Most of the major changes that we have seen in the world have not come from guns.
They’ve come from mics. Oh, hey.
And so when I say don’t drop the mic, uh, that is in lieu of picking up the gun. Yeah.
If you wanna bring about change, the power of life and death within the Uh. Wow.
It’s not in the hand that’s in the tongue.
We’re going to break this down and you know, this is a we’re sitting this is a master class right now.
So I wanna say to you viewing, What I love about this is this is a book that certainly has to be lensed through the idea that Bishop TD Jake stands on a big pulpit in a big church uh, now 25 years anniversary, the potter’s house.
Come on now. Uh, but I’m gonna
5 years in ministry.
Yeah. That’s right.
Love it.
I’m gonna read off the back.
Um, communicate boldly and effectively, like never before, Whether you’re interviewing for a new position, proposing a new business plan.
Mhmm. Auditioning for a performance. Delivering a report to your committee, teaching Sunday school, or sharing your heart with a loved one.
Yes. This book will help. Alright. So now you have all of our attention.
How do we do that?
And I want you to to to kind of maybe give me an opening line here and opening statement.
And but then I wanna jump to the middle of the book, but then I promise we’re gonna go through it uh, just a little bit of what this is and why this book helps and why people should be watching for the next 1 hour.
You know, first of all, after 40 some years of counseling people,
I
have learned that a lot of times we have emotions for which we do not have language. Wow.
Uh, either because we’ve not been given permission all of our lives to emote, uh, our feelings in a language that calls us to hear to understand where we’re coming from.
And and so sometimes we, um, subvert the opportunity and stop talking.
Uh, sometimes we get angry with people for not understanding things that we can’t articulate.
And so when it comes to, uh, communicating facts, especially with men We we we do that very well, but communicating feelings sometimes we don’t always do that as proficiently whether we’re public speakers or not.
I’ve had a global perspective of communication from a lot of different areas and all of that informs the way in which I articulate a thought and idea or a concept and what what I bring to the table when I talk.
And then I think that’s true of everybody.
Okay. I’m gonna jump to the middle of the book and start with this, uh, planning for spontaneity.
Mhmm. K? So I think everyone realizes because spontaneity is kind of a dual edged sword Mhmm.
It either endears you to an audience or you kinda lose them. It’s either gonna be a moment.
Spontaneity is good and bad.
You you use the the the scenario here of, you know, a manger scene in Donkeys coming down, uh, and being a part of this illustration of the, you know, moment of Jesus birth, but what if one of the donkeys relieves himself and and yeah.
Okay. So so ultimately spontaneity which is the key to the way we’re doing this interview.
Right.
Uh, you’re validating it in a very way, but it’s a little let’s say, uh, risky.
It’s risky. I mean, every interview, when when you sit down across the table from any interviewer, You you you don’t really know how it’s going to go and you have to be spontaneous.
You have to be able to think quickly on your feet and try to give your best answer when you are speaking on a stage, there is the infusion of the Holy Spirit that sometimes directs you a little bit differently than what you had worked out on paper.
And people who are not flexible don’t always do well.
Even if you’re in a boardroom or you’re a comedian and you’re up telling jokes and somebody, uh, heckler comes into the room or the donkey relieves himself.
What whatever whatever happens, you have to be able to manage the unexpected
sometimes as a folk.
Yeah. Yeah. You have to be able to, uh, respond quickly and and work that into your situation and make it applicable and never lose control of the moment and give the moment over to the heckler or to the donkey or to the situation and and to not acknowledge it to be so rigid that you can’t laugh, that you can’t be yourself, uh, it’s it’s just not a very good thing to do.
And I think that people who think very linear have trouble sometimes being engaging especially with what we just went through with COVID and everybody was watching online.
It made everybody have to do television in a way that was frightening for some people because they are so dependent on the response from the crowd.
Right.
So can you, uh, go back into the memory banks of TD Jake’s Ministries and find a moment that you needed to rely on some spontaneity in regard to something.
Have you ever had a wardrobe malfunction or anything like that?
Oddly above.
Oh, man. All the TVs are turning to TV in now. Yeah.
Oh, man.
It’s funny you should mention it.
I just thought Bob was weird tonight and my my pants were a little bit.
