Where Do We Go From Here?
Remember, Celebrate, Act!

by Oliver R. Phillips
Mission Strategy Director

Text: Joshua 3:1-7

An address prepared for the National Black Nazarene Conference
Atlanta, Georgia - July 25-28, 2002

The gathering of peoples of African descent here in Atlanta, Georgia, is by all estimations the largest assembly in the history of the Church of the Nazarene. This is a cause for celebration! We have come here as a people, who could collectively sing, 

Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chast'ning rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers signed?

Our history as African Americans and West Indians weave a common thread of slavery and indentureship on the plantations of cotton, sugarcane, and oil. If we look back on the journey we would sing:

Our history has not been one that gives us a passionate and celebrative urge to recollect. Many of us don't want to look back. Our past is too gloomy. We want to forget. But we can't.

If we forget the past, we would never experience the joy of singing

And somebody ought to sing, “We've come this far by faith, leaning on the Lord. Trusting in His holy Word, He's never failed me yet."

God has blessed us as a people of ebony hue with a challenge more unique than any other culture in these United States. We represent the Black church in a predominantly white denomination, but we must refuse the temptation to disassociate ourselves from the Black church, as it is historically known. The one thing that has kept Satan from taking complete control of our Black communities is the Black church. The Black church has been our rock, refuge, resting-place, and reservoir. When the storms of life were raging, the Black church has been the one place where we could go for refuge. There was something we could get in the Black church that we could not get anyplace else.

There is something about...

There is an encouragement of the soul that happens in the Black church in a way that doesn't happen any place else.

Look at whom came out of our churches.

Give God the praise for the historic Black church. We should never be distanced from it. We are the Black church!

When the future seemed hopeless, it was the Black church that stood as a beacon in the dark night of hatred. When all those around us were telling us to give up, give out, give in, the Black church kept saying, "You can make it! Go ahead! Just hold on! Help is on the way!" When the world kept telling us that we couldn't succeed, that we were programmed to fail, that it was in our genes, the Black church kept saying, "You can do all things through Christ, who strengthens you." When the tears would not stop and the night seemed endless, it was the Black church that reminded us, "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning" (Psalm 30:5).

And so we come to this conference as a remnant church within a denomination. We are committed to the ideals that have brought us this far and we are a mighty army on the move for God. We are “unashamedly Black and unapologetically Christian.”

We must know where we've come from, so we can appreciate where God is taking us.

KADESH BARNEA
Perhaps you may not have taken the time to reflect on the connection between where the pilgrimage people were, and the part that Kadesh Barnea played in their lives. I hope you do not mind my bringing this matter to your attention, because there is no way to ignore the salient link and significance of Kadesh Barnea. Years before this dilemma at the Jordan, there was the confrontation at Kadesh Barnea.

Kadesh Barnea is critical to our understanding of where the people of Israel had come from. It was at Kadesh Barnea that...

The problem with wanting to return to Egypt is that when you get back there you run into the Red Sea. God only does miracles when you're going forward, not backward.

It was at Kadesh Barnea that Israel ran into a major crisis in their young life as a nation, for it is here—out of their unbelief—that they provoked God. God then decided to turn them back from their journey toward nationhood and sent them on a forty-year trek to nowhere.

Fundamentally, the lesson to be learned at Kadesh Barnea is that there is an inherent danger in criticizing God's appointed leaders. Miriam became jealous of the Ethiopian wife of Moses, and Aaron joined in severely criticizing Moses. Their complaints against his marriage led them to also criticize and even question his divine appointment as a prophet and a leader. The terrible judgment visited upon Miriam demonstrated the Lord's displeasure with those who unjustly criticize God's appointed and anointed leaders.

God had chosen Moses, and had put the Spirit upon him. Yet, Miriam and Aaron, by their murmurings, were guilty of disloyalty, not only to their appointed leader, but to God. This manifestation of the Lord's displeasure was designed to be a warning to all Israel to check the growing spirit of discontent and insubordination (Refer to Numbers 12). This experience delayed the progress of the march towards Kadesh for seven days.

Murmurings and complaining do not mitigate unfavorable conditions. We need to be positive in attempting to bring about change in our beloved church. I am aware that there are those who would be quick to proffer that our denomination has not done all that it could in advancing the cause of culturally-equal access to the resources of the church. Your point is well taken. However, it is only by constant dialogue and prayerful intervention that our church will be what it really should be. No church is immune from the storms of division, controversy, and struggle.

