Take A Knee & The Four Priorities

The following program is sponsored by Evangelical Life Ministries.

Welcome to Engaging Truth, the manifestation of God's word and the lives of people around us. Join us each week as we explore the impact of his message of spiritual renewal from the lesson of forgiveness forged and the crucible of divorce, to the message of salvation learned by an executioner from a condemned killer to the gift of freedom found in the rescue of victims of human trafficking. This is God's Truth in action.

And welcome to another edition of Engaging Truth. I'm your host, Pastor John Kain. With us today on the program, we have Dr. John Tolson. He is a nationally renowned teacher, speaker and author. Perhaps he's best known as a chaplain for quite a number of, uh, teams over the years. He's been, uh, chaplain for, um, uh, Houston Rockets, Houston Astros, Houston Oilers, or Orlando Magic, and most recently, the Dallas Cowboys. Welcome to the program, John.

Thank you so much, John. Been looking forward to it.

So tell us a little bit about your background.

Well, uh, with that introduction, , somebody said one time to me, they introduced me. He said he's a legend in his own mind. But anyway, we'll go on. Uh, I was born, uh, in Ohio. Uh, my mom and dad were divorced when I was two years old. I never met my real father. Uh, my mom remarried when I was about seven, I think. And unfortunately, my stepdad had no idea, uh, how to be a dad. And later, as years went by and I met his father, I could see, uh, where, uh, his lack of having a healthy home spilled over on me. Um, we moved to Florida when I was about, uh, I think it's the third grade, Sarasota Bradenton to West Coast of Florida. So I really call myself a Floridian. Um, one of the key things, uh, during those years in, uh, Florida, uh, I had an uncle who actually was from Ohio, but came to Florida a lot.

And when I was a young guy, he, he was a phenomenal athlete, and he taught me when I was very young, how to shoot a basketball and how to throw a baseball. My stepdad thought sports was foolish and literally would get on me for wasting my time. Um, so, uh, that paid off, and I wish we had the time to tell you the whole story. Nobody in my background ever went to college. I think my mom finished the 10th grade. Uh, my dad stepdad the same. Uh, my dad, uh, Granddad Ohio, worked in the steel mill. Uh, good people, but not, um, highly motivated people. And I, so I really got no motivation, uh, tips, motivational tips from, from my folks. My mom loved me, and I knew that, and she believed in me, and that was a big deal. So, anyway, uh, how did I get to college?

Well, my uncle was visiting in Florida over Christmas, my senior year in high school, said, Have you gotten any scholarship offers? I said, Not yet. He said, Uh, you have a dictionary. I said, I do. So I gave him my little paperback dictionary and he said, Go downstairs, come back. We'll, I have, I'll have a plan for us. Now, my, my uncle didn't know God from Donald Duck. I mean, he was, I loved him though, but he did not have any relationship with Jesus. And I go back upstairs 30 minutes later, and he has gone in the back of the dictionary where listed all the colleges and universities, put 50 dots by 50 schools, and told me about each colleague, I think he was making most of it up, and told me about each university of college. He said, Get outta, He said, Get outta piece of paper and write down what I tell you to write.

So he said, I'm John Tolson. I go to Manatee High School in Branton, Florida. Here's my grade point average in baseball. Last year my pitching record was in basketball. I'm averaging this many points. I want to come to your school. I'll need a full scholarship. He said, Now write 50 of 'em, no typewriter. So I cashed. My family was very poor, so I cashed in Pepsi bottles and Coke bottles. You get a nickel, a bottle to buy the paper, the envelopes and the stamps. Two weeks later, I put off 50 in the mailbox and said, I'm done with that. Well, without taking, but another 30 seconds, I'll tell you this. I started getting offers all over the country, or at least interest. And finally, one day in May, uh, I had tentatively signed a contract for a school in South Carolina. And I said, Mom, did I get any letters today before I went to a baseball practice? She said, Or, So here's something here from Arizona. I said, I don't even remember writing them. And she opened it up and it read, You have been granted a four year scholarship, Played basketball, baseball at Northern Arizona University and Flagstaff. So that came from an idea from a Pagan uncle, and it's a pretty unique story. So that's a little bit of my background. Went to college and, uh, signed a contract to coach after that. Then I'll pick, pick it up for after that in a little bit.

