Chauncey Allmond
What you’ll see in this Logos Live episode
In this interview brought to you by Logos’s Kerusso Collective, Chauncey Allmond talks to pastor, author, speaker Dr. Tony Evans about his life, ministry, writings, and more.
Tony Evans is Senior Pastor of Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, president of The Urban Alternative, and a widely-syndicated radio broadcaster. He graduated from Dallas Theology Seminary, where he was the first African-American to receive a doctorate in theology.
Dr. Evans’ Urban Alternative ministry seeks to bring about spiritual renewal in urban America, and his radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, airs in more than 500 outlets in the United States and over 40 countries.
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Books and Resources by Tony Evans
Tony Evans’ Book of Illustrations: Stories, Quotes, and Anecdotes from More Than Thirty Years of Preaching and Public Speaking
Regular price: $19.99
Interview Transcript
This transcript has been lightly edited for readability.
Chauncey Allmond:
Well, hello, my name is Chauncey Allmond and welcome to Logos Live. I’d like to welcome you to another very special conversation with a very special guest. As the cliche goes, certain people can go without any introduction, and certainly today’s guest is no exception. We have the one and only Dr. Tony Evans, pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. So with that said, Dr. Evans, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to spend a few minutes with us today.
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, I figure I need to give time to anybody who provides biblical training to the whole world.
Chauncey Allmond:
Well, thank you for saying that. And we’re excited, and I know your time is limited, and I just want to go ahead and hop right on in. Everyone knows you from, you know, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. They’ve probably attended some of your conferences, read your books, you know, just a lot of things in formal settings. But what I wanted to do to start is to give our audience an opportunity to perhaps learn some things about you they may not already know. Like, for example, when you’re not preaching, you’re not teaching, you’re not on the road, you are at home relaxing. So how does Dr. Tony Evans relax? I mean, what, what’s like in your Netflix queue? What do you binge watching these days?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, if you were to come around my house most of the time, for most of the day, the news is on. I don’t watch Netflix. I like Law and Order. So I do like the series Law and Order, and then sports. You’re gonna find news on whether I’m paying attention or not is a whole other thing. And of course, I like to read. I read pretty vociferously. So, I like to read, but I like to read not only theology, but I like to read economic politics, sociology. I like to get the breath and then thread theology in it. So—
Chauncey Allmond:
Okay, so you, so you’re telling me to relax. You’re reading some sociology books and some—
Dr. Tony Evans:
Relaxing for me. I, I enjoy it. Different thought patterns, you know.
Chauncey Allmond:
As we were just talking about a few minutes before we started, I was there with you at your conference in October and had an opportunity to walk through the halls of your church. And it was pretty fascinating in that there were a lot of pictures. And there were dates on the bottom of the pictures. So the hallways kinda read like a timeline. And what I wanna know is, if you kind of go back to the beginning, did you ever, in your wildest dreams think that your ministry would flourish to the point where it is today?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, there’s two answers to that. God has obviously taken me further than, you know, than I could dream because there are things happening now that didn’t even exist.
Chauncey Allmond:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Tony Evans:
Like social media, like cell phones. I mean, you know, but in theory, I’ve always been entrepreneur- minded in terms of creating things. I’ve always been visionary, so I’ve always tried to look further than I could see. And so that has just been part of my mantra and personality. But in terms of how God has done it, it’s certainly unpredictable. So it’s a part of, it’s not the case, as the Lord does his own thing, you know, with our lives.
Chauncey Allmond:
And, and as your ministry started to grow, at what point, or or how long did it take before you realized like, wow, you know, God is really up to something? You know, was it the first year, couple years? When did things you see a trajectory starting to change?
Dr. Tony Evans:
I think probably after four or five years when people outside of the church started requesting my tapes. Ok. It was cassette tapes then. Ok. They were asking for cassette tapes cause that really, my wife helped launch The Urban Alternative. And the national ministry came out of people ordering.
Chauncey Allmond:
Wow. And now about how many members do you have at your church currently?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, on roll prior to Covid, 10,000. Covid messed things up. You know, we’ve tweaked some ministry things, so we’re doing something differently with media now in light of the changes that came with Covid and it’s becoming very healthy and vibrant again. And, we’re excited about what the future is going to hold as we kind of reengage with, you know, media and ministry have now gotten married. And so that partnership has caused us to have to look at things differently, trying to have an emphasis on the next generation as well. So we’re doing a lot of things that, are trying to engage at a higher level.
