From Fast Cars! To the FBI! To a Pastor! That's Today's Guest!

Marcus Buckley.

I can't wait for you to meet him.

But I do advise you should probably go ahead and put that seatbelt on and hold on tight because we're about to take off.

Hey guys, I am joined today in the studio by Dr.

Marcus Buckley.

Marcus, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Kevin.

Great to be with you.

Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_04: Well, you are most welcome.

I feel very formal addressing you as Dr.

Marcus Buckley.

SPEAKER_01: It does feel a little formal still being being addressed that way, but as as such a laid back guy as you are.

SPEAKER_04: Yes, I was gonna say, as such a laid-back guy as you are, I'm like, this just doesn't seem quite fitting.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I get that a lot.

SPEAKER_04: Well, wonderful.

Well, well, Marcus, I wanted to have you on the podcast today.

We we just got done celebrating Easter Sunday, and I just felt like it was a perfect opportunity that to have you on, the pastor at the church that I attend, Oasis Church.

And I just think you have a very interesting story and think you're a pretty awesome guy.

So still thought you would be the be the perfect guest.

SPEAKER_01: So well, thanks for having me on, Kevin.

Really uh I I think you have a whole lot better story than I do, but uh but uh but uh man, I really appreciate you having me on your show.

Thanks.

SPEAKER_04: Well, awesome.

Well, perfect.

Well, well, I guess the first question I would like to to ask is we'll kind of get some base level stuff and then we'll we'll dive in a little deeper as we go along.

But but I would love to just know like where did this come from as far as you deciding to be be a pastor?

SPEAKER_01: That was not my plan.

My original plan was I wanted to go to law school and be an FBI agent.

That was what my goal was.

But while I was in college, I went to Stetson University and had a had a great, turned out to be a friend and mentor.

He was actually my Sunday school teacher that was an attorney.

And he had gone to Stetson and wound up going to Stetson Law School.

And so he had encouraged me and says, No reason you can't do the same thing.

And so that was what I was gonna do.

I was a music major at Stetson, I was gonna get my bachelor's degree and then go to Stetson Law.

And I just told my parents I was gonna go to law school.

I didn't want them to know that I was gonna be an FBI agent because I knew my mother would freak out and worry about it.

Um, so that was my plan.

So, but while I was at Stetson, I was the church pianist at my home church, Ormond First Baptist.

And during the course of that, I just got more and more exposed to ministry.

Um uh I wound up filling in teaching a Sunday school class a couple of times and worked with the youth a little bit.

And and I had always I'd grown up on stage.

I'd always done plays and and musicals.

I was in musicals at Seabreeze High School.

Every year I went there, my senior year, I was Riff in West Side Story.

And so I had uh been very comfortable on stage, MCing stuff growing up.

And so teaching was a natural thing.

Getting up in front of people and talking about a subject was a very natural sort of thing for me.

So as that sort of thing happened while I was the church pianist and going going through all that while I was in college, it just the doors just kept opening for ministry opportunities.

And uh I got to be very close with my pastor at the time, who was Pastor Roy Hargrave, and the the music worship pastor was Rick Cobb.

And so I got to be real close with them, and they kind of took me behind the scenes on ministry stuff, and and I just had this growing sense that that was what I was supposed to do.

I wasn't really happy about it at first because that wasn't my plan.

That was not what I wanted to do.

But but the further along it went, I actually served as a worship leader for my last couple of years of college and at another church, wound up coming back to Ormond first.

And then by that point, I was I filled in preaching a couple of times, and there was a little church in town, uh Rima Ridge Baptist Church out here on 40, that the pastor was older.

And I was giving piano lessons actually to one of his one of the people that attended the church out there, and they asked if I'd be interested in filling in one Sunday to preach.

And I did, I did that a few times, and then when that pastor went to retire, they asked me if I would come out as pastor, and I did.

That was in the I was 23 years old.

Oh my god, that's so young.

Oh my word, I can't even imagine.

Yeah, I was 23 years old and became a pastor uh of Rima Ridge Baptist Church and was there for uh four years and had an incredible time.

It was great.

But the law enforcement itch got scratched because not long after I started pastoring, I became a chaplain for Volusia County Sheriff's Office.

And uh so I I've carried a badge and a Bible for uh about 20, 26, 27 years now.

SPEAKER_04: Yes, that's so awesome.

That's so awesome.

Well, so now, so where did it go from there then?

SPEAKER_01: Well, I I pastored here for four years, was in Jacksonville for about five years.

And while I was in Jacksonville, show you how things work out.

Right after I graduated from college, I applied to the FBI.

But the FBI sent me a very gracious note back saying we're we're very interested in in your application, but we require that you have three years full-time work experience.

And it was it was a little bit after I graduated, I guess.

I only had a I had had a year or two full-time work experience at that point.

And they said, after you've got three years full-time work experience, please resubmit your application because we'd really like to, you know, see about having you come on board.

Well, years go by, it was it was then uh in 2000, and we were doing a special service at the church I was pastoring in Jacksonville, where we recognized area law enforcement officials.

And I actually had the special agent in charge of the Jacksonville field office for the FBI, was one of the people I'd invited.

And he and his wife came that night.

His name's Tom Kinnear.

And um, Tom and his wife came that day, and and we recognized them, had a great worship service.

And after the service was over, I was talking to him and he said, uh, hey, I'd love to go take you to lunch maybe one day this week, show you around the field office.

And I was all about that.

Well, I I suspected and confirmed I was right, that like any good federal investigator, he pulled my name up and saw that I had applied before.

So that week when we had to lunch, we were at lunch for about three hours.

We went out to eat, and then he took me to the field office and handed me this like 32-page application and said, Yeah, he said, I'd really like for you to consider filling this out and bring it back to me.

I think you'd make a great agent, and you've got more than your three years now, so why don't you fill this out?

SPEAKER_04: So now I have to ask it, what was your thought process at that time?