I’ve dropped a little bit of weight. And and my pants were a little bit big.
So I sat in the chair the whole time I was teaching the almost the whole time uh, because I was a friend when I got up, I could feel him kind of slide.
And I’ve read Tugged him a couple of times. I decided to just sit there and do the whole thing.
Oh, we
might’ve had a wardrobe malfunction.
Oh, it would’ve been bad. It would’ve been really bad. And, uh, it it’s so funny though.
You have to be flexible and you have to be able to respond and and you have to wear something that you feel comfortable in and, uh, this was a little too comfortable, but those sorts of things happen, uh, things that people never realized why you did what you did and I’ve had to work them into illustrative.
I preach for, uh, on Sunday morning from a chair after a back surgery and preach the whole message from from a chair, you can’t be limited in the way in which you do things because what works works in one setting doesn’t work in another.
Take us into a moment where this was something that made it into your legacy piece book.
Spontaneity must mean something to you, uh, because you make it a a a pretty good little piece in here.
Well, the the thing about it is there are the things that the Holy Spirit gives you when you’re preaching that you wrote and you intended to say.
And then there are the things that are born right in the moment.
You know, just literally in that moment and being able to respond in that moment and not resist the wooing of the Holy Spirit to move off script may be operating in the gifts.
It may be, uh, adding a line or seeing a revelation that you didn’t even plan to see.
And what makes, uh, our preaching very unique, uh, is that we do have that influence of the Holy Spirit that impacts the way in which we deliver a word or a message.
Yeah.
My father tells a story, uh, when he was alive.
He’s, of course, been in heaven since 2013, but my dad told a story of the Holy Spirit in the boardroom with him.
Mhmm. When he was in his office and a phone call came that he took and the person asked a simple question do you have to be a Christian to work here?
Mhmm. And he basically went and and wanted to say yes, was gonna say yes, but something just choked off.
He went, yeah, And then he said, hold, please. Holy Spirit. What what’s going on here?
And he paused a moment, gave that moment to the lord, punch the guy back on and said, well, I don’t suppose you’d have to be a Christian to work here, but you might wanna be much like if you were applying for a uh, position at a at a Spanish language channel.
You might wanna know how to speak Spanish. K. That’s the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.
And he went, you know, if you’d have said yes, I was gonna file a complaint on your license with the FCC.
Mhmm. See, so there’s there’s moments in which you’re talking about.
So one of the keys to you and your ministry is you’re willing to flow in this spontaneity.
Yeah. You know, that has been a result of coming out of the cubicle of thinking uh that your audience is a crowd you see in front of you.
And and that is not the case when you go on TV or YouTube or or whatever it is, what vehicle that you’re speaking from, you’re all of a sudden, those things that your audience understood about you, I may not.
So expressions and sayings that are cultural or generational may not be as appropriate as your audience widens.
I think that the speaker has to think with the hearer in mind and not all speakers would know to do that.
And that’s true in a marriage.
Uh, if I’m speaking, I have to speak with how will my wife hear what I said It isn’t what I said.
It’s how she hears it. It isn’t what she says. It’s how I hear it.
And so I’ve had to learn and anticipate uh, the way in which she hears, we both speak English, of course, but we speak a different language because we are a different gender and learning each other’s language, love language, anger language.
Uh I’m in a bad mood language.
Uh, you you have, in order to be married 40 years, you have to be bilingual for an audience of 1, Now if it’s if you have 1,000,000, how much more a dexterity is needed in order to be able to And if you go as I have done into Australia and Africa and London and France and spoken to groups of people, where the cultures were different and the foods were slightly different.
The way in which you approach the text may be somewhat different too.
And we must not be so in love with our method, uh, that we compromise ability to broaden, uh, the penetration of our message Uh, and so I think that the method you can play with the message remains the same, but the method changes drastically when you’re talking to uh, millennials that it does boomers or, uh, gen x’s or gen z’s and understanding the demographic of your audience and what are hot buttons for them is very important.
Now bear in mind, this book has has gone through an identity crisis because it started out uh, dealing specifically with preaching and Doctor Frank Thomas, who teaches African American preaching, uh, as a professor in the African American preaching talked me into doing that and we started that down that road, but then the pandemic happened And, uh, then the black last matter movement happened and the riot thing started and the race relations came up.
