You are all welcome. We are back. This is the Ministry of Reconciliation podcast. Today we have a special guest with a special topic. He is Mr. Eric Robinson. Now important people usually don't ask them to introduce themselves. We first say whatever little we have. So Mr. Eric Robinson is a retired FBI special agent, former Baptist pastor, SWAT team veteran, and many others. Yes, you are highly, highly welcome, Eric.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much, Emmanuel. I got to do a lot of things over the well my adult life so far, and now into that third stage of authoring after having spent my time as a pastor and then twice as long as an FBI. So glad people like to listen to these stories.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I am really excited. I would like to learn, but I I think so many people in our audience are looking forward really to hearing and learning more from you. I have seen many people they transition the other way around. They start with these other special roles, then they end up in church. My late father being one of them. He was a police officer, then went into a Christian. Yeah, it's quite quite different. Before you answer, I want to re-emphasize that all positions, ideally, they serve God, so no criticism. But um I would like to know why what made you shift from pastoral ministry to such a special mission.
SPEAKER_00Well, if you spoke to your father at all about ministry, I would assume that he'd tell you that it's very stressful. Working with people and dealing with their problems can be very stressful. And for me, it was it was more than I was able to handle. So I enjoyed ministry. I enjoyed getting to preach, getting to work with people, but the problem I had was I was incapable of separating other people's problems from holding on to them myself. So someone like your father obviously knew how to do that. I could not. And it came to a point for me where even though our church was growing, people's lives were being changed, I had had stress-related headaches every single day for two straight years. And it just got to a point where my body was telling me I had to stop, and I was afraid what would happen if I just kept pushing even further, what my body was gonna do to get my attention. So I came to a point where I had to get a job with less stress, and so that's why I joined the FBI.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that is something that it was very unique. And do you feel like God inspired you to join the FBI? Do you feel like he was with you in that mission as well?
SPEAKER_00Well, definitely with me in that mission, and and I really appreciate how you kicked this off because obviously working in the church, I was doing God's work. That's that's clear. But then in the FBI, I had a chaplain that worked with us who confirmed what I felt was true, and that was working in the FBI was also God's work because the church can help you in so many ways, support, pray, even raise money for someone. But if you are harmed, the church can't be there to bring justice in the way that law enforcement can. So bringing about justice was in many ways also doing God's work, filling a a role for something that God wants for people here on earth.
SPEAKER_01Now you are retired, so you must have had very wonderful lessons. Would you mind sharing one of them with us?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. So when I joined the FBI, I I preached my last sermon in the church on Easter Sunday, 2002. The next Sunday I was in the FBI Academy. The Sunday after that I was preaching in the FBI Academy because they didn't have a chaplain, they needed me to fill in. And I was just trying to take in not just what it's like to be in law enforcement, but this huge organization of the FBI and all the administrative policies and how how things get done. And so while I'm a person who'd never handled a gun before and I'm watching other people do much better, and I and I'm trying to pick all this up, it took a while for me to adjust. But once I got into the field, now I had to leg up on them because I had spent 12 years studying people, working with people, knowing how to draw them out, how to treat people with compassion, and so that was effective in dealing with criminals, drawing out victims and and informants and making sure they feel safe. And so a lot of these principles that I had in ministry absolutely came into play when I was working as a special agent.
SPEAKER_01Do you feel like there are some giftings that you obt had obtained in church leadership that you might have carried along into the FBI profession?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. There were so in the FBI we've got, you know, we've got the guns and we've got the training and we have legal process and we've got technology to do special things, but eventually every case comes down person to person, whether that's interviewing witnesses or confronting the criminals. And so all those principles that I had in knowing how to reach people came into play at some point in every investigation. And so it helped me develop informants well. And I think what I did as a pastor was to build trust with people, and now I'm asking men and women to trust me to do some dangerous things or or go outside of their comfort zone. So so much of those principles carried over.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. And and then I would want to request you to share with us if you ever felt that God was more closer to you in some cases. Did you feel like you had left him behind?
