PROGRAM SUCCESS – SPRING 2013 PAGE 31
Let’s improve our families – The Black Family. A real battle is
waging here. It seems no one cares about your marriage or even that
you get married. Our children are raised without encouragement to
marry and no incentive to stay married. We must make the family top
priority and give it the best of our attention and resources. The best
thing a Black man can do for his children is to love their mother. The
Black man and woman must start loving one another again. We are
all we got. For life to be better, it will only be by us coming together
in support and commitment one to the other. Two can make it better
than one.
Let’ turn off the television and stop allowing it to raise our children.
Shame on any mother that allows her child to wear their hair in
dreads, dress hip-hop, put gold in their mouth, tattoo their skin, or do
any other thing that is counterproductive to that child’s education or
becoming gainfully employed. We must prepare our children for a
world that is cold and uncaring. A world of survival for only the
fittest and the strongest. Our children don’t need any more handicaps.
Their inferior high school education must be offset by strong family
support and guidance.
And lastly, let’s improve The Black Church. Excuse me for having
strong feeling in this area. The Black Church, started in slavery,
preached a gospel that was strong enough to liberate us as a people.
The Black Church unified us to fight economic omission and
political injustice in the civil rights movement. The Black Church
started and supported Black business. The Black Church founded and
built Black colleges and universities. This skeleton of a church I see
today in the Black community is a far cry from what it should
represent.
Today in the Black church we see very little unity, and even less
family. We see more money taken in the church today than at any
time in church history, yet little to no services being provided by the
church. No programs to keep our children off of drugs and out of jail.
No human sexuality programs to keep teenage girls from becoming
pregnant. No family crisis programs. No relief for the poor. All the
church has today is church expense. There is always a struggle just
to pay the monthly bills.
The Black church today is powerless in the political arena and silent
in the court’s halls of justice. And the scandals you hear on the streets
about the Church. One pastor sexually involved with multiple
women in the church. One pastor impregnation a minor child and the
Deacons covering it up. A pastor disassociating and kicking members
off the church rolls because they won’t go along with his program.
Deacons and Trustees stealing money from the church treasury. The
list goes on. When we look at the Black church today, all the
problems, division, fussing and fighting, you can’t help but ask
yourself the question, “Is the Lord amongst us or not?”
We have become a people of tolerance. In our churches today, we
have permitted acts that in the past would have been considered
criminal. We use to hold our leaders to the highest code of ethics and
standards. Now in the name of “we all are human” we turn and look
the other way. In turn we are minimizing the standard of God, but
only to ourselves… not to God. God will not bless us as a people
until we get right and do right.
Our prayer to God should be:
God send us Preachers that are not afraid to go against
the system. Lord send us Christian Leaders that pray
and read the Bible. We need Churches that are filled not
necessarily with people, but filled with the Holy Spirit.
Lord give us eyes to see our problems, feet to go to the
problems, and hands to fix our problems. Our theme
song for the future should be “Got to be There.” Be
there when in the morning, when young teenage children
wake up with no hope. We must be there to inspire them
against dope.
The Church “Got to be There… for we wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
We as members of the Black community have “Got to be
There” with our time, talent, treasure… our
understanding, our forgiveness, and our love. Whenever
there is a problem, wherever there is trouble, in the time
of pain, in the mist of sorrow when the world shall ask
“Is the Lord amongst us or not?” They will see the
Lord, hear the Lord, and touch the Lord by the fruit we
bear in the lives we live.
Lord give us Hope for a world grown so cold,
Hungry for power and greedy for gold.
Lord give us Faith to believe within and without,
Blameless fear in a world full of doubt.
Lord give us Love that is bigger than race and creed,
To cover the world and fulfil each need.
Lord we need Hope, Faith & Love from above,
For only these three can change Man’s hatred into Love.