Because I mean, you were pastoring a church in Jacksonville?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'd I'd been a pastor for for six years.

I'd been in Jacksonville for two years at that point.

Yeah.

So I'd already been pastoring for several years, and now the FBI comes to me, which was, you know, I it really was was so surreal because my thing was, whoa, God, wait a minute, what are you doing here?

I I, you know, I wasn't even looking for this, and now it's dropped in my lap.

What am I supposed to do?

So a week goes by.

I just put the application in my desk drawer.

A week goes by, my secretary says Agent Kaneer is calling from over at the field office.

So I said, Hey, hey, Tom, how are you?

He says, Great, where's that application?

I said, You're serious.

He says, Yeah, I'm serious.

Fill out the application and bring it back.

So I did.

And, you know, you you fill out the application, and they get, you know, 100,000 applications a year.

At that time, it was something like that.

It was a staggering number.

And, you know, I turned it in and the receptionist says, you know, you may never hear anything back, but but you know, I'll give this to Mr.

Kinier.

Thanks for doing that.

Because there's a good chance when you apply, you don't ever hear anything.

Um so a couple weeks go by and I get a notification that I'm to report to such and such location.

Congratulations, you've been selected to take the phase one exam for the FBI.

And well, I'm like, whoa, okay, this is really not what I was expecting.

So, you know, the next week I have to, you know, I have to go and show up at the the this this location where you're in a big conference room kind of thing with, you know, 30 or 40 other people all taking the phase one exam.

You know, you have to sign NDAs, non-disclosure agreements, you can't ever talk about what's on the test or this or that sort of thing.

So so I'm, you know, uh in it it's almost like taking the SAT.

It's kind of what it feels like.

Okay.

But now this was this was an interesting little tidbit about it.

When we were taking it, and this would have been um early uh 2000.

Okay.

You know, they were you know telling us all this stuff, and you know, that you know, it's a privilege to be here, even if you don't pass the test, just to make it to this point, it's a big deal.

But one of the agents stepped up and said, if anyone here speaks Farsi, we need you to let us know right now because we will put you on a plane to Washington and you will bypass this stuff.

Oh my gosh.

So a year and a half before September 11, they were really looking for people who spoke Middle Eastern languages.

So, and it was, you know, and I I know I was thinking, and probably everybody else in the room was, why didn't I take Farsi when I was in college?

So, anyways, took the phase one exam and during the breaks because it was about four hours worth of tests.

You know, they give you breaks.

And so I'm standing around small talking with the other people in the room, and there's a you know, a pilot, a fighter pilot out of Pensacola, there's a attorney, there's a you know, a doctor, you know, a nuclear engineer and a preacher, you know.

So anytime it would come around, they would ask me, So what do you do?

And I'd be like, Well, I'm a pastor.

They're like, cool.

I'm like, nah, that's not what I would have thought.

But um, but so anyway, so I take the exam.

They say, look, even if you don't pass, you know, you've all done well, you'll hear next week, with one week, whether you passed or not.

So the next week goes by, you know, I'm praying.

Okay, God, well, what now?

Well, I got notification I passed phase one.

The phase one, when I when I got it, it says, Congratulations, you passed phase one.

This does not guarantee you a spot for the phase two exam, but congratulations on your accomplishment.

So probably a month goes by, and they say literally you might never hear from us again.

So a month goes by, and um, you know, and I'm I'm going through this.

Nobody knows this but Leanne.

I told no one but my wife.

SPEAKER_03: Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01: Okay.

And so Leanne and I are coming back from dinner, and Emma is our our oldest, is just a baby, and um find out during the process of all this that Leanne is expecting.

And our second would be born in January of 2001.

So Leanne's, you know, a couple months into her pregnancy now, and we're coming back from dinner one night, and Emma's in the backseat dozing off.

And I said, you know, I you know, it's really going back and forth on this thing, but I think if if the Bureau called me tonight, I would, I don't know that I would, you know, keep going with this.

I might just tell them no.

We get home 15 minutes later, and there's a voicemail from the FBI.

No on the the home message.

I'm not kidding you.

It's absolutely what happened.

Get home 10, 15 minutes later, it's a message.

Congratulations.

Um, we've got a spot for you, phase two.

We need you to report to the airport in X number of days.

There'll be a plane ticket there waiting for you and additional instructions.

So I'm like, well, I I guess there's my answer.

I guess I'm gonna go do this.

So flew down there, and it really was the coolest thing, you know, because you go, I went to the airport in Jacksonville, flew down to where I had to go, and they said when you get to the hotel, tell them that you're with the FBI.

Give them your name and say you're with the FBI.

So the coolest thing when I walked up to the exactly right, man.

I was it's like I was Fox Mulder from the X-Files.

You know, I walked up to the counter and said, Marcus Buckley, I'm here with the FBI.

Oh, yes, sir, here you go.

You know, handed me an envelope with my name on it, FBI, you know.

SPEAKER_04: And and I can only assume you still had your aviators on.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, of course.

I mean, I was suit and tie in aviators, man.

I looked the part already.

So so the so then the next day I took the, it was a it was a written test and uh and an interview.

And the interview was just like it was in the movies.

You know, you're in this room, big long table, three agents, a pitcher of water, an empty glass, and a tape recorder.

And um it literally was just like in the movies.

So I did that, and they said, you know, we'll let you know in a week how you did.

And um I passed.

I passed phase two.

Next week I got a huge packet in the mail telling me all the things I was gonna have to do next.

So they spent the better part of the next year doing my top secret background clearance.

Wow.

And uh and I the work the the hardest part for me, Kevin, was one, well, it's two things.

One, knowing, okay, God, I didn't go looking for this.

This is dropped in my lap.

Am I supposed to go this way now?

Am I supposed to stay a pastor?

But really, the hardest part was running because I had, you know, I'd lifted weights.

