Dr. Joel E. Clark: Faith, Family & Kingdom Leadership

What does it take to lead a thriving ministry while building a strong family and serving your community?

In this episode of Issues From The Heart, Elder LaShonda Crawford sits down with Dr. Joel E. Clark, pastor of The New Saint Paul Baptist Church in Eden, North Carolina, for an honest and inspiring conversation about faith, leadership, discipleship, marriage, and purpose.

Dr. Clark shares his journey from answering God’s call to ministry to serving 18 years as pastor, while balancing family life, community outreach, entrepreneurship, and biblical education. Together, they discuss the importance of studying God’s Word beyond tradition, raising children to develop their own relationship with God, reaching the next generation with authenticity, and learning to trust God’s timing through every season of life.

Whether you’re a ministry leader, parent, entrepreneur, or someone seeking to grow deeper in your faith, this episode offers wisdom, encouragement, and practical insights for everyday living.

Join us for a powerful conversation about faith, family, forgiveness, leadership, and living with purpose.

#IssuesFromTheHeart #TheMIXXNetwork #DrJoelClark

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

This is Elder LaShonda Crawford, and welcome back to another episode of Issues from the Heart, where we talk about real stories, real issues, and things that really truly matter. I am blessed today to be here with Dr. Joel Clark here from the city of Eton, North Carolina. How are you today?

SPEAKER_03 0:22

I'm good. What about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

I'm doing good. I'm so glad to have this man of God here. We were just having a conversation before, of course, our episode took off in reference to some things, of course, in ministry and realize that we are connected by people we know. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

Small work.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

It is, especially in ministry.

SPEAKER_03 0:43

In ministry, it's true.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Amen. It goes to show you that this is, you know, where many people but one church be like cousins down the street, right? That's right. Living in a different house.

SPEAKER_03 0:52

I believe that. That's an operating.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Amen. Well, I want to just talk about the course because Dr. Clark, of course, is the pastor of the new St. Paul Baptist Church in Eton.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

And you just celebrated 18 years. Yeah. You know what 18 means? Your kid graduates high school, they get the vote.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Yeah, they get to vote. They think they grown.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Exactly. So tell us about how that experience. How did it feel to celebrate 18 years?

SPEAKER_03 1:20

Wow. It felt surreal. Because I and the reason why I say that, because I didn't know if I was going to be there that long. This is the first church and only church I ever pastored. And um, so God has brought us a mighty long way. Amen. And um God showed himself strong, you know, throughout the 18 years, and just to be able to reflect back. Yeah, you know, it's uh I give all glory to God because it it had to be Him, not my not me.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Amen. Amen. Nobody but God.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

Nobody but God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

I can imagine, you know, raising. I got two kids out of the three that are past the age of 18.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Same year.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

And so you can just imagine the things that you go through in 18 years of raising a child. That's right. I can only imagine the 18 years of going through a church, the phases of maturity and implementing vision. That's right. And and of course becoming the shepherd, not just the title. That's right. But actually becoming the spiritual father and a shepherd to your people.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Yeah, because, you know, when God, you know, when they invited me to come, right, I was just coming, you know, to preach and everything. And then they offered a pastorialship, you know, after about four or five months. Um, I won't get into the all the, you know, the weeds of how I got asked and why. But um I accepted and 18 years later, but through all of that, I grew, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

That they had to learn to trust me.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

I had to learn to trust them. Um they had what one personality, so I got several personalities that I gotta learn.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

And so, and but I love people. Yeah, you know, and and I love people, and that's that's what, you know, then number one, the call, right? The call to preach. And then God is the one that makes gives some apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, right? And so when you know what you're called to do, then it's not a job.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Exactly. Right?

SPEAKER_03 3:28

And then, you know, God had prepared me before, even though I didn't know I would ever pastor, right? But um, yeah, so uh, and I'm still growing. Yeah, right, still maturing because God takes us all through different phases and seasons according to what he has for us to do at specific times so the kingdom can advance. Yeah, so I I I'm learning to enjoy the journey. That's what I've learned in 18 years. I've learned to enjoy the journey.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

And then when you look back, you'll be like, oh, that's why that happened. Oh, that's why we couldn't do this then. Oh, oh, now I see. You know, the times I was whining when I wanted stuff to happen, I was like, no, it's not for, it's not time, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if things happen the way they're supposed to happen. Exactly. And then it's wonderful because even dealing with that, of course, with 18 years, I see that you've been married for 29.

SPEAKER_03 4:16

29, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Amen. And so doing this together, of course, with your family. Tell us about your family.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

So I have um, so my wife, Cynthia, right? We've been married 29 years. Um, when I met Cynthia, she she had a son, John Tavis, right? John Tavis was seven, seven or eight. But anyway, he's my son. I don't call him my stepson, right? So, you know, people use the term that they bonus son or bonus child. But um, our relationship is I I treat him just like I treat my biological son, which Cynthia and I have, and his name is Jimon. So um, when we got there, uh don't even ask me to do the math in my head. They were young, right? But there's a nine-year difference between the two, Jaimon and John Tate, is right, John Tate's older. So they saw everything that we went through. Of course, you shield your children, right? You shield your spouse, right? As much as you can. But you do have to talk to them, right? And everything. But I did learn from my pastor, um, uh pastor emeritus, Dr. Clarence Johnson. He had told me, he said, the way that you go in, that's how, you know, how you start out, you know, far as like pastoring and sharing, you know, how you are as an individual, right? So the way that I went in, I I told him I don't play, I don't take mass, you know, and things of that nature. I said, um, my family is off limits, right? My wife, that's that's my wife. Um, and then in a Baptist church, I come out of a Baptist church, and you know how um just in no shade to Baptist churches or any through this whole segment, no shade to any denomination. I despise denomination because denomination is man-made.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

So my thing is when we start dealing with denominations, everybody has their little thing that they do, right? And uh one of the things um that was that we received was that they wanted um that they preferred not necessarily deacons, but some of the deaconess that my that my wife wore a hat. My wife's not a hat person. So I told them, and that was one of the first things. I told them I said, listen, my wife's not wearing a hat.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:32

So don't that ain't us. We'll be who we are. We just laid back people and we go, we, we come here to serve. I'm not getting into all that stuff, so I'm just letting you know up front.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

The hat.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

But you know, just I'm just you know, wanting to be honest with you, right? Because I I don't like to be controlled. Exactly. I don't I don't like systems that try to control and restrict what God is trying to do in me to be a blessing or just in my life period. And because I don't want to bind anybody else up.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, yeah. And I was gonna ask you, how did your wife adjust from, of course, this is your first pastoral role, this is your first time as a pastor. So that means her first time as a first lady as well, and walking into that role, not only when I say sharing you, but also knowing that you're in time, it's no longer just her time. It's different from being married to a preacher, that's right, and a preacher, not a pastor. That's right. That's right. Versus now you're in a position where you know the need is stronger.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

And how did she adjust?

SPEAKER_03 7:34

She adjusted well, and we had conversations about it. And one thing I did share with the congregation, I say, listen, I said, and this is exactly what I told them at church conference, at our very first church conference. Um, I said, Listen, I'm 30-something years old. I said, I mean my wife, we we still enjoy concerts. I said, we enjoy comedy zone. I said, so I'm letting you know what I like and where I will be at. So if somebody says, hey, we saw your pastor here, you already know where I be.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

I said, my kids are young. If they want to go to a concert at the Coliseum, I'm going with them.

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

And so you ain't gotta worry about, oh, your pastor was over here doing X, Y, and Z. I said, I'm old school hip hop head. It's the DJ. I said, listen, I it's some music I still listen to. So I, you know, I wanted them to understand that. And I said, Fridays, I said, if it's not an emergency, if it's no funeral, you're not in the hospital, you need that's my date night. Me and my wife, that's that's our Friday. That's good. Right. So I think by me establishing those things up front, because one thing I learned from my pastor, my pastor taught me, he said, take care of your family first. He said, that's your first ministry. Then the church. Yeah. He said, you know, because what he pastored, what, 35 years? He's like, um, Pastor Johnson's like in his late 70s, early 80s, I think now. Um, so I I I gleaned from him, you know, and whatnot, because I do know ministry can be tiring and tax, and I I understand it. And um you can get caught up and begin to shift your priorities.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

And you can come and preach the walls down.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

And go home.

SPEAKER_03 9:12

And your house messed up.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

And your wall, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:15

Right. So, no, the first thing God asks us, do you your first ministry is your family?

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:19

Do you take care of home?

