THE SPIRIT+SPIRITUALITY ROUNDTABLE!
Four faith leaders–2 Bishops, an Elder and an Executive Pastor–were assembled to have a frank, raw and real conversation about COVID and its impact on their ministries and their lives, about their personal and spiritual paths as leaders and how they are moving forward in ministry after the pandemics (racial unrest, climate destruction, civil madness in politics) that have changed the ways we move in the world.
Assembled were Bishop Allyson Nelson Abrams, founder of the Empowerment Liberation Cathedral (DC and MD), president of the Empowerment Justice Center and founder of the EJC Wellness Center and author of the children’s book God Is My Buddy and a book of affirmations and prayers for couples (30 Days B4 Saying I Do); Bishop Vanessa M. Brown, who is an ordained pastor, radical inclusionist, social justice activist and digital creator, and Senior Pastor of Rivers of Living Water UCC of NY and NJ, which is affiliated with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, headed by Bishop Yvette Flunder, and the co-creator of Beyond The Gatekeepers; Rev. Dr. Rodney Jackson – a dedicated Pastor, teacher, author & musician; Long Island, NY born and raised, who serves as a pastor with Restoration Temple Ministries NYC, under the leadership of Bishop Rose Hardy, while being a married man living and loving with his wife in Nashville, TN and raising 2 sons from previous relationships, in NY and in FL, where he is an active parent in both sons’ lives.
Rounding out the table is our guest editor, Rev. Elder Kevin E. Taylor, who is Senior Pastor of Unity Fellowship Church Newark, NJ, and an elder with UFCM, Inc. He is also the Director of LGBTQ Services for the North Jersey Community Research Initiative (NJCRI), where he is also currently serving as the Acting Director of Development, Donations and Communications, while being a noted author, speaker and TV journalist.
SWERV: What did you learn about yourself during the pandemic that surprised you?
TAYLOR: I will say that I was surprised at how tired I was. I thought I was doing a good job at faking it and perpetrating but when I got still for a few days, I found out that I was tired. I am a person who is up by 6:30 or 7am, and I was surprised at the mornings when I was sleeping until 9am. I was exhausted.
ABRAMS: Let me throw out, for me, two things. One was that I hadn’t taken time to observe nature, the things that God had created. When I had to stay home and then forced myself to get out of the house because I was going crazy, I noticed things. I noticed the trees and even started to notice the sounds that I never heard because I was so busy. I got to breathe. The other thing is that I had to bump up the learning curve. I had to learn how to go live and do e-cam and do all this technical stuff because at church, we had a team. In the house, I had to do the learning curve piece and do some new things. I was excited!
BROWN: What comes to mind for me, I think I always knew it, but it really resolved with me that I like to be by myself. I am okay being by myself doing things, going to the movies by myself, anything by myself. I know the word says it’s not good for a man, a human, to be alone. I know it because I was around a lot of people who could not function by themselves. I know that was just not me. The other thing I learned was that I am not invincible! (the entire group groaned in agreement) If I don’t do it doesn’t mean it won’t get done. My mother says that ‘one monkey don’t stop no show’ and she ain’t never lied. I realized that people will go on without you–congregants, in leadership or even if it’s you. You’re gonna go on without other folks. I had to sit with all that.
JACKSON: I’ll piggyback on that. I also had to surrender the other part that when people did something that wasn’t done the way I would have done it, I had to release that it was still accomplished. I am a man who manages time really well, that’s the only way I am able to father a son in Florida and one in NY and live with my wife in Nashville, run 3 businesses while still being at church in New York! I thank God that I’m able to do that, but I realized in the pandemic that I had more time than I thought I did. I had to make sure that I’m being successful with it. And making sure that I’m being successful with the time I have. I needed to learn to read a book FOR ME. Not for others. I had to internalize things for me. I was always taking everything for the church. The pandemic surprisingly made me work on myself and make time for myself. Coming out of it, I needed to transfer those skills and make more time for myself. That alone time was clutch.
SWERV: How did you ENDURE the pandemic? What did you do to deal with yourself? What hobby or new skill did you develop to entertain yourself during the pandemic?
