A Conversation with Tony McVickers

TNG Radio, where today's culture and timeless truths come together. It's reasoned, relevant content apologetics, worldview, and answers to the questions that you need to know. From Alex McFarland Ministries, this is Truth for a New Generation Radio. And now the man who preached in 50 states in 50 days, speaker, writer, and advocate for Christian apologetics, Dr. Alex McFarland.

In the Gospel of Matthew 16, verse 18, Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Hi, Alex McFarland, your Truth for a New Generation Radio, TNG Radio. So glad you're listening today.

And folks, we've got a very special show. Just one of my most valued colleagues in ministry is Pastor Tony McVickers. He is with Rockfish Church, which is near Fayetteville in a city called Rayford. We've been here a number of times and just over the years I've gotten to appreciate this brother so much and his dear family.

They've supported us, been friends. But I wanted you to meet Tony McVickers because Rockfish truly is one of America's great churches. Nowadays, we hear so much about, you know, millennials and Gen Z, they can't be reached and the church is declining.

And I've even read articles where some feel like America's church is the best days are behind us. Listen, when you hear and you meet Tony McVickers and you hear what God is doing in and through Rockfish, you're going to be inspired. You're going to realize that Jesus is still in the business of touching the world through his church.

And I think for your own churches you're going to get some ideas and some vision. So I want you to meet this dear brother who is a big part of who I am in the ministry right now. Tony, thanks for being on Truth For A New Generation radio. Wow, Alex, thank you so much.

With that kind of introduction, I am destined to disappoint. Thank you so much, Alex. I appreciate your friendship and I appreciate the opportunity to speak. Well, and you know, you're a pastor of a great church. You're a shepherd of a flock. And I want to congratulate you because you're also an elected official. Oh, wow. Yes. A few years ago, I was challenging my organization to get more involved.

And there comes a point where you, as a leader, have to go beyond motivating and you have to begin modeling. So I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to run. I really prayed about this. I saw God. So yes, I actually was elected in the first attempt, ended up being mayor pro tem because of the number of votes.

I got very small, very small town, nothing glamorous about it. But it was a lot of work. But I think that we need to use what God has given us to bring value to our communities and maybe in any way possible. So that motivated that.

Wonderful. Some people have said stay out of politics. And we've discussed this before. I think a lot of the issues now are moral issues that have been politicized. So I see that they are vitally connected. When the rubber hits the road, it really matters.

We need to be where the action has taken place. Well, and you know, everybody who has ever run for office or held office has some sort of ideology that they're championing. I mean, nobody goes into politics just as a blank slate.

And what would be wrong with Christians, God-fearing, moral, upright Christian people leading our nation from, you know, Main Street to the White House? Absolutely. I fully believe the things that make a good follower of Jesus are the things that make a good boss or the things that make a good husband or the very things that make a good father or a good politician. I absolutely believe that wholeheartedly.

So I think it translates. Well, tell me about your journey. How did you come to know the Lord, Tony?

Oh, wow. I graduated high school. I grew up in a Christian home. My dad was an evangelist. He loved God, struggled with support, struggled with innovation and a lot of things.

Evangelist, as we've talked about before, can be misunderstood. Is your father still living? My father actually died this past Thanksgiving. Oh, sorry.

Yeah. So it still hurts, I'll be honest with you. But I grew up in a home. He always pointed me to Jesus. One thing I could say about him was one thing, he had this expression. He said, you're either going to be real or you're going to be playing church.

So with him, he might not have been real good at it, but he was real at being a Christian. So I had clarity when it come to that. And I remember I graduated high school.

I immediately went to Wilmington. I found an agent, became an actor and started doing some stuff there. And over the course of time, there are voids in the human heart. There are holes in the human heart that only God can fill. And God sovereignly began to speak with me and deal with me over the course of time. And he drew me and spoke very clearly, ironically, in a dream. And basically I was faced with an opportunity.

Which way are you going to go and what are you going to be? So I said, you know what, I'm done. I said, I walked away. I told my acting coach, I told everybody, I walked away. And Alex, this is so wild, within two years, somebody approached me and said, I want you to do a television show.

I said, what do you mean? They said, God told me to give you this television show. I started two years as green a Christian as you could be. And for 10 years, I did a television broadcast teaching the gospel. I didn't know it.

I was, it was a train wreck, but you know what? I was just being obedient. How did God call you into the pastorate? Wow.

