A Conversation with Rev. Dr. Teresa Fry Brown hosted by Dr. Frank A. Thomas

[Music] first dr. Teresa Farber we would like to thank you for your generosity of time to sit down with us and before we even ask you any question we want you to know how proud and how excited we are that you sit in the bandy chair of homiletics act Emory and that you are in the most prestigious chair and you are the senior Hamelin Titian in the country so we're honored that you here with us thankful and so grateful thank you so we know who dr. Teresa Frye Brown is but there may be some folks part of our viewing audience who did not know you tell us about yourself how far back do you want them to go I want you to go all the way back all right Billy and Naomi's child from Independence Missouri grew up Baptist and 1994 became a member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church second or was the seven children married and now widowed and have a daughter and have been singing or talking about God for 66 years so where are the beginnings of the Inklings of a call the Inklings of the call I think came when I was a child my grandparents were big in the Baptist Church in Missouri and so I was drugged to everything on Sunday and Wednesday and Thursday and didn't know normal people didn't go to church every day and was always asked to be up front to say a speech I did my first solo when I was five Jesus wants me for a sunbeam though ashy legs and everything a little petticoats and just was from the beginning of my life given this deep foundation of faith and whenever God asked you to do something you do it regardless of what anybody else says and so I did all the speeches the Easter speeches all these other kinds of things and then I was a soloist and a choir and my mother said that whenever I began to sing before I sing I would say something and so they didn't call it preaching because women weren't supposed to preach when I was in the and from that always became received support for my family on whatever I was doing and so when my mother was 51 she had the beginnings of what was Alzheimer's and I had to go with my then two month old daughter to Kansas City to have her admitted to a facility and my grandmother went with me and while I was on the plane I was having this conversation I had with God about you know everything was going on and in this conversation at some point I wasn't a deep voice or anything like that it was I need you to do more and I thought well what's more I'm Sunday school teacher I'm choir director you know I slept coffee I do everything what more can I possibly do and God said I need you to do more and I was thinking well what more and then then in our in my head it was I need you to teach preach and write so I was immediately just kind of taken back because I thought no men preach because that's what I was taught the teaching and writing I have no problem with but then it was very emphatic teach preach and write so when I returned from all my duties in Kansas City and went back to Denver to talk to my father in ministry Jesse Langston Boyd he said and my then husband was had just entered ministry he said maybe you're getting mixed up in your answering Rogers call and I said no Roger wasn't on the airplane this is not Rogers call and then he said well I don't know what to do because I've never had a woman tell me that she's supposed to preach go away and pray about it so for a year I was told to go away and pray every time I would showed up he would say go pray about it so at the end of the year I'm marching on the calendar because I'm anal that way right and I said remembered it didn't go away and he said I don't know how we're going to do this but let's go ahead and work on it and he said then I need you to know that if we go through with this process people are going to think that you are answering Rogers call people are going to think that you want to abandon motherhood people are going to think that you are just want to sleep with I'm trying to edit my language now speaking of rhetoric people people are going to think that you just want to sleep with preachers or people are gonna think you're lesbian and you want to do it men do and I said God didn't say any of that stuff to me so we need to go forward with this and it was bruising it was absolutely bruising and all the things that he said came to past from women and men in the church and so I was the only one in my ordination class I was the only woman there and then another woman came so in the at that time in 140 some year history of a shorter AME Church I was the first woman and the first woman to come into ministry in my particular section of the country so it was it was God speaking to I don't know why this is messing with me it was God speaking to me even above the noise of an airplane and and the voice never went away and and even though the church said that the call to you had a call to preach I understood that God put the other two things there so when I'm in the Board of Examiners in the AME Church a free Memphis Episcopal Church they said so you're going to preach and pastor I said that's not what God told me to do so as I say to my students how there's a consequence for doing what God tells you to do and not what a board tells you to do and so that's been my call all the way along was to teach preaching right and God has been faithful because that's what I do is teach preach and right now thirty-five years later so yeah that's where the call emanated it was that and I and I know in studying that often people answer the call when they've gone through some life-changing kind of situation that brings a mortality before them I think it was always with me and I remember talking to my grandfather who was a chairperson of he was the chairman of Missouri laymen at that time but the progressive Baptist Church and I said daddy Lyman I don't want you to be upset but I have this call to preach so he started talking about women in the family who had been evangelist and he said baby if God told you to do it it's okay and so in my family because I guess they wanted to protect me because I was the second oldest grandchild all the men and my family supported everything that I did it was my I had two aunts that thought that I was going to cause trouble that never to one till the day she died never recognized that I was preacher but the men always