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YouTube Oct. 13, 2026
You Have Nothing to Prove - Bishop Claude Alexander | Faithly Podcast
Key Takeaways
- Ministry leaders do not need to prove themselves through stress or overwork; true longevity comes from pursuing God's will and trusting Him with the outcome.
- Sustaining a long-term pastoral career requires intentional rhythms, including scheduled Sabbath time and making personal health a priority.
- The core message of the Gospel must remain firmly rooted, while methods and modalities must adapt to reach changing generations.
- Leaders finished well often display three key traits: a clear sense of identity, continuous curiosity, and the ability to collaborate well with others.
- The constant pressure to always be 'on' in the digital age is a significant vulnerability for ministry leaders who must learn to unplug and embrace quietness.
In this week’s episode of the Faithly Podcast, Alicia Lee and special co-host Rev. Elliott Johnson welcome Bishop Claude Richard Alexander, Jr., Senior Pastor of The Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, for a rich conversation about longevity, leadership, and what more than three decades of pastoral ministry have taught him about serving faithfully.
Bishop Alexander reflects on becoming a senior pastor at just 26 years old and the pressure he initially felt to prove himself. Over time, he learned that ministry was less about proving and more about pursuing the will of God, trusting His timing as he cared for the people entrusted to him. He shares the practices that have sustained him through seasons of growth, disappointment, loss, and change, including Sabbath, strong relationships, spiritual rhythms, and learning to distinguish between an unchanging message and adaptable methods.
Together, Alicia, Rev. EJ, and Bishop Alexander go on to explore the pressures facing today’s ministry leaders, from the expectation to always be “on” to the temptation to measure influence through followers and visibility. Bishop Alexander encourages pastors to protect their health and closest relationships while remaining rooted in the Gospel, giving themselves both grace and space as they pursue a life of faithful, lasting ministry.
Website: https://theparkministries.org/
00:00 Introduction: Life Was Not Designed for Us to Be Always On
01:34 The Unlikely Call: A 26-Year-Old Pastor for a Wounded Church
04:19 Learning to Lead: Caring for People Above All Else
07:40 You Have Nothing to Prove: The Lesson That Changed Everything
10:31 The Pursuit That Leads to Longevity: Trusting God With the Outcome
13:39 Sabbath, Disney World, and Devotion: Practices That Sustain
15:20 Godly Surprises: When God Orchestrates the Unplanned
18:53 Standing Firm and Staying Flexible: Doctrine Versus Modality
22:33 What Separates Leaders Who Finish Well: Curiosity, Identity, and Playing Well With Others
26:07 The Moses Model: When Ministry Feels More Like 40 Years Than 3
31:57 Opening Your Hands: Raising Up Leaders and Sharing Authority
34:51 Where Pastors Are Vulnerable Today: The Pressure to Always Be On
39:55 Emerging Leaders Who Inspire: Marcus Cosby, Nicole Martin, and Walter Thomas Jr.
43:16 The Church's Responsibility to the City: Salt, Light, and Redemptive Service
47:56 The Joyous Burden of 2033: A Unique Window for Unity
52:58 Pay Attention to Yourself, Your Spouse, Your Children: Final Wisdom for Faithful Longevity
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Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Bishop Claude Alexander?
Bishop Claude Richard Alexander, Jr. is the Senior Pastor of The Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he has served for over three decades.
How did Bishop Claude Alexander sustain his ministry longevity?
Bishop Alexander sustained his ministry through the practice of Sabbath, intentionally blocking out calendar time for rest and family, and relying on daily spiritual devotions.
What is the difference between doctrine and modality in the church?
Doctrine represents the unchanging word of God and foundational truths of the faith, while modality refers to the flexible methods and means used to communicate that message.
WEBVTT
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With TikTok and everything, there is the expectation of you always being on.
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Life was not designed for us to be always on.
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This is the Faithly Podcast.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Faithly Podcast.
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I'm so happy to be joined today by my special co-host, my advisor and my friend, Reverend Elliott Johnson.
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Rev.
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EJ and I will be co-interviewing Bishop Claude Alexander.
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He is the senior pastor of the Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Bishop Alexander has served the park for more than 35 years, helping lead the church into a global multi-site ministry.
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Beyond the local church, he has spent decades investing in some of the most important Christian institutions of our day, including Gordon-Conwell and Christianity Today.
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But today, we really want to get behind that ministry resume.
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We want to hear the story of how God called him, what more than three decades in pastoral ministry have taught him, and what he believes that ministry leaders need to understand in this moment.
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Bishop Alexander, welcome to the Faithfully Podcast.
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Thank you, Alicia.
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It's good to be with you.
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Right, Bishop.
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The Park Church was looking for a new senior pastor, and they were looking for someone at least 35 years old, someone married, with at least five years of pastoral experience.
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And at the time, you were 26 and single, and you had only three years of experience.
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What did they see in you?
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And what was it like taking on that responsibility so young?
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Wow.
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Well, I think it's more what we see from them than what they saw in me.
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What we see in them was an openness to God, a willingness to be flexible and pivot.
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a high tolerance for risk.
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I think what they saw in me was a person who was sincere, who had sought to prepare himself.
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My uncles were also very helpful because they also saw that I had support.
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And I think that that was equally important for them to see, that I had wise counsel, mature individuals behind me.
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To say that it was a risk is an understatement in that the church had suffered a split
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that literally split families.
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So there was wounding.
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We had an $800,000 debt at 18% interest.
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Right?
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And you call a 26-year-old.
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End of that.
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At 26, you don't know what to be afraid of.
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All that you know is that God called you.
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And so our story is so much about what God has done with both of us than anything about either of us.
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Yeah.
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So, Bishop, you're 26 years old now.
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You're the senior pastor.
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Yeah.
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That's at that time was UPBC, if I'm not mistaken.
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And now you're you.
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God has put you in this role of being responsible for leading people.
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I'm blessed to be underneath your toolage of leadership, especially in the market and workplace.
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But, you know, when it came to leading these people at this age.
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Who had far more life experience than you did.
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Mm hmm.
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I mean, what were the lessons that you learned to lead, but you were still trying to become a leader yourself?
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Share with us kind of like what that was all about.
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Sure.
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So I think it's important to note that this wasn't my first pastorate.
