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First Person is produced in cooperation with the Far East Broadcasting Company, who rejoice in the stories of changed lives through the power of Jesus Christ. Learn more at febc.org. Say yes to the Lord. If He wants you to go wherever and you feel uncomfortable with that, launch out into the deep. You might catch more fish than you thought that you would. You might find more fulfillment than you thought that you would.
Coming up on this edition of First Person, you'll meet Roy Patterson, who will tell us his story of faith and service to Christ. Welcome to this week's program. I'm Wayne Shepherd. These interviews are for the purpose of introducing you to people who have given their life to Jesus Christ and seek to use their abilities and experience to serve God's kingdom.
Our hope is that you will learn from their faith as you follow God. We've archived hundreds of conversations online at FirstPersonInterview.com and invite you to visit and listen anytime. That's FirstPersonInterview.com. Roy Patterson is a man with many gifts. Among them is worship leading, preaching, and singing, as well as serving as a radio host. He's also involved in community relations for the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and relishes his role as a husband, father, and grandfather.
Recently, after completing my own recording session in the studios of Moody Radio Chicago, I invited Roy Patterson to join me for this first-person conversation. I came to Christ when I was 14 years old. My mom and my dad separated. They divorced, actually, when I was one. And so they would send me back and forth. I was living with my father in Cleveland, came to see my mom in Chicago, and I was
In 1973, when I was 14 years old, she had a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ, and I was stunned. She was so committed to following Christ that she turned me into a drug baby.
She drug me to choir rehearsal. She drug me to Bible study. She drug me to anything that was happening at our church. She gave me Christian literature, crossing the switchblade. And that was a big turnaround for her. Oh, my goodness. It was so incredible that by the end of that summer, I got down on my knees and I said, Jesus, I want you in my life. And I've been following Christ since 1973. Mm-hmm.
Wasn't too long after that that I met you. You came as a student to Moody Bible Institute when I was on staff at Moody. Right. And what was your plan? Was there a plan? I wanted to reach the world for Jesus Christ, and I figured that broadcasting was the best way to do it. And so I saw some Christian TV, and I heard Christian radio. I came to Moody Bible Institute to study, and that's where I met you. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so at 14, you come to Christ. And you grew up in the city of Chicago? Cleveland. Cleveland. Yep, I grew up in Cleveland, but I was born in Chicago at Cook County Hospital. Okay, all right. All right, well, tell me more about your life as a young man. You came to study at Moody. You said you're on fire for the Lord. Yeah, yeah, I came to. You had a hunger for the Word? Absolutely. To this day, just love the Word, thanking God for the Word this morning. I want to meditate in it day and night. I want to obey it.
I want to ponder it. I want to share it. So I come to Moody and I just sensed this call of God to preach the gospel. So I get to Moody and it was a fast forward. It felt like I was in a slingshot and I was pulled all the way back and thrust forward because I end up at Cook County Jail and I
And my assignment is to preach the gospel there. I've never been to jail. Only thing I've seen about jails has been on TV. And all of that's terrifying. And so I walk into the jail. The door shuts behind me. It's this loud clanging noise.
thud sound and immediately the devil whispers to me, you'll never get out of here alive. And so I preach to these guys and to be honest, they laugh at me. I've got on a nice shiny suit and they laugh and make fun of me. And for whatever reason, I went back.
And I kept going back. And so for the three years that I was at Moody Bible Institute, I was there every Sunday. Let's explain this. Students at Moody have what we call, I think they still call it the practical ministry assignment. Exactly. And that is that you're out in the city somewhere. That's why they consider Moody a laboratory for students to do ministry while they're studying, to get out and go to places like Cook County Jail, which-
Pretty tough place. Very, very tough place. I was preaching at Division I, so this is where most of the guys were gathered at and preaching through the bars. And so anybody could throw anything. They could spit. They could do whatever. That never happened, by the way. As time went on, the guys were more receptive and actually saw people come to Christ. All right.
I was going to talk about this later, but I'll come to it now because you're still going to Cook County Jail all these years later. I don't know how many years have gone by, but you're still representing Christ there to the inmates. Whenever I get a chance to go back to Cook County, I want to go. So Chicagoland Prison Outreach has a leader named Cory Buchanan. I've met Cory. Wonderful guy. Cory's been on this show. Oh, wonderful guy. He said, hey, can you come and preach? Yes.
