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The men's Bible study that meets Thursday mornings at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, looks more like a Promise Keepers event than a 6 A.M. church meeting. A line of cars streams into the parking lot, and the church gymnasium quickly fills with men who are not ashamed to pray in public or tip their hats to Jesus.

What brings 400-plus guys out each week to study God's Word? A desire for spiritual growth, for sure. But it probably doesn't hurt that this Bible study (which is officially called The Next Level) is led by one of the nation's most popular Christian writers and a former NBA superstar.

Max Lucado, who is senior minister at Oak Hills Church, was hailed as "America's Pastor" by Christianity Today last year. His folksy storytelling and penetrating insights about the grace of God have sold more than 40 million books since 1985. Two years ago, when his friend David Robinson was retiring from the NBA's San Antonio Spurs, Lucado asked him if he'd be interested in joining the Oak Hills staff. After initially dismissing the idea, Robinson prayed about it and realized God was calling.

	"Spiritually speaking, we all face the same temptations, whether we're famous or not."—David Robinson

At 7-foot-1, Robinson is a lot bigger in real life than he appeared on the TV screen when he dunked and swatted balls among other hard-court giants. He fills a room—not only with his treelike stature but also with his warm smile and uncontainable passion for God. Though retired from basketball, he's still an impact player. In addition to serving as minister at large at Oak Hills Church, Robinson also can be found keeping watch over the young students at Carver Academy, the innovative Christian school that he launched in inner-city San Antonio (see "Mr. Robinson's New Neighborhood" at the bottom of this article).

I caught up with Lucado and Robinson between Bible studies, school meetings, and book-writing sabbaticals, to talk about their partnership, the dangers of celebrity, and what they see as the biggest challenges facing believers today.

How did the two of you become friends?

David: When I first came to San Antonio as an NBA rookie in 1989, the church was located right down the street from my apartment. After I got saved in 1991, I started attending the Sunday-evening service. I used to sit in the back and listen to Max speak. It was an informal service with a lot of storytelling, which I soon learned was Max's style. And that was when we first got to know each other.

Then I started picking up some of Max's books. I think the first one I read was Six Hours One Friday, and I loved it. It gave me a real sense of his genuineness, because when you see a leader who's the same in person as he is on paper and from the pulpit, that's kind of nice.

Max: David is one of the most unusual and fascinating people I've ever met. He's intellectually gifted, musically talented, a distinguished graduate of the Naval Academy. He's one of the most successful NBA players in history, and yet he's a genuinely humble man. If I had all the success that he's had, I think my head would be rather big, but he stays grounded and on his knees. Try getting him to talk about the awards he's won, and the conversation lasts for about 30 seconds. But ask him about the Lord or about [his wife] Valerie and their three boys, and he'll talk your ears off. He's a special man, and I knew having him on staff would be a wonderful thing for our church.

What unique gifts do each of you bring to the church?

Max: Believe it or not, I'm more of an introvert. That's why I like to write. I'm more of a student, a reader, a reflector. I'm not really good at the public side of church life—shaking hands, meeting lots of people, kissing babies. I love to pastor in the private moments, when people are in need.

David is the opposite. He loves talking to people. He's very good at reaching out, putting people at ease, and getting them charged up about the Lord.

	"We have a running announcement in our bulletin that says 'We are here to worship God.'"—Max Lucado

What is it like to have a former NBA star and a famous author at the same church? I would imagine you get a lot of curious visitors each Sunday.

Max: We have a running announcement in our bulletin that says "We're here to worship God. If you see somebody of distinction, we ask you to be considerate and think about it in the context of being in God's house."

We don't encourage a starstruck environment. For instance, I don't sign any books on Sundays. But we've arranged a system where visitors can drop off their books at the information desk, and I'll sign them during the week and have them mailed back to our guests. I don't want the church service or even the meeting-and-greeting time to be an admiration society.

But when you're standing up there in the pulpit, do you sometimes struggle with the temptation to think, "Well, maybe I am all that"?

Max: I try hard not to. Our philosophy at this church has always been to preach like there's a broken heart in every pew, and I think as long as you do that, then you're going to be like Jesus. He didn't let either the smallness of the crowd or the adulation of the masses take His focus off of the mission of declaring the gospel.

David, you said you didn't become a Christian until two years after you entered the NBA. What was your spiritual journey like?

David: My mother took me to church when I was a kid, but I went kicking and screaming. Then when I got to college, I decided I wasn't going anymore. What changed me was something that happened during my second year in the league. There was a gentleman who came up to me at the arena where we were playing and told me that a bunch of people had been praying for me, and that he felt the Lord wanted him to speak with me. So we talked, and that was the day—June 8, 1991—that I came face to face with God. It was the first time in my life that I realized God is real.

I used to always say I believed in God, but I never did anything about it. It's like a human relationship: you can say you love somebody all you want to, but if you don't do anything about it, then it means nothing. But that was the first day that I felt like, Here's this Father of mine who's been taking care of me my whole life, and I've never thanked Him, or honored Him, or given Him the respect He deserves.