SPEAKER_00 9:20

I just had that conversation with my girls in the car, and I was uh telling them about uh the first few years I've been married for 23, going on 23 years. Right. Ministry, same amount of time frame. And I just told them that how their father brought three black dresses for a Christmas gift. It was three separate ones, and they all had the same small little dresses. And I I was beginning of my ministry, and I was like, uh-uh, no, I'm church, I'm the I'm preacher, Shonda, not and it took me some time to realize that you know what my husband wants to see, you know, just because I go out with him wearing certain things, not just the great, but I have to also remember that ministry, I gotta minister to my husband.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Be minister to my family, and I cannot allow them to be neglected all for the sake of the church or their expectations. So you lay down the foundation, which is really good.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

And and in that going back to your question, she she adjusted and adjust and adjust because it's constant.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah, it's always even constant.

SPEAKER_03 10:25

It's always, yeah, because she's mature as an individual, right? Yeah, and I can't, and there there were things I expected of her, and those were my expectations. So God had to deal with me. Hey, you let me deal with her just like I'm dealing with you, right? But then collectively, right? So I learned that yo, when I'm when I'm weak, yo, she was my strength.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

I I heard I heard um Pastor E. Dewey Smith, he said this one time. He do and and he said, you know, God gave us the Holy Spirit. He said, but I think for those of us that are married, us men, he said, that second Holy Spirit is our wife.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

You know what? I'm gonna record that clip of this take it back.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

Because sometimes, you know, you all can I mean really women can see things or God reveal things, and then sometimes us being men, right, right? Being men, we're yeah, we now we you know, we get tunnel vision and we just like yo, mine just a one track mine on we're on, and then you know, you all say, Hey, well, what about this? So X, Y, and Z. We like, nah, nah, nah. The next thing you know, we got to come back around. We really don't want to say you were right, thank you, but we end up humbling ourselves, or we come back and say, I should have listened. Yeah, so I had to learn that. I had to learn to listen to her, and still, and I'm still learning. But that was a um humbling process for me, not realizing just because I'm the pastor, that doesn't mean that God can't use her to speak to me, yeah, right, to impart unto me something.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

You're supposed to help me. That's what I mean.

SPEAKER_03 11:57

Yeah, right. And you have to constantly, we constantly have to have our minds renewed according to God's word. And like Jesus said, He that hath an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the church. So whoever the spirit speaks to, through, through to you, that's who you know, that's the Lord saying, Hey, pay attention to me.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Pay attention. It's you like watching her anyway.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pay attention, right? So, yeah, we um she grew, I grew, we grew together, and yeah, you know, the the the church grew. And I'd rather grow internally than get a lot of people to come and then those that are already there, we're we're not even mature to handle who comes because guess what? We can't handle who comes, and they're gonna turn right back around and leave.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Exactly, I agree.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 12:41

Well, just to ask a question first and foremost, you know, having this opportunity to go back and forth about your ministry and how long you've been there and the adjustments, it had to start somewhere, right? So let's go back and let's dive in and and let's talk about your early life and your faith journey. Okay, and why did you say yes? What is it? In 2002, correct?

SPEAKER_03 13:02

2002.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Okay, what made you say yes to the call?

SPEAKER_03 13:05

What made me say yes to the call? Wow. Um uh it was just I heard God's audible voice, and I rejected it at first. I was getting ready, my pastor was preaching the revival at um East White Oak in Greensboro. Uh Bishop Pittman, right? Yeah. I was getting dressed, boom, boom, boom, at home. And I heard it just came live, just like you're speaking to me, I'm speaking to you. I consent you to preach my gospel. And I fell to the floor and tears just started running down my face. And I said, No, God, no. I wasn't thinking about preaching, none of that. And um, and I number one, and let me tell you what I did, I didn't know what the word consent meant. When he I we got back then we had dictionaries, right? Yep. So I and then I answered the call in 2002. I was called in 1992.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Oh, wow, 10 years. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Yeah, yo, so I we didn't even go with it.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

I was about to say you can share now if you want to share.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

Yeah, yeah. He called, I didn't answer.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:15

Right? I I answered, okay, I answered, right? And I looked up the consent, the word consent means to give permission. I told my pastor that night, my pastor said, okay, that's fine. But at the time, being young, I was like, yo, he's getting ready to go preach. You don't bother nobody when they get ready to go preach, right? And so I went to see him and he was like, just keep doing what you know. That's all he said. Fast forward during that time, you know, you gung ho, living right, want to live right and everything. I got married. Not to this wife that I'm with now. I got married. I got married because I wanted to live right.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Right? Better to marry than to burn with you, burning your passion. Well, some people you say burn in hell, but that's taking that out of context. But neither here nor there. Um, so I got married. That marriage lasts 28 days.

unknown 15:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

But here it is again. I married. Trying to live right.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

But she, but the reason she married me, she had a little girl, was just to make the baby's daddy jealous. I didn't know that. 28 days, and it was 28 days of pure chaos. I went from a size 40 to a size 30. Four. Yeah. So I was fasting. Right. But then I was I was just so stressed and everything. Fast forward, got a divorce and everything. Um when I got the divorce, well, we were doing that process when she left. Then I came back to Reevesville. We were staying up in um Pine Hall near Madison. When I came back to Reevesville, I um I was just out of sorts.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

Right. Um I went back to church, but everybody knew that I was divorced. So sometimes church people treat you differently. So being young in the Lord and not rooted like I thought I was, and not feeling accepted, I went back out. When I went back out, I started doing the things that I did. But the fellas that I used to hang with, they treated me better than people in church. So that was a hurt, right? So now fast forward. Um God dealt with me um and had to just keep kept dealing with me because you gotta let me let me back up. You gotta understand, I had experienced the gift of the spirit. So being baptized with the, you know, in the Holy Spirit and everything. I had experienced all that before I ever got, before I ever got married. I got the call. So I knew all of this, right? I had experienced God in different ways, right? And I'm just like, but when that happened, I still went back, but the call was still there.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:24

But being in a Baptist church, you don't know if you will get to because you've been married.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

You know how politics.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

So yeah, yeah, yeah. So you you just don't know. So neither here, neither here nor there. Um when I rededicated my life back to God, and then me and Cynthia got married, and the call was still there. I went back to my pastor and told him. He was like, okay, he said, um won't you go to school? He said, because he said, My reason why I want you to go to school, he said, I want you to hear it from somebody else besides me. But also you're gonna be preaching to an educated generation. He said, when I started, he said some people couldn't read.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

So, you know, he's you know, right back way back. He said, So you're gonna be preaching to a so I did. I I went to Bible college. He said, Now you don't you don't have to go, you know, he said, I want you to, but when I started, because I just loved the word even before that, but when I went, I found out how much I didn't know.

unknown 18:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

And then I just stayed with it. Stayed with it, hung in there, boom, boom, boom. Got my doctoral degree. Um, the year I got my doctoral degree, I was already, you know, preaching, because I did my initial sermon. Well, going back to your question, that's why I said yes. I'm sorry. So I keep running with it.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

No, no, it's a whole point. It's a whole point.

SPEAKER_03 18:44

So um I said, you know, I said yes, I did my initial sermon at Elm Grove here in Reevesville, that's my home church. And um the topic that I did, I'll never forget, it was called the Jesus diet.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

And the way God deals with me even now is my pastor called me a contemporary preacher. Because I, you know, God deals with me, I see things, you know, just and I'd be like, and then Holy Spirit give me a thought. Yeah. And I'm like, because that was see the Jesus diet. But at the time, what was happening, you know, around the world was the Atkins diet was so big.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

Sure was. Yeah, I remember that.

SPEAKER_03 19:19

So, and then when God said the Jesus diet, you know, he showed me where to go, and I was like, oh man, because Jesus said, if anybody eats eats my blood, you know, drinks my blood and eats my flesh, and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, and so I preached that. Yeah, you can you can't. But uh, yeah, so I I never forget. Um I I preached that um the the church, I do remember the church was full. And um after that, and I just always did whatever my pastor asked me to do.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

And he said, you know, you're gonna hear people say you're the pastor's boy, or you're this or that. And it was other ministers there. Yeah. So he was like, but you just don't worry about it. Don't allow a congregation to get in your ear. Don't let them build, you know, feel your head up.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

You know, you get lifted up in pride. So I just did whatever he asked me to do. Um and went out to preach, always told him where I was going. Right. When I got invited, or asked him, I was like, hey, is it okay for me to go here? Right. Because they pastors may know somewhere that they were like, hey, I don't need you to go there. Just turn that one down, right? And some people don't understand that.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

You can't accept everything.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

Yeah, you can't accept everything. But then when I started going to New St. Paul um to preach, and I was there, and then that's what uh when they finally asked, you know, when I'm pastor, you know, would I accept that? And I did.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

But he he prepared you. That's a good thing. It's about preparing you in a sense of um I don't know if in the beginning process you felt the role of pastor.

