Precious JEM Documentary - Part 1

first of all let me say what a wonderful pleasure it is to be sitting here and doing this documentary and having an opportunity to sit with you it is indeed really really humbling and just really really awesome to have this opportunity to sort of capture capture everything in your life and everything that you are and we should mean to the body of Christ so well first of all just thank you well I feel very humbled and I don't know how you're supposed to feel when people want to know your business but I guess I get used to it and try to answer your questions in a proper manner great well then you know part of what I'll open up and say is I started reading your book in and that's one of the wonderful things about you sort of the multi-dimensional things that you put that you present and there are just some things there that I never knew and having known you for some time I just didn't know so I really like to take the opportunity in this documentary to sort of talk about the things that are relevant to your your ministry and sort of shaped the message that you provide so if you could talk about just sort of early on how did you know that you were called to preach and what was your upbringing like with a mom and pop Philip so you know what was one of the early years bring to shape the young Jack work well um I was born in Jamaica West Indies and I was born into a preaching family now they tell me that when my mom went to the hospital to have me prematurely by the way she was preaching and they took her from the pulpit to the hospital and I weighed about two points some pounds I was premature the doctors said I would not live I couldn't suck so they couldn't feed me and in those days which will let you know how they did this is they didn't have intravenous feedings and so my father mother just heard from the doctor she's going to die take her home we don't even want to touch her and they had to count me around on a pillow and I couldn't take anything in my abdomen was the standard I just look like one of those be offering babies my father said it was a very very challenging time for them because my mother got pregnant late in her life about 30-something years old and so they were very happy about having this baby my father was very excited he wanted a boy but he wouldn't give he had a cat because he was we just wanted to have a child and my father took it took me home and he would knock on different doctors doors saying please help my baby and they wouldn't touch me because I was too small and they were afraid that I would die any minute and they told him told him take her oh she's going to die and he took me home my father tells told the story so much you know I can't remember all the details my father took me home placed me on the bed and said Lord if you take her I say yes if you left let her live I say yes and immediately I just my blood my bow was released the distension went away and I started crying with strength and my father went to every store and got all the tonics and whatever they fed me with a spoon and I started to gain weight and I started to take food and I started to take it digest it and I was able to also excrete so my my my system started working and he took me to the doctor and they recommended taking this taking that this is what she'll only live for maybe six years and she may not be in she may not be developed in her brain so please forgive me because you know that's why my head is so small I'm wondering all the time why he had such a small head but anyway it's a premature head and my father you know just really rejoiced because the Lord gave him this child and and you know he just raised me in the home he was a tenth preacher in Jamaica we lived in the ghetto so to speak a place called Jones and he had a tent right in in the area of Jonestown which attracted the inner-city people and he would preach sometimes for hours I remember my father coming home and his shirt would be stuck to his his skin because he was so wet and the boys would throw rocks and stones but he would preach until some of those people got saved and that's how his church started right in the inner city and my mother would you know lead the choir and she was a singer and she would preach with him so I was in a home where I saw a man and a woman preaching it was not just a male image there was also a female image she was very much a part of his ministry you know we're now we're into a couples ministry you know pastor code pastor I've seen it all my life without the title and I would sit in the back of the church as a little girl and play the tambourine was the baby's crib and a handkerchief would be made into a doll so I would put the dog in the tambourine and have my own little you know dollhouse while they were preaching but my father would preach with me in his arms at times the sweat would be coming down and when he said hallelujah I would say hallelujah because he recognized that he was imparting this gift without having that prophetic slant or having that kind of you know insight he just knew automatically that something was happening catechism eclis between his spirit and my spirit without having a definition so to speak it just happened naturally yeah obviously they're they're a really important part of your life your parents yeah they came to okay now my mother and father um were I guess we'd say going together I wasn't there so I don't know but they said they were going together and she was invited to a church a charismatic or Pentecostal Church and she went to the altar and she gave her heart to the Lord after the preaching and the the lady said is there anything you want to give up because you know in in those circles you don't get say till you give up something so she said yes there's a young man in my life and I'm going to give him up tonight because I want God and she just released him she released her whole life it was such a very marked experience for her and when she got home my father was in in the yard screaming and jumping they thought they would have to take him to the madhouse because while she was getting saved he had a visitation he heard the voice of God call him to salvation and he was a chain smoker he threw away the cigarettes and said yes to the Lord and had such a passionate experience and he was screaming and hollering thank you Jesus praise your Lord so he got saved while she was giving him up and that was the beginning short after they got married when they got married they were part of the New Testament church of god which is a large church on the island and immediately the leaders grabbed him and and put him in the grooming class and about two years later he was in ministry now ministry in Jamaica is different from ministry here at least at that time because when you were in ministry they send you away like some churches they send you to remote areas like Africa they sent them to the hills of Jamaica no honorariums no salary we don't even know how to spell that if you if if you ask my mother was an honorarium she would look at you like you'd speak in another language but they were sent to be trained to serve God's people and they were rewarded with the food from the ground so that they would bring the the food of yam and bananas and fruits and vegetables and they would cook the food and take care of them and but they would never get any money no offerings and my father mother stayed in the hills of Jamaica riding a horse for transportation preaching and establishing churches and in a way it was a bit abusive because it took advantage of them because he was so passionate my father was an excited preacher they gave their lives to ministry that's all I know so there were missionaries there and they stayed in that organization unto my father migrated to the United States well you know mom-and-pop Philips that's my uncle and my aunt dad Phillips is my father's youngest brother so I knew I knew them all my years growing up I knew them as as devout church people not just being religious but devout Christians and all their life we have been in ministry and have we had no doubt that Jackie herself you know would have gotten involved in ministry and and I believe that that's where she got it from we knew them as people who would walk from miles on a Sunday to go and preach without only the amenities that preachers have today