Pat Robertson |Priscilla Shirer & Anthony Evans | 9/7/18

[Applause] [Music] tonight on trades from dallas texas christian singer-songwriter worship leader and author Anthony Evans [Applause] Casilla Shire [Applause] hey there so glad to have an opportunity to be here for many reasons many reasons one of them is that I love TBN and I love the hope that it brings to the world so it feels like a privilege and a pleasure to be able to be here on this program tonight I will tell you that it is also a pleasure and a privilege for me and I'm so thrilled because I get the opportunity to interview my baby brother Anthony Evans jr. I get to put him on the hot seat and ask him anything I want to and so I've got some plans for tonight let me tell you we have a studio full of incredible people who have come to join us tonight they are excited about what God is gonna say to them and I'm excited about what the Lord has planned for you as well let me take some my brother called me up and he said listen I wonder if you would just do a little interview with me on TBN and I said sure I would love to do that but as it goes with little brothers what he did not tell me is that I would be hosting the entire program didn't know that till I arrived tonight that's what little brothers do to you but I am excited about this and I couldn't I really couldn't think of any any better way to start off a program like this then allowing us all the pleasure and the privilege to worship together and being led in worship by someone that I think is one of the most incredible worship leaders of our time would you please welcome Anthony Evans and let's sing together ever [Applause] [Music] your love is Evol solid [Music] for too faithful you happy and faithfully will be you plant yourself to me your praise will ever be on my lips ever be on my lips your praise will ever be on my ever be ever be praised will ever be forever your praise will be if you father the orphan your kindness makes us whole you showed our weakness your strength becomes Oh like you're making me like you the beer wine freakin beauty from ashes for you free from all her killed and rid of all her shame sing ever be on my lips ever be on my you're crazy well ever be [Music] he will be proud you will be with angels and saints [Music] [Applause] [Music] with angels and saints [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] angels it [Music] [Music] us your praise will be forever be it's kind of impossible to listen to that and not be in the spirit of worship man if you were down and feeling too stirs before that I hope that you're feeling encouraged now in fact I know you are I want you to learn just a little bit more about my baby brother Anthony Evans jr. so watch this Anthony Evans melodic voice proclaiming the gospel for more than a decade his journey in the world of music has transformed him into a top male vocalist songwriter and worship leader son of well known pastor Tony Evans and brother of best-selling author and actress Priscilla Shire Anthony has undoubtedly felt the pressure of living up to the family name his big break came when he was selected as a finalist on a major Network talent show and later served as a talent producer Anthony spent four seasons in Hollywood working with top-notch voices he'll be the first to admit feeling depleted as he struggled to stay on fire for God in his secular industry but despite the rigors of showbiz Anthony's remained close to his first love the church he's grown to embrace his life heritage and Colleen and that beautiful voice will continue vibrating the doors of the church and Beyond for decades to come Anthony Evans here on praise I feel like the best way to start an interview with you is to just make sure that everybody is clear on the fact that anything good you know about music came from your big sister just in case you didn't know she's a great singer but she didn't teach me how to say well you know of course everybody knows you most people know you for your music for your singing you've been leading worship you've been singing in churches and venues really across the world actually but you just got back from I always want to say Belgium but you weren't in Belgium you were in Berlin you're in Berlin even just recently singing there so literally your gift has taken you all over the world that's what folks mostly know you for but a lot of times when you're standing on platform people just have this picture they create about what your life actually looks like and they assume that you haven't faced the same struggles they have they assume that there aren't the same things that they're facing in their lives happening in yours and that's why I appreciate so much what we really came to talk about and that's this right here unexpected places that you wrote this book so that you could be vulnerable and authentic why did you think this was important I thought it was important what when the publisher when W publishing asked me to write this book at first I was like are you all trying to get to my sister or my dad cuz I felt just felt like why y'all calling me to write a book I'm the singer of the family my sisters right my my dad writes but they said to me Anthony we believe that the the tip of the iceberg is worship leading as it relates to you in your life we want to understand what's underneath the surface that led us to what we see but we know that there's a bigger picture underneath the surface and a lot of times that bigger picture makes you more relatable to people that you're not just on stage singing you know and I'm communicating in a kind of a polished way sometimes that can make you feel far from an audience so growing up I had people who decided to be honest vulnerable and authentic with me on my journey not necessarily just in books like people in my life and it always helped