said and my brothers always say well you know whatever you say you're going to do you're going to do so we're gonna support you in it so they call me the Rebbe so they've always supported me tell me about the women evangelists in your family that I have an aunt I had a not that was my grandmother sister actually that I did not know pastored a church in Holden Missouri for 35 years and no one in the family ever talked about it when I was teaching at San Jose State University which is now the University of Central Missouri and somewhat came to a Baptist Church when I was singing because it was in this concert she wanted to hear me and she would sit on the front row but they never recognized her and it wasn't until maybe my tenth year in that someone said something about an thumbless church so I couldn't understand why they were supporting me but they didn't even articulate but this is what she done and she she was at that church for 40 years Wow one of my grandfather's aughts was a traveling evangelist ala dureena Lee so she could she wasn't at a church but she just traveled around in Missouri southern Missouri holding prayer meetings and preaching in people's houses and things of that nature so it wasn't part of the family script until I said this is what God told me to do so it was it was a very interesting kind of thing so I don't know where all that why we kept it well I did you know what we kept it a secret because women weren't supposed to do that and they were again castigated and covered up and everything else but they raised me to do whatever you know Zora Neale Hurston talks about her mother's said to jump at the Sun that you may not reach the Sun but at least she tried that's how they raised me and I was raised with lots of boy who taught me to fight and taught me to stand up for what I needed and to still be able to be feminine and be me totally and so that helped me I think in answering the call but also in navigating spaces where I am often the only woman or the only african-american or the only whatever so that so take me from the pasture and not turn your call to preaching I was in law school when I answered the call and I went to the Board of Examiners and they immediately told me that I needed to go to seminary so I dropped out of law school to go to seminary and because I was a speech pathologist I started working with a professor at I love school theology critiquing people's sermons from a speech pathology standpoint and then and because I was singing Reverend Boyd said well you know you have to do this trial sermon thing so when I did the trial sermon but my form is not everybody else's form so it took them a while to understand what I was doing because I do do have it heavily rhetorical kinds of things and I think I always preached but it wasn't the traditional african-american definition of preaching I wasn't in the big chair but so I teach my students now you don't have to be in the big chair to preach it's the way you live out your life it's when you minister it's when you when you testify it's it's it's I went from I didn't preach on Sundays I would preach on Wednesday nights and so then it got to the point after the second year and I was in seminary and working with the preaching professor I didn't have a preaching class I had one preaching class in my life that was a two-week class with Charles Adams and the next preaching black and white and the next year I was his TA and so when it came to go for a preaching job because I was preaching in women's services and things like that in the AME Church I had a gospel group that toward the southwest and so I was always asked to do little things before you know before I sing and so when it came time to even start teaching preaching I had done language workshops and delivery workshops around the south southwest part of the country and the Dean at candor called and said I understand you do language workshops delivery workshops would you be interested in a position my degree is in ethics and social transformation so I studied for two weeks and went to the interview and God gave me the job two weeks later so that's how I got to preaching okay so you talked about your preaching method and being you know heavy heavy rhetorical so talk to me talk to us about what is your preaching method and describe some of the rhetorical steps you take when I was growing up like I said my first little speech and all these other kinds of things I fell in love with the beauty of language because I'm from the era where you had to memorize poetry and memorize stories and do the creation you know and act it out and all these other kinds of things and so there's something about the the use of language sometimes vernacular and sometimes not but the use of language to convince people of something to convince people of a truth to have them enter into a place and a text that you haven't heard before and I've listened to sermons my entire life but there's something about being able to to immerse yourself in a text and then walk around and be bruised in and lift it up and rejoice in the language that's in the text and then how is it that from that I I did an article on the birthing birthing or sermon it's it's how God will put a text in my head when I'm watching people when I'm watching commercial it used to drive my husband crazy because in the middle of a commercial I'd have a sermon idea I can't go to the movies without writing things down but it's taking in all of this stimul and then thinking about how would God want me to use that language those images to pair that with a text to help people understand all the more what God wants not what Theresa wants my steps are right now I'm thinking about the sermon I have to preach on Sunday I never stopped thinking about sermons I never stopped thinking about text I never start thinking about how to talk about a text it's always in my sleep so I keep things next to the head so I write down things it's an ongoing process like I'm pretty used to talk a pretty hall used to talk about if you don't deliver a sermon you will be perpetually pregnant well it's it's like I'm always birthing new ideas but it's then to take every part of me every creative spark that I have and put it into a sentence it's to play with language it's to think about what the people as Gardiner Taylor would say to put myself in the seat of a listener