- Hi, everybody. Welcome back. If this is your first
time joining us, you could not have
picked a better time. Today. I begin a
two-part interview with one of my favorite
people on the planet, my dad. As you may know,
my dad is a pastor but you may not know that he
just stepped down from his role as Senior Pastor of the First
Baptist Church of Atlanta, where he served, are
you ready for this? For 50 years and
then a few weeks ago, he celebrated his 88th birthday and he decided it was
probably time to step down. A decision he clearly
did not rush into. So today and next week,
we're going to visit with him at his studio at
In Touch Ministries the broadcast organization
that he founded in 1977. But before we jump
into the interview, I wanna give you a
little bit of context as it relates to our families so that some of these
stories we talk about will make a little
bit more sense. I have a sister named Becky who's three years
younger than me. Both of us have three kids. So my dad is the
proud grandparent of
six grandchildren; two granddaughters
and four grandsons. After I graduated
from graduate school, I actually worked
for him for 10 years and then I left there to launch North Point Community Church and it was a rocky
transition, to say the least. But my dad and I
were both committed to maintaining our relationship
in spite of our differences and we had many differences. Then several years later,
I wrote a book entitled, "Deep and Wide", which is
essentially the blueprint for how we do ministry
through the local church. And in chapter two
of "Deep and Wide", I actually tell the
story in detail of how and why I left my
dad's employment and why it was such a difficult
season for both of us. And anyone who's read the
story or knows our story, knows how easy it would've been for our relationship
to have deteriorated and for us to have
gone our separate ways and never reconciled. But fortunately and
honestly much to his credit, that was not the case. And just kind of a fun fact, before I published
the story, of course, I wanted him to read
it and sign off on it. So I went over to his house and I sat down with him
at his breakfast table. And I actually read out loud that particular
chapter of the book, the chapter that
entailed our story just to get his reaction. And honestly, it
was so emotional just reliving some of
those difficult moments. We both cried and we
were both so grateful that those difficult times did not signal the end
of our relationship. In fact I'll never forget, we were having chips and salsa
at a at a Tex-Mex restaurant during this difficult season. And it was so difficult,
honestly, we would meet together because we knew we should
and we would just sit there. It was hard for us to even talk. And on one of those
occasions, he said, "Andy", he said, "we have both
been around long enough to know what happens
to fathers and sons who go through
something like this. And I don't want that
to happen to us." And neither did I and it didn't. So here we are 25 years later, reminiscing about 88 years
of a life well lived. So here's part one of
my two-part conversation with my dad, Dr.
Charles Stanley. So I would like to
begin our conversation talking about parenting. But before I talk about
what a good dad you are and have been my whole life, I think it's important
for people to know a little bit about
your background because you grew up
without your father. So can you catch people up on
just your growing up years? And then I wanna talk
a little bit about what a great dad you were and how in the world did
you ever figure that out? So you were born in
Dry Fork, Virginia? - Dry Fork, Virginia. My father died when I
was nine months of age, so my mother had to go to work. And so then I got shifted around from one person to the other
keeping me while she worked and that went on for
a number of years. And then, of course, starting
to school I was very shy. And I think how did I ever
get through grammar school? - Yeah, because in some cases I remember these
stories as a kid, you know when I thought I had
it hard you would talk about getting yourself
up in the morning, fixing your own breakfast because your mom had already
gone to work at the mill. - Well, it was difficult. But you know my mom taught
me how to fry an egg or scramble an egg and toast. And then, of course, after a while I learned
that well enough, so I could just fix me
maybe some other things. But she taught me to be able
to do whatever I needed to do and to trust God that
He would help me. And that's the thing
that I kept hearing her, just trust the Lord. Just do what you know is
right and trust the Lord. So she drilled that into my head and that I could do
whatever I needed to do if I would trust him. - Wow, so one of
the mysteries to me that as a kid growing
up, I didn't appreciate, but now that I'm a dad,
I've appreciated so much because so much of what
I've done as a father, I learned from you. But you didn't have a
father to learn from. So you know how in the world
did you figure this out? Because I'm gonna tell some
stories in a few minutes about the kinds
of things you did. But I mean when I was
born, when Becky was born, you didn't have a role model. How did you figure this out? - Well, my mom taught