me in in my journey and I thought if I could I had to make a deal with them when I was doing this book I had to write micro chapters I'm not a big reader I had the attention span I I don't have a great attention span and you know the you know as my sister she knows that so I was like if I can write micro chapters four or five pages you can sit down and get the get them out get what the point is and then move on then I can I can write them well a lot of people are gonna appreciate that I appreciated that when I was reading this book I read it no joke not just because I'm your sister I read this sucker in about you know I don't know two and a half three hours I just sat down and could not stop turning the pages this is a good book Anthony it's awesome and I loved reading really it's your story really you take us through the chapters of your life the struggles that you faced in those chapters of the life and how the Lord actually used that struggle to make you the man that you are today so I do want to ask you about some of that because I don't think people I think people look at our family and they make assumptions because they see our family now they see grown kids who are serving the Lord and they think we were all little angels when we were growing up and we just sat around the dinner table while dad did devotions and you know everything was just perfect and we had a good upbringing but there was a lot of struggle being a PK particularly for you because you felt a little lost in that shuffle of that fish bowled of being a preacher's kid right and for those of those people that might not be aware of who our dad is why don't you just kind of talk a little bit about our upbringing and the some of the struggles that you faced in that yeah well our dad as a pastor his name's dr. Tony Evans we're here in Dallas this is where his church is he's an amazing he's a great man he's my are both of our parents are great people what makes them great and I'll say this I say this publicly all the time what makes our parents great is that they were the same off stages they were they were on and I think when you're dealing with preachers kids we're already a little bit crazy anyway like we're a little bit borderline yourself well well I'm gonna come interview her one time y'all get to hear all this so yes so it was hard growing up a preacher's kid I start the book talking about when I was a child when I was 12 and 13 it was the glory days of an event called Promise Keepers then that was huge and my dad was one of the keynote speakers so we got to go on trips with him we all kind of had those special moments with him and I remember being at Texas Stadium here in Dallas back back when 70,000 people was 70,000 men would show up to these events and hearing the audience roars my dad is so good at making using illustrations and making these these mammoth points and he was doing one of his moments and the audience was starting to roar and I remember sitting backstage at 12 and 13 thinking I can never be him while the audience was roaring I would be like I can't I can never be him and did you feel the pressure because like you got dad's name you know you're a junior yeah did you just feel like people had this expectation on you that you were supposed to be that yeah for sure I mean before that the crowd made me feel the expectation and not just that crowd that's the proverbial crowd the church crowd and anybody who knew who he was knew that I had his name and they would say things like you're gonna be a preacher like your dad when you grew up you have no idea for it for a kid like me the way I'm built yeah I'm a peacemaker I'm the third child peacemaker I want everybody to be happy so I started performing to make everybody happy in trying to my whole relationship with the Lord started as a performance to make everybody happy with who I was now let me ask you this because I don't want to cut you off because I do want to keep continue here the story but is there anything because I'm thinking about the parent who's watching this right now and I'm wondering if there's anything mom or dad could have done to take that pressure off you because I remember about mom and dad that one of the great things about them was that they were constantly reminding us you do not have a responsibility to the church you have a responsibility to us as your parents and to the Lord but we are not putting the pressure on you to be something for the church so I remember that they tried as best they could to take that pressure off of us but is there anything from your vantage point that would have been even more helpful for you to just feel free to be who you were and not be just a little miniature Tony Evans yeah well it's very interesting because you said you mentioned what our parents did and I and I because a lot the pressure didn't come from them so there was a lot of times my uh my mom would set me down and go no you know you don't have to be your dad she would say those words to me you know you don't have to be your dad right I just feel like a lot of things were out of their control honestly like a lot of the pressure that was coming in was just out of their control it's like where the pastors of a church so you're gonna go to that church and that's just gonna happen there you know people mean well yeah they're saying things to you that load on but I was also I'm just built different out of the four there's four kids in our family out of the four of us crystal our older sisters the logic logical analytical one priscilla's miss personality growing up she used to get in so much trouble for talking all the time but now it all just makes a lot of sense and so people want accurate talk all the time and I'm the emotional one so everything in my life but my father always says the and we'll talk about this later your