A Conversation with Dr. Fredrick Douglass Haynes, III hosted by Dr. Frank A. Thomas

well we're sitting here with Frederick Douglas Haynes in the third the pastor a friendship west Baptist Church for a wonderful interview on preaching first of all thank you so much for being a part and just sitting down there's a whole lot of people who want to know about your preaching what you think about preaching we hear your preaching but what's really going on inside of you as you're preaching your method so I'm going to talk to you about all of that so most of the people watching this video know who Frederick Douglass Ames the third yes I know but just in case it may be somebody watching what is it that you like for them to know about Frederick Douglass Haynes the third thank you and I think you'd be this opportunity I appreciate so much the opportunity to not only sit with you one of our you know great geniuses not only in preaching but in teaching people how to preach and so I've learned so much from you especially your powerful book so I'm really grateful and I guess I'll begin there I'm a lifelong student of preaching and so for me I'll forever be in a classroom trying to learn how to master this craft this art I'd prefer to call it called preaching and of a third generation butcher my grandfather pastor third Baptist in San Francisco for almost 40 years and he I think when I look at my DNA as it relates to preaching with a prophetic emphasis of social justice emphasis he was the first african-american to run for County Supervisor in San Francisco and he did that in the 40s and he hosted Paul Robeson W EBD boys when they were bosonic persona non grata here in this country he hosted Martin King he hosted the NAACP national convention in the late 50s and so that kind of justice emphasis I came to discover later was in my bones and then my father followed him as pastor of third Baptist Church his life was cut short by a stroke when he was only 46 so again when I think Frederick Douglas Haynes the third I can't help but go back to my grandfather who a named himself because he was orphaned at the age of four and we went to school he'd only had been known as Bubba by his family and so they asked him okay what's your name do we put on the role and he said Frederick Douglass so he owned the spot named himself after that orator and abolitionists and I just feel there's something powerful about that in my own sense of identity because Frederick names peaceful warrior and so I see myself as that a peaceful warrior and at the same time greatly influenced I've read everything and anything about Frederick Douglass and so when all of that comes together with my grandfather father and then Jesus Christ calling me to preach the gospel I think all of that gives a sense of who I feel God wants me to be and become well thank you for that that's just fascinating so I want to ask you this question quickly because you've done a fabulous job growing a church it's you know it's worldwide scope and ministry and the stereotype is you can't do social justice and grow a church right so tell me about how you grew friendship Wes doing social justice ironically and that's why I find it beautiful I'm having this conversation with you I'm reaching for you in Mattson Illinois a new faith Baptist Church and I see this sign for a parking reserved for your pastor of justice and I'm like you got to tell me about that because I've heard of youth pastor young adult pastor singles pastor justice pastor and I was already in the vein of preaching it and then trying to structure our church to do ministry that was aimed at transforming community making a difference impacting the world and I'm growing into this sense of the need for justice and not just building a community without having just structures so the community can thrive we're doing the feeding we're doing the clothing we're doing all of that and then I saw that and I never will forget that and I asked you about it you told me about it and that set me on a journey because now it hit me our church needs to be structured for justice so I so I can't say that I just you know came out the womb saying okay we're gonna do know I was exposed to that through your ministry and for me to see this deserves an investment of money as well as a man or woman power because my Minister of Justice is a woman so my thing was okay let's do this and so that really propelled me into structuring our church so that we don't do social justice we are a social justice Church we have reunited in the holy wedlock Jesus and justice because they never should have been divorced as far as I'm concerned and so everything we do our sharing earlier today with a group of preachers with Pastor Johnson that you know at one point our church was okay that's what pastor Haynes does he preaches justice he's out in the streets doing all that stuff we'll follow him when he needs us no no no we're gonna structure this where if you were doing ministry at this church if you are a member of this church so orientation a part of our orientation process you're learning about justice and Jesus justice in Scripture when it comes to our ministries our ministries all plug into our massive justice efforts but they also recognize they've got to do ministry justice projects during the course of the year in order to be a ministry if you don't have a Justice Project well at the end of the year we evaluate and we say okay well next year you won't be doing ministry I mean we're not serious about it so I'm convinced that especially today there's a hunger our church is growing younger as I get older and one of the reasons I think it's growing younger is because there's a young generation that wants to know does Jesus have anything