The children of Israel remained forty years at Kadesh Barnea because of complaining and not being a gratuitous people. Let us not make the same mistake.

It is unfortunate that many preachers today seem to suggest that this forty-year march was a preparation for entrance into the Promise Land. This is sadly erroneous. If you reread the biblical narrative, you would find that at the time of the report of the twelve spies it was only Joshua and Caleb who were willing to give a positive report to the people to move ahead. They chose rather to listen to the other spies, which provoked God, and God said, "I will kill them all in one day. I will destroy them and will raise up a new generation from Moses."

Moses, being the pastor and intercessor that he was, begged God not to destroy them. Moses pleaded, "Your enemy would say that you had power to bring them out of Egypt, but not enough to bring them to the Promised Land." God agreed, and decided that the killing procedure would not take place in one day, but be delayed over forty years. It was not preparation for the Promise Land, it was a funeral march!

Tom Skinner used to say that we've added a new Beatitude: "Blessed are they who go around in circles, for they think they are big wheels." With every passing day and month, one by one, the generation disappeared.

Activity is not synonymous with purpose. Sometimes we're just going around in circles.

Now, the whole generation of doubters has moved off the scene and those left are standing at the doorstep of the Promised Land. But, between them and the Promised Land is the Jordan.

Between the promise and the fulfillment is always the Jordan. Don't magnify the Jordan beyond what it was. Compared to the Mississippi, the Missouri, or the Hudson, it was just a stream. But understand that at this particular time the Jordan had overflowed its banks.

God has a way of bringing you to the brink of the promise when it doesn't seem as though the promise could be fulfilled. A lot of times we think that the obstacles, difficulties, tests, and trials we go through are satanic in nature. I disagree. God has a way of allowing certain things to be placed in front of you to see if you will hold onto faith when it doesn't look like what God has said will come to pass. In other words, you've got to learn to trust God when you can't trace God.

Don’t let appearances or contrary evidence steer you from God’s course.  Stay true to the divine compass and God will enable you to see opportunities in the midst of obstacles.  Learn to look difficulty in the face and say, “It’s going to be all right anyhow!”

Here they were, camped at the Jordan. Remember, now, there were two great crossings. One was the crossing of the Red Sea, and the other, the crossing of the Jordan.

The crossing of the Red Sea spoke of escape and liberation. But the crossing of the Jordan spoke of entering a brand new place.

As I alluded to earlier, we have erroneously in our hymnology (and sometimes in our theology!) spoken of Canaan as heaven. No, No! Canaan is not heaven. God is not bringing us to the end of our struggle. Today, we are not at the end of our struggle. We are in a transition, a juncture, in our struggle.

God has not liberated us as Black people in the Church of the Nazarene to a place where there is no struggle. There are struggles that we face today. There are struggles yet to come. There are battles yet to be fought. There is land yet to be conquered. There are giants to kill and cities to occupy. This is not heaven. God is not only going to fulfill the promise, but will pull out of us resources and potentialities.

Our years in the Church of the Nazarene are evidence that God has brought us through Red Seas and howling wildernesses. God has brought us from situations when we couldn't have imagined that God could make a way. But God did. 

Like the Hebrews, whenever we needed food to eat there was manna! Whenever we needed water there was a rock! There was a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night!

WHAT WILL KEEP US AT KADESH BARNEA?
God had given Israel the land. God had promised that the land was theirs for the taking. Nevertheless, they were to wander in the desert for forty years. God had even given Joshua the authority to divide the land among the tribes. But yet, they failed to claim God's promise. Israel was standing still. Israel was stuck in neutral. Despite all that God had done for Israel, she refused to move. 

I have been studying this business of the delay at Kadesh Barnea. As I see it, there are fundamentally two reasons why God's' people were punished in the deserts amidst their enemies when God's will was that they should move on and inhabit the land.  First, they specialized in complaining. In Numbers 11, we are told that Israel murmured against the Lord. They did not murmur against Moses or Joshua, they murmured against the Lord. They simply complained. Day in and day out, they complained. They didn't like water coming out of a rock. They didn't like manna for every meal. They didn't like honey on the ground. They just complained.

