The Sean McDowell Show - An Unexpected Story of Salvation (ft. Preston Perry)

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

How does a Christian that grew up in the South side of Chicago come to be an apologist for Jesus? My guest today Preston Perry has transformed his life from a pot-smoking kid to having regular conversations with non-believers about Jesus. His book is simply FANTASTIC and a wonderful model of how to engage people with truth and love. Please check out our conversation and pre-order a copy of his EXCELLENT book. READ: How to Tell the Truth, by Preston Perry (https://amzn.to/3IaACmL) Don’t forget to like this video, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and ring the notification bell so you never miss a future upload! To learn how to do apologetics well, SUBSCRIBE to "Apologetics with Preston Perry" www.youtube.com/@apologeticswithprestonperr4060 *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for $100 off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

What would it be like to grow up in the south side of Chicago and experience a daily tightrope between life and death? Why would a pot-smoking young man from the hood become a follower of Jesus? Man, this is a very emotional thing to talk about. I'm gonna try to get through without crying. And I felt like I wasn't worthy to be a Christian. God saved you. Maybe God do want to save me too. Our guest today, Preston Perry, is the author of a new book that I literally could not put down, Preston. You gave me the privilege of endorsing it and I couldn't put it down, told my wife, told my kids about it. And I've been so looking forward to having you on to explore your story and talk about your book. So thanks for joining me.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's an honor thank you for having me it's an honor bro seriously it's an honor well let's jump straight into your story and there's a quote that just stood out to me directly from your book again the title is how to tell the truth you said every day saw shootouts fist fights and police harassment what was it like growing up in that context man it was it was rough you know um we had our bad days and we had our good days you know i uh also said in the book later on you know the neighborhoods i lived lived in was much more than bullets and drug transactions that was filled to the brim with laughter and reached close-knit communities. And so it was a mixture of both, right?

It was a mixture of beautiful, hardworking people, but at the same time, it was very poverty-stricken. You know, people trying to come up in the world by doing illegal activity, from gang banging to selling drugs, to stealing, to fighting fighting to fighting over territory um you know police officers not being the most honest people so you see a mixture of a lot of stuff on the south side of chicago and so um yeah it was it was it was hard at times but the people

around you that love you and really hold you down made it made it better so yeah so there's some family members that had a huge influence on your life such as your grandma and we're we're gonna get to her but tell us just about tell us about your family your your parents your siblings what was the Perry family like growing up so I grew up in a single parent household. My mom raised me. She raised my brother. She worked at the hospitals overnight. And she worked in our apartment complex during the weekends just to make ends meet, right? She was just a hard worker and held us down. But I was surrounded around a whole bunch of cousins. And so one of the things I wanted to do in this book is I wanted to highlight my life with my cousins because, you know, because my mom was a single parent, she trusted in my uncles and my aunties to help watch me,

you know, even as a young age. And so we were always at my grandma's house. We was always at one of my auntie's house. And so I grew up with a whole bunch of boy cousins who were like family members, you know? And so that's kind of what my childhood consisted of, wanting to be around my mother way more, but she just had to work to provide for us.

And so I had the community. I had friends, neighborhood friends, and family members, along with my sister to kind of help raise me. And so I feel like when you kind of, you know, when you grew up in an environment like that, it really is literally a village. It takes a village to raise a child in the hood i think especially when you have a single parent um or father who's trying to you know do all they can

to hold it down financially how far back is as far as you know does your family go in chicago like was your mom from there were your grandparents from their great grandparents? No, what's crazy is, you know, my grandmother, my grandmother's generation was the generation when everybody from the South migrated to North. Chicago, Detroit, for factory jobs, you know, Black people around that time, you know, they were, they didn't always have the same opportunities as other people, you know, in the country. And so they they migrated from the south to work at steel mills and work at the four plant to whatever when they was getting jobs. And it's crazy now. It's like reverse. A lot of people from the north is moving south to Georgia and Texas for more land and more opportunities. And so, yeah, my grandmother on my mom's side was from Mississippi and my grandparents on my dad's side were both from

Arkansas. And they went to Chicago in their early 20s and they grew up in a neighborhood called Roseland. Right now, it's probably one of the worst, one of the most violent neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago for the last 30 years. I mean, and they met as teenagers. They lived directly across the street from each other. So this neighborhood called Rosen on the south side of Chicago, my grandparents on my dad's side and my grandparents on my mom's side lived literally directly across the street from each other. And so this neighborhood that I talked about in my book is where all of my family is from, from my mom's side, from my dad's side. And it dates back to like the early 1950s, late 1940s. Wow.

So we're going to get to your grandma. Her story is really important and just instrumental in yours. But as a whole, what were some of the faith influences to you? Like were the Perrys yours but as a whole what were some of the faith influences to you like were the were the parries christians as a whole spiritual was your grandma an outlier were there other you talk about kind of the nation of islam and the hebrew israelites like what was that faith component like as a whole in your family and outside growing up so man my grandmother was like the sole christian in my family she loved the lord she loved the lord with everything she had she was the first person that i had from a very young age to hear somebody talk about talk about god like they knew him

like they had a personal intimate relationship with them But all my uncles and even my mom, we wasn't church people. We didn't grow up in a church. My grandma would go by ourselves, and she would try to drag us along with her. But I feel like my grandmother kind of like rigidly, religiously took my mom and my uncles to church. And so they kind of, you know, when they got older, they kind of strayed away from it. But, yeah, my grandmother, I talk about my grandmother so much in this book because, you know, one of the first examples I have of what a Christian looks like is my grandmother. One of the first people I knew who made a defense for why she believed what she believed.