BROWN: If you don’t mind, I’ll start with a couple of things. Number 1, I got a divorce during the pandemic. In the middle of the pandemic, I was separated. I learned how to cook during the pandemic. Before that, my mother would tease me that I couldn’t boil rice without burning it. We laugh about it because now I can boil rice and make vegetables and make steak and chicken and grill and bake and make crabcakes. But let me just say I’m not a down-home cook. I’m a recipe girl, but I did very well with recipes and the Food Network was my friend during the pandemic. Taking my little “Chef It Up” classes and cooking became my therapy. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a therapist that I see once a week, but cooking became another kind of therapy for me. As well as reading, which is how Beyond The Gatekeepers (an online series with Bishop Brown moderating with Bishop Yvette Flunder and Bishop Carlton Pearson as lead commentators) came into play. I was reading all these books, and I was like I should do something and Bishop Flunder was doing something and came to me. She was doing something at 7 and mine started at 8 and so we combined the efforts and that’s how Beyond The Gatekeepers was born!
ABRAMS: I need to first admit that I had 2 meltdowns. One, I was okay being by myself, but there’s something about the energy of being with people at church that was good for me. My sign is Leo; my birthday is August 13th and I’m a real Leo. The Church Anniversary came first and that was the first church anniversary we had where we weren’t in the space together and that’s always our biggest day. At the end of the service, I have to say I was embarrassed because my voice started to crack at the Benediction, and I had made it all the way through this service on Zoom. But then I shed a tear and I had to hit END. The people were so concerned that they called my wife and said WE NEED TO COME OVER because the Bishop had a meltdown. The second was that I turned 50 during the pandemic in 2020 and I always dreamed of getting to the Golden Age of 50 and I would have the biggest birthday and we would just have this major celebration. When I knew that wasn’t going to happen, that was a bit of a challenge. But we got on Zoom and had a great time. Even Bishop Flunder came on and sang a song and it was just a really nice celebration. I also learned how to fish and my wife is an excellent fisherman (nay) fisherwoman if we’re going to be proper about it. I was on YouTube learning and telling my wife what kind of poles we should be using. I was also journaling and being intentional about writing it down, about writing things down. And I got into this app (CALM) that was really helpful to endure in that way! I’m turning 53 soon and that was 3 years ago and I’m not going to have a meltdown this year.
JACKSON: I, too, had a breakdown because I was away from my boys. Anybody that knows me knows that being a Dad is #1. You can take the pulpit. You can take the robe. I put fathering before anything. Being a dad is everything. To put it in context, I am either in Florida or I’m in NY. I’m fathering and I had to learn to father from a distance. Those first couple of weeks were tough. I just went into my office and broke down and I flipped out and I was throwing stuff and I just broke. I thought I wasn’t doing enough and I literally had to wrestle with God, where he is like ‘well what do you think you are now?’ And it was this a-ha moment that is turning into a book –Fathering From A Distance — especially for my brothers who are incarcerated. I am a big fan of journaling and I have 2 journals, one for each of my son’s that they will get when they turn 18. I have gotten more into my music and when I was taken out of music into ministry becoming a pastor and now executive pastor, I stepped away but I’ve gotten back to my music. My wife and I met on tour with Dreamgirls and I’ve gotten back to music and my wife and I are writing a musical that started during the pandemic. You’ve got to get that creative energy out and I went back to my roots and started writing a musical called Meaningless. I’ve gotten back into the hymns. I’m rewriting hymns, and another thing I’ve gotten back into is LEGO. My wife and I were in a store and I picked up a LEGO Car and I said ‘DON’T ASK.’ That’s another level, enduring with a spouse (which we will talk about later), but we have to talk about going through storms with a spouse.
TAYLOR: I didn’t learn how to cook (I count myself an expert cook), but I learned how to entertain and engage. People would call and say ‘I miss you pastor’ and I would say ‘Come over for dinner!’ I learned to let people in differently and I learned as much as I can be so great alone or with myself in my own company, but I had to hear people say ‘I MISS YOU’ and honor that. People were shook to come to the house and bring some wine and they got to see me differently. Having my neighbors Chrystal and Sunny who are always there, I had to leave the door unlocked to give them permission to JUST COME IN and that was a new habit of letting myself be open to receive people. My sisters Chrystal, and Sunny, and Asabi, and Cheryl, and The Well-Nest (a nonprofit organization that hosted online sessions) saved my life during the pandemic, but my changed habit in my new home was a real change that changed me forever.