God had brought them from Egypt. God had delivered them from slavery. God had brought them across the sea on dry ground, and provided clouds by day, and fire by night. God had sent them the commandments and the burning bush, fed them in the desert, gave them food to eat and water to quench their thirst. And all they knew to do was to complain.

It is conceivable that some of us are stuck in neutral because we spend too much time complaining. We come to church only to complain. We come to choir rehearsal only to complain. We come to board meeting only to complain. We must realize we cannot move from our inertia when we are mired in the muddle of our complaints.

But that's not all. There is another reason why Israel was stuck in neutral and being punished in the desert. Read the account for yourself. The second reason was that they allowed ten people to poison the minds of a million. More than a million people were poised to enter the Promised Land. More than a million people had made up in their minds that enough was enough. More than a million people had decided that they would never be slaves again.

However, ten people came back from their espionage journey with a minority report. They permitted these ten people to poison the minds of a million. Ten people with grasshopper mentalities aborted the “Million-Man March.”

The task before us as Black Nazarenes is to resist the temptation to allow a few disillusioned Black Nazarenes to poison the minds of the army of Black Nazarenes that God has raised up. God has a blessing for us. Let us move forward in a positive frame of mind to claim God's promise. Individually, God has a blessing for you in this conference, so let’s not miss it!

Whatever it is you want out of this life and this conference, do not allow little people to poison your mind. God intends for you to stop dragging your feet, doubting the Word, and talking about what you can't do. It’s time to start talking about what we can do. God intends for us to move forward, not backward. Let us move forward.

STALLED AT THE JORDAN
Moving forward brings us to the doorstep of a brand new day. This represents a brand new challenge.

May I tell you that this is not the Red Sea? This is the Jordan. The Red Sea was liberation. But the Jordan suggests moving to a brand new land of opportunity. We've managed to get through the Red Sea, but we are stalled at the Jordan.

This is where we are as Black Nazarenes. That's where we are as a people. We're through with the Red Sea business. But we are caught somewhere between the Red Sea and the Jordan. We are caught somewhere between liberation and fulfillment. While we've come out of some of the things that have held us in captivity, we seem to have problems remembering the reasons why we wanted to get out of Egypt in the first place.

Let’s look at some sobering statistics:

Every Day in Black America...¹

We are at the Jordan and what we see is not encouraging. We must move forward!

Every day in Black America...

We are at the Jordan and what we see is not encouraging. We must move forward!

Every day in Black America...

We are at the Jordan and what we see is not encouraging. We must move forward!

WE ARE AT THE JORDAN
You may not want to agree that we are at the Jordan, but everywhere I look I see evidence that we are there—and we need to take inventory. Look in our Black communities and the evidence is staring you in the face. One does not need advanced degrees to discern that all is not well in the very communities where we claim to do ministry.

Despair surrounds us: substance and alcohol abuse, spousal and child abuse, and hopelessness and helplessness. We are at the Jordan!

We are surrounded by the insanity of border babies and infant mortality, teenage pregnancy and Black-on-Black crime, male incarceration, and the tragedy we call AIDS. We are at the Jordan!

We are surrounded in the city with life without morals, communities without conscience, children without heroes or heroines, schools without discipline, homes with no sense of parental responsibility, and with no sense of God. We are at the Jordan!

I know we are at the Jordan. We are at the Jordan with 122 Black churches. We are at the Jordan with 11,900 members. We are at the Jordan with a Black presence in 53 districts. We are at the Jordan with our history behind us and God's promises before us.

The question we must ask today is how do we get across the Jordan.

If we are to move from where we are to where God wants us to be, there are three movements that must come to fruition.  We must do each one to get across the Jordan:

 1. REMEMBER  where God has brought us.
 2. CELEBRATE what God has done through us.
 3. ACT decisively to implement the vision that we have been given.

The question is where do we go from here?

REMEMBERING GOD'S GOODNESS
It may be true that there are quite a few of us who may not be aware of how God has worked within the Church of the Nazarene to bring us to where we are today. Ministries to African Americans were boosted in the 1940s and 1950s by the creation of a theological school and the Gulf Central District. E. E. Hale organized Nazarene Training College at Institute, West Virginia, in 1948, and was president until 1954, when R. W. Cunningham succeeded him. Many pastors were trained there, until 1970, when the school merged with Nazarene Bible College in Colorado Springs. We need to remember God's historic solidarity with us.