That's where I learned how to preach at. That's the birthplace of my ministry. And so I was just there a few days ago, and the privilege of walking into Cook County Jail to Division 6, where I had preached at after preaching at Division 1, and preaching in the same room where I preached at over 40 years ago is still mind-boggling to me. Lots of memories. Mm-hmm.
A lot of joy, a lot of development, and I'd really ponder the fact that lives would change. Must be rewarding. Oh, my goodness. Incredible. How many times did I hear guys say to me, the Lord sent me to Cook County so I could find him?
Really? That's amazing to me. He had to slow me down. He had to make me and mold me into what he would have me to be. One guy even said the Lord taught me how to read while I was in the county so that I could read his word. It's amazing what God can do.
Back to the early life of Roy Patterson. Yes. Who were the people? You don't have to name names necessarily, but were there people in your life? You were a young Christian. Yeah. Fairly young Christian when you came to study at Moody and then after Moody. Who were some of those early mentors for you, Roy? My pastor, Dr. Richard Brown, Calvary Church of God in Christ in Cleveland, Ohio. Wonderful person. Shirley Spells, a
really taught me a lot about prayer. As a matter of fact, this was the weird thing. I love the word, want to stay in the word, got to get in the word. And so Shirley's emphasis was prayer. And so she said, hey, come out and we're going to pray on a Monday night. We're going to pray on a Friday. Every now and then we'd have all night prayer. And I just thought, why are we doing all this praying? Let's just get in the word, get what God's got for us and keep moving.
She wanted me to encounter God. She wanted me to have a real sensitivity to his spirit. And she was absolutely right.
Because through prayer, I understand the word better. Through prayer, I get to share the word with power. And so these people were incredible to me. Moody Radio was a big inspiration to me. Bob Devine in Cleveland, Ohio, and what he would do with morning broadcasts, the Mystery Sound. It really was a wonderful family show. So I could go on. Chuck Swindoll,
Josh McDowell, eventually E.V. Hill, E.K. Bailey, Tony Evans. I could go on and on with people that have inspired me. And ladies and gentlemen, Wayne Shepard certainly inspired me down through the years. Oh, wow. I mean that. I don't doubt that you do, but I'm not sure what I could have said or done. But I got to tell you, it is so rewarding to look back on our life, isn't it? And to see how God has put people there at the time that we need them.
And you talk about the emphasis on prayer. This has been one of the marks of your life, Roy. I know how committed you are to it. I've seen you lead prayer meetings in the city of Chicago. Yeah. Inner city prayer meetings. Yes. And just pour your heart out to God and be a model for that to pastors all over the city. We've had an event called Pray Chicago. Yeah.
we now call it Chicagoland United in Prayer. Uh, the visionary leader of that is John Fuder. And so when, when that first started, he asked, would you lead that time? And so I've, I've been a service expediter. We've had a great people speak like Mark Jobe, et cetera. And, um,
That sensitivity that I developed with Sister Shirley, as we called her, I brought to that venue, to that event. And, you know, how is God moving and how should we flow and everything.
Um, it's more than a program. It's an encounter with our living God. Yeah. Yeah. Talk to me about scripture and prayer together, the hand in hand, right? Absolutely. Uh, I don't want to be the kind of person that knows a lot, but I haven't changed at all. Um,
I love the fact that when I came to Moody Bible Institute as a student, there was an emphasis to go out and to make disciples, emphasis to know God personally. And I've realized since I was 14 years old that I've got to spend time in his presence. Otherwise, I have a dry Christian life. I also served as a drug abuse counselor for many years. And there's this –
This not notion, it's a reality that it's possible for you to be sober, but you're a dry drunk. You're just white knuckling it and you're doing everything in your power to stay sober. But in reality, you're not enjoying life and you're on the verge of relapsing any day. I think for believers, we can be so legalistic that we are dry Christians and
And we're not walking in the spirit. We're not walking in the power of God. There's no real flow of the spirit in our lives. And that's not what Jesus had in mind. He said, I'm going to come that you might have life, that you might have it more abundantly. You will have seasons where it's difficult. You will have seasons where you're walking by faith and there's no feelings around. I get that. But I don't want to live the kind of life that's dependent on Roy. It's got to be dependent on Christ.
We're meeting Roy Patterson on this edition of First Person. The conversation will continue in just a moment. Stay with us.
Here's Ed Cannon on the vision for FEBC's weekly podcast. The primary purpose of Until All Have Heard, of course, is to share the experience that FEBC has because we have staff on the ground in so many oppressive places. But in addition to that, we're trying to speak to you in a way that only the kind of testimonies you'll hear from around the globe can do.