me several things. She just drilled
them in my head. To obey the Lord, to read
the scripture every day even though I didn't
understand it, to read the scripture every day and to do what I knew was
the right thing to do. So she didn't take the Bible and say, well memorize
this verse or that verse. And the only time I
remember her giving me a verse to remember is before
I preached my first sermon, but I just saw her
reading the Bible. I watched, I
listened to her pray and I watched how she
related to people. So I had a great respect for
my mom being a Godly woman. - So then when you became a dad, how did you figure
out the dad part? I mean, you'd seen
your mom be a good mom, but you were such a great dad how did you figure that out? - Well, I treated y'all the
way I wanted to be treated. I think that says it all to
me because not having a father and thinking what
I would've liked for my father to have done. So when I think of
all the places we went and I never worried about
spending money on you all, just have a good time. In other words, it just
came natural for me because I knew that's
what a good dad would do. - Well, I wanna talk
about a few things that you've taught me. I'm not even sure I've shared
some of these with you, but one of the most
important things you taught me was how
to make good decisions. And the way he taught me how
to make good decisions was my dad refused to
make decisions for me. In fact, there were
so many incidents and this began really young. I would say, "Dad,
what do you think I should do in this situation?" And he would say,
"Well what would you do if I wasn't here to tell you?" And I would say, "But
you are here to tell me and I need you to tell me." But that habit or
that tendency you had and again, I don't know
where you figured that out, forced me to do two things. It forced me to learn how to
make good decisions early on. And then the second thing
was you did such a great job allowing Becky and I to
face the consequences of our decisions. You never bailed us out. And I guess, because growing up there wasn't anybody
to bail you out. When you made a bad decision, you had to face the
consequences yourself, right? - Right, and I realized all of
that would drive you to God. And I wanted you to
point yourself to Him. What would God have me to
do when my dad's not here? What would God have me to do? Because my father died when
I was nine months of age, and I thought you know God
can take me off the scene but I wanna be sure whenever
He did, you knew what to do. - Well early on,
maybe too early, you just consistently
said, what would you do or how would you handle that or how would you fix
that if I wasn't here? I remember my first
traffic ticket. I'd like to say it was my
one and only traffic ticket, but I remember my
first traffic ticket. I had not had my driver's
license very long. I got pulled over
leaving school. I got home and, of course,
I was scared to death. Like any teenager, oh no,
what's my dad gonna do? Is he gonna take away the car? Is gonna take away my license? And you probably don't
even remember this. So I came in and, you
know, apologetically, dad I got pulled
over by the police. He gave me a traffic ticket
and you didn't get mad. You said, "Well, you'll
have to handle that." And I'm like, "Well,
what do I do?" And you said, "Well, just
turn the ticket over. It has all the
instructions in the back." And then you just left the room. And suddenly, instead
of punishing me, you basically, said if
you're responsible enough to have a driver's license, you're responsible
enough to figure out what to do with
a traffic ticket. And you didn't punish me, you let the law punish me. And then again, you just
put all the decision making right back in my lap. I don't even know if
you remember that. - Well, see you kept loving
me, instead of the policemen. - Well see, this is another
really important principle because instead of inserting
yourself into the equation you took my position or
you took my side to say you know what, Andy, I
think you're smart enough to figure this out. I think you'll figure out how
to pay for the traffic ticket. It's right there on
the back of the ticket, you know, good luck. And again, here I am
all these years later, I can remember where
we were standing in our house in Tucker. So early on just putting the
decision-making pressure, the appropriate pressure,
on us was extraordinary. And I do think it was
an overflow of the fact that you knew, you
remembered growing up, hey, you had to learn
those things early. And then one other thing,
and you just alluded to it, you did a great job
intentionally reminding
my sister and I, Becky and I that, ultimately, we weren't accountable
to you anyway. That, ultimately, we
were accountable to God. - That's right. - And the way you
taught us that, again, we would ask you a
question or not advice, but a decision we had to make and you would say have
you prayed about it? Have you prayed about it? And that was so frustrating because I'm like I don't
need to pray about it. I just need you to help
me make the decision. But you consistently
said, ask God and you know whatever
you feel like the Lord wants you to do. Do you remember one
particular occasion when you told me
to pray about it and God told me the opposite