it's to think about how is that five year old what kind of language can I use with that five year old to help them love Jesus it's it's to think about how to work with a multiple handicapped child and and how do I enter in effectively so there's all annoyed say that I can reach each ache so much so my I don't do the fifty hours I do every second for the next sermon every second is for the next sermon every experience is for the next sermon every tear is for the next sermon every so I start the morning watching all the news because someplace in there is the next sermon and that's part of my strategy so it's not clean sometimes I dance the sermon I'm a liturgical dancer believe it or not with all this idle churches you dance right it's it's in various types of music but I just see good I don't see demons I see God everywhere so so it's that kind of ongoing how do I convince convert persuade people with the language not to come to me but to come closer to God I try to when I'm writing a sermon I think of with whom I'm preaching the persons with whom I'm preaching I'm thinking about the context in which I'm preaching I'm thinking about the social milieu that I'm that I believe that many of the people exist in from time to time I think about what impacts us all and try to find a language to lift up different concerns all-in-one sermons so that we can pull people in at different times but never losing the text I think it's critical that we never lose the text I well you know from teaching preaching sometimes I can listen to a sermon I keep thinking hey where's the text where's the text where's the text that people need to know the text if not it's my opinion so I can I can lace or weave in contemporary kinds of things in an ancient text because I think that's what the ancient texts did that I have to earth the sermon as best I can and because again I know I'm going to keep saying language but that's who I am and and because I want to use language that people can remember a repetition so people that can remember but I also want persons who are listening to understand that God is in the center of everything in a text that may be thousands of years old but the text is still very new that that God never leaves us and so my intentionality is the ongoing presence of God in spite of okay and and that that the words that we preach should break barriers not build them up because I've also heard those castigating kind of sermons that other people the whole time and so when I choose words I could have said the current person in 1600 is an idiot but that's pejorative language so then I have to find other ways of saying it so instead I would say God did not die and say that whoever was at 16 it runs my life okay so I also have to be careful that I'm not even though I want to critique society because it's part of rhetoric right critique society or as you talk about the social justice aspects of it the cultural imperatives that all of those are present in this sermon because I wanted wanted space for everybody regardless of age and gender and sexual orientation and in political parties I want them all to be able to find God in the sermon someplace so they can reject part of it because that's a point to them but I want to have something in each sermon that everybody in the congregation at some point in time can connect with and that is the Word of God and then the illustrations just pull them in more you said a minute ago that your style initially when you first start was very had to get used to your style and your style is very different than African American traditional afternoon that's my word African American preaching so is that still true or reflect on your style versus the tradition I think when I grew up I heard a lot of three point Puritan Puritan form right three points story joke story joke hoop hoop story joke hoop hoop hoop and and I was really interested because I also had models of people that really interrogated the texts that love the word and I wanted to make sure that that was part of who want that is part of who I am that's what I was raised to that the text is central to what's going on and so there are a lot of people that had sound and people were going crazy for it but I didn't find God anywhere in the sound there was a lot of in my perception from my vantage point it was a lot of performance but there wasn't substance and so depends on where I was at that time so understanding that this was in I started preaching in 1982 so there were different forms going on then and so then I waited for those people that that were not afraid of intellectual discourse that were inclusive in their preaching that weren't demeaning women that weren't asking only for resources so I guess it depends when I say african-american preaching at the time it depends on who with who I was listening to at that time so I don't want to say this is a stereotypic african-american preaching I was Baptist I'm saying me I would go to Pentecostal try so I went to all these different denominations and so it was what was held up as the standard at that time but I was very fortunate where I was that the people who came through Denver were pray Theo hall and Charles Addams and Frederick Sampson and and a variety of other people that had very different styles than what I heard in many places and so I wanted my style to be distinctively mine and it at times I've been rejected because it's distinctively mine I've been told that it's too deep that it's too heavy that it doesn't have the hoop and I said I don't think you planned the hoop and it's supposed to be spirit so I have to do what God says because also in the still small voice so that to me is my hoop and so it was it was understanding that I was called to be Teresa with my guest and not called to be anybody else so I didn't get in a club I wasn't in a circuit I was just doing me so there's consequence for just doing you so who I think you mentioned several just a moment ago but give me some of your preaching he rose and she rose okay this is going to be hard because when people usually ask me this I say for me it's the people that put in the work so they may not be known mm-hmm-hmm so I don't have a list they're people that I've listened to contemporarily they're people that I grew up listening to but for me solid preachers are my heroes and my Shiro's the ones that do all the work