SWERV: Now let’s talk about COMPASSION FATIGUE [the cost of caring for others or for their emotional pain, resulting from the desire to help relieve the suffering of others. It is also known as vicarious or secondary trauma, referencing the way that other people’s trauma can become their own]. Have you ever heard that phrase and if not, what do you hear when you hear it for the first time? What does the phrase do for you from all the offices from which you serve?
JACKSON: It’s exhausting. That’s just what comes to mind. I don’t even know how to dive into that anymore. That’s the feeling I get and that’s the emotion. It’s just a lot. Let’s just take it back to my marriage. There were times when we were like ‘did we make the right decision?’ We were looking at each other, knowing this ain’t got nothing to do with love. The time we had during the pandemic is just condensed. There were times where I would spend so much time on my porch, just to have time with myself. You’re never spending that kind of time with your spouse, but we had so much time and it’s stuff we wouldn’t have talked about if we weren’t in this cocoon. Making sure we were being compassionate and not stepping on each other’s toes, but we just had to be blunt, honest and be brutal and man didn’t that really strengthen our marriage?! When the pandemic lifted, we wanted that time and we kept that brutal honesty. When I asked my grandmother how she was able to be married for 73 years, she told me that at the 40 year mark they slept in different rooms. That was two weeks of peace in my house. We were only married for 8 months at the time. We were brand new. YEAH!
BROWN: Compassionate Fatigue. I heard it in CPE Training (Clinical Pastoral Education). Just tired, tired of serving others. I know it’s an oxymoron but how could that be? You’re a pastor. But just tired. Run down from all the funerals. Run down from all the sickness. Run down because you couldn’t go see everybody. Run down because you didn’t want to go see everybody, because I was just run down on the inside. But it wasn’t just a physical thing but it was a mental and emotional thing. Sorta like a burnout but different from a burn out. Burnout is ‘you’ve got too much work.’ Compassion Fatigue is that you are serving and serving and you are serving and this is not bottomless mimosas. (collective laughter) And I don’t care how much help you have, how many deacons or ministers or lay people, people want to see their pastors. And it was just hard. I was talking to Bishop Carlton Pearson and he brought up this subject with myself and Bishop Troy Sanders. He asked us what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives and I said ‘I wasn’t sure if I was going to be a pastor for the rest of my life.’ People got offended because they heard me say it, but it doesn’t mean that I’m not going to serve. We put a lot of stock into somebody being a pastor, but I believe that there are so many people who have a servant’s heart but they don’t have a brick and mortar. That’s something that the pandemic brought up for me. Is this something I am going to do until I die?
ABRAMS: For me, I was stripped. I felt like I had nothing to give and I was trying to give out of being in the negative. I am an engineer, so I’m always going to look at it from a numbers place. So every time somebody died, I was pushed deeper into the negative–negative 35 to negative 50 and now I’m at a negative 100. Too many people were dying and that’s the reason I left hospice care. There were too many people dying around me and I was so busy declaring that the folks were gonna live and every day God showed me that folks die. And there was nothing I could do about it. When you are a person who feels like there’s nothing you can do, it was just draining. It was too much. Even at the beginning of the pandemic, my wife was hospitalized and I felt like the air had been withdrawn. The ability to be able to do anything, and like Bishop Vanessa said, you can have so many helpers but they want to see you, including your leaders because they need their pastor too. At one point, I wanted to put my phone in the trash. I wanted to put my television in the trash. It stripped me and I realized that there was nothing I could do. It forced me to rebuild.