Good question. Well, the first was kind of with the television. I had been at another organization for, from the time I got saved, I spent the next 10 years of my life at the organization at that church. And over the course of time, God just moved on my heart and said, you know, I really feel like you need to kind of move. And so when I came to where I am currently, I stopped doing the television show. I was working another job, actually had two other jobs or three that I was working. And I came and I said, basically I just said, look, here I am. I just want to bring value.

What can I do? And one thing led to another. And through faithfulness and consistency, doors opened up and I had this attitude. I said, God, if you want more of me, here I am.

So I just made myself available. I wasn't going to push anything. I want what God wants. What God wants, His will, His way, His time.

And you know, it's hard to stay in that place. And I stayed there and door after door, God sovereignly opened. Stay tuned. We're going to come back and talk more with Tony McVickers on this edition of TNG radio.

Don't go away. From I Am a Watchman Ministries, here's today's I Am a Watchman Minute. About 2,700 years ago, Amos was called to be a prophet. His message was not popular, but it was what God wanted His people to hear. God told Amos to prophesy that because of sin, judgments were coming. He was to warn the people that famine and drought and plague and war and earthquakes were coming. Amos spoke the truth, but it was rejected by most.

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Find this book and many others at AlexMcFarland.com We care about justice and aren't afraid to ask hard questions. In fact, we care about a lot of things. We have passion for truth. We are EngageMagazine.net, an online group of millennials brought together by a common goal to share truth, apply scripture and to get involved in our lost and hurting world. EngageMagazine.net hosts discussions that help you apply a biblical worldview to your daily life. EngageMagazine.net You don't need to have a Bible degree from Liberty University to love, serve, pray, worship or obey God, but it can make life more vibrant when you do.

When you're ready for a Religious Studies degree, you'll find more than 60 ministry degree options, from a bachelor's to a doctorate of ministry, and you'll pay one low block rate for divinity courses at Liberty University, where we train champions for Christ. Go to liberty.edu backslash explore to learn more. That's liberty.edu backslash explore to learn more. Welcome back. Thanks for listening. This is TNG Radio. And by the way, you can find archive shows, our webcasts. We're doing these Monday, Wednesday, Friday webcasts at 11 a.m. Eastern on Facebook at Rev. Alex McFarland, R-E-V, Rev.

Alex McFarland. And if you would, share and repost those things. We're getting thousands of viewers all across America. We're taking all kinds of topics like, you know, compassion and gratitude, but we're tying it to an explanation of the gospel and how people can know Christ. So thank you for listening, and thank you for watching, and thank you for helping us promote the name of Jesus throughout the culture. And somebody who's given his life to do that is Tony McVickers. He is being used by God to spread the gospel throughout the nation and beyond in a great way.

Tony, thanks again for being with us on TNG Radio. In the first segment, you were talking about your journey and God leading you and then ultimately calling you into the pastorate. You're at what I routinely say is one of America's great churches, Rockfish, which I believe that with all my heart. It is one of America's great churches. For the person who is unfamiliar and doesn't know, what is Rockfish Church? Rockfish is a family of believers that is absolutely 100% dedicated to making, equipping and releasing fully committed followers of Jesus. We didn't make that up.

We simply adopted it. Jesus said it. He said, go into all the world, make disciples, teach them to obey all that I have said, and lo, I am with you as you go. So make, equip and release fully committed followers of Jesus.

And what's the outcome of that? Oh, wow. God has blessed us and continues to bless us.

Last year, we were one of the top 100 fastest growing churches in America. God had it. It's not one thing. I'm just going to tell you.

There's a concept in the book, Good to Great, which talks about the flywheel. Some people would say, hey, you know, how did that happen? And the reality of it is the big things that happen in our lives generally don't happen as big things. It's the consistent turning of that wheel. One inch, one success, one win at a time.

A lot of things have contributed. But one thing that is huge, I remember years ago, God said this to me. He really spoke this into my heart. He said, those who have been given influence and they steward that influence with integrity, they will be given more influence.

Those who have been given the influence and have used it erroneously or to the detriment of others, it will be taken and it will be given to others. I look and I go, God, I'm just amazed. Even the relationship I have with you, Alex, I mean, it's a godsend. It's a blessing. God has opened up the doors in ways I could have never imagined.

