Convention presidents address African-American preachers_101804

Posted: 10/15/04

Convention presidents address African-American preachers

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO–Attitude problems, personal pain and arrogance in the pulpit present obstacles to effective preaching, presidents of three predominantly African-American conventions told a conference at Baylor University's Truett Theological Seminary.

Presidents Stephen Thurston of the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc., Melvin Von Wade of the National Missionary Baptist Convention of America and Major Jemison of the Progressive National Baptist Convention headlined the seminary's inaugural African-American preaching conference in Waco.

“There are individuals who have the gift (of preaching) but don't have the right attitude,” said Thurston, pastor of New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church in Chicago. “The gift becomes fruitless because of the lack of an adequate attitude.”

Thurston compared the attitudes three biblical characters showed toward Christ: King Herod, who wanted Jesus killed; the nameless innkeeper, who allowed Mary and Joseph to spend the night in his stable; and Simeon, who responded with thanksgiving when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Jerusalem temple for circumcision.

Herod–who instructed the Magi to tell him the location of the Christ-child, falsely claiming he wanted to worship the Messiah–demonstrated a hostile attitude born out of insecurity.

“If there is a harboring of hostility within us, it is because of our own insecurity,” Thurston said, challenging preachers to “bring lives and lips together” into a consistent testimony.

The innkeeper, on the other hand, demonstrated an indifferent attitude. While he provided some shelter in the stable for Mary and Joseph, he could have done better for a pregnant woman who was about to deliver a baby, Thurston insisted.

“Many of us bring this attitude of indifference into the pulpit,” he said. “We're right down the middle–not for anything, not really against anything. … Like that unnamed innkeeper, we are indifferent. We compromise the word of God with the sins of men, so we will not declare the iniquities that are present and real.”

In contrast to Herod's wrong attitude and the innkeeper's bad attitude, Simeon demonstrated a right attitude, he noted. Luke's Gospel says Simeon was “in the Spirit,” and that is where preachers find the power to preach with authority, Thurston said.

Some pastors find it hard to preach with power and minister effectively because they are trapped in a “cul-de-sac of despair,” said Wade, pastor of Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

“Somebody here is in an avalanche of agony, a conglomeration of calamity, a litany of losses, a maze of misery, a plethora of problems, a series of sufferings,” he said. “Somebody here has been seized and taken into custody by trouble.”

Drawing his text from Psalm 116, Wade described the depression of a person who feels as if he is being pursued relentlessly like a hunted prey or as if the narrow walls of a grave are closing in on him.

“The good news is that whenever you are trapped, you don't have to go to pieces if you're a child of God,” he said. “When trouble comes, you have a powerful option more potent than your predicament, and that is the privilege of prayer.”

Willingness to suffer and serve are essential to effective ministry, said Jemison, pastor of St. John Missionary Baptist Church of Oklahoma City.

“When suffering comes, it can be the best time of your ministry,” he said. “It is there God gives you history to deal with the present realities of your tomorrows.”

Citing the example of the martyr Stephen in the New Testament book of Acts, Jemison urged the ministers to be suffering servants rather than allowing hunger for prestige, power and position to eat away like termites at their ministry.

“We are just ordinary people whom God has elevated to render some extraordinary service to those who are the least, the last and the left out,” he said.

Featured speaker Bill Lawson, founding pastor of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston, sounded a similar note at a banquet that kicked off the three-day conference.

“There has been a message sent down from heaven, and that message needs to get to every human being on earth,” he said. “Preaching is the central purpose for which the church has been created. But I said preaching, not preachers. … God builds his church on the preached word, not on the preacher.”

Michael Evans, director of African-American ministries with the Baptist General Convention of Texas; Joseph Parker, pastor of David Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in Austin; and noted Baptist pulpiteer Joel Gregory of Fort Worth served as the steering committee for the preaching conference, which organizers intend to be an annual event.