TAYLOR: All of this comes through the pastor’s portal and add on to that, I was running a women’s and children’s shelter and working in homelessness services and I was doing therapy with LGBTG youth at another shelter (Elaine Helms’ RAIN Foundation), I had to seek some help. I was talking to this therapist and I had no shield because I asked her about therapy and she said COMPASSION FATIGUE and I went from inquisitive face to tears because those two words finally said it. Not only was it your own people, but it was your people’s people. In all of it, people couldn’t always get to their pastor but people wanted to prove that they could get to their pastor and I would answer the phone, thinking it was a member, and found myself on speakerphone in a group of people who couldn’t see me, and who I didn’t know. It just followed everywhere. I got limp at one point. There were days I just couldn’t find my help and I started SCANDAL all over again and I just needed to not have to use my brain. And we lost the mother of our church in the middle of the pandemic and the grief of not being able to bury her brought up other grief. I buried my own mother in 2015 and never got to really grieve that in a peaceful place. When Bishop Vanessa Brown and Rivers of Living Waters came to Newark, people left and told me I NEED TO GO OVER THERE! It was just enough to relinquish the idea that I had to push through and keep doing it every day, no matter what, even if without rest or vacation. Hearing “pastor” everywhere you go. Compassion fatigue called up Kevin, because I didn’t have any places or many places where I never heard my own first name. I needed to heal it all and when I couldn’t move, I heard God tell me that if I pushed through to do this one more thing, I would crack because I was on the Bridge to Broken!
JACKSON: Seminary training kept me. I relied on it. I fell back on it because my emotions were just empty. It was good to fall back on what we’ve been trained to do. It was like autopilot. I could go right back to my training and it gave the people what they needed. Pulling on that training was like riding a bike. That guilt of not being able to serve is like automatic for us and I thanked God for that training, even when it was a blob. Coming back to those basics saved me. I whipped out my seminary notes and they kept me.
BROWN: It was just the opposite for me. My child died during the pandemic (Tamar) and no CPE and no training could get me through that in that way. I was angry. I had compassion fatigue and some other people had compassion fatigue too and they did all they could do and that’s okay. I realized that because people didn’t know what to do for me and that’s okay because they didn’t have it to give at that time. I just wanted to add that.
ABRAMS: I just want to add this. I felt as if some people got mad when I pulled back for me, because I had to find some peace. Two people that were very close to me transitioned and I couldn’t do it anymore. I felt that people were upset when I had to express my own truth. When I said to people that I needed some time or give me a minute, people didn’t seem to like pastoral expectations and we’re always moving in their expectations. When you put yourself first and you say ‘I have some things that I have to deal with,’ that becomes a problem. I realized that people are going to have to be mad or upset, but I’ve learned that I’ve got to take care of me to take care of everyone else.
SWERV: Let’s talk about how your ministry call has impacted your life? We’ve been talking about and around relationships here, but let’s talk. One is married. One is married but has two sons in two different states. One is going through a divorce and now dating. One trying to date. How has your ministry call affected your life personally because ministry has always been thrown up as a red flag for some people trying to move into partnership.
BROWN: The thing that we say is that GOD CREATED FAMILY FIRST! That is the thing that I had been taught from the very beginning, as it related to ministry. If God created family first, then family should be first, the things of God, so forth and so on. But it was not something that I implemented. Really, the church was first. And it’s funny because I used to get teased about it. ‘Church is your first love! That’s your first wife. I’m just your second wife.’ Ministry really had an impact on my marriage, you know what I’m saying…and not a good one. Because everything was about getting this church going and everything was about the church surviving and everything was about the church thriving. And if we don’t do this, then the church. And nothing was about how we were going to survive as a couple, how were we going to make it. Because we had so much competition amongst ourselves, you know people are going to go over there and I need to be in my pulpit and da da da. All of that stuff is nonsense. If you can’t be in your pulpit and the people not leave, then you don’t have a church! That’s the real deal and folks are not going to tell you like that. You’ve got to recalibrate and take care of you and your family, whatever that family is. You’ve got to take care of you first because the people will have you taking care of them and neglecting your family. The truth is that your first ministry is to you and your house. Again, it’s not something I didn’t know. It’s just something I didn’t implement. Now, there’s a different trajectory for me right now. I’m all about self-care. I’m on sabbatical right now, for 3 months, and someone who doesn’t even go to my church called me because their mother was sick. I texted back that I was on sabbatical and sent them numbers for ministers they could call, but that was my only response because I’m not obligated to do that. I had to learn that. I’m not obligated to do that and I didn’t feel any kind of way. Whatever is going to be for his mother or her mother or their mother, it’s going to be okay. I’m not going to set myself on fire for this, but it’s in God’s hands not Vanessa Motoka Brown!
