Race, Culture, & the Church

[Music] greetings from the world headquarters of the united pentecostal church international in saint louis missouri usa i'm the general superintendent david bernard and i'm happy to have with me in the studio pastor dave henry of atlanta georgia now brother henry is the presbyter of the area which means he was elected by the pastors in the eastern atlanta area to be their representative and he sits on the georgia district board he is also the director of building the bridge ministries which is an important ministry of the upci it's focused on evangelizing the african-american and black communities let me hasten to add that we work very closely together spanish evangelism multicultural ministries building the bridge ministries our goal is to have one church composed of every nationality every race every language all working together as one body but to do that in our world we understand that we must give particular focus and attention to make sure everyone is represented every voice is heard and the we work together closely so in that regard in virtue of being the director of building the rich ministries pastor henry also sits on the general board of the united pentecostal church international which is our highest governing body short of the general conference itself now what we're doing today we want to have a candid conversation about race obviously in our world today in our culture in our society this is a very important topic and some people say well uh let's just ignore it because we all love one another we're all christians and in an ideal world that's what we would do but in the real world which we live people have questions they have maybe perceptions and in some cases maybe wrong perceptions but how do you address them well i think talking about them uh and of course we have to be honest that there are issues and problems uh even within the church the temperature on the outside affects the temperature on the inside so what's going on in the culture does affect the church so to the extent the church falls short of its ideal we've got to be honest we've got to talk about it to the extent the church fulfills the ideal well we celebrate and we encourage one another and we try to do better so we've had some great conversations over the past year or so and i'm sure we'll have more again uh with many of our ministers of all races uh but particularly here in the u.s and canada which is our home base that's what we're focused on and so i've asked brother henry to come with some questions that he's designed or that different ministers have suggested to him the questions aren't for me but we've had these conversations before so i know uh to a great extent what we're going to talk about but uh brother henry i'd like for you just to say whatever else you want to say by way of introduction and let's get started yes sir thank you again thank you bishop for um facilitating this and your willingness to have this conversation [Music] i think that um for many in the african-american community you have developed a a tremendous trust and um and i think not only in that community we're dealing with that issue but in many communities because you're not afraid to tackle the issues you're not afraid to have the conversation no matter how hard they may be and i think that gives you credibility and it it gives you respect too because when when a person are willing to deal with hard issues no matter how difficult they are it puts you in a different um spirit it puts you people think and view you different because most people you know they become political so they're going to protect their political um interests now for you at least from what most of us have us observe that is not an issue for you you you really want to make a difference in the kingdom of god so thank you for i'm having this i mean like for me being from jamaica came here in the early 80s mid um 80s and you know i 1990 i married a young lady from mississippi and you know i came from a different perspective a different point of view but being married to an american from mississippi and then so many friends i was able to really understand the the difference in the african-american experience yes and so it really informs me well and so i'm glad to be a part of building the bridge ministries back in 86 i became a part and it's been a good track a good ministry to be a part of but again thank you for your willingness to first sit down and have this conversation and thank you for what you do i've observed you on our general board and you are very um you're very effective as a leader and i want you to know that i personally appreciate you we appreciate you um i've talked to people who are part of other oneness organizations who have give you eye marks and um i i was told this i didn't hear it directly but even some in those um other fellowships say that you're the first superintendent that they trust at a level because again one your candor your honesty your experiences you know you are you're very well culture and i think that gives you the head so thank you again for um have this conversation now the last time we had a conversation was in a conference call it was very fruitful um we thought and um some of these questions were asked and um we thought you know that we could do this and ask you some some of these same questions i did not um ask these questions directly these questions were formed from the people in her ministry and the first question i'd like to ask you doctor um is this what measures are in place to address issues of racism among the licensed ministers in the united council so let's talk specifically about the united pentecostal church international and i do want to say you know we're all shaped by our experience yes and i appreciate you sharing yours um i grew up in korea and uh so i