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I pastored Morningstar Baptist Church in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania for three years prior to that.
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And then having had the privilege of serving with my uncles in their churches for three years prior to that.
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And so what I learned was the care of people.
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To care for people.
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and that is what I brought into the space at University Park, caring for people.
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You have to get in their hearts, and they have to get into yours before they can digest anything that you want to present or do.
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And that was especially important for a wounded congregation.
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You know, and so, you know, it was about being present.
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Present to, present for, present with.
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And because I was 26 and many of them had children, I was closer to the ages of their children than I was to them, which meant I immediately resonated with their kids.
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Right.
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And so by resonating with their kids, they saw the value of that as well as being able to resonate with them.
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And so, again, showing up at the hospital, being present for counseling, walking with them through sickness and death.
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Those are the things that regardless of congregational size have meaning and value.
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Wow.
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And from that time to today, now you've been pastoring the same church for 35 years.
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What do you understand, Bishop, about pastoral ministry today that you wish that Claude Alexander in 1990 had understood?
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Yeah.
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I think that what I wish that Claude at 26 had understood is that he had nothing to prove.
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that it was more about the pursuing the will of God than the proving himself to people.
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My first year, I was in the hospital three times for stress, for stress because I felt that I needed to prove that they made a good decision.
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in calling me.
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And so I wish that at 26, he understood that it wasn't about proving.
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It was about pursuing the will, the will of God.
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That's number one.
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Secondly, I wish that he understood that
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Whatever the Lord had for him to do, the Lord had the time for him to do it.
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And therefore, he need not rush or hurry or fret about rhythm.
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That whatever time, whatever the Lord has for him, the Lord has time for him.
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And therefore, he has, he has time.
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Those would be the two biggest things I wish that he had knew then.
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So, Bishop, you use that word pursuit.
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And you align it with the word longevity when it comes to ministry.
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That's something that a lot of leaders in your space aspire to.
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But we also know that comes with a cost, right?
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There's a price for that.
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Talk to us.
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Tell us what has allowed you to sustain your faithful and healthiness over this long haul.
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I mean, help us understand that pace of grace that you figured out.
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So, you know, I wish that I could say that I started with the view that I'd be at the park for 36 years.
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Which, by the way, we're coming up.
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Right, right, right, right, right, right, 36.
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But I can't say that.
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I went in, you know, knowing that the Lord had called me and that I wanted to be faithful to that.
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But I went in seeing myself perhaps in other places some years down the road.
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And that's how I went in.
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Yeah.
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But several things happened.
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In my second year pastoring at the church, I was, again, frustrated by some things.
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And the Lord said this to me.
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He said, I'm going to do what I'm going to do with you.
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It will either be here or somewhere else, but I'm going to do what I want to do with you.
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Full stop.
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And hearing that lifted a weight off of me because then it became a matter of just being faithful to what the Lord was leading me to do in the time that he was leading me to do it.
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and trusting him with the results, the outcome.
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It was for me to pursue as he showed and trust him with the rest.
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And with that, there were just a lot of godly surprises that no one could imagine.
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And those godly surprises happened over time.
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And then you look up and you're there 20 years.
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And you look up and you're there 30 years.
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And now you look up and you're there 36.
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So for me, it is trusting myself to him
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being faithful to what he shows, and then leaning into the doors that he opens.
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Now, the care of the person, okay, for longevity is something else.
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And for me, that has been the practice of Sabbath,
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the taking of my calendar and scratching out time a year in advance so that I know that I have that time available for me, for Kim and I, and for our girls when they were living here.
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Um...
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And then being able to allow the Lord to feed me in a variety of ways.
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One is through devotional engagement with the scriptures every day and prayer.
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But then movies and a good meal and going to Disney World and Disneyland, those things as well, those have been life-sustaining.
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Well, I've taken my kids to Disney World, Bishop.
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I didn't realize I was working on my longevity.
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That's good to know.
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Bishop, I want to go back to something you said.
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You were talking about, you know, doing what's in front of you.
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You know, not necessarily knowing the whole blueprint.
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You may not have used those words, but that's kind of what I heard, is doing what God puts in front of you.
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And then you mentioned godly surprises.
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And that really piqued my curiosity.
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Can you give me an example of what you meant by godly surprises?
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Yeah.
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So godly surprises have come in a variety of ways.
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One has been in the realm of relationships, right?
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I did not, I could not have set out a plan to have met Walter Thomas or Leighton Ford.
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I mean, it, it,
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but the way in which those things happen.
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Kim and I go to Renaissance Weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, and there's Gene and Leighton Ford there, not in Charlotte, where both of us live, but at this thing.
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And God used that to connect and knit.
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for Bishop Walter Thomas, it was our hosting an event that one of his choir directors held, attended, and he said, I'm going to tell my pastor, and he's going to take your call.
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You don't plan those things.
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Another godly surprise, the most recent, which really blows my mind, is...
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We've had 30 acres of real estate to develop for housing.
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I get a call from Mac Peer.
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He says, I want you to meet Dan Horner.
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Dan Horner is the founder and CEO of the largest home builder in the Carolinas.
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As I'm sitting there meeting him, he says, well, I'm not.
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I heard you in 2017 at Movement Day Charlotte that I attended, and it was there that the Lord got a hold of me for how do I lean in as a marketplace leader.
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And from that, we've decided to build 300 units at cost per year.
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And I'm sitting there, this is 2023, five years later.
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I'm like, well, we have 30 acres.
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And so now we will be bringing online 200 single family units that will be market rate, but will be affordable because he's going to build them at cost.
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He's raised a $30 million fund.
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And so that each home buyer will start out with $50,000 worth of equity at the beginning.
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That's the most recent godly surprise.
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But I could go on and on and on about ways in which God has done that.
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Those are some good godly surprises.
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Thank you for sharing those with us.
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I think we forget sometimes that even ministry leaders and pastors and bishops need their faith to be increased by these things.
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And it sounds like they increased your faith.
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So, you've achieved longevity.
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You've been working.
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pastoring in the same church for such a long time.
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And that means you've had to pastor through and lead through seasons of change.
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What have you learned about discerning the difference between something the church needs to adapt to versus something that the church needs to stand firm on?
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Hmm.
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Hmm.
