CCG 1400

That very night after having prayed, “The Phi-Slama-Jama Cat’s Pajama Prayer” God showed me this Logo.

Looking back at my Journal entries around January 24th 2006 I can’t help but laugh at myself and all the financial things that had me so very, very concerned, now just a seven years later those things matter less in the grand scheme than what I had for breakfast those days. Yes, hundreds of thousands of dollars may have been at stake, but now I know that two million dollars would not have solved those issues, in fact it would have made it much worse. No one on the planet knew that GM and Chrysler would be filing for bankruptcy in two short years and a tiny Chrysler dealer in Mocksville, North Carolina didn’t stand a chance, no matter how much capital. Yet, something major did happen that Tuesday and comparably the brief mention of it in my journal reads like this:

“January 25th 2006: In prayer Tuesday the Lord helped me when doing the, Five Slamma Jamma Prayer to put on the ‘Full Armor’ and when I got to the “BREASTPLATE” OH, how I could feel His Righteousness. I asked how I could serve and He and I talked about a Radio Show, “The Christian Car Guy”. I talked with Stew about it and he had some interest. Today I don’t feel the same Faith I had yesterday. Lord please Give me the Faith I need for Today. Not the Faith in some plan but the Faith in You. Lord I love You, Robby.”

The misspelling of Stu’s name and the capitalization are as they were written that day. At the time I had no inkling of how this would change my life and the importance of this briefly mentioned conversation with God.

In January 2006 I was the dealer principal of Westside Chrysler Dodge Jeep, Inc where I had been for eight years of my, at that time 33 year, career in the automobile business. We had just experienced a couple of very tough years and Chrysler Financial was all over my case to raise two hundred thousand dollars more in working capital. This along with family issues at the time had me in a very real season of prayer. This for me, meant the “Five Slamma Jamma Cat’s Pajama Prayer”.

 Like I said in that journal entry, that night God had showed up and asked me to do a radio show specifically The Christian Car Guy. What I didn’t comment on in the journal was how shocked I was. I didn’t even like doing commercials, it made me very nervous. I mentioned to God that radio people had that golden voice and I was sure someone else would be better suited. Yet God assured me that He knew my heart and how it broke every time I saw people put themselves into tremendous amounts of slavery to debt. He wanted me to get on Christian Radio and explain to His people how long vehicles would last and how to take care of them and how to manage this part of their lives. He also wanted me to share the automotive spiritual analogies He was teaching me that He knew was my daily bread. That night it all seemed to make sense.

The next morning however, I was pretty sure this was surreal maybe it happened maybe it didn’t. I reasoned that I needed some kind of fleece like Gideon.

For years I had the extreme pleasure of sitting under the teaching of Pastor Mark Corts at Calvary Baptist Church in Winston Salem and I remembered a sermon he preached once that the point of was that if God called you to do something He would swing the door wide open. In other words if God called you to preach and you couldn’t find a church that God hadn’t really called you to preach. This I knew was my fleece.

Since moving to Winston Salem in 1993 I had been a huge fan of Christian Radio starting out listening to J. Vernon McGee and David Jeremiah on the Bible Broadcasting Network. Then when my account rep Stu Epperson came to me in 1998 with the idea of starting a 24hour a day Christian Teaching and Talk station I jumped on the idea and had been a sponsor since day one. Actually sponsoring Dr Corts show, ‘Share Life’. So all I need to do was call Stu and when he would tell me it was a crazy idea, I could chalk this one up to a wild dream.

I called Stu and he came for lunch that day, I can still remember sitting in the little Mexican restaurant there in downtown Mocksville springing the idea on him. As I laid out the idea he shocked me by saying, “I love it! How about starting next Saturday?”

No doubt that fleece wrung out a bowl full of water, yet I was still terrified. I bought the Web site domain Christiancarguy.com and began to wrestle with actually doing this. Over the next couple of weeks Stu explained what a Clock was and a few tips but I was far from prepared.

The first Show aired March 4th, 2006 at ten AM EST. I really had expected Stu to be there to help but when I arrived about nine AM that Saturday, I was terrified, but the only person who met me was Deacon, an Older DJ who upon seeing me said, “You must really like to talk on the Radio?”

I’m sure he saw the terror in my face with my response, “What do you mean?”

He said, “You have an hour talk show, you know that you can’t have any dead air!”

Now devastated I responded, “What! I thought I would have a bunch of callers and I could just help them.”

He laughed, “You aren’t going to have no callers on you first show you better have a lot to say.”

Praying and Praying for God’s help, the intro played and all I had to say was a number of questions I thought people might have on their mind.

“When is it time to buy a new car? How long will a car last? What’s the difference between leasing and buying?” Then a Bible lesson I called, “The Appraisal by The Real Black Book”.

Sure enough the phone lit up, I had pre-empted Tony Evans and the callers had names like, Latoya and Kaila so I just began to listen to their needs and God gave me something for everyone who called that day. One call would lead to another question and then more callers. Although totally unprepared with what I thought I needed that day, God had prepared me all my life.

The next week I had a great deal more material but a number of radio tests still awaited me for the coming months all of which were great teachers. By August of that year I was up on Satellite Sirrius Channel 161 Family Net nationwide. Yet, little did I know the huge life changes coming.

April 2007 Chrysler auditors came into Westside Chrysler Dodge Jeep, Inc. doing what was a normal audit and when they brought me their report I was told that we had five hundred thousand dollars less in the bank then our books stated. To make a very long story short, it turned out to be two million. My partner and office manager a 60 year old grandmother had to go to prison for embezzling payroll taxes and by December 22, 2007 I met with an attorney who told me it would take me three hundred thousand dollars to go bankrupt. Being two house payments behind and my kids tuition not paid since September it was clear we had to lock it down by January first.

When I returned from the attorney’s office that day, Stu was leaning up against my office door. I had said nothing when he asked me, “Robby, do you know where I could find a sales manager for The Truth Radio Network?”

I answered as you might imagine, “Yes as a matter of fact I do.”

Today six years later God has done amazing things The Christian Car Guy radio show is on dozens of stations and negotiating with American family radio to be on another 200. Kingdom Pursuits “How does God take your passion and use it to build the Kingdom”, is on four. I also have the amazing pleasure of producing several awesome radio shows I helped create.

As I reflect on all this I can’t help but see how God pursued me, taught me how to listen, and made lemonade out of a lemon of a car life.

 

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