‘Playing on God’s Team’: An Interview with Actor T.C. Stallings

An Interview with Actor T.C. Stallings.

T.C. Stallings is what you may call a veteran of Christian films. He starred in his breakout film Courageous, and more recently the $67 million grossing runaway hit War Room. However, Stalling’s passion was never acting. He actually began his early career playing football, and now splits his time between acting, writing, and motivational speaking. Throughout his career, it has become evident where his true passion lies: in glorifying God.

Recently, Sonoma Christian Home had the opportunity to catch up with Stallings and talk about his newest book, Playing on God’s Team, released through BroadStreet Publishing. The book is a devotional that encourages young Christians to make God not only their Savior, but also the Lord of their lives. SCH Associate Entertainment Editor Josiah Aviles reports.

SCH: Most people know you as an actor, specifically for breakout Christian movies such as War Room and Courageous. Was there anything in particular that inspired you to pursue acting?

It wasn’t anything in particular. My dream was always to play professional football, so my inspiration for that was wrapped around sports playing. I always kept acting in my back pocket. I enjoyed film. I enjoyed going to the movies. I enjoyed doing school plays – plays at church and things like that. It was always just something in my back pocket, and as I went on I got more attracted to it.

Josiah Aviles: How would you say your career has shifted over the years? What was the cause in this shift and how do you feel God has led you to where you are today?

T.C. Stallings: I think what ended up happening is that I realized why I kept that acting in my back pocket. Way back in 2008 I had been a big fan of Christian films and how well they had been doing – and kept getting better. And then, in 2008, I saw Fireproof. I watched the impact it had on everybody at the theater that day. I saw husbands and wives start having real conversations about changing their lives and their marriage – right there in the theater! That was impressive to see, and I started to think, “this might be what God wants me to do after my football days are over, and I’m going to start praying about that”. That’s what started me on my journey of being an actor, and he opened the doors really almost immediately after that prayer, like a year later.

T.C. Stallings spent most of his early career in football.

SCH: So you saw the impact of Christian movies, and decided to contact the Kendrick Brothers to audition for a role in Courageous?

TCS: Yes. The very first thing I did was to start praying about giving Him the heart that I had to even pursue acting, because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t an impulse. So I just started praying for a few days, and those days turned into a few weeks, and the feeling wouldn’t go away. That began my pursuit of searching out the producers of that specific film, which were, like you said, the Kendrick brothers. That’s how I came to be in contact with them.

SCH: What inspired you to write the Bible study and devotional Playing on God’s Team?

TCS: When I went to college (this was my sophomore year) I didn’t understand that as a Christian, Jesus is your Lord as well as your Savior. He has to be both. A lot of people think he’s your Savior, and so you just accept Him and go on living. I went to college like that. I was kind of accepted as a big-time Christian, when the Lord wasn’t really the leader of my life….[One day] a student decided to ask me to study Scripture with him. After studying scripture with this student I realized that I wasn’t being a true Christ-follower, and so I decided to start responding to the scriptures.

I ended up putting my efforts for Jesus over my efforts as an athlete, because I saw that they were lopsided, with most of my efforts favorably going to my sports. I thought about what my Christian life would be like if I gave that kind of effort to Jesus. I continued to compare the metaphor, and I realized that I could reach other athletes. I’d like to share with them by speaking their language, the same way that scripture spoke my language.

[One of the verses that really spoke my language at that point in my life was] 1st Corinthians  9:24-27.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

1st Corinthians 9:24-25

I realized I was a Christian and an athlete, so I prepared my effort on both levels. I went to work on it right away. I share the whole story of that moment in the book, and hopefully it will help whoever reads it, whether it’s around the country or around the world.

T.C. Stallings in a scene from the movie ‘War Room’, courtesy of Kendrick Brothers.

SCH: In your devotional you talk a lot about how being a true follower of God is more than just believing in Him. Can you explain the difference between being a believer in God and a follower of Him?

TCS: One of the scriptures that challenged me in college was James 2:19, because even the demons believe, but they’re not going to follow him. You can believe everything that you speak, but when the Bible says, “OK, you gotta act on that belief, you gotta make a life change”, you’re like, “ahh, I don’t think so”.

A follower means that Jesus has lordship over your life: your dreams, your goals, your desires, your pursuits. He’s in charge of all of that. You don’t get to live for yourself anymore. That’s a huge difference that I had to learn, and it changed everything in terms of how I saw Scripture, and how I saw my relationship with Jesus.

Not all believers are followers. That’s key, because that’s what the Bible says in Matthew: that a lot of people will be shocked in the end when Jesus does not accept them. It’s like, “You never followed me. Yah, sure you believed me. But when I said ‘let’s go this way’, you said ‘no, I’m going this way’”.

SCH: We love the sports metaphor you use in your book. One of the aspects is that all great athletes know they need to challenge themselves in strength and endurance training. What would this look like as a player on God’s team?

TCS: Being less sinful, being more kind, being more honest… in all these things I saw myself failing.  But when I looked at my efforts in football, [if I found something wrong] I would do something to fix it. If I was going a little slower, then I would do something to get faster. If I wasn’t fast enough on the field because I didn’t know my plays, then would go back home and study my playbook harder. I never missed a beat. I did whatever the coach said.

Now let’s flip that around. If I’m on Team Jesus, when it came to my spiritual weaknesses, did I do things to strengthen them? The answer for me was no… Did I know my playbook, which is the Bible? That’s my playbook for spiritual life. No, I did not touch it. So I said to myself, “I want to be a stronger Christian:  a Christian who doesn’t quit, a Christian who knows what God wants in life, a Christian that is strengthened by other believers”. You’ve got to spiritually endurance train, spiritually strength train, spiritually go to the team meetings… and the Bible shows exactly how to do it.