emotions can't be the engine they have to be the caboose of your life or you'll be all over the place and growing up my emotions were the engine so I was all I was just I was easily affected by things so a lot of it was intangible and I can't say they could have done this and it would have been better because the way that I was built it wasn't something you could grab on to you know do you think that Dad because okay started out with the two girls those crystal and then me so he had two daughters and then do you think the dad had just intrinsically these visions of a football player you know dad's into football I mean sporting this thing or even the next pastor at the church or ministry do you think dad had a vision for you that he had to shift as he as you grew up and he realized you were wired differently than maybe what his expectation was for his first born son I think he had a vision but I don't he wasn't holding me he wasn't holding me fast to that I think every dad when they see a kid that's the stature of me is like he's gonna be it football players the linebacker you know that that whole that whole thing but that wasn't a I don't think he was married to that at all you know just every dad I think in Texas dad you know y'all wanna cry day/night lights is a thing here you know what he does that's the thing so and I stopped I didn't mention our younger brother who is he is the football player and the the preacher but he doesn't have any of the stuff that I have as it relates to pressure in my life it didn't affect him like it did me and he was raised exactly the same way that I was so it's you know it's it's uh it's variables but the book I'm obviously talking about my specific journey and how these things affected how growing up in the home that we grew up in although it's an amazing home how there were moments where I struggled I really I really did did struggle and I'm one of the audience to know the truth about that yes book so you know did you feel like did you feel like you were overlooked in any way because you mentioned in the book that you were an easy kid and you were an easy kid you know we all had our little things that mom and dad had to look after us for certain reasons in different ways probably they would say you were the most laid-back and the most easy in the sense that you just seemed to entertain yourself right so in that with everybody else needing to be attended to did you did you feel overlooked yeah I would say unintentionally overlooked because overlooked I'd say I'm very I'm a this is my family sitting right here but I'm a very vicious protector of my family so I never want to say anything that comes off like my parents overlooked us because they didn't at all but I was unintentionally overlooked because my you couldn't see the needs I had tangibly you couldn't see him like everybody else had tangible things like persona gets in trouble all the time we deal with her you know what I mean like that was a big so and there were other needs with my with our other siblings also but mine just went unattended for longer but my mom our mom said this to me one time I don't ever forget it she said while you were wondering why why don't they give me the extra attention that my siblings get they were praying and thanking God that we have an easy child that was happening at the same time so that that should be boy what can you do with that yeah you know what can you do it except now in my life God has used a lot of that stuff I was a very again very sensitive person so all that has led me to what I get to do now and why don't you think that that you allowed those needs to be known in other words because we had we were asked those kinds of questions we were asked are you okay what do you need to talk about those were questions we were asked so was there any reason specifically why you chose not to divulge how you were really feeling because the way I was the way I programmed myself was don't disturb the peace so if there's an issue just deal with it and you'll be all right I've learned later in my life that no if there's an issue and you stuff it down you'll have a lot of issues later you don't but that's what I did yeah that's what I did and if I fast forward to I mean we'll talk about this but if I fast forward to later in my life I was on stage on the verge of depression and having like a breakdown a 100% breakdown because I just stuffed everything inside constantly and I feel and I was you know and our culture we're taught especially in the african-american culture you're taught that's a man like just just stuff all that stuff down and deal with it that you know what I mean suck it up but there comes a point where it takes more strength to be vulnerable than it does to stuff stuff down that's right and so I made the decision to to be vulnerable and deal and deal with me well one of the things that you talk about in your book which is an incredible book unexpected places the thoughts on God faith and finding your voice one of the things you talk about that you know our our childhood and our parents they would agree that it wasn't perfect they were not perfect no parents are they would agree with that but they were purposeful and intentional about the things that they thought were important for our lives as a as a family one of the things that dad and mom were intentional about was seeing each of our gifts and trying to figure out how to foster those right so really you being steered toward music is as a result of our parents going that boy can sing right but they'll tell you that they figured that out later in life I was I was 17 16 17 when they figure that out yeah and they were like wait did we miss something what does he do like what just happens I was walking around the house just singing and we were all like did he just hit note yeah and I