The son of Dr. Tony Evans recently delivered a message, telling the congregation at Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship that his father didn’t share the nature of his unnamed sin any more than he did with the entire church. Johnathan, who’s helped his father in ministry, is a former NFL fullback and a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary. Tony Evans, who founded Oak Cliff in 1976, recently stepped down from ministry due to an unspecified sin he committed a “number of years ago” and that he was going to enter “a healing and restoration process established by the elders.”
Church Leaders reported that during his message, Jonathan told the congregation, which has a weekly attendance of 10,000 people, that he was grateful for his father. Jonathan Evans, who serves as OCBF’s Associate Pastor of the NextGen Ministry, said at the start of his sermon, “My dad has been there for all of my challenges. He’s been there for a lot of y’all’s challenges. Whether it’s counseling, preaching, radio, some of y’all’s YouTube, whatever medium has been, he’s been there. So, it’s an honor for me to return the favor.” He shares that he has been asked several times about how he has felt since his father stepped down. Jonathan said, “Let me tell you, I feel like we’ve already won.”
He continued, “I feel like we’re on offense, not defense. I feel like we already have victory. I feel like [God’s] Word is true. I feel like he’s going to finish the work that he started. I feel like if it’s not good yet, God’s not done yet. All things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purposes. I feel like just because it’s a shock to you, it doesn’t mean it’s a shock to him.” Jonathan preached, “I feel like we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. I don’t feel conquered. I feel like we have already won. And so I have to go, not based on just the circumstances, but based on the reality of the Savior because [God’s] Word is true.”
The pastor’s son asserted that the church will “celebrate a victory” when his father returns to the pulpit. He asked, “And so what are we going to do? We’re gonna play offense. We’re gonna go and do and be what God has called us to go and do and be. And when he returns, when my dad returns, when that time comes, we gonna celebrate a victory we already knew beforehand that we had.”
When it came to his father’s sin, Jonathan said that Evans told his family the “exact same thing he told you. No more. No less.” Less than 24 hours after Evans made his announcement of stepping away, Jonathan said his father called him, saying he needed him to preach for him. Jonathan replied, “Okay.”
In his statement, Evans said that throughout this season of restoration and healing, he will be “a worshiper” with the rest of the OCBF congregants and looks “forward to seeing all that God is going to continue doing to make his name great as we continue to build kingdom disciples, who function as kingdom servants, in order to make a kingdom impact as [God] advances his kingdom agenda at OCBF.”