I could do a hundred push-ups, a hundred sit-ups, you know, I could do, you know, 10 or 15 chin-ups, no problem.

The running was the problem.

Now, fortunately, Leanne, my wife, is the runner.

So she had to literally teach me how to run because I went to the track, you know, I ran a quarter mile and thought I was gonna die.

So she's like, you gotta learn stride length, you gotta learn pacing, you gotta do all this stuff.

This I had to be able to run a mile and a half in 12 minutes and 30 seconds or less.

Okay, okay, okay.

Yeah, so but so she got me through it and I passed all that and I did all that.

So every morning, six days a week, I was running four or five miles.

SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01: Just to get in shape for it.

Every morning as I'm running, I'm praying.

God, what do you want me to do?

I I don't know because I couldn't get a piece about it.

It would pendule them back and forth.

One day I was sure I was supposed to do the bureau.

One day I was supposed to sure I was supposed to stay a pastor.

And it just went back and forth.

And it really was when I talked to Jim Henry, Jim Henry was the pastor of First Baptist Orlando for 30 years.

Great guy, great friend, great mentor to me.

I talked to him about it one afternoon.

And he said, uh, he says, Well, Marcus, you'd make a great FBI agent, and there's not many of those.

He says, but you're already a great pastor and preacher of the gospel, and there's even fewer of those.

And that really, really hit me.

And um, and so I'm like, okay, so I called the field office and I said, I'm sorry, but I'm just I can't get peace about this, and and I can't do it.

And they were so gracious, and Tom was so gracious about it.

He says, Nice, is you gotta do what you feel is the right thing to do.

And wasn't upset with me, wasn't mad with me.

He was he was just wonderful and and still friends with Tom to this day, still stay in contact with him.

And um, but uh a lot of other cool opportunities kind of came out of that.

That opened a lot of other doors, but yeah, but here I am 20, 21 years later, after all that, and I'm still pastoring.

SPEAKER_04: So yeah.

Well, that's that's awesome.

And you know, though, I think, I think that's one of those things that as a Christian, and and so many times, you know, we we we trust in God, and but sometimes you just feel like you just wish he would directly speak to you and be like, Marcus, you need to do this or you need to do that, you know.

SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what I was praying for every morning, you know, as I was as I was running.

You know, God, can you just, you know, give me some clarity.

Where I finally landed on that though, Kevin, was you know, my prayer, my prayer changed as I was doing that.

Because it finally got instead of God show me which one, I started praying, God, whichever one it is, let me do it the best I can for your glory.

Um, because my goal was I didn't want it to be about me.

I want if I'm an FBI agent, God, let me be the best agent I can be for you.

If it's staying a pastor, God, I want to be the best pastor I can be for you.

But but so it really did change my perspective on what I was praying for during all that.

SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.

Now, did you have at the moment when you made that decision, did you have like complete and total peace over that decision?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I really did.

Yes.

At that point, there was such clarity.

Yes.

Um, that when I finally had it, you know, it was kind of like, well, God, why didn't you make it this clear earlier?

But you know, but but but part of the reason why he doesn't, Kevin, is because he there's a process that he wants us to go through.

And we learn things in the process that we wouldn't learn if he just gave us the clarity we want when we want it.

You know, uh that's a big issue here is God wants us to experience the tension of faith.

Because there is a tension to faith where we're we believe God, we trust God, but uh but we want to know now, you know.

Yes, but you know, and and the not knowing is the hardest part for us.

Um but it's only through that, it's only through those sort of experiences that uh where our faith is is tested and we really are dependent on God in those things, where it's strengthened and equipped and and built up for it.

SPEAKER_04: So absolutely, absolutely.

Now, now so at what point then?

So so you're still in Jacksonville.

So I honestly at the point in in your you know kind of journey through life that that I even became to to become aware of who Marcus Buckley was, you were living in was it South Carolina or North North Carolina?

SPEAKER_01: South Carolina, yeah.

We were we after we were in Jacksonville for about five years, I got called to a church up in Greenville, South Carolina, and was at that particular church for five years before we got called to another church on the other side of the county where we were for eight years.

But we were Oh wow.

It was with they were only within about 20 minutes of each other, which was really kind of weird and surreal to me because I'd never known anyone who had left one church and went to another church like 20 minutes away.

You always went a state or two away.

But there were so many churches up in that area, I guess is why.

But but had incredible experiences at both of those churches, just loved our time in South Carolina.

I mean, our kids grew up there and just had so so many great memories and and so much great ministry.

God did such great things up there and just really enjoyed.

And of course, it's beautiful up there, all through the the Blue Ridge mountain area.

You know, the Greenville, South Carolina is kind of the foothills of the Blue Ridge.

It's just absolutely breathtaking country up there.

And so just just had a had a great, great experience up there.

Loved it up there.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, that's oh goodness, that's so so amazing.

Now now I I'd love to get to that point in the story, though, where is I I think again, it's kind of uh, I would assume similar to that scenario when with the FBI is is life is is kind of going along, everything's going great, you guys are loving where you are, love your church.

And then and then what happened?

SPEAKER_01: Well, so I uh like I said, I'd been at the church uh at Riverside Baptist Church there in Greer, out just outside of Greenville, for eight years.

Great church, great staff.

We had a beautiful house sitting up on a ridge overlooking the valley that looked to the North Carolina Mountains.

I mean, we were right at the North Carolina.

So we had this beautiful, beautiful house, great church, great staff.

We just everything was rocking along great.

And I got a a phone call from a friend of mine in February of 2016, said, Hey, um, my church is looking for a pastor.

And I said, Well, I'll be glad to help you, but I'm not interested.

I'm not interested.

I'm not looking to go anywhere.

Very happy here.

I'll help you, point you in the right direction.

I don't know anybody that's looking, but let me ask around.

So another month or two goes by, and I get a call from a company called Slingshot.

And I knew there were corporate headhunters in the corporate world.