Every phone call is an adventure. Well, it's a blessing to be acquainted with you and with this church. And let's talk a little bit about leadership because church involves a lot of different dynamics. I mean, we're obviously preaching the Word and leading the services. But as a youth pastor and pastor myself, I mean, there are weddings and funerals and lots and lots and lots of family counseling. What are your top three greatest joys, top three most perennial challenges? Oh, wow.

Greatest joy. I think this has to be a necessity for a pastor. You know, the life expectancy of a pastor is about five years, I believe. The average pastor lasts about five years.

It's really sad. I think, one, if you're going to be a pastor, you have to have the gift. You have to have the birthmark. If you try to be one and you are not like you're an evangelist, you ooze it. It's just what you are. Somebody who tries to be a pastor who does not have the gifting of a pastor, good luck. It will eat you up.

It will chew you up and spit you out. Number one component, you got to love people. You have to love people. And I have struggled with that. We've all experienced hurts. We've all experienced things. But to the degree that you are willing to love others is to the degree that you're willing to marginalize yourself, which increases your availability to God.

Huge. Very, very important. So number one, you've got to love people. You've got to love people. Number two, I would suggest anybody who's going to be a pastor, you better have the fundamental of leadership.

Let's talk about that just a little bit. Because I guess 20-some years ago, when I thought of leadership, I thought of John Maxwell. And he began to write a lot of great books and do leadership.

Of course, it's grown and grown. Leadership itself has become a very well-defined discipline, hasn't it? So here's my question. 50, 75, 100 years ago, God was building some great churches. I think of ministers, ministries, churches. And yet there weren't a lot of leadership books or seminars back then. And to a degree, all of us are riding on the momentum of a previous generation of great Christian movement. And now leadership is as well honed to science as we've ever seen in American history. And yet churches are declining.

What's the deal? How did we have big churches in an age when nobody heard the word leadership, and now we are watching the church die in some places when we hear leadership, leadership, leadership? There is a decline in some organizations. There's tremendous growth in other organizations. I will tell you this.

I'm absolutely committed to this idea, two of them, in fact. One, there's a gift of leadership. I believe everybody should have leadership skills, but not everybody has the gift of leadership.

So I want to make that distinguish. That's a good point. That's just the truth. The Bible tells us that there is a gift of leadership. The other aspect, I believe, that made it so possible before and less prevalent now is this fundamental truth. I believe with all my heart that a good follower makes a good leader. See, very often a person who really desires and focuses on leadership, because when I used to focus solely on leadership, it just made me critical of the lack of leadership displayed in others, becomes a pitfall, very dangerous.

It's counterintuitive to even leading people. And then I realized in order to be a great leader, that's why you could see it back then, because they were great followers of Jesus. They were humble. They were pliable.

They did all of those things. Most of the most successful leadership attributes and skills, they come right directly out of the Word of God and very often are birthed naturally in the heart of the believer by the power of the Holy Spirit. He's leading us to be servant evangelism, servant evangelism, which is so effective in the workplace now, especially with this generation.

Who knew? It's almost as if God said, we're going to focus on servant evangelism, because you're going to be dealing with millennials. And if you don't get that, you're not going to get anything. Exactly.

Exactly. Hey, hold that thought. This is TNG Radio with our dear friend Tony Mick Vickers. And before the break, what's the website of Rockfish Church? www.rockfishchurch.com. That simple, rockfishchurch.com. And we're going to be right back after this break.

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The church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non-members. Wow. Is that true? And if so, what do you glean out of that, Tony? Well, one, I think it is. I think that for every successful church, there has to be a tremendous element of selflessness and self-sacrifice.

We're doing a series right now entitled Me, Myself and I, moving from selfish to sacrificial. You cannot exist as a legitimate New Testament church and make church about you when he said go into all the world and make disciples of every nation. That is not something that's passive.

That is not something that happens if you are not dangerously intentional about it. And I think the church needs to embrace that reality courageously, dangerously. If we don't, we've talked about the necessity of meeting and reaching the next generation. This is our watch. This is our challenge. This is our time, Alex.

This is our assignment. So let's talk about something. And folks, you don't want to miss the next few minutes because we're going to talk about ministering in a post-COVID, non-bricks and mortar world. For eight weeks, most churches in the world have not been meeting. And it's forced churches to go digital.

It's forced us to remember the reality that we are the church. Thank God for buildings. Buildings are a tool.

Would you agree? Amen. A building is a tool.

And there's nothing wrong with a building. But talk to me, Tony, about the challenges of ministering. Well, any challenge. I mean, how do you approach the challenges of ministry? Let me contend. They're huge.