SPEAKER_03 20:48

I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

So it was something that just happened.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

I just I just always stood on and still today, uh, I could sent you to preach my gospel. But now, when before I rededicated my life back to God, let me put this out there, and went back to Elmgrove after the divorce. I I started going to St. Peter's World Outreach Center in Winston-Salem. Oh, Pastor JC Hayes. So when I went there and I walked in that church, and I was like, yo, it was white, black, yeah, you know, different races. I was like, yo, what? Yeah, I was like, yo. And then I learned about there, you know, in here and here, my heart. There's no shade on my my home church or anything. That's when I started learning about the gifts of the spirit. Yeah. That's when, you know, I began to understand there is more. When I've been reading this in the word, now it's making sense. Yeah. So when I when I so in so when I was there and then the divorce happened, right? The divorce happened. Um, then I was gonna go back there and I didn't to Elm Grove. So I went back out in the world. But when I God caught me back and I rededicated my life back to God in the car, and I was like, God, where you want me to go to church at? And he was like, Yeah, I'm gonna grow. And I was like, man, I St. Peters World, I'll recently. So then when I went back there, you know, God had a purpose. And God, God told me, He led me, he said, I want you to usher. So I said, I want you to usher. So I started, so I started ushering and loved ushering. Knew I was called. It was boiling. Yeah, but that was preparation on how to treat people, right? Because you got different people, but you learn, I learned how to serve.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Yeah, I gotta leave just the same when I got it. I went on the usher board. Yeah. Bought the best usher dress. I even went for us free months. I bought the nurse hat. Oh, wow. Oh, you couldn't tell me nothing. I was like, you know, I was on point in the cleaner's outfit, it was in the clean. Yeah. I took pride because it was the opportunity. Yeah. Put me where you want me to be. That's it. I just want to serve your people.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

And then my pastor told me one day, he said, um, when this is before I, the initial sermon and all that stuff, he said, I want you to be on the door down here, which is so this is the door, it's the pulpit. He said, So if in case I need you, so I would always, you know, usher, but I will always watch him because he did tell me this. He said, watch me, and the spirit would teach you. He said, because I can't tell you everything. Yeah, yeah. So I would watch him and everything. And when I would see that maybe he needed something, he would nod his head, I would go. Yeah. Right? I took the water up there, I brought the water down. I kept the glass clean. So I learned to serve in that manner and everything. And I love that. And I became the president of the Ushers. And then I also became, we were in the Guilford Baptist Association. Then I became the president for the Ushers part of the Guilford Baptist Association. And I loved that. But then when after when I got called to New St. Paul, I let that go. And they was like, no, don't let that go. You can't like, uh-uh. I don't want to, I don't want to try and do too, you know, too much.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

I need to focus on and your seasons was changing. Yeah. Not not knowing which direction.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

I think one thing, of course, with ministry, you know, we've we start off loving one thing. And I think there are signs that God gives us that, hey, just because you feel like this is your purpose today, don't try to hold it in a chokehold when you've asked me for more, or you know, I'm trying to show you more. Trying to show you more, yeah. Yeah, but you gotta know when the season's.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

Yeah. And I shared that with my congregation not too long ago. I said, sometimes our problem is we overstay an assignment.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

We just you can still operate in it, but it's the it's it's God is like, listen, leave that alone. I need I need you here. Yeah, and then when we stay there, we stun our growth, or we hinder the next person that God's trying to move in there. And if that person comes, then we're gonna bump heads. Yeah, and then we're in his permissive will and not his perfect will.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I like that too. Make sure I get that quote and get it ready.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

You're good. Anything like I'm like this, I always tell people if you say something that quickens my spirit, yeah, I'm gonna use it. My wife be telling me all the time, she be like, you know, somebody was preaching this Sunday and they said something. I said, I say, listen, that was my disclaimer.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

We're in the house talking and we riding, you say something quick in my spirit, I'm gonna use it. I'm gonna use it.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

It's like the young people said one time in church recently, they said, Okay, they dropping balls. I said, Okay, we dropping balls.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Yeah, but you gotta say you you you have to be on it. You have to be on it. But one thing that um I I wanna to see, even in your ministry before you became a pastor, even serving in the role of a preacher at minister, with fellow clergy, of course, in the ministry. How was the relationship among the rest?

SPEAKER_03 25:46

Um at at a home church, it was good, yeah, right? Because at the time, so it was four of us that were under were under the tutelage. We was four of us that were hadn't did our initial sermons, but we all so we all, you know, when pastor was like, okay, y'all can pick your date. It was like a year later, or two years. No, 2002. 2004, I did my initial sermon. And so, yeah, so we all did our initial sermon. The relationship was good. We respected each other. Um and yeah, it was good. Good, good.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

I that's the one thing I know in um uh in ministry, uh teaching or other ministries, um, the importance of serving where you are. And I think I even wrote out, I wrote a book called Preaching Where You're Planted. Because when giving the assignment of of uh raising up or training, and you're looking out for looking for information, give me some information, books on what can I share, you know, things like his search of Timothy and different books. Um I was like, man, it's not enough out there to kind of groom. It's something out there grooming pastors, grooming other individuals, but grooming ministers and preachers that are in the congregation. Um, and and I was able just to compile teachings and information and experience too that you can kind of share because sometimes you, you know, when you're trying to chase after your purpose or trying to find where you're supposed to be, and then this person trying to find where they're supposed to be, and then with you stepping into the role of a pastor, you know, it's good to still know that you got those relationships with the previous ones, you know.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Right. Yeah, so and and that that helps a lot. And then when God connects you, yeah, and then and I will say this because you know we're talking, then you gotta be careful who you connect with once you get in ministry. Yeah, because everybody's not for you. And that part, yeah, um, and and I share with people, and a lot of people that know me know that this is one of my sayings. I I I know that I'm a pastor, I don't have a problem with pastors, but I don't like to hang around preachers.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

I said because sometimes hanging around preachers is like sitting in a high school locker room. And everybody's like trying to, you know, trying to jockey for a position. So I'm I'm just like, eh, I'd rather hang with sheep. Exactly, exactly. Because I'm not hung up on a title. When when you're comfortable and you know who you are, yeah, you don't have to.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

You gotta do anything.

SPEAKER_03 28:28

Yeah, and I'm not against pastors or or anything, I'm not the one saved. It's just it's I've I've seen a lot.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:34

Right?

SPEAKER_00 28:35

And I'm just like not surprised at a lot of things. Yeah, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_03 28:39

But I understand everybody's human.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

And I understand just because you got a title, that doesn't mean you're mature. Yeah. And I understand some people just take titles and put it on themselves and are not what God said.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah, yeah. I think he shows us that if if your eyes are open and to see what he is showing you in the beginning, I think and any preacher who may could be watching this in your beginning stages, not to get caught up. I remember being a woman in my time, it's different. And it was hard to find female role models. The only ones that we used to have were the one in the binums, and and I checked the color. Oh my gosh, I own a lot. So you have you have these people, and we can only watch them on VHS.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

If you happen to have a table, that's right. Uh uh, and it was just to be able to say that how do I mimic or walk or you know, conduct myself as a female preacher, um, so that you know, because men, you know, men can sit there and take their ties off, jacket in the midst of their preaching. Right, yeah, yeah. Be sweating like a slave. Yeah. And it's and people getting excited. Women, we had to watch how we do it. And I never forget that uh it was a woman I used to not idolize in a sense of putting them up, but I loved how she preached. Yeah. And I said, God, I just want to be just like her. Because, you know, and I remember he put me in a position to connect with other with bishops and those old high titles. And I was always in their meetings doing things with them, and I saw them behind the scenes, and I saw these folks behind the scenes, and they were not the people, right? Not all of them, right? Right. Oh, I they were not who I thought they were, right? He allowed me to see their humanity, and he says, Look, I'll need you to see so that you can understand, don't mimic or desire to be like this, or this can come with what you're asking me for.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and and and I totally agree with you by God allowing you to see that, which he allowed me to see it. And that's not why I want to be around pastors, because I understand me. Yeah. Because I'm like Paul, within me, in my flesh, the well's no good thing. I understand me. But that competition thing is what drives me bananas.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

You know, you you know, but you go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

That's okay, that's okay. So um, so how did as this your showing even who you are today in 2025, as we're about to go into 2026, and where you have started over the last 18 years, how did it help shape you? Um, how did the early ministries, some of the things that you may have faced, that um as you were sharing earlier about the in-house, that's you as a pastor with the people, how did those early years of ministry affect, or you look back and now and say, okay, I can see why I went through that. Now I see why I went through this of who it has made me today as a man of God, not the pastor. But even if it comes down to you as a husband, uh as a father, um, can you reflect on those earlier years?