was in a different culture and while i was blessed and favored as an american citizen yet i learned what it was to be different from everyone around me in my community and my parents were pioneer missionaries of the upci they started churches among uh american soldiers and so those services were completely interracial from the very beginning 1965 as well as churches in the korean community and so all my life i've been in a multicultural multi-racial environment when my wife and i started the church in austin texas we built a truly multicultural multiracial church to about a thousand constituents about 50 percent were caucasian or white and 50 were all other ethnicities primarily hispanic african-american uh with some native american and asian as well and so i mentioned that because our experiences do shape us and your question what are we doing uh with regard to united pentecostal ministers so not everybody has that same experience but we can through training try to give them perspectives and so we have a training program everyone who wants ministerial credentials with upci must go through a series of reading and a series of videos and so what i've done for the on the introductory level everyone has to read the upci manual and it contains our position papers and we have a very strong position paper called racial and ethnic affirmation where we say that racism is a sin and that the goal of the church is to be deliberately inclusive intentionally inclusive uh and so as part of that i do the training on that in video form and i cover the kind of things that we're talking about today so that means every uh minister who receives credentials with upci will at least get some basic introductory training in both written and video form so that's a start yes we also encourage every local church every district to be intentional in these areas and i'm happy to tell you we're right now developing a new curriculum called mosaic which is a multicultural evangelism and diversity curriculum consisting of both text and video and it will walk us through how to be a truly multi-racial multicultural church on the local level the district level the national level the international level and it gives ideas and guidelines for how first with a biblical foundation a historical foundation which covers the good and the not so good but it focuses on the true vision of the pentecostal movement from the beginning right and the oneness movement particularly even more than the rest of the pentecostal movement it was founded on an idea if we believe in the oneness of god we need to believe in the oneness of god's people and it was founded with an interracial vision that has sometimes been neglected or lost but it's our job to go back to our biblical roots and our own historical roots and recapture and fulfill that vision so the mosaic curriculum is going to do that and it gives particular attention to special issues of the african-american history which has a unique and long history in the u.s that needs to be understood if you're going to be effective in disciplining african americans or even being effective in society you have to know that history and that perspective but it also is going to talk about uh the hispanic experience and other ethnicities and language groups um and so i think it's going to be an exciting addition to to our overall training so that's uh that's at least a partial answer to your question but i'm sure we'll cover more as we go through our discussion let me ask you in light of that i as i have traveled and talked with people some not all have this misconception uh maybe i would say or some have a view that the united methodist church um is at least subscribed some within the united council church subscribe to a racist mindset or view um is there a way that you could speak to that to kind of give um sure well certainly i would say we are absolutely against racism and always have been um our our position paper which is on our website you can go to upci dot org go to i think it's under resources statement archives and we have what's called the racial and ethnic affirmation as a position paper and then we also have i've written kind of a report uh which is is a racial and ethnic affirmation uh discussion with some of the same points we're talking about today and then i also have a timeline which says what have we done intentionally and deliberately right uh beginning in about the the early 70s so for for the last 50 years yes what steps have we taken now uh so i want to first of all say we stand clearly and forth rightly against racism in all its forms now we are a historically majority white organization uh we have had uh minorities from the very beginning we were formed in 1945 as a merger of two organizations yes on our very first list of ministers we have african-americans we have hispanics we have asian americans we have people even from other countries from jamaica and other places so we've however uh reflecting uh u.s and canadian society in 1945 of course we were heavily white right and there is a long history which maybe i should talk about a little bit more but i will say we have tried to become intentionally more inclusive and more diverse as our country has changed and as our awareness has grown and as i mentioned earlier the early oneness movement started with a clear interracial vision which was obscured right and a lot of it had to do with the jim crow laws in the south that were very harsh in the teens 20s 30s that made it difficult for for us to have conferences because blacks and whites could not meet in the same location could not meet in the same hotels or eat in the same restaurants and so what we had is azusa street which was one of the big formation revivals of the pentecostal movement we have this famous statement by frank bartleman who was a oneness preacher he