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My guest is Roy Patterson. I didn't even ask you for a title these days of your official responsibilities, but you've been associated with Moody Bible Institute for a long time, haven't you? I have. I'm still a radio guy. Yep. I'm still a radio guy, and so I do community relations. I'm the director of community relations at Moody Bible Institute. I've pastored, as I mentioned, drug abuse counseling, et cetera, but I've
My biggest title is working at Moody Radio. I'm grateful for that opportunity. And I want to talk more about radio, but I also want to talk about life in urban ministry. Sure. This has been a big part of who you are, and God has used you in incredible ways. Talk to me about why you're committed to that. Why not go a different direction? I'm a city guy. Again,
Again, born in Chicago. I moved to Cleveland when I was about 11. Thank God for my father. He's with the Lord now. And so, so important that I take what I've learned to make sure it impacts the people that are around me. I live in the city now.
I've also had the privilege of preaching in some rural spots and, um, and some other, other places. A missionary. Right. I've been a missionary. And, uh, and, you know, it's funny, uh, I'll get back to the urban thing in a second. Uh,
Cross-cultural ministry has always been very important to me. I've had to be bilingual, as it were, to be able to speak to my white brothers and sisters, my Hispanic brothers and sisters, and to black people. It's a real, real joy. It's something to go out Sunday after Sunday. And one Sunday, I'm preaching at Chinese Christian Union Church. Another Sunday, I'm preaching at Mount Zion Baptist Church and Evangelical Free Church the next Sunday.
And same gospel. I might flavor it just a little bit differently, but hopefully I'm still bringing the meat of the word. Yeah. Might even find you in the suburbs sometimes. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's a joy to do that. Okay. So back to your question. When I was a student at Moody, I made up in my mind that whatever I learned here, I would take back.
to the city. Very, very important that I would do that. And sometimes you have to
You have to modify in some ways what you're getting so it will be relevant in an urban context. And so I've seen that happen over and over again where I could use my bilingual gift to minister across cross-line suburban, urban, rural.
rural, and this is the same Jesus. It's the same Jesus. So often people avoid the urban ministry assignment because it seems so difficult. It seems like a situation that's just hopeless in many ways, but you don't see it that way. No, I don't. I think our issue is if it's different, if it's foreign, we think that we need to stay in our comfort zone. I think that's a great question. And the reality is
We need to take this gospel everywhere. We really do. When I walked into Cook County Jail, I was so uncomfortable. I was so, so uncomfortable. Little did I know that would make and mold me into who I am today as a preacher and
I preached in Indiana. I never will forget one time I preached there, and someone told me, they said, hey, did you know that this town is the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan? Oh, my goodness. I said, oh, no, I didn't. Hey, you know, whatever honorarium you've got for me, you can just send it to me. I feel like I need to get in my car and ease on down the road, you know.
I appreciate it. You know, Wayne, it's funny. In different cultures, people respond differently to the gospel. Not that one is better than another, but I enjoy it when people talk back to me or smile back at me. And so in this case, everyone just looked at me, and I don't know if they were stunned. Yeah.
I don't know what they were thinking, but I was like, I don't feel like I'm connecting here. But you know what? I believe that I did. I believe this glorious gospel transformed lives. Okay. Someone is listening. Sure. And right now they're wrestling with, it may not be a call to the inner city. Right. But they're wrestling with some call of God in their life, something they feel uncomfortable doing. Your advice.
Say yes. Say yes to the Lord. If he wants you to go wherever and you feel uncomfortable with that, launch out into the deep.
you might catch more fish than you thought that you would. You might find more fulfillment than you thought that you would. You really might. And I don't know how many people I've talked to who have said, I just want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. And then when they decided to say yes to God and to do his will, they could not imagine. They could not imagine doing anything differently. Let me give you a quick story. Please.
I sensed the Lord wanted me to preach the gospel. And I said, wow, that's amazing. That's not what I'm going to do, but that's a good notion. And I sensed the Lord saying, well, no, I really want you to do this. He didn't speak to me, but I sensed that in my spirit. And so I never will forget, I was a student at Moody.
And I was at a, we call it a greasy spoon restaurant right up the street. That translates in any culture. It really, really does. And so I went into the place and it's sub-zero in Chicago. And I'm telling God, no, I'm not going to preach. I'll be a Sunday school teacher. I'll be a youth leader, but I'm not going to preach the gospel. No, that's not going to happen. So I go into this place and as I'm sitting there,
I'm eating some fried chicken, some French fries, and some fruit punch. A guy walks in, and he's got on a number of coats, a number of hats, and I can tell he's homeless. And so I immediately pray for him. And I say, oh, God, be with this guy. This weather is horrible. God, please, Jesus, lead him, guide him, bless him. And one more thing, Jesus.