Chauncey Allmond:
Now, you mentioned the pandemic, you know, back in 2020 and I recall early 2020 and I was having a conversation with one of your assistants. And it was during that time where, you know, churches were starting to shut down and a lot of churches were having to go to the streaming model. And, you know, there’s a lot of change. And so as a result of the pandemic, you mentioned the marriage between, you know, technology and the church as one thing that has changed. How did the pandemic change your ministry, your approach to pastoring? Again, you mentioned now people are streaming in, so what are, what are some of the things that came about? Some positive things that may have come out of the pandemic?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, Zoom.
Chauncey Allmond:
Okay.
Dr. Tony Evans:
Zoom has been a major positive because I found that I could have meetings and not have to go to the office. I still see the folks I wanna meet with and people don’t have to travel. So actually it’s allowed things that would normally take more time because of being able to meet through Zoom. So that’s been a positive. Also, it created the need for people to connect.
Chauncey Allmond:
Mm.
Dr. Tony Evans:
And that point of connection is another positive thing. Isolation set in when Covid set in. So raising connectivity to a higher level as well.
Chauncey Allmond:
Have you seen your audience grow from an online standpoint? You have numbers to support how that has changed?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Oh, absolutely. We have people who view us as their church, which has positives and negatives. We created this group called Friends of Oak Cliff. We didn’t wanna, we didn’t wanna do the online church thing because people can’t get physically connected. They should. But we also knew that people wanted some of the nuances that we give in ministry. So we created Friends of Oak Cliff and these are people who want the benefits that we offer without having to give up membership locally. So between the online viewers who view from around the world, those actually on Sunday and the friends of Oak Cliff who are attached to us without giving the membership, yes. We’ve seen exponential growth in outreach. And then because of the national ministry of The Urban Alternative, people who are connected with that also tune in on Sundays. So it’s coming in a multidimensional way. Yeah.
Chauncey Allmond:
Now you mentioned earlier cassette tapes, and I’m, I’m old enough to remember, cassette tapes and just looking at how technology has changed, you know, back in the day, you know, all we had were the, the physical books and obviously with the company, you know, Logos with everything being digital. How, how have you migrated? Are you still a primarily paper books person or do you do some digital?
Dr. Tony Evans:
I am a paper book person. Yes. Cause I write in my books. Okay. So I, and I need that physical thing. In fact, I still use a yellow pad.
Chauncey Allmond:
Okay.
Dr. Tony Evans:
And at 73, I feel too old to change. It is working. So I’m just flowing with it. Plus I have people around me who know how to do it. Then I help—
Chauncey Allmond:
And they tell you. So what you’re basically saying is you don’t have a TikTok account. You, you’re not on TikTok or anything.
Dr. Tony Evans:
Not on TikTok.
Chauncey Allmond:
Well, see, I was gonna propose we, you know, we can come together and make a new TikTok channel. I mean, that’s something new we were to get with the Times.
Dr. Tony Evans:
I’m gonna leave that to you younger guys.
Chauncey Allmond:
All right. Well, we try, we’ll, we’ll keep working on you on that. Now I mentioned a few minutes ago the term “kingdom” and Kingdom Living and Kingdom Agenda is the name of one of your ministries. And, you know, I was, looking at one of your books, actually added one of your books to my Logos library recently, and it was the Kingdom Men Rising book and the devotional. And I read the intro to it. I wanted to read it and kind of get your thoughts on how you decided to write this book. And also, you know, what’s that process like to go from thought to book? And in Kingdom Men Rising, it says, our culture is confused about what it means to be a man. Even notions of masculinity have in many corners become toxic. This study, meaning the book, speaks truth into a poorly defined and disoriented culture about the purpose and future of masculinity from a biblical perspective. So with that said, what, what sparked you to write that book, Kingdom Men Rising? We’ll start there and then want to hear about what that process is like to go from thought to, ‘Hey, I want to go ahead and write this book.’