no hotels no transportation they'll walk two and three miles on foot preach give an offering to the church and then walk two and three miles back home so you know that that kind of commitment to ministry until they you know to invite evangelizing the world you know particularly in Jamaica with your from at that time that's the foundation of Jackie and no doubt you know where she is today is attributed to that you know to that experience with her family when I found out that I was going to live I want to be normal so my father was still protected you know watch out you know you your little sickly and I hate it when they said I was a little sick because I didn't feel sickly and they wanted to protect me of course but I was very energetic I climbed trees I threw rocks I played with lizards I collected caterpillars I was very good at collecting caterpillars because we had it too made a patch and you know caterpillars love Tomatoes and I would put them in the bottle and watch them turn into a butterfly I was very shy but very good in school but I didn't know how to fight so I got beat up almost every other day and I was a wonderer you know I could walk to school but somehow I never walked back in the same direction so I would get lost and my mother would be expecting me home at a certain time and they wouldn't know where I was and then I would cry and somebody would bring me home you know I was a curious energetic child because when you when you when you have the notion that you could have died and then now you can live you had this excitement for life you know you're curious about life so I didn't want to be pampered I didn't want to be overprotected I wanted to just play jacks and and I played with thunder boats and and and what do you call them and thunder boats fireworks and we did it very dangerously because we put it on their can and how they blow up the can and scare people because I had a mischievous side to me I was not rude I was very mentally but I was a prankster I would hide the shoes I would hide my sister stuff I would lock her in a certain room but then she'd beat me up yeah but I was I was more of a prankster than a fighter because I I love to laugh and I got whipped in Sunday school for giggling I was a Gibler i giggle about everything I remember I went to a church in in my neighborhood and the pastor's name was past the bend and they had a very large Sunday school and I went to class and I started giggling and couldn't stop and the pastor called me out and asked me why am i giggling and I couldn't even stop to tell him so they gave me one last year and one last year you know for disrupting the whole Sunday school from giggling I used to get whipped in school for giggling because one day I saw a naked man and I came back to class and was telling my girlfriend's as we all giggle and so they asked me why you giggling tried to tell the whole school classroom that I saw naked man oh god it was just just terrible I got whipped for seeing a naked man anyway it was a giggling situation I was a happy child I wasn't I loved life and I got a lot of love from my father and my mother those formative years lot of you know protection you you know sitting in my father's lap playing and it's his hair you know laughing and whatever I think he only with me one time and he repented but my mother whipped me every other day because I was so mischievous one incident and then I want to you know probably go on to where you want to treat me what incident is there was a loose wire hanging over the shower that they had to fix and I was a climber you know I love to climb because you couldn't tell me I couldn't do what other kids were doing that's what's in my mind so I climbed up on the shower pole and and my hands were wet and I caught the wire and got electrocuted and the only thing I could do was speak in my own tongues because you know you when you're raised in church you have everybody's tongues so I started speaking in my own tongues and calling for Jesus you know our Father was shot in the middle brother was with wallet and my mother heard this crazy noise and of course they gave me some kind of Pole here I'm buck naked you know being electrocuted only me and they gave me a pole I was able to neutralize and I came back came out of it and I thank God I didn't you know getting damaged my brain of my heart but those the kinds of things I got into because I was a playful child I was not lacking I didn't have all the toys and gadgets but I had at play I had time to play jump rope and play jacks and marbles I love to play marbles I've even played marbles oh that's really my father you know was like the neighborhood compassionate preacher he didn't get a lot of money you know like the other preachers but he was a very handsome charming man so he was strike up a conversation with anybody and engaged them he was very engaging so he was coming you know home and stopped the bus stopped and saw this Caucasian lady and she was a missionary she had come to Jamaica to do missionary work but the people were not treating her right they were not feeding her and they were not you know they were not honorable people and she was hungry and my father stopped and he had a bag of oranges he gave her the oranges and he gave her a small amount of money that's all he had probably less than fifty cents and she cried she says brother Phillips you're the only one who has ever been this kind to me I'm going to go to America I'm from California I want to write to an invitation letter I want you to come to America to preach and he laughed because immigration was a so strict you know it's not easy to get out of the country and he thought maybe she was just being kind two years later he received the letter and miraculously he went to the immigration now when you were trying to come from Jamaica to America you must have a certain amount of money in the bank your papers have to be signed by everybody in the world it's so so many so much red tape God took him through all of it provided the money and he came to the United States in the 60s during the civil rights movement the the beginning of the civil rights movement and so he got on the bus he he met some people and he thought he was going to California he ended up in the south I don't know all the details and he would put his finger on a telephone in the telephone book and and put his finger on a church and he would say I'm going to this church today and he would walk in he says my name is brother Philips I'm from Jamaica and I'm a preacher and I have a word from the Lord because he's that kind of person and then he would preach and they would keep him for weeks and then he would go to another time the only thing is they wouldn't give him his money they would give them a little bit of money and that money was to be sent back to Jamaica to take care of us so and he would go to another place and then he would go to another place and then he thought he was going to California and he ended up in New York I remember the story about going on the bus in the south and they told him to sit in the back of the bus and he told him I don't I don't understand that and I'm sitting right here next to the driver and they left him alone because there was something so insane about my father that you don't challenge him you don't saying and so you went you navigated through that came to New York walking up and down the streets of Harlem and he stopped at a hundred and thirty second Street in Lenox Avenue the greatest Saint John Pentecostal church and you walked in and he said the same thing my name is brother Phillips I'm from New York from Jamaica I'm a preacher and I'd like to meet the pastor and her name was the Bishop Leonora Smith a female black bishop in Harlem and he never liked women preachers because many of them were very masculine and he was a very Jamaican man in Jamaican man dude most men don't like masculine women from that culture but she was a very intelligent feminine soft-spoken woman with a command of the word and a flow in the spirit and he fell in love with him immediately she said brother Phillips you have to preach and boy is he a fiery preacher powerful preacher for two hours of course but a great preacher and the people loved him she said brother Phillips we must get your wife and family and they sponsored us and here I come with a straw hat and five ribbons