The Gulf Central District was, in Roger Bowman's words, "not organized as an instrument of segregation, but as an instrument of evangelism." It developed out of a series of annual conferences for Black churchmen that began in 1947. The district was organized in 1953 with Leon Chambers as superintendent. Warren Rogers succeeded him in 1958 and led the district until its final assembly in 1969. Nazarene Training College and the Gulf Central District both provided greater opportunity for Black leadership to develop within the Church of the Nazarene. This is a small portion of the litany of God's faithfulness.

From these humble beginnings, God has prospered the work of Black Nazarenes. Across the length and breadth of the land there is ample evidence that God has intervened on our behalf transforming lives and calling many to a higher mandate of discipleship. We must not, however, rest on past laurels. God expects us to move forward, buoyed by the assurance that God will continue to be faithful.

Joshua, in this third chapter, introduces an element of surprise. He essentially says that he was not going to lead the Israelites across the Jordan. He says that they should watch the ark. You know the meaning and significance of the ark. The ark was constructed in the wilderness with the beaten angelic wings extending at the top with nothing in the middle to interrupt the Shekinah glory of God. You know about the manna inside, with Aaron's rod that budded.

The ark represented the presence of God. It is even believed that God spoke through the ark.

If we are to find out where we go from here, we need to pause to remember how God's presence made a difference in our lives. We must get in touch with the presence of God.

The book of Joshua, in chapter three, records that the Hebrews spent three days preparing and waiting at the Jordan River before crossing it. The chapter describes the kind of people that God wanted the Israelites to be, and the kind of people God yearns for us to be. The issue of waiting is addressed in the last phrase of verse 1 and the first phrase of verse 2: "...before they passed over. At the end of three days...." If you've served in the armed forces, you're probably familiar with the phrase "Hurry up and wait." That's what Israel was experiencing at the Jordan. After the spies had returned from Jericho with their favorable report, Joshua had led the people on a march from Shittim to the Jordan. It was about a ten-mile journey. It would have taken them about a day to mobilize, travel, and arrive at the banks of the Jordan. Then they were ordered to make camp again, to await further instructions, and that wait was three days. The people were ready to move when the command was given, but then they were asked to wait for Joshua's instructions from the Lord to be transmitted through the officers.

As they waited, they had a growing awareness of the human impossibility of what God was asking them to do. The nation must have wondered what Joshua was working out in this interim period. They certainly couldn't swim across the river. They couldn't build enough boats or rafts to transport almost two million people, including women and children, across to the other side. Besides, either of those approaches would have made them sitting ducks for the Canaanite enemies on the other side. Remember, for more than six hundred years, the Hebrew people had been trying to imagine what lay beyond that river. For forty years, they had also cultivated deep fears about the Canaanite inhabitants of the land. In addition, God intentionally brought them to the Jordan at the time of year when the river was swollen by the spring rains and by the melting snows from the Lebanon Mountains. It was at this time, when the people were faced with tremendous difficulties and knew they were at the end of their resources, that God would be able to show God’s power.

There must have been a lot of conflicting thoughts going through the minds of the people waiting through those three days, just as there are for us when we're confronted with our own inadequacy and impotence in the face of overwhelming circumstances. Some of them might have said, "Let's go back to Shittim." It was a lush oasis of acacia groves, a beautiful setting. Or, "Let's spread out with the two and a half tribes and take over Bashan, Gilead, and Moab. We're already here, after all." And I would imagine that there were some super-spiritual people in the nation who said, "What we should do is organize everyone into endurance swimming classes—women, children, even sheep. We can make it across this river if we try hard enough and pray hard enough!" Whatever was going through their minds, for three days, they were stuck there waiting for God's direction.

Imagine the task of taking possession of the land. Forty years before, from a much better location, where they wouldn't have had to cross the Jordan River, down at Kadesh-Barnea, twelve spies had been sent into the promised land (Numbers 13-14). Their job was to find out what kind of country it was, how many people were living there, how strong they were, whether the land was good or bad, whether the people lived in open towns or fortified cities, and whether the soil was fertile and the land was wooded. They were requested to bring back some of the fruit that grew there.