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So,
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I think that the standing firm for me has been the doctrine of the church, the word of God.
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That does not change at all.
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And so being firmly rooted, firm in our understanding of Scripture and the doctrines of the faith.
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everything else is open season in terms of, of modality.
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So another godly surprise in, in, uh, 1997, we were doing two services and, uh, it was just, it was, it was just unbearable, right?
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Well, uh,
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And it was at 7 and 11.
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And we made the decision to go to a 930 service.
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Well, at that time in 98, very few were doing a service at 930.
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And I got pushed back.
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11 o'clock, that is the sacred hour.
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That's when God shows up, right?
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And, but we, but we, we did that service and that was a part of our explosive growth.
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Just that flexibility in terms of service times modality.
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We were early adopters of the Internet.
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And so I remember at a session at our local association in 2000, a pastor was saying, that's of the devil.
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That's, that's.
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And for me, it was, it was a modality of engagement.
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So we leaned heavily into that.
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And in 2001, we entered into a facility that was built to receive and send signals.
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So we were streaming in 2001.
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We had that.
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Well, what happens in 2020?
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COVID.
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And everybody's now got to be online.
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Well, we had 19 years of experience of being online.
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So the message never changes.
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The means by which the message is communicated varies.
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And being clear on that, that's been what has guided me.
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Bishop, you know, you had the opportunity to have a front row seat to a lot of Christian leadership opportunities, not only as a pastor, but chairman of the board of Christianity Today.
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One time, Chairman Gordon Cromwell, you sat on the board of one of the fastest growing platforms for churches in the country called Glue.
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and other organizations that you've helped lead.
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Share with us, what separates leaders who finish well and then from leaders who don't finish at all?
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So I think that what I've observed in terms of, what I've observed in terms of, what I've observed in terms of,
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leaders who have sustained relevance is a couple of things.
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One, they have a clear sense and comfort with who they are and what they bring to a table.
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Their roles may differ, vary, but they have a clear sense of who they are and what they bring.
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Second, they tend to be individuals who are continuously curious.
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but also what is coming, what should be anticipated, what's around the corner.
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Thirdly, they tend to be individuals who can play well with others.
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Because so much of leading is being with people and getting people to catch you and catch what you're seeking to do.
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And this is nothing novel.
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I mean, when you read the scriptures, Jesus called them to be with him.
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Right.
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To be with him.
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And in their being with him, they caught him.
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They caught his vision.
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They caught where he wanted them to go.
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And so, you know, I think that so much of successful and sustained leadership is being able to follow that model.
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Mm-hmm.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Well, with such a long tenure, Bishop, in ministry, I imagine that there must have been seasons that were deeply rewarding and seasons that were probably very, very difficult.
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Was there ever a season when you seriously wondered whether you could keep doing it?
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Oh, certainly.
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A sustained pastorate, the challenge of pastoring is the expectation for you to lead like Jesus when your experience is more that of Moses.
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Okay, now understand, Jesus' public ministry was only three years, and then he was out.
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He said, I'm out of here.
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Y'all got it.
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Y'all got it.
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Moses, on the other hand, was a sustained time.
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Ebbs and flows, ups and downs, victories and defeats.
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That is more the model.
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And so, yeah, I mean, times of epic programmatic failure, you know, when you set something out and you just fail miserably, like David with the ox cart and you just throw it away and God has to call you back, right?
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There's been that.
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Um, there have been, there was a season, um, 2014 to 17 where I wondered, um, if I'd stay too long.
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Um, yeah.
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And would the church and I be better off with someone else?
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Or me somewhere else?
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And the Lord said, no, this is where you are to be.
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And I understood it afterwards.
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But there are those times when you wonder.
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And it is in those times for me when there is dormancy that you may be experiencing that
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One, again, the confidence in who God is and what God is doing in you and through you.
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And then being able to look at other areas where there is life.
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Where there is life.
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And that helped me through that season.
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And then lastly, you cannot live with people and not feel when they experience loss, you feel it.
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When you've been with people for 36 years and some of them die,
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you feel it.
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When you are caught with unexplainable tragedy and suffering that that
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that hurts you as it hurts them.
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You're hurting and you're hurting for them.
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That each time it takes something out of you, that you don't get back,
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Right.
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That is, that is, it is in those times that, that God has to be sufficient for you.
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Just, just his being sufficient.
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Amen.
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In those, in those spaces.
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So, you know, Bishop, one of the challenges that we all face of leading for a long time is knowing when to hold on and knowing when to let go.
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Tell me, what have you learned about raising up other leaders and then sharing or giving away authority to make room for the next generation to lead?
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Well, I think for me, one of the things that was important, especially as we experienced an explosion in my seventh and eighth year,
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You can only go so far leading like this, right?
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If you want to go further, if you want to be able to sustain, you have to open your hands.
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And you have to give up and trust.
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in others.
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And so it has been, that has been the model.
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And we say this to every new member, Alicia, God has added you either to strengthen what we have or to create what is yet to be.
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That is the assumption.
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And so much of the ministries that we have are because people took that seriously.
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So if you said to me, hey, there's something we want to do for young mothers—
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Hey, Alicia, that's a good idea.
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Write something up and come back to me and we'll see it.
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And so that's been a part of our DNA for a long, long time.
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And as a result, we've been blessed.
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I love that.
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I wrote it down.
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You're going to start hearing that at Lower Manhattan Community Church.
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I love it.
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I love it.
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Yeah.
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Bishop, when you look out at the field of pastors and ministry leaders who are leading today, where do you think we're vulnerable today as leaders?
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Hmm.
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I think that there would be a couple of vulnerabilities.
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One, I mean, so much of it is tied to this.
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Yeah.
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One, because of this, with TikTok and everything, there is the expectation of you always being on, you know, on, on, on, on demand, on, never off.
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life was not designed for us to be always on and never off.
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That's number one.
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Two, the expectation that you always have to say something and that you always have to say something immediately.
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And that if you're not saying something immediately, you're missing it.
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Which means there's no room for contemplation.
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No room for quietness and absorbing before you speak.
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No, no.
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That would be the second.
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The third thing that follows as, and perhaps that is underneath it, is the desire for followers to,
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and the seeing of one's relevance by how many likes or follows you get.
