Family Matters | The Chat with Priscilla (Part Two)

have you ever had a conversation with somebody and you're excited about the conversation but you're also a little nervous at the same time because that person knows you I mean like for real really knows you and you know they know all your business you know all their business so you're not exactly sure how the conversation is gonna go this is going to be one of those conversations because I'm talking to my siblings today members of my own family it's going to be a good one so stay tuned [Applause] [Music] hey welcome actually this is a welcome back because this is a conversation we've already been having if you didn't see part one please take an opportunity to you know search around a little bit find part one of this conversation because it was really great we had a conversation together my sister and I about some great things that are going to help you in your life and we had a lot of fun too and I figured we want to amp up the fun in the conversation by adding a couple more people from from my family and so I wanted to help you or what want to ask you to help me to welcome my baby brother's help me to welcome Anthony and Jonathan to the program today we hugging ok these these are let's see are we in birth order we're not in birth order ok crystal outline the birth order situation ok I'm number one you're number two three and four best position in the house Jonathan why is number four the best position in the house y'all know the parents are already tired by the time I get there I can do anything get away with anything it doesn't matter anymore I'm I get there so it's good okay so Jonathan while you're talking about parents being tired and parents in general tell them who our parents are for people who don't know and sort of about you know our upbringing well doctors Tony and doctors Louis Evans they're our parents our upbringing was great there's a lot of things I don't know cuz a lot of things happened before I got there all I knew is when I got there the party was already happening it was really fun something that we all talk about is the table you know that was the most fun for me because being at the table and having my parents sit down and teach us all the things getting all in our business my dad would pull out the Bible and have everybody read a verse and then try to tell him what we thought it meant and then he would be like aunt wrong now let me tell you what it really means so he would do that and so we had fun the dinner table he said my mom would be like three or four times a week mom would make sure and Dad will make sure we were around the dinner table so it was cool but I mean great parents most people asked what does it like to be pastor's son I mean you don't know any different but at the same time to most people surprised it's not it wasn't overbearing daddy was very gracious a lot of truth but a lot of grace yeah and so my mom was the same way so our mom was the same way so it was really good it was really good I got to join at the right time good you made the dinner table very fun though yes oh yeah there was no boundaries for me yeah danced at the dinner yeah Jonathan how would y'all describe John John other than a character that's that's a character yeah he's a he's just funny well he was really loud growing up he was a great Michael Jackson impersonator Jonathan can you just do one Michael Jackson like that you would do with the dinner give us 36 now I want to tear my [Laughter] [Applause] [Laughter] [Applause] but it's carpet how you gonna slide on carpet kind of light-hearted always just sort of down for whatever kind of brother okay I'm you know let Jonathan describe no let me describe me yeah go ahead well no Anthony Anthony loves family yeah okay so this one thing he loves and protects is his family the other thing that he loves and protects is his stuff don't mess with his stuff I used to go in his room and I would going we shared a room it was our room right but I'm going in there from the den okay and I try to sneak in there while you weren't watching so that I could play with some of his toys he was older so he had better toys you know so I got bored with mine real quick and you know I'd reach out to touch and tell me don't touch my stuff but I mean I understand it now cuz I have two boys at home and the younger one is always breaking the older one stuff so now I'm learning why I was I was having to deal with it but Anthony's real protective of a family he loves his family who loves his nieces and nephews I mean he's just a lovable guy yeah most of you know Anthony probably in some foreign fashion from music so Anthony talk to us a little bit about music and how that sort of became a part of your life like why why did you fall in love with music and how did that become your career it wasn't a thing growing up I was kind of kind of to myself a little bit quieter I enjoyed animals a lot I wanted to be a large animal vet when I grew up that's what I wanted to do and my dad heard me singing and at our church you can't go to our church without being involved in a ministry like you can't you have to do something and they heard me sing it and thought I thought like you're gonna sing at the church so long story short I sang my dad recorded it sent it off to Liberty University did all this behind the scenes work and then said hey you have a full ride to Liberty to be a part of a PR group and so it's a full ride so God says you're going there yeah so that the passion for singing followed after that like my feelings followed my feet on that one because I was not