Off they went, up and down the countryside, exploring the land for forty days. They came back with a glowing report: the land was rich and fertile.  They brought back a bunch of grapes so heavy it took two people to carry them on a pole!  However, they also reported that the people who lived there were very powerful and their cities were very large and well-fortified—and even worse—they saw the descendants of the giants there. It was Joshua and Caleb who said, "We should go in now. We are strong enough!" But the people said, "No, we can't! It's impossible! We feel as small as grasshoppers and that must be how we look to them! Let's go back to Egypt!" But Joshua and Caleb said, "The Lord is with us! Of course we can go in!"

On the surface, little seemed to separate the later generation from the earlier one that had rejected the confident trust of Joshua and Caleb and gravitated toward the unbelieving fear of the ten spies and folded in the face of overwhelming odds and died in the wilderness.  

As we read the book of Joshua, we realize the Hebrews are again facing the formidable task the earlier generation had deemed impossible. And now, forty years later, the only way to take possession of the land is to rely on the Lord’s promise—as Joshua and Caleb told them—and face the impossible. 

WE NEED TO CELEBRATE GOD
If we look to the text we would notice that the first command of Joshua is to restore the significance of the ark: "When you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the levitical priests…" This is significant. To have a grasp of the deep meaning of this text, however, we must, as most prospectors have discovered, avoid the surface and dig deep to find the golden nuggets of truth that are buried inside. Recently, I have been inquiring and digging around the ground of this text, imbedded as it were, within the fertile soil of this third chapter of the historical book of Joshua.

The Ark of the Covenant is mentioned fifteen times in the third and fourth chapter of Joshua. The Ark of the Covenant symbolized God's presence with God's people. God demanded that the people treat the Ark with the same respect they gave to the the Lord. It symbolized God's holy presence and leadership among them. 

The nearer we live to God, the greater will be our respect and reverence for God. Joshua reassured the people that the Lord would be the first to cross the Jordan. They, in turn, must follow the Lord across the Jordan. God had demonstrated an ability to provide for them for forty years. Now, God will demonstrate that they do not go in their own strength, but in the Lord's strength. They were not to run ahead of the Ark. Remembering what God has done requires that we slow down and observe. This is what this conference is about. It is about spending three days together to remember and reflect on the past and to be encouraged and fortified to be ever vigilant in our evangelistic efforts to reach the lost at any cost.

We must remember and celebrate the time when, in 1940, Dr. C. Warren Jones, of both the World Mission and Home Mission departments, said,

We must remember that God started the first two Black Nazarene churches among West Indians in Brooklyn. Miller Memorial was started in 1902, and is now known as Community Worship Center, under the leadership of Dr. Elmer Gillett. Brooklyn Beulah was started in 1922 and is now led by Dr. Wenton Fyne. It is the largest Black church in our denomination. Today, to worship at Beulah is to be a participant in a worship experience that is ecstatic, inspirational, and liberating, while at the same time conscious of the integration of the latest in digital and electronic equipment.

Let's celebrate God!

We must remember that the next five churches were organized, from New York to Institute, West Virginia, in 1943, to Bethel in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1946, and then to Meridian, Mississippi, Fitkin Memorial Church of the Nazarene, in 1948.  About the same time, churches were organized in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus, Mississippi.

Let's celebrate God!

We must remember that God had blessed us with our own separate district comprising the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Let's celebrate God!

Recognizing Our Trailblazers
A cursory review of past events would reflect on many who broke new ground in our denomination. Consider only a few:

Remembering these accomplishments should propel us across the Jordan. The God, who brought us thus far, with abundant grace, will be faithful today. God will not abandon us now. The cloud of witnesses serves as a reminder of the faithfulness of God.

God has been so good to us! In passing, I believe I ought to tell you that if the Lord has been good to you, if the Lord has brought you out with a high hand, if the Lord has made a way when there was no way, your song ought to be:

The story of Black people in America is something more than the white man's aggression, racism, discrimination, lynchings, broken agreements, intermittent remorse, prolonged failure, nativist bigotry and repressive acts. It is also a record of survival, adaptation, creativity, faith, hope, and protest—both covert and overt—in the face of overwhelming obstacles.

The Christian church has played a major role in that response. For Black people, the Black church provided a place of gathering and an environment where we could enjoy fellowship, create our own institutions, preserve our culture, and not have to apologize for who we were.