on klm to JFK and that was the story of coming to America oh I was scared to death first of all I've never been on the plane I was 11 years old and I didn't know where I was going and I cried because I had several friends a young lady by Audrey mu young my best friend how could I leave Audrey how could I leave my friends am I going someplace where I can climb trees how could I where am I going and they tell me they have winter and snow scared to death and we lived in Harlem for one year I cried for one year and got beat up most of the time because my accent was that thick you ought to be glad you're talking to me now because if you were talking to me then you and wondered what what are you saying and the teachers even said to me what are you saying my accent was very thick but I eated it they were cruel to me I was lonely my mother used to do baby nursing so she would go away for what six to eight weeks my father worked from 9 to 5 so I would run to school run home and lock the door in Harlem because it you know I in Harlem they tell you they'll kill you they'll they'll shoot you so I went running and locked the door and we lived there for one year but then I got saved at 13 at the st. John's Church and now I had a family and now I could assimilate now I could connect and now I could be a part of a new world thank God for the church I don't think I would have made it if I didn't have that connection oh my god the church was filled with lots of young people and she was a very charismatic speaker and she was not only the pastor of that church but she was also the bishop of an organization in the late 60s she was head of the Mount Pisgah organization along with a consortium of female bishops in the Harlem area which I think somebody ought to do some kind of research on that powerful women that shaped Harlem religiously and the choir was one of the main attraction maybe about 60 member choir wonderful musicians and prayer fasting being filled with the Holy Spirit and sunday-school the main feature for me in that setting learning the books of the Bible learning the the basics it was like a boot camp for me that's where I got my boot camp how to sit around the altar and wait on the Lord how to fast well you know they faster their detriment because they fasted in those days and you couldn't even drink water I remember I think tit and my bishop told me pick her up and don't give her anything to eat because they're storms coming in her life and she's gonna have to learn how to get up so that's the kind of stuff that I was raised under then we had youth leaders who took an interest in the young people and then the young people had a bond we didn't have cars we didn't have a lot of money so we were able to bond with each other we didn't go to fancy restaurant we went upstairs to the kitchen and had sweet potato pie and collard greens but we ate out of each other's plate many of the young people were rejected by their drug addict and alcoholic parents so the Saints took them in so the church raised a lot of the young people so the church became a community and that's where I learned friendship and commitment and loyalty when one back slid we went and found them when one got sick we took care of them it was a wonderful era we would have choir rehearsal then we would have all-night prayer we learned how to lay hands on the sick at an early age we knew how to cast out demons in an early age we learned how to stand before people and speak the word they call it Junior missionary so I started from Sunday school and to teach every class then I went from Sunday school to the choir to the Usher board to clean in the bathroom to vacuum in the church the junior missionary and at that point they would have you stand up and talk to the audience about the Lord here's a positive scripture speak on it of course they didn't have the theological understanding or the books that we have today but they gave us a good grounded relationship with God and the church and each other you know that's that's kind of missing we grew up in an era where church was our was our life because we weren't going to church because we wanted to preach wanted to be great we were just going to church because we just had fun you know we stayed there all day there was no such thing as getting out of church early like we do today first service second service it's a whole service all day long sometimes the morning service running - the night service so because we had that connection to the church the church was the hub of our life you know it was the center we did our homework in the church we brought our problems to our youth leaders we got our counseling in the church we got our arm nurturing in the church so we weren't thinking about church as a stepping stone to ministry we need to know what that was we just know that we work in and we serving and there was no such thing as no I don't oh sure no you wanna sure there's no such thing is no you know they're going to quiet I sounded like a chicken but I was on the choir while I was on the choir because I could pray so I was a chaplain so they always hit me behind somebody who could sing because they knew that you know the key was gonna be off but we just worked we served we loved we worked we served we loved we worked we serve we loved and then Bishop Smith used to pray for the young people like every fifth Sunday or fourth Sunday she would call all of us and just randomly say I want to lay hands on everybody so all of us got scared because this was a very spiritual woman very very discerning woman so you don't stay in her presence long because you feel like she's reading you like you when you walk through the checkpoint at the airport and they now they have the x-ray thing where they can see all of you that's the way you felt when you were in her presence and this morning I'm pushing everybody online you get online I'm scared I felt something you know I couldn't understand but I said no I just don't want to be the first I don't want even be the last so I'm helping everybody I'm assuring and I was the last one online and she anointed me with oil and when they anointed you in those days they didn't tap you they pour you know oil coming all in your nose in your mouth running down your neck you know it's all over you and she grabbed me and and she said to me you are called to be a preacher to the world I was only 16 and you will be based in New York and you cannot even imagine how far-reaching your ministry will be well listen at 16 years old what do you do with that you know I don't understand all I know is I felt like something ran through my whole body as if to say this is serious your life is not going to be the same and my mother was sitting you know in one of the pews and I ran to my mother and wept my spirit wept my you know just to think about it now I just feel it my my whole heart my whole heart emptied out and I just started weeping in tongues and my mother just kept holding me and praying for me I knew that at that moment something happened don't know what it is but something happened to me and and the rest is history I kept growing in the church but it was not for me to get up and get a big Bible an attache case and the robe and start running no like David went back to taking care of the sheet and 17 years later he was King so I went back to just doing what I was supposed to do and going to school and learning and having my good days and my bad days and becoming a teenager in the church not even registering or tracking what this thing is because you can't track it if you know what I mean I met dr. Kyle before she had new titles in front of her name or behind her name she I was around 15 16 that was about 19 when I came to st. John Pentecostal church where she and her family members my father was a ruling elder and I believe at that time alone I have just been a mother in church she might have just been an advantage I was too young to care I met her my husband elbow he was my husband at the time but he was the choir director and we were known throughout the country excellent client and my stories are kind of funny because it comes from a child's perspective a young person's perspective Jackie used to sing she had a vibrato really fast vibrato and her voice and we used to call her Tweety Bird and someone one time we were saying something the essence of panels to sing loud