A Conversation with Pastor Jeffrey A. Johnson, Sr. hosted by Dr. Frank A. Thomas

[Music] you first of all I want thank you for just consenting and spending your time with us as we talk about preaching and you are absolutely a fabulous preacher and you know people invite you all over the country in the world to preach so we are excited to have you because you've got a lot to share with our audience so I know who Jeffrey Johnson is and a lot of people know Jeffrey Johnson yes but just in case there may be a person that has never hurt you preacher did not know you what would you like them to know about Jeffrey Johnson that's interesting because when I go to preach at these various venues sometime I my team was sent out a little bio or somebody'll gogol me and use it and they read this long thing and I get there and I say would you please not read all of that that's what he wants to say I want you to say three or four things one tell them I am the pastor of the Eastern Star Church I've been passed in there for 29 years I'm excited about that because the Lord actually used me to grow that church into something very very significant so tell them I'm past me to start Church in Indianapolis one church in three location and then I tell him tell him I am the husband of Sharon Johnson we've been married for 31 years we got married in my first little church I passed it and then tell him I am the father of four sons all of them happened to be grown now and that's about all I won't be able to know if the preaching can get the rest of it I don't want you to raise me way up here then the preaching is value so if I get those three things out and that's basically all I want people to know I know that you love preaching we've talked about it many times so what do you like about preaching well I think that that is one of the ways that people get the revelation of who God is and the love of God and the plan of God for salvation through Jesus Christ so it is that preaching that helps people to get that right relationship with God as they add their faith to His grace and so I love that about it but I also love the art of preaching too and it is you know y'all artists too when y'all bring y'all paint great portraits of preaching it is a it's a skill and just a wonderful way to articulate God's will God's Way in God's Word so I love that about it and then of course preaching helped me to get my life right mmm that's how I got it right with God that's how I got Jesus in my heart that's how I got the Holy Spirit living in me that's how understood what it meant to be a disciple what it meant to be a husband a father a man and all that air from the world how do I manage my money what I do for my community all of that came because somebody was preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ so who first preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to you man William Dennis of course you never heard of it William Dennis pastored in Indianapolis Indiana I'm born and raised in Indy and went to Pleasant Union Baptist Church of mom my mother's choice of church because you know we she made us go to church got two brothers and sisters she made us go to church and William Dennis was the first person I heard preach the gospel I was just a kid growing up in church and of course he was bigger than life to me standing up there with that robe on and you know he's very very excited but he was uh actually a really really good preacher in this city and had a little college here that he taught at I didn't know all that then I just heard him preach on Sunday and he never could grow Church though but in terms of preaching the gospel to me he was really really this lesson of my first experience with preaching as a child so how did he influence your preaching won his scholarship and and he was definitely a Bible preacher I never heard of expository preaching till I went to Bishop College but his his scholarship his clarity and and then his energy he preached with a lot of energy and he was serious about his conviction of the Bible and I think that that's a part of who I am now of the experts say that our exposure as children is what really defines our decisions as adults so as a child I was - that kind of scholarship of preaching that kind of biblical teaching and then the conviction and the energy that goes with that and then my when he was no longer a pleasant Ewing you then Charles Harris came and Charles Harris was like a storyteller he just get up and and tell the story and you you know a little bit by my preaching there's always going to be some kind of story that I'm telling so I think that early influence even before my call to preach comes from those - tell us about your experience at Bishop college I went to Bishop in 1980 I got called to preach when I was 17 years old I felt the call of my life to preach and so I get to Bishop college at 18 so I got called to preach in October and when I was 17 so the very next year I was at vision College and I've come from a small church they do a lot of fellowship and what other churches and all that so come from a church of about two or three hundred people and then I get the bishop and that's when you start meeting the CAW Clark's in the WJ shawls and Manuel Scots and cbt Smith and ek Bailey so I'm thinking all this is you know this is overwhelming and they used to have a ministers conference there that Bishop College would invite some of the greatest preachers in the country to this ministers conference and so I'm sitting there as a freshman listen all these major