into singing at all that my first year I didn't like it because I was it was like rigorous in for singers wasn't into it I remember the directors tell me when I was 18 if you want to do this for a living you can he said it way back when I first started and he knew I didn't love it that much but the passion came later on and it's the eight albums later and a lot of events with my family and a lot of tours and stuff of and I juliette now yeah that's awesome that's great that's great and so how would you describe crystals personality no no your name isn't why don't have to be me cuz you're not going interviewer yes but we're going in order so right so who's gonna describe me I will do it so for those of you who are wondering Priscilla growing up out of the four of us she got in trouble the most which I know we'd all agree on that she's trashy was like oh my god I used to hang this yeah so Priscilla got in trouble the most but it's cuz she had this unbridled huge personality and it was just unbridled so she talked to whole bunch and now what's amazing to me we do these events together because she talks now she talks to say him out but it just all makes a lot of sense it's it's it's great so she just had a huge person she still has a big personality and very independent you weren't few weren't outwardly fearful of much to me like you wanted to do if you wanted to do something you would figure out a way to do it that's just that was the bottom line you you you knew what you wanted and you would just go after it and that's that was kind you me I'm gonna get you yes okay well I kind of already described Olympic crystal as a perfectionist overachiever overachiever for sure super smart super smart yeah we just kind of were all underneath Crystal's shadow of perfection in our house right yeah yeah but it's not about you set a high standard though okay that's right what are your fondest okay that's a good thing what are your fondest memories of what are you well let's see I was gonna ask you you said of crystal so that made me think what of our fondest memories of each other and the reason why I'm asking that question is because people really do ask us a lot about our family they want to know about our parents so we'll talk more about them but they also want to know why we're so close we have a very very close-knit family which which I thought was really normal I thought that was normal - yeah I thought that was normal and I thought pastors stayed at their churches I thought yeah like and I went to college did I realized that pastors switched in and out because our dad started that church 40s 40s 41 41 years ago yeah he just stayed there so and and he also instilled in us that family is that's it that's the bottom line that's what's at the end of the day after ministries and books are honest if families what it is so it would be like Anthony play with your brother and I'd be like no I don't want to play with your brother he's the only brother you have in the world like that he would instill that in me and now that's that's what I think I have one of these in the whole universe that's how I think of him and I have two of them so I can pick which one you know but no so daddy was just real big on the family thing my fondest memory is every August we would get packed up into a van it was a minivan sometimes and we would drive from Dallas all the way to Baltimore where my dad grew up because every year drive the whole way he drive through the night and we would have these crystal be reading a book I'd be watching a movie I don't know what you'd be doing I don't know Brighton the boy a letter or something and no so he instilled in us just family is what matters so that trip to me and spending all of our time Rexton and family in Baltimore that is my fondest memory of growing up what he instilled in us is it really I think just to be clear I think we should describe like you just said I was a lot of work for our parents growing up I was a lot of work but I think we should describe a little bit more what we looked like for example at that dinner table or in that minivan and the reason is because I think people see us now and they have this vision that we must have been just we must not be like their family you know what I mean where their kids are rowdy or there they can't even imagine having devotions with their kids because their kids won't sit still long enough and so they think that we must have been sitting around the table like little chair and we're giggling and cracking jokes yes and you need like crystals stop it I'd be like no that kind of situation right yeah yeah we weren't sitting there taking it all in we were we were being kids yeah we're being kids right this is out of control this is out of control as my house is now I have a nine year old a seven year old we roll in a two-year-old exactly we thought it was all good when we had to but we didn't know that that was man-to-man defense that third one but now we're at the table and and I'm redoing the same thing because that's what we knew so I'm sitting at the table my wife sits down you know I'm trying to have Jonathan the second we called him Jay to just throw a little swag on it John Jay to he'll try to pull out the chair for Kelsey so we we're doing that table stuff but it's a disaster I mean I literally have two to three minutes and then I find myself getting up doing a song and a dance to keep their attention there's food flying across the table and now I realize how dedicated my our parents are yeah you know to the same thing over and over again and when they had to say Jonathan and my dad