of pastoring but have a word that gives life on Sunday or Wednesday or Thursday that works for me and so we're not the cheers everybody knows my name it's the people that I can observe that I could just sit they're just so distinctively them but there's there's integrity and they're preaching there there's there's authenticity and they're preaching you can tell that they've been with God and and they don't have to have a lot of applause I tell people to say Amen it's just there and that's that to me those are my heroes and those are my she rose in preaching and some of them are not ordained my grandmother was a greatest preacher in the world okay and it was in sitting down and talking to her and picking up witticisms and how to analyze people and how to be present with people on this all encompassing all that Hagi's children kind of thing that we love everybody in spite of who other people say they are that to me it's sermons so I don't want to the cliche is I'd rather see a sermon than hear one it's just the people that I know love the Word of God love God's people and I'm grateful for the Opera and are grateful for the opportunity to say something for God that to me is what my preaching Lodge is on I had to stand Who I am I understand where I bet but every time I'm allowed the opportunity to preach I get so nervous because this is God work for me it is it is God allowing God's Word to reside in my head and my heart and then I'm allowed to share it with people who may or may not accept it but it's still God work and that to me is the essence of a preacher oh my goodness I always talk about slang it's not here ago it's it's the it's the privilege of preaching because we understand that in the biblical text you weren't even supposed to say God's name and God takes earthen vessels that have all kinds of scars and histories and God says I want you to stand before the people and say this is not play-acting this is this is not so people cousin love you you have a hard challenge which is to take the history of what I've been with people is to take what you know across the course of human history is to take those times when it doesn't seem like I'm there at all is to take people throwing things at you is to take people saying that you're all kinds of people and still I want you to resit to stand here and say something on my behalf and to be responsible enough to stay till the end of the service don't run to your office but stay to the end of the service so if somebody disagrees with you you can still discuss it and understand that they don't really love you they love the god you're representing that to me is the essence of what it means to be a preacher and that's me thank you so much I was blessed just to sit with you two to break that out thank you if I were to ask you generally across all of the preaching students you've had what would as a conglomerate what would they say are the three top teachings or Lessing's lessons of dr. Teresa fibrin so the first day of class my students preached for 30 seconds they walk in I give them a text they preach some of them are not sure they're called to preach some of them are terrified but I think it's important to start recognizing the voices within you so when the first things that my students even the ones that tell me at the end I hated you in class but I'm always prepared to preach I think that if you answer a call to something you have to always be ready and not tell people now you know I didn't have my 50 hours to exegete a text the text should be living within you so the first thing I tell them is to always be ready the second thing is to be you to do you to preach as God has instructed you to preach even with the pressures of cloning even with the pressures of we can only invite you if you fix if you fit this stereotype if you if you dress a certain way or if you're going to do this at the end if you're going to sound just do you because understand that God called you society did not the 3rd is textual integrity textual integrity don't make the texts up people know when you lie don't make examples that people know when you lie be honest with the people never manipulate the people but be honest with the people I think those are the three be ready be authentically you and have some integrity about what you're doing those are the three things if you had to talk to us about your most difficult preaching moment this is it it was my most difficult just because of the the context you know you're the one in the family who preaches and so you're called you to all the family stuff so when my mom died she was a member of a Baptist Church in Kansas City and my sister called and she said Theresa you understand that you're going to preach a eulogy but it's a Baptist Church I said okay when I got to the church the pastor wasn't there but all the all the ministerial staff was there and they said we were here to keep you out of the pulpit this was in 2000 I preached my mother's eulogy at the foot of her casket on the floor of a church and it was difficult because it was my mother but also because I had to understand again what I've been teaching my students that all ground is holy ground so it didn't matter where I was standing and when I finished my grandmother said you did what God wanted you to do it doesn't matter where you stand just preach so my sermon just preached came out of that that my womanís sensibilities was no I need to be the pulpit my my this is my mom how much you disrespect her wishes was there but at the moment that it was time to do it God said just stand and that was the most difficult it wasn't when I want to preach before 10,000 people it wasn't I'm preaching in Europe it wasn't any of that stuff it was all the emotions that came to pass and so it was okay am I going to fight this fight now or I'm going to honor my mother and it was honor my mother because I could live another day to fight right and so even though when I started out I remember the content of some of my sermons were you know and it was almost an apologetic for being a woman who was preaching and God calls everybody and then it's like God smacked me upside my head that's really an academic kind of term right God and God said I didn't ask you to say all that I told you to go do this thing and so it was understanding that if I let God do all the social political stuff about me preaching