There's tons of them. Let's talk about specifically when you're facing adversity like we're looking at right now with the COVID-19. It was a few weeks into this. Some churches were prepared. Some churches were not. We, by the grace of God, had moved us and began to move us sovereignly in a direction that allowed us to really be prepared, much more so than a lot of other churches. So we immediately realized some other churches were not prepared. What can we do to help and assist those other churches, to bring them up to speed?

We had pastors who had never done a Facebook Live, never done a lot of things. So we began to say, how can we help them? We began to focus on really good. And I want to say this with as much respect as I can, because I know a lot of people have been hurt by this. But we are better as an organization because of the adversity that we faced.

I'm just going to tell you, we're better as an online presence. And I have talked to pastor after pastor after pastor. We created a pastors coalition as a result of this.

We've done things that we would not have done. But let me tell you why. Because very early on in this, I felt like God spoke to me. He said, you can do one of two things, Tony. You can either lead through this adversity, or you can lead in this adversity.

I said, you know what? God has called us to make, equip, and release fully committed followers of Jesus. How do we do that where we are? Now, if you approach any adversity that you come in and you say, look, I'm going to focus on what God has called me to do, and you never lose sight of the mission, then the method becomes much more obvious. So I talked to the staff. I said, guys, we have got to be flexible.

We've got to be pliable. God gave me a word at the beginning of the year in January. I was spending some time with them and praying, and the word was adventure. So I began to talk to this for any of this happened. I was talking to my staff about adventure, and that was our word.

Now they want to stone me every time I mention it, yeah, yeah. But to decide as a leader that God is going to meet me, and when I said earlier, a good leader is a good follower. It's the idea of God, I'm going to meet you at every intersection, every choice, every dilemma, and I'm going to seek your wisdom and your counsel in that moment. That's how we lead in adversity as opposed to through adversity. Darrell Bock What are some of the common challenges that any church is going to face at any time? Reg Grant You know, I have a challenge that I threw out to our congregation early on.

I've been talking about it for several months. I said, until the Great Commission becomes a corporate conviction, it will remain unfulfilled. Any leader's job at its core is to take people from where they are to where they want to be, but they don't know it. Darrell Bock Exactly. The well said, brother. Reg Grant They want to be there, they just don't know. It's from where they are to where they want to be and don't know. And people don't necessarily � I heard Craig Groeschel say it this way. He said, �People aren't opposed to change.

They are opposed to being changed.� And that's that element. Darrell Bock You know what I say? God's allowed me to write some books. And people come up, they say, �I always want to write a book.� No, most people want to have written.

You know what I mean? Trust me, you don't really want to write a book. You want to have written. But I read you there.

Reg Grant Yeah, exact same thing. Think about what we're going through now. I wanted to � we desire to be the absolute best, and I personally will not rest until we are the absolute best in the world at making, equipping, and releasing fully committed followers of Jesus. That is what we're called to do. That's what we're going to do as an organization. But what you just said is key.

Am I willing to go through what it takes to become that? This was necessary for us. And the quicker we embrace the adversity and we see God is up to something good and he's doing something, the more quickly we will embrace the transformation that will occur because of it. You know, a lot of great coaches � it was my privilege. Do you know one of our first events we ever did?

We brought Tom Landry to Greensboro, the Dallas Cowboys coach. This is 27 years ago before he passed. He said basically this, �You have to love the process as much as the end result.� And we've only got about a minute and a half left. Speak to this. But look, the end result of souls being saved, revival coming, of course we all would love that end result. But we have got to appreciate and own the process of getting there.

What does it mean, Tony, to love the process as much as the end result in terms of church ministry? I remember God said this to me. I'll make it really, really short.

I know we're running out of time. I was up in the middle of the night. I was walking through the house and God said, �Do you want to continue to grow? Are you willing to continue to grow with me and go where I lead you?� I said, �God, yes.� He said, �Let me ask you something. What if it means in order to continually grow, you must continually hurt? You must experience adversity and pain. Are you willing to grow then?� That's hard, but every one of us have to answer that.

Are we willing to endure the continual adversity necessary for us to have continual growth in our lives? Wow. Hey, Tony, we've got to visit again really soon. God bless. And folks, thanks for listening to Truth For New Generation. Alex McFarland here. You can find us online at alexmcfarland.com. We look forward to being with you again very soon on TNG Radio. God bless you.

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