of what God had told you? You know what incident
I'm talking about? - It was the only one? - No, there were actually
several, but I was 16 and my favorite recording
artist was coming to town. It was a concert. Back then there
weren't many concerts. You did not particularly love my choice of music at the time. - [Charles] Oh, that's right. - Yep, you remember that part. And so this band was
coming to Atlanta and the concert was
on Sunday night. You remember this? - Yes, I do. - And we had Sunday night church and on Sunday night
we went to church. And so I'm saying, "Dad,
I wanna go to a concert." You didn't really want me
to go to the concert anyway, but now I'm gonna
go on Sunday night, people will find out
the preacher's kids went to the concert
instead of going to church. And you said, "Well, why
don't you pray about it?" Do you remember that? - [Charles] I do. - And I remember mom
was like, no, no-no-no. Don't let him pray about it. We just need to
tell him not to go and you were so consistent. It was, nope, if you think
that's okay, you pray about it. So I did, 16 years old
and I didn't hear a voice, so I figured it was okay. Remember that? And you took a little bit
of pressure at church, you know how can
you let your son, he's being a bad example? And so I went to that concert. And do you remember
what you and mom prayed while I was at the concert? You told me later
that you prayed that we would have
a miserable time. - Yes, we did, that's right. Yes, we did.
- You remember that? You prayed that we'd
have a miserable time and we'd never wanna go back. And God didn't answer
that prayer either. I grew up wanting
to be a rock star. So anyway, but the point being, even though when you put
that much responsibility in a child's hands you are
wise enough to leave it there. You didn't take it back. You didn't say, well, God
didn't answer your prayer the way I wanted Him to,
I'm gonna withdraw that. So those lessons
were so instrumental. And it's just
always curious to me growing up without a father that intuitively you figured
some of those things out. - Well, I would
usually say, "Lord, now in this given situation,
what's the wisest thing to do?" And I knew that if I
made all the decisions and gave you all the answers, you'd never have
to do it yourself. And at some point, and
remember this growing up, I had nobody to ask. There was my mom, but
a lot of situations she wouldn't have
had the answer for. So I figured if I trusted
God to gave you wisdom, then I believe that
you would listen to Him and do what He said do. And look at you now,
you're not a rock star. You're much more important
than a rock star. - Well, look at me
now, but there was, it wasn't a straight line. In fact, I've heard
you say before publicly that, these are my
words, not yours. So you can correct me. Something like I never went
to bed worrying about you and Becky or what you
and Becky were up to. You just placed us in the hands of our capable
heavenly Father and. - Well, I knew that I had
taught you the right thing to do in every situation
that I knew about and that I would trust
God to either make you successful at that or
make you so miserable you wouldn't wanna do
it again and it worked. - It did, ultimately, work. And I've tried to do the same
thing with my three kids. So I appreciate that. The other thing
that you taught me that became, again, you
appreciate it when you're young but you really appreciate
it when you're older, you never prioritized
work over family. - No. - Now that is
challenging for any one, but it seems to be especially
challenging for pastors. So many pastors love the
church and serve the church. And we've seen
this happen, right, with pastors, especially men
who just for whatever reason, neglect their kids. And I never felt like I
was competing with work or, specifically, I never
felt like I was competing with the church. Again, do you remember your
thought process in all of that? Because we took long vacations. In fact, one time, I
can't even imagine this, we had an 18 foot
travel trailer? 18 foot travel trailer. We went out West for five weeks. Okay, I love my children. (Charles laughs)
I can't imagine a five week vacation pulling an 18 foot
travel travel trailer but that's the way
you prioritized us. So what was your
thinking in all of that? - Well, first of
all, I wanted to go (Andy laughs) and second- - That might've had
something to do with it. - Yeah, it did. And secondly, I wanted
to share what I love, the outdoors and the
woods and the forest and the glaciers and everything, I wanted to share
that with you all. And so, as far as the
church was concerned it was more important to
me for us to be together, regardless of what
people thought. And so I enjoyed it and what I tried to
do is to give you all the experiences that I wish
I'd had if I'd of had a father and to go to all
the places we went. And if you think of all
the things that we did and the one thing I loved
about the travel trailer was we were all together. - We were very close together. It was just 18- - But remember this,
when we went to Naples, we had the whole beach. That's before they got built up. Police would drive up and down
the beach about once a day. We had that whole beach to