and I just preached wherever then I've done what God tells me to do so that was that was that was difficult so I think that I can preach anywhere after that and I can preach anything it's never been about content because most people know I'm going to do that social justice thing that's me that's my passion my preaching passion has to do with inclusivity and the beloved the beloved community and world that I think is in the biblical text in places because we understand in the biblical texts are some exclusion but they're in places but that's that's my passion that's what I'm called to do so that doesn't even bother me anymore I can talk about anything I can go against church law and talk about something that I really think God wants that's not hard it was that moment and was defining for me because I represented for my family who my mother was who always told me I could do everything I represented for my family someone they had put trust in and my brother my brothers are ready to fight if I was going to fight but why tear up something so I'm gonna let you always tell people I don't have to argue about being a woman and minister anymore I'm gonna wait till the rapture let God explain it to me so if I'm wrong I'm wrong if I'm right I'm right I'd have to fight that battle go to the other side and I know that you know as preachers we all carry a measure of humility and you have a large measure of that but give me a sense of a time that you thought you really said it well and you thought you really did what God wanted you to do and you could celebrate mm-hmm your gifts and God's grace so you mean go to the other side and giving it time oh that I really thought I was doing well in a sermon I never think that I'm doing well it's sir but I think that's that Missouri stuff about always you know be humble be a hot live a humble live a humble or deliver humble right I don't think I ever think that I do well I don't think that I I know that I do the best I can I don't ever have this sense of I hit it out of the ballpark it's always what can I do better next time and that's that's just who I am so I mean there have been some sermons I thought well that was pretty good and I think no wait a minute so I always tell my students that I'm you're often your own worst critic and I am because I always want to know what I can do to be better I missed this part last night I'm at the hotel okay Theresa letting you know you were supposed to do that and you do that and then again uh and you stuttered over this word and and so I I replay these things and it's almost like this obsession with me to try to be better not to be perfect but to try to be better and so I cannot remember I appreciate shock ah go on Sunday and I don't even think I was there for the sermon not to sound spooky or anything but I know that there are some times that I'm in this place where I can tell when Theresa has a seat and when it's all God and sometimes their sermons were I don't even remember preaching this sermon I have a manuscript I don't remember what I've done and when I sit down I'm so spent and people say oh that's a wonderful summer I thought okay I don't know so it's very difficult for me to say that there is there's a sermon that I thought it was really good there's some that when I write they don't they oh this is some good stuff but then when I get there I start doing I always pray for God to edit no matter what where we were before I started preaching my prayer is for God to edit and allow me to be submissive enough in the moment not to think I own the word and and so regardless of what people saying that the perfunctory things in the line afterwards you know I don't hear amens I don't see people's faces I after the first year when I was in a church where they would come up and hit you and sang group with boys and so the first time I jumped I was like okay fight or flight hit somebody back what is it and sometimes I don't I see I seriously don't remember and so I have to rely on preaching partners or it was that when my husband was living my husband or my daughter and they would give me a thumbs up and I would go okay but I'm still rehashing things and trying to figure out what I didn't that wasn't good and so maybe it's a defeatist kind of thing but I can't remember I'd I couldn't pick one out I did Hampton a few years ago and I was the lecturer in the morning and I wrote lectures this is how I do language it said lecture I wrote lectures I got to Hampton Bishop Bryant said dot you have to preach I said Bishop Bryant it says lecture William Watley comes up and says you have to Freeland I said what in the world I didn't say that but what in the world is a prelate and he said you have to sound like a sermon I said no a lecture is this a sermon is this and so then I had all these people tell me what I had to do so I had to push together these things and I was amazed that they came together so if I could think of a time that I was like oh that worked pretty well it would be the pre Lex at Hampton when I was there and you were you were amazing I was sitting right there so which leads to my next question so what do you do with affirmation or when people call it walk up to you and say oh that was just so awesome that changed my life it was just a blessing so what do you do with that feedback it's my Missouri upbringing again I usually say thank you or bless you pray for me because okay so there's a song in the Baptist Church in when I was raped I said Lord if I get too high bring me down low right if my head gets so big I have to take a reservation to get in the house knock me down so I don't want to be knocked down so I so if I'm preaching as a conduit for God then it's not me doing it and so that's usually my response and it's embarrassing to me and where somebody says you really helped me then I just grab them and hug them because I'm rejoicing that God allowed me to say something that's helped somebody else so it's or people say doc you know you did that and so I you know I have difficulty with language I've difficult with people saying you slayed it you killed it you those are violent terms for me and so I don't understand saying somebody tore up a house that's violet I grew up in and my dad was violent so those are at horn terms to me it was abusive and so those those are poor in terms to me and so it's to me it's a I just can't get too