to say about the socio-economic political realities I deal with every day and so I just I beg to differ I believe if you preach and teach the word if you have a worship that is inviting and then one of the things that I think we have to be honest about when it comes to church growth and growing a church if you're located in the right place some churches because of gentrification they are not gonna grow because of location I happen to be located in a good spot and I have an inviting worship I try to preach and teach the word in a way that appeals to people while because whatever else I've discovered especially with this young generation and that is they they will hurt my homolytically as almost every week by telling me pastor I just want to learn how to study the Bible can you show me how to study the Bible and how this Bible applies to what's going on with me individually and in this trumpet world we find ourselves in does the scripture speak to that so they hear me preach it now their thing is I need you to break that down for me and teach it to me because I want to be able to express that myself so I just begged a different I believe people are hungry for a word and for a work that addresses all the issues they face especially this younger generation and I think that you know of course you're being modest because an important part of that is that you do multi-generational preaching and it's something about your preaching that facilitates and you know I know it's God in the Holy Spirit moving through you so I think what I like to ask you is how would you characterize your preaching well and I appreciate that because intentionally I prepare trying to reach every generation as a matter of fact I literally while I'm writing out the script praying through the text I have an imaginary audience around my table and I make sure it's someone who's a millennial who's a gen Xer who's a baby boomer male/female LGBTQ I mean I run the gamut and I have all of them sitting around this table basically in an imaginary conversation with me and they're asking me questions what does that say to me you know this is what I've been going through this week what does that say to me and then again with intent I try to borrow and my late mentor Emanuel Scotch senior really helped me with this because he told me he said I see you doing this I didn't know I was doing it I try to mix disciplines up so that you know I'm going over here to the hip-hop community at the same time I'm looking at what's going on in pop culture and then I want to go to literature because there's so much richness in literature movies have become you know a wonderful resource I never will forget as I was studying Gardner C Taylor and he kept emphasizing that he would read in the New York Times the reviews of the you know theatrical performances on Broadway and he got a lot of his inspiration you know from reading those reviews and so it just hit me that's just like Jesus because Jesus was basically looking at the birds of the air you know the farmer who went out to so the father who had two sons he was looking at what was going on in the culture and then using that as a lens through which people could see divine revelation and so I I intentionally try to be multi-generational and then the most important thing for me if I'm to label what I try to do I'm trying to paint pictures I'm intent on being metaphor using metaphors images if a picture's worth a thousand words then for me creating semantic images so that people can see what I'm saying is the most important thing we asked that phrase when I was when I was growing up I see what you're saying I want people to see what I'm saying yeah so you mentioned Manuel Scott is from preaching mentors and so talk to me about your preaching mentors oh my god I mean that for me is again the grace of God put in my life mentors both vicarious because when I was a student at Bishop college I fell in love with Martin Luther King jr. and William Augustus Jones of course I got to meet dr. Jones I did not get to meet dr. King but I studied them and this whole social justice approach to preaching utilizing poetic you know imagery and language I mean they both did it brilliantly and then of course the Lyman Beach elections with dr. Taylor had come out a few years before so I read his Lyman Beecher lectures and he became a vicarious mentor but in terms of direct mentoring men I was first enthralled by preaching I mean love my dad and my granddad but I took them for granted but Frederick George Sampson came to do the citywide revival at third baptist in San Francisco we hosted it and I just I was mesmerised man and I'm talking about I'm 12 13 14 years old and this man quote Shakespeare link Stern Hughes gives an illustration about Frieda or Frederick his children and I'm like and and and and he had a joke that when he came to town my parents knew when they couldn't find me I'd be at the revival to hear him I mean I would not miss Frederick George Sampson and I said if I ever preach that's what I want to do I want to quote poetry literature I want to use my kids as an illustration you know I mean he established that for me and then so he was really my first I'll put it like that my first just mentor where it was like okay I have to do this so by the time I started preaching I was gonna mix the disciplines like dr. Samson I was gonna try to be illustrative and then I go to Bishop College and Harry us right is Dean in the chapel and again you talk about poetry illustrations simplistic profundity and I'm like that's what I want to do and and and then he had this piece where he used as a rhetorical mechanism repetition and I said I love that I love that so so again it basically went from Fred Sampson the