And all of a sudden, I thought while America’s trying to talk.
And we may be having a tough time at it, but we’re trying to have a conversation And it’s a difficult conversation because our consciousness is being fed by our own experiences.
And so when we come together, it’s hard to have unity with the church where it’s my love.
We, you know, we’re wanting Christ.
Let’s just be unified but we can’t be unified if we don’t understand each other and respect the the fact that what you bring to the table is reflective of the generation you grew up in.
Um, the community you grew up in, the experiences that inform your ideas uh, the more broad you are like Moses, uh, how broad he was, his Hebrew raised in in the palace of an Egyptian spent 40 years out there, uh, with the with the, uh, uh, Jethro and the menianites.
And and all of a sudden, he he becomes treliable in his scope.
God could use him in ways that he could use people who were more limited.
Paul was used in ways that Peter could not be used Paul spoke in 5 different languages.
He’d been exposed to more, and so he contributes more because he has experienced more.
So a moment ago, when you were talking about needing to be bilingual inside of the marriage, My blood pressure started going up.
If you were
talking, I’m not sure if you meant to do that, but it’s it’s somewhat settling back down to normal.
Again.
I’m a say it a
swift spot. That’s gonna be one
of those when you get in the car, you know. That’s what I’ve been trying to do. Hello?
Thanks, Bishop.
Thank you. But okay.
What about the grace for each other?
Trying to figure it because I know that you can’t please everybody.
Right.
But, boy, I can or tick everybody off in a heartbeat. Okay.
Right. Exactly.
So where so where out of my experiences, all of our experiences are different.
We all hear differently, like you just said.
Um, where where does the grays come in for me, for each other?
Instead of just the outrage that you just said that. Like you said that from where you come Mhmm.
And
now it just outrages me. I think we’ve got a serious problem about that.
Yeah. You know, one of the things that I would give as advice is don’t try out your ideas on Facebook.
Yeah. Yeah.
That’s a bad place to on a sensitive issue for you to come out and just blurt out something or on the Instagram.
Because you’re talking to millions of people who interpret it quite differently.
So if you’re gonna have a discussion, uh, about what you think about women Try it out with a live woman.
You know, don’t just get on the don’t tweet it just yet, you know.
Let’s let’s let’s, uh, uh, do a low quality control.
And actually have real relationships with the people that you’re speaking to so that you can become more fluent at speaking in a language that is universal and not as narrow.
When you do make a mistake and we all do.
I have done it and gotten crucified, uh, because I used the wrong term or something like that and just on and on and on visceral comments coming at me uh, all kind of, uh, accurate statements and and vicious cruel statements we’ve made at you.
Don’t stop talking. What most of us do is we retreated to our silos and say, oops.
I’m never going to say anything about that again. We’ll never get better if we don’t keep talking.
You have to keep talking and say, maybe I blew it. Maybe you misunderstood me.
Uh, tell me what about that offense you and keep talking to people.
If you keep talking to people, they’ll calm down and they’ll become more rational and we can have needed conversations just because the conversation is uncomfortable doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be had.
Whether you’re in a marriage, whether you’re in a country, whether you’re dealing with another country.
And I think sometimes for the sake of being liked, we become silent.
And if if the salt loses its savor and becomes silent, what good are we?
We have to lose our fear of criticism.
And a lot of times, we are so arrogant, and we’re so used to being the teacher that we’ve lost the sensitivity of understanding that every great teacher never ceases to be a student.
And every great student studies like they had to teach. So I’m talking about role reversal.
So coming to it with the humility to ask questions rather than statements.
So good.
Uh, first of all, you can’t be in Dallas, Texas.
And not be affected by the ministry of TD Jakes.
Once a year, it’s it’s it’s a complete it’s complete organized chaos in Dallas, Texas because of your woman that lose
things. Yes.
You know, I mean, unless you’ve been a part of it, no one would ever really know what happened you take over virtually every hotel.
Yeah. You take over virtually every rentable venue in the city. You can’t get an Uber.
You can’t get a, you know, but you can’t get a rent car.
I’m sorry.
