These are a few words that come to mind regarding the earthquake that rocked Haiti.  Our leaders will meet tonight to discuss our church’s response to this great tragedy.  I will share our plan of action tomorrow.

Labeling any natural disaster as God’s judgment is nonsense.  True “judgment begins with God’s family” (1Peter4:17), not others.

Peter warned that God judges all people according to their deeds.  He also disciplines and judges his own children in order to refine them, as Peter has explained in 1 Peter 1:6-7.  This judgment purifies and strengthens believers, readying them for God’s Kingdom.  Natural disasters are the result of living in a broken world!  Please pray for nation of Haiti.

“Lord, let your glory reign in the midst of this devastation.”

Michael Moore’s next film, Capitalism – A Love Story explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown and takes a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore has described as the biggest robbery in the history of this country – The massive transfer of U.S. taxpayer money to private financial institutions.

Personally, I can’t wait to see Michael’s new movie.  It’s time for people to stand up against greed and hypocrisy and let their voice be heard.  Thanks Michael for keeping the heat on!

Congratulations on making history as the first African-American President of the United States of America!  I admire you for your courage, passion, and tenacity.  Additionally, you have proven that you are an effective leader because you assumed leadership when our country was on the brink of collapse.  However, with these achievements, there is also some not so good news.

Mr. President, we have seen billions of dollars wasted on useless ‘future’ projects like green energy that will not result in jobs for years.  If the current administration and Congress wanted to pass an unread ‘emergency’ stimulus bill it should have focused on cutting the unemployment rate NOW.  Mr. President, may I suggest you table the “green stuff” and focus on our nation’s most pressing challenge.  UNEMPLOYMENT!

According to the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the differences in unemployment rates are even more dramatic when broken down by race and age.  For example, white men’s unemployment rate in June was 9.5%, while black men’s was 17.8%.  For white women it was 8%, and for black women, 13.1%.  Additionally, teens have a harder time during this recession.  Here’s a sampling of unemployment rates in June for various groups:

1. Black men 20 and older: 16.4%.
2. Black women 20 and older: 11.3%.
3. White men 20 and older: 9.2%.
4. White women 20 and older: 6.8%.
5. Black males age 16 to 19: 50%.
6. Black females age 16 to 19: 40.6%.
7. White males age 16 to 19: 26.5%.
8. White females age 16 to 19: 23.5%.

Mr. President, teens get hit because they are less educated and are competing for jobs with older, more experienced workers.  However, educational differences do not completely explain the black-white unemployment rate gap.  Some studies show that part of the gap is correlated with residential segregation: Blacks, on average, are more likely to live in neighborhoods where there are fewer jobs available.

Mr. President, some suggest President Bush’s and your most recent stimulus package was a red herring.  The jobs produced for the most part were those that only lasted as long as the funding was there.  Those jobs were like taking antacid; it works for a while and does not solve the root problem. Mr. President, the only way this is going to turn around is to create long term jobs which requires retooling American manufacturing to be a world competitor.  We both know this is not a popular option, but, we have to take back jobs outsourced to China, India, and other emerging nations.

In closing, here’s a question I often ponder when I face tough decisions which may help you and your administration.  “In light of my past experiences, current circumstances, and my future hopes and dreams – what is the WISE thing to do?”

Best regards,

Pastor Clarence E. Stowers, Jr.

What if God granted you an opportunity to go back in time and speak to the wisest people who ever lived (people such as Moses, Apostle Paul, Solomon, Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Fredrick Douglass)?  However, once you reached your destination, you sat at their feet and proceeded to do all the talking?  Would it be a worthwhile endeavor?  Did the aforementioned people need to know all you had to say?  Upon leaving would you wish you had talked less and listened more?  Incredibly, many people enter God’s holy presence in prayer and then do all the talking!

What God has to say to us is infinitely more important that what we have to say to Him, yet we generally monopolize the conversation. God already knows everything we plan to tell Him, yet we continue talking rather than allowing Him to tell us things we don’t know.  Why?  Our American individualist mindset tricks us to believe that we can dominate our conversation with God. Prayer is two-way communication, but it is not communication between two equal parties.

Tonight (7PM) we’ll gather @ the Mars Hill Baptist Church for our 1st Wednesday Worship.  This worship experience allows us to spend more time worshipping God and listening to the Word.  During tonight’s service, I will pose 5 Questions that will revolutionize the prayer lives of those in attendance.  The questions are as follows:

1. What is Prayer (the definition may surprise you)?
2. Why Pray (it’s not what you think)?
3. To Whom Do We Pray (is it God, Jesus, or The Holy Spirit)?
4. What Do God’s Answers Look Like (it’s more than, “God give me a sign”)?
5. What If There Is Silence?