Stallings devotes much of his time to public speaking, boldly proclaiming God’s Word.

SCH: You have had experience as an actor, speaker, and author. Can you share with us a story of trials or hardships that God has used to strengthen your faith?

TCS: Well, I’ve been through many things, and I will say one of the most impactful ones. My first book, The Pursuit, tells this story. It was 2012 and I trekked my way out to Hollywood. I got out here, and the goal was to impact the entertainment industry and the movie industry for Jesus. It was a hard time, getting told “no’ a lot. You don’t really have a real job. When I say “real job” I mean the kind that you can just go and get a check and walk out. You don’t have those things. You’re struggling out here…. and you have to keep trusting that the Lord brought you out here for a reason. And so in the hard times you’re wondering why people are saying no, and it looks like you might not make it. But you know what, you hang in there, and you wake up and I’m in the #1 movie in America, and it’s a movie about prayer.

SCH: What was your greatest challenge in writing the devotional Playing on God’s Team?

TCS: I think it was just being patient. Being patient and letting the Lord dictate what gets written, because there’s a lot of things that you can say… Actually, its funny, Playing on God’s Team was the first book I wrote. I couldn’t get anybody to read it! This is just a tribute to God’s timing, because He led me through a series of events that made me totally throw that book aside and start writing about pursuing your purpose in Christ. That same publisher actually said, “hey, you got anything else?” And so this 6-7 year old book came back out.

But at this point in time I was a much more patient writer. I knew exactly what to say. I knew how to count on God more on what to write down. I think the difficulty was being patient with it, not forcing it out, because, had I got in front of God’s will, it wouldn’t be complete. [For example,] I didn’t have the idea to do the wrap-up videos that are on my website… It was a hard confirmation that patience was just letting God guide what gets told in these 21 lessons. It’s going to definitely pay off because it’s… ultimately God’s words and not mine.

SCH: What was your greatest triumph in writing the book?

TCS: The greatest thing is to know that what I went through – the rejections that I got back in college … because when you become a true follower, a lot of times you lose friends, but you gain truth. You have to stop certain activities, it can be lonely at times. There are some challenges that come with being a true follower. However, one can look at everything half empty or half full.

I see how this book tells those stories, and it’s going to make athletes around the world stop being just game-day Christians, where they just look God up on their game day to score a point, and when they score a point they just pump their finger in the air and point to God.

But all the rest of the week they don’t even talk to Him. He becomes the genie of their game. That’s not who He is! This book will challenge them. It’ll let them know that they shouldn’t be treating Him like a game-day genie, and that it doesn’t even work to begin with. That’s the biggest triumph, to know that a lot of athletes that are going to have a better grip on making sure that Jesus is their Lord, their sport is a tool, and Jesus is going to use that for His glory – for them to really have a true relationship with Him as they play, as opposed to just using Him for their own personal gain.

‘Playing on God’s Team’, Stalling’s new devotional.

SCH: How do you hope that God will use this devotional to further His kingdom?

TCS: I don’t take this lightly. I would consider it a success if anybody – and I don’t care what the number is – if anybody gets this book, and considers God to be their game-day genie, and is just going through the motions of following Jesus – if they read this book and they’re changed, and come to believe that God is actually their God, and Jesus is Lord of their life, and they’re living for His glory, and they’re being true Christians, that would make me extremely happy.

My dream would be if, because they’re doing that, people who look up to them would be inspired by what they’re doing, and want to change as well. I imagine teams all over the country, and all over the world, having Bible studies, going through their 21 week spiritual boot camp so to speak, and lives are being changed. I imagine the using the devotional to tell others, and it’s just a ripple effect – a domino effect – and people are saying “hey, this is what it truly means to be a Christian, and to call yourself a Christian athlete in particular”. If those things happen, that makes it all worth the while. 

SCH: Can you tell us a bit about some of your upcoming film projects?

TCS: Yah! If anybody wants to keep up with all of these, you can always see them on my IMDB page. I have four films that, if they keep up with the production schedules that they’re on, they’ll all come out this year. And I am shooting one actually in just a couple weeks here in LA. All in all, I will be involved in six films in 2017.

That’s exciting, especially, again, if you read The Pursuit, you see where all this started. To be sitting here actually acting regularly, meeting other people in the industry, being able to impact the industry for Jesus just like He called me to do. That’s very humbling and encouraging – it’s exciting. That the God whom we serve actually has a plan for your life, and He’s just waiting to implement that. Let Him lead you, and gosh there’s no greater rush for me. It’s very humbling.

T.C. Stallings and Alex Kendrick  in a scene from the hit film ‘War Room’, courtesy of the Kendrick Brothers.

SCH: Is there anything else you’d like to leave our readers with before we close?

TCS: Just that one of the most exciting things for me is hearing about the impact, and getting a chance to share that. That’s the one good thing about social media, is that it allows you to connect with people, just like when people tell me how they’re enjoying a film like War Room, or some of the other stuff that I’ve done that has changed their lives. Whether it’s Facebook, twitter, Instagram, or something like that. That’s really encouraging. So if anybody out there who is reading either The Pursuit or Playing on God’s Team or even enjoying a film, I’m very encouraged to hear about it.

To get a copy of T.C. Stalling’s new devotional, click here!

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Click here to read another interview with T.C. Stallings!