and you could hear this really high-pitched vibrato it sound just like Tweety Bird and someone yelled up I get that Tweety out that bird and quiet just broke up into hysterics we used to have a lot of fun but then as we grew and we were really foolish about full of folly and fun she became a lot more serious and she began to settle down the place where the rest of us weren't and she began to get more in the word and we continued to play and you know just be young people but she was different and then she went to school when she became a nurse and you know me personally I watched her grow up saying wow she's only a few years older than me I said Wow I saw the change really early and the most significant thing that happened in my life was we were fasting we will ever find a fast and shudder and at the time Jackie was working as a nurse and pediatric department of Harlem Hospital and she walked down the hot street to the church while we were in noonday prayer on a lunch hour to come and get in on the prayer and she passed out because she was hungry thirsty and she had exerted so much energy walking and working with no food and I remember our Bishop said stand her up and one of the elders said well Ken let's give us a voice said don't give her anything she's got a call special call in her life and I said Wow I mean I never saw that that was just Jackie I didn't see the call but it's been about 40 years I see the call now that was special to be okay much better that was the stuff relationship that I knew and she has never you all right dr. McCulloh thank you again I'd love for us to talk about and we've already talked about sort of your call to ministry what you regard and talk often about your wilderness years how did that begin and sort of tell me about that time period and what you were thinking and what life was like well I grew up in the church and went to college became a nurse and just before graduation I got Restless I loved the church and I love the word I was always a student of the word and but I got Restless I I wanted to get married you know settle down and then do minute um so I I was in you know quasi rebellion if there's such a thing I wanted the church I love the church but now I wanted in life and when I looked around in the church in that season and error that we grew up there were many women who were in the church but their husbands left them because they wanted God we call them grass widows and always said I don't want to be a grass widow I would like to have a family and so of course I went outside of the church and I married a young man that was not saved and I rebelled my father was very very angry with me I was the apple of his eye he was one of the elders so I brought shame and embarrassment to him and he you know he went to the elders board and they silenced me and for one year I sat in the back of the church because when they silence during those days in that particular denomination you could not have any conversation with the members you could not sit with the regular people you were thoroughly isolated but I never missed a Sunday and I went to church it was during that time that I got pregnant and I lost the baby at birth so the marriage fell apart the baby died I am silence but I stayed in church until the one year was up and they lived to the silence angle and then they promoted me as one of the youth leaders it was that particular time that ministry started to become real to me you know when you when you go through you know living the unsaved person you you have to live with their father in law my father in law it was a devil you know he's not saying so my father Louis was a devil and so when you go through that kind of situation you're very happy to get back in church all of a sudden you want to be saved all of a sudden you hear God so clearly and now I'm ready to embrace the ministry if I got anything out of that is it prepared me to give God a total yes where before I was giving him a compromising yes so tell me what did you learn from that experience when I got married I was a virgin I was the chaplain I was a young prophetess I was epitome of holiness in among my peers so I was proud and self-righteous so that experience showed me my heart you know living with an unsaved man you find out that there are things about you or there were things about me and let me be personal that we're not godly that I'm not all that righteous that I need mercy I need forgiveness but I need God's health which really prepared me for ministry see if I had emerged out of that little cocoon right into ministry I would have been very harsh you know self-righteous condescending but that that process humbled me truly humbled me because I saw my flesh I don't even want to go into the fleshly you know escapades that I that I you know experience I saw that I had a lot of anger I saw that I had cursing in me fighting in me just a whole lot of stuff that can be masked while you're rocking and the quiet with a little dolly on your head believing that you have a halo but out of that I realized I am a sinner saved by grace I need forgiveness I need mercy I need love I need compassion so I came out of that with all of those realities in my spirit which made me approach God and His people differently I heard people's pain clearly I saw people's downfall easily and I extended mercy readily so what was the what was the transition from from from that what what do you really think sort of took you from the wilderness experience into the next phase in your life um the wilderness experience continued differently I was still nursing at Harlem Hospital I had gone to Columbia and gotten my nurse practitioner shape and I specialize in pediatric rehab medicine and and I loved Harlem I love the people I love my mentors I love the children it was a wonderful experience but I've always wanted to be a doctor from a child that was my childhood desire and I thought that nursing would be the springboard into that field so I started going to City College and I started taking pre-med courses while I was working now the marriage blew up baby died so I moved back to Brooklyn to live with my parents so I'm working going to school preparing for my ideal ambition and I went to prayer one day at one of my youth leaders home evangelist Shirley Watson who was very very influential in my life as a mentor and I would go there during my lunch break and pray special Brown chair the famous Brown chair and I knelt that day and we were lab coats and night uniforms and I started to pray and the Lord just swept over my spirit and I just started worshiping just one of those worshiping moments where you're not asking for anything you're not begging for anything you're just giving him glory and loving him and it was at that point that the Lord spoke into my spirit and I spoke it out take off your lab coat I've called you into full-time ministry what I try to put myself out of it right away just between this the tears and the snot and the hallelujah I'm trying to interrupt it so you understand a struggle but the overpowering presence of God is almost like being enveloped you know is that as marked as a Paul or a Martin Luther but it's that marked you know encounter visitation and I cried all the way back I shared it with her and I cried I said Lord what are you saying I believe you know I can be a doctor and still be saved what is a problem he said I've called you into full-time ministry and I want you to move into it quickly so it took a couple of months for me to make the plan in transition how I went back home to Brooklyn I couldn't tell my parents because you're proud you know you're a nurse you're going to be a doctor but I made the transition and that ended up in Brooklyn I left my former Church in Harlem because Bishop Smith died and it was time for me to move on and I went back home and my father said well we are going to go to church I said I need to wait so I could find the right church so I started going out with a missionary group to hospitals Goldwater Hospital I preached one of my first sermon at sing-sing prison I was so nervous you know I was a size 7 don't ask me what happened but I was a size 7 had on his little black skirt white blouse and little stuff sticking on top of my head and I preached my first sermon in my first prison sermon in sing-sing and hardened criminals you know male audience and