And it wasn't argumentative at times. She was just always ready to give a defense of why she believed what she believed. And so in a lot of ways, she was the first person to teach me about apologetics, even though she can explain what a presuppositional apologetics were. She couldn't explain. She couldn't explain, explain a limit in its home. She couldn't break down what propitiation was. But she can love you well. You know, she loves you well. She loved her enemies. She knew her Bible intimately. And she never forced religion down her throat.

And so she was the first example that I had. And so when I gave my life to the Lord later on, all of these experiences, all of these lessons that my grandmother taught us growing up, it's like they all, it felt like the Holy Spirit used it to bring it all back to me oh wow okay even even the stuff that i thought i ignored you know i'm like my like all of these stuff that she she downloaded onto me i was like wow she was really telling me some great stuff and i was ignoring it

because i was a knucklehead but yeah we're We're going to get to that. I love that description of a knucklehead. We'll get there. But some of the other faiths, like were you, I guess, two-part question, and then I want to get more to your grandma's story. What was your general perception, her aside, about Christians? And were you ever drawn to the Nation of Islam, the Hebrew Israelites Israelites and those kind of movements talk about that a little bit absolutely so you know I I thought my grandmother was rare but every other Christian that I saw outside of my grandmother I did not like I couldn't stand Christians uh which is the reason why in the book I said you know know, I too had a brick for a heart.

I wanted to stone Christians every time I had, you know, a chance to, you know, because I thought they were judgmental. And also, too, I think when you live in a black community, when you are surrounded around a lot of conscious movements, a lot of conscious religions like the Nation of Islam, the Hebrew Israelites, who on the surface appear to be giving the black man and the black woman dignity, but they're giving quote-unquote dignity at the expense of false truth, right? You can start finding their teachings and their religion very appealing, right? And so as a young black man, I listened to it all, you know, even early on when I started to do poetry, I started to go to Hebrew Israelite and Muslim open mics, and it felt empowering, you know, before I came to the Lord to hear, you know, when something injustice happened on the news and, you know know to hear them talking about it more than a preacher you know if it feels appealing to a lot of people but it wasn't until the lord saved me

where i really quite frankly saw a lot of their teachings as problematic and i will dare to say demonic wow you know um i was like yo this is yo, this is something I want to dedicate my life to, teaching not just the black community, but all people how to discern these lies. And so I think, you know, one thing that I wanted to do, I wanted to write a book that was theological in nature, but at the same time, showing people how God kind of used my upbringing and my story to help me be well-versed in a lot of these things to talk about it, you know? And so that's what I wanted to do. But yeah, early on, I mean, Hebrew-Israelism,

the Nation of Islam, those religions were very appealing to a lot of us, a lot of us, especially early on the Nation of Islam. They were dedicated, disciplined, and on the surface, they looked like a very good deal for Black people in the hood who everybody's not trying to gangbang. Everybody's not trying to sell drugs. Everybody don't like the environment that they're in, which I think that's one part of the hood that you don't see. You have a lot of young men who want structure, who want discipline, who want this. And so when you see them on a corner with nice suits, talking about dignity, telling you how to

be well-groomed and well-dressed and respect women and all, you know, it looks very appealing at first. So yeah. That makes sense sense so i graduated in 94 from high school and 98 from college which means jordan won three championships when i was in basically high school and basically three in college when did you graduate from college i'm 47 years old when were you living in chicago what what time of your life was that so i lived in chicago um most of my childhood when i was in the 10th grade well no in the ninth grade my mom was like you're not going to graduate in chicago you're going to end up getting killed and so she um brought me to atlanta georgia where i moved to decatur um who called southwest dealb and I got kicked out my second

week from fighting. So then from there, I moved back to Chicago, got into more trouble. My mom's like, no, you're coming back down south. And so literally like my childhood, I spent every summer of my life in Chicago. So my mom made a deal with me. She said, if you can just go to school in the South, I'll let you go to Chicago every summer, every summer, if you can do good. The first, my first high school, I went to three different high schools and I went to two different high schools. So I was a really bad kid. Um, but yeah, off and on through high school, I was back and forth to Chicago, back and forth to Chicago. but then i end up graduating 12th grade um in high school in tupelo mississippi and then after tupelo mississippi after my 12th grade year i went back to chicago and i stayed ever since got it so you graduated what year from high school uh 2004. 2004 okay so i got you by a decade for better or worse awesome that gives me some

context when and where you're growing up okay so let's shift and talk about your grandma because she sounds amazing and incredible and just played a pivotal role in your life. The first story you share, correct me if I missed it, is when you were 13 and you say a random bullet landed in your uncle's skull and ended up killing him. You're 13 years old. Tell me how that affected you, but also how your grandma responded and how that endeared you to her. Man, so, yeah. So the story that I tell is my uncle, he was a really influential person in the city of Chicago.

He was a radio personality, one of my fans, and he was the one we all looked to. He was the cool uncle, right? Any given day you might see the one we all looked to. He was the cool uncle, right? Any given day, you might see him with Ice Cube. But he was one of those uncles, right? Very popular in the city. And he was shot and killed one day in a city in Chicago called Calumet City. And it shook my family.