excited about it because people don't understand how nervous I am when it's time to preach I get physically ill before a sermon I because I don't want to let God down when I preach and so if I ever think that I let God down it's devastating to me and sometimes it takes me a week to recover and so in like manner if if God is if God has done something that people love and that's God's stuff and I'm just grateful to God that I even got through it because I'm an introvert and I would be very happy to just be in a room someplace just singing you know I don't want to do a little black mother home kind of thing not that I just I just I I come I'm in front of people when I need to be and then I go back and reflect and help people but it's just such a special moment for me it does it it doesn't really pump my ego up I am still amazed I I when I fly back and forth I have window seats because I'm still amazed that God has asked this little black girl from Independence Missouri to stand in front of thousands of people all over the world and say something for God so I set by the window so I can look out and have conversations with God without all that stuff going on airplanes but whenever I get any invitation to me whether it's five people or five million people is astounding to me and that somebody thinks enough of the work God has done through me to say could you come and preach for us is amazing to me after 35 years somebody say you go a lot doc I said when people stop asking then maybe I hope to think about that's a problem but it's it's absolutely astounding that I'm recognized for work that I do that so have a senior chair and I that was not in my plans I was going to be an emphasis and run around and change the world and that that God it's God's work and I I never want to take for granted that God did not have to call me to preach so what what message would you give to young preachers and if you would like I want to divide it into particularly young female preachers and then young male preachers because there are a lot of preachers who I think benefit from your wisdom your experience yet depth your language that's what would you say to young preachers maybe female maybe me the advice I give to all of my preaching students is to do the work to put in a God deliver me from lazy preachers read a book read several books read stuff is not Jesus II read just just just soak up humanity understand people spend some time with people with a variety of people and do the work do not get up on Sunday morning and open your mouth and say God gave me something and you know you've never opened a text don't don't don't do that and do the work well and grind in the work and evaluate the work and honor the work that's what I say to all my students regardless of gender and ethnicity and all those other kinds of labels we put on people I think that we did the people deserve to hear a well-crafted sermon not a lot not lecture kind of thing but a well a living to me a sermon is not mechanical it's organic so people deserve that you that you can show that you honor what you're doing enough to put the work in that's all preachers I tell young women you were called to preach you weren't called as a woman to preach or as a man to preach you were called to preach you do not have to prostitute yourself to preach you are called to say something about God before the people try not to spend all your time with excuses about why something's not done do not copy anybody do not copy anybody you can listen to people we understand that that should listen to people and there may be this or that you like but try not to try do not sit out trying to be Frank Thomas because I think God was creative enough that God created each of us to be our individual with our individual gifts I don't have to be Frank Thomas to be a preacher fall in love with the text even the even a text of Terror there's something even in the genealogies that give us life so Rita preached the entire Bible not just your special text young preachers do not ask anybody do not run around and this is happening this is why I say this and this came to came to my head about came to my attention about seven years ago where younger preachers because they think preachers that are passionate will never die and some of them won't we're running around telling people you need to invite me to preach at your church that they have this whole PR campaign that says bring me bring me bring me bring me bring me and and so I tell them not to do that that pastors use discernment about who to invite to do things that God directs who's supposed to do things so if so if this becomes your business it's not preaching it's it's it's your corporation it's people that cannot spell Bible that have a website that say I'm a preacher irritate me to no end that that if you put in the work God will place you where you need to be you don't have to have a campaign and a PR agency just do your work and people will find you and it always added and preaching doesn't have to always be on a big stage right because in American society if you don't have a big stage or nobody but when you ask me about the people that I respect there are people that may be preaching to to people I have students that preach in a four-point charge with it have less than 30 people in each of those churches they're putting the work in and they're doing what they need to do and people may never know their names but they're doing the work and that's what I try to teach them because our students are coming to seminary and think you know doc when I leave I'm gonna have about 4,000 people wait where you have a hit squad on somebody down the street you don't know what it takes to do to be a pastor and preach because all they see is that 15 to 35 40 minutes but they don't see what it really takes to do the rest of it so I just say wait your turn and it's not because I'm older that I say wait your turn but I think that that there's too much preaching abuse going on with people thinking that preaching is about power and and their presence that God doesn't show up until they come in that God is not present and tit like they don't go to the rest of the service but they just show up and preach and leave that that that preaching is worship it's in the context of worship so be there for everything and so just showing up when it's your you know somebody in here