Harry that's right and all of them are starting the impact it influenced me and then I met Manuel Scott senior and Manuel Scott senior taught me how to basically do what they had modeled because he basically took and dr. Harry Wright told me he said I always wear sermonic eyeglasses my homiletic alas azar on when I read the paper when I have experiences I'm wondering what is God saying as I said okay that sounds good so so Manuel Scott and I are growing very close and man we're driving one day or I'm driving him to Waco and we get in the car and so I said doc it's hot do you want the air conditioned on he said you're driving I'm the passenger if you get to Waco safe I'm gonna get to Waco safe he said don't you wish our churches had that kind of sense where you know pastors driving let's make the pastor comfortable and we go all get there safely I said that's how you do that that's how you do that and he would do that all the time where he would he would drop a sermonic Jim threw just talking about some experience in life and so I tried to learn to do that as I listened to him and one day I got it and I couldn't wait to tell him I'm reading the USA Today newspaper and they're talking about a hurricane shelter in Miami that had survived what Hurricane Andrew all these bad hurricanes but they were having to destroy it because termites so it had survived hurricanes but little termites ate away at it and so I said doc is that it he said that's it right there and so I where imma let it go our glasses now all the time I'm looking for my plane arrived late today because I get to the airport supposed to leave at 7:05 we don't leave at 7:05 because we go out to that we literally get out to the runway and they discover there's something wrong with the plane and so we go back to get the plane check they said listen we're gonna have to you know change planes well the original flight was a super 80 the flight we moved to was a 737 so the super 80 I had gotten there kind of late you know and so they gave my seat away which ticked me off and so I'm in coach and I'm not appreciating that and then because the flight playing you know because the plane broke down we go back we change there's more room on the 737 and so I get paged Frederick hangs please come forward God must love you because you get upgrade if you're gonna ride first-class and so the first thought that came to mind I've do a funeral this weekend of someone who really had a rough time their last year's physically and I'm using Saturday at the funeral that they're playing you know got called back in it's time for them to go home but they're getting upgraded and so God will literally allow you know this plane to break down but the good news is on our way home we get upgraded so for me again I got these glasses on all the time and again that's Manuel Scott fridge Sampson Harry that's right but then I'm trying to figure out okay so how do I do this because all of them great preachers they are but in terms of the justice emphases maybe not there which is when I was still hungry for and so in Dallas we have zan Holmes and zan Wesley Holmes is both hummel Leticia he pastored Saint Luke and zan was doing it but then I heard two preachers at one time they just did it for me and that's Charles G Adams and Jeremiah Wright and when I heard them I'm like in Charles Adams you know with shouting people while talking about justice I mean just people running around crazy you know here in Charles Adams deal with justice I say that's where I'm trying to go you know because Martin King would not be known for shouting people necessarily but Charles Adams you know he had it all and so and then here comes Jeremiah Wright with this Afra consciousness that grabbed me and I'm like that is so basically when you look at what I have tried to do through the years it's almost a gumbo a gospel gumbo Fred Sampson Harry s right Manuel Scott Martin Luther King jr. Gardner see Taylor William Augustus jones Jeremiah Wright Charles Adams all of them and I have I have to give special props to my pastor Amos Brown and third Baptist in San Francisco because he not only preached it but he did it and so all of that I mean when I talk about my mentors I just get hyped because they fed into me especially those I have a relationship with and they did it so generously so generously and and I and I guess and this mentor wouldn't be considered a preacher but she taught me so much I bared her last week Holman Zell Davis she was my counselor and teacher at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco and she told me I was gonna be all of this and all of that what I didn't see it but she was the one I mean basically every poem I know I learned from home as Elle Davis and she taught me so much as it relates to literature and how to incorporate that in my oratorical presentation so for me again mentors and I'll say this and I'm done I don't know if I ever live up to this but a preacher said to me when I was in my 20s he said I'm gonna watch where you go in life because you can always tell where someone is going by the mentors they have and that blessed me because of course Carter G Woodson you become what you behold and I have beheld the best yeah so tell me how you prepare a sermon well I tried to my effort in preparation has to be bathed in prayer and so I literally start off the sermon preparation process you know praying I'm just praying and I'm asking God in the language of what Eli says to Samuel speak Lord for your servant is listening and then I try to look at okay a the text as well as any fame that may be addressed during this time because every month we at the church when a different theme that relates to or goes back to our as a staff the staff and I we evaluate