said the color line was washed away in the blood how there was a true interracial unity and so the early oneis people all worked together in 1918 within one organization of black and white in 1924 most of the white ministers left and formed three regional organizations so they said it was because they couldn't have conferences together i think to be honest there was some internal racism but i do believe as i read the records most of it was external in the sense the pressures of society right they couldn't hold interracial meetings they couldn't have interracial churches they would be attacked in their community uh and the reason why i think that is to a great extent true is when the white ministers left and not all of them left but the majority they formed three regional organizations so they could have regional conferences and then what is more significant and never happened in the trinitarian pentecostal movement or with the baptist the meth or anybody else in 1931 the two largest organ oneness organizations one predominantly white one predominantly black merged again because they felt like we need to try to make this work and i don't know of any other religious organization in 1931 that was intentionally trying to merge back again they merged the two names of their organizations to form the pentecostal assemblies of jesus christ which is one of the predecessor organizations of the upci their initial board they decided even though the compensation composition of ministers was probably something like 75 percent white 25 black they their initial board was 50 white 50 black because they're trying to be very intentional unfortunately the same pressures the same difficulties of conferences and so by 1938 most of the black ministers had left i still feel the majority of the responsibility has to rest upon the majority right the white majority but my point is from 1918 to 24 and then again from 1931 to 38 the oneness ministers were trying their best in a segregated society where half the country was laboring under strict jim crow laws they were trying to overcome that be counter-cultural they didn't fully succeed which is tragic however one of that organization that tried was one of the organizations that became the upci and there were still some black ministers who stayed in that fellowship and became part of the merger in 1945 but for me the tragedy is if you think historically the civil rights movement really got going in the 50s if somehow we could have tried to hold together and be counter cultural for 20 more years right right we would have been at the forefront of of racial reconciliation the civil rights movement now we can't go back and and redo that but we can be intentional where we are so i that was kind of a long way around to say no the oneness movement was not founded as a racist movement it was founded as integrated movement and it kept that vision all along but faltered somewhat so i look at it as a oneness minister i don't have to go back and say my foundation was bad i need to go back and say my biblical foundation in the book of acts was good right my foundation in the early 20th century american context was good right to the extent that we failed we can go back to the bible and we can go back to our own oneness heritage which was a good foundation not a flawed foundation and we need to restore that vision so uh now now let's put it today where we are today of course the upci is a worldwide organization in 198 out of 210 independent nations uh plus 34 territories so we're in almost every nation of the world uh over 5 million something like 5.2 million constituents and so the vast majority of upci constituents are not white so if you say what is the typical uh you know upci constituent well from a worldwide perspective we're going to be more represented in latin america africa asia than even here in north america so to me that's important and it's also important to know we have what's called a global council the global council governs the international activities all over the world and our goal is to establish national churches in each country which are self-governing and so they will have representatives from uh to the global council so uh today uh we probably have uh something like uh 60 members 55 60 members of the global council who are not white but would represent other nationalities and included that would be something like 35 or 40 blacks african-american africans caribbeans different ones so really on an international level we have a very strong uh interracial top leadership representation now in our home base which is the us and canada we still reflect the majority of the population which is which is white historically but my goal which i've stated many times is our church needs to reflect the diversity of our nation and as we do that then our leadership our ministry needs to reflect the diversity that is in the church and then our top leadership needs to reflect the diversity that's in our ministry so it's a work in progress right now my best estimate we we don't since we're we're congregational have self-governing churches we we don't try to control local churches and uh so we don't necessarily have statistics about the internal workings of each church but my best estimate is about 30 of our constituents in the us and canada are non-white hispanic african-american and and others uh among our credential ministers about 15 would be either what i just mentioned uh hispanic afro-american black uh some native americans asians and others uh so uh and increasingly i think six members of our general board would fall into that category many districts now would have minority representation on the district board by the electoral process overall district leaders of course that changes every year through elections and appointments and so on but we now probably