SPEAKER_03 31:52

Yeah, um thing I'm a merciful person because I know what I've been through before I got saved.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

I know so now even when I started pastors, I'm just like very merciful with people. I didn't have a problem with that. One thing I had a problem with because I know me, I don't play and I gotta quit. Right. So and when I say something, I have to watch what I say. Because they say it's not what you say, but how. But I'm the type of person I don't start. You know how some people when they get upset or something happens, it takes a while for them to get there. I go from here to here immediately.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

There's no in-between.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

So I had to so I had to let God work, you know, and yield to him to work on me and develop temperate self-control. Not that I was throwing tables and things of that nature, but I had to learn to just um you know, self-control. As far as because uh if I say something, I go straight for the jugular. It's um like a pit pull, right? So a lot of times I won't say anything or I won't be around certain situations if I know stuff. And I know that keeps me safe, but it also keeps other people safe. And I ain't talking about physically, just you know, just with my words, right? Um, but what does shake me is um also is the hurt the rejection being used. You know, people will use you for your gifts. Right. Learning to say no. Even when when it deals with uh not doing some, but just overextending yourself. Because people will use you, you know, in ministry. So you gotta you know, and and that's trial and error, you gotta learn because you you know, because everybody, everybody's growing, everybody's mature, but then we start seeing stuff when you start recognizing a pattern, you just be like, I don't wanna do that. Even though I'm still merciful with people and love people. Um so um what also has shaved me and I I'll even take it back to be saved before Christ. I think the things that I went through when I was wasn't saved, God still used that to mold and shape me into who I am today. Or how I, when people come into the church when I see somebody out there, I don't judge those the people that are out there because I know how I was and where I was, right? I don't think that I'm here just because I got just because I'm a pastor or I'm a doctor, you know, I have a two doctorate degree. I don't care about that stuff, right? It doesn't help me preach well, it doesn't help me study. Yeah, it's a systematic way of studying. Yes, it is open me up to understand and break down the scriptures, but I want to be able to live what I teach. But then when I see people, I can meet people. I want to meet people like Jesus did where they was, right? And so, um, yeah, yeah. I think a lot of stuff that molded me and shaped me. God used it, right? To mold me and shape me, to um just learn to it's just so much to unpack.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yeah, you just learn, you you learn through different seasons, yeah, through different stages of your growth as an individual, um, that affects every area of your life, whether you're married, single, or whatever, but you know, it it it it just makes you better. God is conforming us to the image of Christ, and he'll use anything, yeah, and he'll use anybody to mold you. And sometimes God gotta break you in order for him to fix you back up like he wants you to. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:03

I agree, I agree totally on that. Um, I think when you when you talk about that rejection part and and the hurt being used, I think those are in the real world. Yeah, or what I was I'll be like, this the the kingdom is the real world, but on the outside of the church, you know, we're kind of like, okay, you give me one time, don't come back at me no more. I'm not doing no more, I'm not gonna put myself in that position. But in the church, you just don't ever know what God says. I I know that person hurt you, right? But I need you to do X, Y, Z.

SPEAKER_03 36:36

And here's the thing: He teaches us how to forgive. How my God forgiveness is a big thing. And people say, you know, for you know, let it roll off your back, Pastor. They I used to hear that all the time. Be like a duck, let it roll off your back. I said, You let it roll off your back. I said, it didn't happen to you. They didn't say that, they didn't do that. Yeah, and I was just like, so God had to teach me how to forgive because here's the thing. And I told when I was teaching uh at a Bible college, I told, and it's the truth, and I said I never had a problem forgiving people until I got saved. Oh, yes. I didn't have a problem forgiving folk when I was out in the street. I was like, oh, don't worry about it. You good, we got and I can still see them and blah, blah, blah. But after, yo, it was just like something, you know, but I know it's the flesh that don't want to let it go, but then you now, now I got to deal with, you know.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:28

Okay, God, you said uh if I want to be forgiven, I gotta forgive you. You sure? It's King James said that God, you know, Jesus has survived that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

That's that, that's that's the I told somebody a couple weeks ago in a healing class that I was teaching, I said, forgiveness is a decision. And and and don't get forgiveness mixed up with the need of healing.

SPEAKER_02 37:53

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

I said, because you can forgive, don't mean God healed that heart at the end of that time. Exactly. Just make the decision to forgive and ask God to heal the pain that you you know came from.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

Totally. And and in that, just healing is a process. I mean, forgiveness is a process, it is too, right? So I had I have a uh a lady at my church, and um her son was murdered. Yeah. And she said, Pastor, I'll never forgive that man. And I wasn't gonna tell her, no, you know, the Bible said, No, that's not the time to say that. Because guess what? It didn't happen to me. Yeah, right. So, but there it and this is what I share with people. Everybody's different, built different, and it depends on the depth of the hurt, yeah, the process of your forgiveness. Exactly. That you and you gotta let God, like you said, you gotta let God heal. And healing takes time, just like when somebody passes away, a loved one, grieving, that process. Yeah, yes, weeping and do a foreign joy come in the morning. No, I don't some weeping.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 39:02

You know, yeah, yeah. We we preachers are bad for using those things and saying things.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

I I think in ministry and and we have to expand, we gotta talk about it. You cannot, we can we have to stop doing that. Okay, you healed, you forgive, and you walk away. You deliver, yeah, it's done. Don't bring it back no more, right? You know, but it we have to be honest and be real that it's a process for some of these people, and it is different. Our we recover differently. That's right. Um, uh, we can we respond differently. That's right. Um, and and we our way of okay, you may not think I have forgiven by my actions, but maybe this is my response to how I feel. That's right. You know what I mean? That's right. Just because I I won't conversate or laugh with you does not mean I haven't, you know, some people think you're supposed to respond a certain way, and and and we can't I can forgive you and still not give you access to me.

SPEAKER_03 39:56

Exactly. Two two totally different things, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Yeah, people holding a grudge.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

I'm not holding a grudge, I just choose not to deal with you. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

I I think one time someone um uh I lost my son by the hands of someone, and I was preaching about the story, and a woman came to me after the service and says, God, the Lord wants to um uh he needs you to forgive. And I said to myself, I I forgave. Well, yeah, people will go ahead. Yeah, yeah, no, I would just say it, like you were saying, like judging my forgiveness when you don't know what my forgiveness is. I had I released it over to God, but don't mean I can't shed a tear with the lost of a child, you know. And so being judged like that or people assuming that it's supposed to look a certain way, it's frustrating. It's frustrating and it's discouraging to those who may have a need, especially people who have suffered church hurt, yeah. Um, and people who may have walked away from the church because of things that have happened within that building. Right. You know, we can't expect for them to get over it.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 41:03

And just come back and give God praise. We have to find a way to say, hey, look, let me let me talk to you about how everybody in this building probably has suffered some type of church. Exactly. But it shouldn't stop you, you know, for giving God what's due to but well, okay. So since celebrating 29 years, we're gonna shift over a little bit of the beginning part of your ministry. We're gonna go into your family, your faith, as well as the foundation and celebrating 29 years of marriage to your beautiful first lady Cynthia. Yes, um, um, and the two sons. We're gonna talk about balance, of course. I know you shared a little bit about the date night, but we want to talk about balancing the role of a pastor as well as with your family life, of how you do that besides your date night. What are some other ways that you find balance?

SPEAKER_03 41:51

Um whatever the you like the the kids, you know, they would get all family time, what what they wanted to, you know, what they wanted to do, having to take them somewhere, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Or how old are the sons now?

SPEAKER_03 42:04

Now Jonte is 38. Oh lord, Diamond is 26, 27.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

Any grandbabies? None, none, they're gonna flood you all.

SPEAKER_03 42:14

We got a grand dog. We got a grand dog, the youngest son that he has he has a pit. So yeah, we okay, yeah. So she got so many toys and everything. Yeah, we just said two dogs. I need for a week. He bought up bought up here uh from Sean. I kept for a week. Uh yeah, it's more so they're there, they're not here in the John Tay is in Greensboro, John is in um Charlotte.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

In Charlotte, okay. So is the son that's here in uh Greensboro, you said. Does he does he make it to church with the Sunday?

SPEAKER_03 42:47

He's a he's a sound tech.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's a sound tech. Now, his girlfriend, she goes to Impact, Pastor Jason Davis church in Greensboro. So he you know, flee. So he wasn't there Sunday, so I was a sound tech.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

I did the sound tech before I preached and everything.

SPEAKER_00 43:04

Okay, so good is having how does it feel to see your son in ministry with you?

SPEAKER_03 43:10

It's good, it's good. But I did tell him, and I said, hey, if anything ever becomes of you and you know and the girl and the girl, listen, you ain't gotta stay here. Go to impact. Because I I've already told um Pastor Jason Davis, I said, Listen, um the fourth Sunday chest, so 18 years preaching. This year was the first time I didn't preach at all in October. That's my past that's my anniversary. I didn't even come to church.

SPEAKER_00 43:37

Oh, wow, that's a good break.