So you've got, um, you've got some, uh, evidence in your life that God had a plan for you. I think God, working through people, God working through sports, and, uh, northern Arizona where you went. So would you call those major turning points or do you have some other

No, that would, yeah, that would be a turning point. But going back to my thoughts on that, I'd say, uh, I came to know Christ going into my 10th grade year of high school. And my buddy Sherry Hadley, who was an all American track star, straight a student, my best friend invited me to that. And the powerful thing about that story wasn't powerful at the time, other than I knew I had come to know Jesus. It was real. Uh, but a number of years later when I was about 22 or three, Sherry was in Vietnam and was killed. And years later I was in, um, I was in Washington and a friend took me to the Vietnam Memorial and I said, Wouldn't it be something if Sherry's name was on the wall? And sure enough, I found it, and I can't tell you the feelings and the emotions I had because what Sherry Hadley did for me still goes on living today and influencing people over all these years.

So that would, that was the biggest thing coming to know Christ. And then I'd say, uh, going to college. Then when I signed that contract coach, uh, that summer before I was supposed to start coaching, I was working with high school kids at my church in Florida. And I loved it. And I mean, I, we were seeing high school kids come to Christ from all over the city. And I said, I think I'm supposed to be doing this. Somebody said, Well, why don't you go to seminary? And I said, What's that? They said, That's where you go if you wanna be a preacher. I said, I don't wanna be a preacher. I just love Jesus. I love the Bible. I want these kids to know him and help 'em grow. So anyway, I go to seminary for three years, and then the next 16 years in, um, Shreveport in Jackson, Mississippi, in the Dallas, Texas.

I work with high school kids. So, and then during that seminary time, I met Ruth Ann, my wife, for 30 years. Um, and that was a huge, huge, huge deal. And during that time in Dallas, I had started spending a little time with leaders in our city. And a lot of 'em had students in our, our youth work here in Dallas, in Highland Park. And one day I was looking for something in a folder, and this was a huge turning point. And out of the folder, dropped a little card, and I had written something down year or two before at some meeting. And I looked at it, and this is what it said, If you could do anything you wanted to do, knew you couldn't fail and the money wasn't a problem, what would you do?

I like that kind of question. I'm kind of out of the box. So I, I took a couple months, got a notebook, started writing everything in my head, in my heart, what would I do different than what I was doing? So a friend of mine called, and I reduced all that to one page. This is really critical. Cause most men and women, I think especially men, are afraid to answer that question. And 70 to 80% of the men in America do not like what they do when they go to work on Monday morning. So this was a big deal. I love what I did, but the Lord had something, uh, a little different in mind. So I got a phone call from a buddy in Chattanooga, said, There's a man in Houston, a pastor of a great church. I told him to come see you about your philosophy of working with students.

The pastor two weeks later, flies in three hours. We talk at my home about the philosophy. And before he gets ready to go to the airport, he says, Well, what's your dream? I handed my piece of paper and he says, I've never read anything like that. I said, It's mine, . So two weeks later, he calls me, and this, this will be over just a moment, but he calls me and said, Would you come to Houston and meet with 10, 10 leaders in our city? I said, I don't think I'm supposed to do this in Houston, but I'll come down. Maybe I'll find somebody to do it. So I go Down here are the 10 men head of MD Anderson Hospital, head of these big oil companies, and this young guy with a piece of paper. And so we had breakfast. I shared my heart and my vision, my dream. And they ask a few questions. They were delightful people. And they ended up left. About five minutes later, a knock came at the door. And this one of the gentlemen who was in the meeting came in and he said, and this was the turning point, he said, If you'd like to come to Houston, bring your family and do what's on that paper. You come on, we'll take care of you. So I've been doing what's on that paper for 45 years.

That's awesome.

And it changed.

Well, God gave you a dream. And, uh, that dream was to be in his service using your varied background, your unique background of coaching and leading people, and also, uh, uh, your Christian faith. And he, he put it all together for you.

That's right.