	"Over the years, as people saw that I was consistent, I think it made an impact."—David Robinson

So I said, "From this day on everything I have is Yours, Lord. Wherever You go, I'll go. Whatever You have me do, I'll do. Whatever You want me to say, I'll say." He gave me this insatiable hunger to read His Word all the time, and I discovered that it was like a love letter from God. This was during the summer, in-between NBA seasons, and I would stay in my house all day, just preaching to the wall.

Everybody started grumbling that I was crazy, including my mother, who had dragged me to church all those years. She came in and asked me, "Did you join some sort of cult? What's wrong with you?" But I was just falling in love with God.

What was it like for you when the NBA season resumed?

David: My teammates didn't believe I was saved; they thought it was just a phase I was going through. Those are the times when you need to stand strong. That's why all that time I had spent diving into God's Word was so important.

When I faced those guys on my team and other players in the league, I was ready to be an example. Instead of being influenced, I was the one beginning to influence others.

You've always had such a clean image. But you, too, struggled with the temptations of fame and riches.

David: It's funny how you can lie to yourself and say, "I'm a good guy. I can handle this stuff." But after a while, you begin to see that you're not handling it so well. You start doing things that everybody else is doing, things you said you would never do. And that was where I found myself.

I didn't like where I was. I didn't like who I was becoming at that time. There was nothing about me that was really any different from anybody else. I would look at Michael Jordan on TV and think, That's where I want to go. That's the success I want. But deep inside, I knew something was missing.

There's been a lot written lately about spoiled and misbehaving professional athletes. From an insider's perspective, is it as bad as it looks from the outside?

David: No matter who you are, the opportunities are there to mess up. But I don't know how much worse it is for a pro athlete than for other people. Sure, there are a lot of women willing to give themselves to athletes. But nowadays the ordinary guy has unlimited access to all types of pornographic content and chat rooms on the Internet. It's the same thing. It's the same temptation. Either you're going to stand strong, or you're going to give in. So, spiritually speaking, I think we all face the same temptations, whether we're famous or not.

Of course, one of the unique pitfalls for pro athletes is the combination of opportunity and money. If you've got the money and you've got the time, you really have to stay focused to avoid trouble.

Once your teammates and others realized that you weren't just "going through a phase," how did they respond to your newfound faith?

David: Initially, they wanted to get away from me. They didn't want me to see them doing bad things. I had to let them know that I wasn't there to judge them, that I was rather there to encourage them and love them. And that was one of the first things that the Lord taught me: Don't get into people's faces and act like you're God. He just wanted me to love my teammates. So, I felt like my job in that locker room was to be an encourager, someone who could show guys who didn't want to think about God that I still cared about them. Over the years, as people saw that I was consistent, I think it made an impact. I've had guys whom I didn't have the best relationship with during our playing days call me up years later to talk.

The two of you teach a men's Bible study called The Next Level. What has it been like to do a tag-team ministry like that?

Max: When we started last year, David believed God wanted us to do the study with very little teaching but a whole lot of Bible reading. And the preacher in me was thinking, We can't get these men up at six in the morning, offer them nothing but coffee, and just have them sit there and listen to us read the Bible for 45 minutes. But you know what? I really began to see that God was in it. We've had a consistent attendance of 400 guys every Thursday morning. They value that time in God's Word. And I see God using David to guide it.

As you look at the needs and struggles facing the people that you minister to, what kinds of issues are on your radar screens?

David: One thing that stands out to me right now is the importance of family, probably because it's what I'm dealing with myself. There's a huge attack on families today, and it's not just the overt assaults of divorce and kids getting into drugs and all those things. Rather, there's a huge undercurrent of husbands and wives, parents and children who are simply not learning to love one another as God wants them to. That's been a huge burden on my heart, because I'm the one who had the NBA career that pulled me away from my house for 14 years. I'm just now getting back into the habit of being at home, and I'm having to learn how to love my wife and kids more.

When you're gone all the time, you just can't nurture those family relationships the way you need to. And I see this happening with men and women all the time. They're not bad people. They're not cheating on their spouses or being abusive. But they're not nurturing those relationships either.

Max: Last Thursday morning, after the Bible study, a man came up to me to talk. He was in shock because after 23 years of marriage his wife wants to leave him. He never saw it coming. That kind of thing is so common.

Looking down the road, where do you see God taking your ministries?

Max: I've realized that my life is about the message of Christ, so what I do both from the pulpit and in books is to give shape to that message. Whatever happens with my writing, I think I'll always want to be a teacher. There could come a day when I retire as senior minister, but I think even then I'd want to stay here at Oak Hills Church. Maybe they'll let me teach a Sunday school class or something.

David: I look forward to continuing at the church and strengthening the work being done at Carver Academy, the school that I work with (see p. 22). For me, retiring from basketball wasn't an ending; it was a transition to the next challenge. Even during my NBA career, God was always pulling me forward and letting me know that He had other work for me to do.

Edward Gilbreath is managing editor of TC.

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