JACKSON: I need you to get out of my journal Bishop! I wrote that in my journal: “I am not obligated to be available 24 hours a day.” I learned the word NO real quick but the saints let me have it, but when I’m home with Milan, I’m not Pastor Rodney. I’m just Rodney and when I’m in that mode, only 2 people have access pass DO NOT DISTURB, those are my son’s mothers. Not Bishop Hardy. Not even my mother. I am with my wife. I don’t care if we’re sitting on the couch and I don’t care if we’re in WalMart. That’s it. End of story and I don’t have to explain it. You do that and you’re going to break down. I’ve deflected to other elders in the church and that phrase took away that part of me that felt like it needed to be as I’m moving into this new position (as we go to press, Rev. Jackson is being elevated to Executive Pastor under Bishop Rose Hardy), I have to be obligated. I have to do more. It’s very important to me because I want to stay married and I want to be a good father. I don’t want to talk about church with my wife or my sons or my siblings, because we cut up like there’s no tomorrow. I put church on pause and it’s like business hours and pick it back up. In the beginning I was telling my wife ‘God called me to this and you’re supposed to be The Eve and I’m The Adam and you’re supposed to help me name these animals!’ I was being so terrible and my grandmother looked at me and said ‘when’s the divorce party?! You ain’t gonna make it. You might be called to this work but God might not have called Milan.’ Once I had that conversation with my wife and she said ‘this is a trigger for me because my mother was married to a pastor and it was tough because ‘First Lady’ is a problem.’ Call her Mrs. Jackson but she’s not a preacher and she’s not running the women’s ministry. Boundaries and the word NO have been my…them twins are great!
ABRAMS: I have a couple of different dynamics. I got my divorce from my ex-husband when I was in seminary. He was challenged when I said I was called to ministry (I won’t even go into that story) and I was divorced in seminary, and my children were at seminary with me. I was a Baptist at heart and everything was the way I was taught. The children were supposed to be at church, there for all of the events. At one point I finally woke up to the fact that the kids weren’t called, I was. They didn’t like the church because of the way people acted and I had to liberate them. People would ask where my children were because I was the pastor and I told them they decided not to come. Some of them had a problem with that but it was better for my children to be happy than to hate the church. Some of the people were not kind, especially the way they spoke to the children. They appeared as though they have great disdain for some of the saints. And now that I’m in my second marriage, I’ve told my wife that wherever she doesn’t feel like coming, I’m okay with that! You have to be okay with people and be okay that you’re the one that’s called and not them. You have to make time and be present. Sometimes, with my kids, I was physically present but not mentally. I have learned to leave THAT, whatever it is, so be present. LIFE IS SHORT so enjoy people while you can. Make every moment meaningful. It’s important to be present and all those things can wait (and some of it is just busy work anyway). I needed to let go of some people and develop new friendships. I like my new friends. Vanessa is one of my new friends and I’ve known her for years, but I didn’t know her. And my wife, I love her and I want to appreciate and cherish her for as long as God allows me to be with her, and her to be with me. The church is not going to die just because we’re not there.