It's amazing. It's amazing that, uh, other people have seen it and have been touched by it. I I've heard that question a little bit, uh, differently than the way you asked it. But if the way I've heard it, uh, somebody said, If you weren't afraid, what would you do? Uh, you know, and, and thinking about that in, in terms of not what you have to do, but what you'd like to do is, is so very powerful. And when it's God whispering in your ear, wow. I mean, the opportunities are, are endless.

So, and the focus I wanted to make, just to clarify cause I didn't get into that, but I primarily wanted to work with men and leaders, fathers, husbands around the country. Cause all the research I had done up to that point said, We gotta get, we gotta get the men. And in Dallas, Texas, when kids could come into Christ, they'd go home to be encouraged in their newfound faith. It was mama who did it. Most dads didn't show up. And most churches I found, at least at that time, did not make a concerted effort, especially the pastor to personally build in to other men. They might have a pancake breakfast once a month or do whatever, and some churches do better than others. But it was critical, critical. There was a study done then that said, I think Billy Graham did it, or Young Life or whoever and whomever. And they said, in a family, and you've probably heard this, if the father's not plugged in to the Lord, you got about a 22 to 23% chance that those kids and the wife will come to Christ. But if he is plugged in almost a 90% chance. So it was a no brainer. We had to reach men around the country. And that's what I've been doing now for 40 some years.

So when you say you've been doing it for 40 some years, you are a, uh, nationwide public speaker, you've authored some books. If, uh, if our people want to get more information and, uh, see how the Lord has touched your life and maybe how they, uh, how he will touch their life, how, uh, what, where should they start?

Well, you mean as far as contacting me? Or where would they start in their work?

Uh, either way. Either way.

Well, if, if you want, if you want to reach in, then I think that first of all, you gotta see the importance of it in your church. Or if you have a ministry that touches the lies of other men, you have to see how critical it is. Number two, um, I had basically a, an idea of what to do to reach men in Houston. So when I got there, I sat down one night with a legal pad and I said, You know, when we, when I was in Dallas, we did a thing called tbc, Teen Breakfast Club for high school kids, seven o'clock in the morning every three months during the school day. And we'd have three or 400 high school kids pack in to a 55 minute meeting, uh, which 20 minute message, a door price, a skit, and a great breakfast. And then they took off and it was focused on non-believers.

I said, Why not use the same thing and do it for men, but we, we will call it something different. So we, I, I sat down and said, What are we doing? We're putting men together, What are we gonna call it? And I was really sensitive to trying to reach the non-believer. I didn't want to use a Christian name or title. So I said, Well, what we're doing is we're gathering men. So I said, Oh, there it is, The gathering. And so we started it in Houston, in Orlando, and in cities around the country. And basically I put together a nucleus around 50 or 60 men that love the Lord. And their assignment, and it still is the same all these years later, is to bring men host 'em at their table that don't know the Lord. Guys that know the Lord, but not growing guys may or may not know the Lord, but they're struggling with a problem.

And your books, are they available on your website or do you point people somewhere

Else? They are, they are, they're available, but it's all gonna come back to our office. We do everything out of our office. We mail 'em, ship them, and all that, right outta here. So they can call the office two one four five two one zero nine two eight two one four five two one zero nine two eight. Great. Emily would be glad to take care of you.

We'll come back to John in just a moment. I'd like to let our listeners know that, uh, we could have you visit our website, also e lm houston.org. You could read more about us. You could download podcast to some of our past radio programs. You find short shortcuts to our Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube accounts. Or you could also donate to support our work all there online. All of our on the air hosts are volunteers. So your donations go far to help us purchase radio, air time. We strive to have a wide variety of interviews with people who are creatively sharing the good news of the salvation that's ours only through Jesus Christ, where people live at the intersection of where faith meets life. And some of those people are folks like John, who's with us today. You can also write us at E lm PO Box 5 6 8 Cypress, Texas 7 7 4 1 Oh. So John, um, if you boil it all down for us mm-hmm. , what shapes you, what shapes your, uh, passion.