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I don't know that Jesus would do very well in this environment because he would be unfriended.
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and unfollowed in many cases.
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One of the things that really set me free was reading, I believe it was in John chapter 6, where Jesus is talking about his being the bread of life and eating of him and all of that.
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And John said that they were greatly offended.
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And many left him and followed him no more.
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Now that's Jesus.
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That's Jesus.
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And I'm like, wow.
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If that happened to him...
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It certainly can and probably will happen to me.
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But then he looked to us.
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He said, are y'all going to?
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And Peter said, you have the words of eternal life.
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the desire to be an influencer, to be a leader, all this, that we can miss some things and set ourselves up for extreme disappointment and disillusionment.
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Yeah.
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So with that perspective in mind, on the other side, the side that's all around encouragement and hope,
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Where are you seeing and who are you seeing in these young pastors today who are emerging leaders that this genuinely encourages you and inspires you?
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When I see...
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someone like a Marcus Cosby at Wheeler Avenue.
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It's from Chicago, by the way.
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Baptist Church.
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I see an individual who is deeply rooted fundamentally
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And yet who has displayed an openness to adopt and adapt ways of engagement that are appealing intergenerationally.
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Right.
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Right.
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Right.
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He is equally at home in a hymn as he is with the most current CCM song.
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I mean, he is able to be intergenerational.
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And people, because of that, each sees his or her place there.
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I look at Dr. Nicole Martin, who I've known since she was 10 years old.
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And I see her again deeply rooted in the Word, but able to enter any room and space and be relevant.
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And then I look at Walter Thomas Jr.
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who has stepped into succeeding his father and honoring what he has inherited, but establishing his own voice as well.
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So those would be three that come to mind.
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Thank you.
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Bishop, you've spent your ministry working not just within the four walls of the local church, but in the broader community.
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What do you think the local church's responsibility is to its city and to its community today?
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So if we take our cue from Jesus, it is to be that of salt and light.
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It is to see ourselves as called to the city, not just called to God, but called to where we are.
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And to see our accountability as being how well the city is as a result of our being there.
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that when we look at the parable of the talents, God is always looking for a return on the investment.
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So what is the return on the investment that God sees in the city where He has planted us, where He has invested us, okay?
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And that...
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That is not just a matter of does the city know more about Jesus, but does the city see Jesus more clearly?
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Does the city experience the power of Jesus more fully?
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And by his power, I mean his ability to positively impact and bring shalom, wholeness, completeness, well-being, those types of things.
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And therefore, as a result...
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Does the city gain a greater appreciation of Jesus as a result of what they experience of Him from us?
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So, the case that I would present to you is that during the time of COVID,
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when we were shut down and could not gather anymore, right?
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There would be those who only saw the church as a gathering entity who would assume it has no relevance, right?
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But our relevance is more than gathering, right?
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We are most like Jesus when we are giving ourselves in redemptive service.
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The worship that we do, that is the creaturely function.
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That's what the creation does.
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But the giving of ourselves in redemptive service, that's what Jesus did.
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People experienced Jesus, and they experienced him in powerful ways as we gave ourselves to that.
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That's so powerful.
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And, you know, at this season, in this stage of your work in ministry, Bishop, what has your attention now?
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What joyous burden has God put on your heart?
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that you feel particularly called to give yourself to in this season?
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So since around 2013, I have been caught by the year 2033.
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2033 will be the 2000th anniversary of the resurrection and of the birth of the church, which is a unique window of time.
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And the reason why...
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why that caught me and still catches me is not just the significance of that moment.
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But there's been this question, Alicia, what I didn't talk about was,
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My parents, I grew up in a household.
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One parent was Baptist.
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One parent was Church of Christ Holiness.
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So we would go to Sundays each one.
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And then I was educated in Catholic schools.
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And then I go to a Presbyterian seminary in Pittsburgh Theological.
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So I've got so much.
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Mm-hmm.
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informing me and I see the beauty of it all.
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And so I've wondered, will our unity occur before Christ returns or after?
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That's always been a question of mine.
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And I don't have the answer to that, but what I do know is that God has called me to work towards that occurring.
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And 2033 gives us a unique opportunity for that because we all take our cue from Jesus.
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from his death, his resurrection, and Pentecost.
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And so what does it mean for us to give ourselves to this unique window of opportunity?
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That starts at 2030.
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which would be the 2000th anniversary of the beginning of its public ministry, and then takes us through 2033.
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It's a unique opportunity that creates urgency and focus for the reaching of the lost and the renewal of the church and ways in which we can give ourselves to collective reflection
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and rejoicing, and repentance, and renewal.
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And so I have been giving myself now to this, and it's taking hold in Catholic and Evangelical and Orthodox spaces.
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People are beginning to catch it.
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And also, it's being able to create a master narrative
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whereby entities that have their own 2033 goals, so if it's Bible translation to have a, or if it's the evangelists who said we're going to, you know, everyone will have had a chance to hear the word of God, the gospel by, it's how we stitch them together so each can see each other.
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So that's what I'm giving myself to in this season.
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This isn't the first time I've heard about 2033, but it's the first time I've really gotten quite stirred up, Bishop.
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There's just the way that you framed it and the way that you've pointed towards this unique opportunity for unity is very, very exciting.
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Wow, you've given us a lot to chew on, a lot to think about in this conversation.
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But since we're coming up on time, I think I'd like to leave it with this final question, which is, Bishop, imagine a pastor in their 30s or 40s who's listening to this, who wants to serve Jesus faithfully as you have for the next 30 or 40 years.
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After everything you've experienced, what would you tell them to pay attention to now so that they can finish well?
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Hmm.
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One, I would say pay attention to yourself.
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Pay attention to your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being.
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Secondly, if you are married, pay attention to your spouse.
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Thirdly, if you have children, pay attention to them.
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Because so very often...
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A minister who is young will pay attention to the church and ministry, to the neglect of those three.
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When those three are the fuel by which you're able to do the other.
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So it would be that.
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Okay.
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See relationships that God brings you as a stewardship, as a trust, because you never know what God has in mind with those relationships.
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Pay attention.
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Steward them.
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Steward them well.
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Understand that you never go wrong with the gospel.
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You never, it is still the power of God unto salvation.
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Jesus is still the power and the wisdom of God.