And the story, I explained how when we all went to my grandmother's house to support one another, I really looked for my uncle's support. Because in my opinion, my uncles were the strong people in my family. I just always looked at them as a source of strength. And I remember, you know, my grandmother going in her room, I think the second or third day we were at a house. And she told everybody, she said, don't bother bother me I just need to get before the Lord and my mom I remember my mom being very heartbroken you know youngest brother was just murdered but being very heartbroken but also being very scared to my mom her mother my grandmother wasn't gonna like get through this and so she just said leave

me alone don't bother me and she stayed in the room the whole day and if she came out the room the next day and she just had a new song in her heart and I remember being 13 years old not really understanding how she how she hit all the strength and she began to pray for one of all of us of us. She began to lay hands on us, encourage us. She was going around, you know, saying scripture to all of us. And I remember years later, I went in my grandmother's room, and this is when I first started to like really get serious about following the Lord. And I asked my grandmother, I said, Grandma, I said, remember when Uncle Stan was murdered and you went in a room and you stayed in a room the next day?

You came out, you just looked different. What was that about? And she said, Preston, she said, when Stan was murdered, I felt like I was going to die. She said, I went in a room and she said, by the third or fourth hour, I prayed a prayer. And I asked the Lord, I said, Lord, either take me right now or give me strength to be strong for my family. And she said that at that moment, I entered into God's rest and I've been there ever since. And I remember having chills when she told me that. And I just kind of felt like the Lord was using her to encourage me. But I said i yeah but i i said that in the book but what i didn't say in the book is she opened up first peter 4 12 and it talks about suffering as a

christian it talks about don't suffer as a meddler don't suffer as the evildoer um but but glorify christ um in your suffering she read the whole passage and she began to explain to me how the christian doesn't suffer like the world suffers how we don't suffer like a like someone who doesn't have any hope, how we don't like even though even though I was suffering. God reminded me that I still had hope in him. And that that right there, that that sounded so appealing to me that she was like, and I remember her saying, Preston, the whole world is gonna suffer nobody is gonna escape it she said but I said but if you can suffer with Christ at the end of your life is glory but for those who who who suffer now at the end don't choose to follow Christ at the end of their life is more suffering and I remember that was just a great, great argument

that she just gave me, but it was because she was ready to tell me about the hope that was in her. So I wanted to just encourage people with stories like that, because I think a lot of times when we think about apologetics, we think about having the most theological argument. Right. You know think, I think that's a part of it, right? I think some, some arguments, if you walk up on a Muslim talking about theology, you're going to have to know what

they believe and know how to defend it. But a lot of times God just wants us to be prepared to tell people why we follow him and, and the benefits of following him and so that's what my grandmother was for me she she always had an answer for me about her Lord Savior so this happened to your uncle when you were 13 did she tell you this and share that with you when she was 13 I'm sorry when you were 13 no no no so so this happened to my um me when i was my uncle when i was 13. i didn't come in her room she came to live with me and my mom this is when i was 19. oh okay so so that happened i saw her strength and i never mentioned it until i would until until i became interested about this god of the bible i was was just so curious about, like, what gave you the strength?

And that's when she told me. Okay, so we're going to get to this fellow, Gary, who had a radical influence on your life. But you also tell the story of just going to church, hearing this sermon in your teenage years. I don't recall if he gave a specific age that didn't make you believe in Jesus, didn't make you repent, but quote, made you keenly aware that God was watching you. Like what happened then and how did that affect you? I always want to think about this story. I laugh because I was, I was infatuated with this girl. I was like, it was, I literally, it was, it was, I thought it was love, but it was infatuation.

But her mom and her dad had a house church in my apartment complex. And I did not want to go to church. And so I would stand outside their apartment after every Sunday because after every every Sunday they would be in a parking lot saying goodbye, everybody was leaving their house or whatever, so that's when I was able to see her. But her mom was really strict. She wouldn't let her leave the house, none, like at all. And so I remember her telling me, she said,

if you want to see my, like, she literally came to me and said, if you want to see my daughter, you got to come to church. And I was like, I didn't even know. I was come to church. And I said, I didn't even know. I was like, I don't even know. I didn't even know you. I didn't even know you. I didn't even know you knew I liked your daughter.

So I was like, OK. And so I ended up coming to church or whatever. And one day, I came to church, and her father was preaching. And he was talking about sin and about the righteous wrath of God. And he was explaining how, you know, anger is not bad when God is angry because he has a right to be angry, right? He created all things. And so he laid this beautiful foundation of what righteous anger is. And he basically said

that God is angry with the wicked every day. And I was like, what? I was like what I was like really and um he said that if you if he's the line that he said that I'll never forget he said if you think God being a God of love means he won't destroy everything he hates you don't know what love is and I remember I remember sitting there like and so that was the first time I heard that God was like mad at me that he had beef with me because at that time i was breaking in houses breaking in cars selling weed at school fornicating but i'm in love with this church girl trying to make her my girlfriend right um and i was 16 by the way okay i was 16. um and i was just doing all this bad stuff. And so I heard about God.

My grandmother wasn't like a fire and brimstone type of woman. Right? And so that was the first time I heard at all. And so I didn't give my life to the Lord, but I became keenly aware. Like, I couldn't do the things that I did, even though I continue to do them. I became that dude in my friend group, my little crew that would like make jokes like, you know, we deserve God's wrath if it's right. And he'd be like, man, you blowing out high.