TAYLOR: For me, it felt like the same thing that kept me and covered me when I was a kid, that closeness to God (premonitions and such), almost took me out as an adult. I felt like I was so holy, so obligated, as an adult on the bridge to 60, the same things that connected me to God almost held me hostage! It was always ON ON ON ON, and I was dating someone once who called me to ask me how I was doing and they called me on the fact that I told him WHAT I WAS DOING!? Maybe my son or even my grandchildren woke me up to something more. I’m “Pastor!” everywhere and if the sacrifice is that I don’t have a partner, it must be God’s doing! But my mother died holding the hand of the man I had introduced her to 20 years before and she went to heaven and returned the favor. I met someone the month after my mother died. And God and Momma and life just woke me up to something more! I thought that part of life wasn’t something I was supposed to have. If that’s the obligation, then who am I to question God? After I buried my Momma (in 2015), I was like LOOK GOD…LOOK! My obligation needs to be to myself and I need someone who is not scared of me. Dating after that loss for me was real, but I realized that I had set up walls to cover for and compensate for the loneliness, and it was of my own doing. I get it now but didn’t really get it until one day I heard God say let’s go into the Word and I thought it was for a sermon note and God sent me to MATTHEW 9:13 “But go and learn what this means: I desire mercy not sacrifice.” That thing sliced me in half like Jason in Friday The 13th! And God said all this time you’ve been talking to me like I told you to sacrifice and that ain’t what I said and I said YOU MOTHER*&(!@^, and me and God had a cuss out like Jacob wrestled! And I said IF IT WASN’T THIS, WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME and God said ‘I’ve been trying to tell you but you were being too holy to listen!’ That scripture and ‘I DESIRE WHAT I DESERVE AND I DESERVE WHAT I DESIRE’ (my own personal mantra)! Those two together have saved my life and helped me to take care of myself physically, spiritually, emotionally, sexually, and financially. So when I post sometimes, I speak my truth as Kevin and my son (who loves to make sure we still go to the movies together when we can) or my sister-friends reach out for me and take care of me in that moment. I allow myself to be someone other than Pastor. I thought that LOVE was my sacrifice and sacrifice almost killed me.
SWERV: What scripture covers you? What’s the one that is your meat, your solid rock, your personal mantra?
BROWN: Interestingly enough, Luke 1:45 came (after the pandemic) and “And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.” And God just kept telling me the whole time, over these last 4 or 5 years, Vanessa, ‘AND THERE SHALL BE A PERFORMANCE…AND THERE SHALL BE A PERFORMANCE!’ That’s what kept me!
JACKSON: “Psalm 126:5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.” For me, the contrast of both of them let me know that God’s hand is in everything. I’m going to go through those seasons of tears but my pain is not in vain, my struggle is not in vain, my tears are not in vain. And that’s me personally, stuff that I’m wrestling with, the repetitive sins that I’m still dealing with, this pastor over here, the one that’s still struggling with stuff, the things that are trying to take me out, I’m still working out my faith in these tears and if I keep sowing in these tears, it’s going to reap a harvest. Caveat, I have to bring my bag with me to reap. (the next verse) ‘Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.’ I have to bring that in faith, believing that.
ABRAMS: Right at the pandemic, I experienced a shifting especially the more we were in it. And the scripture that speaks to me now is the one that says “God can do exceedingly, abundantly and above all that we can imagine!” (Ephesians 3:20) That resonates with me a lot now because I was asking God for a lot and they treated us like we weren’t even humans. In NYC (and other big cities, they were dropping bodies in these holes) and they were losing bodies and my cousin who died, her body got lost and they were going crazy because they had so many people they were dealing with and I needed to reset. I needed to relaunch, and now I am experiencing God do these new things, it’s marvelous! I’m experiencing God so much more than I could even imagine. Sometimes we have to come off that foundational stuff, that doctrinal stuff. I like to call it “church error.” I’ve also learned to do things that are fun for me because I wasn’t having any fun trying to be so holy. The church had us so blinded that we were doing anything, saying that it was the devil and God wasn’t in it. But we’ve got to enjoy life because you only have one. I just believe that if folks have a problem with life, then go to the next church down the street where they ain’t enjoying it and you can be there and be holy and upright and have a frown on your face for the rest of your life.
SWERV: And what’s the song for you, and it doesn’t have to be gospel, that if it comes on no matter where you are, you’re going in?
TAYLOR: Mine might be James Brown “The Big Payback” and Natalie Cole “Sophisticated Lady!” They might be a conflagration of me!
BROWN: It’s Two Tons of Fun “Just Us!” That’s my song!!!
ABRAMS: I don’t know how to say the words but Patti Labelle, I’ve always loved that song “Voulez Vous Coucher Avec Moi!” (“Lady Marmalade” by Labelle).