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You never go wrong that.
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And then lastly, give yourself grace and space.
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Those would be the things that I would share.
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That's so good.
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That's so good, Bishop.
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I want to go back to something you talked about earlier in this conversation, which is godly surprises.
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And you talked about these men that you suddenly found yourself...
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that God sort of put you together with.
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Well, if you had told me five years ago that I'd be having a conversation with Bishop Claude Alexander, with my friend, Reverend Elliot Johnson, I wouldn't have believed it.
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But here we are.
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And so, life is full of these God moments that really increase faith and bless us.
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And I've been blessed by this conversation, and I know that our listeners have as well.
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So, I want to thank you, Bishop, for being a part of this conversation with Ravi, Jay, and I.
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It really has been so wonderful.
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Well, thank you.
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It's been my joy.
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Yes, thank you, Bishop.
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As always, every time you talk, man, you can hear the voice of God.
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And I was like, is he talking to me?
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Because I was sleeping all there.
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And that God moment, you know, as you well know, as you've come into the life of my family and at a time –
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that we needed it because of what happened with our daughter.
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You couldn't have written that script.
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That was all ordained by God.
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And then the mutual friend we have, Jeff Wright, and how all that brought us together.
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Yeah.
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2018, right?
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Yeah, that's right.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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On and on and on.
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But I love you so much, and thank you so much for helping us and being a part of our podcast family.
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Yeah.
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Happy to do it.
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Love you, too.
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With TikTok and everything, there is the expectation of you always being on.
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Life was not designed for us to be always on.
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This is the Faithly Podcast.
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Welcome back to another episode of the Faithly Podcast.
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I'm so happy to be joined today by my special co-host, my advisor and my friend, Reverend Elliott Johnson.
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Rev.
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EJ and I will be co-interviewing Bishop Claude Alexander.
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He is the senior pastor of the Park Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Bishop Alexander has served the park for more than 35 years, helping lead the church into a global multi-site ministry.
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Beyond the local church, he has spent decades investing in some of the most important Christian institutions of our day, including Gordon-Conwell and Christianity Today.
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But today, we really want to get behind that ministry resume.
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We want to hear the story of how God called him, what more than three decades in pastoral ministry have taught him, and what he believes that ministry leaders need to understand in this moment.
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Bishop Alexander, welcome to the Faithfully Podcast.
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Thank you, Alicia.
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It's good to be with you.
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Right, Bishop.
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The Park Church was looking for a new senior pastor, and they were looking for someone at least 35 years old, someone married, with at least five years of pastoral experience.
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And at the time, you were 26 and single, and you had only three years of experience.
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What did they see in you?
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And what was it like taking on that responsibility so young?
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Wow.
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Well, I think it's more what we see from them than what they saw in me.
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What we see in them was an openness to God, a willingness to be flexible and pivot.
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a high tolerance for risk.
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I think what they saw in me was a person who was sincere, who had sought to prepare himself.
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My uncles were also very helpful because they also saw that I had support.
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And I think that that was equally important for them to see, that I had wise counsel, mature individuals behind me.
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To say that it was a risk is an understatement in that the church had suffered a split
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that literally split families.
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So there was wounding.
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We had an $800,000 debt at 18% interest.
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Right?
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And you call a 26-year-old.
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End of that.
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At 26, you don't know what to be afraid of.
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All that you know is that God called you.
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And so our story is so much about what God has done with both of us than anything about either of us.
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Yeah.
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So, Bishop, you're 26 years old now.
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You're the senior pastor.
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Yeah.
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That's at that time was UPBC, if I'm not mistaken.
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And now you're you.
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God has put you in this role of being responsible for leading people.
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I'm blessed to be underneath your toolage of leadership, especially in the market and workplace.
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But, you know, when it came to leading these people at this age.
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Who had far more life experience than you did.
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Mm hmm.
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I mean, what were the lessons that you learned to lead, but you were still trying to become a leader yourself?
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Share with us kind of like what that was all about.
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Sure.
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So I think it's important to note that this wasn't my first pastorate.
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I pastored Morningstar Baptist Church in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania for three years prior to that.
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And then having had the privilege of serving with my uncles in their churches for three years prior to that.
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And so what I learned was the care of people.
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To care for people.
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and that is what I brought into the space at University Park, caring for people.
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You have to get in their hearts, and they have to get into yours before they can digest anything that you want to present or do.
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And that was especially important for a wounded congregation.
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You know, and so, you know, it was about being present.
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Present to, present for, present with.
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And because I was 26 and many of them had children, I was closer to the ages of their children than I was to them, which meant I immediately resonated with their kids.
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Right.
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And so by resonating with their kids, they saw the value of that as well as being able to resonate with them.
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And so, again, showing up at the hospital, being present for counseling, walking with them through sickness and death.
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Those are the things that regardless of congregational size have meaning and value.
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Wow.
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And from that time to today, now you've been pastoring the same church for 35 years.
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What do you understand, Bishop, about pastoral ministry today that you wish that Claude Alexander in 1990 had understood?
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Yeah.
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I think that what I wish that Claude at 26 had understood is that he had nothing to prove.
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that it was more about the pursuing the will of God than the proving himself to people.
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My first year, I was in the hospital three times for stress, for stress because I felt that I needed to prove that they made a good decision.
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in calling me.
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And so I wish that at 26, he understood that it wasn't about proving.
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It was about pursuing the will, the will of God.
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That's number one.
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Secondly, I wish that he understood that
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Whatever the Lord had for him to do, the Lord had the time for him to do it.
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And therefore, he need not rush or hurry or fret about rhythm.
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That whatever time, whatever the Lord has for him, the Lord has time for him.
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And therefore, he has, he has time.
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Those would be the two biggest things I wish that he had knew then.
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So, Bishop, you use that word pursuit.
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And you align it with the word longevity when it comes to ministry.
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That's something that a lot of leaders in your space aspire to.
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But we also know that comes with a cost, right?
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There's a price for that.
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Talk to us.
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Tell us what has allowed you to sustain your faithful and healthiness over this long haul.
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I mean, help us understand that pace of grace that you figured out.
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So, you know, I wish that I could say that I started with the view that I'd be at the park for 36 years.
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Which, by the way, we're coming up.