SPEAKER_00No, absolutely. I didn't feel like I'd left him behind. The decision to leave the church to leave as a pastor and join a different profession was difficult for me because it felt purposeful. It felt like this was something I was called to do, and I did it well. But it w it was just came down to that, those headaches every day. And in working in the FBI, I felt like God was there. It it was interesting because my father used to tell me as we would discuss theology, and he's a believer too. You know, he would tell me, Hey Eric, it's not that simple. You know, you when you work in the church, you're you're isolated, you're in a bubble. There's a lot of things that go on in the real world. And then when I joined the FBI, I I realized uh the old man was right. There's so much more that goes on, and so it expanded my appreciation of where God can be seen and would be working in the world than just beyond inside of a church.
SPEAKER_01Have you ever regretted a decision you made?
SPEAKER_00No. In fact, I I felt like in many ways that the FBI was an excellent fit for me. It felt natural. I mean, I could still be a believer and now do something else too. So there's times where I look back at being a pastor and I think kind of how you look back at an ex-girlfriend, you're like, oh, we had some good times. And then you realize why you broke up with her and you're like, oh no, but we're better off not being together. But it just it was so hard for me to to deal with psychically and emotionally. So I wouldn't mind going back and preaching every now and then, but the the whole aspect of dealing with people it was just too tough for me.
SPEAKER_01I've enjoyed your someone way that you were saving. Yeah, that would have been unique. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh when you're a pastor, you're you're looking for you're looking for uh sermon stories and examples, and now I've got a thousand of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Real ones. Sorry for for anyone in the pastoral ministry who may be looking at this negatively, but I think I think that would have been a great moment. Before I move you to the next section, I have some curiosity. Did you at some point ever chase somebody? I mean, like monitor somebody inside a church.
SPEAKER_00Well, it was in I'm trying to think what year, 2000 and maybe 16, 17, where I was asked to help out on a friend's case. We were doing the post-arrest interrogation of three pastors who were involved in a sex trafficking ring. And so because he and I would speak the same language, I was asked to interrogate one of the pastors. And I had prepared, this is years after being a minister, I prepared a very literal come to Jesus sermon where I'm going through and I've got I've got the evidence from the case and I'm memorizing that, but I'm also putting together Bible verses to appeal to this pastor of getting right with God and confessing your sins and trying to convince him to admit to what he's done. And as he explained who I was and and my pastoral, I I was going through some of these Bible verses, and he said, Hey man, I'm gonna stop you right there. I'll talk with you, but I don't want to bring Jesus into this. And that was very telling of how he had lived his life too, because he had those times in the church where he's preaching and he's doing God's work and he's a man of God. And then there was the human side of him that was engaging with an underage girl that, well, Jesus is isn't allowed in this part of his life, and now we saw it in this discussion of he doesn't want that shame or or the light of Jesus being part of this. He's just gonna talk about the legal position, not the spiritual part.
SPEAKER_01Yes, and now we I would like to take you into leadership. How would you differentiate church leadership from the funeral leadership?
SPEAKER_00Well, there's traditional ideas of leadership where you know, here's this person in this position and then one below them and down from there. And then there's the idea of leadership where people step up where they need to along the way. And you know, of course I saw that in church. I was the the senior pastor, but also I'm depending upon others in the church to make decisions and to lead certain groups. And in the FBI, there's many cases where I was the one leading, I'm the one in charge, I'm the one calling the shots. And then on someone else's case, I'm not doing that, but I'm ready to be able to lead in maybe in this solitary instance, just one decision here, and I needed to be competent, much like my colleagues, the other agents needed to be that even if they weren't in charge in this event, that they could make that decision competently individually. And as a SWOT operator, that would come up all the time. We have our plan in collaboration with the other operators, the the leaders of the team are deciding how we're going to approach tactically, and then I would find myself holding down a hallway and everyone else clearing rooms behind me, and then when they came to me, now I'm leading, I'm making the call for what's coming up next. So each of us had to be prepared to lead in distinct and discrete areas, even if we weren't the ones in charge.
SPEAKER_01We have uh very little time remaining, and uh they are great insights I would like you to share with us about leadership, effective leadership. Before that, it would be nice to hear about your book and where people can find it.