ourselves, travel trailer. We'd cook outside. We had a fantastic time. I loved every minute of it and I figured y'all
would never forget it. And we happened to be
there at the season that the sand dollars came in and we were picking up very
small ones and large ones. And those are times in my
life that I enjoyed them, just as much as you all did. And at that point, I didn't
care what people thought. Well, you should have done this and you should've done that. You know what? You only have one life. These kids are only gonna
be yours at this age. We're gonna live it up in
order to enjoy one another and you have not forgotten it. - No, and again,
those kinds of things left an impression in terms
of priorities and values. And obviously, it
wasn't a dig at church or something to
undermine our faith. It just showed the
priority that you gave. Your priorities were
where they needed to be. - Well, I wanted you all to feel like you had me, not
me and the church. You had me for 30 days
or whatever it might be. - Five weeks. - And I just wanted it to
be unforgettable times, so that one of these days
you can look back as you are and say, "What a
awesome time we had." Not, for example, if they
would call me from church sometimes I would call them
back, sometimes I wouldn't. Now, we didn't have
cell phones then. So I could say,
well, you call me. - Yeah, there was no way to get, really.
- No way. - [Andy] When we
would camp we, again, sometimes we went to
trailer parks, you know? But a lot of time, we
would literally back then, we would just find a spot
in the woods or on the beach and we were
completely unplugged. - That's right. - One other incident, and you
alluded to this principle, when Louie Giglio and I, Louie
Giglio many of you know him. We grew up together. He grew up at my dad's church. In fact, his family was
at First Baptist Atlanta before we got there. And so Louie and I
became close friends through middle school
and high school. And we used to skip
church quite frequently. We'd go to Sunday school because that's where
the girls were. And then instead
of going to church, we would walk down the street and there was a big
restaurant, The Varsity, if you've ever been to Atlanta. And my dad was on live
television on Channel Five, I believe. And so we would literally
stand up on a chair, change the channel,
to find the sermon and then we would just
talk and eat hot dogs and listen to just
enough of the sermon so that I could get in
the car after church and say, you know, Dad
the story about the dog or the thing I, so he would
think I had been in church. Very deceitful. So on one occasion, I
know you remember this, somebody went to your, we call
them secretaries back then, to your administrative assistant and said she had
seen me and Louie heading down to The
Varsity to skip church. Do you remember this incident? - Yes, I do. - So here's how it happened. So I'm in the back seat. There's just the two of us. We're driving home after church. And so I can't see his face, I'm sitting right behind him. I remember this. And you said, "Andy,
someone saw you and Louie leaving the church property and it looked like you were
headed toward The Varsity instead of coming to church." So of course I'm
thinking, oh no. You know it's like the
traffic ticket thing, oh no, I'm in big trouble. and you paused and here's what you said, you said, and I told her you raise your kids you let me raise mine. That's all you said. And we drove home in silence. (laughing) Again, I didn't get into trouble You didn't punish me You didn't expect more of me than other parents
expected of their kids. But again, here I am
all these years later, because it said to me
that I was a priority and that you, again,
you didn't feel like your reputation as a pastor
hinged on my behavior or on Becky's behavior. And that's a good thing, because there were some rough
years for some of us anyway. So again, just so
grateful for the way that you were a
father even though you didn't have a father
to learn from. And that is a guiding principle for all the single parents
out there who wonder, because you turned
out great by the way. So, for all the single
parents, it's challenging. And when Sandra and
I talk to parents the first thing we
say is even though we're gonna talk about
parenting from the standpoint of a two-parent home, neither
my father nor Sandra's father grew up with their
biological father in the home and yet they turned out
to be fabulous fathers. So, in that way you're
such a great example for even more people than
maybe you might've imagined. Now, I wanna change the
subject, if that's okay. You grew up poor, I think
that's a fair statement but you have always
been generous. I mean some of the earliest
lessons you taught us had to do with money. So how in the world does
someone who is raised with very, very,
very little, in fact, some of my favorite stories
that you told me growing up about growing up were
just how little you had. How you, Christmas stories,
I mean birthday stories where you know it was kind
of heartbreaking, honestly and yet, your whole life
you've been generous. How did you learn to be generous having grown up with so little? Because so many people, they
go the opposite direction. - I think I'd have to give