I didn't know there were in the church world, but it turns out there are actually several companies now that do searches for churches, uh, for staff things.

And so uh he calls me up, tells me he's from Slingshot, and that he's representing Oasis Church.

And I said, I'm not interested.

I said, Love you, appreciate you praying for you, but I'm not interested in leaving where I am.

And he said, Well, would you would you just talk to me for a few minutes?

I said, Yeah, I'll talk to you.

So I was on the phone with him for about 30 minutes, and he said, uh, he said, look, I just I just gotta tell you.

He said, I've been uh I've reviewed hundreds of resumes, I've interviewed dozens of people.

I'm supposed to present the last the top five to the committee, search committee at the church this week.

And he says, You're the last person I'm talking to.

He says, but I'm convinced you're the guy.

And I just went, oh no.

Because I knew what that meant.

I I knew what it meant.

Because, you know, I grew up in Ormond Beach, and so we would come back on vacation every year.

And the previous June, we would pass, you know, we'd pass through for a couple days.

And um, the previous June, Leanne and I and the kids were driving through town, and I was sitting at 40 and Nova Road, heading east toward the beachside, and just sitting there at the light, and for the first time since I had left Ormond Beach in 1998, Ormond felt like home again.

And I noted to myself and thought, you know, because I never thought I'd I'd live in Ormond again.

I mean, I loved it, great town, but just never thought I'd move back to Ormond.

And as I'm sitting there at the light in June 2015 at Granada and Nova Road, I thought, I can see us living here again.

And I told Ian, I said, I said, you know what, honey, I just had a weird feeling.

And she said, Oh no.

I said, what?

She says, I just got the feeling like we could live in Ormond again.

I said, oh no.

And we knew.

We I mean we kind of laughed at that point.

We were like, oh boy.

You know, because we know how God works enough to know that that was probably an indication that at some point we were going to be coming back to Ormond Beach.

Because I believe God changes your heart.

Before He makes a big change in your life, I believe God will turn your heart and prepare you because that's part of the process.

It's all about the process.

I believe that's part of the process that God has with us is He prepares your heart anyway.

SPEAKER_04: That's that's such a powerful moment.

Oh, yeah.

To think to know now what was to come, that you guys literally had that moment, that foreshadowing of I mean, how powerful.

SPEAKER_01: Well, and see, that's I believe God does that stuff.

I think that he does it all the time.

We're just not always paying attention.

You know, I think God is constantly and consistently wanting us to know that that he's in control, that he's looking out for us, that he has a plan, that all of this stuff is working out the way he wants it to, and that he prepares us for it.

You know, God allows us to go through things because he's preparing us for the next thing to come.

And so he was so gracious to already begin turning our hearts, you know, almost a year.

And it would be almost exactly a year later that we would find ourselves moving to Ormond.

So I when he told me that, when he said, I'm convinced you're the guy for Oasis, you know, in that moment I was really convicted.

And I remembered, you know, back to that previously.

I said, okay.

I said, well, I said, I believe I'm a sovereignty of God guy.

I believe God's got a plan.

I said, so if you feel that strongly about it, you give my name, I'll give you my resume and everything, and you present me to that committee, and I'll pray about it, you pray about it.

If it's God's will, then then he'll make all this work out.

But, you know, we'll I'll trust God in this.

And it turned out I was actually the next week was going to be preaching uh revival services at a church here in Ormond.

And he said, I saw, he said, I saw online you're gonna be preaching next week.

Would it be all right if the committee can't come and listen to you?

You know, they'll be subtle enough to spread it out over several nights.

I said, Well, everybody's welcome.

They can do what they want to do.

And so they did.

The next week, the the pastor search committee from Oasis, over the course of several nights, came.

Several of them came more than one night.

Yes.

And um uh, and then they reached out to me and said, Hey, could we just meet you before you go home?

So I met with them that morning before I went home.

And um, you know, I told them, you know, I'm not looking to leave, happy where I am, but you know, if this is what God wants, then we'll be obedient.

And so the next week, uh the next week or or so, I they were doing video interviews with the candidates.

And I was up for interview that next Thursday night.

I was gonna be the last one interviewed.

And so we did a video interview, and um the next morning they called me and offered me the position.

They said we were unanimous.

You're we believe you're the guy God wants to be the pastor at Oasis.

And I was like, oh no.

And it wasn't that I didn't want to come to Oasis, it was that I didn't want to leave Riverside.

You know, I didn't want to leave Riverside Church.

I loved that church, loved those people, that staff.

I loved our community.

You know, I was a I was a police chaplain there, chaplain for the Guru Police Department.

You know, I I I you know spent 13 years there.

I like I said, our kids grew up there.

We had so many connections in that community, and I just loved it.

I loved that community, I loved that region.

It was just that felt like home.

And um, but you know, we we trusted God.

We said, okay, this is what God wants us to do.

And, you know, here we are, it'll be five years in June that we'll have been back in Ormond and here at Oasis, and it has been extraordinary.

It was absolutely without a doubt what God wanted us to do, because it has been an incredible five years.

God has done some just supernatural things in and through in in context here.

SPEAKER_04: I mean, but but at that point, I mean, you have, you know, of course, your your wife, three children.

I mean, so even though it's something that you felt like it was the right thing to do, I mean, it had to be difficult.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, it was incredibly difficult because two, our our girls were in high school.

Yeah, which is literally the worst time to move.

It it wasn't like if we could have moved them between eighth and ninth grade, even, you know, they could have, but they didn't.

And so they were not happy about it.

Uh Brandon I would have been Brandon was young enough that he was kind of like, oh, okay, anything's fine.

Yes.

But but the girls were not happy.

Yes.

I mean, we're not happy about it at all.

And yeah, you know, Ormond's a beautiful place, and it's beach and everything else, but even so, they were not about that.

Um and of course they came around, they they came to enjoy it as well, you know.

But it was, it was, it was really tough.

Really, really tough, challenging.