SPEAKER_03 43:39

Yeah, so I I and so I so and I never been to now I've had Pastor Jason to have my revivals. He's did my anniversary before, but I never got to go to him. So me and my wife, we actually went one Sunday to him. And I told him after service, you know, when I went in, you know, that we waited to church set up, you know, they're not in the pool pit and everything. Like, and I don't even sit in the pool pit. And what we I just sit on the front row. Because I want to be a part of the service. Yeah, right. But I told him after service, I said, Pastor, I was like, listen, I've told you this before. Whenever I retire or the Lord release me, I'm joining your church. And he said, and I'm going to step down. I said, no, you're not. I'm coming to sit in a pew. I'm relaxing because I'm going to receive. I said, I just love his style of it. It's two churches that it would either be his church or my other pastor friend, Pastor Shannon Long and Hall River.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

It would be one of those churches that I would just go and just go serve. I ain't got to be, I ain't got to preach or nothing, but you know, I can just go and just receive.

SPEAKER_00 44:38

Your son loves it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, good. Is that where he met her?

SPEAKER_03 44:43

Or no, he no. He just knew her. Yeah, he just, yeah. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

Go ahead on out there and do it.

SPEAKER_03 44:49

No, yeah, he met her there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You met her in pack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

See, you know what? That's what hey. I think somebody was asking, and they were talking about the dating pool. And I said, I feel sorry for these kids these days. I don't know where they're dating at. How they're gonna find it's all social media or the lack of interaction. But I said, it gotta be, hey, just go to this church service. You might find you might find somebody.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

You might find somebody. That's right. But it's good to have him in ministry. It's good to have him doing putting his gifts.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

Yeah, and and he and because and and it's it's it's it's funny because that's he went that's what he went to uh GTCC for. Okay. He he went to um he started out at Ant, then he did um, then he left from ANT and went to um Gift for Tech. And so he went for sound engineering. Okay. And everything. So then fast, then now that's what he does.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

Oh wow, I'm gonna have to really get his information. Does he he just do it for the church there, or he just or he goes? No, he just does it.

SPEAKER_03 45:46

No, no, that's the he just does it on Sunday morning. Oh, okay. Yeah, so he he understands it and everything.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

But it's still good to have it's still good to have your your kids because of course, you know, you so you're empty nesters.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

Yeah, it's just me and my wife at the crew.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Yeah, we just I don't know what that's like.

SPEAKER_03 46:04

She gets on me because she says, You do too much, you know, because I it's a lot of things that I'm that I do. Yeah, she's like, yo, you you you you just trying to find she got on me today because I I had to come here and I forgot, and I had something else, and I still got something else to do. And she was like, I told you you got too many irons in the fire. So she said, You need to write stuff down.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Oh man, just kind of slow it down a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 46:26

Yeah, and I I try, but it's just like like you got so much to do.

SPEAKER_00 46:30

You have so much to do. I think uh I I I tell myself that quite often, like, okay, Shonda, stop not doing what you're supposed to do, especially when you're adhering um the loss of so many people in ministry. Right. Um, we've just lost some quite a few people um just out the blue, and it's such a shock sometimes. Like, oh my gosh, you're they were only this age. And and you know, the Lord just decided to take them home, and I just said, okay, let me let me keep doing what I'm supposed to do and accomplish some of the things that I yeah that I set myself, you know, myself to do that's right before God said, Hey, I don't want to have that much unfinished work. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

That part, I don't need it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Yeah, yeah, I don't want to leave my kids behind.

SPEAKER_03 47:14

So yeah, just finding that balance with them and was just and spent time with them. Um, because I was bi vocational. So I was I was I was working and pastoring.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:24

Right? And so, and I was working second shift. So my youngest son, when he had baseball games and he st um T ball games and stuff, I had a good supervisor. He was like, hey, he was like, I was like, can I go see my son? I know I got 30 minutes. He was like, Yo, just go see him. He said, take my car to come back in. Yeah, don't worry about it. Just go spend the whole hour there to go see him play. Because I didn't want to, you know, I wanted to go support and everything. And then um, so even like with John Tay, you know, John Tay played sports, checked him out at football. Um, and then after that, they both of them went to work at Subway. So, you know, it was I was glad that they did that, you know, trying to, you know, train them to say, hey, you a man, you know, you gotta get a job, you know, and they did that at both at 14 and a half when they were able to. So, but yeah, spending that time with them and um then with the wife and then with the family, you know, finding that balance.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

Yeah, and the grand dog.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

Yeah, and the grand dog. So now that um I have my own business and everything, so I'm able to adjust. So, you know, um, even with the church, um, so it's it's just basically the church and then other things that I do. But uh, it's not like I gotta go punch a clock. Yeah. If that makes a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

And I think after 18 years of um with the men is pastoring so far and and really gaining the trust of your congregation, implementing vision, it's like you don't have to be on them about particular things that they have learned to respond to to the vision. Yeah, yeah. That's an important part.

SPEAKER_03 48:57

It's it's very important. And and I and I have a great board of directors, great, great team, not certain, you know, great people and everything. So yeah, I I'm excited. I never thought that it would look like this when I first started, and then over the years, but like I said, God proved himself.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

Yeah, and he's just revealing it.

SPEAKER_03 49:15

And it's just like, oh God, man, thank you. So I wasn't crazy when I when I heard, you know, you say this. And I'm thinking it's supposed to happen that right then. No, no, no, Abraham. You're gonna have a son or X, Y, and Z, yo, 75 years later, right? 25 years later, right? Yo, you it's gonna happen. God says it. Yeah, you just gotta, as we old cliche, trust the process.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

You know, hold on to the faith. Yeah, that's it. And and trying to see what his word looks like. You know, it's it's kind of hard sometimes when you're still trying to walk by faith and not by sight. Yeah, that's the truth. Yeah, not that physical sight.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

I told the congregation two Sundays ago, two Sundays. Yeah. I said, what God revealed to me, um, I said, His word gives eyes to our faith to hold on to the promise. Yeah, yeah. I said, that's what his word does. I said, not just his written word, I said whatever he speaks to you. Yeah, you know, yeah, because God is still speaking.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

Yeah, he ain't he hasn't stopped. Yeah, that's a wonderful thing. That's right. I'm telling you, I don't hear him anymore.

unknown 50:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

I gotta ask myself, am I in your wheel?

SPEAKER_02 50:23

Yeah, by women, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

But but at the same time, he could be speaking to us, and we're just not slowing down to hear on that. Um, and I know to today's time we're so surrounded by so much um out there in the world media. We're occupying, I think, ourselves with so much entertainment that we're not listening, taking the time to spend that time with God. So many voices. It's so many voices.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

And and everybody, and so I mean, this this this this competing for our attention. Yeah. And then not just ours, but people's attention span isn't long anymore.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Yeah, oh, it's not.

SPEAKER_03 51:01

You scroll 30, 30-second clips, and it's proven fact when you look it up.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

Yeah, you know, and we're producing that we're trying to find even on your preaching segments and different things about social media. We're looking for that powerful 30-second third, just so I can grab that person, you know. And and that's it's sad. I mean, they want things faster. And you know, I was thinking back back when we were coming up. We had uh the Britannica, the encyclopedias. We took our time, the search for knowledge, and to really, I remember my beginning stages of ministry. I had the commentary, I had my book here, I had a conference with here, my notebook here in the Bible, and I was like, okay, let me get my cup of coffee. I'm about to have a time dissecting the word, and now you look back like, okay, you don't see that as much as we used to.

SPEAKER_03 51:52

Oh, writing it out because I'm manuscript, right? And I just write, but then I started typing everything. I still type, but now I just after I type it, I download it, put it in iBooks. And you just yeah, yeah, but still, you can't depend on them things. Mine locked up on me one Sunday.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

You'd be like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 52:09

It locked up, but thank, but see, here's the thing I knew it.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 52:14

There you go. And uh the only person that didn't that knew that it locked up was my musician because he could see the light from the yeah, he was just like, he was like, how is he? He said, I asked, how do you how did you do it? I say, man, it had to be God. It had to be God. So that's that studying Yeah, there you go, that part. Yeah, and and I think I don't want to run too fast because I don't know. But what I was gonna say, when you're talking about like, you know, ministers, what I'm seeing today, just my perspective, everybody wants the mic. Everybody, but you don't know what it takes. There's more to it than getting up there hooping or trying to get folk to shout. Listen, you gotta give folks some substance. You gotta be able to rightly divide the word of truth, not just what you what you have been taught growing up. You gotta, you gotta know, you gotta dissect that word.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

You do. And and I'm gonna tell you this. If they learn to sit down and and literally learn it, it's exciting. It is, it is exciting to understand.

SPEAKER_03 53:16

And you learn something new every time.

