Fishers of Men and Cowboys

Mike McGee, M.D., devotes his full-time time to pastoring Happy Acres Cowboy Church. He shares his journey from being a surgeon in Tulsa, OK to serving as a missionary in Nigeria and how his experiences there deeply impacted him. McGee also discusses his work in Niger, where he helped improve healthcare delivery by providing tools, training, and a morale boost to the medical community in that nation.

Dr. McGee also shares his current work with the church which includes building a best in its class rodeo arena. He emphasizes the importance of evangelism and reaching out to people with the gospel message using all possible means and methods.

Transcript

Fishers of Men and Cowboys
Guest: Pastor Mike McGee, M.D.
Season 3, Episode 21


Ric Shields (00:00):

Welcome to the DoorWays® Ministry Network podcast. 

Thank you for joining us on this episode. I'm Ric Shields, and I serve as the host of this program and as the director of the DoorWays® Ministry Network.

(00:19):

I'm speaking today with my friend Dr. Mike McGee, who I first met in 1986 when he was a surgeon at the City of Faith Hospital and Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dr. McGee, do you know it was that long ago when we first met?

Dr. Mike McGee (00:34):

No, that was way last century. Not possible.

Ric Shields (00:37):

It's actually you performed gallbladder surgery on my father whose gallbladder had ruptured. And yeah, you did that. And shortly afterwards, as I recall, you and Janine left for a two-year assignment. Was it in Nigeria?

Dr. Mike McGee (00:54):

I went to one year assignment from September to September. Our oldest daughter was nine months old, and our, her grandparents had a hard time forgiving us for taking her away at that age. And now I understand on the flip side of that.

Ric Shields (01:10):

Yeah. Because your grandkids are in Idaho.

Dr. Mike McGee (01:12):

Yeah, I know. Well, most of them, two of them. And I got one here.

Ric Shields (01:15):

Oh, yeah, that's right. So, Idaho is not quite as far as Nigeria, but it's still, it's still a separation. It's tough.

Dr. Mike McGee (01:23):

It is.

Ric Shields (01:24):

Well, when you returned to Tulsa, as I recall, you re-engaged in the medical community as a general surgeon, but your time in Nigeria had a big impact on you. I recall one time you telling me that, that there was a time you could look to the northern border of Nigeria and see the country of Niger. It's one of the poorest and least developed countries in Africa, if not in the world. Yeah. Your heart was drawn to that place. Why do you think that was the case?

Dr. Mike McGee (01:54):

Well, I think God had plans for us. You know, you don't always see his plans all the time. You think you know everything, but, but no, it just, he touched my heart with that. It put a little seed in my heart and planted seeds in us, and it takes some time for them to germinate. But yeah, it planted that seed and that kind of floated around for several years before I actually ever got there. And that seed is still growing in my heart.

Ric Shields (02:17):

So, did you know anything about Niger? You just saw that it was there and thought, man, I'd like to get over there. Yeah. But you couldn't.

Dr. Mike McGee (02:25):

Right.

Ric Shields (02:25):

So, you developed a deep friendship with a missionary who was in Niger, Brent Teague. I interviewed him on the podcast just a couple of weeks ago. Great episode. You also found a friend in Charity Harris, another missionary, who has had a huge heart for Africa. What did those relationships mean then, for your call to Africa?

Dr. Mike McGee (02:48):

Well, the first time I heard the word Nigeria, I was a teenager at the First Baptist Church in Miami, Oklahoma. Our pastor had gone on a trip to Nigeria and back and showed slides and talked about the harvest and what was going on. And so early on that, that seed was planted.

(03:06):

I met charity after that, after that first trip to Africa. And we'd been back and in practice I met Charity at and Ruth at Carbondale Assembly of God. They would come on Wednesday nights, because on Sundays he would be out raising money to build churches and to plant churches and hold crusades in different places in West Africa. Not just Niger, but Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast and Mali.