SPEAKER_04: Wow.

Yeah, I I oh my goodness.

I started to say I can only imagine, but I honestly I don't know that I can imagine.

I mean, that's just and but again, it's almost like you you just you know when it's God speaking to you.

Oh yeah, yeah, you absolutely you know, so that's just awesome.

Now, now so so basically now we're we're back full circle back now to to the to the the little town on the the east coast of Florida where you grew up in, you're back there.

And so I guess that's kind of like a perfect opportunity, if you don't mind.

I would love to know how did your journey, you know, through becoming a Christian and and developing a relationship with God and stuff, how did that begin?

I mean, well, you kind of spoke of it earlier.

I mean, you grew up in the church, and so would you mind kind of sharing a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_01: Sure.

Yeah, I I was really fortunate, Kevin, that I grew up in a in a Christian home.

My parents, my older brother, Todd, who's nine years older than I am, and my mom's parents, my grandparents on her side, all lived in the same house.

And uh, all believers.

And so, you know, I was at church every week, you know, it was just what we did.

And I was I was saved at a very young age and I, you know, trusted in Christ as my savior.

I knew that that my hope was not in my works and my efforts, it was in through what Christ did at the cross on my behalf.

So, you know, I knew that no matter what else happened in life, I was secure in him.

But uh, you know, so have having no dramatic conversion experience, you know, other than when I was a young, young child, you know, as I as I grew up, you know, I had the natural ebb and flow, I think, of that most Christians would have, they're saved at a young age.

You know, I was I went to church every Sunday.

Uh I worshiped the Lord, I prayed, I, you know, read my Bible.

And you know, I even I even I invited my friends to church.

I, you know, told people about Jesus.

But you know, there was plenty of times in my life where he wasn't my priority.

You know, it wasn't like my whole goal in life was to please God and do what he wanted.

Yeah, I wanted to do what I wanted to do and then ask God to bless it.

You know, God, I want to be an attorney.

Help me be an attorney so I can have a, you know, get in the FBI and maybe get a BMW before I do.

You know, I mean, whatever the case may be.

You know, I mean that that's kind of it.

And you know, that's just human nature, you know, of course.

To want what we want and ask God to bless what we want.

And, you know, as I got older, you know, and learned things and made bad choices and good choices along, you you know, God, God uses all of that to teach us and to bring us to a point of obedience and a point of trust.

You know, this past Sunday I talked about how the Christian life is a cycle of opportunity and obedience.

God gives us opportunities and we're to be obedient.

If we are obedient, then we God progresses us on.

He blesses us, he teaches us, he equips us and moves us on to the next phase.

If we're not obedient to the opportunities, then we miss out.

We miss out on opportunities for growth, we miss out on opportunities for blessing because God is not going to bless disobedience.

Um so in that in that cycle of opportunity and obedience, there were plenty of times when I was younger, and even frankly, since I've been older, that that you know, I haven't been as quick to obey as I I should have.

And frankly, as I've been talking about a good bit lately in some of the sermons we've been dealing with, delayed obedience is disobedience.

And so, you know, you're talking a minute ago about the certainty of when God speaks to us.

We know it's when God speaks.

Yeah, and the the time to obey God is when he speaks.

You know, when when he lets us know this is what we're supposed to do, that's what we do.

And and as I got older and and matured and learned more about what it meant to actually not just be a Christian, but to live for Christ, not only just to be saved, but to be a servant of Christ.

You know, you you recognize those things and you learn from them and you move on and you become more discerning about the voice of God and the will of God.

And and you do that by spending time in the Word of God and spending time praying and you know, having godly counsel around you.

That's really important.

SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I feel like, and you know, I oftentimes say this, and I I feel it's so true, especially in my my own life, is is a relationship with God is truly that it's a relationship.

I feel like the longer you go, the more you go, it just becomes that much stronger.

Absolutely.

You know, it's not like you reach this one point and it, you know, that's as high as it goes.

You know what I mean?

And I just I think that's you know really remarkable.

Now, last week in the podcast, I had shared, you know, my my journey through faith, and and I shared how how it played a huge role when when I had the incident in my life when I became blind.

And I was just kind of curious, have you ever had a moment in your life, either as a child or even now, you know, as a grown adult, when when you've been faced with a situation that maybe would would ordinarily like test someone's faith, or or you know, like in my case, it just literally made my faith that much stronger.

But just curious if you've ever had any moments like that.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, absolutely.

Several, but the most profound is also the most recent.

A year ago, our then 12-year-old son Brandon nearly died from heart failure.

He he was on a swim team and you know, was doing great.

And but then one week he just started saying his chest just bothered him a little bit.

And we thought he just had heartburn because he ate too many Takis, you know, and too much of everything because the kid's a shop vac, you know.

So he said, you know, he just really wasn't hungry and and and just was kind of tired, and his chest was bothering him.

So Leanne called the pediatrician on Wednesday of that week, and they worked him in Friday afternoon.

And so, you know, we didn't know if he had schoolitis or, you know, just what it was.

But we said, well, let's just take him and get him checked out because he never had any health problems.

Take him to the doctor that Friday afternoon, and they decided, you know, look, they were just gonna give him some heartburn medication and send him home because everything else seemed okay.

Well, he said, Well, since it's the weekend, can we just get a chest x-ray and make sure there's not something else going on?

And the doctor says, you know, let's do that.

Let's get a chest x-ray.

He says, I'm gonna order an EKG too.

I just want to be sure.

So this is over at Advent Health.

Uh, his the doctor's office is there.

So we went downstairs at chest x-rayed, EKG, his heart rate was over 200.

So immediately knew there was a problem.

So they tried, they took him to the pediatric ER, and Brandon's still like, Well, I feel kind of okay, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, he's just kind of, you know, not bothered by this at all.

And um, so take him in.

They're trying to break his rhythm, can't get the rhythm broken.

