The Triad pastor whose story-tale rise from deaf-mute at birth to playing guitar for Jimmy Buffett, then turning a living room church ministry into a congregation of thousands, remains entangled in an unresolved weapons and drug case on the West Coast.
The Rev. David Tildon McGee of The Bridge Fellowship was arrested a year ago after Las Vegas police found an assault rifle, body armor and fentanyl in his hotel room, according to an arrest report by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He is charged with two counts of possession of fentanyl, two counts of transporting fentanyl and possession of a firearm during the commission of a drug- related charge.
The case was back in court this week but was continued to September.
McGee, who grew up in Greensboro, is represented by Las Vegas criminal defense lawyer Nick Wooldridge, who has been named one of the top 100 trial lawyers in the country by an industry group.
Neither McGee nor his attorney could be reached for comment about the case.
But a post on his Cross the Bridge with David McGee Facebook page says "the truth will all come out."
"You may have read and/or heard some disturbing news recently," according to The Bridge Fellowship post. "Please understand that there is much incorrect, misleading, and incomplete "information" and implications in what is being reported. The truth will all come out in due season. Be patient, kind and loving. "
McGee had posted on social media before his arrest that he would be traveling to Las Vegas to look for his daughter. McGee would later tell officers that he had flown to the city on private jet from North Carolina to find Ashley McGee, the report says. McGee, who said that he had been in contact with his daughter's ex-boyfriend, indicated that his daughter wasn't doing well and is mentally ill because of substance abuse.
More recently, there was an "Update from Pastor David" on Facebook involving another battle: a fight against cancer and that he could be traveling to Florida soon for surgery.
"While this is not a good report, I want you to know that I am a soldier of the Lord, so I remain a fighter."
McGee had been previously open to the News & Record about an early addiction to drugs, which followed numerous surgeries to help him hear and correct his speech as a toddler.
He was a marijuana user by age 10 and later graduated to cocaine and alcohol, he told the News & Record in the 1980s.
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McGee went into a drug rehab program with Teen Challenge in 1981 to finish his last year of high school after attending Southeast High. He became a "professing Christian'' while at Teen Challenge, he said. After enrolling at UNCG to study music, he left college when offered a position in a rock band.
He also played with Jon Bon Jovi, Eddie Rabbitt and Steve Winwood before leaving the rock music scene and his addictions behind in 1988.
But it would also be a part of his ministry.
"We were playing one night in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and word came that my grandmother had died. I played that night but I said I wasn't going to do that anymore,'' McGee said. "I didn't play for three years. Then I started playing at nursing homes and Bible studies.''
And after his religious awakening, he began a traveling music ministry with his wife Nora and children.
He discovered the Calvary Chapel denomination -- a conservative evangelical movement formed on the West Coast in the 1960s. Members, some of them former drug users, wanted an alternative to the freewheeling hippie lifestyle.
Back then, he often traveled to Calvary Chapel churches where pastors would tell their colleagues about McGee's upbeat rock songs and acoustic ballads. His songs played on the Calvary Satellite Radio Network, which operated about 125 stations across the country. His CDs were available at hundreds of Calvary bookstores.
Most Calvary churches would take up an offering for the family, which, along with proceeds from David McGee's Christian recordings, allowed them to pay the mortgage on a modest Greensboro residence and a motorhome.
When they eventually got back to Greensboro, their ministry started as a Bible study in his living room, eventually outgrowing three services at a small building converted into a church in Kernersville with 1,700 members. The congregation later bid on the Dudley Products building in Kernersville in 2010, where the 80,000-square-foot manufacturing building on 14.6 acres that was once in foreclosure, was transformed into a campus big enough for 5,000.
At the time, he cited lots of "God moments" -- when a situation appears divinely orchestrated -- in refashioning the building on a budget.
A member who worked as a general contractor was cutting out holes for the new heating and air conditioning system, which involves intricate skills -- and it wasn't going very well -- when in walked a new church member who did that kind of work for a living. Another day, it was laying out the stage for the altar, and it so happened to be the first day of volunteering for an architectural engineer who got the job done in an hour.
That building was sold in 2023, and the ministry became online only at some point but has 23,000 Facebook followers.
"I am so thankful for your ministry," wrote one of his social media followers. "I came to know the Lord as my savior 15 years ago because your radio program was playing on a station in the middle of nowhere."
336-373-7049
@nmclaughlinNR
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Faith and Values Reporter
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