would always check with my mom to see if it was okay you know what we're gonna do here you know so it was chaos but but now that's what we remember yeah we remember and that's what we're still doing so that's a big deal I think I'm so glad you said that because I really think that frees a lot of people up to know that it's okay for it to look like chaos your kids still catch this dude can they catch what you're doing intentionally and deliberately over the long haul even going on vacation we look back on it fondly now but those long road trips in the minivan with all four of us is chaos it was chaos you know but they were just they just did it every summer whether we you know we didn't have to like it that was their choice as parents one that rubbed off on I think our parents were not discouraged with with them with things that would come across as mundane or super repetitive as a kid like they they just kept our dad especially he's very like stick to it things don't bother they don't throw him way off and I think them continuing to do that same thing even though things were chaotic with us still instilled in us like what what it is now like they didn't go these kids aren't paying attention let's not do this anymore they kept doing it and and we now cherish this more than anything yeah so what what's um something that is actually hard for you now because of because of the way we were raised a challenge that you haven't made me it made me naive well we're talking speaking about at the beginning I didn't understand how to do ministry or had it because I didn't understand what people were going through or I would go to it like he said about pastors coming in and out and stuff like that was like what is this you don't mean or someone what they felt with not having a father around and all of those different things so I had to learn those through experience and I had to learn to be you know more grace and not less truth but more grace on top of truth where I would be like well this is this is kind of the way it is and you know God had to take me through my own set of circumstances I realized you're not better than anybody and just because you came from that little house where you know everything the Brady Bunch that you have your own set of issues and once I realized that I was able to minister better so he had to actually take me out of that nest you know to allow me to have my own experiences where I wasn't riding the coattails of my parents relationship with God I had to have my own yeah because I didn't realize until I left the nest that I was riding there coattail I didn't have a relationship it's exact so that that's kind of exactly what I have to say I realized in college that God does not have grandkids which is what you were just saying about that photos yeah like if that was the hardest realization for me to realize that oh god doesn't have grandkids after figured this out myself and I felt this total despair when I realized that me being Tony Evans jr. meant nothing I don't know why I thought that what thought it did but just my environment was super and I realize I had to make decisions for myself mm-hmm as it relates to my relationship with the Lord that was a weird a weird phase in my life and then I realized that church unintentionally I had a loud church environment not my parents to build up a lot of pretense and me and or guarded or present this thing make make everybody think everything's good and I was kind of at a point I'm and I'm the super emotional kid I say this all the time like out of all of us I'm the the edgy one that has all these emotional issues it was like I look like a football player but some days I have the emotions of a ballerina or whatever I had to deal with a lot of a lot of things inside of me and had to be honest vulnerable and authentic with myself where I was at that time and what I needed to do in spite of how good I was at pulling it up and putting it together because that's how we grew up we're just preachers kids you got to just you just know how to do that so that was very you say about trash in the back you hold it like you oh yeah I had a friend in high school who like it's I should yeah I'm not gonna say the name that'd be weird their house was not very clean but their mom didn't want to put the trash out on the sidewalk so everybody would know how much trash was in their house so they necessarily cleaned the house so they kept a bit just gave became like a hoarding situation like a horrible situation because they didn't want everybody outside to see what was going on in the inside and I did that with myself I kept a lot of stuff inside because I didn't want to put the trash out and let everybody see that with all that trash was in there and what I have had to realize is that my objective and it's not concerned anymore with what everybody's gonna think I need to be I need to make sure that I get stuff out and know that the ultimate trash man who recycles everything is coming by and will grab it and repurpose everything that I put out and give to him okay do you think that your kids can be in too much of a bubble that in some way it it hampers their ability to function well when they leave to go to college for example because none of us went to college and were Saints by the way for anybody that might be thinking you wouldn't do self no I was great you were great in college for all four of us not me here the rest of us you know didn't go off to college and make all the right choices so do you think that the fact that we were in a little bit of a bubble meaning that our life sort of revolved around