(03:30):

But on Wednesday night, they'd come to church and eat dinner and stay for, for the service. And Janine was off in the choir someplace. And I would go in by myself and I'd see them, and I thought, well, I'll go talk to them. And it just became quite a, a thing. I'd meet them nearly every Wednesday and hear the stories about Africa and hear the stories about what was going on.

(03:50):

And early on in those times I asked him to pray for my youngest daughter, Lydia. We had adopted her, and there was some question of whether she was Native American or not. So, they prayed with us and kind of joined with us and kind of got acquainted with Lydia as a baby and just never let go. And so that leads on into later on, we talked about the Cowboy Church, how, how some of those connections got through with Charity and Ruth.

Ric Shields (04:16):

So, let's get there in a little bit. Dr. McGee, I've often told people that God used you to improve the delivery of healthcare in Niger or Niger. You helped to provide tools and equipment for training and a morale boost for the medical community in a country that's 6,100 miles away by air and a few hundred years behind most of the world. What does it mean to you to think back on those days?

Dr. Mike McGee (04:44):

Well, I, it was exciting to be a part of that privilege to be a part of that. But we would drive by, I remember on some of the early trips that I took with charity Brent would be in the car. We would talk about what we're going to do for the day. And we'd drive by the hospital. And it was, of course, the name on it was in French. I didn't know what it was. I said, what is that place? They said, oh, that's the national hospital. And Brent said, would you like to go have a tour? And I said, yeah, I'd like that. So, they arranged that. 

Ric Shields (05:11):

Of course. Yeah. <laugh>, you're a physician in another country. It would be fun to see what that looks like.

Dr. Mike McGee (05:15):

Yeah. He arranged it. We went in, met the chief surgeon who was a Muslim, and a great guy. And he had political connections. His uncle was the president of the country. And so that helps in African country. That makes it, that's really good while he's in power. But when he is not in power anymore, that's not so good.

Ric Shields (05:36):

<Laugh>. It's really rough. <Laugh>. Yeah.

Dr. Mike McGee (05:38):

So anyway, he showed me around and we just kind of hit it off. And he's speaking French and I'm trying to talk through Brent as an interpreter. And I realized pretty quickly that they're very knowledgeable. They're very well trained. Many of them trained in Russia. Many of them trained in France. But they know the stuff. They're on the internet. They know all the latest things, the newest ideas. They just don't have any stuff. They don't have suture; they don't have mesh. They don't have staplers. They don't have any of the things that we use constantly all day long. So, I realized that if I brought them stuff, I would be a rock star. So <laugh>, I'd bring a suitcase or tooth full of stuff.

(06:17):

At Hillcrest, the administrator, I was talking to him about getting some actual tools, you know, some surgical instruments. And he said, well, you know, we're going to get new laparoscopic towers. Why don't you take them one of these old laparoscopic towers? It still works. I said, yeah, that'd be great. He said, you can't carry this in your suitcase, can you? No, no. I said, he said, well, we have an international account with somebody, FedEx or something. He said, would you let me ship it over there? I said, oh, yes sir. I sure would.

Ric Shields (06:47):

Yes, I would.

Dr. Mike McGee (06:47):

<Laugh>. And I took pictures of the back of it, pictures of the front, and you got to, young people don't understand what I'm getting ready to say. But it was like putting a stereo together. It was like <laugh>

Ric Shields (06:57):

What?!?!

Dr. Mike McGee (06:58):

Great combo. Neither Brent nor I had much knowledge of any of those things. But with the pictures, we pieced it together and then we sort of stood back and plugged it in really thinking it might explode <laugh>. And it worked. So we were, we were thankful. And I think, I think we may have done the first laparoscopic surgery in West Africa. I'm not absolutely sure of that, but I think that's the case.

(07:19):

And they, they were such quick learners, and we would show them these things and they'd pick it up and go with it. It was exciting to be a part of it. And yeah, I think, I think I encouraged him, but they encouraged me too, it was a, it's always a two-way street.

Ric Shields (07:33):

You're listening to the DoorWays® Ministry Network podcast. My name is Ric Shields, and I'm joined on this episode with my friend Dr. Mike McGee. He retired as a general surgeon in order to give his full-time energies to a cowboy church in mountains, Oklahoma.