the needs of the church where we are spiritually and then we decide okay in light of where we are spiritually this is what we need to preach about in the coming year and so for 12 months we have themes for every month and so I look at the theme text and of course what Carl Bart you know Bible in one hand newspaper now it's Bible and Internet you know and some I'm looking at all of all the stuff that's going on and I'm literally taking notes and and and in the process I have now because I know by the end of November the next year's you know sermonic theme thrust you know I'm taking notes all year on okay that illustration works here that illustration works there and all this is on my phone as a matter of fact oh my phone app which says notes one of the notes is just illustrations another note illustrations for justice issues another note illustrations pertaining to [Music] funerals don't mean to be morbid but I literally have all in that outlined and and I'm feeding that during the course of the year so doing this during the preparation process I'm referring back to oh yeah and I have the illustrations from books I'm reading illustrations from novels illustrations from you know movies so all of those are categorized because again I try to make people see what I'm trying to say now prayer and then looking at the theme and then the appropriate text and then I and and then it's time basically to dig in the text and bathe myself in the text and I go back again a Gardner Taylor who says you want to spend so much time in the text and it's context that you get a hold of the smells the sights the sounds you you feel the text where the text is literally you know you're living in it you're transported back in time and you know again daddy JJ am i right has really helped me with this because he quotes jerome ross and jerome ross says all of scripture except for a brief period during the reign of David occurs in a context and addresses an audience in a context of oppression so what I'm always doing is is filling the sensible question what did oppression feel like in Egypt under the Roman Empire under Babylonian Empire under what assyrian Persian you know what what what did it feel like and some study and you know I always go to those background studies that that help you understand more than just the words in the text but what the people were sensing and feeling and up against every single day because the beautiful thing is what they were sensing and filling it up against everyday translates so well into the 21st century and really in any century so for me I spend that time digging that background and then once I dig the background I'm looking at each word in the text especially the verbs I hang out with the verbs a whole lot action words of course and adjectives those are the ones that just drive my approach and now I'm asking questions of the text that we're taught in homiletics okay who what when why where I basically write that out okay who and then I write out my response to WHO from my own observation because I'm trying to avoid commentaries as long as I can as much as I can and so then I then I addressed the what the win the where that why the how and as i'm addressing that ideas start to jump out at me and so sometimes i did a sermon today Adam Romans 8:26 27 and 28 it was so many ideas in that one it ended up being two sermons you know when it could have been one and so you know I'm asking those questions who what when why where in the framework of the context and I'm taking notes the entire time and then I go back to prayer because now it's like okay god I'm liking what I'm writing I want to make sure I hear what you're saying because it's a real I mean the ego can really start to interrupt the flow and it's like there's something that hacks the process and I've had it happen too often where it ended up being what I wanted to say more so than what I was hearing from God and that's why for me prayer is so important and meditation is so important in this process Howard Thurman another vicarious mentor talks about you know the island of peace with anyone so in quiet one discovers God's will and I maintain in quiet one discovers of God's Word in the preparation process so after I get all that I take time just to be silent just to sit listen okay God get me out of this because I know what I want to say I need to make sure I'm hearing from you it doesn't always work because me is real hard to overcome because I live with me so long and so finally we then begin the process of trying to you know type this out and you know forgive me for this this may seem really antiquated but I typed mine out on my iPhone and I mean all my servers on my iPhone very dangerous if something happens of that you know I will be suicidal and homicidal all of that but I start typing it out and so I do two different sermons on Sundays so I type out the sermon I'm gonna do last first and the server I'm gonna do first I typed that out you know second because it's fresh it's fresh with me at the time and so I'll finish up the first one if all goes well by Friday second one I finish it up on Saturday daddy J Jeremiah Wright used to always say that his sermon time was on Thursday the older I get man I need more time than that and this is really tripping me out because I thought as long as I've been in this I'd be so well-versed it wouldn't take me that long it's taking me longer to get a sermon together now than ever in my life and so I don't know if that's because I'm old and my mind is slower or because I just have reached a point where accuracy is so important I don't want to get up there and lie and and and and and and even along with that we live in an age right now where people can be on their phones and