Please come and join us!

Each year we’re invited to hear “celebrity” pastors share God’s plan for the church and how we ought to adopt it and be large and successful like them.  Frankly, I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a venue to really address how and why churches grow.  Many pastors & church leaders make their annual pilgrimage to Saddleback, Willowcreek, North Point, Fellowship, New Birth, Greater St. Steven FGBC, The Potter’s House, etc. and come away excited and delusional with unrealistic expectations.  Ed Stetzer of Lifeway calls it ministry pornography.  According to Ed Stetzer:

“Ministry pornography is an unrealistic expectation of an experience you’re never going to have which distracts you from the real thing.”

God used these churches and their pastors for a specific time and in a specific place.  Unfortunately, that experience is rarely duplicated.  If you were to take the aforementioned churches and transplant them in other areas, the results would be drastically different.  Can you imagine Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, or Andy Stanley leading an inner-city urban church?  Or, can you see Bishop T.D. Jakes screaming “Get Ready…Get Ready…Get, Get, Ready” at Saddleback or North Point Church?  Simply put, God rarely does the same thing twice.

May I Offer You A Few Suggestions to break your addiction to ministry porn:

1. Confess your addiction to ministry pornography & repent!
2. Do not attend any conferences for one year
3. Get alone with your Bible, pen, & paper and discover God’s purpose for the church (read Matt. 22-37-40; 28:19-20, The Book of Acts)
4. Get a demographic breakdown of your community (US Census Bureau or your local Chamber of Commerce).
5. After discovering the purpose of the church, write down how your church plans to reach that community (this is the hard part).  Make sure it’s less than a paragraph because people don’t like to read long statements.
6. Preach/teach a series on God’s vision for the church and how you plan to fulfill it.
7. Reorganize your church’s leaders, staff, volunteers, and structure (in that order)
8. Evaluate & tweak your plan/strategy

So, what’s your next step?  I’d love to hear it!

“It was the best of times, the worst of times…”

The opening sentence of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, referring to the time of the French Revolution describes the economic reality of today.  The question that’s on everyone’s mind, but, seldom asked is: How are you doing?  The answer depends on your individual circumstances, of course – but also on your perspective.   The glass is either half full or half empty for many of us today.  This morning when I woke up, my first emotion was profound gratitude. Even though my financial worth had been decimated by the events of the last three months, I realized that nothing could touch the things that are most valuable to me.

I also realized that I have a choice: I can focus on what I have lost or I can focus on what I have. I started making a mental list:

1. I have my health.
2. I have a loving wife, who is also my best friend
3. I have three wonderful children.  “I am particularly fond of each of them,” as Papa says in The Shack.
4. I have several profound friendships that encourage and challenge me.
5. I have meaningful work that I would do even if I wasn’t getting paid.
6. I have incredibly competent co-workers whom I truly love and respect.
7. I have a church that grows dearer to me with each passing year.
8. I have a relationship with God that is endlessly fascinating and fulfilling.

And the list goes on. I could name a hundred more things, but you get the idea.

My guess is that the Economic Downturn is going to get worse (I pray I’m wrong) before it gets better.  You and I have very little control over what happens in the external environment.  But we do have control over what happens inside our hearts.  It all depends on our mental focus.

Question:
What do you have that the Economic Downturn can’t touch?

FYI – I want to thank my friends from Facebook for sharing their tips.  If you would like to read more, please click here.

Free-wheeling capitalism has always been the heart of the US Economy but the recent $700 billion bailout, a level of government intervention not seen since the Great Depression, is hardly unprecedented.  Historically, the Federal Government has not only taken stakes in banks, steel mills, and coal mines but have even seized control of everything from railways to savings and loans.  Unfortunately, when it comes to you and I, we would be hard pressed to make their list.  Consequently, If you STILL believe the government will bail you out – think again!

As Believers, we’ve already received our bailout!

So what does the bailout mean for me?  The word power occurs 57 times in the New Testament.  It is a word used to describe the most powerful bailout that ever happened, an event that separated A.D. from B.C.  That event was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.  Consequently, that resurrection power is available to change your life! So, please join us this Easter at the Mars Hill Baptist Church and experience a heartfelt worship experience coupled with a timely Word from God.  Additionally, we will unveil our “new & improved” video venue which is additional worship experience using video technology to reproduce our live worship experience.