(07:49):

Now, how did you, pardon the pun here. How did you get roped into starting a cowboy church?

Dr. Mike McGee (07:55):

Yeah, well, God. We, on that, I mentioned Lydia a minute ago. My youngest daughter and charity would, would come when she started doing junior rodeos and hang out with us and watch her run. And, and we'd talk to the people. And, and they're not anti-God, they're not, they don't hate God. They just don't go to church. because They're always rodeoing. And so, they just don't know the stuff. And so, we kept saying to each other, we need to build a cowboy church.

(08:19):

Finally, when he couldn't get on a plane to go to Africa, somewhere around, oh, 2011, 2012, somewhere in there he prayed about it and we'd been praying about it. But he prayed and he said, I have been praying earnestly and God's told me to build a cowboy church. And I was already in, you know? And I said, yeah, yeah. Where have you been? <Laugh>

Ric Shields (08:40):

<Laugh> Welcome.

Dr. Mike McGee (08:41):

Yeah. And so, we got together and put some money in. We didn't know where to put it. There's just a several little miracles of how we got the place and on the place. The Boys Ranch leased some ground to us, and ultimately, they gave us the land. So, the 40 acres, the church and arena are given to us by the

Ric Shields (09:00):

Board. That's miraculous.

Dr. Mike McGee (09:02):

Yeah. And we had great deals cost or less for the steel for different things. Carbondale helped a lot of people, helped. Money came in from all sorts of places. And you know, it's just what, what we say all the time, if God tells you to do something, you take the first step, then he provides all the rest. And it was that way. We just said, okay, yes sir. And we did it.

(09:24):

We started, and I'm sitting here today in the, in the sanctuary. We built a sanctuary later as we got a little bigger, but we built the arena first and began events. And then we were able to meet there for church.

(09:40):

It's a very unusual situation in that many times, a cowboy church will start up and they'll look for a place, and they'll ask an existing arena if they can meet there in an off time, you know, and, and they'll let them and pay a little rent or something. But we're the other way around. The church owns the arena and everything that happens in the arena or on the property, we consider our church. And so that's great.

(10:03):

The whole point is to evangelism. We kind of built a street out there called the arena, and we're street preachers. And we, every, every event, we, myself or one of the other guys, we'll talk to them for three to five minutes. because I've been told they have short attention spans. Kind of like me.

Ric Shields (10:20):

Hey, listen, I was there just a few weeks ago. I had to leave early I'd, I'd had laparoscopic meniscus repair. And while I was trying to get into the bleachers it didn't go so well. I tweaked that knee and boy, I, I was hurting. So, I had to leave early. But I stayed through the short devotional that you gave. And Mike, I got to tell you, I was really impressed at again, how God is using you with a heart of a pastor, a guy who's been, and, and if you ask me if you're in the field of medicine anyway, you've got the heart. You've got a healer's heart. So, I'm not, I'm not surprised you had a heart of a pastor, but to hear the simplicity with how you presented the gospel message and to see how many people responded I was, I was pretty impressed with that. And thankful, grateful to God. Yeah, that was, that was cool. It really was.

(11:12):

So, you know, Cowboy Churches aren't new. I mean, you weren't like the first church in the area. They are others.

Dr. Mike McGee (11:19):

Oh, they're all over the place. Yeah.

Ric Shields (11:21):

So, what makes the Crossbar Arena so unique among other rodeo arenas in the area?

Dr. Mike McGee (11:28):

Well, we're in, we're covered. We're indoors. We're not air conditioned and heated like the state fairgrounds. But when we shut the doors in the winter, we're 20 degrees warmer than outside. And in the when it's hot, we can turn fans on and we have insulated or you know, insulated walls and ceilings that keep it cooler inside. So that's one thing.

(11:53):

But the other thing is that we've just worked hard to make it the best arena we can. The guy that runs the arena for us now is a former world champion, saddle, bronc rider. He knows everybody in rodeo and he knows how an arena ought to be.