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Right, right, right, right, right, right, 36.
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But I can't say that.
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I went in, you know, knowing that the Lord had called me and that I wanted to be faithful to that.
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But I went in seeing myself perhaps in other places some years down the road.
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And that's how I went in.
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Yeah.
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But several things happened.
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In my second year pastoring at the church, I was, again, frustrated by some things.
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And the Lord said this to me.
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He said, I'm going to do what I'm going to do with you.
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It will either be here or somewhere else, but I'm going to do what I want to do with you.
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Full stop.
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And hearing that lifted a weight off of me because then it became a matter of just being faithful to what the Lord was leading me to do in the time that he was leading me to do it.
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and trusting him with the results, the outcome.
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It was for me to pursue as he showed and trust him with the rest.
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And with that, there were just a lot of godly surprises that no one could imagine.
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And those godly surprises happened over time.
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And then you look up and you're there 20 years.
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And you look up and you're there 30 years.
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And now you look up and you're there 36.
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So for me, it is trusting myself to him
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being faithful to what he shows, and then leaning into the doors that he opens.
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Now, the care of the person, okay, for longevity is something else.
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And for me, that has been the practice of Sabbath,
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the taking of my calendar and scratching out time a year in advance so that I know that I have that time available for me, for Kim and I, and for our girls when they were living here.
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Um...
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And then being able to allow the Lord to feed me in a variety of ways.
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One is through devotional engagement with the scriptures every day and prayer.
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But then movies and a good meal and going to Disney World and Disneyland, those things as well, those have been life-sustaining.
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Well, I've taken my kids to Disney World, Bishop.
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I didn't realize I was working on my longevity.
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That's good to know.
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Bishop, I want to go back to something you said.
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You were talking about, you know, doing what's in front of you.
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You know, not necessarily knowing the whole blueprint.
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You may not have used those words, but that's kind of what I heard, is doing what God puts in front of you.
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And then you mentioned godly surprises.
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And that really piqued my curiosity.
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Can you give me an example of what you meant by godly surprises?
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Yeah.
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So godly surprises have come in a variety of ways.
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One has been in the realm of relationships, right?
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I did not, I could not have set out a plan to have met Walter Thomas or Leighton Ford.
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I mean, it, it,
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but the way in which those things happen.
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Kim and I go to Renaissance Weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, and there's Gene and Leighton Ford there, not in Charlotte, where both of us live, but at this thing.
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And God used that to connect and knit.
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for Bishop Walter Thomas, it was our hosting an event that one of his choir directors held, attended, and he said, I'm going to tell my pastor, and he's going to take your call.
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You don't plan those things.
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Another godly surprise, the most recent, which really blows my mind, is...
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We've had 30 acres of real estate to develop for housing.
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I get a call from Mac Peer.
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He says, I want you to meet Dan Horner.
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Dan Horner is the founder and CEO of the largest home builder in the Carolinas.
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As I'm sitting there meeting him, he says, well, I'm not.
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I heard you in 2017 at Movement Day Charlotte that I attended, and it was there that the Lord got a hold of me for how do I lean in as a marketplace leader.
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And from that, we've decided to build 300 units at cost per year.
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And I'm sitting there, this is 2023, five years later.
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I'm like, well, we have 30 acres.
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And so now we will be bringing online 200 single family units that will be market rate, but will be affordable because he's going to build them at cost.
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He's raised a $30 million fund.
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And so that each home buyer will start out with $50,000 worth of equity at the beginning.
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That's the most recent godly surprise.
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But I could go on and on and on about ways in which God has done that.
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Those are some good godly surprises.
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Thank you for sharing those with us.
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I think we forget sometimes that even ministry leaders and pastors and bishops need their faith to be increased by these things.
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And it sounds like they increased your faith.
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So, you've achieved longevity.
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You've been working.
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pastoring in the same church for such a long time.
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And that means you've had to pastor through and lead through seasons of change.
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What have you learned about discerning the difference between something the church needs to adapt to versus something that the church needs to stand firm on?
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Hmm.
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Hmm.
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So,
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I think that the standing firm for me has been the doctrine of the church, the word of God.
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That does not change at all.
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And so being firmly rooted, firm in our understanding of Scripture and the doctrines of the faith.
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everything else is open season in terms of, of modality.
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So another godly surprise in, in, uh, 1997, we were doing two services and, uh, it was just, it was, it was just unbearable, right?
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Well, uh,
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And it was at 7 and 11.
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And we made the decision to go to a 930 service.
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Well, at that time in 98, very few were doing a service at 930.
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And I got pushed back.
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11 o'clock, that is the sacred hour.
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That's when God shows up, right?
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And, but we, but we, we did that service and that was a part of our explosive growth.
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Just that flexibility in terms of service times modality.
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We were early adopters of the Internet.
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And so I remember at a session at our local association in 2000, a pastor was saying, that's of the devil.
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That's, that's.
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And for me, it was, it was a modality of engagement.
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So we leaned heavily into that.
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And in 2001, we entered into a facility that was built to receive and send signals.
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So we were streaming in 2001.
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We had that.
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Well, what happens in 2020?
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COVID.
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And everybody's now got to be online.
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Well, we had 19 years of experience of being online.
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So the message never changes.
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The means by which the message is communicated varies.
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And being clear on that, that's been what has guided me.
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Bishop, you know, you had the opportunity to have a front row seat to a lot of Christian leadership opportunities, not only as a pastor, but chairman of the board of Christianity Today.
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One time, Chairman Gordon Cromwell, you sat on the board of one of the fastest growing platforms for churches in the country called Glue.
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and other organizations that you've helped lead.
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Share with us, what separates leaders who finish well and then from leaders who don't finish at all?
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So I think that what I've observed in terms of, what I've observed in terms of, what I've observed in terms of,
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leaders who have sustained relevance is a couple of things.
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One, they have a clear sense and comfort with who they are and what they bring to a table.
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Their roles may differ, vary, but they have a clear sense of who they are and what they bring.
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Second, they tend to be individuals who are continuously curious.
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but also what is coming, what should be anticipated, what's around the corner.
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Thirdly, they tend to be individuals who can play well with others.
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Because so much of leading is being with people and getting people to catch you and catch what you're seeking to do.
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And this is nothing novel.