never I never thought in choir practice growing up you know at our church you have to be involved in a ministry you don't just come to our church and chill that one of the things is you have to be involved so as the kids we were and I remember the choir director used to call me out and be like everybody Anthony yes that's right everybody's sing what Anthony just saying and I never thought that was a thing I just thought I just heard it quick I didn't think that was an ability that needed to be fostered yeah so yeah at 16 and 17 that's when they were like oh yeah we go we got it we need to help and so you ended up going to Liberty University were you saying yes she sang with sounds of Liberty just kind of describe that college experience well getting to college my dad knew the Chancellor of Liberty University so they talked without me knowing and before I knew it I had a I had a scholarship to go to Liberty and when you get a scholarship that's basically like the Lord saying that's where you go yeah the Lord telling your parents you have to go to Liberty that's right you know it's close to free so you're going so whoo so I went there and and and it was a very interesting time because my my feelings had to follow my feet I didn't want to sing on it and so you got a scholarship for singing for singing but I wanted to go into animal science be a veterinarian I like my catharsis which I talk about in the book also is being outside doing stuff like that like I have a horse now people would never think that about me but I'm outside god I love that so I wanted to go into that field ends up going to Liberty I was in rehearsals for 10 for 10 hour I mean that crazy stuff you know and I didn't want to sing it at this level but fast forward my feelings started to follow my feet which is a great lesson to learn in general in life a lot of times that don't feel like it can change if you just get up and start moving I I started to love to love what I do yeah isn't that something that you you kind of stumbled into what actually is your destiny you stumbled into that because you had your actual father but in a lot of people's lives it's just a father figure or it's a it's a Moses that sees in Joshua something Joshua does not know he has the capacity to do and says you know what I'm gonna put you at the front line and then you just sort of put one foot in front of the other because you have a scholarship and all of a sudden you kind of stumble into what is the path of the Lord has Peter but it was not easy that's the thing that I think people need to know is that you you kind of you know we see you now standing on stage you were on the voice you know a lot of times you know you've been on Saturday Night Live singing you back up you know you've been in a lot of positions where people see you now and they don't know sort of the path of hardship that you had to take to get there I wanted to read one little excerpt from your book I'm just gonna start right here it's it says that we were growing very very weary we had a number of Tours hundreds of them throughout the years concerts throughout the year and we were on the verge of collapse the illusion has often been created in Christian music that service always comes first even if it's tearing you apart inside one day after a string of back-to-back shows I was feeling sick my body was begging me to slow down and I had gotten to that dangerous place where I was anxious exhausted emotional and overwhelmed sick or not I still had to unload a big ol 18-wheeler set up the stage get dressed perform like everything was great tear the stage down pack the gear back up into the truck and hit the road then I had to do it all again the next day I was sitting in the dressing room of one of the churches we were scheduled to perform at I was quiet kind of keeping to myself and I guess my demeanor came off sour like I didn't care I wanted to be respectful and appreciative but sometimes when you're hurt and dog-tired things don't come out right so the director marched up to me stared me in my face and told me I was worthless lazy and would never do anything or accomplish anything better than where I was at that moment I sat there stunned not knowing how to respond I guess I was still super naive to think everyone in Christendom was soft hearted and super nice how did it feel when you ran into people like that who you expected to behave a certain way and to have a certain attitude because they were Christians and yet they just kept tearing you down all of those years that you were serving and Christian music in your early 20s yeah though that was a hard lesson like when you're reading that story and I'm reliving it right here yeah yeah yeah it's not that's that wasn't a good moment at all I learned I think my our parents did a great job of in some ways sheltering us from what you might be able to might with you might be facing even in christendom you know what I mean what what might come one thing about that is that I which is a whole other thing it's the the concept that when you are in ministry you're supposed to drive yourself into the ground for the sake of of reaching people and ministry any people you're supposed to sacrifice your well-being for that that is a myth that that is ya will ruin your life if you feel like that is what you're supposed to be doing as a believer it's hyperextending yourself you can't obviously it sounds cliche but you can't minister from a place of being empty like that and I was taught earlier on that through this experience you're talking about that that's that was what it was that's what it was gonna be yeah we hadn't seen that growing up like our family didn't come to a place of collapse because mom and dad were so busy building the church that they didn't attend to the six of us to our family life together so when you