SPEAKER_00Well, they can find it right over my left shoulder here. So that was my Father's Day present. Uh my book is called Irreverend, from Saving Souls to Chasing Sinners in the FBI. It will come out in October, and it's it's the story of a man who was in a Baptist pulpit one day and in the FBI the next day. And so that thread of ministry runs through that memoir, my story. I approached criminals, victims, I approached the people that I worked with as the same person who was a pastor, and it's full of uh some pretty exciting stories, I think, along the way. I worked two cases that won the attorney general's award. I've worked with teen prostitutes, fought with bank robbers, investigated drug cartels, gang members in Chicago, so many different things. So there's a lot in there, and I think it's the kind of thing that people can read the book and go, I can identify with that. I think I could do that too.
SPEAKER_01Dedigation. How can leaders lead effectively today?
SPEAKER_00I have strong opinions here, and I think that leaders so often think that leading is getting people to do what they want to do. But from my experience, true leading is bringing out the best of your workers, the people that you are entrusted with. It begins with having people that you have confidence in. And then if you believe in these people, then letting them take charge and to move ahead and s simply supplying them with the equipment and the resources that they need. So in a group like the FBI, where I was surrounded by competent, professional, creative, intelligent people, leadership meant giving them the resources they need to just carry out their task because they were dedicated to it in the first place. So maybe leadership and what you're asking is developing people to be the ones who are self-started, motivated, dedicated, and then just getting out of the way and giving them what they need to get that job done.
SPEAKER_01If you were to uh develop the capacity of pastors and pastoral leadership, uh how what would you focus on most?
SPEAKER_00I would focus most on emphasizing showing kindness, charity, and love to people, to listening and accepting. I don't know how the Christian church is in in your country in the United States. We've gone in an unfortunate direction of promoting uh right over wrong as opposed to love over uh hatred or condemnation. And so I used to practice a principle of saying I'm speaking the truth in love, and the love part was implicitly uh I'm speaking the truth and my love is setting you right so that you can know the truth too. And I've gotten to a point to realize that that is so often judgmental. And so now I just love and we we can get to the truth together, but in America the church is too often quick to condemn people rather than to embrace them.
SPEAKER_01We are getting close to concluding uh this episode. But before we go ahead, what do you think is the reason crime seems to increase in many parts of the world?
SPEAKER_00I think most people do not have a desire to commit crime. Many times what I saw was, and certainly there were people who just were selfish and would commit crime because they don't care. I think oftentimes crime is carried out because options and opportunities are limited for these people. If you had a good job that you love and a family that supported you and resources that you needed, very few people are going to carry out many crimes if they have what they need. So it's from my experience, the prostitutes were desperate, the drug dealers had limited options, gang members the same. So there's so much there that comes out of a lack and maybe a lack of understanding where else people might see their needs met.
SPEAKER_01What would be your advice to uh uh people starving with different government visions, especially those in intelligence around the world?
SPEAKER_00I I thank them for what I got to do, and I know for myself and probably for many of them, they earning a job for your family, I've always told my kids, is a noble process. It doesn't matter what you're doing. If you earn money to support your family, that's noble. And if you get to do something that also betters society, it's it's you're doubly blessed, you're doubly living a noble life. So I know for me and I think for them, it just appreciate the fact that you get to earn a living and then also do it, doing it by supporting your country too. So I was fortunate, they're fortunate too. For me, I've always believed that people are entrusted with their families and then beyond, you know, the extended family. And if you can influence friends and maybe even into your community to do well, now you're doing good things. So having spent time focused on my career, still trying to support my family and be there for them. Now I'm coming back to help out my kids as they've grown up and be even more present with them. So I'm glad that as I'm retired, I have a chance to do that. And your final word of wisdom to our audience and my final word of wisdom to the audience is throughout my career in the FBI, there was never a time where I regretted showing curiosity, where I could stop, not believe that I had all the answers, but instead be open to change and to listen. I didn't have to change, but being open to it and hearing what other people had to say is never something I regretted. Thank you so much. It's been great having you here on the Ministry of Reconciliation podcast and your already spoken. Thank you so much, Emmanuel.