Destiny Unfolding

So I am doing my Field Education Experience an AME Church in Newark, NJ. It is a very dynamic ministry. There will be plenty of time for that. Anyway…they have started a second location. It has been a blessing to me for several reasons but I would like to share one in particular. I have been humbled. While I love the big name, great, preachers (if you will) who have these deep revelations and can explain their revelations of deep knowledge. However, since this location is focusing on teaching and preaching I have come to appreciate the value of simple messages where everything you need is right there, visibly on the page. We young preachers feel we need to strive to be deep but really God’s people just want a Word. In truth some of the big preaches have simple message but they package them with deep complex knowledge (or so it appears). There is value, especially for us new preachers, to work on giving a simple word, and giving it well. Thanks for the knowledge!

P.S. If you master preaching the simple messages then perhaps God can moved you to a deeper seat of revelation. But for now, I’ll work on just letting God work on my prophetic gift.

So I want to start this space on my blog for these random thoughts that I have in my head. And "I Think" is the perfect name for these moments. So here we go...

I think that the way African American women age is a BEAUTIFUL THING. I see elderly African American women who have worked for what they have believed in, fought for what was right and stood as strong pillars of faith for their commuinty, family and nation is worth looking up to. And I hope that I age with the same character as these women. And that is what I Think.

Tavis Smiley: Do you believe that the black church has become too political? Has the church gotten away from its primary mission?

James Cone: Thank you very much. I’m please to be here just like everybody else. I am pleased that you asked me a question about whether the black church is too political. Of course it all depends on what you mean by politics and in what way you mean that. I think that one thing that we, the black church, to ask itself is what is its mission. I think that one of the things the black church has lost is a good understanding of its mission. Black church is good at preaching, good at singing, good at a lot of things but the black church has not been as good about thinking about what its nature is and what its mission is. Is its mission primarily saving souls or is it savings saving bodies or is it both together. I think if you see them both together you would have to see that the black church has to be political because politics is a part of life. It also has to be concerned about saving souls because full meaning in life is not simply found in politics. So I would want to emphasize this particular point here: is that if the black church ahs one problem that I think it needs to think about it is the problem of whether or not it is called to save its own life or if it is called to lose its life for the sake of other. I feel that the black church is concerned with savings its own life because it is so interested in the gospel of success. The gospel of Jesus is not a gospel of success. The gospel of Jesus is a gospel of ultimate success through failure. It’s a gospel of ultimate success through obvious failure. That is why the cross is at the center of the gospel. The cross is not a gospel of success. Jesus did not succeed. He failed. But God took that failure and transformed that failure into success. Now it is very important that when you talk about ultimate success it is not so obvious because the resurrection was not obvious. The tomb was empty but yet noting was there. I feel today with such much focusing on building buildings and all the other humongous things we do that we fail to see that the cross is at the heart of what the black church ought to be about. It was not very difficult for the black church to see that in the time in which it was born because being a slave church was not success it was obvious failure. Now the problem is that the church has lost its legacy. It has lost its message. And when success becomes the focuses of [the black church], it looses its mission and it looses its message. I would like to see the church not be so concerned about its success but much more concerned about a kind of success through failure; and where its failure is at the heart of faith. I would want to put my emphasis there. I am concern that the church doesn’t get too concerned about its own survival because Jesus said, ‘people who seek to save there life shall lose it, but if you lose your life for the sake of the least of these then you will find your life.’

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Tavis Smiley: James Cone…relative to its service, how do we critically evaluate the success, or lack there of, of the black church.

James Cone: The black church, I think, does not get a good grade if we use the standard that my college Rev. Forbes indicated, that is a kind of transcendence standard. Now I think that it gets a good grade if we use the standards that presides by the world. We are fairly successful! Especially when you consider from which we have come: out of slavery, out of segregation, out of the civil rights movement. Many of us have moved into places that we thought were never possible. So, many of us, have a kind of obvious success. We do! And I think that we get confused with that successful. I think we have a lot of spirit in our churches. I’m just not sure whose spirit it is. And maybe that’s why thinking is so low in our churches. I think the black church is very good at producing people who can proclaim, who can preach who can really entertain. And we have done that well. In fact, I think it would be fair to say, we have produced the greatest preachers in the world. That is, we have produced people who can really say the word. Their word. But what we have not done is really helped out people to know what the gospel is. To think on it! To reflect on it! And to be able to understand what challenges this gospel places before us in the world in which we live. The world not easy to understand; with all the list of problems that you indicated. We need a thinking church. We don’t only need a praying church, I’m for that. But I am also for a thinking church. Because told us to love God with our heart, soul and mind. Don’t forget about the mind now. WE have got to love God with our minds. I don’t like it when we denigrate the mind. You see theology is loving God with your mind. And I think if we can get the collection of us together, like on this stage, when were not on TV. But we are in a closed circle room where not body knows we are meting there and w get our minds together and we learn how to learn from each other. I think we would begin to make our way toward the solution of some of the problems that outlined before us today. My [thought] is that it is hard to get us together unless we are on stage.

Truth be told…I had expected this year to be much easier then last. However, I think I was wrong. As opposed to the busy work and the exams the madness has simply shifted. I am taking a full credit load of 18 hours, plus working 10 hours each week at my Field Ed church, plus 10 hours as a professors research assistant, plus 4 hours in the seminary café. Lord have mercy. Yet, I must say that my prayer for self-discipline and time management may begin to break through this year. I realize that the life of a pastor is a busy one. I’ve known that from jump. But this is the time for me to work on effective time management skills. I am taking 6 courses which are averaging 100 pages a week. That means 600+ pages of reading. I think I’ll have cataracts by the time I graduate. LOL. Miss you…whoever you are. I am back in seminary land. To God be the glory!