed the church during the pandemic. I mean, most churches I know of actually grew and actually their giving went up because the people of God are very faithful to the cause of the kingdom. But at the same time, we lost a lot of people and a lot of them don't come back. You know, they've discovered how fun it is to worship from their couch at home. And, you know, a lot of that's understandable. But at the same time, man, when I look out at most churches I sing in, the people who don't know God are not there.

They have no interest. There's too many other options on a Sunday morning. And so that's one reason I did this record. I want to take the truth by way of a medium of music that people, all people love, secular songs, whatever it might be, to gain access to the ears of people who may not know Christ and expose them to the truth of the gospel, even if it has to do with something as simple as a song like, You'll Never Walk Alone. I mean, it's not a Christian song, but it sure has gospel overtones. Songs like Let There Be Peace on Earth. They have gospel overtones because God's the author of peace. God's the author of love. And if you don't want to be lonely or depressed, the only answer is God. And so I'm trying to point people to the gospel in a roundabout way through songs that everybody loves and resources and websites that will point them to the truth.

Really, what we need to be ahead of doing and what this institution across the street is doing is taking back the liberal arts in the name of Jesus. So your music album, what's it called? It's called The Shadow of Your Smile. 15 incredible songs. Amazing production. Not one programmed instrument on the entire thing. It's full orchestra, live, big band. It's a blast.

I can't wait to get it. You know, your music album to the world of music, the genre of music, would be like a movie like A Chariot's Afire would be to Hollywood, where it's maybe not overtly, but it has some dynamic, redemptive messages. You know, C.S.

Lewis's works, obviously, that are now made into movies and the reading literature. You think about movies like Unbroken, you know, where there's a... And so when people get to know you through that music, they'll be blessed. And maybe someone who's just a big-time music nerd that loves that stuff, orchestra, the Tommy Dorsey Band stuff where they grew up with. My first job on radio was playing those songs, by the way.

It was like a 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s music station, a little station my dad owned. So a lot of folks hear those songs. They resonate, don't they?

Oh, big time. So many memories. But what's so funny is I talk to the kids at Liberty, or the students at Liberty, and they love this stuff. You know, it's just a genre that is palatable to just about anybody's musical taste. And the songs have such rich history, you know. So there's things on there like Bring Him Home from Les Mis, these kind of songs. And they're powerful, and yet they also have this underlying redemptive message.

And so I was very careful about the songs I chose, you know. So it was all very intentional, and I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that not just believers, but a mainstream audience will really embrace this record. That's so cool. In our guest room, by our bed, our guest bed sits your devotional, words on worship. My mother-in-law from California, whenever she stays with us, she says that's your favorite devotional.

And we've got a lot in there. You're competing with Oswald Chambers and some other ones. David Jeremiah.

Yeah, that's right. But I love your devotional. And my thing is that people hear this album maybe that don't know Charles Billingsley.

People listen to the show right now. You have some other albums too, right? Christmas, you have the book. Tons of Christian albums, yeah. But the book is, you know, that's been one of my mantras for my whole ministry is worship is a lifestyle. And that devotional book is all about just simply talking about practical ways to worship the Lord outside of the singing of songs on a Sunday morning. Not to put you on the spot, but maybe it's time to bring back Words on Worship. Words on Worship, oh man.

The radio feature that we had it on like 500 outlets at one time. It was awesome. It was awesome. I just got to where I, you know, I moved back to California and it felt like the whole thing kind of ran out of steam. But I need to get back to that.

We'll see what the Lord does. And I did start a podcast. I don't know if you're even aware of this. How can people find that? It's called the Charles Billingsley Podcast, a real original name, but it's wherever you can find a podcast, the podcast apps and all that. Podcast, it's also a godcast. Thank you, Charles Billingsley. What a blessing. Your name, your website, same thing, right?

People can find you. Just Google Charles Billingsley and they will be blessed and they will hear an angelic voice that lifts up the Lord that makes a joyful noise. Thank you for being on Truth Talk, my friend. Thank you, buddy. Don't forget, May 13th. And you can pre-order it on Apple Music and Spotify even right now. And the name one more time, the new album that's coming out. The shadow of your smile.