Like, bro, like, what are you talking about? Like, yeah, you know, we deserve it. That never left me. And I believe it was just God's kindness of just letting me know how offensive my sin was to a holy and a righteous God. I love how you kind of tell the story looking back on all these seeds that were planted. You didn't see them at the time, but they come to fruition later. Another seed that was planted is you tell the story of your friend chris being shot and killed

and how that affected you spiritually will you you kind of paint the picture in in the in the book pretty powerfully like i felt myself like feeling that moment so as much as you're comfortable like paint the picture so we understand the drama of what happened and how it affected you spiritually, if you will. Man, this is a very emotional thing to talk about. I'm going to try to get through it without crying. Chris was a very close friend of mine. Shout out to my editor over there in Tindale. I didn't want to put that in the book.

I told her the story. She just wanted to know my salvation story. And she was like, yo, tell me the story. She's like, no, this is powerful. She's like, I'll write it for you. And she wrote it. And she kind of wrote it. She's a great writer.

But she kind of wrote it like a mob movie or 1950 mob movie. I said, OK, you know what? I'll rewrite this story. but I wanna write it creatively. And because it's so tragic, I wanted to use beautiful imagery to describe his death. And I feel like creatively as a poet and as an artist, I wanted to, that was a way for me to honor him, even in talking about his story.

Cause I think language is a way for us to, like the way we write something can honor somebody as well. So the way we write, I wanted, his death was ugly, but I wanted to write about it in a beautiful way that made sense. And so, but yeah, it made a big impact on my life. He was killed, I didn't put this in the in the book but he was killed because he was robbing somebody him and his cousin was robbing somebody on the next neighborhood

oh okay i didn't put that in the book i was like i you know i had it in there at first took it but he was doing something that he wasn't supposed to do uh um and yeah um they they robbed some tried to rob somebody of some other drug dealers or whatever um and they chased them over to my neighborhood shot them right in front of me uh while i was hanging out the window looking at them my mom who's a nurse came outside with me with my friend slim in hollywood and we tried to revive him um my mom was trying to revive him my mom and actually my sister. And while he was dying, he just kept saying, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. And because

I heard the gospel probably like a year and a half before that at the house church, I became like the person in my crew, in my neighborhood that I did all the bad stuff that people did, but people still came to me for spiritual advice so my friends so so if they had like a a a spiritual question about god pressing no you know what i'm saying but i really just regurgitated all the stuff i heard my grandma say uh i would read the bible periodically and so i was well way i was well versed in the bible probably more than everybody around me, but I didn't know God. And so when my friend was dying, I remember my other friend told me to pray for him. And that was the first time I felt like, man, I cannot pretend that I know God at a time like this.

It was so serious. And I just kind of felt it. I wouldn't say it was godly conviction, but it was definitely definitely i feel like the lord using the situation to say man you'd like to show me like you don't know me preston this is evidence so i called my um the girl who i was chasing she was she was my girlfriend she was my ex she was my ex-girlfriend at the time i ended up dating her i called her mom who was a pastor and i was like you know my friends my friends dying he just got shot and she began to pray for him she told me to put it on speaker um and as she began to pray for him she was like ask the lord to forgive me for your sins but when she was saying that it felt like she was talking to me holy cow wow it felt like if every time she

would say chris repent ask the Lord to forgive you for your sins. And she, he just, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. He's moving my mom, trying to keep him still. And I just felt like the Lord was talking to me. I'm getting emotional right now. Yeah, take your time. I don't want to cry we're in no rush brother

take your time whatever you're comfortable with is good with me I appreciate you being so raw and real and sharing this well right now I can't help it yeah and sharing this? Well, right now I can't help it. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah.

Yeah, I just felt like the Lord's kindness, it was just, he was kind, you know? And it's hard because you don't know why God would use a situation like that, you know, to draw you, to help draw i could have wrote you know i feel like it would have been i feel like i i felt like it would have been more of a beautiful story if i said you know chris said lord forgive me right before he like took his last breath but he never did you know um and so i don't know i don't i don't want to preach somebody into a heaven that they're not in. Right. I want to be honest about that. But I do know on the flip side, God used that to draw me to himself. You know?

And so that's just, I think God is such a mystery in that way. You know, that he uses tragedies. And so for a long time, when first got when i first gave my life to the lord i couldn't i couldn't that's something i wrestled with for years i couldn't understand why he let him die without saying god forgive me you know um but then i started to just understand more about god and you know and how he gives people an opportunity to, to, to serve him and to, and to, and, you know, and to, and to, and to worship him. And, um, my friend made his decision, but I'm grateful that God used that to, to, to reveal his kindness to me because I could have

been my friend, Chris. Thank you for sharing that i appreciate your honesty yeah you've been sharing these seeds going to church chasing this girl the influence of your grandma uh the story you just told about your friend chris but it all seems to kind of come to fruition and make sense for you with gary who you meet yeah paint the picture for us who this guy was. I love how you described the first time you met him, how it kind of just blows away your categories and then how that relationship started to really change your life. Yeah. Yeah. So after my friend got shot, I went to go live with my aunt Denise because I just, I knew I wanted to change. I just didn't know what type of change that I wanted to have. And she loved me.

I knew she loved me. And she was a pastor out in the South suburbs. And she was praying for me every day, telling me the gospel. But in my mind, people who serve the Lord were like old people, who were like just really corny or just old. And then I kind of felt like I honestly used to believe that people got old and got uncool. So they were just like, I might as well serve the Lord now.