prophets come in and I heard somebody named a Lewis Patterson junior I had never heard of it didn't know anything about him I was sitting in the back of the chapel carpi college chapel with bishop college and I heard a Lewis preach and and that had such an impression Juwanna Kaju who says when a when a boy is 12 years old when a black boys 12 years old he gets so enamored so impressed with a man that he spends the rest of his life trying to be like him so I met a lose when I was 18 years old heard him preach and I have spent the rest of my life trying to be like a Lewis Patterson Julian and when I tell people that it's a meal sound like a Lewis well in my mind I sounds just like I sound brilliant and you know capable and all of that but I heard him preach and with clarity and and you can tell he was prepared and he added illustrations and he brought the text of life and that was my first understanding what expository preaching was all about before I ask you a little bit more about expository preaching I want you to say a little bit more about the bishop college experience because there have been a tremendous number of happiness and great preachers oh yeah but visual college has produced some of the best preachers in history period some of the greatest thinkers from college presidents to conventions leaders and of course pastors a great Church --es and all of that and and on that camp I mean I was on campus with with Denny Davis who passes a wonderful ministry in matter of fact Denny Davis and I were roommates for three years at Bishop college and he's in Grand Prairie and he's got multiple locations and all that Freddie Haynes was on campus at the same time I was there and we all know that great social prophetic voice of social justice of our day and time and Ralph West was on campus at the same time we were there Carrie Wesley pastors one of the major nei Fellowship Church and out of one of the greatest churches in the country and I could just keep naming name that's just the ones I was in school with that's not the ones who were coming back after they graduated and it was just amazing so it wasn't just what we were getting in the classroom which was you know great you know we're there for college but the exposure on campus as we talked about preaching and teaching and ministry and among ourselves and then in the Dallas Fort Worth area the great churches and ministries who were there and you know we go to somebody's 7:00 a.m. service and we go to another church that same day their 9:00 a.m. then we go to another church at 11:00 there we go to a afternoon service if we go to 9:00 so we may hear three or four great thinkers in one day that ain't countin that's by Counting during the week when somebody's in revival so they say Romanians got seniors in revival reconquer okay well there we are so just the exposure outside bishop college along with the teaching at bishop and when I was there Harry is right was the acting president at that time and and we know what kind of preacher he is so that that's great explode Marion Scott said this when he when he talked he was preaching about Judas and and he was saying how Jesus was talking to Peter and tell him Peter what Satan desires to have you they might set you as weak he said he's already got in Judas it's okay he's looking at you now so and he was saying the issue with Judas was that he flunked his exposure hmm he was exposed to Jesus walking day I mean they drink water from same cook they fish sandwiches together so you know he all that you know I'm a Scot he's painting all that picture and he's with Peter James and John you know but he didn't make it because he flunked his exposure and mangas guy said whatever you do don't flunk your exposure and so for God to expose me to Bishop college and John D Mangrum the Dean of the chapel when I was there and and Harry is right and the others were a TW Thompson who taught Old Testament New Testament they have that kind of exposure to bishop college those my peers and that environment and come out of there and came preached it's like hanging yourself so I didn't want to flunk my exposure so God has been very very kind to give me that opportunity to be there and III never said to you that one of my major mentors and preaching was Frederick G Sampson oh he's a bishop graduate and he sure was I was classmates with ek Bailey oh wow and a doctor of a ministry program and so I'm a bishop bishop bishop out and I heard about it and those are the cream of the crop though did you Fred Sam said ek that you can't I think ek is probably one of the best preachers ever to me and what did they impact that he made in preaching and in teaching how to preach and and just how he's able to walk through it a passage and expose that truth there so let's talk a bit about expository preaching so you labeled yourself as an ex father no y'all later no no you just said it I said you say it expositor okay so let me do that say a Luis was responsible okay you did say that okay you're right okay so how would you label I characterize your preacher I hate labels man I really do because I think labels limit I agree I hate that the way I see myself as a preacher is I try and then you go to say 1s advisor I try to expose the truth that the original writer meant from my understanding what they meant when they wrote it and then to be able to take that and help somebody to apply and so that's the kind of preaching then I try to do and I'm not and I'm not even limited in terms of thinking that everybody should be exposed to it even though he Louis