Christian circles you know we were youth group you know what I mean we were in private school up until our freshman year or so did you go to public school before freshman year you did what did you went to a lot of schools if it well I was at a dill Turner and the subway third grade that's what y'all made fun of my laugh yeah and then after that yeah I went to another school where I had to get a little help there hit the five grade twice but not because I failed I had started school early I started school when I was four so my parents said well you started too early so they repeated so they made me repeat the fifth grade twice which was kind of weird friends friends wise but that does good for you but but it was good yeah it was good and so but yeah I did a different track yeah last kid yeah we heard about that that you also got to eat out a lot yep we've never eaten never ate out and you were like we never ate at home we're always out we're spending money having a good time about time by time I got you know kind of in high school y'all were all gone yeah and basically Anthony was kind of there so my mom was like I'm done we're going on where we going yeah every day so what's next say this my my oldest son I'll never forget we were watching TV he was probably about eight years old and and and we were talking about color and race and I used us in a sentence to describe us being black people okay and he looked at me and he said I'm not black and I said what do you mean you're not black and he said I'm not black I'm brown my skin is is ten and because of just of where we were and whoever hanging with it like he didn't have just to your point about the bubble is and I think that's kind of how it works for us it's like what do you mean there's there's people out here who really don't know Jesus like outside of the church like well you know that but being engaged so so I think our parents did a great job of being intentional about connecting us with other people but I think that's one of the things I think that I've tried to do even more so with my kids just just getting them out of the because I'm not you know on staff at our church in the sense where this our whole life and we're doing other things I think you have to be intentional about exposing your kids and the best way to expose your kids is to expose yourself that whatever you're doing whoever you're engaging with that your kids are engaging the in the same way okay so do you think that do you think in a way that we were kind of protected too much from or from the exposure that you're talking about just exposure people that are just lived differently than we live could have been what could have been but I don't think that they were trying to do I think they were just living their life that deal but you know I'm kind of big on this we talked about this from time to time but and I think y'all talked about it a little bit but you got to be careful to not try to take God's place right you know God is the one who's gonna you know he's sovereign he's gonna make these things happen for them and take them use everything recycle it to get it so I think we try to create these environments to try to pigeonhole to our kids and to what we see them becoming and when when it doesn't happen that way we feel like we failed but that's because you tried to be God and you can't do that you can't try to take his place and sometimes we have those situations I was reading I think there's Chuck Swindoll grace awakening it's a great book yeah and it says for grace sometimes you have to let people go because if you don't get out the way they won't experience God you know what I mean and so we put that weight on ourselves so I'm raising these kids and I'm saying I'm gonna teach them I'm gonna pray for them but you know if Adam and Eve can mess up the garden what better environment can you get you know yeah so so I think that we take their pressure off of ourselves not to not do our job but to understand that God will do his job you sound like you should pastor a church Don John yeah I mean I think our parents did a good job I think we know we all went to public school in high school and you know then we made the decisions about what colleges we'd go to and I don't I don't think that they you know hung on and tried to protect to the nth degree just by virtue of who they were and what they were doing that naturally influenced a lot of our environment so so I just think that in the same way that's what's going to happen who who you're around as a couple or parents or whatever that's what your kids are gonna be around a lot but I think you can also be intentional not so much about getting your kids out there but getting yourself out there and letting your kids be engaged with you in that process what Anthony you said something interesting a few minutes ago you were talking about dad you know recording you and sending it to Liberty University and really that's where your singing career started because from there Kirk Franklin called you and wanted you to travel with him and sing backup for him and then from there or truth came first your saying with the singing group called truth I mean it just dove tailed from there and now you're in this career and I'm wondering if you guys can speak to because I have a similar story I'll tell but speak to how your parents were influential and where you are now what what are little connective tissue little dots you can look back to and see that maybe you didn't realize until years later that they were sort of behind the scenes helping orchestrate something that you just thought at