comes Theresa now the last time somebody was announced I think they were on a cult coming into town and they got killed okay I digress I'm not crying so given all the accolades and the tremendous tremendous symbol that you are to so many how do you stay humble in the midst of all of that I my devotional life is I'm I'm on I sing lyric soprano and so I listen to all kinds of music but I also try to understand people and the variety of emotions that people have and I just love I listen I sound strange I just love God and I have when I was 23 I had cancer and it came back when I was 38 and I'm 66 God didn't have to leave me here any of those times and so because God has allowed me to continue to do what I do in spite of what my body says I can't do I just love God doing whatever God is doing and so I think that that this whole song he didn't have to let me live I'm glad to be in the service one more time that's that's me yeah that's what it is I'm just glad to be alive and and as everyone has has the testimony that there are many people in there in their age range that are no longer here or no longer able as long as I can put one foot in front of the other with or without my pops I'm good so with the rigorous demands of the band II chair your leadership and so many space spaces preaching teaching so how do you take care of yourself tell us about your self-care routine I you know they there's this whole thing about laughter that medicine I try to take myself too seriously but I sometimes I was what was called a parental fide child in that I had to raise my younger brothers and sisters because my mother worked two jobs and my dad had his own personal demons and and so I grew up as a childhood was adulthood so every now and then I just go out and do whatever with children I take off sometimes I did a few weeks so just to go visit one of my relatives with no computers no anything I have what is called a f you in K Day a funk day I took my time because people said cuss when I say that word where I do nothing I unplug everything I think that that was modeled by Jesus who when they were upset because Lazarus had died and Jesus took Jesus time to get there I send prayers I always have to be present my prayers will go further than my presence and this was deepened when I took care of my sometimes I have friends will just come by said T we have to go my husband you should just pack a bag and take me someplace so sometimes I just take off and and I can without the gaze of people that want me to do I try to eat right I had a trainer up until I was taking care of my husband as he was dying and I kind of stepped away for a while but I was doing that for a while also I read widely I love to go to movies I love good music concerts things of that nature but something that that releases me from the pressure of being the bandy chair from being the historiography the AME church that relieves me from always counseling and taking care of people and just being Teresa Lynn and talking I have I have a group of people who have known me for years that I can call them at any time at all and if I'm feeling pressure toward a ledge they can we just start laughing about and I think it's the humor of life that keeps me in a place of self-care and I try not to as I said I'm excited because I'm still alive even when there's doom around which is what I was trying to preaching last night it's reminding myself that none of us are in charge of anything so I can be a control freak when I'm doing dandy stuff because I know as a black woman because I'm in this chair everybody's looking I know that at the church because I'm the woman that's the general officer everybody is looking and so I just pull back sometimes and just decide this is not the day I'm doing that this is the day that I'm not doing my hair I'm not doing makeup I'm wearing flats I'm gonna go play now there are some places I play I will never tell anybody about but Las Vegas is in the title and so I just I just do that I hang out with friends and usually friends that are not ministers because it helps me if I'm not around preachers all the time because I think that can kill your spirit being around preachers all the time nothing against preachers but you can die being around preachers because all we talk about is free stuff and I have children that I call my children that that I cook I love to cook I design things and so we I can just be me without all that professional weight and I'm also this is the last thing I'm very careful about who I invited to my house I don't invite negative people into my house and if somebody comes in and they turn negative they don't have another invitation because my home is a sanctuary to be an individual who loves life and wants other people to be comfortable and so that to me is a big relief so I don't I just don't invite that into my space I also listen to a lot of jazz and R&B I have a big listening room in my basement and so sometimes I just go down and scream at the top of my lungs and it's wonderful that's a scholar of homiletics what do what would you hope even PhD students what you what would you hope the next generation of scholars and homiletics would accomplish okay so since I work with with students who are the next generation I say this in the Academy and also the church I think that knowing the foundations but not being controlled by them of homolytically Rhee of rhetorical discourse is important but always build on that find better ways of doing it find new ways of preaching find a more inclusive form of preaching a better delivery of preaching different vehicles for preaching so I if you look across the way you're studying history right now but there's always been some improvement but that but you still see this core from from Christmas off and everyone from the beginning of rhetoric that you always see that's that's the foundation and then all these other kinds of things have built on top of it and so for this next for the next generation not because I'm going off the scene but preserve the voices of the people who came before you understand the theories that were before you but make new theories always make new theories improve on what was there don't throw it away just this is now this is something we do in addition to it that's how I think that scholarship is built not by tearing away what was there before but critiquing it and