experienced that out on the road of everybody being dog-tired and ignoring even their own physical health well you were like what is the day and I always speak up if I feel like something and that wasn't really appreciated in that in that whole scenario that you were painting right there with that I painted in the book yes so to hear those words come at me I literally I could not believe that that was happening but I yeah I couldn't believe I still can't believe those words were said to my face did you believe any of it when you were told you know what you will never accomplish anything more than when you where you are right now at the time you're like 22 years old did any of that stick with you and sort of did you have to fight through any of that to feel like you know what this isn't it for me yes they did that those words do stick with me and people don't necessarily realize a lot of times the weight of words you know what I mean a lot of people just say whatever they feel and they try it they think they can come back and apologize and it'd be okay but a lot of times words can burn you down emotionally to nothing and that you have to rebuild our yeah you have to rebuild that and a lot of a lot of times the apology doesn't help you rebuild it like you have to like so those words did that to me and I feel like I got to a point where I was like I'm got to go to counseling I got to get this together because I cannot get up on the stage anymore and this is years later I can't get up on the stage and or in sing sing these songs from a place of emptiness or from a place of wandering about if I'm good enough or valuable enough and I do believe that that came the belief that I wasn't good enough started with those words and it lasted years and years I mean you know that that that was almost 20 years ago yeah if that was said to me and its lid lasted that long but one of the people that the Lord sent into your life to help rebuild you and reposition you and love you back to life was our brother Kirk Franklin yes talk to us about Kirk Franklin well right after I finished this the that chapter Kirk actually called me when you know you get calls we start to come to our church when you get calls from people like that who say they want to work with you you're like I'll never talk to you again like after this you know he was like you ready to come with me and I was like yeah yeah but he held up his into the that that phone call I got off of that bus and walked onto his and that was right when he was releasing the rebirth record you remember that record yeah hosannah and brighter day and all these amazing songs so being able to tour the world with him at 22 years old he taught me about the 23 hours of a day that we spend off of a stage that's what was important to him and I watched him pursue faith in God off of a stage Hagrid yes he was he was all about growth and to be able to watch that and to be doing it at this scale like I a 22 year old going on a world tour for a year and a half with him and Yolanda Adams was there Donnie McClurkin was there and Yolanda in the middle of the tour was like come sing with me too so I was on stage most of the night singing for these you know these these gospel greats and they were investing in my life so God was giving back to me what was what was really taken away and that meant in that moment I don't want to sound like victim ish and you know all that stuff but yeah so yeah Kirk Kirk was an amazing blessing that I mentioned that I got to a point though having years of you know we're in Oh everywhere anywhere you can think of Albert Hill oh yeah London were you saying there my first event with him is in London and Kirk got come from this world of everything's you know planned and you sing this note here and Kirk is just all over the place and handed me a microphone in the middle of the show the middle of his event I remember he'll he handed me the microphone and I was like y'all know how Kirk does when he just hands a singer on microphone it goes don't come from that so I was like what's wrong with you you sick you good he's why you had him in the mic with you so the you know those are some great memory he taught me about singing from my soul not just being a technician but singing from my my my soul and my heart but over time I started to take that for granted the blessing that he gave me I started to take that for group was it like entitlement that you felt like after a little while you felt like you know what he trusts me with this microphone he trusts me with this day yeah I think the same thing I did with Kirk what I do with God sometimes and when he when the blessings keep coming you can get comfortable and then you start to shift toward not being responsible with with the blessing yep and so there was a moment where I was not responsible with the blessing in the opportunity that I had and yeah don't spoil it welcomes were like but that what that entitlement kind of how it translated in your relationship with Curt but Kirk spoke words of wisdom truth in love over your life and where we mean Kirk is literally like the fifth child in our family so he's we were facetiming with him on the way here actually because he's very much still your brother so even though he had to speak the truth to you his little brother there's still a great friendship that has continued from there right and so tell us now kind of what things look like now you've been singing once you left Kirk's group you've been seeing sort of on your own you've recorded six albums now my own sister doesn't know that I've recorded it's okay yeah-oh only six matter really but yes I recorded those albums had to choose at one point out of choose between Kirk and my own career because it's hard to be in and out of somebody when they're doing that much and moving that fast so I got offered