We moved from a religion of orthodoxy to a religion of ortho-praxis. The Black church has helped us recapture the truth that Jesus Christ is transparent to all tribes, cultures, races, and ethnic groups, but demands of none of us that we relinquish our identities.

Such an effort must not sacrifice the unique and distinctive gifts and identities, which we bring from our own historical and cultural background. To do so is to deny the richness of genuine pluralism and to background. To do so is to deny the richness of genuine pluralism and to make a mockery of truth and creation.

WE NEED TO ACT
One of the ways we must act is to become a missional people. A missional people have a Master, a message, and a mission. We are called to unceasingly proclaim the Word and the Good News that salvation is available to all. This is the message! We are called to constantly align ourselves with the source of this saving power. We have a Master! We are called to incessantly show compassion and to identify with those who are bruised and broken by injustice and oppression. This is our mission!

Black Nazarenes, knowing full well the experience of marginalization, should blaze the trail in ministries of compassion. We cannot be locked up in our ecclesiastical fortress insensitive to the needs of the community into which God has placed us. We then become, in the words of Kierkegaard, "an anemic preacher preaching an anemic gospel about an anemic Christ to an anemic congregation."

The church gathers to scatter. Sunday is not the most important day of the Christian week. To be a Christian is to stand with Jesus in his ministry of love, freedom, and liberation seven days a week. The problem with so many of us is that we dichotomize ministry into evangelism and social action. If the truth were told, these are really two sides of the same coin. As we move beyond the Jordan, we will need more than Sunday shouts, Monday messages, Tuesday testimonies, Wednesday witnesses, Thursday thanks, Friday fellowships, or Saturday songs. We will need a practical and relevant religion beyond the Jordan!

Crossing the Jordan will require that we be compassionate. This was true of the "invisible institution" of pre-Civil War days when Nat Turner and Denmark Vessey, fully engaged in the anti-slavery efforts, encouraged their brothers and sisters to embrace the Lord. It was true in the civil rights era, when prior to going to the streets to face fire hoses, dogs, and mean white policemen, Black folks were on their knees calling on God to be their Protector and Defender. The church must become, both in word and deed, the Good News.

We need to cross the Jordan with this message: To proclaim the good news of God's grace and liberation to those who are in need of a savior. To those whose lives are caught in the web of sin, we must proclaim that Jesus Christ frees—and those he frees are free, indeed! To those whose lives and daily existence are tainted and tattered by sin and guilt, we must witness that we know a great Savior who offers grace to the most destitute. To the poor, he offers Good News; to the broken-hearted, he offers healing; to the captive, he offers liberation; to the blind, and blinded, he offers sight and insight; to the bruised, he offers liberty. To all, we must proclaim that this year is the acceptable year of the Lord, and that their time under God is now.

Across the Jordan, our message must be one of liberation. Whatever else we may say about Christ, the New Testament is clear that the sole reason for his existence was to bind the wounds of the afflicted and to liberate those who are in prison.

Let's not get over the Jordan with spiritual amnesia! Jesus identified with the poor. He declared in the synagogue that he came "to preach the gospel to the poor ... to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised…" (Luke 4:18).

Our message must be that Jesus Christ identifies with rat-bitten children in roach-infested apartments and dope addicted fathers whose arms are scarred from the use of dull needles in nasty stinking alleys.

Our message ...

If we are to be a church with relevancy, we must recapture our historical mission, which has always been one of liberation. Liberation, however, must never be reduced to spiritual freedom alone (as important as that is), but must be expanded to include liberation from the systemic structures that hinder an appropriate quality of life.

WE MUST DEFINE THE STATUS AND DESTINY OF THE BLACK MALE
The Million-Man March held in 1995 in Washington, D.C., brought the nation's attention to the sad plight of the Black male in our society. Propitiously, Black Muslims, Christians, Jews, atheists, and others came together as a symbol of strength and unity to understand and examine the pathos of the Black male. For too long, the Black male has been portrayed by the media, police, educators, and others as dysfunctional, immature, hyperactive, intellectually challenged, violent, aggressive, lazy, and a host of other negatives.

If the truth were told, we would all agree that the Black male has a greater chance of being murdered, dropping out of school, going to prison, and dying at an early age than males of any other group. The Black church must intervene.