(12:08):

And we're trying to be as close as we can to world class. You know, it's always a target that's out there, but we try to make it as, as good as we can. We're adding bleachers, we're adding stalls. We're adding different things to an outdoor arena now that'll capture more people, more events. And our plan is just to use it. The more people we have here, the more people we can speak to.

Ric Shields (12:32):

And, well, when I was here a few weeks ago, the parking area was pretty full.

Dr. Mike McGee (12:37):

Yeah.

Ric Shields (12:38):

You, I don't know that you can increase that. You probably could, but that was, that was pretty cool how many people were there.

(12:45):

You told me one time that dirt is really important and that you guys made every effort to get good dirt. Yeah. What's that about?

Dr. Mike McGee (12:54):

Well, the, they're running their horses on it, and when they make a, a quick turn or cut to the one way or the other, they need to make sure that dirt is appropriate so it doesn't break a horse's ankle or twist it or bend a tendon or to all the different things that can happen to a horse. You think horses are pretty tough, but in some sense, they're kind of fragile and you want the dirt to accommodate them.

(13:15):

And the other claim to fame that our arena manager has is that he does the dirt at the fairgrounds for many of the biggest horse shows, because he's so well known for understanding the depth and the moisture and the content of sand and loam and different things that, that go into that. And so, yeah, the dirt's, the whole thing, that's, that's the, the key.

Ric Shields (13:36):

I'm assuming you've set some measurable goals for Happy Acres, which is the name of the church and crossbar arena that you wanted to meet. Are you meeting those goals?

Dr. Mike McGee (13:46):

Oh, I think so. We, I'm <laugh> you know me well enough to know that my administrative skills are pretty small <laugh>. And so, I don't really think in terms of goals and

Ric Shields (13:55):

Well, I kind of loaded that question because I assumed that you were going to say something like, no, the only goal we had is what we wanted to really reach people for Jesus.

Dr. Mike McGee (14:03):

That's it. I was, yeah, you beat me to it. But that's it. I mean, we, we said yes when we started and we're still trying to say yes. And no, I don't, I don't, we knew we'd have a church. We knew a church would come, but our mission, our vision is out there in the arena speaking the gospel. So, we are really kind evangelism oriented and we still send the place pays for itself. The arena carries the church sometimes, and sometimes the church carries the arena, but we always have an excess.

(14:33):

And we, we still continue to send money to west Africa, to the pastors that are there and helping them build churches and meet their needs. And so pretty sizable amounts go out pretty regularly. So, you know, our hearts still in Africa to some extent, but

Ric Shields (14:53):

Are you going back sometime soon?

Dr. Mike McGee (14:55):

Well, not soon. I mean, I don't, don't have anything planned. My passport's expired. I need to get it renewed, I guess. Yeah.

Ric Shields (15:02):

It takes about three months anymore, so think ahead.

Dr. Mike McGee (15:05):

Yeah. Well, Niger's a very tough place right now. ISIS is taking control except for the capital city. And it's a tough place, but that doesn't mean that the church isn't flourishing. It still is. They're still planning congregations and ministering, and the pastors there are still working hard at the gospel. So, it's yeah, it's a, an amazing place just going through a tougher than usual time. So yeah, it's, yeah. Definite plans. But,

Ric Shields (15:34):

You know, when I spoke with Brent Teague, he told me that it costs about $8,000 per unit to build these Tabernacle churches. It's just a, it's a roof and it has some steel structures for supports of the roof. I don't remember. Does it have an entire concrete floor or probably not.

Dr. Mike McGee (15:51):

Yeah, they, they pour the, they usually pour the floor and they, they make the bricks right there on site, and they brick up the sides. They're pretty good masons. And then they pour the corners, and so when they're done, it's a fort. I mean, they don't mean to make it a fort, but I mean, it just, it is the way they build things.

(16:08):

We put up the steel and then they put that around there when they, you know, Al-Qaeda came through a few years ago and tried to burn churches. They burned churches in the capital city. All the wooden ones, the Catholic and the, but ours didn't burn.