understand it if I if I tell you what I said I'll be lying but I know the Lord moved because many of them came to the altar because many of them had been in church and so I started doing prison and street ministry I went to 42nd Street and 8th Avenue and I would give out tracts on Saturdays and one of the young men got saved fell at my feet he was a drunk and I'd read him the scripture and he got sober and got safe immediately I took him I had not left st. John at that time but I took him to the church they baptized him I put him in the white took care of him until he got on his feet and went on so my the beginning of ministry was not behind the pulpit or it was not you know riding in a limousine to a conference it was really grassroot ministries so I mean you know I went home and my father said you know he had a church a little mission church with my godfather and I didn't want to go there you know because I didn't want to go to a strictly Jamaican Church not that I hated Jamaicans but I didn't want to go there I didn't feel like that's where the Lord was leading me but he said to me come and preach at one of our missionary services and I said ok and my godsister that I hadn't seen in years she also came because it was just opening this mission church and she came with her brother and the Lord said to me before they leave today they're going to be saved and I said I don't I don't think so you know they're backslidden and you know they're college kids and they're they're not looking for God the Lord said be quiet and preach from st. John 4 and ask the question are you thirsty and when I got up to preach they got up to walk out and my mother's best friend such a saving nurse she was a very very well-built woman and she had a very strong voice and rougarou yeah and when they got up to leave she went walked to the door and stretched out both of her arms as if to say move and I'll roll you over and they hung their head sheepishly and walked away I would have done the same thing if you saw that scene and they sat down the Lord so that told you they're not going anywhere and I preached and they re dedicated their lives to the Lord and they said to me we've been in church we don't want Church we want the word we want ministry will you come to my house and minister to us I have quite a few friends were seeking their college students they they they're in the Black Power movement whatever but they're looking for God when I got to her house that Monday night there were about 25 young people and consequently I gave up my Saturday for one year ministering to those young people I taught them we had fellowship just like Acts we went to the house we broke bread we prayed we went over the word I took them to Pine Crest and baptized them in the lake they got through it the Holy Ghost I took them to the street corners and taught them Street ministry I taught them how to fast I taught them how to pray and then I knew I couldn't do anything else with them so we sought a church home my father was a friend of Bishop McKinley he was more of a father image to Bishop McKinley McKinley was a young man coming up in ministry just really you know a very prolific preacher and he had a church in Brooklyn and my father said I know the church that would you would fit in go to his church so I followed my father's instruction and I went to research a beautiful church on classic Avenue very well decorated Bishop McKinley was a very meticulous man when it comes to the core of the church the the beauty of the church and the order of the church he had a reformed background theologically and a Pentecostal experiences urge Willie so we had the best of both worlds the reformed theology and the Pentecostal experience which meant that we we learnt the Creed's and and and the special liturgical forms of the church and yet we were able to experience the gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues laying on of hands and all of that so it was a it was a marriage of both which fascinated me that when I first went and heard the Creed the Nicene Creed the Apostles Creed and the litany I thought I was in the Catholic Church so when they started the nice increase I would run out the door and then when he started preaching I would run back until he did a whole teaching on early church history and then I understood didn't have a job left my job and in full-time ministry but what does that mean so Bishop McKinley interviewed my godsister and I and I became the minister of evangelism and she became his administrator I was getting $125 a week from nursing having my own car having a nurse practitioner salary to 125 dollars a week and that was my willingness experience to another level and it was very interesting to say the least so would you consider Elam a training ground and if so what well it's definitely saying John gave me my bootcamp experience the the the practical foundational things you know salvation being filled with the Holy Spirit prayer fasting witnessing Ling on of hands healing all of that but Elam now would take me to another level in terms of knowing my faith understanding my faith learning the principles of Christianity learning the basics such as justification sanctification being through the Holy Spirit communion the different kinds of administration of communion what the church church history the early church fathers church documents um the right kind of books to use how to use a commentary how to use a Bible Dictionary the biblical languages Hebrew and Greek I went to general and took a year in Greek so he encouraged that kind of approach to to biblical studies and his he constantly talked constantly you know we were always in a teaching situation he was always in a teaching mode he would teach a year on first Corinthians 13 he would teach on the parables he will he was an Old Testament scholar so he was able to connect the Old Testament to the new typology just you know even as ecology if it was just a magnificent experience when it comes to information about your faith what you really believe which also prepared us for apologetics how to defend the faith and what are the other belief systems out there and where do we stand on the issues of our times it was it was wonderful personally how much of yourself do you see in what he gave you or vice versa how much of him do you see in you as you busy preach down I was very very affected by him I was not a clone but I was so impressed with his commitment to the exegesis of the text I was so you know thoroughly affected by how he took the Word of God and broke it down so that it changed my life it gave me a love and a desire to dig in the Word of God not to skim over the truth it was just anyone who sat on his ministry know that it was not an ordinary experience his his his messages are just so confound and powerful my job was to visit all the members who had left my job was to do Street meeting my job was to have a food bank because we had a lot of people who were using in substance abuse a lot of them in that part and we became the place where they came to get food and to get ministry so evangelism was outreach and in reach every morning Monday morning on his desk I had to list all the members who were absent and why and then I had to tell him how would I minister to the needs these people when they were sick whether they were angry frustrated how was I'm going to get them back in the church that was my assignment for 125 and it better be done right um and Easter Sunday morning we had 250 members miraculously and the church took off it was it was in that setting though that I was doing the all-night prayer I prepared for the the shutting that was always a shutting at the end of every month before first Sunday and that was to prepare our hearts for the beginning of the next month and I was responsible for all of those spiritual kind of activities and many many times I got discouraged because I said to the Lord why am I here you know you called me to preach why am I here now he led me to preach every now and then but I didn't want to travel traveling was not a part of my desire I wanted to stay in the church and minister and whatever but they laid me off because they couldn't afford it before the church grew that was struggling really struggling so I was sister job for a while and then I got angry at the Lord because I felt like you interrupted my life