Uh, the scripture says that there are two things that are gonna last forever, that God are gonna take off the plant when it's all over. First of all, he said, It's my truth, His truth. And if you look at Isaiah, uh, chapter number, uh, 40 verse eight, it tells very clear that clearly there, that his truth will remain the living word, Jesus, the truth, the way, the truth, the life and the written word. And number two people, Matthew 25 46 is just one example. And the point is, what he's saying is that everybody, when it comes to people are gonna live forever. Now, some people are checking my theology out. Everybody's gonna live forever either with God or without him. So if that's true, the most important thing I can do is to know his truth, know his son, and live it. And number two, get people to him.

So this is really probably, there are two things I wanted to get over in our time together today. One is that I hope this gives people hope that listen to this and feel like I can't do anything. Listen, if you knew more of my background out of which I came, you'd you'd, you'd say how in the world you get to do this all, all that you've done over the years? That's a good question. And it's only because of him. The second thing I wanna say is Jesus, I believe has a strategy that changed the planet and the strategy has been mainly unused and not implemented. If you look at, uh, and interrupt me anytime, but if you look at, uh, Matthew 28 19, Jesus, the last words that came out of his mouth, he said, Go, ma, or as you are going make disciples, and you can translate that who will make disciples, who a lot of times people read that and think that means converts.

That's part of it. But if you look up the 269 times the word disciples used in the New Testament, and you look, do all your research and throw in the top of a funnel, how the bottom of the funnel drops three things, disciple means, number one, a disciple is a learner. We never stop learning, biblically speaking, true learning only takes place when it changes how I live. If it's not changing me, I haven't learned it. I've been educated with good content, Bible of Jesus and all the rest of it, but I haven't learned it. Two a disciple's, a follower. And it kind of comes from the idea of an adhesive, something that sticks to something else. In this case, a person sticks to Jesus. The demands of following Jesus are very demanding. But the third thing is where we've missed it. And the, I bet there aren't more than 25 churches in America that do this. The third thing he said, I want you to be reproducers. And they have to commit to me that when we're done with, with each one of those guys, they will take on at least one to two guys a year the rest of their life. So I could go into a lot more detail, and we're working with schools, and we're working with churches around the country, and it is, it's beginning to explode

That aspect of discipleship, of training people so that, uh, once they know the Lord, and, uh, uh, you know, over and over again, the New Testament tells us that we are saved by faith. Uh, it, it's not of ourselves. It's a gift from God. And, you know, sharing this is not, um, it shouldn't be, uh, burdensome. It should be the greatest joy to, uh, share and encourage others to grow as we are growing.

And I think, John, the reason people often ask you, why doesn't, why isn't this all over? Why church has done this everywhere? And I think number one is most pastors have never been discipled. Most pastors have not been in seminaries that gave good content and training on how to do this, though, then they go to the church and it's not on, it's not on the radar. And we've been to churches with pastors of leaders of churches from 25,000 down to little bitty churches. And I often, I ask the pastor who discipled you? And it's like, it's like, uh, looking in the headlights of, of a oncoming train. They have no idea what you're talking about. And we have training we do when we go, Like I was over in Mississippi with about 160 people about two months ago. We trained the pastor and all those folks. And I mean, it's blowing up all over Mississippi, by the way. We, we've been working there a long time. But anyway, um, I believe, I believe that was his plan to change the planet. And can, do I have time to tell you one quick story?

I, we've got about one minute.

Well, I don't have time other than just say, I wish you all could meet Ed Yates. He's with Jesus now, and someday you'll meet him. Right. I met him when he was 91. At 93. He had, I taught him how to disciple. He had discipled eight men, one on one through the four priorities before he died. And now those men are all over Dallas discipling people. He didn't start till he was 91 ever too late. That's, that's an older person example.

Yeah. Well, that's awesome, John. Thank you for what you're doing and thank you, I guess I could say for letting the Lord work and speak through you, to touch lives and to point people's eyes to Jesus our savior. Join us again real soon for another edition of Engaging Truth. Goodbye.

Thank you for listening to this broadcast of Engaging Truth. Be sure to join us each week at this time to help support our ministry. Contact Evangelical Life Ministries, Post Office Box 5 6 8 Cypress, Texas 7 7 4 1 0, or visit our website@elmhouston.org or find us on Facebook at Evangelical Life Ministries. Thank you.