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I mean, when you read the scriptures, Jesus called them to be with him.
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Right.
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To be with him.
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And in their being with him, they caught him.
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They caught his vision.
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They caught where he wanted them to go.
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And so, you know, I think that so much of successful and sustained leadership is being able to follow that model.
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Mm-hmm.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Well, with such a long tenure, Bishop, in ministry, I imagine that there must have been seasons that were deeply rewarding and seasons that were probably very, very difficult.
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Was there ever a season when you seriously wondered whether you could keep doing it?
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Oh, certainly.
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A sustained pastorate, the challenge of pastoring is the expectation for you to lead like Jesus when your experience is more that of Moses.
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Okay, now understand, Jesus' public ministry was only three years, and then he was out.
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He said, I'm out of here.
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Y'all got it.
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Y'all got it.
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Moses, on the other hand, was a sustained time.
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Ebbs and flows, ups and downs, victories and defeats.
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That is more the model.
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And so, yeah, I mean, times of epic programmatic failure, you know, when you set something out and you just fail miserably, like David with the ox cart and you just throw it away and God has to call you back, right?
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There's been that.
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Um, there have been, there was a season, um, 2014 to 17 where I wondered, um, if I'd stay too long.
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Um, yeah.
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And would the church and I be better off with someone else?
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Or me somewhere else?
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And the Lord said, no, this is where you are to be.
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And I understood it afterwards.
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But there are those times when you wonder.
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And it is in those times for me when there is dormancy that you may be experiencing that
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One, again, the confidence in who God is and what God is doing in you and through you.
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And then being able to look at other areas where there is life.
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Where there is life.
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And that helped me through that season.
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And then lastly, you cannot live with people and not feel when they experience loss, you feel it.
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When you've been with people for 36 years and some of them die,
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you feel it.
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When you are caught with unexplainable tragedy and suffering that that
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that hurts you as it hurts them.
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You're hurting and you're hurting for them.
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That each time it takes something out of you, that you don't get back,
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Right.
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That is, that is, it is in those times that, that God has to be sufficient for you.
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Just, just his being sufficient.
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Amen.
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In those, in those spaces.
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So, you know, Bishop, one of the challenges that we all face of leading for a long time is knowing when to hold on and knowing when to let go.
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Tell me, what have you learned about raising up other leaders and then sharing or giving away authority to make room for the next generation to lead?
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Well, I think for me, one of the things that was important, especially as we experienced an explosion in my seventh and eighth year,
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You can only go so far leading like this, right?
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If you want to go further, if you want to be able to sustain, you have to open your hands.
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And you have to give up and trust.
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in others.
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And so it has been, that has been the model.
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And we say this to every new member, Alicia, God has added you either to strengthen what we have or to create what is yet to be.
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That is the assumption.
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And so much of the ministries that we have are because people took that seriously.
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So if you said to me, hey, there's something we want to do for young mothers—
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Hey, Alicia, that's a good idea.
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Write something up and come back to me and we'll see it.
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And so that's been a part of our DNA for a long, long time.
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And as a result, we've been blessed.
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I love that.
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I wrote it down.
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You're going to start hearing that at Lower Manhattan Community Church.
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I love it.
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I love it.
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Yeah.
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Bishop, when you look out at the field of pastors and ministry leaders who are leading today, where do you think we're vulnerable today as leaders?
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Hmm.
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I think that there would be a couple of vulnerabilities.
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One, I mean, so much of it is tied to this.
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Yeah.
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One, because of this, with TikTok and everything, there is the expectation of you always being on, you know, on, on, on, on demand, on, never off.
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life was not designed for us to be always on and never off.
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That's number one.
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Two, the expectation that you always have to say something and that you always have to say something immediately.
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And that if you're not saying something immediately, you're missing it.
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Which means there's no room for contemplation.
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No room for quietness and absorbing before you speak.
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No, no.
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That would be the second.
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The third thing that follows as, and perhaps that is underneath it, is the desire for followers to,
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and the seeing of one's relevance by how many likes or follows you get.
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I don't know that Jesus would do very well in this environment because he would be unfriended.
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and unfollowed in many cases.
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One of the things that really set me free was reading, I believe it was in John chapter 6, where Jesus is talking about his being the bread of life and eating of him and all of that.
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And John said that they were greatly offended.
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And many left him and followed him no more.
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Now that's Jesus.
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That's Jesus.
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And I'm like, wow.
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If that happened to him...
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It certainly can and probably will happen to me.
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But then he looked to us.
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He said, are y'all going to?
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And Peter said, you have the words of eternal life.
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the desire to be an influencer, to be a leader, all this, that we can miss some things and set ourselves up for extreme disappointment and disillusionment.
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Yeah.
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So with that perspective in mind, on the other side, the side that's all around encouragement and hope,
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Where are you seeing and who are you seeing in these young pastors today who are emerging leaders that this genuinely encourages you and inspires you?
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When I see...
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someone like a Marcus Cosby at Wheeler Avenue.
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It's from Chicago, by the way.
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Baptist Church.
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I see an individual who is deeply rooted fundamentally
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And yet who has displayed an openness to adopt and adapt ways of engagement that are appealing intergenerationally.
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Right.
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Right.
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Right.
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He is equally at home in a hymn as he is with the most current CCM song.
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I mean, he is able to be intergenerational.
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And people, because of that, each sees his or her place there.
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I look at Dr. Nicole Martin, who I've known since she was 10 years old.
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And I see her again deeply rooted in the Word, but able to enter any room and space and be relevant.
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And then I look at Walter Thomas Jr.
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who has stepped into succeeding his father and honoring what he has inherited, but establishing his own voice as well.
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So those would be three that come to mind.
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Thank you.
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Bishop, you've spent your ministry working not just within the four walls of the local church, but in the broader community.
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What do you think the local church's responsibility is to its city and to its community today?
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So if we take our cue from Jesus, it is to be that of salt and light.
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It is to see ourselves as called to the city, not just called to God, but called to where we are.
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And to see our accountability as being how well the city is as a result of our being there.
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that when we look at the parable of the talents, God is always looking for a return on the investment.
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So what is the return on the investment that God sees in the city where He has planted us, where He has invested us, okay?
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And that...