I can't get a job they said that I'm lazy and that I'm delusional because nobody comes off their well-paying job and-and-and-and saying that the Lord called oh listen I went through the gamut of either being delusional or or as they called Jesus Beelzebub I had all kinds of names you know that and then I went back to nursing and work at a nursing registry just to say to myself you're not lazy you're not worthless and you're not losing your mind but one morning you know the Lord spoke to me and said get up Am I I am the man that I should lie numbers 23 and 19 get up and go to at that time it was pastor Roy brown he's now Archbishop Rory Brown go to his church and just sit now I was so confused and I sat down in the back of the church and he saw me and he said that usher come up now and preach I had no change of clothes I was not prepared I didn't have a sermon written out but I did have a sermon in my heart it's called the captain of the army of the rejects David's four hundred men discontented disillusioned whatever and I preached in his role and that morning the Lord ministered through me in that message and from that moment on the Lord opened the door for me to travel and I have not stopped I still worked at the church I was always faithful as soon as I got off the plane I went right back to my church I started working for the church full-time when they moved from across the street to the other Cathedral that the bishop bought but I never missed my church I never stopped paying tithes and offering I never did anything to compromise my service at Elam and I stayed there for over 20 years tell me about the daughters of rispa and why why was that started and so what was the purpose and what did you hear and what really led to that being created as I started traveling people started asking for tapes and but it was purely legal it was a legal issue if you're going to travel outside you must have a ministry and a ministry name because now you're self-employed so I needed to have a boss so I had to have the name of the ministry to cover my extra church activities so I could be in compliance with the IRS strictly academic strictly you know a legal issue a technical issue rather so I named it the daughters were rizpah because my ministry started initially doing women's seminar and women's workshops and rispa fascinated me how this woman lost so much and did so much with her losses and so I used that you know to to launch the ministry just to to cover myself as a ministry to say that I have a place that supports me financially and then to cover the tape ministry so that was purely what it was it was covered by Bishop McKinley he was on my board the church knew about my activity so it was not like doing something separate and apart from which is when I'm really really very careful about I had a staff we had an office in in in Park Slope and it took care of all of my travels and even my evangelistic outreach my medical mission in Jamaica and that's how it emerged strictly to be to say that I have you know I'm self-employed and the name of my my employer that's employing me it's sort of a rispa but it turned out to be a real active Ministry of growing ministry to cover my traveling my travelling assignments tell me a bit about how it evolved it evolved in my living room I lived in Brooklyn it evolved in my living room with my cousin Ingrid being my first employee and a secondhand duplicating machine little small duplicating machine and a few cassette tapes and that's how it started in my living room and then of course it evolved and we secured an office space that was probably you know a very small room at three by five and then it evolved to taking over two floors in that same office building and mainly operated by volunteers people came and volunteered their time and we were able to duplicate tapes we were able to travel all over to minister preach teach and but these people also have their own churches no one could be a part of the ministry unless they were a member of a church and they paid tithes and offering so I didn't pull anybody out of their churches when they came to work it was not at the expense of their activities in their own churches and that's why those pastors and I are friends today but it grew and expanded and them it took me from one end of the world to the other on television took me to television to radio to writing books so anything that's outside of a church that's ministry covered it and sponsored it and and supported it and supported a lot of people we had a strong Phillip scholarship fund we had a Heritage Award program that gave awards annually for a couple of years to outstanding people in the community from all area of life teachers educators entertainers community workers we also sponsored a lot of children through college many of them have graduated because of the Philip Scholarship Fund took us to Jamaica where we did a medical mission and establish a library in Trenchtown one of the most violent areas in Jamaica so daughters Arista has really you know catapulted me in into into um traveling and ministering outside of my regular duties at the local church rispa was a we knew it to be a publishing company or our company that actually would house her media ministry our tapes minister imitate ministries or books and different things like that basically the base of that would do her travel and initially after I did the stamps and the envelopes I eventually graduated to doing her scheduling and a booking working for past McCullough was very exciting because there was always something new to learn there was always something new to see being in one church you know I didn't I wasn't a person who was in a lot of different churches my church had other churches underneath it but I really didn't go far and so coming to daughters of risk I got a chance to get to know a lot of other pastors and a lot of other churches and how they did things especially doing her bookings and so I was so excited to do that get to know the pastor's get to know those who work with them how the church is function and that was interesting then also on the inside of that there was a group of us you know a motley crew everybody was different you know and getting to know each other they all came from different churches and had different spiritual experiences and we became a very close family so from that would you describe from that would you describe bibley on how you launched bibley on and and and and and how did how did it hit emerge out of your activities well there was a young man working for me his name was Dylan and he used to drive us around do all the driving and one day he said to me just talking casually I think you want to open a bookstore pass my car and I laughed at him because you know when the Lord throws these things at me and I feel like I'm already overworked I laugh like Sarah you know I'm Sarah's cousin so I laughed and he said no I'm serious I see you opening up a bookstore you love books and the bookstore could be a place where people come to learn you could have a children's program bah bah blah and the Lord opened up the door miraculously for me to have a bookstore in Park Slope Lena Park Slope is a very very yuppie kind of neighborhood and we decorated that place it was sweetly decorated creatively decorated and we set up all kinds of activities book signing many famous people came through Bishop James you know al Sharpton mrs. Jordan Michael Jordan's mother anyone who had something to do with the community changing the lives of people we had and we taught people how to cook we had we had all kinds of activities for children we had an after-school program we had a Christmas program it was just a marvelous place we had a Reading area with computer where people could come in if they didn't have a library at home it was a miniature on the same concept as um Barnes and Nobles except we didn't make Barnes and Nobles money but it had the same the same kind of Khan and we had Bible study I would fly in every Monday night and have Bible study and many of the members of my church today came out of those Bible study nights we used to have a hundred people teaching different subjects on Monday nights and so bibley on was really the brainchild for Mithra while we were at bibley on one course turned into another course turned into another course turned into another course we