check you while you're preaching and so for me I'm like I'm gonna be accurate no matter what they if they check me they gonna check that I'm right and that's important to me so Friday and Saturday I try to wrap it up and then I begin the internalizing process and again Gardner Taylor helped me with that because when I first started preaching I was memorizing word-for-word I would not miss a word when I was preaching and I discovered I had a memory where I could see my sermon you know as I'm preaching I could literally see it and then it was like one time I couldn't see a word while I was preaching and man it just threw off the whole sermon because I I said what is that word right there and I kept trying to what does that word and I couldn't see it as I said this ain't working and so Gardner Taylor is God what happened providentially I'm reading an article he's being interviewed he says oh I don't memorize I internalized I we present and I said that's it and so now I know the sermon and there are parts I memorized for sure but I just make up my mind no I want to be so intimate with this sermon that I give room and again I go back to a mentor manual Scotch senior I give room in my knowledge of the sermon for the Holy Ghost to run down the aisle and give me something fresh off the press you know so I'm up preaching and something comes to me that I didn't write it wasn't no my knees while I prayed but it's like the Holy Ghost says hey this is for someone in the congregation and the thing that messes me up about that is that I've had too many people tell me I mean that part when you said this that's exactly what I needed and that's the one part I didn't write and I'm like okay God you had me do all this work you know on my knees in my study and then you're gonna have what you give me fresh off the press get the most props that's really jacked you know I mean let's let's work with this thing together give me something you know so so for me that that that's basically the process I internalize it and then Gardner Taylor said this I read the sermons over the night before I read them twice and then go to sleep when I wake up the next morning read it one time I'm ready to go yeah so tell me the role of the commentaries is there a role for commentaries in your preaching I'll talk to me about that because you said you hold it off as long as you can so is their role I mean honestly I try to avoid them as much as I can because I recognize that they're going that they're going to bring their own bias so I do look for commentaries that both run contrary to my theological bias so I could have an argument with them I literally want to have a conversation with them but I don't do this until I'm basically done and then I'll run the commentaries of authors who have blessed me and a lot of times they'll give me something oh man I'm gonna add that Saul in Alan's circle but it's always an insertion at the end as opposed to when I was younger I mean I literally had sermons that I gleaned the word from the commentary about the word as opposed to the word itself having a relationship with the word but I and I tell all my young Protege is now who asked me about I say hold off on the commentary as long as you can let God's have a direct relationship with the word yourself you know dig into it study every word study the context then after that you know commentaries may give you an insertion or two but don't don't rely on yeah you know as preachers we operate out of a certain amount of modesty so I don't want you to be modest I would I would like to hear a time when you said I'm the Lord really used me I've really preach and you were you know we're sometimes our own worst critics oh yeah but tell me a time when you thought the Lord really used you you really delivered it and it was just the pinnacle so tell me tell me about a time and and and and and it's funny because as our own worst critic even that time is subjected to well it could have been this but I'll say this two times come to mind one I was privileged to preach for the Congressional Black Caucus for their prayer breakfast and men in that mammoth with in front of that mammoth audit massive audience with you know all the who's who of politics social economic justice other people and man it's like God just said okay I'm gonna use you today and you're going to show them what they should be doing and I just felt it I mean I literally felt that there was a feeling that came over me while I was preaching I could not miss a word there was power that just literally blew my mind and what was more is I was being helped by the sermon as I was preaching it was like wow that's for me you know I was saying that as I was preaching and then to see the responses of Maxine Waters and Jesse Jackson Michael Eric Dyson all the who's who out there responding the way they were responding I'm saying this is a powerful moment this is hot right here I wish I could just did this there's no greater feeling you know yeah you got a canvas and the other time man was this summer which right now blows my mind cuz I still hear about this sermon I was led know I was pushed yeah God didn't even leave that God pushed me into doing this sermon out of judges 19 who wants to do with some of our judges 19 that text is one of Terror you know as the woman is say and it's a text where I mean this woman you know she's assaulted raped basically cut up in pieces at the end and God pushed me to that text this summer and I went ahead I was just faithful as I could be to the text when I read the text I could I mean there was a heaviness in the congregation like what is he reading this for and I'm feeling the same way and I said let me just tell ya I feel how you feel just know I was pushed into