Patterson he thought that was the only authentic preaching is expository preacher but man you Scott senior said that all truth comes from Jean jesus said I'm the way the truth and the life may its God say all truth comes from Jesus so whether it's topical a textual or narrative whatever storytelling all of if it's truth it comes from Jesus but a Luis Patterson they used to say that is the authentic method of preaching to expose the truth that God intended when he put it in that work okay so I'm gonna try to label all my time and I think you still try to get to me okay no I'm going to I'm going to so how would a Luis Patterson define expository preaching now we had him at our church we invited him to talk to some of our ministers there and and I think we invited CTS okay some of the students came over and and I me somebody asked him about expository preaching he couldn't define so I'm like he is expository preacher is what I told my preachers if you want to know response to preaching is a Lewis is expository but he couldn't define it he really struggled with the fight in it but he demonstrated it at a very very high level very high yeah now let's see that's why you know it's a lot of definition some people think it's volatilities verse-by-verse and that's a sponsor for it so I mean this is you know we're not really clear about what a definition of expository preaching it this way if that is it then I'm not it right that's the first verse because what I tended to try to do in my preparation for preaching is I try to have some understanding of the verses that come before the text I preach the verses that come after the verse I pray I'm trying to get context I like to walk around the neighborhood of the text is what I call it so I walk around that that that neighborhood of that takes to try to get the understanding of what each of those verses mean and that'll mean I have to say something about every word in every verse I would be there all day I know ever see that's that that that's that's the dilemma that we keep searching for somebody to define what expository preaching is now that I'm pushing I'm just saying I'm just leave it up to the academia I won't be like a lose I'm just gonna go out and do it well see we have to ask practitioners such as yourself I don't consider myself an expository preaching though yes you are I've heard you preach numerous times we remember the first time I heard you actually preached we were in a revival together and was it yeah the bottom I was involved was the first time I heard you preach and I didn't know you were that practical in your I never heard about you I just never heard you and for to be that practical in preaching and scholarly cuz you know some people go one way they're very practical but not much scholarship they're not as good other way they very scholarly but nobody know what they're talking about and can apply it to anything but I was really really impressed so I would back to the exposed oh yeah no I appreciate that I appreciate you said you are an expository preacher but I don't want to limit you by labeling you I understand that I understand I understand it is you know it's just you know it's like what you know Supreme Court's that we know art but we can't define it but we know it when we see that was a nice way to put there we know when we see it we can't define it and it's like we like you know so we'll come together and say you know what is black preaching and you can't define it but everybody knows everybody knows what it is I mean I know it when I feel it or I know it when I hear it yes so we come with a definition there people how that's not it no you know it's too limiting so some of these things are so meaningful and they reach so deep that you know yeah and I and I've read tons of books on expository preaching and I'm sure all of them defined it you know but just to limit it to a verse by verse explanation of Scripture that's why people say expository preaching is so boring no the person who preached it was born yes I gave this bus we preacher this is very exciting I gave that I like that but there are boring preachers and but the word is very exciting and so I tend to struggle as you see we're trying to bring a definition to it but I would never put it just as a verse by verse even though you should know all those verses as you go to expose and exegete that passage to help people to understand the truth of God's Word so you see it as if we were going to label it as expository you see it as exposing the original intent between God and the writer yes and you're bringing that message to today that's exactly what I'm trying to do because and those pastors like my mentor yeah I studied his preaching his way of reason I've heard so many things that he's had to say and his argument is this and I agree that the Bible is the Word of God and we know that that's what God wants say it because he already said it so for me to go and read it understand the intent that the original writer that the Holy Spirit inspired to write it this is what he meant or what she meant and then after I lead there start talking my something else there's to me I struggle with being able to do that with a good conscience i'ma have to have to give an account of every word thought indeed so my fault my word and my deed when it didn't expose the truth is already there I know God wants this say it because he's already said it and I'm just trying to bring some understanding to the Word of God so tell us about your sermon preparation how do you prepare a sermon yeah I