have from the the last survey i did we've got between 250 300 leaders of various districts by that i mean on the district board or committee chairman or department heads that would be again in these categories of um hispanic african american or asian american and so on so uh a lot of progress has been made just in the last 10 years there's been pro i think is a 58 increase in minority representation we still need to make more progress but our headquarters executives our headquarters employees our urshan college urshan graduate school employees and administration staff students all of those are now reflecting more and more the diversity of our church so i think we can say very positively no we're still majority white in the us not so in the rest of the world but we're starting to really reflect um the diversity of our society in our constituents and now in our employees executives and leadership as well uh and thank you for answering that no are you aware um that there's a perception out there and um accurately or not it's still an uh a perception that there are some racist of tendencies or some even describe people within the united kingdom church as racist how how would you help to kind of um debunk that that sure okay well let's let's be honest let's be candid um when you have over 5 million constituents and even in the u.s and canada which is more the direct responsibility we're getting close to i think we have around 4 900 churches daughter works preaching points when you're dealing with almost 5 000 congregations for me to say i know for a fact among 5 million constituents worldwide and among 5 000 churches in america you will never find a racist i couldn't say that yes and i've talked to people who said i've gone to a church and i felt like i was treated wrong because of race and so um what i will say we believe that's a sin so i can't guarantee you'll never that will never happen but you i can say we will take a stand against it what i did as a pastor even i told people as i said half of our church was white and half was everything else and i would make the statement from the pulpit i want everyone who lives in the austin metropolitan area to feel like they could come to our church and can belong they could be in the choir they could be a minister they could be on the church board they would feel welcome but i went on to say i can't guarantee that you'll never face a problem even in a local congregation because i can't control people but i do guarantee this if you have a problem you come talk to me and we'll try to work it out if somebody has treated you wrong we'll deal with that if somebody is a racist i will deal with them uh or if it's a misunderstanding i will mediate and negotiate we want you to you bring the problems to our attention so my answer is as an organization no we're not racist we we very positively affirmed biblical values i do not personally know of any preacher that i could say they are racist by their deeds and actions you know speech if i knew somebody like that they would be subject to ministerial discipline i would probably contact their district superintendent and say you need to talk to this person and they either need to recant or you need to bring them up before the district board and because i would work through the scripture i wouldn't just try to attack a person yes but sometimes i have dealt with people that i felt were insensitive or wrong if i had an opening to talk to them i've talked to some of those directly so some i've talked to their district superintendent and say you need to follow for this person what they're saying on social media to me sounds wrong sounds like racist or or could be misunderstood or misinterpreted right if they don't really mean it it could be seen that way others i've had an opening for whatever reason where i've been able to talk to him directly and i've had some ministers apologize back down promise me they will not say those things you know so i have not ignored it my answer is i don't know of someone who is a racist if i do we have to discipline them just like any other sin if a preacher is found in sin we have to deal with it so if our preacher has found the sin of racism we're going to have to talk to the district superintendent we're gonna have to deal with it now i i will say there have been some that i felt like they were insensitive or ignorant in in their mind they didn't think they were racist but when i looked at it or what other people looked at they would say well that's racist or at least very inappropriate and i as i've just mentioned i've tried to deal informally with those to get them to uh see the error of their ways retract some things or make some corrections or make some apologies or change their ways so that would have to be an ongoing process my point is it's not something we can ignore and i will elaborate on that there are some people who are intentional racist you're probably it's going to be rare that you would find someone in our ranks that would be like that or that would admit they're being like that i think a bigger problem is people that with in their mind they don't think they're racist but because of their lack of knowledge they will say things that have the same effect and so they're hurtful and will be perceived as hateful and you know as far as the recipient uh if you're a person of color and somebody says something you or does something based on your race whether they intended to be racist or whether they just said it out of ignorance the impact on you is really going to be the same so as a general superintendent i'm not just interested in eradicating open racism i'm also interested in training education to eliminate the effects or the influences or the perceptions or the inappropriate statements even if the person says no they're not racist but still and then