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That is not just a matter of does the city know more about Jesus, but does the city see Jesus more clearly?
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Does the city experience the power of Jesus more fully?
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And by his power, I mean his ability to positively impact and bring shalom, wholeness, completeness, well-being, those types of things.
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And therefore, as a result...
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Does the city gain a greater appreciation of Jesus as a result of what they experience of Him from us?
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So, the case that I would present to you is that during the time of COVID,
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when we were shut down and could not gather anymore, right?
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There would be those who only saw the church as a gathering entity who would assume it has no relevance, right?
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But our relevance is more than gathering, right?
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We are most like Jesus when we are giving ourselves in redemptive service.
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The worship that we do, that is the creaturely function.
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That's what the creation does.
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But the giving of ourselves in redemptive service, that's what Jesus did.
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People experienced Jesus, and they experienced him in powerful ways as we gave ourselves to that.
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That's so powerful.
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And, you know, at this season, in this stage of your work in ministry, Bishop, what has your attention now?
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What joyous burden has God put on your heart?
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that you feel particularly called to give yourself to in this season?
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So since around 2013, I have been caught by the year 2033.
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2033 will be the 2000th anniversary of the resurrection and of the birth of the church, which is a unique window of time.
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And the reason why...
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why that caught me and still catches me is not just the significance of that moment.
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But there's been this question, Alicia, what I didn't talk about was,
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My parents, I grew up in a household.
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One parent was Baptist.
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One parent was Church of Christ Holiness.
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So we would go to Sundays each one.
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And then I was educated in Catholic schools.
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And then I go to a Presbyterian seminary in Pittsburgh Theological.
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So I've got so much.
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Mm-hmm.
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informing me and I see the beauty of it all.
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And so I've wondered, will our unity occur before Christ returns or after?
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That's always been a question of mine.
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And I don't have the answer to that, but what I do know is that God has called me to work towards that occurring.
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And 2033 gives us a unique opportunity for that because we all take our cue from Jesus.
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from his death, his resurrection, and Pentecost.
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And so what does it mean for us to give ourselves to this unique window of opportunity?
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That starts at 2030.
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which would be the 2000th anniversary of the beginning of its public ministry, and then takes us through 2033.
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It's a unique opportunity that creates urgency and focus for the reaching of the lost and the renewal of the church and ways in which we can give ourselves to collective reflection
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and rejoicing, and repentance, and renewal.
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And so I have been giving myself now to this, and it's taking hold in Catholic and Evangelical and Orthodox spaces.
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People are beginning to catch it.
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And also, it's being able to create a master narrative
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whereby entities that have their own 2033 goals, so if it's Bible translation to have a, or if it's the evangelists who said we're going to, you know, everyone will have had a chance to hear the word of God, the gospel by, it's how we stitch them together so each can see each other.
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So that's what I'm giving myself to in this season.
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This isn't the first time I've heard about 2033, but it's the first time I've really gotten quite stirred up, Bishop.
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There's just the way that you framed it and the way that you've pointed towards this unique opportunity for unity is very, very exciting.
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Wow, you've given us a lot to chew on, a lot to think about in this conversation.
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But since we're coming up on time, I think I'd like to leave it with this final question, which is, Bishop, imagine a pastor in their 30s or 40s who's listening to this, who wants to serve Jesus faithfully as you have for the next 30 or 40 years.
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After everything you've experienced, what would you tell them to pay attention to now so that they can finish well?
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Hmm.
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One, I would say pay attention to yourself.
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Pay attention to your mental, physical, and spiritual well-being.
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Secondly, if you are married, pay attention to your spouse.
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Thirdly, if you have children, pay attention to them.
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Because so very often...
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A minister who is young will pay attention to the church and ministry, to the neglect of those three.
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When those three are the fuel by which you're able to do the other.
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So it would be that.
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Okay.
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See relationships that God brings you as a stewardship, as a trust, because you never know what God has in mind with those relationships.
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Pay attention.
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Steward them.
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Steward them well.
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Understand that you never go wrong with the gospel.
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You never, it is still the power of God unto salvation.
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Jesus is still the power and the wisdom of God.
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You never go wrong that.
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And then lastly, give yourself grace and space.
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Those would be the things that I would share.
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That's so good.
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That's so good, Bishop.
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I want to go back to something you talked about earlier in this conversation, which is godly surprises.
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And you talked about these men that you suddenly found yourself...
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that God sort of put you together with.
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Well, if you had told me five years ago that I'd be having a conversation with Bishop Claude Alexander, with my friend, Reverend Elliot Johnson, I wouldn't have believed it.
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But here we are.
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And so, life is full of these God moments that really increase faith and bless us.
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And I've been blessed by this conversation, and I know that our listeners have as well.
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So, I want to thank you, Bishop, for being a part of this conversation with Ravi, Jay, and I.
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It really has been so wonderful.
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Well, thank you.
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It's been my joy.
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Yes, thank you, Bishop.
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As always, every time you talk, man, you can hear the voice of God.
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And I was like, is he talking to me?
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Because I was sleeping all there.
429
00:56:47.744 --> 00:56:53.610
And that God moment, you know, as you well know, as you've come into the life of my family and at a time –
430
00:56:55.131 --> 00:56:57.612
that we needed it because of what happened with our daughter.
431
00:56:58.732 --> 00:57:01.332
You couldn't have written that script.
432
00:57:01.672 --> 00:57:03.613
That was all ordained by God.
433
00:57:04.193 --> 00:57:08.354
And then the mutual friend we have, Jeff Wright, and how all that brought us together.
434
00:57:09.094 --> 00:57:09.654
Yeah.
435
00:57:09.714 --> 00:57:10.614
2018, right?
436
00:57:10.874 --> 00:57:11.955
Yeah, that's right.
437
00:57:12.175 --> 00:57:12.815
That's right.
438
00:57:13.275 --> 00:57:13.715
That's right.
439
00:57:13.735 --> 00:57:14.515
On and on and on.
440
00:57:14.555 --> 00:57:19.776
But I love you so much, and thank you so much for helping us and being a part of our podcast family.
441
00:57:20.316 --> 00:57:20.656
Yeah.
442
00:57:21.257 --> 00:57:21.977
Happy to do it.
443
00:57:22.217 --> 00:57:22.717
Love you, too.