learned prayer spiritual gifts sanctification the blood covenant the mantle there was a course called mantle which taught about doctrine and the theoretical and practical use of rituals in a church like baptism and communion and laying on of hands and so the experience was rich it's it's it's beyond anything I can really explain because it was growing me spiritually Wow Biblio is certainly the springboard to Beth Rafa bibley on it seemed that as you sat under the tutelage of dr. McCulloh and as she imparted her spirit in her in you you know she was imparting to you you became so attached to the things of God that you knew that you would need someone to lead you and guide you into truth directing your spiritual growth and she had to become a pastor and she taught this course mantle one and mantle two when she taught us she was teaching us like we were ministers or becoming ministers she always taught us how to use the word practically and apply it in our lives and to other people and so she taught mantle 1 and mantle 2 and she taught us how to go to hospitals how to do hospital visits how to visit the sick how to give communion all those things you could tell that God was going somewhere with this I came to work for bibley on basically was like an offshoot of daughter service but the Lord had put on past McCullough's heart to to have a bookstore and we really had no idea that it would open up the way it did it had so many facets in so many arms we had a children's ministry there and after school program we had a reference center there we had a training for ministers we have a place where they could come and study the word and and get get information it started out when when she first believed the Lord had told her to do so and and when she when she stepped out to do it it's just like the doors just opened up it was a wonderful place and a wonderful uh you know just built you know we took we took one of the source stores in the area and and and made the whole thing new on the inside it was just beautiful and we had a dedication service and it was just so interesting on the day that the Lord had told her to open up the bookstore she had an outdoor dedication service and that day it was pouring down rain and it just looked like it just wasn't going to happen and that exact time that she was supposed to have the opening everybody was in place you know she we talked about it do you think we should cancel no let's just go ahead and do it everybody had umbrellas and immediately when it was time to dedicate the bookstore the Sun came out and stayed out for the rest of the day and I thought that was a sign that the Lord was saying that this is what we're supposed to do so it was just exciting we met a lot of people and the people came to the bookstore daily it was their daily spot we had a lot of customers there were regular customers it became like a family place really exciting things is to sort of see the extensions of your ministry from bibley on to Don's rizpah - Beth Rafa before a moment can we talk about worried alive and how that got started in alright I was on vacation it must have been 1995 or four or five I'm not very good at remembering dates and a friend of mine Maurice Powell who is also Jamaican he's always telling me about these things I should be doing in ministry and he said to me why don't you just take one of your tapes and put it on the local Christian station and play just send your cassettes down and play it you know and and so we started we played it and played it for about maybe six months and we received so many letters I mean piles and piles of letters and the letters broke my heart because stories such as I have five children and only one pair of shoes and each person has to have a chance to wear the shoes I mean the stories is when you know on more horrific because it talked about the poverty it talked about the lack of education it talked about the oppression all of the spiritual problems economic problems and I said my god you know we can't just receive letters and pray over them and not be a part of the change let's find out what we can do and the Lord said you can't do anything by yourself you need to organize and get people to do something very specific and I said to the Lord what is it he said medical mission use medicine as a means of evangelism that's what I don't know what to do I'm I'm an ex-nurse I'm not practicing but how can I do that he said find a ministry that's doing it and asked them to train you at that time polarized ministry was very very active in outreach you know hundreds of outreach ministries and there was a young lady by the name of Joyce who had seen no no it's a bet no no it's fine it's nice in youth so you can start yes Paul in my I call qualified ministries because she has many outreach arms and there was a young lady by name of Joyce who organized medical missions to South America into Africa and she released her to train us to work it out plan it out and tell us how to do it we went to Jamaica I think it's 1997 and we did our first medical mission and crusade which was too ambitious we had several people with us we had Vikki Winans I owned a lock which of Hilliard Bishop Caesar and maybe about 300 people but I tried to do too much the medical mission and crusade almost killed me but as we did it in the succeeding years we were able to to customize it just do the medical mission and built it in the mission have a spiritual component a prayer group ministry at the end where you have a service maybe two nights out of the week and bring it down to that level and I'm telling you it we have seen probably over 30,000 people and we've given away over a million dollars worth of medicine and and medical equipment and deposited greatly in Jamaica it was not until the fifth trip I was import more and I saw hundreds of people lined up five o'clock in the morning waiting to see a dentist a foot doctor a gynecologist we have saved many lives people from heart attacks and strokes with even a couple of doctors even sponsored a young child to come to America and had special surgery I just can't tell you what a marvelous work it has done and what it created was doctors and nurses who were not preachers and teachers saw their profession as ministers so it gave them a sense of purpose so to top it off I looked up one day and I saw all the people and tears came down and said what is it the Lord said you thought when you gave up medicine that I was stripping you of your love now I have made you able to bring medical staff you would not have been able to do this if you have your shingles up in some suburbia you know seeing a few people per week but now you have extended medical services far beyond your imagination so when you gave it to me I gave it back to you on a greater level I'm telling you it can't be Godsey dr. McCulloh brings the gift of being a cold one in ministry that has a perspective of how to use what the natural world thinks is its greatest tool medicine but put it into appropriate perspective so that we use it not only to meet man's greatest ability but use it as an entree for the Word of God just the wisdom of how to do that when to do that why to do that allows word of life to be a very unique organization in ministry in building the kingdom of God I came to know Word Alive at a very pivotal time in my life I just become a widow my husband had passed away that August and Word Alive was birth in October and I was invited to join River McCullough a sister and a friend knew what I was going through and felt that my gifts in the area of evangelism and ministry would be able to help me to deal with what I was dealing with and yet be a help to the ministry so I was able to go and we were able to minister to thousands of people and bring change and healing I led the evangelistic team after they went through triage they would come to us have a chance to accept the Lord Jesus Christ and it just had a profound impact on my life and believe it or not even though you must go through grieving and the process of grieving I was able to just throw myself into ministry and it really helped that transition for in my life the first mission I went on we stayed at a lovely facility when we got up about 5:00 in the morning when we arrived at the site there were people that had been lined up for hours hundreds of people and when I looked at them I