want to do it like this because I'm I'm a lot older than when I'm not 17 anymore and I'm not 18 year old freshman at Bishop College or a graduate a few years later so I let's go between when I finally understood what preacher was and trying to learn it at Bishop College and Christian theological seminary to where I am now so let's go in the middle of that the way I would do it is a lot of time in praying and praying and praying and praying cuz God's ways are not our ways his thoughts are not our thoughts they're higher than ours as they happen to our brother so I'm going to understand God I really had to get it from God ek Bailey's to talk about your former classmate used to talk about you can't speak for somebody you haven't spoken to so I speak to God and I pray and pray and pray and then I like to read the passage of Scripture in different translations so I might read it depending upon what I'm addressing in 15 20 25 different translations and Technology make I used to have to walk around with all these Bibles that you know duffle bags a you remember those day duffle bags of Bibles and books and all that the you know the technology makes it easy to read it in so many different translations because I'm trying to get understanding and I like to do that before I go to a commentary and so I'll read it in different translations I'll read it out loud when the Apostle Paul was writing to those churches the intent was for them to read these out loud in the worship you know back back in in the first century most people were illiterate they couldn't I read and write and and so they would give it to the to describe okay read this out loud so I read it out loud to help here's what the listeners were kind of listening to so reading different translation then as I'm reading in different translations I start writing down what I think this passage is saying this is before word studies before commentaries before calling Frank Thomas amen I I heard you addressed this before remind me what you said before doing all of that I just start writing down ideas I might have a you know just a ton of one-line ideas here's what I think this is saying is one thing and then when I go do my words that is all shoot Eddie tell me nothing you know because words change meanings through the years and just to figure out what did the Hebrew or the Greek or whatever the past was written in and then I go back and try to get that right because I want to hear what I believe God is speaking to me and how the Holy Spirit is dealing with me before I go and regurgitate what somebody else said and then after doing that then I do my word studies then I go to commentaries I go to both dead commentary people that lives centuries ago but had wonderful insight into Scripture I go to people who have written recently in terms of commentaries and still alive with us and then I go to living commentaries the Apostle Paul said you're living stones so I call pastors May because that's what a commentary is somebody commenting on the text so I go to living commentaries and and I just try to get a feel for what they're seeing and hearing and all of that but it's more - it's more than a term paper for me I'm not just taking somebody else's ideas and regurgitating those and then giving it to my parent game because I believe that God is given me the ability to think through certain things but I still want insight from I don't want the only thing that people god gave me as a steward over it's my own insight I don't want that but I don't also I don't want to go to other extreme either give them everybody else's insight except mine so I think I called me to preach because he's giving me a gift to be able to understand it and then help them to understand it so I go through all of that and then fundamentally I do interpretation my exegesis of the passage no let's go back observation walking around on observation I walk around and look at read all this stuff then I do interpretation word studies exegesis all of that and then application because I'm kind of like Frank Thomas at that point I want people to do more than just come and get emotionally moved and intellectually stirred and and inspired and then don't know how to live on it I don't know I don't want that so I want to help them to apply this to their lives to their families to their marriage that are owned you know as a single person doing their thing as a businessman or a politician or athlete whatever your walk of life is I want you to I want to help you to make that application to you I grew up in the church where my pastor loved God and he tried to teach us holiness and all of that but he didn't do much application so when a guy called me to preach it's like because I would I would go here and preach about Sarah it makes you have been to go that's great story but what does that mean to me in school tomorrow so I when when God called me to preach I want to make sure that that would be my focus and some of my friends tell me that's the best aspect of my preach is the application so I'm like wait a minute so you think I can't interpret no that's not what we say it so so they don't dog my interpretation they just think my application is strong and that is intentional and then the other thing is illustrations Jesus used them all the time and as a teaching tool to start with what people know and it can identify went in the physical to take them to what they don't know and can't identify with in the spiritual so I use a lot of a lot of it matter of fact I wrote a book that has 365 illustrations on it