It's still 200 plus beats a minute, and they send the helicopter over, they airlift him, and it turns out he was in full-blown heart failure.

The his ejection fraction, your ejection fraction of your heart measures your heart squeeze, how much blood it's pumping, and that it's supposed to be between 60 and 65.

His was 10.

And so get over there, they get him on all these IVs, finally get his heart rate down.

The cardiologist, who is the head of electrocardiology for the pediatrics at Advent Health over there, was the doctor on call.

He says, Know what the problem is.

We're gonna do an ablasion on his heart tomorrow morning in the calf lab.

He said, He's gonna be okay now.

It's gonna take some time, but you know, we got the problem.

He says, the A team just went home for the day.

He says, I really want the A team working with me on him tomorrow.

So he's gonna be he's fine, he's stable now.

We're gonna do this in the morning.

So he the next day, that was Saturday, he was in the calf lab for six and a half hours.

They mapped his heart, they did ablasion in several areas.

And what that is, they burn parts of the heart that are causing bad electrical rhythms.

Uh, they fixed that.

He was on the ventilator for 24 hours, was in the hospital for another five days, and stayed in heart failure for four months after that.

It was four months before his ejection fraction came up to where it was supposed to be.

So, I mean, there was a really scary few days there where I mean the doctor's telling us everything's gonna be all right, but you know, you know, Brandon's on the ventilator, he's got 12 IVs in, he's got all these racks of electronics hooked up to him, you know, the heart monitor and you know, all these other things, and you just don't know what's gonna happen.

And of course, over the years of pastoring, I've been through that situation with people plenty of times, but when it's your child, you know, you you know all the answers, you know all the stuff, but you don't, you know, it's just different when you're going through it.

You know, it's the old, you know, physician heal thyself thing.

But fortunately, I can say, as nervous, as anxious, as unsure of what was going to happen that I was, somehow during all of that, I was not angry with God.

I did not doubt God.

Uh, knew God was in control.

At one point, I did say, God, I know this isn't how you work, but I will trade places with him.

SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, we we um we we all we all get through that, don't you?

SPEAKER_01: You know, and and I I think you have that, but I also had such a profound knowledge of God's presence through that.

And you know, Leanne and I stayed at the hospital with him the entire time.

We didn't go home.

Our daughters came over and would stay some, but then they would drive back home from Orlando because we have dogs, and so you know, yep.

You know, you gotta take care of the dogs.

So uh, but all through that, God provided, you know, and and we're fortunate to say that, you know, Brandon was healed, you know, the the problem was taken care of.

He's fully recovered now.

He has no restrictions other than he's still not supposed to drink caffeine for a while.

He's he's on um a couple of medications he he has to take to strengthen his heart and stuff for another few months.

They're gonna keep him on that for a while.

But his his physician, uh Dr.

Trevetti, is his name.

And I cannot say enough great things about him in Advent Health.

Just what incredible experience we had with them.

And but Dr.

Trevetti, even, you know, recently Advent Health posted up a picture of Brandon and Dr.

Trevetti at his most recent appointment.

And Dr.

Trevetti said, you know, we give credit to God for this, you know, that God worked all this thing out.

But but so thankful uh of how he did all that.

But yeah, I mean, there's when you're sitting there in the hospital and your son's got a problem that you can't fix, and he's on the ventilator and all these tubes and things hooked up, and there's literally nothing you can do.

You know, I thought I was helpless when I was waiting to decide what was gonna happen with the FBI.

I've never felt more helpless and Leanne and our daughters, all of us, you know, during that period of time.

But but for me, I experienced, and and I and I, you know, because you kind of wonder when you go through something like that, are you gonna get mad at God?

Are you gonna doubt God?

Are you gonna say, you know, God, why would you let this happen?

But for me, that that didn't happen.

You know, God really, even as as I'm not gonna tell you that I was just calm and not worried about it.

I mean, I was a ball of nerves, you know, that that whole week uh and for several months afterward.

But I knew God was going to work it out.

I knew that God was taking care of it.

I knew that God hadn't abandoned us, God hadn't left us, God wasn't being mean and disregarding our state.

No, he was he was taking care of us.

And and ironically, the day we came home from the hospital is the day everything started shutting down because of COVID.

So he Brandon was gonna have to be in isolation for a few months anyways, just because his heart was so weak he couldn't catch anything.

So when we wound up having to close OASIS down and move everything online, it actually wound up working out pretty well for us because we would have had to quarantine at home anyways, for his sake.

And um but but but you know, during times like that, yeah, we went from one crisis with our son to a local, regional, national, global crisis with COVID where the world just kind of shut down and it was unprecedented.

And, you know, we're trying to figure out okay, well, how do you how do you have church when you can't have church?

You know, how do you minister to people when you can't touch them, when you can't see them, you can't be around?

So all of those things, you know, just crisis after crisis, but you're completely helpless during that.

There's nothing you can do but lean into God and rely on him.

And I can say on this side of it that God's faithfulness was extreme and extraordinary.

And he made ways and did things that literally no one can take credit for but him.

And he has demonstrated his goodness and his grace and his faithfulness and his love a million times over in a million ways large and small.

But that's why we trust him, right?

Because he's worthy of our trust.

SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And you know, and and as I listen to you talk about this this whole story, and and I and I often think of it is for those who don't know Jesus, who aren't a Christian, I feel so sorry for them because I think how tough it is for us to go through those times and we have God to turn to.

SPEAKER_03: Right.

SPEAKER_04: And for those who are not believers, I just I literally I don't know how they do it.

Yeah, what do you fall back on?

SPEAKER_01: You have nothing, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: Exactly.

Exactly.

Wow, such a powerful story.

So just it it again, it kind of goes back to things I I often is everything in life can change in the blink of an eye.

Yep.

That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_01: Um but but God is good and he makes a way, and um that's well, you know, Kevin, you you know that better than most because of what you've experienced, you know, like you shared your story, you know, last week.