my mother credit for that. For example, every once in
a while back in those days, some little boy, a
couple of little kids would come up and
knock on the door and ask, "Do y'all
have any bread?" My mom always gave them
something and sometimes I'd look and I'd say, "We're not gonna
have any left, I don't think." She said, "No, we're
gonna give them this." My mom taught me to be
generous, to be kind and I knew she made
$9.10 cents a week for 40 hours in the cotton mill. - [Andy] Wow. - And she was always generous. She didn't give much, but
there was something about her, she had to give something. And so I think I
saw that in her. So when it came time to
talk about tithing income, I never had a problem with that. And I have been
blessed and blessed and blessed and
blessed and blessed. And I would have to say
watching her give a little bit of what we didn't have much of, said something to
me deep down inside because I noticed
that afterwards we always seemed to have enough. - And again, this was
her faith in action in terms of just trusting God
to provide for the two of you. - [Charles] Right. - Yeah, so what's the connection between your generosity
in the local church? Because that's always
been a passion for you. - Right. So I just realized
that pretty early, I couldn't outgive God. No matter how much I gave,
what the motivation was, I couldn't outgive him. He always blessed me over
and over and over again. So I wanted to
help other people. And I wanted to be
sure when I stood up and preached to other
people about giving, that I knew in my heart,
I gave it the best God wanted me to give
however much it was. So, it's not been
hard for me to give. Giving is just part
of being who I am and I think about
how God's blessed me. He said, "Give and it
shall be given to you, good measure, pressed
down, shaken together." I believe that. And I can look back
after all these years and realize he's blessed
me far more than I deserve. - That phrase that
you just said, I grew up hearing my whole life. You can't outgive God. You can't outgive God. You can't outgive God. I remember I'm not
gonna go into detail, because it's so personal, but I remember an incident. I was a freshman in college
when there was an incident and you, basically, had a choice and this happened
two or three times to where you could
give what you felt God had impressed on
your heart to give, but it was gonna be an
actual sacrificial gift. And this is one of the great
things about you, as well, you would talk about
this with the family. You would say this, "I feel
like God wants us to do this for this organization." Or, you know, something
that's going on at church. "And if we give this much money here's what we're gonna
have to do as a family." And we would pray
about those things. And I can remember as a
college freshmen thinking that's a lot of money
and you know what's that, again, you led through
your generosity. And again, you
can't outgive God. You can't outgive God and so you taught me to tithe. And like you, giving
the first dime of every dollar I've ever made my
whole life has been easy. And it has been easy
for me to stand up in front of our church and
to teach percentage giving, because you taught
me that as a child. And because, again, it was
a habit we formed so early, like you say, you never
miss the money that you give and you never regret
what you've done with the money that you give. - Growing up, you would
lay down with us at night and we would always want you to tell us stories
about growing up. And so I would like to ask you
to share two specific stories and then I'm gonna
share a story. So let me think, the first
story I want you to talk about, So let me think, the first
story I want you to talk about, this kind of relates to money, this kind of relates to money, talk a little bit
about your paper route. Because people kid about,
oh, in the old days, you know I had to walk so
many miles in the snow, uphill both ways. But you literally, that was
a literal story for you. So your mom is having to work. She's making about $10 a week. So you had to go to work early. So I think the story
of how you developed your paper route is fascinating. And we don't really have
a paper boys anymore like we used to, but that was a, so talk a little bit about that, because that's part of
what transitioned you to the next season of your life. - Well, we had two newspapers. One of them was just
on Monday morning, since we didn't have a regular
paper on Monday morning and one of them was on Thursday. And so I kept praying for God
to show me something to do. And so I-
- To make some money? - [Charles] To make
some money, yeah. So I found out I could
possibly get a paper route. I only made about $4
or something like that, but that was for
two days a week. And it was a long route
and I had a lot of papers, but I said, "Okay, God,
this is what I'll do." And then I kept that for a year. And I watched this fella who
had the large paper route morning and evening every day, except Sunday afternoon
and Monday morning. - And you were walking, right? - Yeah, I'm walking. And it just so happened
that all the streets I had were all downhill,
but it was okay. So I saw this fellow
who had the paper route and made about $20 a
week, 16 to 20, something. - A week?