That's what I thought. That's what I thought. I honestly thought that. And so because I never really saw any of them. When I did see young people, they were all corny to me, if that makes sense. They were just like cornball church, you know, people, whatever. And so they just never really appealed to me at all. And so, like, I was interested of serving this God.

I just didn't know what it looked like. And so my aunt, I think just being prayerful, she was like, I want to introduce you introduce you to this guy when she said he was a young christian i was just like oh my gosh but i didn't know that he was like an ex-gang member i didn't know that like he was still culturally relevant to how i you know represented my life and he got out the car one day the first day i met him and i'm like this dude he is not a christian i was like i was judging him i was like he cannot be a christian i was like he you know and he was popping music and from a far away in the driveway it sounded like um the first day i met him it sounded like just regular hip-hop and i'm like who is this dude so he's like walking up to me but he's smiling and like building with him that day

like i was mesmerized i was like i never once did i ever see a dude who who grew up in the streets who grew up gangbanging selling drugs who still looked like a regular chicago street cat but he was just singing hymns and like you know and then he introduced me to christian hip-hop the first christian hip-hop album he introduced introduced me to was a guy named flame and i never forget that uh this first song you know like i was looking i was searching for truth at the time i wasn't a christian but i was searching for truth and the first song he let me hear was flame give us the truth that's what we need lionel has been deceiving us since we were seized give us us the truth. That's what we need. Teachers and preachers teach us that things have set us free. Give us the truth. That's what we

need. Parents teach us about Jesus before we get older. Give us the truth. That's what we need. Because sin is spreading and the world is getting colder. And I'm like, who is this dude? I never heard Christian hip hop that sounded this good. The production sounded great. And so I'm in the passenger seat. He's like, you ever heard of Christian hip-hop that sounded this good the production sounded great and so i'm in the passenger seat he's like you ever heard of christian hip-hop and i'm like i'm thinking it's gonna sound corny but it didn't he's telling me about like and you can tell when a person is telling you about their their street experiences and what's authentic and real you can tell like he's not like some suburban cat who who's acting like he came from the hood. So I was like, oh, God saves you. Maybe God do want to save me, too. Right. I started to like flirt with this idea of like, man, God saved him.

If God did this for him, you know, he could do it for me, you know. And so he just took me under his wing and I told him that I want to learn more about God. He was like, bro, you can come everywhere with me. And so every time you saw Gary, you saw me. Like, it didn't, like, people used to call, start calling me little Gary in this community. I mean, like, he would go to New York, I would go with him. He would go to Chicago, he would go to down south,

I would go with him. He took me to Christian conferences for the first time. And so he just, he just invited me and introduced me to this world and he's also taking classes at moody and so he just taught me how to read the bible contextually he taught me how to study the scriptures he taught me what apologetics was i mean he just taught me everything so and through his life is how i gave my life to the Lord. So I also, there's two details you put in the book that you left out. Is he pulled up in a Mustang and he was wearing Jordans. Which I was like, dang, this guy looks fascinating.

Now, so it wasn't just that he was culturally relevant. There was kind of the way he lived his life and shared his faith. And even one time he apologized to you. That story just so stuck out to me. So talk a little bit about the way he would live his life, the way he would share his faith, but also that example, that story, how that impacted you. Yeah. Yeah. One of my real quick story before I say that. One of my close friends who we used to evangelize with Marcus Mitchell,

I think he's a street evangelist legend. You know, he just, he died in December. And so me and Gary, his funeral was the, was the most happy funeral I ever been to. Because when I tell you this dude, he was a street cat too, and God radically changed his life. And everybody that got upset, I'm not going to cry because Marcus wouldn't want to. He used to talk about death all the time. I can't wait to be with Jesus. That

was Marcus Mitchell. And so I saw two people cry at his funeral. Yeah, it was great. And so I was telling Gary at the funeral about this story was it was great and so i was telling gary at the funeral about about this story in the book guys i can't wait for him to read it but yeah gary was just this guy who just lived out his convictions so loud i mean he was quick to apologize uh he didn't try to not be culturally who he was but at the same time you can tell that his heart was new and so he was just uber sensitive to loving people come did i find you brother you know like if he said something he will come back and say did i find you you know like and so like just watching the way he moved like he just he was just very he was he was very sensitive and so like you know like

from the outside looking at you like man this dude is a very sensitive dude. But if you knew his background, you just know God changed his heart. And so he just, he was just so apologetic to everybody. He wanted to make sure he was right with all men. He was very, very like sensitive about like sin and repenting over his sin. And yeah, he was just a God, he was just fascinating to me. I think that was the best word that I can use. I was fascinated by him.

Because I haven't seen somebody close to my age be a Christian for real like that. And so one day we were going to go play basketball and we were in the drive-through to get money out out of the bank and the teller flirted with gary she was a beautiful she's a beautiful girl and to be honest with you i didn't think gary did anything bad right it wasn't like he was talking lustfully to her or whatever but she was giving gary a lot of attention gary's his light skin curly dude with nice teeth i mean women liked him a lot

right yeah and so gary began this this is the first time gary began to like entertain a woman so i'm sitting in the passenger seat i'm like okay okay how is this gonna unfold and gary just started to like kind of flirt back with her and tell her she looks nice and yada yada yada and so gary kind of ended the conversation abruptly and he kind of like clammed up in my in my mind i'm thinking he's getting nervous and so she kind of gives him back his id it was like you have a nice day and wouldn't look at her no more and then drove off really abruptly and i'm like yo he just dropped the ball like Like, what happened? You just, like, how did you just, you know, not, you know, get this girl's number? And then, like, 10 minutes ride past, and he's just staring very, like, serious out the window.