Yeah. Seriously, you have to get a rental car, like, from, you know, Louisiana and drive it in because of the magnetism Yeah.
That your voice brings and that holy spirit exudes out of what you do and how you do it.
And it’s a clarion call to the body of Christ to come to Dallas once a year. K.
Take us to the early days, and this this is something this is a thing.
I mean, this is more economic impact on the city of Dallas than the Super Bowl would be if it came to town.
You’re talking 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars of economic impact because of the Woman Lauer at Loose Conference.
How can How do you explain that?
Well, you know, I I I really can’t explain it. It’s kinda weird. It was a Sunday school class.
And I didn’t finish and decided to carry it over a second week.
Had I not carried it over a second week. I wouldn’t have discovered it.
When the Bible talks about the steps of a good man ordered by the lord, he did lighteth in his way.
I stumbled into it. And after the 2nd week of the crowd dwindled, I said, well, or another piece, you know, something that’s on here, you know.
And, uh, and it it it went like a big place up in a little storefront church, but I had people standing outside and, uh, I called my friend, uh, the late Archie dentist and totally I’m teaching this class for women and and people are going crazy like nothing I’ve ever done before.
And he said, well, come to my church and do it.
And he started booking people and so many people signed up. He had to move it to the hotel.
And, uh, little by Lily kept growing and then, uh, sir Jordan Powell was there, and she started talking to Carlton about it.
And the next thing I know, I’m at Azusa.
And I’m speaking for, uh, his mother had a daytime service, and I spoke there and and it was explosive and then he invited me to the leadership conference.
And then your father heard me uh on from his show and then he invited me to California and uh and the rest was history and then he offered me my own show And at the time your dad offered me a show, I didn’t own a camera.
I didn’t own a camera.
Uh, I had two people on staff uh, the first time 1800 mission touring at church mothers all over the place answered the phone, and my brother built a little 4, uh, little small phone room that would hold about 8 phones.
And I had church literally church mothers on the phone saying 1800 Bishop 2. Yeah. You know?
And and we found out we called the phone company found out that we got 300 calls, but we missed 3000.
Right. We immediately shut down the phone room and started farming it out.
We had to we had to figure it out as we went the next thing I know I’m in the Georgia dome breaking all records, uh, ministering to, uh, 100,000 people or more, the World Congress Center, the Phillips arena, and the Georgia Dome are all packed out.
And and it has shattered, uh, all records in Atlanta.
So I’ve seen it evolve and take shape over the years and that required a press conference So it’s one thing to talk to the church.
It’s another thing to talk to the press.
So now I’ve got 70 different press outlets at a woman in our loose conference.
That I have to speak to.
And I’m panicking the night before because I’m used to preaching, but to face the press was a scary thing in a press conference I thought, oh my God, they’re gonna eat me alive and and the woman who was handling my PR at the at the time, uh, her name is Julie Fairchild.
Shout out to Julie. Uh, she says, uh, I called her about 2 o’clock in the morning just having a meltdown.
This is a complete meltdown. You know, because I’ve I’ve got people as far away as the London Times.
And and I’m young. I’m I’m I’m thirty maybe.
And, uh, and I said, you know, they’re gonna eat me alive, and I should have never done this.
And, boy, you got all these people down here and da da da da da da and she said to me, Bishop Chang’s, the whole world has turned its head to hear what you have to say.
Do you have thing to say or not. And I I thought, is that what happened?
It’s she saw it as an opportunity.
Thank you, though.
I saw it as an adversary. Wow.
And suddenly the way in which I saw everything about press and media changed to understand that this was a huge opportunity that I all I had to do was steward it and I walked in with a whole different perspective because she said the world had turned its head to hear what I had to say.
Florida. And and that changed the way in which I managed the moment and everything thereafter changed because I began to see many of our oppositions are truly opportunities in disguise.
And if we use them correctly we benefit from them.
We’ve been doing this a while, haven’t we? A long time.
You know, uh, you know, that moment when my dad invited you out to uh, Southern California that time.
I remember you saying something about your knees knocking together.
When the gates open up, and then, you know, how you used to sit on big limousines, and they sit in limousine, and they’ll pick gates open up.
I thought, oh my god. I think I’m gonna pass out.