the time was organic but actually no your parents were there helping you oh sorry no you were you talking to me everybody okay yeah well I as you surmised that question and I thought about the fact that daddy did put a lot of the dots on the paper and everything but us watching him him and our moms work ethic is why I'm doing what I'm doing today he did send me to Liberty he did do all that stuff but my dad and my mom worked really hard and and thinking now about how it was back then like we grew up my dad did Promise Keepers a lot like when that was real big and he was on a lot of radio stations that at that time we're not playing any African American anything like Preet nothing so thinking about that now in how the 80s what that was for him to be so immersed in that and be doing that how much work it took how much criticism came that we didn't know because we were protected and sheltered we I think watching our dad push into his calling and my and my mom pushed into his calling in spite of what people around him are saying that is why I'm here and why you're here and why you're here and why you're here yeah yeah I think my parents well I you know I knew I was capable in an educational such raishin what they called out of me was one of the it's the same thing he said even when I found out I was pregnant he was just like you'll be able to keep climbing they always told me oh crystal if you're gonna you're thinking about being a lawyer okay well let me let me connect you with this judge I know like and he would always say it for me it was always whatever you want to do your you had the capacity to go to the highest level of that so don't settle for this God has blessed you with a brain that works a certain way make sure you shoot for the top it was always the way he communicated and I mean if I can just steal the thunder a little bit just real quickly he always said to you and you would get in trouble for talking okay but you're a good talker so God can use something with that Anthony he called out the singing Jonathan you were always interested in sports and what our parents did very consistently and still do they still do this they see the best side of whatever is happening and they call out the best version of that they say you should do something with that you should work towards this and if they have the ability or the capability of helping us connect the dots even if they can't physically do something they say in the spiritual world I think they do something because they they speak those things as though they are they understand that the power of life and death lies in the tongue and they have regularly and consistently spoken life over us and picking me up in the area you know and you guys - in the areas where you're you're not good well as for me it was school right you know my mom would always you know tell me Jonathan yours you're smart as a whip and you're gonna be something I'm telling you you're gonna be something that's gonna be something I don't know what does home be there's gonna be something and so she was speaking today because I talked about going all of these different schools because they were trying to figure out what to do with me educationally yeah I was struggle I wasn't picking up stuff it started reading real late you know so they were trying to figure out what to do they got me tested and all all types of stuff that I had to go through and and figure that out but you know with my dad I just saw it you know as what does what does Romans 8 said if God is for you then who can be against you and in my mind I was like but do you know who my dad is though kind of mean like I'm not doing well but he's gonna find a way yeah you know what I mean and so I failed my AC T so here I am I've got 15 Division one scholarships for football and all of them are going away because I can't pass my SAT and a CT so the scholarships are leaving and I'm like I'm the last kid and Here I am I'm gonna have to go to Community College and she went to U of age she was at Texas A&M he went to Liberty all full scholarships and I'm gonna fail the family type thing because I can't get the school thing down and Here I am a senior I still can't get it down and my dad was working behind the scenes our dad was working behind and say I got four keeper baby I'll keep saying my parents might get there but that's good because we have this you could preach on this we have our own individual relationship so yeah he was working behind the scenes and he figured out a way due to the testing that I had when I was six to get me a no time test right because the doctor said that the problem was the time and the pressure if I could sit so I took that a CT from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. diligently I looked at every answer I mean just just combing through it and ended up ended up passing the test getting a Scott full scholarship to Baylor because he was diligently working behind the scenes in an area where I was weak and I'll echo that too with this because as you're talking I was just thinking about that that diligence and that thought that that thought that they were putting in that mindfulness to each of our uniquenesses so as was mentioned you know if I would get a demerit or something from school it was it was because I was talking and I wasn't supposed to be talking and so they didn't they didn't ignore the fact that I wasn't being obedient and you know that I needed to follow the rules I would be disciplined for that but then in the next breath there would be a conversation about the ability to communicate I mean he would always