this but I'm gonna give it my best shot and frankly I I felt the Lord literally transformed the congregation into a counseling session a healing session really and it was so powerful because after the sermon is over I said okay what I want to do I don't want to put anybody on blast I want to do this I want to minister to abusers those who know that you have been abusive you've assaulted you have mentally emotionally physically abused a sister or brother I want to administer to you right now I don't want you to come to the altar I want you right where you are I want to pray for you and I did and then I said for those of you who have been abused I'm doing the same thing something I said okay so what I'll do if you want further conversation me and the staff will be in the back after church and we'll be happy to minister to you and sigh I knew maybe 10 12 people would come man I was at church we ended the second service that day at 12:30 12:20 I didn't leave Church me and my staff we didn't leave Church until 3:30 that's three hours of people coming to us waiting around because they wanted to have that kind of interaction and and the response what really got me was to hear abusers come to me and say pastor you were talking to me I said I said huh and he went on to tell me he said yeah I just I just hit my wife this morning you know and another I just beat my girlfriend up today and you know I'm like huh and he says I need this I need to be healed from this anger because I'm so angry because I'm so hurt and and then of course to have you know III had a same-sex couple come to me and they were just in tears as they said you know you hit us today last night we had an argument that could have taken us both to jail you know I pulled my gun on her she pulled her gun on me and it was it was crazy man it was just crazy but again while I was up I could feel God doing something that was I mean it's what I call my Ephesians 3:20 moment now unto Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all I can because I could not have asked or imagined this and what really got me and this is why I brought that a moment up for me how transformational it was because we opened up the conversation talking about the social justice mission of our church I've been spending all these years trying to mobilize an army I found out that Sunday I have an army with a lot of scarred and wounded soldiers and I haven't taken them real time to minister to the wounds our soldiers are dealing with and I promise you since that day I won't do a sermon without being sensitive to the fact that there are some wounded warriors who are worshiping in those pews and have a responsibility to minister to them what at the same time challenging them to be as now it says wounded healers you know who who are wounded warriors who get out here and do this fight for justice but know you have a pastor who wants to tend to those wounds go to the other side and give me the time that it was the hardest for you to preach if you just just hard but you what's what's been the hardest sermon you ever had to preach oh wow - if you don't mind the first was the Sunday after Barack Obama made his statement about same-sex marriage and it was my first Sunday really addressing it and I'll be honest I made a mistake because I did not give that southern congregation rooted in those southern ways of seeing sex I did not give them time to you know really talk it through and to express themselves I just got haven't preached it and it was horrible I offended a lot of people and to this day I'm so sorry because I didn't handle it right I did not handle it with sensitivity I just got up there with the authority of the Prophet you know and I remember my statement about you know he's not the pastor of the United States he's the president and the president is about liberty and justice for all got eight passages in scripture maybe that address same sex or same gender loving and those passages are are real iffy because you know you have some what one or two at least to deal with you know messin with kids and so don't do that as a matter of fact if Jesus didn't address it why are you so obsessed with it so that was my semantic approach and it was horrible if it was it was horrible and I again I do this day every time I bring it up I have to repent ask God to forgive me and the people to forgive me but I could not let that moment go as a social justice prophet and not have a word from God and so that was that was that was rough man that was that was a tough time but it was tough because it was self-inflicted the other tough time for me was the Sunday after my best friend died Marvis made Marvis and I were roommates at Bishop college ended up doing his funeral and he died the same year my aunt who is like another mother to me died and so I was like all this grief was compounded and I had to preach that Sunday afterwards and had to is a misnomer because the people were very understanding and you know they were telling me if you need time off and I preached that Sunday and I won't forget it because it was like that's what he hit me I need some time off and I literally bled through the sermon because all of the years of compounded grief my father died when I was 14 losing both grandmothers who I mean anything like grandma's love and my grandmother's loved me as if I was there was God the Father Son Holy Ghost and Freddie and so they love me like that and so I did both of their funerals and I did not again have a any I didn't grieve because I wasn't smoked I'm preacher but then when Marvis died all that grief came out the sermon after I preached his funeral and it's like it all just came up and I should have known because preparing that sermon was torture and