yeah life Illustrated daily walk daily thoughts for your daily walk it is a devotional the only one of its kind with a illustration 365 illustrate is it available yeah I didn't go online and get it right now just Google pastor Jeffrey Johnson senior all my stuff will come up life illustrated that and so pastors who are struggling and teachers who are struggling I need I need something up me illustrate this 360 bio right there and because I that's one of the things I put in every sermon to help people to see what I'm saying people think in pictures right it's raining cats and dogs so people think in pictures and so I try to go at it like that so fundamentally this about my sermon for preparation I wait to the end before I write my introduction I know people who write their introduction they start with the introduction I don't do that because I can't introduce something that doesn't exist let me bring it to an existence first then I go back and write the introduction so and I try to start with you know something that will catch people's attention where there's a personal testimony or something happen in my life or some kind of relevant event happening in the world or some startling statistic or illustration something that will grass people so I can catch their attention at the very very big any and then my closing is normally a summary or recap very quickly I don't have to preach the whole sermon again I just preached it but a quick recap and then try to encourage them and always try to give a challenge when I'm preaching that you know God wants to use you and when you're gonna be used by God so I put that in in in that summary of the message yeah so tell me a time when you really I know we all as preachers have a lot of humility but every now and then God gives us a time when we really thought we've really were used by God and we it was well the vessel and the message all came together and we just so give me a time when you really thought you said it I mean well I'm a preface it like this though dr. John demag one was Dean of the chapel when I was a student in visual college and he said this the times you think you would probably at your worst or the times you at your best kind of times you think you're at your best you were probably at your work so let me preface it with that and what was really create for me there you know I might spend 15 20 hours in the sermon together it's been three or four I was trying to memorize this thing and so I'm thinking okay well I got 15 20 hours in it is I've memorized I've gone over got it in my heart my spirit and now I get up before the people and I'm miserable death and man there was one time I just it it wouldn't click for me wouldn't come together and and I'm you know I was tempted you just go in another direction and all that and I preached the sermon and it was so said there were times I try to be you know I acted to Mission part of the intelligence but if this message was so simple and I preached about the little girl that was dying and J iris goals define Jesus and and on the way there was a woman they had an issue of blood and I preached how to settle an issue hmm it was just so so simple and it was so impactful in the life of my church I went all over country for each bit it was so it's just a little simple message of the fact we all got issues your issue may not be with blood but you got some kind of issue and how do we settle these issues and it was in it was just and I thought before I got up I sitting be getting up here with this it's too simple I think I didn't put enough work into it enough time and I was gonna change one another and God honored it so give me a time that was the most difficult maybe a personal issue maybe a church issue where you were you were up against it and and you had to preach I've been preaching 38 years and I've been pastoring 32 years all together 29 years at my church so I can give you a parade of periods of time in pain where I still had to freeze from the time my son was sick or the time I got cancer or the time my grandmother died so I can give you a litany of those but our church went through a situation almost four years ago now and it was one of the most difficult times of my life and I'm gonna try to tell it without crying because it was one of the most difficult times of my life because we needed to make a transition because things are changing technology is coming in how do you get the word out how do you reach these 19 the 34 year olds and all of that and what we did to reach people my age it wasn't working reaching people their age so we had to make some drastic transitions in our church and we've done transitions before but this one we had to change the leadership we had to change staff and it was it was not just painful for me it was painful for the church and people who had helped our church to become successful it helped me to make it in in ministry they've been there for my family but changes had to be made and and going through that that period of time matter of fact I called Chan in in Atlanta and I said man this is crazy man is it and then he said listen here's he said here's what your issue is he said you have a pastor's heart you a past guy called you back you got a pass heart but you also the CEO of a multi-million dollar business and he said this the CEO had everything together had the transition had the plan the strategy to make this happen to get it right so that things could go to the next level and then the pastor shoulder with his heart messed everything up so I was trying not to let my