Don't let him come and sit at my table. Oh, amen. Guess what happened? Yeah. Yeah. Like a beeline. Like a beeline. He comes and just sits down. Not can I sit down? He comes, just sits down at my table. And so I look at him. I keep eating because I want to be fearless. I'm in Chicago. I'm in an urban area. So I'm eating. And then as I take the chicken bone out of my mouth, this is the truth. He reaches into my plate.
gets a bone and puts it in his mouth. And I keep eating. I take a bone out. I put it on my plate. He reaches in my plate. I called the waitress and say, can you please give him what I have? He was desperate. He was desperate. And so I shared the gospel with him. He mumbled some words. I think he was struggling in some areas of his life. I walked out of that place and I said, God, it's one thing to have everything that you want.
on this planet, on earth, and then die and go to hell. Nobody should go to hell. They ought to hear the gospel. If you go, it ought to be because you decided to go. I said, no, I don't want that. It's another thing to have nothing on this planet and then die and go to hell. God, I want you to use me. And from that day forward, I decided that I would do God's will, God's way. God helped me to say yes, Lord, yes.
And so walking into the county or walking into a variety of situations, I haven't always known what was going to happen, but I have known this. If God is with me, there's going to be an impact. Whether I get to see that impact or not, I don't believe that his word returns to him void. I believe God is at work. I really do. I believe that he's at work and we trust him.
I heard someone say it this way one time, put your yes on the table and let God put it on the map. Amen. I like that. Yeah. And I found that to be the best way to live. I really have. And I could tell you a number of stories of times where I've followed him and I didn't feel like following him, but God's way is the best way. Yeah.
All right, back to radio now. Yeah. Because it's a big part of your life, always has been. Always has been. Since those early days of coming to the studios of WMBI in Chicago and auditioning as a young man, a student. Yep. Take me back and then take me forward. Where has God led you in radio? I love radio. I'm thankful for it. I've been in radio over 20 years now. And I remember coming to...
to radio with a desire to impact the world, red, yellow, brown, black, and white. And I remember asking someone, hey, can't we play more gospel music? And they said, um, we're sort of like what we're doing now. Right.
Okay, then. You know, there's a Fred Hammond out there. There's a Richard Smallwood out there. There's a Yolanda Adams out there. Talk about cross-cultural. Cross-cultural. Speaking the language of the people, right? Right, right. CeCe Winans is out there. The Winans are out there. But a number of other people, we've sort of boxed them in. Okay, so you're black, and so you need to stay in this box. You're white, so stay in this box. You're Hispanic. You don't go along with that.
I don't. And so there was a guy named Denny who said, I want to start a program called Celebration of Praise and I want you to host it. And we're going to mix the music. No way. Way. And so we did. And people would write and tell me I had no idea I would love this music. I've never heard it before. Thank you for sharing it.
Then I had the privilege of starting Urban Praise. And people would call in and interact with me on that. So when it was live, it was me and a Cuban fellow named Maurice Diaz. I used to call him Cool Mo Diaz. Anyway, you think about that later. And so Maurice and I would have people call black and Hispanic. And I didn't know how much I would love the culture.
Because I had no idea how rich the Hispanic culture was. And so to be able to do that. And then we started Urban Praise online. And we won an award for which I wasn't gunning for, but we're the best station on the stellar awards. But the goal was, let's get this gospel out with great music, with great teaching, and...
hopefully some great connections with the people. Yeah. So, so that's, that's been a joy. That's been a real, real joy. Roy himself is a joy to all who know him. Our guest has been Roy Patterson, and we'll place a link to him and his ministry at firstpersoninterview.com.
Thanks for joining us for this edition of First Person. If you missed any of our recent interviews, you can catch up easily online at firstpersoninterview.com or by using our free smartphone app, First Person Interview, found in your app store. You can reach us online at facebook.com slash firstpersoninterview.
These programs are helped in part by the Far East Broadcasting Company, who proclaims the gospel message in over 50 countries of the world, often reaching deeply into places where there is very little or no gospel presence. Take time to join us for the podcast until all have heard at febc.org. Now, with thanks to my friend and producer, Joe Carlson, I'm Wayne Shepherd. Join us next time for First Person. First Person