JACKSON: Mine is “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest! Anything from 90’s rap, I’m like WHAT WE DOING!!? I wish I could play some KRS-One, so people could wake up and hear what we’re really trying to say.
ABRAMS: You know I went to Howard (University)! House Music and Go-Go is my stuff. You can’t hear that music and not move!
JACKSON: I spent my summers in Baltimore and if you were sitting down and that music came on and if you didn’t get up, you missed it!
BROWN: I’ve heard “Everyday People” by Sly Stone and I’ve played “Love On Top” by Beyonce and spoken those in the pulpit, along with plenty others.
ABRAMS: I sang a bit of Chris Brown’s version of “This Christmas” and the church folks in Detroit fell out. And I don’t want to be a groupie, but I drove by trying to find Anita Baker’s house because I can sing all the iddles and tiddles plus it’s in my range!
TAYLOR: If you hear “I Call Your Name” by Switch and not hear God, you ain’t listening!
JACKSON: One of my favorite precious memories, during the Youth Adult Conference, the musicians started to play during the altar call “I Surrender All” or something and I stopped them and asked the young people what song comes to mind. And this girl sang in a real slow ballad “Real Love” by Mary J. Blige and all she sang was the chorus and the whole group started to sing and that’s an altar call I hope I never forget. They sang that song and we had church! I’m here for all of that.
TAYLOR: And as preachers of The Word, it should always be about the words and I know that plenty a time I have preached “This Will Be, an everlasting love. This will be the one I’ve waited for. This will be the first time anyone has loved me. I’m so glad you found me in time. I’m so glad that you rectified my mind.’ That was written by the Rev. Marvin Yancy and if that ain’t church!
CLOSING THOUGHTS:
ABRAMS: I believe that the pandemic liberated me. It liberated so many people. We thought we were spiritual but I think we’re more spiritual now that we’re liberated. Liberated from the lies. Liberated from the bondage and the untruths of the church. I think we’ve got an excitement now (in spirituality) that we did not have before. So many people were pregnant with so many things but now people are delivering and I am just excited about the deliveries coming forth. I am excited about all that’s ahead. The pandemic was not a good thing, but it was! Those who are open to it have been able to free themselves! We’ve found so many new ways to BE AT CHURCH that doesn’t include having to be in the building on Sunday. I don’t have to be at church to be at church!
BROWN: Most of this word is Bishop Flunder and it was her birthday and I sent her something and she sent a response back, where she heard a descriptive word in the Spirit. I’m going to give her credit for it: “We are queerly sanctified and fully satisfied!” And she went on to talk about what it meant. “Moving beyond a fixed narrow binary understanding of the Divine and ready for a fresh revelation!” I would just like to add to that we are not just “queerly sanctified and fully satisfied, but we are queerly radical.” And I would like to add to that ‘come over here where the table is spread and the feast of the Lord is going on. And if they won’t allow you room at the table, build another table and add some more seats, so other folks can come to the table as well.
JACKSON: My takeaway is I’m excited to be a bridge builder. We call each other brothers and sisters, family and yet nobody is at anybody’s house. I’m trying to be in everybody’s house. Wherever you are, I’m trying to come and bring people with me. I don’t care about anything except moving in God’s newness. Where doctrines and all this stuff would separate us, I’ve said to God ‘just send me’ because I want to sit at the table with your children. To stay grounded in who you’ve called me to be doesn’t mean I have to reject other people. I’m completely excited for that. Do the work. Build the bridge and be with my kids. I journaled that the other day– “Go Meet My Kids!”
TAYLOR: We have been saying this year “We’re Just Getting Started!” Sometimes my youth and young adults will call me and see if there’s a song they can toss at me and me not be able to preach a sermon with that title, from “I’m In Love With a Stripper” to “Move! Get Out The Way.” But one service, a grandmother came to church for a child’s christening that I was performing and the family stayed for the sermon. And after grandmother had taken out 3 rows of chairs shouting, she asked to see me after service. She said “Pastor, when my grandbaby told me this was an ‘affirming church,’ I didn’t know what ‘affirming’ meant, but I sure didn’t think it meant HOLY GHOST! She hugged me and I felt all my ancestors say WELL DONE!