This yeah, this principle, the the idea that if if if we love God and trust God, nothing bad is ever gonna happen to us is not correct.

No.

Nowhere in the Bible does it promise that we're not gonna have difficulty and adversity.

In fact, it says in this life you will have trouble.

Um but it also tells us that God's promised He's never going to leave or forsake us.

Yep.

You know, and that's that's the greatest promise that we have as believers is that we're not, you know, we're not alone in our salvation, in living this life in eternity.

We're not alone because of Christ, uh, we have a guaranteed relationship with God.

Yep.

SPEAKER_04: Yep, absolutely, absolutely.

Oh, wow, so powerful, so powerful.

Well, well, I would love for us to to kind of switch gears a little bit from something so serious to to me, because anybody who's listening to this and they're thinking, man, this this Marcus Buckley, he seems like a pretty cool guy.

I've got to let him know you don't even know, you don't even know Marcus Buckley until you attend a church service.

Because I said, you're the only pastor I know who can incorporate things about hellcats and Dodge chargers and and horsepower and gasoline and and how you can tell an entire story in the Bible in relation to how an engine works.

You are absolutely, I think you are just awesome at that.

And I would love to, where did that love for fast cars and horsepower and all that come from?

SPEAKER_01: Well, it came from my parents.

It came from both of them.

My mom is as big a car net as my dad was.

Um, but they they always had, even before I came into this world, mom had a couple of GTOs in the 60s, dad had Hemi cars back in the day, you know, and and then I came along and they were still having them.

You know, I grew up with Corvettes and Transams and Cutlass 442s and all of that sort of stuff.

So it was like I didn't have a choice.

You know, some of my earliest memories are going to you know auctions where they would, you know, buy a Corvette convertible or something, you know.

So I you know, all their friends were car nuts.

So my grandfather, my mom's dad that I grew up with, actually owned the Texaco station back in the 50s when they had the leather bomber jackets and the tie and the captain's hat.

You know, I've got a great picture of him at his Texaco that he owned standing at the counter.

I think mom said the picture was taken the day he opened it.

You know, and he's got his leather Texaco bomber jacket and his captain's hat kind of cocked to the side.

And you know, so they were all car people.

So I really didn't have a choice.

So but you but you know, everybody's got their thing.

You know, some people like to fish, some people like to golf, some people, you know, like to go out on their boat, whatever it is.

My thing is cars.

Uh, you know, I that's just always been my my hobby, my my thing that I enjoy the most.

And so you always you talk about what you like.

You know, I hear other preachers and they talk about fishing or hunting or you know, golfing or whatever they do, and my thing is just cars.

And so, but what's happened over the years, people who are who are car people really gravitate toward that.

Everybody else kind of tolerates the stories.

Yeah, and so I try to diversify the stories.

Spread it out, but the fact of the matter is, you know, you talk about what you're passionate about.

And um, but but I find that God gives us these passions for a reason, you know, not only for our personal enjoyment, but also to connect with other people with the good news of Christ.

And so I can't tell you how many times over the years I've I've been able to build relationships with people who don't go to church because we went to car shows together, because we went to cruise ins together.

You know, in South Carolina, I had, I don't know how many people would tell everybody that, oh, yeah, Marcus is my pastor and Riverside is my church, and they didn't go, but they would watch online or they'd watch us when we were on TV, or, you know, we'd talk at the car shows, and because they knew me, that was their connection.

And so whatever our passion is, whatever our experiences are, we need to use those as ways to connect people with the gospel.

You know, all the stuff with the FBI, I wound up writing a couple of novels about it.

After I wound up not going, I had some people say, you know, that would make a pretty good story about a preacher that became an FBI agent.

So I initially wrote the first novel back in 2004, and it finally got published in 2019.

And it's called All Have Sinned, and uh it's available on Amazon and anywhere you can buy books, uh, Barnes and Noble.

But I wrote the sequel came out this past year, just a couple months ago, and I'm working on the third one that'll kind of complete this trilogy, but the story will go on.

And the lead characters and a preacher who was recruited by the FBI.

SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna say an eerie similarity to this guy on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: There are definitely some parallels.

And anybody who, if you're a part of my life, there's a good possibility you're gonna recognize one or more of the characters in this series of novels.

And um, but yeah, even in writing them, it was a little bit of a cathartic experience for me, which was great.

But over the course of the years in writing it, because of what happened with the FBI, it opened a lot of doors and opened you know a lot of opportunities in writing this book and meeting a lot of people.

I've been to Langley, the CIA headquarters, several times.

I've been to Secret Service headquarters, I've been to the training facility.

I've got to see and do and a lot of cool things over the years.

And so that you know gets incorporated the non-top secret stuff into the the novels.

But the ultimate goal in writing the novels, one was to write something, because I always loved Tom Clancy stuff growing up.

And um, and over the years I've loved his stuff.

And so, you know, and Vince Flynn, that sort of espionage intrigue.

And and so I wanted to write one that anybody could read and not be ashamed for your kids to read it.

You know, there's no there's no cussing in it.

There's action, there's violence, but it's it it's not over the top, you know, it's nothing that's you know highly offensive.

I will tell you, if you buy either All Have Sinned or Labor of Fools, which was the sequel to it, and and you don't like gunfights and car chases and fist fights and that sort of stuff, you don't want to buy those books.

Um because there's a lot of that.

But there's also a lot of the tension of being a Christian in a world where you have to pull a gun and you may have to shoot someone and you may have to make you know really hard decisions.

Because I have a lot of friends who are either soldiers or federal agents or police officers, things like that.

And um, you know, and that's that are believers, and that's part of the struggle.

Yep.

And so I wanted to incorporate that a little bit into the books too.

So it's a you know, it it's a they're fun reads, they're they're easy reads.

I've gotten really good feedback from people that have read them and and have moved quite a few copies.

It's really kind of cool.

I thought if I sold 10, I'd be I'd be happy and I've sold more than that.