Gardner Taylor calls it sweet torture nothing was sweet no straight torture and so then when I preached it you know it's more torture for the people especially and so that that was a rough time because I did not process my grief it was also the time that God used to open my heart to grief counseling and I finally got grief counseling after experiencing all those deaths I'd experienced and but that was that was rough yeah so you've been gracious to respond to all the questions and I just want to give you a free time you may have a question I didn't ask you didn't think what would you like to say about preaching because obviously you reflect think pray about it deeply just what's on your heart to say about preaching well I'll say this for me I and it's real important for me to say this because I've said it behind your back but what you Henry Mitchell have done for preaching that may be misunderstood as we've conversed about especially with us the art of black preaching you have given me a sense of of holy pride in black preaching that and I'm saying this guy I need to give you context in my 20s Manuel Scott couldn't go to preach for the Southern Baptist had a an estate evangelism conference in Kentucky so he asked them if they would hear me so I went and man they just loved me and I won't forget what happened because they love me for the wrong reasons it's my first time reaching offering all these white people and I'd literally changed my style and I was trying my best to be Billy Graham or Joe Gregory or someone white that they would respond to so afterwards an older white Bush came up and said he said you know what I can tell you can preach I can taste I didn't hear that tonight but I can tell you the preaching by the content he said what your style threw me off because you came here trying to be us he said we didn't invite a white picture we invited Manuel Scott when he couldn't come we might add you so since we didn't invite a white preacher don't give us a white picture and it was like a slap you know so the next day I went black and by popular demand you know I was like okay yeah I'm gonna give y'all black and but it was such an eye-opening experience and then it gets reinforced when I read you when I read Henry Mitchell celebrating the artistry of black preaching I've grown up as a black preacher you know my homiletic is colored by the black experience and so the thing I would like to add to it is that you know honest polygenic ly unashamedly black and Christian Jeremiah Wright that has to apply in preaching you know that there's really nothing wrong that there's something special that God has done I think it was Tennessee Coates who said that through slavery they enslaved us and God created no he didn't say God I said God but we emerged as a people you know we emerged as a people and there's something about everything we do that everybody wants to appropriate now including bleaching so for me celebrate own you know but but that's not all we do you know that there's so much more that we do and so for me I thank you I think Henry Mitchell first in a scholarly fashion lifting up this beautiful art of black preaching and I promise you I promise you this every single time I'm preparing in my prayer times I'm thanking God and praising God I said God thank you for making me a black preacher I'm so grateful let me be true to that you know because if I'm true to that then Martin is proud then my dad and granddad or proud Jurina Lee I want her to be proud I want Harriet Tubman to shout from heaven but because they helped make me you know may help make me and so I am not ashamed of the gospel I am not ashamed of the blackened version of the gospel and you and Henry Mitchell have done that and I could just go on and on about that so forgive me about that but but that for me is super special and it's and and if preaching is an art you know it's really okay for us to color it with what God has done uniquely in black people thank you for the compliment I really appreciate it it is I feel the same way it's something so tell me about your reflections on the very first PhD program in african-american freezer well besides being jealous that I'm not a part of it I mean if ever there's a such thing as holy hateration I am hating on Gina Stewart Howard John Wesley a whole crew I look at them now and I'm like but eh let me just say this it is so vital I will I have to say it's so overdue I'm glad that God put it on your heart to do it it's something that should have been done excuse me a long time ago I mean I it excites me that someone is gonna have the opportunity to spend an in-depth amount of time studying you know all of those grapes who just I mean I mean I heard about this from Michael Eric Dyson that Martin Luther King jr. of course is you know known as the dreamer but the ironic is that the irony is that Martin Luther King jr. you know kind of I don't once they stole it but in hip-hop language yeah he whipped it died from a sister you know one of the great preachers of all time and you know heard her pray it and said okay and then he goes to DC and he's the dreamer but you know let's go back to that sister you know yeah that pray they all win who is absolutely a genius of a preacher and now through this ph.d program the pray Thea's the gardener's the William Augusta Jones is the sandy ways and and so many who are worthy of study you know I mean to to actually do that in a scholarly fashion now and again I don't could anyone say is there's an artistry to black preaching that a lot of people want and I'll say this and I'll wrap it and that is I'm always offended and I was offended going through seminary to take courses and not one black preacher is referenced either through bibliography