Where Do We Go From Here--Chaos of Community?: 50 Years Later

Don’t Look Any Further

The R&B song by Dennis Edwards kept going through my head back when the committee first began their search for a new pastor at Redeemer Church. It is a catchy tune…”Don’t Look Any Further…Further.”

I was thinking of Elbert McGowan, Jr., a young, qualified, beautiful teaching elder from the congregation. According to the elders in their letter to the church members:

Elbert has labored among us, interning for Redeemer in the early years of the church while he was in seminary. He was involved in the church’s early work, including the tutoring, basketball and nursing home ministries. He planted a Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) ministry at Jackson State University in 2007, where he has been a beloved pastor for nine years. Not only does Elbert know our church, he has participated in it, experienced ministry leadership in it, lived in our neighborhood, taught and been taught by our people. He and Karen understand Redeemer’s vision, know and love our people and care deeply about the church’s future.

The choice has been made. Elbert McGowan, Jr. was selected as the new pastor of Redeemer. This looks like a Godly choice. The elders took their time, listened to the congregation and the leading of God. They were led to look no further than their own back yard.

God bless Redeemer and Elbert McGowan, Jr. 

This selection is a real model of Christian leadership development. 

A tremendous testimony to the world. 

A truly beautiful thing.

Black Pastor or White Pastor? That is the Question

     I've been giving this some thought and a lot of us have been discussing whether a white pastor or a black pastor would be best for, I'd say approximately, a 70% white/30% black church located in a black community with the goal to serve, love, and evangelize that black community. The original reason for existence was to love and make a difference in the community in which it stood. Knowing that a black pastor would be the greatest testimony for a then (11 years ago) 97% white newly-formed church, the leadership intentionally sought out and found the perfect black pastor for the job. He was excellent (I can write a whole blog on him), but now he's gone. Now the question is who should be selected as the next pastor? A black man or a white man? (For anyone wondering why not a woman, don't even ask; this is the PCA folks). 

    What I have surmised is that there are two ways to think about it for me because the radical gospel and what you have the nerve to say from the pulpit is most important to me. Our last pastor had what I call the "Obama dilemma"...he couldn't just come right out and say what was really on his mind. He had to temper his words for all of the conservative, un-racially educated white folk and nervous, uncomfortable, under-racially educated black folk listening. I believed he had stronger feelings and much more to say, but, like President Obama, he wasn't obliged to present them as much as he wanted to. Now that's my opinion. Don't go jumping on me for that (I had my own playful nickname for him: Undercover Brother...so you know what I really thought). 

     Should the pastor be black? Probably.... because of the mission of the church in this community; the great testimony of having a black minister presiding over a multiracial church is a miracle in itself. It sets the church off from other churches as different and having a black pastor certainly attracts black members and hopefully attracts people from the community it serves. It is also a testimony to the predominantly white PCA denomination. Given the paucity of African-American teaching elders in the PCA, it was a tremendous testimony both to the denomination and the larger community to have such a gifted African-American as the founding pastor.Those are major reasons and almost insurmountable. But what about this "Obama dilemma?" Does a black pastor have to be truly tempered so much that he cannot even mention certain strong words in the pulpit for fear of being called radical or threatening? Can a black pastor really get the true gospel out strongly without fearing he is stepping on toes? I am not sure a black pastor would have the nerve or ability -- no matter how humble, educated, well-liked, or nice he is -- to preach what I am going to call to shorten it "the radical gospel." 

     But on the other hand, a white man can. White people have always had the freedom to talk radically in a mixed group if he chooses. It makes him look good to us, at least to the blacks. We trust him more, we will get behind him and serve with him more diligently. He can say strong words like "this is racism, this is passive racism, what happened when that cop shot that young black boy is sin!" He can say "take down that confederate flag right now because of what it stands for; it's offensive to that black brother or sister sitting right next to you." He can say these things with power right from the pulpit without people charging him with being too black or an angry black man. A white pastor might not have to be timid about saying it loud, that is, if this kind of white man can be found. I already know that a racially-educated, radical white pastor is going to be hard to find. But we also have to think about those nearly insurmountable reasons for selecting a black pastor. These are serious difficult questions that the search committee must address. I'll be praying. But there is no compromise on the radical Gospel of Jesus Christ that must be preached by the chosen pastor. Even though these words were spoken over 45 years ago by Dr. Columbus Sally at Wheaton College (I'm sure he rattled that 99% white student/faculty audience in 1970. Ron was there that day; in fact, he was the student who invited Dr. Sally to Wheaton), they are very relevant today:

"If we cannot demonstrate to black people a gospel that can communicate to them in their totality, and by that I mean a gospel that can deal with black men who are unemployed, a gospel that can deal with a black family that lives in a dilapidated apartment. If it cannot deal with police brutality, if it cannot deal with the black child who is being miseducated, who is a victim of an educational system that denounces the legitimacy of his everyday culture, if our gospel cannot deal with that, it's passe. That's not to say Christ is passe! It just simply means that the transmitters of that reality are passe, ineffective, and antiquated. They have become anachronistic." --Dr. Columbus Sally

Now that's the radical gospel. Search Committee, find a pastor that won't have to succumb to the "Obama dilemma," one who is not passe but one who has the nerve to be a transmitter of the deep gospel, who is relevant, and has the ability to preach a gospel that will really effect change in the hearts and minds of the congregation and community. This will be hard to find. It will take a miracle from God. But God did it once; He can do it again!