pastor's heart keep me from making necessary transitions in the church that affected individuals families and our church and it hurt but in order for us to get to the next level and still be vital and relevant we had to make those changes we had to make them and and still having the preach to that and that was not just a one-time sitting down that was preparing the church for God his guys doing a new thing somebody wrote a book what got you here won't get you there so just knowing just trying to understand the times and knowing what to do and so I'm trying to hear from God I'm praying I'm checking out the churches people I know ministers are already going through that calling the experts and I did what I needed to do and of course that was purging in that process and now men I preach to more people at least our church than I ever had and we raise more for the Advancement of kingdom of God than we've ever ate we've doing things we've never done before because I had to make those painful decisions and still had to preach through that because when somebody's mom dies or baby dies they don't care that I was at my office crying because somebody longer work with you they want to hear what is God saying about my situation so yeah and who was it on my pre pastor Hicks hptx preaching to a storm I know exactly wouldn't I got on myself as a class exactly I think yeah I think every preacher pastor this watching this knows exactly what you mean that's why I wanted to ask you and you know because often times sometimes we as we don't present that side we present a successful side you know and there's a whole nother side that you know that people need to hear about because it's those other sides to get us to yeah but you know what not one of the things that I have done at my church is I've always been transparent with them if I'm hurting I tell them if I'm struggling with something I let them know cuz I don't I don't want to come off fake and phony you're not being fake upon you still got a free to teach you're not benefit but I might appear to be fake and phony cuz I got all this pain and I'm struggling and I'm trying to make you think okay I'm still up and I'm no I'm hurting these things are hard for me that have to do this I'm gonna go through these issues in my own life in health situations and and and still be able to preach through it but I think my preaching help me through it cuz I love I don't just love hearing it I love preaching so it it actually helped me because there are others who you know back off and back away and it has to be time for that you wrote the book on that you know he was parent mother if you don't get apart you won't fall apart so but I preached through those situations and I think that preaching helped me to come to grips with that so what would you like your legacy to be preaching I want to be known as a preacher I want to say the Caesar Clark had a sermon that said he called it what shall I preach I have to fit the year yeah so I mean I know this is a time with social media of church bashing and preacher bashing but what the church is meant to me to help me to live my life up with God to teach me morals and ethics the church's taught me discipline helped me to understand who God is and his love and His grace and His mercy and help shape my life I love the church I was glad when they said unto me let us go into the house of that and and then what preachers have meant from my childhood pastors of of Charles Harris and then get to Bishop college and Nathan sergeant used to let me come by preach at his church and give me $15 $15 would be a carload of preachers heading to McDonald's it's so but gave us me a chance to practice preaching and helping me to learn leadership in his church to be able to apply what I was learning in school that was a preacher did that you know a Lois Patterson helping me to learn what real preaching is and and and now the influence that my preaching is having on a generation of preachers and but a preacher taught me how to you know do those kind and and the friends in my life are preachers and so I know it's church back in time and preacher baskets having all of that but when it's all said and done and man I God has been he has really been kind to me I passed one of the greatest churches in the world men that our church got 17,000 members we got one church in three location we got a the employees I just you know with the work we do over in Haiti and we turn a46 to honey one of the most economically deprived communities in our nation our church is helping to turn a community around all the scholarships we've given them and I could just go on and on and on our audits that we but when it's all said and done I want to be known as a preacher and remember God had only one begotten Son mmm and he was a preacher so with all this church bashing and preacher bashing people better be careful with that but I when it's all said and done I want and and I love my wife and I love my children I love family but I don't want to be known as a preacher you have been a tremendously generous not only with your time but tremendously generous with the PhD program and I want to thank you for that and could you share your heart because I know that your generosity is connected to your heart and if you didn't have a heart for that program you wouldn't be as generous as you've been with us in the program so tell me about the ph.d program and your heart that makes you generous to us I had breakfast with with somebody this morning and and he was just trying to figure out why churches