actually believed that I felt something what Jesus may have felt when he looked over Jerusalem and felt compassion my heart just broke for them some of them have never been to a doctor would never be able to go had we not shown up and it just everything in my life was different when I came home I am comfortable I'm not rich but I'm comfortable and I would look at my plate and see those I would see their faces I would get in my air-conditioned car and I would think of them walking barefoot in the grass just to get to see a doctor it just had a profound not only did it make me appreciate more but it gave me such a love and compassion for all mankind well I hope I was able to do about six missions in the years following and my prayer is that it will go around the world because Reverend McCullough has a unique ministry others are doing this but there's a uniqueness about a doctor McCullar that an anointing that rests on her for what she does and those that will follow her without a hidden agenda see that's the key you go to serve so can we go back for a bit and talk about the years that you were evangelizing if you can sort of think back to some of the special moments and messages that you preached and sort of take us into what you were thinking and in some of the classic messages that that you delivered just tell us a little bit about you know a few of those and and and and and where they were birth and what what they came and came out of okay um let me just say the first message I preached was going back now the Saint John it was called my trial sermon and my former bishop Bishop Smith was alive then and I preached from Saint Luke the twelfth chapter consider the lilies how they toil not and Solomon in all his glory is not arrayed like one of these and then he went on to say seek ye first the kingdom of heaven or well Luke says seek seek the kingdom of heaven matthew says seek ye first and that was the most powerful moment because i had to preach in front of my peers coming right out of a year of being silenced so it was a very very different moment for me but getting back to that question one of my first preaching assignment right after pastor Roy brown my bishop now started sending me out to appointments that he could not fulfill and I went to Bishop Avenue the language of Avenue in Grand Rapids Michigan the Bethel Church and I preached there and my message was there is healing in the water it was in Ezekiel where Ezekiel had the vision about the water coming up from his ankle to his needs and all the way up so I talked about the Word of God bringing healing and how it saturates the whole human body I don't think my exegesis was correct but that was one of my first messages and then from that Bishop Anthony's Church opened me up to most of the PA W the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World Church one of my friends my friend now still is my friend Bishop Horace Smith that was the next appointment that I went to his church and it just started connecting the phone that's upstairs could you hear that I heard yeah from Bishop Abney I was invited to Bishop Horace made to his women's seminar or women's convention and it just the door started opening and the interesting thing is it started opening now in other denominations when it was not popular for a Pentecostal woman to preach in for example the AME Church the Baptist Church I've even been the first woman to preach in the Episcopal Church after a hundred and something years in Brooklyn st. mary's episcopal church I was the first woman to preach there in that church the Lord started moving me into areas that was not it was not usual for women or for someone in a Pentecostal church or with a Pentecostal persuasion to preach in these different denominations and it just catapulted conferences azusa conferences megafest conferences Debra Morton's women's car I mean just one conference after the other pastor Marvin Winans so many bishop Andrew Merritt and Bishop Hilliard in perth amboy apostasy right and of course bishop caesar so many doors that were open and not just open once but it just took up most of my life every every week I was out of town and the traveled increase bishop show well when his father opened the door Bible way that they're not exactly at that time you know open to women preachers he was one of the first to open the door to a young woman such as myself and of course his son bishop Cornelius show well we have a great relationship with that church so a lot of interesting things happen you know historically the church was changing you know more women started now getting into the pulpit denominational barriers being broken down an interesting season in my life and in the church's life do you feel and I know this is a lot of people's common perception do you really feel that that your ministry helped break down some of those barriers it feels that way and it feels through some of the denominations and the way in which the Lord expanded your ministry that that you were the proof that women truly were anointed of God to preach at the level that you did I can't say that I I was a vanguard no you have women like pastor Ernestine reams you have other women such as and story cracked you have other other women from my circle Maria Gardner now those were the women that we looked up to that I looked up to in in my circle that really opened up the doors they were the ones running the Bibles they were the ones traveling all over and story Pratt came out of my church so we saw her as you know as the idol the the person who broke broke from the church and became you know different and opened up the doors to ministry so I can't claim that but I can't say that I am a part of that change I can't say that yes well I had heard about this incredible preacher woman preacher called Jackie McCullough she was an evangelist at the time and coming out of an organization that did not believe in women in ministry I was just you know absolutely excited to hear of someone as powerful as Jackie was and when I heard a preached the first time I just could not believe that there was such a challenge to women and ministry based upon what God was doing with her and so it was through that experience that really changed my total perspective on women and ministry and through the late Bishop McKinley at the Elam International Fellowship where she uh where I met her we developed a lifelong relationship with her father and her mother and it would be on President Street in Brooklyn that I would go to the house and spend time and share with her father basically at the time because Jackie was basically evangelizing real basically all over the world she finally came up to Mamaroneck two straight gay in 1984 and she Bishop mcil Bishop McKinley and I believe was Bernard Jordan at the time preached the message and God remembered Noah and it was from that point on that Jackie was used of God to really uh sure in the worship dimension to our ministry and to that entire region and of course people came from all over to hear this incredible woman and it changed so many people's perspectives on women and ministry that is anointed and appointed for such a time as this she was active in the medical profession when the Lord released her from healing and ministering to physical disorders that she might become a midwife in the kingdom and usher us through the throes of labor and place us in the birth position then we might be ready to push forth everything that God promised I want you to stand to your feet and receive this mighty warhorse this woman of God as she comes all the way from Brooklyn New York evangelist Jackie but Paula come on make a welcome come on earth make the world this great creature I don't I don't define her as a woman preacher because sometimes men they they make that statement to minimize the excellence and the credibility and cruelty of the individual who is being present you know what do you think about past McCullough oh she's a great woman preacher I tell him no she is a great preacher period had what people call the best of the best I mean there's not anyone and we haven't had here that they say are the best preachers in my estimation my personal opinion

Channel: Bishop Jackie McCullough

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Length: 88min 20sec (5300 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 05 2016