And then he pulls over to the side of the road and was like, Preston, I got to apologize to you. And I said, for what? And he kind of pauses. And he was like, man, I flirted back with that girl. And this time I did it with you in the car with me. I feel so convicted. And at that time, I didn't really know what convicted meant.

I was like, convicted? Yeah, hot shit. No. I was like, what does convicted mean? And he was like, no, this is just, I didn't know what convicted mean. I didn't even know what conviction mean. Like, I'm like, you feel bad?

And he was like, yeah, even though I didn't say anything lustful, he was like, I think about that girl lustfully. And he was like, I, even though I didn't say anything lustful, he was like, I think about that girl lustfully. And he was like, I just felt like it was inappropriate. I feel so convicted. I want to apologize to you, man. Would you just pray with me while I repent to the Lord? And I'm sitting there like, who is this guy?

Like what is, you know what I'm saying? And it was crazy when he was praying. It felt like the Lord was communicating to me in a sense. While he was praying, he was praying to God. And the prayer sounded so intimate. Because around this time, I kind of convinced myself that I was like Gary, because I stopped doing all the things

that I used to do. I broke all my hip hop CDs. A lot of times when you break your CDs, it's real deal, right? He's like, I'm not listening to Tupac no more or whatever. But I think that prayer and hearing him pray to the Lord, it felt like the Lord was saying, Preston, this is what it means to love me. And you don't love me like this. And I was like, whoa. And I was like, okay, this is what conviction feels like. I felt like, oh, this is what golly sorrow feels like. And so, um, that night I went home and I began to pray over a course of nights and one night, a couple of nights after I prayed and I asked the Lord to, to save me. And my prayer was,

God, I want to love you like Gary loves you. And that night, that night i gave my life to the lord wow what an amazing prayer i can only imagine the time you told him that and framed it that way i mean what what was his response like when you told him that who gary yeah gary when you not only said i'm a, but the prayer that I prayed was tied to it. He cried. He cried. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. He's a very deep dude. Oh, thank you. I plan on doing some videos with him kind of telling his story in the future. Oh, how merciful, how merciful it is for god to use little old me to draw you to himself oh hallelujah that's how gary talks and so he was he was just he was he was ecstatic you know that's my big bro that's that's that's pretty amazing how much older is he than you you said about your age but five or ten years older or so I was 19 he was 24 okay when he

first saw what would mean 20 23 23 yeah 23 so about four or five years older so four or five years older than me yeah so tell me about once you you prayed that prayer you were you were pot smoking you were describing just living the way that you knew God didn't want you to live. Was that stuff fading away while you were with Gary before becoming a believer? Were you continuing that stuff? Did you continue it sometime afterwards? Was it abrupt? Like tell us about how your life changed because of that.

Yeah, before I prayed that prayer, I stopped doing a lot of the things that I used to do. But one thing that I learned is that serving God is not about behavior modification. It's about a heart change. And so even though I changed a lot of behavior, my heart wasn't changed. And so, you know, I think not doing we are just like a lot of other religions who just have rigid practices. Right. are just like a lot of other religions who just have rigid practices, right? But if the Holy Spirit doesn't come in and do a work in your heart, you know? You know, and so I think after I prayed that prayer, I feel like the Holy Spirit showed me

that not only do I not do these things, but even when I did these things, I became keenly aware that God was watching me and I cared that God cared. It wasn't just me trying to be Gary. It's like, no, I, it wasn't about Gary. It was, it was, no, I used Gary for you not to live a life so you can feel like you can run with Gary before you could live a life that you get, live a life that's pleasing to me. Right. And so that's what, that's what what that's what uh you know god showed me you know when he when i prayed that prayer like no like i changed you i made you new i made you clean

uh and so like i would i would i remember you know i didn't stop sending every like right away but when i did sin i felt sorry about it like i felt truly repented about it, right? I actually put this story in my book and I took it out. But a couple of weeks later, I want to say like two months later, I fell into fornication. And I felt so bad. I felt so bad. I fell into fornication with this young lady,

and I felt like I wasn't worthy to be a Christian anymore. Gary started dating this girl, and so he wasn't running with me as much. And I caught myself walking away from God. I said, you know what? Not because I didn't think God was good, but because I didn't feel worthy enough to serve this God because of the sin that I just committed.

And so you know when you get saved, you stop doing the things that you used to do. So I went on WorldStarHipHop to watch fights. I'm like, I'm not a Christian anymore. I'm finna go on WorldStarHipHop and watch them fights. And this guy got knocked out on WorldStarHipHop and people was kicking him while he was unconscious. And I began to cry at the computer,

mourning, weeping for this dude who was getting beat up viciously. And I'm like, why am I crying? I've seen violence my whole life. Like, why am I crying? And I felt like the Lord spoke to my heart at that moment and said, it's because your heart is new. Wow.

Like, your heart is new, right? And so I think that was the difference between before that prayer and after that prayer. Like, I felt literally a change in my heart that God would draw me to himself, but also convict my heart for the things that convicted his. And I think that was a sign that I knew the Lord for myself, not just through the life of Gary. I love that.