You know, I I was just I just I had no clue. I had absolutely no clue.
And and and and it is amazing that most of the major changes that we have seen in the world have not come from guns.
They’ve come from mics. Oh, hey.
And so when I say don’t drop the mic, uh, that is in lieu of picking up the gun. Yeah.
If you wanna bring about chains, power of life and death is in the tongue. Yeah.
It’s not in the hand. It’s in the tongue, uh, uh, uh, Doctor King changed the world.
With the microphone. And I started out to talking in the book about the huge impact that a Mike Nelson Mandela, what he said, changed the world uh, Mahatma Gandhi.
What he said changed the world when when you when you look at people who really have influence it’s not it’s not power like a gun.
It’s influence like a mic.
And whoever has the mic has great, great responsibility, great pressure, uh, great influence, And we have to understand that, and we have to weld it, not like it’s a gig, not like it’s a job, and not merely as if it were a calling.
It’s beyond it’s it’s beyond even a calling when god gives you influence inside and out.
It’s an opportunity
Wow.
To speak peace to situations, to bring reconciliation to the situation, to explain things to people, in a language that they can understand.
I have been really effective, I think, at explaining things to people who have not had shared experiences that they could have a little deeper insight into where this emotion is coming from.
Yeah. Kate, a sense of profound importance landed on this set a few minutes ago that I feel like I’m doing a a a legacy piece with you that is going to reverberate for many years.
And I I wanna say this, I wanna be a better communicator, and I I want our audience just, you know, there’s a little, uh, new startup company called Amazon.
You might have heard of it.
And and they have, um, this book, it’s available wherever you buy books normally, Uh, you could probably go to Bishop’s website, but you could go, but Amazon probably get it to you quick.
And let me just tell you something. You need to get this book.
I’m asking all of our TBN, uh, audience to go, just grab your computer, slide it over, on your lap, go to Amazon and get this book.
Um, there is a lot in here.
I have a whole bunch of stuff highlighted and realize, uh, we’ve talked more than half the show, and we haven’t even done the real intro yet.
And, uh, but I I wanted to point out that And I did, Bishop, the the one thing I said to you before we started is I love the the format of this book.
And what you’ve done is you’ve done all your teaching.
Uh, about what you’re talking about and and, you know, how to be, you know, um, you know, influenced by the Holy Spirit, but be prepared at the same time, but I love what you did.
You got, um, Doctor Frank Thomas, and he is the director in the of the doctorate program.
In African American, uh, preaching in sacred rhetoric at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.
And what he did is kind of a little bit of an interview kind of post analysis, uh, of what you’ve what what you’ve said in here, a little bit of an interview, And so this is a really interesting way to not only get bishops teaching, but then get kind of the interview or kind of the behind the scenes of what I and I love the format of that.
Thank you.
Um, and whoever thought that up is rather smart. Um, but you then did a sermon.
Just say thank you. I didn’t know I was me. Yes. Okay.
And I’m gonna get there before we end. I promise you.
I want you to just make let let’s let’s do the lightning round.
Just a quick comment on challenging cultural conventions.
I love this section, but just a little sound bite on it, and then I’ll ask you another quick one.
Well, I just think that it’s important that we shape the culture rather than respond to it.
And I’m not sure that we have led the way in shaping culture. I think we’ve responded to culture.
We’re somewhere behind.
Okay? The process of preaching is one of the actual, uh, full sections but I underlined miracle in your message.
You’re talking about, uh, blind bartimas.
Yeah.
Uh, and then I wrote in the margin here, uh, process versus calling. Mhmm. K.
So what are you talking about inside of that section, miracle in your message.
I think sometimes we have a cookie cutter way of looking at things, at text, at life, and situation, but when you flip it and get different perspectives, you become a better preacher, you become a better or a raider, and and and that’s beyond just being called to it.
That’s that’s beyond just the calling itself, but understanding the oratorical experience that we have more than one character here.
Let’s look at it through different people’s eyes and their POV, their point of view, will direct you to different truths that cost you to appreciate the overall story.
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said. Yeah.
Inside of the chapter, the pregnant pause. What do you mean by that?
Uh, you know, a lot of what a lot of what communication is, is it just words is body language.
It’s it’s pa the pausing between phrases for for impact, you know.