Um but it if you read them, it's just it's good entertainment, it's a fun read, but the gospel is also present in it.

Because my goal is not only to write a book for Christians, but a book that somebody, anybody who's not a believer would read and enjoy it and maybe get exposed to some of the principles of what it means to be a Christian and to see people who are believers in some, although highly elevated real world settings, still some non-church settings, you know.

What do believers do?

You know, what's a believer do when you know you've got a guy that's wanting to use a biological weapon and he's gonna release it unless you put you know two into his chest.

You know, what are you gonna do?

Um and you know, and or you've got you know guys that are that are coming in on you and you don't know their intent other than they've got guns and night vision goggles, and you know, you don't really have time to ask questions.

It you either have to drop them or you're gonna get dropped.

You know, and that's that's the sort of thing that most believers will never have to deal with.

But because I know people who have been in that situation, you know, they've had to put a dot on someone's chest and pull the trigger.

I mean, what was going through your mind, you know, as a believer?

What were you thinking?

You know, and and of course, there's much bigger issues than that.

You know, the we have governing authorities that are put in place by God and they don't bear the sword in vain.

The Bible talks about that.

And well, you know, I can spend an hour talking about just that.

But but still, you know, to make an interesting read, something that's a fun read.

If you like Clancy and Vince Flynn and Patterson and those sort of things, you'd like it.

But also something that that demonstrates the gospel.

Because at the end of the day, that should be the goal of every believer, you know, to share the gospel, whether it's because you like cars or because you you play golf with some people or you're a fisherman, you know, or you write books, whatever the case, whatever the you know, specific of it is, uh it should be with the goal of sharing the good news of Christ with people because he is the best news there is.

He's the ultimate hope we have.

SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.

Amen to that.

Wonderful.

Well, well, Marcus, before I let you go, I would love for you to share, and I'll of course include information, the links.

I'm gonna be sure to also leave links to your books in the show notes.

But tell people, if people are interested, people, whether they live you know around here, central Florida, or maybe they're uh cruising down I-95 at some point.

What where is Oasis Church?

Or or I know they don't even have to actually be there to get to attend the services.

SPEAKER_01: They don't, they don't.

You can get our website is oasischurchfl.com for Florida, oasischurchfl.com.

But we're on right off of Granada, uh State Road 40 in Ormond Beach, exit 268 on 95, or the corner of Timber Creek and 40.

And we have right now we have one service at 10 o'clock, but starting Easter, we're going back to our regular schedule of 9 and 1030.

We started back on that, and so moving forward will be that.

But we had uh we have all of our services online.

We actually do a special service online that's prerecorded and a little more conversational than just watching it from a camera in the back of the room that's available on our Facebook page, which is OasisChurchfl.

And also on YouTube, you can go to youtube.com forward slash OasisChurch FL.

And you can find our regular Sunday services.

You can also find some live services that we record and post up from time to time.

But our website has a lot of information about us, and again, it's oasischurchfl.com.

But we would love for you if you're in the Daytona area to come and join us.

We have people that drive from Deland to come here.

We have folks that drive from New Smyrna, folks that drive from Palm Coast.

So people come from, you know, 30, 40 minutes away and come to Oasis.

Now, I'll also say there's a lot of great churches in our area, and I'm friends with a lot of these pastors.

Uh, I brag about these other churches all the time.

And this great church.

So we're not the only one that's that's faithfully serving God, but I'm biased.

I love Oasis.

It's a it's a great group of people.

It's a non-denominational church, but we are pretty theologically conservative.

We're we believe the scriptures to be the inerrant, infallible word of God.

I mostly when I preach, I'm preaching verse by verse through books of the Bible.

We kind of do it in big chunks like that, but it's very relevant.

You know, it's one thing to know the scripture, but we also have to know how it applies to our lives.

So you got to have that sort of connection.

We have a tremendous worship team led by Jordan Hargrave, our worship leader, does an amazing job, a lot of gifted musicians there that do such a great job leading us in worship every week.

Our our youth pastor, Nate Carr, just does an incredible job with students.

Uh, they meet on on Sunday evenings, and there's a ton of them.

I mean, they'll run a hundred students on on Sunday nights from all over our area.

Uh, have a great children's ministry that that meets during Sunday morning times.

So come at 9 and 10:30, we've got children's programs going on for both services.

So a lot for a lot of a little have a lot for everybody.

We have small groups, but people can find out, like I said, more about that on uh Facebook.

We're also on Instagram, YouTube, and our website.

But you can find it all by Oasis Church FL.

SPEAKER_04: Well, I have to just back all that up as as a uh member of Oasis.

I don't know.

There's a lot of churches in the area, but I don't know.

Ours is pretty darn good.

SPEAKER_01: So like I said, I'm biased, you know.

But I I you know we've got some great churches, great pastors, but I'm I'm pretty biased.

I think Oasis is is really a special place, that's for sure.

That's great place filled with with great people.

And it's and it really is not a week goes by that you know we just don't marvel at what God is doing.

Uh just just really some extraordinary stuff.

SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.

And I think that kind of sums up today's uh episode is is God is good.

Yes, he is.

Marcus, thank you.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: Kevin, thanks for having me, bud.

Appreciate you having me on your show.

God bless you, buddy.

SPEAKER_04: Okay, thank you.

Hey guys, this is Kevin.

I just wanted to pop in real quick.

Wow, is Marcus not awesome or what?

I absolutely love the guy, and well, I hope you do too.

Remember, all of the mentioned links will be in the episode show notes.

And I do also welcome you to please be sure to go check out the new website for the podcast.

That's simply www.thelowdown with KevinLowe.com, where you can find all of today's episode's information as well as so much more.

So, anyways, I hope you have an awesome day and look forward to seeing you next.

SPEAKER_00: And that's the lowdown with Kevin Lowe.

Don't forget to check out the show notes for all of today's mentioned delay.