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, first of all, Kingdom Men Rising is kind of a supplement to Kingdom Man. I wrote Kingdom Man first. Every Man’s Destiny, Every Woman’s Dream. And that is defining manhood. After that book took off, and men all over the country were reading it, Kingdom Men Rising is a call for men now to take their stand as kingdom men, but also influence others. So it has a discipling mentoring element to it in order to transfer the influence of men to other boys and men. So it was kind of a sequel to that. The process of doing this kind of writing comes in a couple of different forms. It comes from preaching. So I’m proclaiming or teaching. And so I collect the notes, then I study and I add features and teaching. I send it to an editor who lays it out in a more written form from the verbal form. I review it, tweak, take out, put in, then it goes back to the editor. Then after final review, it goes to the publisher.
Chauncey Allmond:
Now with topics like that, does it just come to you one day, “Hey, I should write a book on this”? Is it from things that are, are occurring in the news? You know, what, how, what’s that like to come up with a topic?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, it typically doesn’t start with the desire to write, but a desire to minister to people. And it becomes the book. So it is the ministry-driven issue, which has to do with what’s happening in people’s lives, what’s happening in the culture. And I’m speaking to that. And if it’s a topic that we think can be a spoken word, then we get with the publisher and we determine whether we want to make it into a book or not. And so we have some other books—you mentioned Kingdom Agenda. The Kingdom Agenda is really our worldview. The Kingdom Agenda is the visible manifestation of the comprehensive of God over every area of life. It involves your life and community life. And that’s, that’s all of life will fit in one of those categories. So that’s the Kingdom Agenda. And so all these other kingdom books, Kingdom Man, Kingdom Woman, Kingdom Stewardship, Kingdom Prayer, Kingdom Disciples, you know, we have Kingdom Authority coming out, Kingdom Focus coming out because I believe there’s only one theme in, in the Bible, the glory of God through the advancement of his kingdom. And everything fits through that. So that’s why everything is Kingdom from us.
Chauncey Allmond:
And soon to be Kingdom Meeting—
Dr. Tony Evans:
And soon to be Kingdom Meeting.
Chauncey Allmond:
Right. All right. Okay. Just don’t wanna forget that. Now. Don’t forget my name. Thank you. Now, one of the things that, you know, again, we kind of jokingly talked about social media and TikTok and, you know, these things that a lot of folks are doing today. And you’ve been in ministry for a long time. How have you found it difficult or somewhat easy to minister and preach to the younger generation these days? You know, where everything is online. How have you had to shift and was that an easy adjustment for you?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, this adjustment today is a massive adjustment because of social media. Social media has changed the communication mechanisms of our time. It’s always been changes in improvements, but this is a whole social change. Coupled with that is the decoupling of Christianity from the culture. So this post-modernism that has become normalized in the structures and also changed how people relate to faith, how people relate to faith institutions. So yes, that has created a change, our use of technology to try to reach society. So we’re now focused on targeting them in the language that they speak and using our young adults to reach out to them without losing the baby boomers in the process. So yes, it has become much more challenging because this is a largely unchurched generation. It is largely one that does not see the relevancy of the church to life and faith. And when they see what’s happening in the culture, whether it’s George Floyd, whether it’s Donald Trump, whether it’s, you know, all of the discontinuity in the culture and faith seems to be either absent, irrelevant, or compromised. So what? So now we—I—have to make sure we are speaking relevantly into the issues of the day from the Word. And I’ll put it this way: in days gone by, we invited people into hearing the Word. Now you must take the Word to the people, but we’re not banging down the doors to get them to hear it.
Chauncey Allmond:
Well, one thing I can say is that you are still very relevant to all ages today. you know, I’ve been at conferences, you know, speaking on behalf of Logos, and I will, you know, mention, ‘Hey, you can get the Tony Evans commentary or the study Bible in Logos’ and, and people of all ages are getting excited about that. So how do you think you’ve been able to stay relevant to a point where, like you said, a lot of younger folks aren’t coming to church anymore, but no matter where you are in this country, you hear the name Tony Evans and people are still younger, are still wanting to tune in. So what, what’s the secret sauce for other pastors you could give?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, the, you know, the Bible says of David and his mighty men knew the times. They knew what they should do.
Chauncey Allmond:
Hmm.