Okay, so life change was there. That was after you became a believer that a few months later and then really solidified it in your life it sounds to me you're an apologist now and this book is about apologetics it says the story of how god saved me to win hearts not just arguments and yet your story is not really about apologetics so far it's more about relationships god convicting your life so if apologetics wasn't a huge part of you coming to faith why is it so important to you now so um even though apologetics wasn't a part of my story in the beginning I was led to the Lord by an evangelist who I saw give the gospel to everybody that was around him,

right? And so before apologetics was a thing for me, what drove my apologetics is my evangelism. That was the vehicle that got me there, right? I tell people all the time, man, once you tell somebody that you're a Christian, in a lot of ways, you're an evangelist. Once they start asking questions, you're an apologist. There you go. And once they're willing to follow you, you become a disciple maker, right? And so even though these things aren't the same, I think they hold hands. And so my heart for apologetics is really fueled by evangelism it's like if

I live in a community and I want people to know this God that I know and in my community is flooded with Hebrew Israelites Muslims mores Jehovah's Witnesses when the Bible says make disciples of all nations it means people and a lot of times I think that Christians forget that other religions are included in those people right and so I just tried to figure out in my evangelist you know being discipled by an evangelist who was Gary Gary Brown how how can I give the gospel to them right and so the first conversation I had with the jehovah's witness i didn't know i didn't know what apologetics was i just i just was giving him the gospel one because i wanted to win an

argument i wanted to win the argument against him but two i wanted him to know the lord i didn't i didn't feel like he did uh and it wasn't until gary you know the first guy that decided was saying man helps you got into an apologetic debate and i was like what's apologetics i didn't know nothing i didn't know nothing about it it. And so I think that's how, you know, and so the book is about apologetics and evangelism. Because I do think they're not the same, but I think that they hold hands and I think that they should hold hands. I think a lot of times when people think about apologetics, they think about the most smart, the most intellectually brilliant people, the theologically astute.

And I think that plays a part, information does play a part, but I think we have to ask ourselves, why do we do it for? What drives our evangelism? Is it so people would know the Lord? Are we trying to win the Hebrew Israelite in the same way we're trying to win the gangbanger on the street who doesn't know the Lord? Are we trying to win the Hebrew Israelite in the same way we're trying to win the gangbanger on the street who doesn't know the Lord? The vehicles in which we're trying

to give them the gospel looks different, but we're trying to get to the same destination, which is to reveal the person of Christ to them. And so if a person have a different framework about who Jesus is, sometimes you might have to get into an apologetic argument, ultimately for the same goal, which is to reveal truth. And so that's why I wanted to do in this book. I wanted the everyday Christian to know that you can do this, that you can do this. And so that's what I want to do. I want to empower the everyday Christian to know, man, that you can be an evangelist and you can be an apologist in your own context and got me so you grew up in Southside Chicago kind of an urban context you talk a decent amount about just kind of the black church growing up how was apologetics

similar and different there from other contexts that's really that's a really good question. Well, I would say urban apologetics is different because a lot of the religions in the Black community are very much conscious-driven. And so when you talk to a Jehovah's Witness or a Mormon or a Seventh-day Adventist even, a lot of times the conversation is just theological. You talk about the Jehovah's Witnesses. No, Jesus isn't Michael the Argonaut. He's actually the eternal God, right? No, Jesus is not Lucifer's brother and yada, yada, yada. No, he's actually the eternal God, right? But when you talk to the Hebrew Israelites and the Muslims,

it is not just a theological, it's a very social argument that you have to have. Because they're not just arguing theology, they're arguing, you know, Christianity is a white man religion. And how can you serve a religion that doesn't talk about anything about these injustices that happen to our Black people around the country? And so you almost have to defend your character. you serve a religion that doesn't talk about anything about these injustices that happen to our Black people around the country. And so you almost have to defend your character, right? And your personhood to even defend the gospel that you serve. And so the Black apologist has a different type of task in defending the gospel because they have to defend the church that they are part of before they even defend their theology, that makes sense and so it is different in that in that sense

and so we we you have to get through that social barrier before you even get to theology also is different because when you talk to a hebrew israelite or a muslim you're not just attacking their theology you're attacking their whole identity, right? Because Hebrew Israelites and Muslims, this is, I call it reactionary religions, right? This is a response to the injustice that Black people have faced over centuries. And so they found something for them. They found a religion for themselves. They give them dignity, worth, you know, and so you have to understand that even questioning that theology is questioning their whole personhood, their whole lineage, right? The Hebrew Israelites are African American people who believe that they're the lost children of Israel, right? And so when Deuteronomy says

that the children of Israel were scattered over all throughout all the earth and sent away on ships, they believed that that was a metaphor for the transatlantic slave trade and that Africans sold them into slavery to the white men, right? And so when you question that theology, you're saying to them, you don't think that I come from the line of David. and so you have to know how to how to you have to know how to navigate those type of conversations and so this is the reason why a lot of the the black religions in the black community are very hostile right because they're trying to reclaim something right i got into an apologetic argument with some Hebrew Israelites in Times Square New York years ago.