SPEAKER_00 53:20

You've like, I didn't know what I pardoned because of what? Yeah, you know, or breaking it down. I my my middle daughter is 21 and um she's starting, you know, we raise children in a church, as you know. If they they come because you come, they come because you made them come in the beginning stages, and then you know, but to start to see them, my oldest daughter's 32, and I never forget what she said. Uh, she said, Mom, when I went off to college, you know, at 18, she said, I had I she came to the realization that she didn't have the relationship with God that she thought she had. Right. She said, I had a relationship with God through you. She said, I had to learn how to have one by myself. That's good. And because she was separated from me for in college, right? She had to learn him for herself. I mean, she was saved, don't get me wrong. Those seeds were planted.

SPEAKER_03 54:12

She was, yeah, but she she grew. She had that personal journey with God. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

And I said, you know what, baby, you're right. Because it was, it was, it became formal, formalities. Like it was just, okay, get up, Bible study, get up, let's go. We all the house, you know, we're going to church, get in your places, we're serving. You're here, you're here, you're here. My husband's worship. We're we're doing our thing in ministry, and we all we knew was to serve. My kids knew that that's our family to serve. Right. But when they became adults, and and that's what my 21-year-old is doing now, she's learning him for herself. And she's finding that excitement, her place, where she's fitting, you know, and it's a wonderful thing to see now. I'm still working on that 16-year-old son of mine.

SPEAKER_01 54:57

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:58

Because he's still in that zone where, all right, where you want me, mom? You know, all right, media, do this, do this. Right. But he but to see them walking, starting, well, the middle one now walking into their own is a wonderful thing. And that the time that we're in, I'm teaching even that 21-year-old. She has her own Bible, her own notebook. She she she wants to highlight and to study. That's what I want. I don't want you to get caught up on looking or chat GBT in it. Yeah, yeah, or trying to find the answers. That's right. I want you because I think the time that we're in is going to interfere with them hearing God's voice.

SPEAKER_01 55:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:39

Because it comes from studying as well. That's right. It's like I know my husband's sound. If he's in here and say, babe, out loud, even out of all the husbands we sitting here. I know my husband's sound because of the and so it's it's I want her to have that relationship. So when God speaks, it ain't mama telling her, it ain't her daddy, but it's God. Yeah. And she knows it is him.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 56:05

You know, we're running time, they're gonna get confused. And I really got that sound doctrine part where you know people turn away from they're gonna have engineers. It's a sound doctrine. I said, why did God describe the doctrine as sound doctrine? It's key, you know, that they may be looking at some doctrine. What is it? But is it sound doctrine?

SPEAKER_03 56:27

And uh and now let's just do a play. I want to do a play on words. And then some people look for a sound.

SPEAKER_00 56:33

A sound. There you go. A sound, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:36

Yeah, it's not about whooping sound. There you go. Oh, they preaching.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

Oh, they have a good church.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

Yeah, yo, they were preaching and sound, and they were preaching sound doctrine before that. That's our with us as a black people, African-Americans, or whatever you want to call us, but um, not whatever you want to call us, but you know what I'm saying. That's our culture. It is. That's not preaching, that's a culture thing. The touch of neighbor. It's nothing spiritual in it. Those are tools, those are tools we use.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:12

That's all that is. Turn around three times. You know, I don't even tell nobody. Turn around three times, but yet and still, um, those are just tools. That's just things that we it's it's nothing spiritual about that. Yeah, yeah, right. But it's it's nothing wrong with it.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 57:26

Yeah, yeah. Tell them too much. Yeah, you gotta say something.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

It's like an audience check.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

Yeah, you go back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:35

Yeah, high fire. Wake up.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

Make them do something.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Interact.

SPEAKER_00 57:40

Yeah, yeah. So you had, but you know, it is we are evolving and we are are changing. And I think it is a good thing, even as you stated prior 18 years, this this pastoring and learning. You gotta you gotta have it up with this and stay with the time.

SPEAKER_03 57:57

There you go. I was yeah, you have to compromise God, you know.

SPEAKER_00 58:01

There you go. How are you handling that? That part.

SPEAKER_03 58:03

I mean, honestly, I never had, I never had a problem. And I guess like going back, like my pastor, he's your contemporary pastor. Right? And um, because I will, now this is just me, I will pull in something. If I'll pull in a song in a in a heartbeat if I feel led to to relate it to something, I use it, you know. I did I did a sermon, um, uh just just just for instance. I preached a sermon on I'm different. So I used the song, I can't even think of the guy's name. Who was the rapper that did the the song I'm different? Yes, I'm different. Who was that guy? I don't know. It was it, it wasn't was it two chains or something? See, I don't know the I don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Yeah, so we don't know who you're gonna do.

SPEAKER_03 58:42

Yeah, so but anyway, I I I used that, yeah, and I broke the song down, meaning, you know, sharing with the congregation why he wrote it, why he said it. Yeah, and then I brought in the word.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

That's good, you know.

SPEAKER_03 58:54

So I did it that way. But as far as staying with the times, you know, I don't try to, you know, I'm 54, so I I'm not go, I'm gonna be who I am, right? But I understand what the younger people are dealing with. So I can I can talk to them. I will listen. No, I will listen to them because I can learn something from them and see what see their point of view, right? Just like when we were growing up, I know we couldn't ask our parents, no.

SPEAKER_02 59:20

No, no, no, no, no, right?

SPEAKER_03 59:22

Because I said so, right? And um, and but that's how they were raised, right? But I know even even my kids, you know, they would ask why. Yeah, and it wasn't a a rebel, you know, they rebel, they want to know why. Why can't I do X, Y, and Z, or why? And I think um when we when we fail to tell them why, then they'll go get the answer to the show. They'll go find out, yeah. Yeah, and it might not be the sound, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 59:51

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

I think we have to open our ears to hear really and not shun them away. That's right. Um, you know, you gotta be able to be the source that they come get their information from. Exactly. The first responder. I I want to be my kid's first responder. That's good. I like whatever it is. Because why TikToks and everything else are responding to 24 hours a day. All the time. I tell you the way technology is you can speak a word, and all of a sudden your timeline is flooded, yeah. And so you gotta be the one to flood. And it takes me back, and I know it's not on this question, but I wanted to ask, you know, what is your feel, even with the youth, with the young man that died over a vape? Um and not the feedback on that, but the time that we're in.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:40

Where these these children are acting out or responding in ways that it's just I all I know is we when we fought, we fought. Yeah, right. You know, you had a few people, maybe they had a, you know, they had a knife. Um, I fought an individual who had a knife. I actually got the scar to prove it there and on my back. But that wasn't our first you know, resort. I don't and uh, you know, people say, well, I started home. Yeah, but you don't know what home they're in. Not and I'm not saying anything about the neither of either of the young men because we can train our children. My parents, I use I'll be transparent. My my parents, I was raised in church, right? Um, but then I went to the military, right? I I went to the Marine Corps as soon as I graduated high school. When I came back, I got a job, but then guess what? I started slinging dope. I kept a job.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:37

I went to church every Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

Most Sundays that I can get up, right? But it wasn't the way that my mom raised me and my dad. I came come from a two-parent home.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:47

Right. Raised in a middle class neighborhood. I didn't need to sell drugs. You just I chose it. Yeah. Right. And I did it. And I and I I didn't like it, but I learned to like it. Because when it when I first got the money, I was like, dang them, the money don't feel. I knew it was dirty.

unknown 1:02:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:04

But then guess what? I got addicted to the money. You know, that's what you get addicted to, right? Um, and then uh all the other things I did. I've did all the drugs except like the pills and stuff like that, you know, for crack cocaine, weed, uh, all I've I've done it, literally, right? I sold it. Um and sometimes what does hurt me, or I have a struggle with at times, is if I preach somewhere and I see somebody I used to sell to and they still struggle. That hurts. I may not have been the main one or the only one, but I know I sold to them multiple times and I played a part in them still dealing with something that I don't have a problem with now. And God, you use me to prove that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:51

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

Yo, so I can understand what Paul said about being a chief sinner, and it's just by the grace of God I am what I am, you know. So that's why I say I I I owe God. I I know that, but I know that I'm forgiving, but getting still it hurts sometimes. Yeah, yeah, right? It hurts sometime. And um, yeah, so uh but going back to the kids, I I I don't have the answer. Yeah, yeah, we can say, Oh, they need you. I know and I I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I know it's a lot of people out there doing some great things for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

Um but I I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:31

It's a different generation.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:32

It's a different generation from you know, man, if we fought over somebody, it was over a girl or you said something about my mom. Oh, that's great. That was it. You know, but now they they got it's getting it they have more than we had that comes at them.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:48

You know, we had our things that came at us, but now they got so much that comes at them.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:54

And we do know, you know, if we just wanted to be, you know, you know, spiritual about it, which we know it is because we don't wrestle against flesh, flesh, and blood, we know it's the enemy. Yeah, he knows his time is winding up. He don't know when it's gonna be over, but he's just like throwing everything, everything at everybody. But the great thing about it is that God is continuing to pour out his spirit. Yeah, we know that we have the victory, but yet and still we I I don't know what what is gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:21