of course you know in our culture there's such a we're not trying to be politically correct we're trying to be biblically correct so we're not buying into canceled culture that for every thing somebody has said that might hurt somebody's feelings or be misunderstood that we're just going to go after them but we are definitely trying to create an environment where we respect one another and whether it's on social media or from the pulpit or in conversation we can't talk like the world talks um we might have political opinions and social opinions and they might be different in the church and they're going to be but our conversation has to be different from the world because we're christians and we love and respect one another and with that said um i had an experience recently three weeks back a a young lady she may be in her 30s the most um caucasian is an african-american lady in home depot store she was the customer the young lady was an employee there but this older african-american lady was so rude to her was so like just very disrespectful just very unkind and that bothered me and i spoke up and i i thought to myself if the tables were turned the first thing i would be thinking is that that caucasian lady is a racist and so i felt like if i would have the same conviction if the if if that young older lady was caucasian treating a black person like that it would offend me yes it offended me equally that a african-american lady would have treated um an employee like that and i spoke up and i think what we need more is more of those things where it don't matter who he or she is if you're being rude or you've been unkind or you're being because i mean the all races we can have racism in any race and so i think we need more of that where people are willing to speak up with us on social media in our churches when we see something that we know even if it's someone if we're saying race or behavior is wrong i think we need to um speak you're right we we need to speak up for what's right and i believe on social media especially we shouldn't just like something or comment on something or or maybe even ignore something we have a responsibility to pull it back to a christian conversation and so we need more but um let me ask you um how do we combat this simulation in our local district and national level well when you say dissimulation you know that that's a biblical phrase in galatians uh it's interesting the apostle peter received a great revelation that the gentiles could be saved without becoming jews first and by the way i'll say you know these issues aren't new issues if you look at the book of acts they dealt with uh ethnic prejudice in acts chapter 6. it's interesting the greek speaking widows felt they were being discriminated against in favor of the hebrew speaking or aramaic speaking and so the apostles appointed people and had the congregation select people who are spiritually minded who could take care of these business matters in a fair way these are perhaps what would be called deacons today and interestingly they picked people with all greek names which indicated they looked to spiritually minded people from the minority in order to make sure justice was done and that's very interesting to me because they were showing their trust in the people that felt they were being mistreated and and then you have of course acts 15 [Music] where you have acts 10 where peter preached to the household of conus god had to show him it was okay to preach to the gentiles and i think it's interesting because in acts 2 peter preached that the outpouring of the spirit was for all flesh but he didn't fully understand that he thought it meant all jewish flesh which shows how unconsciously even in the church we can be so influenced by our upbringing and our preconceived ideas we don't see the fullness of what god's going to do but god had to give him a vision three times to prove to him that when joel said all flesh it didn't mean all jewish flesh it meant all flesh including gentiles how interesting and so in acts 15 they had a big council in jerusalem where they made the decision that people of every ethnicity could come in the church without becoming jews but in the middle of that there was this conflict in galatians that peter withdrew from fellowship with gentile christians under pressure from other jewish people that that's the biblical example and so what did paul do paul rebuked him to his face so paul went directly to him so if we feel that someone in the church is discriminating against us or mistreating us or is prejudiced against us if there is some kind of relationship i think the best thing is to go directly to that person so for instance if you felt that i had intentionally or unt intentionally treated you wrong the best thing would be to come to me personally say brother bernard i don't know if you meant this or not but this is what what you said and this is how it made me feel good and if i'm sincere i'll listen and if i'm wrong i'll correct it and if if it was a misunderstanding i'll explain either way right we're reconciled but that does presuppose some kind of relationship so so paul and peter were peers they but they respected one another they worked together and so paul went directly to peter rebuked him right and he went to barnabas so his co-worker rebuked him but that's because he had a relationship he wasn't just attacking so if you don't have a relationship then i would say go through a mediator so go through someone in authority such as the president or the district superintendent or maybe there's a mutual friend or mentor so so let's say that you didn't even know who i was you know we never really had a conversation but i said or did something that personally hurt you or or you felt like you needed to hold me accountable well go to someone who's my mentor or my