Ric Shields (16:21):

Hard to burn brick.

Dr. Mike McGee (16:22):

Yeah. That's it.

Ric Shields (16:23):

So how many churches do you think y'all have helped to fund? How many churches do you think have been built or how many of these tabernacle units?

Dr. Mike McGee (16:32):

Well, we've sent them enough for another somewhere between 15 and 20 more that we've sent money for. And now how many they've actually built, I don't know. Charity was probably personally responsible for not only starting with a crusade, but then building the building of somewhere between five and 600.

Ric Shields (16:52):

That's what I understand. The number I had was at least 500. That's incredible.

(16:58):

What's next for the church, for the arena, for you? What's next?

Dr. Mike McGee (17:02):

We're going to start a young adult service on a different night and probably provide them with a nursery. Because I know my own daughter, her idea of going to church is being able to park the little one for an hour or two, so she can sit there and listen. So, yeah, I think the nursery is pretty important. We, I, we have a few people that have young kids and we let them run through the church while we're having church. It doesn't bother me at all. I kind of like the noise, but not everybody's like that. So, we're going to try to make it friendly for them.

(17:30):

We've got a young guy coming who's a great worship leader and a preacher and has a really mean electric guitar. I hear. So going to start try to start that and see if we can rope some more people rope, some more people in there. To use your metaphor,

Ric Shields (17:45):

Rope them. That's

Dr. Mike McGee (17:45):

Right. Yeah. And then we're adding onto the arena. We're just trying to make it so that we can host big arenas, pro arenas, high school arenas, college or college rodeos, not arenas, college rodeos pro rodeos. And we have big crowds and we're very thankful, but we just, you know, we want to, we want to grow and we want to be the best place in northeast Oklahoma. Best as good as we can be. You know, we're not trying to beat anybody. There's no competition, but we just want to be as excellent as we can be so that we can get the people here and that they can,

Ric Shields (18:17):

You know, like Paul wrote, he said, I've become all things to all men, so that by all possible means I might save some. And so, you're saying the same for the arena. You're doing everything you know to do. Yeah. So that people continue to be attracted, drawn there. And that is, that's the bait that you're using to catch. Right? Right. These as fishers of men.

(18:37):

Dr. McGee, I'm so proud to know you and see how you've allowed the Lord to direct your path. I don't think many people saw this role coming for you, but you've embraced it, given your whole heart to this endeavor.

(18:50):

And we may have listeners who need to hear that God is not done with them. All we have to do is be willing to do what we've never done, to have what we've always wanted. So, would you pray for those listening today, that they would hear God speaking to them and have the courage to step out and do what he's leading them to do?

Dr. Mike McGee (19:09):

Yeah. Father, I thank you for anybody that's listening or anybody that's out there wondering if they're able to respond to God's call. And I would just pray that you encourage them and strengthen them to step out, to take, take that first step because the first step is the scariest. But after that, he begins to show you, he begins to meet your needs. And age is no limit. If you can walk and talk, you can, you can speak the gospel, you can spread the gospel.

(19:38):

And Father, I pray that you encourage them along those lines, to step out and to trust you, and to hear your voice and obey and encourage them, Father, that it's not too late. The mistakes of yesterday are gone. Sins of yesterday are gone. Your past is gone. Jesus is talking about now, and he wants to bring you into today and into tomorrow. So, open your heart.

(20:00):

Father, I thank you as, as we're speaking that they're, when they hear this, they'll open their heart and receive you as Lord and walk into your joy and peace and glory. We thank you for it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Ric Shields (20:15):

I'm glad you joined us today. Thanks so much for investing your time with us. If you find it to be helpful, please pass the link along to a friend.

(20:24):

You know, I'm always happy to hear from you too. Drop me a note at info at doorways.cc and let me know if we're providing content that's beneficial to you.

(20:35):

My prayer for you is the same as the Apostle Paul offered for the church in Ephesus. We find it in the book of Ephesians 3:20-21. "Now, to him who was able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.