All of it has there’s a there’s an art to it It’s not just a science. It’s an art.
And so I think it’s important when we start talking about speaking that that we understand that silence can be as powerful and convey as much information as speaking does.
Uh, my my wife is very very powerful, even without saying a word, you know, she can she can she can let you know what you need to know uh in in that in that silence, baby.
She can’t really speak to your heart, Lord Jesus. And so You touched
the nerve of your own there.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You trigger.
Yeah. Uh-huh. I love you.
Yes, sir. You triggered yourself. Absolutely. Okay.
In plan for spontaneity, and we started there a while back, but I wanna read something out of the book, uh, that you say about spontaneity.
Some speech experts and communication coaches discourage spontaneity because of the risks involved in loosening your control.
And there are definite risks worth considering before you decide to call an audible and play an audible play and wing it.
K. We we touched on that.
As you become more experienced as a communicator, you may also grow more comfortable with spontaneity.
Comment on that.
Well, first of all, I think it’s important to realize a lot of people become imprisoned by the manuscript or by their note But I have always felt like I made the notes.
The notes didn’t make me. And if I was bright enough to to write it down, I ought to be bright enough on the spot to be the master of the notes rather than to become enslaved to what you wrote down.
I mean, it came out of your research, your study, your preparation, and your ability to be spontaneous is the same way in which you wrote the notes in the first place.
You can rewrite them. You can reorganize them. You can rewrite them while you’re speaking.
As long as you do not when it comes to preaching, as long as you don’t do damage to the text, you have freedom.
But bear in mind, this book is written not only to preachers, but litigators to sales people, to couples, to families talking intergenerationally, uh, and sometimes we have a prepared speech like the prodigal son who practices all the way home.
I will say to my father, I’m no more worthy to be called us He’s practicing all of this stuff in there when he gets right in front of his father, the whole moment changes with a ring and a robe and the killing of a calf all of a sudden, he has access to an unexpected grace.
You’re you’re pretty good at this, by the way. Here’s a good quote.
Ingredients for a good sermon come from what the recipe requires as well as what you decide to add or subtract.
That quote is Brother T. D. Jakes. Um, you’re talking about the ingredients Yeah.
What what do you mean by that?
Well, the big metaphor I use in the book is is is between speaking and cooking.
And, uh, when when you cook, you you pull out everything that you you’re going to need, you won’t use everything that you pulled out.
There’ll be flour that gets put to put back on the shelf.
You won’t use a whole five pound bag of of sugar, but you brought it out.
Uh, you may decide to add lemon extract because you don’t like Almond, and the ability to be creative in the moment is what makes us unique.
And when it comes to Bible, we have all of the writers listening at the same god, but their flavor of right, there’s so much difference between the writing of the book of Hebrews and the writing of the book of of Romans.
Huge difference in the style Stylistically.
Now, god is the author, but the style of the writer flows through quite vividly and quite, uh, profoundly There’s a huge difference in the writings of Nehemiah and and the writings of the book of Ruth and understanding that you have a style and what is that style and enhancing that style and enhancing your experiences creates opportunities for you.
I’m gonna read now. This is out of the section of the book near the end.
There’s 3 chapters at the end.
That are written by Doctor Frank, uh, Thomas, and and then it’s kind of it’s kinda like his analysis and and an interview.
Okay? So I’m in that section.
And I’m gonna read this discovery of Bishop Jake’s rhetorical choices helps us to ascertain help helps us to ascertain what makes him such a persuasive preacher.
We must understand the 7 concepts critical to his persuasive strategy.
Number 1, I want your comment on all seven of them.
So don’t take, like, 45 minutes for each one. Okay? Good. Lightning round. Call and authority
uh, confidence, the the confidence in your calling that you can do this to believe in oneself.
And the authority that’s been given you.
Balance of intellectualism and spiritual demonstration.
I think that’s critical. Uh, all intellectualism without spirituality is all truth without grace. Yeah.
All spirituality without intellectualism is all grace without truth.
Uh, we behold the wonder of his glory where we see both grace and truth. Yeah.
Yeah. Bonal structure
of the sermon. The bonus structure of the sermon is the skeleton. It’s the outline.
