61
ENSPIRE MAGAZINE WS20
What is your earliest memory of church and who introduced you to it ?
I was introduced to it by my Grandmother when I was a child . I always thought it was something different . I didn ’ t quite know what it was that always protected me . It allowed us to see life from a different perspective than what my reality really was .
What was the initial thing that made you get more into religion ?
I don ’ t even remember what day this was but , I was a teenager and I just knew that there was much more to life than what I was experiencing . It was compelling to me . You can call it the Holy Spirit and as a result , it just put me in the right place amongst the right people to get introduced to it . I think the way I was introduced to it was very vicarious , but I ’ m here .
What made you choose to study theology ?
Initially , it was just to know it for me , but I knew that even then at the time which was so bizarre , that it was even beyond what we know to be as Christianity . I was learning Hebrew at 18 and I just related to it much more . And again I don ’ t know , there was such a feeling inside of me that I just knew that it was much more than just what I was seeing . I couldn ’ t quite put my finger on what the more was and you often hear people preach , people teach about the children of Israel , and I don ’ t know something in me just couldn ’ t buy the fact that they were people that were white . I hate to say it that way , with curly tassels around their sideburns . I just felt that I saw myself . When we read those stories , something in me told me that there was much more to the historicity and the reality of what we were being taught than what we know . And I think that in my personal study . And in my personal understanding , and even learning about history something made me see myself in that word .
Now although you have a career in healthcare , you always felt like there was a heavier calling on your life . Why have you chosen to tap more into it in these trying times ?
In the spring of 2002 , I was licensed to preach the gospel of the kingdom . But I was very young at 19 . You know , I think it ’ s always heard that you have to live a little in order to really produce a very solid message . And at that time , I was so in a rush to do things that I don ’ t know . I didn ’ t even give myself enough time to be a young adult . I was so focused on certain things that one day I said you know what , screw that and I lived . I think that having experienced many things and I still have many rivers to cross in my life at 37 . But I do think I can help someone outside of me , just from my own experience alone but then coupling that with my experience and knowledge of the gospel .
Now , during quarantine , there have been many challenges for people . Spiritually I think people feel like all they have left is their faith . What made you want to do morning prayer calls , Bible study , and weekly sermons during a time where people can ’ t come together in fellowship like normal ?
Because in a time of famine is where you draw out God the Most . You know things were drying up here , especially in NYC . We were going through a war zone and that was the main time that we had to draw nigh & coalesce around the things of God . More specifically , I ’ ll be honest conversations that we had you really kind of pushed me further towards it . I began to think , okay ,
maybe I could do this because I always looked at it as something that ’ s up there in terms of like the pastorate and terms of leadership in the church . Many people are not very good examples , but at the same time , I always look at it from the excellency , that God has regarding his kingdom . I don ’ t necessarily let the bad apples tarnish my perception . So I always thought of it to be a really . precious office to hold . And I didn ’ t know that I could hold or to walk in that calling . But I would say the over the past several months people that I ’ ve been around have encouraged me .
As a Black man in America bearing witness to so much racial injustice , while living in the epicenter of Covid -19 and being an essential worker . How do you cope with everything ?
Well , I look to the scripture . The Lord is my light and my salvation is that simple . I know what he ’ s capable of doing and I ’ ve seen what miracles he ’ s done in the past , so therefore I know that he ’ s able to get us out of this , no matter how detrimental it looks or seems . We Always have hope & not only do we have hope but he is our blessed hope .
So you came up with the Christ Collective . What was your vision for it at and what made you want to start it now ?
When I first envisioned it , I saw it being like a potter ’ s house kind of thing . And then I had to humble myself and say maybe this is not the perspective that you know I ’ m necessarily called to maybe I ’ m called to a specific core group , I don ’ t know . But I do know that one of the biggest aspects of it is to talk about our real true history and talk about our real true positioning in the things of God . You know we ’ re often taught as