don't operate a certain way financially I said well most of us are making it off 20% efficiency so 20% of the people give 80 percent of the money and and some the numbers are 10 to 90 so is you see a lot of people but it's really not a lot coming in and so we really have to be discreet on where that money I tell young passes all the time when they talk about money management for ministry and on it you only got a hundred percent I don't give you raised five thousand dollars in a year or 50 million you got 100 percent and I tell people their personal finances live off percentages whatever you make is a hundred percent and you live off percent when you get to a hundred stop because dhinam went so as I try to discern and hear God's voice working with our team on where our resources need to go we got a week because I don't believe we need to do everything God has more than one Church and so I'm trying to hear what God is revealing to me as a leader of that ministry for this for our community country and world so you know we do our haiti we got our african community we got a school that we've adopted and a bunch of other stuff and then when I heard about the only black PhD the only ph.d program in black preaching is right here in Indianapolis at Christian theological seminary where I spent time on the can I don't think God could be any more clear that I want you to help and then for y'all to say then we're gonna do some of the Lewis Patterson so what I'm supposed to say no man I know I've gone to the school I know it's in my own community I know y'all training preachers I know y'all making sure that black preachers get the respect that they need to get for what they've done and I know any Lewis Patterson I wouldn't be a preacher at all had I never met him but now I figured out my y'all so you can't you know God speaks through the word through his spirit through other people at those situations circumstance so I hadn't know that the issue for me with doing it is just the fact that we don't have enough to give it at the level we need to give and I'm almost embarrassed cuz when you do this I'm thinking I'm really embarrassed by but I know my church is not the only one you're asking to help and I'm really embarrassed by it but man I came up in a time that you know people act like black preaching was not significant it was not relevant so for now people are studying it and other cultures have adopted our style and method of preaching and our genre preaching when they used to talk about in doggy so is it's good that we got some academics who are looking at this from different angles thinking through it at a very very high level and then bringing it back to us and helping us to see here's what these men and women of God meant through the years and some are contemporaries and and what what it means in our time so I had no no problem doing that and then I know that you know there everybody is not as financially blessed as I am you know I ain't no mult I mean there and all that but God's bank I grew up in poverty so a little bit I got this a lot to me because Bill Gates will jump off a bridge if he was making what I'm making but God has been kind and for me to have an opportunity to give especially to some of these young people that they may never have had you know they got the mind to get it and don't have the money and why would I not come alongside well I want to thank you because I know I continue to say to you I don't take it for granted yes it's you know you you have a lot of people asking you for a lot of things that's true and you have the heart to give to a lot of things that's what my church took me out of the mix I'll give it all the buddy away they say you're gonna have to put somebody else right because you you you can get it all the way and so I just want to thank you and just you encouraged us and you you lift my spirit for what we're trying to do and I know the students because they are there sitting out there you you spent some time with them so you get you get a sense of their passion you get a sense of how what they're trying to do so I just want to thank you so is there anything else you know I've asked you a lot of questions anything that you want to say about preaching that I haven't asked you this just on your heart to say oh no you know I go around the country you're different invitations to talk about church growth you know but I keep telling everybody you know I'm not sure screwing in the 90s this is it it's a different day now y'all might want to look at some other models but aren't our church one of the reasons our church grew is all for preaching on Wednesday and our noonday Bible study I was looking at Romans chapter one I'm not positive I'm not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God the gospel is the power so you got churches with power outages because they're doing other things other than the gospel so our church is the place where Jesus is exalted and the world explain that's our vision and mission what we're trying to do and that word being explained has made a difference in people's lives and MIT needs pastor VK Bailey used to talk about church growth and he said people go where their needs are met so just as you look at groups in your congregation community here's the nice tour meeting that knee and people come with their needs but there was a need for people to understand God's Word for what I'm dealing with in my life and so preaching help for our church now friend of mine who's a pastor in this town so I need to stop saying that when I get up to