we're taking it not just to dismantle it but to say oh but you missed this or let's add this into it and then I think that even though we I mean we've lived through the preaching is dead error we've lived through the you only have to do it this time err we've lived through the school of this is we lived through the Mitchell school and the Buttrick school and all those things but also to teach people how to be individually then and and and leave something for the next group so when I talk to my students and they bring in a new theory I'll think oh now that's going to work but it's not my job to determine that it's up to the next generation to determine that I would want anyone to say that my because I started walking it was the first one to write about woman s homiletics doesn't mean I don't want somebody else to do it because they may see something else so it's it's foundational information and then building upon it and bringing always never being afraid of new ideas about how to do this thing called preaching so you talked about your preparation for preaching so how do you prepare for preparation for writing and your inspiration and scholarship in writing I read as much about homiletics as I possibly can contain my library will show you that but I always look for what's not there my dissertation I wrote because I was a single mom at that time in and out in society and sociologists are saying that single black mothers children will wind up on the street are dead so I'm inspired by this is my whole life I'm inspired by what's missing and I'm inspired by what people say can't be done and then I start writing about that mainly about what's missing who's voice is not present and so I'm always right like I said I'm always writing sermons I always have these ideas I have a book that I'll just set sometime and write about I need to do this I need to do this and then pull it back together so the book I'm working on now is wearing your own pumps and it's and it's about the individuality and authenticity of each woman's voice that preaches so so it's it's when I wrote can a sister get a little help it was because I was asked to so sometimes people asked me to write things I was asked to write something about my journey and ministry to help because the publisher was getting inquiries about is there a book from women but I had to do it in my way so it's it's a scenario and then a list of things and so it depends on if it's something that that's generating in me or someone comes and asks me to write something delivering this sermon was because people knew I had a background of speech pathology they wanted me to write that my preparation is again I just sit around and start writing notes and so my articles are just things that I see are not there and I have all these questions about life my grandmother said I've been asking questions and since I was able to talk and I just start trying to answer the questions and then when it's time to write I usually write about 18 hours a day yeah I have to write when I'm writing sermons I can write for about 15 hours a day straight and then I and I forget to I forget to eat I forget to do I just get really intent on what's going on and when I'm writing a book I can do I can do all the preparatory things and lay everything out but when it's time to write I can usually finish it within a month if I just sit down and I let nothing else in my way so I have a room at home that has all my books and everything away from people's gaze and I just write intently and it just flows after that so I'm writing sermons as long as you're not talking to me I can write the sermon and then there are other times for sermons particularly that I just in the moment it comes and then I start writing but if I'm writing a book I just have to do all my preliminary stuff and then just sit down and write from the beginning to the end Wow thank you for that last question so what are your thoughts about this brand new ph.d program in african-american preaching from the time we first started talking about this I thought it was a fabulous idea because I'm very clear that there is both has been both a disrespect and deferential treatment of the genre that is african-american preaching in the Academy there has also been rampant borrowing without any citation of the genre and dare I say a bastardization of black preaching and so when you started talking about this and we had the coming together people that teach preaching three years ago right three years ago I was excited about it because there's so many brilliant minds african-american scholars and pastors and preachers that that my thing is for us to write I always say to preachers and blacks you have to write you the African saying that says until until the lion has a pen the hunter always wins and so this coming together this program means that those that have been hunted are now writing and letting the world know we've been here all along you've ignored us we have interrogated texts and now we're going to put that together we're where we want to leave a memory of a tangible memory of persons who have gone before stylistic ways hermeneutics whatever rhetoric this is who we are and I think it contributes not just to black church studies but to the cultural imperatives of African Americans since 1442 okay and so that's why I'm excited about the program excited about the cohort and all the cohorts to come and it also because they're writing and it will be copyrighted when it's published it may cut down on the borrowing that was very non pejorative thank you so thank you so much for your time this has just been above every expectation that I had and I want to let you know that we appreciate you we love you and you're going to bless many people and may God give you rest and peace and joy for all the things in life that you love to do you are a great mentor friend sister to us all so thank you god bless my brother hey thank you [Music]

Channel: Frank Thomas

Views: 17,934

Rating: 4.8735633 out of 5

Keywords: Teresa Fry Brown, Frank A. Thomas, African American Preaching, Black Preaching, Womanist, Womanist Preaching, Black Women Preaching, Candler School of Theology, Bandy Professor of Preaching, Christian Theological Seminary, PhD in African Ameican Preaching

Id: 5BYRmRaHjo4

Length: 62min 34sec (3754 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 16 2017