my leader or my friend that when there's a mutual trust and that's what jesus said in matthew 18 go with someone else and then if necessary if you can't resolve it any other way take it to the church jesus said so there could be a time where you would say this person hasn't listened this person hasn't responded and it's more than just personal feelings this person is wrong right well then you may need to go to a more formal process take it to the church which for a minister i would say go the district board and they would appeal to the minister and maybe even have to summons him for a disciplinary matter but i don't think we just ignore these issues i think i should preface it all by saying first of all pray because god may tell you hold your peace for right now or god may tell you i'm working on something so you always want god's timing and god's plan or god may say you know hold your peace for now because i'll give you the right opportunity i'm not saying to sweep anything under the rug i'm saying go to god in prayer first then go through the steps that i've outlined yes sir thank you for those answers one question they had due to the current racially charged climate is it possible to create a culture in the united states of church international where critical conversation can take place among the ministers both local sectional and the national club certainly i think we need to do that and hopefully what we're doing right now is helping us towards that but i think we need to form friendships and what i tell ministers because i do find ministers across our fellowship are people of good will but you know a lot of our preachers and i'm thinking mostly of our our white caucasian anglo preachers they're not sure exactly what to say to their church they want to do the right thing but they're bombarded on both sides by media and so they don't want to say the wrong thing so a lot of times they say you know what i'm not gonna say anything what i would suggest is if if you're a pastor and this could be for anybody black or white or whatever but i'll just take the typical case of a caucasian pastor if you have some minority members in your church just sit down and talk with them ask questions ask about their life experience they they love and appreciate the church or they wouldn't be there but that doesn't mean that everything is just okay ask their experience and here's what i found a very good question they love you as a pastor they love what god has done in their life they've been saved and so so they will overcome a lot of side issues but ask them what about your unsafe family and friends would they feel comfortable coming to our church and if not why not and what could we do as a church what can we do to adjust whether it's our music our order of service the way we greet visitors what could we do that would be more welcoming and inclusive so having those conversations and if you don't really another conversation is with fellow ministers of a different race um and and asking much the same questions or even in the community reaching out to people of other races in the community uh just to find out what's going on in our community what's your perception of the community what's your perception of our church what can we do to bring healing to our community instead of uh you know it's tension so i think uh having those honest conversations and right alongside that i would say educating yourself reading some books and you don't have to agree with everything right in them but they're there again i'm so happy about the mosaic curriculum that's going to come out because that's going to be written by you pci people for upci people and it's going to be our own internal uh presentation but there's several good books and uh in my uh in the racial and ethnic affirmation that i put online that i mentioned earlier at upci.org i did list some references both christian and secular references kind of a middle road with all that's going on in our culture how you know what about social justice obviously we do believe in justice that's a biblical principle we believe in holiness but we don't believe in marxist or secular approaches that would destroy the family or that would bring socialism so what's the balance what what's the right way to talk about these things what's the right way to deal with these things so i've i've listed some books that could be helpful resources but i think having these conversations having personally educating ourselves even doing that sometimes maybe in ministerial meetings uh in meetings with young ministers i think you know and again there's a balance because some people saying well we don't need to talk about this you're just going to stir up trouble and you're going to be politically correct and you're going to fall into the world's way of doing things but and others would be pressing to do more and i would say to both sides wait a minute the church is the church no we're not going to be politically correct no we're not going going to have secular radical endeavors but if the church the church has to speak for itself and if the church doesn't speak we're letting the world inform our young people and we're letting the world inform our young ministers so we can't afford to do that the church needs to say what it thinks and it's what we think is going to be based on the word and the spirit but i do think we need to have these conversations and god will help us do so and my focus is ultimately winning souls and i realize we're trying to win sinners we're not trying to win saints that already have a mature balanced biblical understanding we're we're reaching people that are maybe they have misperceptions but we've got to overcome those in order to win them to jesus christ and so regardless of their political position or regardless of how they view us how can we remove