It's kind of just a prayer thing, or but it's it's you know, we just don't want to sit and pray.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:27

But it's just a major concern about how our our kids, right, you know, you you send yours and hopefully you you the crazy come back home. Yeah, yeah. There's nothing wrong. But the the loss or the lack of moral that conceived switch. Yeah, yeah. It's not there.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:46

It's like they it's it's like some, not all. Not all, not all. It's like they don't some don't care about a life. About life, and it's and it's like they'll take a life just like it's like it's nothing. It's a badge of honor.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

It is, it is.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:00

You know, for some, you know. Yeah, and um it's sad. It's sad, but it's sad, but you know if we can have some conversations, watch this, not have them come to us, but us go to them.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:12

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

Instead of saying, you know, church, you know, this is what we ought to do. We ought to hold this form. No. Go. So we can talk about it. Yeah, for what? They're not gonna come. No. We need to go to them. Yeah. We need to go in their setting. Um, and I was at Bible college, we we had an evangelism class, and the book was out of out of their out of their faces and into their shoes. And that's what we have to do. We gotta get out of their face. Or stop talking about them. You know, no, sit down and listen to them.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:42

You have to.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:42

Why are you why what what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:44

What's triggering you?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

Yeah. I think once you kind of gain an understanding, maybe you have the opportunity to dissect.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:51

And then you have yeah. And then you have um Bishop Hunter, one of our instructors and the founder of uh Living Epistle Bible College, where I went to Bible college at, he said. You have to earn the right to ask people questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

Uh-huh. I like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:05

He said, you need to earn the right to ask people. You just can't go up to them and ask them. He said, you don't know what makes some people cuss. You don't know what makes some people do what they do. Yeah. And we don't. We can say, oh, I sin.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:16

Yeah, but what we get that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:18

That that we understand. Forget all that. But what is it?

unknown 1:06:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:22

Until we get to know a person and have the have the heart to want to know about them and not know information to go talk about. Those two totally different things. We can sit and talk about folk all day. But to really get to know them and then help them if they're willing to be helped. Or just let them know I'm here for you and really mean it. Because let me tell you one thing about this generation. They know, they know if you're real or not.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:49

And they they they know.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:51

They know.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

They're not easily fooled. They're not easily fooled.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:55

And one thing I I was a Barner Search report um that I I read a while back, and it said that this generation, the millennials, they're coming back in to churches in in droves. They're like, their statistics is higher than like anybody's. But they're coming and they want authenticity.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:14

They want to, they will, they're hungry. And God put that in all of us, but they are hungry. And if we fail to be transparent and teach them properly, exactly. The devil got something for them. He's gonna offer them something and then they'll take it. But that's why we have to be authentic and be honest with them and not sit in judgment of them. If they come to church, man, you need to pull your pants up. Shut up! Leave that stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:46

Change within the uh when they're ready to be changed.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:50

Take your hat on the different generation of folks, and and and let them wear the hat. I don't care. It don't bother me. And so it shouldn't hinder you teaching to preaching. Exactly. So and yeah, no there.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:07

But you can you're fine. I know I know we're getting lost for time, but I do want to ask in reference to, I know uh with uh uh with St. Paul Baptist Church, you have produced so much fruit. Um talking about, of course, too many different things to your community outreach programs. Tell us a little bit about some of the vision behind uh purchasing land, creating um tell us about the stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:32

When I when I got there 18 years ago, they already had the land, right? It wasn't paid for. So um we paid it, got the land paid off. It's 32 acres right across the street. Um, and it just and we hadn't we didn't do anything, we hadn't done anything with it. The last pastor, he wanted to build like a um community thing for like senior citizens, like tournaments and stuff. Um but so we never did anything with it. Um one of our deacons found a gentleman that has cattle. So, you know, it's growing up, you know, and everything. So he you need to keep it cut, right? Yeah. So the deal was, hey, if you keep it cut, you can have the have the hay, you know, or whatever, you know. And so the guy always kept it, um, kept it up. And I used, and so we had companies for years that would come and say, hey, we'll buy the wood, the the trees off your land. I was like, yo, let's sell it. And so back then, um the the deacons were like, you know, I'm I'm 30 some years old. These guys 60, 70, you know, I'm gonna get we ain't selling nothing. So you had to go through all that. I'm like, oh God, you know. So uh we'll give you 6,000, we'll give you 8,000. And I was like, yo, nobody, no, we ain't gonna do that. No, no, we don't want to do that, you know. So I was like, okay, so beating a dead horse with that hindsight. Right? It wasn't the right time.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:57

See? That's a whole break.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:59

So just this year, a couple of months ago.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:02

Really?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:03

I talked to, so we weren't incorporated then. We just we just incorporated the church. I tried to for years. Fought tooth and nail on it, leave that alone. So what I did do, I started my own nonprofit two years ago. Like, you know what? The church is great and everything. I said, but I want to do my own nonprofit. That way I can have something when I stop pastoring.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:25

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:26

And if I want to do something, I ain't gotta come here and go through. I can just do it on my own. Use the church as a hub, like we've been doing for the community, but it'll be through my nonprofit. So when I finally um talk to, you know, the deacons and stuff, you know, time passed, you know, people move off the scene and everything. Right? No, and not saying anything against I miss, you know, you know, those that go on. But one of them said, Pastor, you've been trying for years. Let's do it. I was like, for real? I'm like a kid in a candy store, right? So I was like, we gotta have a board of directors and everything. So the young lady out of Charlotte that did my nonprofit for me, right? I called her. Well, I talked to the trustees. I said, Hey, is it feasible for us to do X, Y, and Z? And they was like, Yeah, well, how much is it gonna call? So I did make the phone, called a young lady, said, Well, since I know you, I'm gonna charge all blah, blah, blah. This is what I charge. I was like, for real? So she came to Charlotte, did our paperwork, sent it all. Now New St. Paul is New St. Paul Baptist Church, Inc., so we incorporated, right? So, and the whole purpose is so guess what? We can apply for grants, right? Some faith-based grants and dah, dah da. So that that was the that was the reason behind that. So we did that, and so we gotta have a board of directors. So I did, you know, did the bylaws and everything, and um presented it to them. He was like, Yeah, these look good, and you know, da-da-da. So um I said, Hey, let's revisit this land across the street. So I told my so one of my associate ministers, um he works at Wentworth, he does the perking of the land for Rocketham County. He was like, Okay, Pastor. So fast forward, he talked to some people he knew and got in con and God just started connecting the dots. Within a week, here's the crazy thing. We had a logging company. Guess where the logging company was from? Here's our church. This is all right, this is East Stadium Drive. Our church sits right here. Here's in the two other streets. The logging company sits right here. Not even a quarter of a mile. The guy comes, meets with us, tells us, hey, this is what I do. I'm gonna be straight up with y'all. This is what I do. I normally don't do this, but um, this is how we're gonna do it. And I was like, he said, I'm gonna have it work in the church's favor. He said, because I'm a man, he said, I'm a man of faith too. And he goes to the church down the street. So we was like, yo, okay. So we took it to the congregation. Boom, man. They cut, he cut the the trees down. We we was just sitting there receiving the checks. We have to do so. God did that, and I was like, That's amazing. And then so he turned us on. He was like, Hey, what y'all gonna do with it? I said, Well, it's 32 acres. He said, consider this. He said, the church. If y'all replant it with trees, he said, years later, you ain't gotta go to the bank and get money, you just do what you just did. Yeah, I was like, What? He was like, Yeah, he said, that's what I do with my land. He said, Now turn you all, guy, turn you all on to who plants my trees for me. They come out of Maine, they'll come down and plant your trees for X, Y, and Z. It was like, for that project. I said, for real? He was like, Yeah. So that's what we in a process, that's where we're in the process of, you know, we get ready to do that. And then the other half, my vision for that is I want to do a community garden. I want to put like a walking track, right? And then a commercial grade playground for the community, not for the church, but for the community. Even though we have a freedom park, it's a city park, like right down the road from us, which is not far. But here it is again. Everybody like us don't go. So I want to have something, and not be a racist or anything, but I want to have something and I want to leave something. So when I move off the scene at New St. Paul, something is still going on. And so God also opened up doors for us. We partnered with different organizations. Blue Cross Blue Shield Partnership, United Healthcare Partnership, Cone Health Partnership. And when God started making those connections, I was like, what? And it's like, you know, you all, um, if you see a problem or you want to address an issue and it aligns with our mission and our goal, we'll take care of this for you. So I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:37

That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:38

You know, so when God started doing that, and the crazy thing about it, I had Pastor Jason Davis dad, who's um come and do my 17th anniversary. And when he came, he said, he came from Revelations, and he said, You all, he said, all I'm gonna tell you when I said he said, I asked God what is it that you want to say to Pastor Clark and his church? He said, This is what I'm gonna tell y'all. And he just walked and talked to us. He said, God said, I'm sitting before y'all, open door. He said, Whatever that looks like, he didn't go into detail. He said, Y'all, you may know what that looks like, Pastor Carr. And all of a sudden, and all after last year, and then after that, things just started boom, boom, like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:24