have a conversation about like you said what is what's the useful part of this and let's mold this by the Holy Spirit and see if this is something God actually wants to in your life I did not know until years and years later let me back up and say when I was in college every now and then someone would call and say hey will you come lead a Bible study that's really how a ministry started for me I would just get a call somebody saying hey there are 10 women meeting would you come to a Bible study and I would do that but right after I graduated from college I got a call from the zig ziglar corporation saying we do a Bible study every Monday morning would you come into a Bible study for us well I didn't know until two decades later that it's because dad had called Zig Ziglar and had said hey i have a daughter who i would love to come and do a bible study for you guys if you will have her and so that connectedness even with with Zig for a lot of years he's like a grandfather to me you know you don't know until looking back that it was it was dad and mom sort of behind the scenes just saying you know what this thing is getting this kid in trouble but actually this might actually be how the Lord has wired them and if I have to look back I would say that that's one of the main things in my own parenting now that I've taken away is that the stuff that's most frustrating to you now about whatever kid you're dealing with that could be the gift like that could be it if we'll just steward it wisely you know so is there anything else more like that come to come to your mind funny story that you remember about any of us at that time I let you hit the wooden floor whatever that yes girl she told me to trust her and fall back into her we had to be like eight and six seven and five and I did it once and caught you then I said no do it again just relax just relax it just was like you just wanted to share that yeah I know and thank you for watching the chat well who's gonna say I just think - we have all these great memories but we I mean we thought we were kids yeah you know there were times we didn't like each other I told you not to touch my stuff I mean there was that yeah they were both super bossy yes very very very boss I don't recall that I will say however in I will say that what's really cool is when you sort of live long enough that you start to just see the faithfulness of God from one generation to the next so as she mentioned me falling back into her arms and hitting the floor the bedroom that they that happened in yes was in my parents our first home so from the time we were born to about seven years old for me my parents lived in one house then they moved to another house which is the house they still live in to this to this day we spent all of our childhood there but the house that my parents first owned were me and crystal shared a room and this incident happened that house sort of has stayed in our family a little small house on a little back road in Oakland Texas and it kind of has stayed in our family passing through different hands but now Karras who we talked about earlier Karras and her husband just bought their first home and their first home is my parents first home so they just moved into that house in the last few months they have renovated that house and so now my our parents great-granddaughter is now living in the room where me and crystal had our first experiences of trusting each other yes but my point in saying all of that is I marvel for mom and dad because how many times in that house when their kids were little you you guys weren't even here yet we're just little and you're like about three at the time or so how many times did they pray and say Lord we pray for our kids we pray for our grandkids we pray for our great grandkids never knowing that if they just stuck to the task at hand for 40 50 years here they are now looking at their great-grandchildren living in the house where they planted those seeds just came to the housewarming yeah yeah we just went to the housewarming there so I just want to encourage all of you who are in the midst of raising kids we're certainly not we weren't perfect kids we're still not perfect kids but you weren't perfect oh I started out that way though but I just want to encourage you guys that you know your kids are picking up stuff they're picking up stuff you're just deliberate and just intentional just faithful to do the thing day in and day out your kids are picking up things that are gonna affect not only their own lives but really they're gonna affect their kids lives your grandkids who are to come so even if you feel like you haven't done it right up until now you know today is a great day to start just start just choose the path that you want to go the vision you have for your family and then in incremental steps put things in place so that you can impact your your kids and the direction of your generations to come and the way that you that you want to and that the Lord is leading you to thank y'all for flying from Dallas to Nashville to sit down on my sofa I know y'all are very very busy people but I appreciate you spending some time with me would you guys help me to thank my siblings [Applause] [Music]

Channel: The Chat with Priscilla

Views: 259,300

Keywords: chat, discussion, Priscilla Shirer, controversy, Christian, topics, women, family, Going Beyond Ministries, Anthony Evans, Chrystal Hurst, She's Still There, Jonathan Evans, Oakcliff Bible Fellowship, War Room, siblings

Id: rA-Yuv-o_io

Length: 34min 59sec (2099 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 05 2018