And they were out there saying that, you know, Christianity is the white man's religion, that everybody who believes in Christianity, every black person who believes in Christianity is an Uncle Tom, yada, yada, just throwing insults or whatever. And I challenged him. I said, man, what is the gospel? I asked him what the gospel was. And he was like, we out here preaching the gospel. And I told him what the gospel was, the good news of Jesus Christ, that he came to dwell amongst his own creation to save his creation from the wrath to come by reconciling us back to the father, by dying on the cross for our sins. And I said, when I look on you guys' posters, I see no message about what Jesus did. And so he started to give me, the leader started to give me all of these hypotheticals

about if a white man person did this to you, would you serve this? I said, well, one, you're talking about what men did. I said, hypothetically, I said, if you take what the white man has done to black people out of the history of humanity, do do you have a religion and he didn't say anything and i said no i said because if you take what slave masters did out of the history of humanity your religion falls apart and that shows you that your religion is not based on what god has done but what white men have done to black people and so in actuality you're more of a slave to the white man's teachers than i am yeah that's an incredible response that you gave wow yeah yeah and i said and so so the one guy looked at looked at me and he wanted to fight me right he looked at me like how dare you talk got in my face and i said you know what i apologize if i offended you but can i explain

what i mean by that we don't want you to explain. You're talking crazy. I said, well, if I'm talking crazy, can you talk, can you tell me how I'm talking crazy? Can you tell me why you think it's so absurd? And so we had a decent conversation and I began to tell them, I was like, man, you're, this religion is a very reactionary religion, right? You have made the black man God because you've made the white man the devil right and i was like this is not the bible the bible doesn't teach this right that salvation is not reserved only for ethnic israel but it's reserved for all people jew and gentile right and so like in the black community you have to navigate conversation you have to navigate through those conversations um and when you talk to Jehovah's

Witness you don't have to talk about stuff like that you just have to talk theology right and so it's different it's different in that way that makes a lot of sense so tell us uh this is a great response tell us about your YouTube channel because you have a lot of videos of you talking to the camera but going out and modeling this for people so tell us a little bit about that yeah I made the YouTube channel probably about six or seven years ago um and really my wife prior to making a YouTube channel my wife begged me to make a YouTube channel three three for three years straight she just saying Preston people need to see this and I'm like I don't because I was primarily known as a poet right and so when you go on youtube and type my name in all you saw was

poems right um and so yeah i was just i don't want to be like the street preacher uh um because i didn't i didn't go out i i to be honest i didn't go out in the streets and evangelize people like i i'm gonna wake up go on evangelize nine o'clock i didn't do. When me and my wife was on date night, and we had some time. So at the time I see Jehovah's Witness, I would just go talk to them. When we get in the car with an Uber and there was a Muslim, I would talk to them. And my wife was always amazed about how I just always

had conversations. So she said, if you could just go out and have these conversations and show people how you talk with other religions, I feel like this will serve the body well. And so I wasn't historically known as a street preacher, but I started to do it to go and show people what I just do in my everyday life. You know what I'm saying?

And so I did it and the response was just crazy. Like one, I think for the black community, that representation in the same way Gary was, that representation for me, by God's grace and kindness, I was a representation for a lot of young black men who didn't see black people, young black people from the urban context doing that. And so I'm grateful and I'm honored and I'm humbled to say that I have a lot of young black men who became evangelists and apologists by watching the youtube channel i've had so many testimonies through it and i'm so i'm so honored by that and i just i just wanted my heart was to just go out in the streets i wanted to teach people how to talk really how to how to present truth in a loving, respectful, dignifying way and teach people how to engage with the world around them. That was the part behind the YouTube channel. I just wanted to teach people.

Because I think a lot of times when you get on social media, you see a lot of people yelling out worldviews and yelling at people. But I think the church does a really good job of teaching people how to call a spade a spade, but we don't teach people how to play cards for real. Meaning we don't teach people how to go out and really talk to people. We know how to talk at people, but we don't know how to talk to people. And so I think I wanted to display truth, boldness, but I also wanted to display

kindness. I wanted to do what 1 Peter 3, 15 says is but do it with gentleness and respect So I wanted to model So, yeah, well you do so if anybody is watching this right now hit pause go search pressed Apologetics with Preston Perry or Preston Perry apologetics. It'll pop up and hit subscribe So a lot of what you're describing is the heart of this channel. I'm trying to model for people how to have spiritual conversations

with many people who see the world differently, how to listen, ask thoughtful questions, find common ground. So if you're watching this and you enjoy this channel, go subscribe to Preston Perry. He's knocking it out of the park. And make sure you get a copy of the new book that at the time we're recording this, it's a couple months out, but you can pre-order it.

It's called How to Tell the Truth by Preston Perry. And one of the things I love about it, you mentioned your wife to encourage you to do this. Some folks maybe didn't make the connection that your wife is Jackie Hill Perry and you two have a podcast you do together that a friend of my wife sent to her and she sent to me a number of months ago i was like listening to some episodes going oh this is great so you've got a lot of resources from your youtube channel the podcast you do with your wife uh the book how to tell the truth i hope all my viewers will check that out. Pressing Your Story is fantastic. Enjoy it thoroughly. We're going to definitely have to do this again. Before folks check away, make sure you hit subscribe here.

We've got some other interviews and programs and shows you will not want to miss. And if you thought about studying apologetics, we would love to have you at Biola. I'd love to have you in class on the problem of evil, class on the evidence evidence for the resurrection we also have a certificate program that we are totally refurbishing right now information is below with a huge discount so check it out preston this is a lot of fun thanks for your vulnerability thanks for honesty it's a fantastic book again i hope everyone will pick up how to tell the truth pre-order it by press preston perry now thanks my friend thank you thank you thank you so much man thanks for having me this is great this is great