Dr. Tony Evans:
A pastor, a preacher, a teacher stands between two worlds. The world of the Scripture, which means you go back there and discover authorial intent. What did the author mean by what he said to the group for whom he spoke? But then the world to which you are addressing the contemporary society, and you become the translator. You’re translating eternal truths through relevant communication, which means you must know two things. You must know the word and you must know the audience, but if you don’t know the audience, you’ll be irrelevant. If you only know the audience and not know the word, then you won’t be biblical. Wow. We must be biblically relevant.
Chauncey Allmond:
That’s it. That’s key. And speaking of the younger pastors, let’s say, and again, we’re, we’re talking about this newer era where you can go to YouTube and watch anyone preach or teach who, who are some of the young and up and coming preachers that you enjoy hearing, preach that you would recommend? Of course, we want everyone to—
Dr. Tony Evans:
Charlie Dates—he’s PhD but he’s very relevant to the times, very socially conscious while being biblically sound. Bryan Loritts—Crawford Loritts’ son is another young man who’s coming along and who is very strong in the pulpit. Bryan Carter here at Concord Missionary Baptist Church here in Dallas, you know, is another one. So they are popping everywhere. They’re expositional, but they’re relevant.
Chauncey Allmond:
Yeah. Yeah. And we’ll be interviewing Dr. Charlie Dates next month, so I’ll make sure I mentioned that to him. That, that you, you, you made or he made your top three or four.
Now do you have a weekly time where like every Sunday or family time, and if so, what’s that like?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, they, my family grew up eating breakfast together every Sunday at church.
And then as they, and then once a month we had a full family dinner. Everybody, as the kids grew up, once a month, the every-Sunday dissipated cause it was just too many people. But the once-a-month continues, so we have once a month, but because they have 13 grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, there’s a birthday, somebody’s having a birthday every month.
Chauncey Allmond:
Right.
Dr. Tony Evans:
So there are all these in between gatherings, too many of them, too many people. but we’re together. We get together all the time.
Chauncey Allmond:
Oh, wow, and that’s great. And that’s one of the things that my wife pointed out to me. She just loved the interaction between you and your kids. You know, of course they’re older now, but you know, they were just kind of hugging on you and kissing all on you and, and, and with all the grandkids you have now, I’m sure you just eat that up, don’t you?
Dr. Tony Evans:
To a point, not to a fault. I need a break. I need a break every now and then. But we do enjoy each other. We do enjoy getting together. I went over on the Super Bowl evening to my granddaughter and her children who have the great-grands and Super Bowl with them. And so we always have a reason to connect. Sometimes I take the great grands out for donuts.
Chauncey Allmond:
Okay.
Dr. Tony Evans:
If I take them out for donuts, then it gives me an excuse to get one too. So I do that as well.
Chauncey Allmond:
Now what do the young ones call you? Do they call you Pops? What? What do they call you?
Dr. Tony Evans:
P-o-p-p-y, poppy.
Chauncey Allmond:
Okay. Now, you know, everyone of course addresses you as Dr. Tony Evans. Who, who gets to call you Tony?
Dr. Tony Evans:
Well, you know, I have friends who call me Tony, relatives who call me Tony. And you know, the church will call me Pastor. Mm-hmm. But, but friends and family, I don’t make you feel that though.
Chauncey Allmond:
Okay, well, when we write that book, maybe I’ll earn “Tony” status, so we’ll, we’ll see.
Well, Dr. Evans, thank you so much. I know you, you had limited time today and, thank you for allowing us to have a little fun with you and also learn about your ministry, your life, your legacy. You’re such an inspiration to so many people and it’s an honor for us at Logos to be able to spend a few minutes with you. So thank you so much for your time and I look forward to the call when we can write that book and so we can work on the TikTok channel and get Jonathan some Logos.
Dr. Tony Evans:
You got it. We gonna do all that. All that.
Chauncey Allmond:
All that. All right.
Dr. Tony Evans:
God bless.
Chauncey Allmond:
God bless you, Dr. Evans. Thank you so much. Alright, y’all, thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Logos Live. Tune in to Facebook and YouTube and all of our social media outlets to see who we’re interviewing next. And we look forward to seeing you then. So thank you guys. Have a great day, Dr. Evans. Take care. Thanks.
Jason Stone