I have been saddened by the tendency to blame the Black man for his condition. Black preaching should be more than a finger-pointing exercise. Black preaching should focus on the reality of oppression while simultaneously encouraging educational achievement, genuine brotherly love, and the value of respect and community.

Once we cross the Jordan, it cannot be business as usual. The mission of the Black church beyond the Jordan must be transformative.

What is our message for the Black male? We must remind our Black males where they have come from. We must remind ourselves of a rich and varied heritage.

Nationally, a little Black baby born today is more than twice as likely as a white or Latino infant—and three times more likely than an Asian infant—to die during her first year of life. That baby is almost three times as likely as a white baby to be born to a mother who has had no prenatal care, and that baby's mother is four times more likely than a white mother to die in childbirth. That Black baby's father is still twice as likely to be unemployed as the white child's father, and the Black baby's family still only makes 84% of what the white family earns. That Black child is more likely to attend overcrowded or crumbling schools, where performance is below the state or national average.

Unfortunately, that Black child is still more likely to drop out of high school, and is still twice as likely as a white youth to be unemployed. Our Black college graduates face about the same odds of unemployment as a white high school graduate who has never attended college. Now, if that Black baby is a boy, born in Harlem, he has less chance of surviving to the age of 65 than a male born in Bangladesh. If that young boy survives at all, he will have a higher chance than his white counterpart of going to jail or prison. In fact, the color of our children's skin is a good indicator of how long their prison sentence will be, whether or not they will be pulled over by police, whether or not they will be given the death penalty, whether or not they will be tried as an adult instead of as a juvenile, and what kind of plea bargain they will be offered.

Black America has specific issues that must be addressed by our leadership. Twenty-six Black men were executed last year, and we know that some of them were probably innocent. We began the year 2001 by executing a retarded Black woman. There are one million Black Americans in prison. A recent report written by the United States Department of Justice informs us that Blacks are more likely than whites to be:

Additionally, though Blacks and whites have approximately the same rate of drug use, Blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites, and are more likely to receive longer federal prison sentences than whites.

In the area of health care, Congressional hearings on health disparities tell us that Blacks are less likely to receive surgery, transplants, and prescription drugs than whites. Physicians are less likely to prescribe appropriate treatment for Blacks than for whites, and Black scientists, physicians, and institutions are being kept out of the funding stream to prevent correction of the disparity.2

UNIQUE CHALLENGES
We cross the Jordan with a solemn responsibility to achieve the following in the midst of unique challenges:

"A Ten Point Black Missional Church"
 
The Black church must be ...

City:                    Percent:
Gary, Ind.            84.0%
Detroit, Mich.       81.6
Birmingham, Ala.  73.5
Jackson, Miss.      70.6
New Orleans, La. 67.3
Baltimore, Md.      64.3
Atlanta, Ga.          61.4
Memphis, Tenn.    61.4
Washington, DC   60.0
Richmond, Va.       57.2
*Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Census 2000.

The challenge is ominous. The day is upon us. We must seize the moment.

It is only as we lift Jesus up that we can be assured of ultimate victory. I hear the songwriter Johnson Oatman proclaim:

Lift Him up by living as a Christian ought,
Let the world in you the Savior see;
Then men will gladly follow Him who once taught,
"I'll draw all men unto Me."

At this conference, we've lifted up Jesus. It is Jesus who will instill in us dreams and hopes for a future filled with faith and fairness, and a future that offers real fortune to all of God's children.

As children of God ...

Listen to the words of Micah and Jesus:

He has shown you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8).

I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day; the night comes when no man can work (John 9:4).

And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32).

And So We Cross The Jordan

We're on the move!

Let me close by leaving you with my own conclusions about the Israelites’ crossing of the Jordan.  Perhaps, they are instructive for us all.

May God use us in this conference to catch a new vision of what God can do. God is getting ready to do a new thing in the Church of the Nazarene. I don't want to be left behind. I’m sure you don’t want to be left behind too.

Lord, make us an instrument in your hands.

ENDNOTES

¹Children’s Defense Fund, 2000.
²Cynthia McKinney, unpublished report, “State of Black America is in Disarray.” Rep. Cynthia McKinney is a Democratic member of the U.S. Congress.