Uh, I don’t preach with manuscripts. I generally have outlines.
And altering that skeletal framework, uh, is the strategy through which you determine what am I trying to accomplish And how do I inform them?
And when do I introduce this information?
That framework is the most important thing, even in writing a book, is writing the the the chapters becoming outlined.
The structure of this book is amazing. I love the I love this piece at the end.
Can I say something real quick? I have heard so many times all over the world.
And he will attest 5%.
About you in particular, teaching ministers how to minister It’s because of I I’ve heard it over and over and over all over island nations and people sent I learned to preach because I could watch TV.
I watched T. D. Jakes. Yeah. He taught me how to preach. I’ve heard that.
That’s the
so many times around the world.
And let me add to what she’s saying because what what we’re talking about is balance.
You realize in Africa, you might wanna have some African preachers on TV and in Africa. Right. Alright.
But then they say, well, well, well, hang on.
Don’t take away the American preacher, TD Jakes, because we learned how to preach because we were watching him on TVN.
See, So the the idea that the what we hear about is the balance between x porting American version of Christianity and the localized version of of what Christianity is in a particular part of the world.
And they say, wait a second. You know you know what I heard?
I’ve heard that the the American church have taught us how to minister.
We’ve heard that over and over and over. K?
All over. One of the things I think that most of, uh, the people that I’ve encountered throughout the continent of Africa is they know first of all that I love them.
And when people know that you love them, they listen to you.
Uh, when I go to Hillsong in Australia, they know that I love them.
If you actually love people, not just love preaching. You have to love people.
Love comes through through your preaching like it does in your cooking. There’s a difference.
I don’t care what anybody says.
There’s a difference between a home cooked meal and the and the ones you get at the restaurant.
When when love is in it, Yeah. The food tastes different. And that’s also true about speaking.
Yeah. K. I just had to say that.
I’m on I’m on number 4. Uh, flesh on the bones defining the formula for balance. Mhmm.
When you where you started from the skeletal aspect of it, and then the flesh on the bones as it is in the context from which that was extrapolated really refers to how do you fill in in between that framework?
Uh, what flavorful ways do you flesh out the text?
What what is what is not there that the writer had that the orator has to put their demand on the Jericho road.
Uh, it was dark and he fell amongst thieves and they stripped him and wounded him and left him half dead.
What what is he feeling laying there, uh, with the sand, uh, up against his back?
And the blood oozing out of his body and him almost delirious and his eyesight becoming blurred and suddenly he hears the thud of a footstep and his heart begins to race in his chest that perhaps this might be the moment that I have saved from the calamity around me.
You know, those sorts of things, that’s not there, but it’s there.
And so that’s in putting meat on the bone.
You know, we all want you to read to us.
I mean, you want want you to read us to sleep every night when we get in bed.
We all want you to tuck soon at night.
I would love to. Awesome.
It’s a
good story.
Um, embodiment of the message Number 5.
The the the the where are we going with this?
I I I came back uh, from from my last trip in Africa.
I was ready to preach this message about there are over 2000 different languages on the continent well over in Africa.
And I was gonna tie it with Nimrod, and I was gonna do all this stuff.
And then I got down to my litmus test as to whether something makes it off the cutting room floor to actually be on the stage is what is the point?
And if you can’t come up better
for the
year. The point rather than just enjoying the information, then I don’t preach it.
You know, you what what is the APAC what is the pinnacle?
What are we trying to get across to this audience? Because words are the vehicles of ideas.
And if we’re going to ride, then we have to have a sense of where we’re going.
The daddy persona
I think particularly in our society today with so many children born without fathers, I bring who I am to the text and and so it is the voice of a father because I am a father.
Even if all God forbid all my children passed away, that would not take away from the fact that I am a father.
A father is something that you are not something that you do.
And so that voice that fatherly voice coming across informs my preaching, uh, in the same way that if I were a woman, maybe being a mother, would affect the way in which I approach the text uh, if I was raised in only child, maybe Jacob being left alone wrestling with an angel does not seem uh, tumultuous to me because I’ve been alone all my life.
And yet for me being raised around siblings and family, being left alone.
The all that all by itself says to me that he is trump traumatized because he’s in isolation So how we interpret the text has something to do with our experiences and how we how we handle aloneness.