The doors open.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:25

Yeah, so I was like, oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:27

God didn't open the door for the stopping.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:28

And then a few and then last year, um, last year my wife found out she had breast cancer. So the the church and my wife went to when my wife found out she had breast cancer. Me and her was at church getting ready to do bingo for my nonprofit for the senior citizens. She got the phone call and they told her she had breast cancer and everything. She came out and she was like, Okay, she said, okay. Went back and then did the bingo. I'm looking at her like yo, you just like I'm gonna be okay. She said, God already told her. I was the one falling to pieces. I was the one falling to pieces the whole time. The entire time I watched her watch the for a whole year, lose her hair, go to chemo, have radiation. She was at church every Sunday. The only time she didn't come was the last chemo because they said it would be the worst. She just couldn't get out of bed. That was all. But to see now, hair back, boom, she's she's still going. I'm just like, I told her, I said, God used you through that to strengthen all of our faith. Our sons, we all drew closer to God through her and her walk with God is you know on another level. She told me, and she said, now I understand what people that went through cancer say. She said, I see things totally different now. She said, I don't let nothing bother me no more. She said, When you almost die, and you survive that? She said, I'm good. Yeah, she said, I know he takes care of me. So to see her army, I'm just like, yo, God, you man.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:02

So even though even that last year, and this is her just recover, can't she's just April was April was her one-year recovery and everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:10

She did, she did, she does herself a cancer versory. Cancer versory. And so we did that. And um, yeah, yeah, God blessed me. And she had been wanting a round for she had saw it, so I was like, yo, I'm gonna get our raft four. She deserved that I get whatever you want. Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna dig a ditch and I get it. So, yeah, so yeah, but but that right there, man, God blessed um her and us. And then to see the members of the church support her.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:38

Yeah, that's good. Right, that was good.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:39

And to call to give gift cards, to just bring ginger rail and say, hey, you know, things of that. I mean, that that to me seeing that, I was like, wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:49

Those are the seeds that you've planted over the last 18 years.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:52

And here's the thing, it was from people that you that that maybe not, that's not like on any ministry or something in church. And then they come up and it, it was like my wife said, that that meant the most. Yeah. When it was from certain individuals. So some you expect, you know, pastors aid, you know, you know, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:09

It's just out of love, yeah, but it's also out of uh responsibility. Right. And I know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:14

But then when up, you'd be like, man, oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:17

Because they've been thinking, yeah, you never know who's been just on their face praying. That's right. But you say that door open, he opened not only the the things that you can see, but that strength.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:28

The strength, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:29

He's poor, he probably opened the door to those things that was not tangible. See, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:35

Yeah, and then you know, through that, I was able to serve her cause. She couldn't do anything. So I thank God going back real quick. My mom said, Listen, you're gonna learn how to iron, you're gonna learn how to wash clothes, you're gonna learn how to clean house. She said, Because if you ever get married, and I remember I was thinking I was in middle school, she said, your wife gets sick. She said, You're gonna have to take care of the household. And so my mom, you know, back then, yeah, you know, and guess what? I had to. You heard it, I heard it, and then I was able to do it, but I do it anyway. But to have that whole load, I was just like, I don't see how y'all do it, you know, the way nothing to us men don't. But man, I had to win on it.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:21

If it's white, I know white, but yeah, yeah, but if yes, but it's still ministry. It's still ministry, yeah. It is. It's good to hear so much that has been going on and where God has taken you and and in the victories and triumphs, as well as some of the battles that you face. Before we wrap up our session, tell us the vision. What is your goal? What what do you see God doing, not only with your family, but with the church and where you're headed?

unknown 1:19:51

All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:51

So for the past two years, and we've had God gave me this thought, and we haven't changed. You know how each year a church has a different theme, and he hasn't changed, he hadn't spoken, not saying that he will change it, but uh is rethinking church. We're rethinking, we're the church, yeah. We are rethinking everything we've been told in church and what is it that God is saying to me on how he wants me to be. So even with some of the things that we do in church, we don't do no more. COVID taught us that. COVID happened, but what COVID did teach us, and I and I and and I'm quoting this our paraphrase from one of a pastor, um friend of mine who I who I who I look up to, and I'm and I'm inspired by him as Pastor Jay Patrick out of um uh um Liberation Church in uh Richmond, Virginia. Used to go to his church summit, um, his church builder summit. Um, and we went right when COVID had just started, but I think we went to two or three when he started. And we was on the phone one day with some other pastors, and he did say, it was a few of us, and he said, one thing COVID taught us is how to trim the fat off of our services. That is true because a lot of stuff, because what it was just me and the praise team, my wife at church every Sunday. Yeah, right, it was just us being the musicians, and we did church and preaching to an empty and and so we we learned how to maneuver through that and continue to serve. But uh yeah, so rethinking church, um one thing and I'll do a little tease, and this is for the importation series that you know I was that I was gonna I'm still gonna do. You know the cliche that we say in church and church community, I'm taking back everything the devil's over me. God dealt with me about that uh a few weeks ago. How can the devil steal anything from us when we're seated in heavenly places in Jesus Christ? He said, Don't say it again because the enemy can't steal anything from you when you are seated, positioned, we're there in Christ, every believer. But I think we hear these sayings and we just pick them up and we quote them and we put them on the same level as scripture, and it's not, and people believe it, and therefore people live live defeated lives.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:26

Yeah, fighting and walking and trying to recover something from the enemy. He's spending too much time on it. Spending too much time.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:35

Jesus said the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He didn't say he could do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:39

He could do it. He just let me know his mission. That's what that's what he said.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:42

He said, but then he said, but I've come. That's that butt part. That you might have life, Zoe, real life, full life, complete, and have it more abundantly. So there is it's a lot of rethinking, renewing the mind so we can walk in in the so we can live out the word, flesh it out, live it out, right? So yeah, so I I so moving forward, the vision is our vision is to continue to serve the community, reach people where they are, love them where they are, plant, sow, let God give the increase. Plant water, let God get an increase. Because we don't know whether we're sowing or whether we're planting. We just looking for God to get an increase.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:18

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:18

So that's what that's what we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:20

Yeah, well, it was such a pleasure to document.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:23

I appreciate the opportunity to the mixed network. Yeah, you great host. Oh my gosh, great host.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:30

You know, try.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You did it, you did it.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:34

But it was a great opportunity to connect with another like-minded believer, yes, ma'am, and also a laborer in the in the word and just in ministry, and hearing you pour out your heart and just your experience, you know. Tell us how we can find you on social media, tell us your service, your low, give us that. Right so whoever's watching.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:54

New St. Paul Baptist Church. It's located in Eden, North Carolina, 1020 East Stadium Drive. We start at 10 a.m. And um we have I do Bible study on Tuesdays, but it's via conference call. We've been doing it like that probably for about the last 12 years.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:11

Oh, wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:12

I don't go to the church and do Bible study. I have more people call in than I do that would show up. So you gotta do what works for your congregation, right? And so, yeah, you can find us on Facebook at the New St. Paul Baptist Church. We go live every Sunday. And so, Big, you can find us there. We're on Instagram at TNSPBC. And our church also has an app, and people can download our app. Once you go to our website, uh, our website is tnsp.org, and people can go there and download our church app. And once you sign up with that, you'll get everything. When we send out text blasts, you'll get all the information and everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:48

Okay. So they'll be notified on any upcoming events.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:50

On any upcoming events, any cancellations, anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

So if you're looking for a church home and you out there, you watch, and you're in the area, make sure you go and visit and see what God has in store for you there.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:02

One last thing even if people come to our church and they don't join, but they are a believer, they're part of the kingdom, and they've been consistently coming. You don't have to join to be a part of a ministry. You can exercise and use your gift.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:14

Oh, that's good. So, yeah. Hey, just looking for people who are ready to work. Ready to work.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:19

That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:20

We still got work to do. We still try to grow God's kingdom until He calls us home. I don't want to be found not doing what God has told me to do. So we encourage you and again keep the keep up with the good work, you and your wife. And um, 29 years is a wonderful thing, and pray to God to just give you some more years. Give us some more years.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:39

That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:40

And no more grand dogs.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:42

No, no more grand dogs. No, no, they they cost too much, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:47

But y'all enjoy yourselves again. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:50

Thank you. Appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:51

No problem. Again, we thank you. This is your host, uh, Elder Crawford with the mixed network with it from Matters from the Heart, issues from the Heart. Um, we're so glad that you tuned in. We were talking about real life issues, situations. Um, no matter what, of course, we want you to be a part of this network. Thank you so much for joining us. Y'all have a wonderful evening.