barriers so that we can more be more effective in winning lost souls to jesus christ yes sir bishop i'm going to ask you three quick last questions and then and again thank you for the candor um in your answers um is there anything been done to help grow black leadership in the movement yes uh we're trying to be very intentional about this of course my goal is uh i'm trying to grow leadership among everybody i'm trying to recruit more ministers we can't call people to preach but we can create an environment and atmosphere where they are exposed to the need and exposed to a burden and they can be sensitive and open to the call of god so my first answer is i'm trying to reach out to all young people of every race and saying the church needs you the kingdom needs you be sensitive to the call of god whether it's to preach or do anything else but i think having said that we must be intentional about increasing the pool of potential ministers and potential leaders and there's nothing wrong with being intentional in finding uh someone that you can mentor that you can train and reaching out beyond your comfort zone so if we want to increase our diversity in order to to to match our society and to win people of our society then we have to go out of our comfort zone out of the people we know and try to reach out and be more intentional about bringing people into a pool of ministry and leadership we're not talking about promoting unqualified people we're not talking about promoting people just because of race but we are talking about expanding our um sphere of influence and mentorship uh so that we can be more intentional of people of all races and yes i think on district levels which is where a lot of this work has to be done we're trying to be more effective in reaching the diversity of our society and including the diversity of our churches and so one way we can do that is through our various district meetings just to be more inclusive and more intentional of the range of people that already exist in our churches and using them and promoting them and thinking about them when it comes time to vote for positions or to nominate or to appoint we we instead of just thinking about our closest friends or our family members or the people we are comfortable with or people we know about think of other qualified people that whether they be black white or whether they in rural areas urban areas think beyond our immediate experience and i believe that that's happening organically it is happening and we are being more intentional about creating more positions where we can use people uh new people it's not only just a matter of race it's a matter of first generational converts that we can't just have people who've been in church several generations only they can be appointed we've got to reach out to the young adult that might be a first generation convert see how they can be used as well yes sir thank you two quick questions and i know where time is um drawing near here what are some tangible things that can put in place to address the culture yeah well we did a couple of things in our general conference 2020 two things that were symbolic but also significant one is i mentioned the directors of building the bridge and spanish evangelism and multicultural ministries these three positions are would be typically held by someone who's not white who's black uh hispanic or some other in the case of multicultural right now native american so those became those positions became voting members of the general board so automatically you now have a place at the table where people from different backgrounds are going to be there they're going to have a vote they're going to be in part of any conversation that we have about any major decision that brings a different perspective to the table that's a structural change the second thing we did is we made an opening for presbyters at large on the district level which means any district of it in its own choice if they feel like there's a significant minority in the district that needs to be represented at the district board of course that often happens just through the electoral process as as in your case you were elected by ministers the majority of whom i assume were not they're probably caucasian but they elected you not not because you're black but because they felt like you were the best one to represent them and of course that's that's great that should be um but in addition if there's a significant say hispanic population that speaks spanish or significant african-american population then the district can uh elect a presver at large to make sure that perspective is always going to be representing the district board that is also a structural change now i you know we don't have time to go through a lot but if you go through the timeline that i have on the website you'll see we've had taken many steps over the years but those are true two significant structural changes and then i've already mentioned on the international level we already have a very interracial fellowship in leadership and and that has been intentional over the last 10 years we've added a secretary that is elected from outside north america so that way we have someone at the very top level who's going to represent somebody that's not american or canadian yes sir mr bernard thank you for your time one last question this question has come up often i think this question not only comes up in the african-american circles but in in some respects in other circles in particular or younger people and the question of interracial marriage how would you address that because it's it's it's a concern of the significance yes yes well let's be clear um interracial marriage of course you know uh we have interracial marriage in my immediate family right um but first of all biblically there's nothing theologically