Wow.
I feel like I could start a church right now because I’ve I’ve learned quite a bit.
So maybe I will. No. I will not.
The empowerment, homiletic, The empowerment of the homiletic is to understand, uh, the text in context Okay.
I think sometimes we’re so harmonious that we we get away from the harmonics. We extrapolate from the tapes.
We play with the tech so much that we get it out of its original intent before you start, uh, elaborate on the possibilities of how it can be used in a contemporary sense setting.
Let us leave it in its original environment and understand that Paul is talking to Quran.
And he is speaking to the people in Corinth and a problem that is existing in their church He is not necessarily speaking the 1st Baptist when he says to them, uh, does not make to teach itself that it’s unseemly for a man to have long hair.
It’s the it’s the times he’s in. It’s the people he’s writing to.
In the bible, we get to read other people’s mail. Wow. Isn’t that amazing? Yeah.
Yeah. So, We’re gonna unloose you and hand you the mic, preferably speaking, uh, in a moment.
But when, uh, Doctor Frank, Thomas asked you something, uh, you you reverted to the most important message that you have, which is I’ve always known god was for me.
Yeah. Why don’t you jump off that, uh, and kinda give us a final thought and a final prayer in regard to not dropping the mic in our own lives?
I was born, uh, on the side of a hill in the hills of West Virginia with a bail over my face.
And, uh, a young, a woman came down and told my mother that she had birth to profit.
And, uh, from my earliest existence until now, even when I was unsaved, even when I was depressed, even when I was weak or wrong, or out of God’s will, he might not have been for what I did, but always knew he was for me.
Wow. I’ve always known he was on my side.
I’ve always known that I was never alone and that I am here alive and breathing by the grace of god.
And if if you can embrace what Paul says is unknowable, the unknowable riches of the love of god.
He’s asking us to know the unknowable, but if you can attempt to embrace the idea that god is for me.
Even when the world is against me and times or against me, and things are not going my way, you can approach life with a greater degree confidence and assurance knowing that the favor of god rests on you, even when the word of god is convicting you, it’s still favor that he’s even speaking to you.
For god so loved the world. He’s a lover. Jesus is the lover of our souls.
And once we allow that love, uh, to fill us and to inform us and to embrace us, then then it oozes out of how we approach other people.
The problem with most people, they can’t give love because they have never really received it.
And god wants to feel that chasm that exist in your soul, uh, of lovelessness and bitterness and anger and frustration with the assurance that that I am for you.
I’ve not always agreed with you. I’ve not always agreed with what you did. But I am for you.
I am not just your god. Jesus taught us to say when you pray, Don’t say our god, our father.
And knowing that you have a loving father that is for you has comforted my soul and carried me through many, many tough times.
So many years ago, uh, when you were in the back of a limousine and going through some white gates and you were coming to be on television.
I think your your very first appearance on television anywhere, My dad undoubtedly would have looked to you those many, many decades ago and said, Bishop, look into the camera and invite people to know Jesus.
We’re doing the same thing over all these decades. You realize we’re doing the same thing.
I can see his boots. His cowboy boots hit that belt with the buckle on it.
I’ll do just that.
Love it.
If you’re sitting here right now watching this broadcast, and perhaps there is a scar in your soul, or leak in your heart.
Perhaps like the woman with issue of blood, you’re bleeding profusely in places that no one can even see.
Jesus is passing by, right by you, within arms reach.
And if you will allow yourself to get beyond your own personal pain and bitterness and the nuances of the atrocities of your story, and reach out and touch him.
He has the grace to heal you. He has the grace and the blood to save you.
He has the mercy to forgive you.
And he has the power to make the second half of your life in so much better than the first half has been.
I invite you. I implore you. I beseech you. Come now to Jesus.
He’s waiting on you. His arms outstretched to you. He’s available to you.
All you have to do is just ask him just simple. Jesus, come into my heart. Mhmm.
Come into my life. Fill my life with your glory. I believe that you died for my sins.
And so I give them over to you.
And I accept your righteousness as being enough to prepare me for heaven. Thank you.
For taking all the work out of it and dying in my place.
You died in my place so that I could live in yours. In Jesus’ name.
Amen.