teach about church growth he said goes how these pastors ain't got to get to preach so they're not gonna critic search off reason but I'm telling him that's they asked me how did i grow my church and so our church was able to grow up I was telling a young pastor today that it's already been proven that you can grow a church of opening the Word of God exposing the truth in that text and helping somebody to understand how to apply to their life there are churches all over the country major ministries doing great work for the kingdom of God because they opened their word found out the original intent of what that writer meant when God inspired exegete it exposed that and helped post people to apply it in their churches because there's a trick of the enemy to make us think I could do something else to grow much I need to do something else other than preach so you got shirt you that pastors all over the country forsaken the word to bring in other methods to grow their churches and the gospel is the power I want to ask you one more question in it because we've I think all the views we know we've had a lot of Ofcom off-camera conversation about this so talk to me about social justice preaching and how you see yourself I think that's also important yeah actually what you know Freddie Haynes and I've been friends for man since 1980 that's a long time and I wanna bless what it was I was telling him you wanted to have a sit-down with a man Frank Thomas want to have a sit-down with you at cts he's like okay that's that's great no problem on that I said now he once taught me about preaching I said I only want to talk to you about preaching or social justice and I said all that is preaching to you so I think it depends on God's call in your life in what he's gonna like the Freddie Haynes ministry is the vision of his church this is social justice and Freddie Haynes had a a preaches Contin on though he had a social justice conference at his church two years ago he said hey man I want you to I want you to come and and beyond I want you to speak don't you just speak dumb teach though my social justice go that's it Freddy I mean I don't know anything about no social justice he say yes you do he went through explaining what we do with education what we do in our neighborhoods what we do with those scholarships what we do you know all these things that we're doing that is a part of social justice and because if we're not careful we just think is carrying a sign down the street that's right and it's more than that and it's it's empowering people to become a part of that political process and Jesus did the same thing I mean he had to address Herod and he talked about Caesar and he was in front of Pilate you know so the best government that's the political process and and I believe our preaching has to address that you know better than me all the people in oppression in groups of people in oppression in the scripture Israel in Egypt and all these group Grohmann no president and then when we preach it we ignore the oppression and preach it like everybody was just rich and famous and these people were oppressed women were treated like second-class they treat like property children wouldn't even County you took mom's social injustice so and then you know if you weren't a part of a certain religious group or ethnic group the oppression that gave me away why do we ignore that in our preacher so I tried not to ignore that and when I'm true to the text I can't help but have social justice in my preach from the way God called me yeah someone Thank You Man appreciate your support and thank you for you know what you're such an encourage to bring me to a place of academics and let me talk about preaching thank you for making me think I can actually do this man I appreciate that no free I'm not playing that's encouraging well you know I say to you we don't we don't do a distinction between you said you don't like labels we don't do it distinction between academic and practical we don't divide it up like that I'm glad y'all don't we'll talk about some institutions that do but we okay but I I'm glad you all don't but I'm a pastor I was a pastor yes so you are a practitioner scholar I'm a practitioner scholar or a scholar practitioner I know whatever but there's the practical and you embody both so why wouldn't we have you know I'm glad being a Ralph West my friend in Houston church without walls talks about how there needs to be a a relationship between the church and the Academy and once he said that years ago once he did that that's when I came back and this before you even got over here and try to have some kind of relationship with Christians the logical seminary then you got here and it was just you know a normal organic way to improve on that and take it to another level so but no I mean there are great preachers in Indianapolis but thank you for just including me and what you're doing with this Wow you know we want there a whole lot of us who appreciate what you do so we just want to bless you and thank you [Music] you

Channel: Frank Thomas

Views: 15,453

Rating: 4.7894735 out of 5

Keywords: Jeffrey A. Johnson, Black Preaching, African American Preaching, Eastern Star Baptist Church, Frank A. Thomas, Christian Theological Seminary, Phd Progam African American Preaching, Expository Preaching, Church growth, Black Expository Preaching, African American Expository Preaching, Bishop College, Bishop College Preachers

Id: mSNS14kaR5I

Length: 50min 49sec (3049 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 29 2018