Herb: Roy, you have a great story. Tell us how you came to know the Lord and then how God worked in your life and how you finally got into men’s ministry.

Roy: My parents split up when I was four years of age. I ended up living in fourteen different foster homes before I was fourteen years of age. And then my parents actually got remarried.

As a result of that, I began to run the streets and got involved in a gang called The Sinners and over the next four years, worked my way up to being President of The Sinners. But by the end of high school there was a young man who witnessed to me every day, I mean he literally witnessed to me every day. You know, “Jesus loves you and has a plan for your life,” and I just ignored him, got mad at him, tried to beat him up.

Finally, at the end of high school, he knew that I liked this particular girl and he said, “I know where she’s going to be this weekend. If you go with me I’ll introduce her to you.” Well, it happened to be a high school church retreat. So I went with him just to meet her. And heard the gospel for the first time in a very clear way. The whole message was based on John 3:16, “For God so loved the world …,” then he said, “Now put your name there.” So it was, “God so loved Roy that he gave his only son.” Just hearing that message over and over, I finally responded during the night and got up and shared the next morning that I invited Jesus into my life.

I told this to all the other young people and they all started crying because this guy from my high school group had his youth group praying for me for four years that I would come to know Christ. So they all were there and had a chance to see the fruit of their perseverance and love.

Then I started sharing my testimony in juvenile hall and different places. My pastor persuaded some men in my church to provide funds for bible college. After bible college, I went into evangelism but couldn’t support my family.

So then I went into business. And God blessed me in business. Over time, I became very successful, making millions of dollars. But then the company I worked for for fifteen years was sold and I started my own company and it was extremely successful.

But I started becoming kind of arrogant and proud, thinking I was somebody. I literally drove to church in my limousine and got out of the car in front of the church looked to see who saw me get out of my car. And that kind of pride finally took me down. I went through a divorce and eventually, one of the guys in my company got me started in a financial program that turned out to be a ponzi scheme. So we had to liquidate everything we had to try to pay back the money, but we were still six million dollars short. So I got indicted for selling securities without permission.and received a four year prison sentence.

When I was thrown into jail, I started asking the Lord what biblical principles have I compromised in order to get into this situation. And that started a quest for me that involved getting into the Word day and night. I had been a believer for twenty-five years by then, but I wasn’t really living an obedient life. So I started studying scripture and that’s when I began to develop the twelve characteristics that are in the materials we use. I didn’t do it to write a book. I did it for my own needs to help me discover what I need to be an obedient follower of Christ.

Herb: Did you spend the entire four years in prison?

Roy: No. I was in prison twenty-six months of actual time. So it turns out I wrote my epistles while I was in prison. So I was the president of The Sinners and I wrote my own epistles. So that’s my claim to fame.

Herb: How long ago was that?

Roy: It’s now been twenty-five years since I got out of prison. And God’s done some wonderful things since then. Obviously, I had legal battles for a few years afterwards. They were a civil matter. But God got us through all that and I went back to work. I couldn’t go back in the same field anymore. But I worked for other people. And finally, I started taking the notes that I had written in prison and started sharing them with other men and I saw their lives change. So what God had given me was transforming other men’s lives. So I came to the point where I realized I needed to do this for the rest of my life. So stepped out of business and went into ministry full time and that’s when we started our ministry fourteen years ago.

Herb: Tell me about your ministry.

Roy: We have a Christian mentor’s network and our primary mission is to equip Christ-centered mentors worldwide.We do that by discipling through one on one mentoring relationships.

Herb: And you have a series of books.

Roy: Right. We have a series of three books we take people through. We call Mentoring His Way, Disciple Twelve, and it’s built on the twelve characteristics of a godly life. Each book takes four of the twelve characteristics. Book one is the spiritual characteristics. Book two is the personal characteristics. Book three is the lifestyle characteristics. And we go through these books one on one with another person and teach them to take it to the next person.

Herb: Do you work primarily through churches?

Roy: Yes.

Herb: So how would a church start your ministry?

Roy: We have a Christian Mentor’s Tool Box which has all of our of our tools, including videos and a manual telling them how to use the material. We put all that material together with instructions on how to get started. It’s usually started by the men’s ministry leader first who takes it on as their passion. They train a few guys and it starts taking off from there.

Herb: You have a website too.

Roy: Yes, it’s ChristiansMentorsNetwork.org.

Herb: You do a lot of Iron Sharpens Iron Conferences?

Roy: I speak in workshops at Iron Sharpens Iron and I’ve hosted two of them in Phoenix.

Herb: Is that the primary way you contact churches, through the conferences? Or do you do other things as well.

Roy: We also now have developed our own conference, which we call our Mind Man Movement.

Herb: And the conference is being held just in Phoenix?

Roy: So far they’ve been in Phoenix, but we’re being invited now across the country. But that’s just a contact point. Our whole mission is to train people to do one on one discipleship through this mentoring process. Because I’ve done a lot of small groups. I done a lot of training in churches. And I’ve done a lot of evangelistic work. But I’ve found that for real life transformation, the most effective method is one-on-one discipleship. And plus, by having the books that we have, it gives a tool for us to mentor a man. And he can then take those tools and mentor the next generation. We have guys as much as ten generations below us now that are still mentoring other men because of the tools that we’ve handed down as well.

Herb: And I understand you have a ministry using Skype.

Roy: There have been different times in my life when my health has been poor and I haven’t been able to travel, so a friend gave me the idea of using Skype to train people. So I’ve reached out through Facebook and other social media and contacted guys in Africa, in India and Bangladesh and Australia. These are leaders of pastoral groups or they’re individuals. And I now literally walk them through our materials using Skype. We send them the materials, they have it with them and I mentor them through Skype just as if they were sitting in my office. And that’s given me an opportunity to reach around the world now. Because the motto of our ministry is “Equipping Christ-Centered Mentors Worldwide.” And Until now I wasn’t doing it worldwide. So God has opened up that door and it’s really been exciting.

Herb: Roy, thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Roy: Thank you.

November 12, 2014

Little Rock, Arkansas