or during the course of the semester and here's the thing I'm going to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth Southern Baptist school and my professors who had heard me preach you know and were very liberal with their compliments about my preaching and yet their bibliography ignored any contribution that we've made to preaching but they would I mean I went straight A's and all that all their courses but again nothing about what we did as a matter of fact one time I preached and the professor said to all of the students now that's preaching right there and I felt the compliment but at the same time I felt the pain for irony you just complimented me but my tradition is not represented in what you're teaching there's nothing I can see so what so that sort of the program the ph.d program I see as we move into the mid part of the 20th 21st century and beyond this program literally making up for that absence in that we've been complemented we've been admired but we have not been given the proper scholarly credit that we should have been given and since they want to preach like us we'll BAM here it is what I want to say thank you so much this has just been a great blessing to me personally but I know that from the audience and just thank you for your work for your integrity thank you for your gift the social justice their personal the joint all the things that you do and thank you for consenting to this interview you're gonna help a lot this is gonna have a lot of people and I just want to bless you and thank you for the years of relationship way years and thank you for the compliment about the Minister of Justice I had no idea oh my god thank you you literally helped to structure our church and and then you know I got to say what I love about you again a lot of people and don't take this wrong to everyone else who teaches preaching can teach preaching but they came necessarily preach and you remarkably teach preaching and man you can say it so I was a higher preciate you I mean I was with you at Father flavors for the seven last words this year and just marveled at how you treated that text and almost wanted to leave if daddy J wasn't preaching I would have left because it's like man I don't have a son but that's that's that's a crafted masterpiece and you and again I appreciate the fact that you craft in an artistic fashion the message I'm not just saying I say this behind your back and I think that challenges me all the time I love as a student of preaching to watch the crafting unfoldment that is so awesome and you do that so well thank you I got a book that's coming and I'm will stuff I got a book that's coming it's gonna be called the Sermon is living art hmm you know because that's a way that's what it is that's what it is it's living art yeah yeah and you're an artist up there and you're painting pictures and painting scenes and you do it so very well the repetition this afternoon when I'm listening to you I was taking notes with my phone from a method standpoint you know the guy caught it I caught the repetition oh yeah I caught the story's a metaphor is the illustration so I just thank you for because you're doing art up there I appreciate it all right with the cadence the rhythm in which you preach and I got to fall well I've heard you preach many times but you know one of the beautiful things about being a harlot ition and you do it too or watching even when I watch past Jeffrey Johnson you know how hard what you're doing is oh my god I wanted to share one more thing because that this for me is is kind of the essence of what has helped me you talked about the flow and I owe that to Ralph West one of the great you know preachers of our time because I've talked fast and I was pushing with Ralph's we're pushing a citywide revival together and then Ralph was deliberate he was just taking his time and and when I came up you know they were saying you know go slow rise high strike fire sit out in the storm well I always go fast rise high right away and Ralph is is the embodiment of that he goes slow rises high strikes fire satyr I said Ralph let's talk you got to show me how to do what you do because I talk I preach too fast and around said Fred why would you want to talk like me instead of talking like you he said don't become feel a Hummel ethical but don't practice homiletically by Poul arity where you get up and sound like me but when you're out of the pulpit you sound like you say you talk fast naturally so go ahead talk fast that's you this is in the 80s and so I said okay if you say so so of course during the 80s rap is exploding on the scene and someone tells me man you rap when you preach okay that's all right so Ralph helped me find that voice and so Lance Watson now says when I preach said no one can flow like Freddie but that came about because someone loved me enough to say be you find your voice and so and I think that's where that black preaching piece that we can go slow and then there's a generation now they accuse me a change in the game that talks fast and I love it because you know again it's it's it's like rap and me came along at the same time yeah thank you for that insight thank you thank you well until my next interview I will do this again thank you just want to say thank you and bless you sir like here here worthless you you

Channel: Frank Thomas

Views: 31,014

Rating: 4.8792453 out of 5

Keywords: Fredrick Douglass Haynes III, Friendship West Baptist Church, Frank A. Thomas, Black Preaching, African American Preaching, Phd Progam in African American Preaching, Academy of Preaching and Celebration, Christian Theological Seminary

Id: 5uAvPPdAn9A

Length: 59min 4sec (3544 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 05 2018