Easter Weekend Schedule

Good Friday

Friday, April 10, 2009
12 Noon & 6:30PM

Easter

Sunday, April 12, 2009
8:00 AM & 10:30 AM (Live)
8:00 AM & 10:30 AM (Video Venue)

In 1991, Spike Lee released his fifth feature-length film Jungle Fever.  The plot centers on the interracial romance between a successfully married Black, played by Wesley Snipes, and an Italian woman played by Anabella Sciorra.  The lovers come under intense pressure from their friends and family as a result of their interracial relationship.  It’s no secret that even today, interracial relationships are still under intense scrutiny – even when it comes to attending church.

For most of white America, the black church is an alien segment of the nation’s culture, hidden behind the plain facades of large brick churches, the rude clapboard of country chapels, the salvation-emblazoned windows of tattered storefronts.  It is a montage of impressions, some real, some misleading the low-moaning spirituals, the clapping and the shouted amens; the phenomenon of a Bishop TD Jakes and the curious charisma once possessed the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell; the prophetic, nation-shaking philosophy of a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the pragmatic, neighborhood-building politics of a Rev. Jesse Jackson.

There are almost 20 million black Christians in the U.S., and by far the majority find their faith and spiritual comfort in churches and denominations of their own making.  These churches were the first black institutions in the nation: they are still, by every measure, the largest.  Today they reflect the struggle of U.S. blacks for their rightful place in society, and the leaders of those churches differ widely in the role they see for the Black Christian in this struggle.  But whether radical, conservative or moderately liberal, they generally agree that the black church holds a unique place in American society.

Often I question if blacks and whites worship together as equals?  Honestly, at the present time I don’t think so.  Being one in Christ means that all the spiritual things we do are one and the same in Christ, right?  Think again!  A person’s cultural background makes a big difference.  Consequently, one’s culture presents difficult hurdle to conquer.

Cultural Barrier: Blacks and Whites Have Different Worship Styles

Black Christian worship style radically different from whites.  Black people tend to worship with their whole being: body, soul and spirit.  Our worship music stems from our African cultural roots.  So be it fast, up-tempo, with a rhythmic beat; or slower, steadier, with a lot of harmony and a groove, it is music that can be felt and experienced deep within our soul.  Some of the worship music in some white Christian environments tends to feel monotone and maybe even wordy to some Black Christians.  It tends to engage the mind only, and not the total being.

The person leading the worship plays an important role in the process, too. Whether or not he or she lingers with a song-repeating it several times until its meaning and inspiration can be felt within, affects the depth of the whole worship experience.  Sometimes white worship feels rather shallow to Black Christians.  Many are accustomed to either gospel music, gospel R & B, gospel jazz or gospel rap and hip hop.  Hymns in a Black tradition often have a gospel or soulful sound.

What’s your take?

NEXT TOPIC: PREACHING

AM I THE ONLY ONE COMPLETELY FRUSTRATED RIGHT NOW?

According to Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, the chief proponent of the big bank bailout, flooding the banks with taxpayers’ money was supposed to get them to start lending freely again. And that, in turn, was supposed to stabilize the markets and prevent the downturn from being worse than it otherwise would be.

Given the way, that is, that Paulson had decided to use the first installment of the $700 Billion bailout money to recapitalize banks instead of buying up their toxic securities, which he had then sold to Congress and the American people as the best and fastest way to get the banks to start making loans again, and help prevent this recession from getting much, much worse.

(Stowers Translation: give banks back the money they lost

through greed, corruption, arrogance, & incompetence)

HERE’S THE BANKING INDUSTRY’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET:
THEY HAVE NO INTENTION OF USING THE BAIL OUT MONEY TO MAKE NEW LOANS OR HELP PEOPLE IN FORECLOSURE.

The real issue is that banks continue to refuse to lend money to consumers who so desperately need it and who just bailed out their greedy rear ends.  Instead, it’s business as usual.  The level of greed, stupidity and arrogance is stunning for a bunch of people who just drove the rest of the world to the edge of financial oblivion. You can’t get 10 cents from a bank right now.

HERE’S WHY:

I personally believe the banks that had received money are holding on to most of it so they could buy out other banks that might fail down the road.

GREED…GREED…GREED

Personally, I feel sorry for President Obama because his administration is left to clean up a HOT MESS!  Please continue to pray for our President and his cabinet.

Bishop Charles E. Blake

Bishop Blake serves as Presiding Bishop of the 6 million member Church of God in Christ, one of our nation's largest denominations. He also serves as the Jurisdictional Prelate of the First Jurisdiction of Southern California comprised of more than 250 churches.