- A week. And so I said, "Well, if you
ever give up your paper route, I'd like to have it." So he said, "Well, what are
you willing to give me for it?" And that was not proper. You didn't- - You didn't sell
paper routes, right? - So he said, "Well, I'll
sell it to you for $125." So I figured out that $125, I'd make that back
fore too long. But my stepfather went
to the bank with me and I borrowed $125. The only time I ever
borrowed the money. And so I bought the route. I started delivering newspapers. I had one long street. - I remember you driving
me down this street when we would go
visit my grandmother and you say it was downhill. There was nothing flat
in Danville, Virginia. Everything was a
hill, but anyway. - Anyways, and so first thing
I did is make sure I tithed how much money I made. And so I took papers for about,
well till I went to college. And I saw how God
had prospered me and helped me and I could
buy some of my own clothes for a change and I had
a little extra money. So then, of course, I came
to the whole situation of how am I gonna go to
college, I'm making $16 a week. That wouldn't get
you in college. But I watched God
always provide in ways that I couldn't figure out. In other words, I could
never have figured out how to go to college,
making that kind of money. - And this was the second
story I wanted you to tell about how you got to college. Because the point of this
is your confidence in God and your faith in
God was not passive. And this is one of the
things you taught me. You don't sit back and
ask God to do something and then just wait. Your work ethic has
always been extraordinary, at the same time, carving out the right amount
of time for family. Somehow you figured all
that out on your own. So you have always
modeled you work as hard as you can possibly work and then you trust God
to honor your hard work. And so once again, this is what happened
with the paper route. And then that leads us
to this next story is you're trying to figure out how in the world you're
gonna go to college, so. - Right, because I'm making
$16 to $20 hours a week and I think, God, I can't even
get to Richmond, Virginia, let alone go to college. And so one night my friend and I were standing on the
street corner just talking and the pastor of the
Baptist church came by. And I'd only been a member
that church probably a year and he didn't know me very well. And so when he was
coming down the street, my friend Julian said,
"Mr. Hammond come over here just a moment." And so he tells him
what I was doing and I wanted to go school
and the Lord had called me to preach and I didn't have
any money, could you help me? And he didn't know me. I'd been going to the church, but not very long at
that particular church. So he said, "Well
come by to see me." So I went by to see him and we talked for
probably an hour or so. To make a long story short, I got a four year scholarship
to the University of Richmond with no explanation. In other words- - Well, he made a few calls and got you into college. - [Charles] Right. - On that scholarship. But again, there it is, again,
you do what you know to do. God brings the
right person along and when I hear you
tell that story, I've heard it so many times. Little did he know. Little did he know that
he was the connector between this kid who
has a paper route, who'd just finished high school,
who didn't have any money. He was the connector
between that unknown kid snd if I can just brag a
bit, Dr. Charles F. Stanley who's preached the gospel
all over the world. And at some points years ago you were through shortwave
radio, radio and television, you were in every single
major city in the world, every single day of the week. And when I think about
what hung in the balance, potentially, of his
decision to look at this kid and, apparently, there was some
sort of internal prompting. I mean, how many kids
in Danville, Virginia needed a scholarship to college? A lot, right? And yet, for some reason he took the time to
give you the time and then after that conversation leveraged his connections
to give you that opportunity and what an extraordinary
role he played in your life. And he had no idea. And I have seen you do
that for so many people through the years. Again, you can't do
everything for everybody, but as I say, do for one what you wish you
could do for everyone. And he did for one, what I'm sure he wished
he could do for everyone. And you have done that, as well. And it always makes
me stop and think when somebody asks
for something specific or something I don't
really have the time or the resources to do, I think we have no idea who
God brings into our lives. But to be sensitive to
that still, small voice and to do for one
what, of course, we
can't do for everyone. Pretty amazing story