a deal to do my own music and it was very interesting going from the scenario you explained earlier to Kirk Franklin to my own career in in Christian music because Christian music and this is very disheartening to me even still sometimes it can be very divided it can be very contemporary Christian music and gospel music and there's this line down the middle and the major difference between two is race like that that which is so sad to me but that that's how it's gotten better now but when I started my career at OU for there were moments where it was like we need you to hold in a guitar that was before like the Travis green days and you know where there was that was that was about black people actually holding yeah yeah yeah they and and this is no disrespect to the people in my life they just were like in order to be accepted by because I am I don't consider myself a gospel singer like that like Tamela Mann is a gospel singer you know happy so I'm more of I have a more pop sound with soul but in order to be accepted on that side I started to have to I got into this world of the industry of what is in the industry of ministry which is a contradiction in in and of itself but that was another hard lesson I had to learn where I almost had to I'm trying to say this in the best way without coming off crazy I had did you have to choose between being yourself and selling albums okay there you go thank you priscilla shirer the next way to ask I had to I was at a place in my life in career one when I was miserable because I was defining success the wrong way and I was having to manipulate who I was in it I wasn't having to but I'm a kid and well 24 at that point I can't industry and you know what what do I need to do so I am manipulating Who I am putting on different sounds changing my voice not singing high not doing runs not doing all this stuff to be accepted and I thought what happens if one of these songs where I have manipulated to my whole self becomes a hit and I have success that means I have to sing this song I do not like for the rest of my life and then after I sing that song and have a hit on the radio I still then cannot go write a check for peace after having this hit song so success cannot be defined by number one on a radio station or everybody wants you to come headline a festival that cannot be success and when I decided to redefine what success is to me and start chasing the piece and going it doesn't matter if there are 10 people or a hundred thousand people if I have chased peace and defined peace as a as a conduit by which I'm going to achieve success that is when I actually found my calling I chased opportunities that lined up with peace and that is how my career continues you have been at the big festival before you've been on the platform where twenty or thirty thousand people were in the audience for something you were invited to do you've been on the television stations before and you've been there and have wanted to just cry a river of tears because you're standing there in the position of success and you just felt complete turmoil on the inside right we as a culture a lot of times especially in our in our country our culture defines success by what do you have tangibly what what do I have what can I hold in my hands that I have worked hard for it I got there's nothing wrong with having things but if that is the end-all then there's a problem yes then there's going to be a major problem I believe in working hard but I believe in working hard to attain peace first chasing your I'm not doing what I'm called to do an mi at peace yeah and that is that that's the definition that that's how I've had to define it yeah so I don't want to jump I don't want to jump ahead of you you're about to jump ahead of me okay but before you jump ahead I do want to ask you a question about something you said okay because I think it's very interesting that we kind of sit here for just a second that there's one of your albums it might be two or three albums in where it might be the second one hmm I think it's the only one I think where you are not on the cover you are on the cover but your face is not there because the record exec executives wanted you to actually have a picture of yourself but excluding your face so that people would not know you were a black man right and not not because they're racist but because they thought if if they cannot classify you that the buyer the potential buyer can't say that's a white guy or a black guy if they just are going to zero in on the music then maybe there's a possibility here we can sell some records if we just exclude what you actually look like right and I think in that and that was the record that has sold the absolute least of all of the ones that you had right yeah yeah the one where you basically were instructed to hide yourself yeah yeah that's I mean that's that's what it was and all those people are still in again I just want to protect yeah they have they have they're the reason why I have a career but then those moves those moves they called me before a book came out they called me and apologized for that whole moment they were like we don't know what we were thinking we are so sorry there will never be another moment we asked you to do anything like that um but it's just it's just sad to me that in not everybody's not gonna like every kind of music that's right to go through those tactics to talk with Christians you shouldn't have to go through that as we watch pop culture accept everybody and like one a you know one station will play everybody's kind of music but then an are on our side it's very like it is divided it's very demanding yeah it's so hard because we were at with

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Length: 36min 59sec (2219 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 21 2018