wrong with interracial marriage the bible speaks about mirroring unbelievers ancient israel was not supposed to marry pagan tribes but that had nothing to do with race that had to do with religion the worship of the one true god if you study the example of moses moses was persecuted for interracial marriage and god vindicated him so it's not a biblical issue it can be a cultural issue what i did as a pastor i tried to give premarital counseling to everyone and i didn't talk about race i talked about your family background your culture your values your goals are you compatible so you have to work through that process and so uh if if there is an interracial marriage particularly in america obviously in some places that could be more significant than others and so that is not to say um it's wrong it's just to say you need to walk in with your eyes open and you shouldn't be now this may be less true than when i was young it looked like some people would choose an interracial relationship to make a statement to be rebellious or to get back at their family and that's always a bad reason so i try to ask them what are you doing and why are you doing it make sure you know what you're doing and make sure when you get married really two families are coming together so as much as possible you want your families on the same page if not that's just another hurdle that you're going to have to be intentional about overcoming so my advice was always just make sure you're doing the right thing for the right reason that you're intentional that you you honestly identify any issues that may come up whether it's race ethnicity language or it could be two white people or two black people but coming from very different families very different cultural backgrounds so it's the same advice i'd give to any couple but having said that i'm not going to try to tell you it's god's will for you to marry this person or not i'm going to give you the guidance but you're going to have to make the final decision and if you're both living for god and you both love god and you both affirm that you love each other you both affirm this is god's will i'll try to help you work through all the issues at the end of the day then of course i'm gonna try to help you i'm gonna marry you and if problems come up i'm going to try to help you resolve them so i feel like we need to move this out of theology and out of spirituality and more into the framework of every marriage we need good premarital counseling and good decision making and and then leave it up to the couple so and and again i'm true but yes there's people who have asked or say that they've had issues of that with pastors who would not marry a person from a different race you know i i definitely that's happened in the past i think that's far receding now um and i do think for some in more recent years it's been a caution well you know if you're a minister your ministry could be effective and affected and i think some of those are well-meaning they're just trying to say do you realize you might have some trouble with some people but i think we have to be more positive than that we we have to we have to affirm you know it's true of anything some doors might be closed but god will open other doors so you can't live in fear and doubt and i do think we have to create a church culture where we move past these issues these are personal issues that need to be decided personally it's not something for the church to try to jump in and tell people what to do so my feeling is i do believe there have been some that have been hurt in the past affected in the past but i hope that as we're moving more trying to be more biblical we're going to always be a conservative holiness movement but in our conservative holiness stands we've got to make sure we're being biblical right otherwise we can discredit our stand and i would so i would just appeal to everyone let's go back to scripture yes and let's go back to being led of the spirit yes sir bishop bernard let me let me say this thank you for your time this morning this afternoon um and thank you for your candor um you know this has been a great conversation you have just spoke eloquently and for rightly and well and i believe that conversations like this if we will continue them not just here with you and i but others in our districts and even in some other places i think we can make a difference i believe that the time is right for the church to be on the forefront of these issues and for too long we have been afraid but thank you for not being afraid to address these in such a way and i appreciate it well thank you i will say on that last question of interracial marriage as a matter of fact we have a number of examples of interracial marriage among our ministers and even among our missionaries among top leaders right uh so that as far as the upci is concerned uh that's not an issue but on an individual level of course uh everybody has to try to find the will of god for their life but i would challenge all of us to be biblical and be open to people of different backgrounds and perspectives and i hope you've gotten something out of this maybe you didn't agree with everything or understand everything but after all conversations like these among christians i believe are going to help us be stronger and better christians and i i do believe the united pentecostal church international and the apostolic movement generally we are the force for revival in the world today amen we don't want anything to hinder us but we want to fulfill our mission of the whole gospel to the whole world by the whole church

Channel: United Pentecostal Church International

Views: 2,785

Rating: 4.9075146 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: hSVBjaA-mpU

Length: 52min 32sec (3152 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021