Crossbones WSA Sunday Performance 2-24-13

My Brush With the Spinners, Old Skool R&B Hitmakers

The Spinners and I go back a long way. Yep, back to the days when they were really hot. Before we used the word "hot" like that. Back when we used cool phrases like "right on" or "sho ya right." Okay, I'm old. But I first saw the Spinners when I was in high school. On a Saturday night at the Coliseum, I pushed my way to the front row when the lights went out. I sang along with every song, word for word. When they got to the part in Rubberband Man where the "short fat guy" danced and threw his oversized rubberband into the audience, I wrestled a boy down for it and won. I thought he was a girl at first, but a closer look revealed a man/girl. I kept that rubberband for many years.

I saw the Spinners many times later in more intimate settings. Two of these stands out...In the late 1990s they came to the Hilton Hotel on Countyline, and this time I was with Ron. The lead singer, who had taken Philippè Soul Wynne's place-- the one who still had the Jheri curl-- well, he kept eyeing me. I mean it. For real. So much so that Ron pointed it out saying, "You see, you're so beautiful, he can't keep his eyes off of you." I jokingly replied that I must look like his wife. But then he made the "come here" jester with his pointer finger, asking me to come up on the stage. What? I nearly fainted. He wanted me to come up there and sing with him! Ron was trying to push me up there, but I kept saying no, no! I won out. I was not going up there!!! He soon gave up, but he kept an eye on me the entire show. I don't know what that was about.

         
The last time I saw the Spinner was around 2002 at the county fair. They put on a great show, but the short fat guy had to have oxygen after the show. Ron and I watched as they took him on a golf cart back to their tour bus. Last year, I saw the Spinners on the TV One series, Unsung, and I learned that many of them are dead now. After sharing his breathtaking falsetto in songs like Mighty Love, Sadie, and Ghetto Child, Philippè Soul Wynne left the band in 1977, and in 1984 collapsed on stage while performing at a night club in Oakland, California, succumbing to a heart attack on my birthday (July 15) at age 43. The bass singer, Pervis Jackson, a heavy smoker (well known for his standout bass lines in Games People Play) died of a heart attack in 2008; the short fat guy, Billy Henderson, who had diabetes and heart problems, died in 2004. Are you wondering what happened to my boyfriend with the Jheri curl? Unfortunately, John Edwards suffered a stroke in 2000 and is now in a wheel chair. He still sports a curl, though.

My Brush With Barack Obama, President of the United States

From Across the Room (a blog series about my brush with interesting people)

Who'd a thought the light-skinned young man I was looking at while sitting in that restaurant owned by Issac Byrd (a well-known, local lawyer) a few years ago would one day be the president of the United States? I guess they knew (the people who brought him to Mississippi), but I didn't. All I knew was that he was a charismatic, important, young, black, up-and-coming politician with a funny name from Chicago who wanted to be an Illinois U.S. Senator. That was huge, even for us here in Mississippi. So, I wanted to attend the breakfast and donate a little money to his campaign. I listened carefully to what Mr. Obama had to say that morning. Low and behold, the man was breath-taking! I am not kidding you. I know something special when I see it and this man had it.  So much so that I reached deep into my pocket book and donated $200 I did not have and another $100 given to me from Mom Potter (who was visiting from Illinois). I do not have to tell you the rest of the story because you already know it. It's American History....which I witnessed just last month with my own eyes in Washington, D.C when Mr. Obama was sworn in for a second term (it was amazing just to be there and see his tiny ant face again...that's how far back I was).  One last thing, though.... you all know about that gad-fly of a smoking habit that our president has, right? Well, I saw it with my own eyes. I stuck around outside long enough to see him get into his limo, light a cigarette and take a  quick puff. He sped off in haste, calming his worked-up nerves, I'm sure.

From Across the Room, a blog series about my brush with interesting people

Just for the fun of it I will be writing a blog series about my brush with people of interest. I am going to call it "From Across the Room." I was thinking the other day how we value deep stuff so much. Well, I was also thinking how much I talk about the little things and how light-hearted things like spotting interesting people often rise to the top of our conversation. As I was thinking about this, many names came to mind. These people often enter my conversations and make me and others smile, think, imagine, and dream. I've brushed spaces with quite a few interesting people. In this series you will hear about my special tiny moments with Barack Obama, Denzel Washington, Jessie Jackson, the Jackson 5, Bill Clinton, James Meredith, Arsenio Hall, Stephanie Mills, Thelma Hopkins, Walter Hawkins, the Spinners, Fred Hammond and Commissioned, John Louis,Tom Skinner, and yes, Byron De La Beckwith, the man who killed Medgar Evers. What an interesting list. I'll tell you all about it in short, easy to read essays.