He is the pastor of West Angeles Church of God in Christ with a membership of over 24,000. West Angeles is deeply involved in providing not only for the spiritual life of its people, but also it provides more than 80 programs for the psychological, social, and economic enhancement of the community.

Bishop TD Jakes

A beloved pastor, a successful entrepreneur, a global advocate and philanthropist, shepherd to millions around the globe, Bishop Thomas Dexter (T. D.) Jakes Sr., founded Greater Emmanuel Temple of Faith, his first pastorate, in 1979. It was a small beginning, in a small West Virginia church, pastoring a small congregation 10-members strong.

More than 25 years later, he pastors what Christianity Today calls "one of America's fastest growing mega-churches." The Potter's House, a multiracial, nondenominational church with 50-plus active outreach ministries, has dominated church growth records since its inception in 1996. In its almost 10-year existence, the church has grown from the 50 families that relocated with the Jakes family from West Virginia to Dallas to more than 30,000 members to-date. Rivaling many corporations, the ministry employs nearly 400 staff members, including full-time finance, human resources, information technology, materials distribution, public relations, publications and television production departments. The Potter's House is fiscally sound, retiring within four years the financial debt incurred by the 191,000 square foot, $45 million sanctuary construction.

Pastor Kirbyjohn Caldwell

In July 1982, Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell was appointed Senior Pastor of Windsor Village United Methodist Church.  At the time, the congregation numbered 25.  

Today, Windsor is the largest United Methodist Church in the nation. One of the principal factors contributing to Windsor Village’s evolution is Pastor Caldwell’s belief that the church must embrace theology, identify societal problems, and deliver solutions holistically.  In other words, the church must take the “sanctuary” to the streets.

He is the best-selling author of  ENTREPRENEURIAL FAITH AND THE GOSPEL OF  GOOD SUCCESS .   His book provides a road map to spiritual and emotional wholeness and he delivers a powerful message of wholistic salvation.  He serves on several national and local boards.

 Pastor A.R. Bernard

A. R. Bernard is the President of the Council of Churches of the City of New York representing 1.5 million Protestants, Anglicans and Orthodox Christians.  He is also the Founding Pastor and CEO of the Christian Cultural Center (CCC), a 29,000 member Church that sits on an 11-acre campus in Brooklyn, New York.

Bernard sits on the New York City Economic Development Corporation Board; New York City School Chancellor’s Advisory Cabinet and serves as an advisor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, initially as a member of his 2001 Transition Team.

Bernard has been recognized as the most influential New York clergyman (NY Daily News, February 6, 2008), one of the most influential African American New Yorkers (NY Post, February 19, 2008), and voted one of New York’s most influential (NY Magazine, 2006). He was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Consulate General of Israel in New York, the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish National Fund.

Pastor Floyd H. Flake

Flake Former U.S. Congressman, the Reverend Dr. Floyd H. Flake is the senior pastor of the more than 20,000 member Greater Allen A. M. E. Cathedral of New York in Jamaica, Queens, and President of Wilberforce University in Ohio.  During his 31-year pastorate, Allen has become one of the nation’s foremost Christian churches and development corporations. The church and its subsidiary corporations operate with an annual budget of over $34 million. 

The church also owns expansive commercial and residential developments; a 750-student private school founded by Flake and his wife Elaine, and various commercial and social service enterprises, which has placed it among the nation’s most productive religious and urban development institutions.  The corporations, church administrative offices, school, and ministries comprise one of the Borough of Queens’ largest private sector employers.

Dr. Flake earned a Doctor of Ministry Degree (D.Min.) from the United Theological Seminary in Dayton, OH and holds a B.A. from Wilberforce University with additional studies at Payne Theological Seminary and Northeastern University School of Business.  He also has numerous honorary degrees including: Boston University, Fisk University, Lincoln University (PA), and Cheney State (PA).

Before assuming the pastorate of Allen Church, Reverend Flake served in various capacities at Boston University; Director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center, Interim Dean of the Chapel, and Dean of Students.  This followed successful stints as Associate Dean of Students at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and Marketing Analyst for the Xerox Corporation.

 Flake serves as a member of the following boards:  The President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education; The Fannie Mae Foundation; The Princeton Review; The New York City Investment Fund Civic Capital Corporation; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Advisory Committee on Banking Policy and the Bank of America National Advisory Board.  Flake is also a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Social and Economic Policy, an Adjunct Fellow on the Advisory Board of The Brookings Institute Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, and a member of The NYC 2012 Olympic Committee.   He is also a former columnist for the New York Post.