- Coming up on "American Black Journal" as we prepare to enter the new year.

Our ""Black Church in Detroit"" series explores the topics and issues that are priorities for the church in 2023.

Ministers from three Detroit churches are here to talk about their goals and the importance of working together to bring about change.

So stay right there, "American Black Journal" starts right now.

(slow music) - [Narrator] From Delta Faucets to BEHR Paint.

Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco, serving Michigan communities since 1929.

Support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Announcer] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of "American Black Journal" in covering African-American history, culture, and politics.

The DTE Foundation and "American Black Journal" partners in presenting African-American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

- [Narrator] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and Viewers Like You.

Thank you.

(upbeat jovial music) - Welcome to "American Black Journal".

I'm your host, Stephen Henderson.

Today we are continuing our series on the "Black Church in Detroit", which is produced in partnership with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

The new year is a time for churches to set new goals and find new ways to make a difference in our community.

We wanted to find out what's on the agenda for the Black church in 2023.

So I sat down with three ministers who are part of a coalition of a hundred churches that are working together to get things done in our city.

Here's my conversation with Pastor Barry Randolph of Church of the Messiah, Reverend Anthony Estes of St. Matthew's & St. Joseph's Episcopal and All Saints Episcopal and Pastor Cecile Massey of Carry the Word Ministries.

Okay, a new year brings new ideas and new challenges to our city and to the religious community.

So I'm really glad to have the three of you here, three pastors in Detroit to talk about what we face and how we face it.

I'm gonna start with a really simple question for each of you.

I would love for each of you to talk about two things that are really on your mind as we get into 2023.

Two things that maybe stand out as particular challenges that we have here in Detroit, either in the religious community itself or in the city more broadly.

Reverend Estes, I'm gonna start with you.

- Thanks, Steven.

I think two challenges that we're facing right now is exhaustion.

And related to that, some re-engagement with leaders in our communities, in our faith communities in particular.

Detroiters are resilient, absolutely resilient, but even the strongest of us get tired.

And I think Covid exacerbated some challenges that congregations and congregational leaders have faced and they're just out there, people are just a little exhausted, clergy included.

And I think, so that's one challenge.

And the other challenge is, okay, so since we know that's the elephant in the room since we've named it, how do we release the creativity and the new imagination and the fresh expression back into our faith communities and get our leaders reengaged and recruit some new leaders and get them plugged in as well?

I think those are two challenges that I'm looking at.

- Okay, Pastor Massey, you're next.

Tell me two things that are on your mind as we start 2023, things that you think are staring us in the face.

- Now, bless you, Mr. Henderson, and thank you for having me on.

God bless all the panel and everyone that's involved.

Well, several things are going on in our community.

And as the church, we definitely have to rise up to these challenges, some of the challenges.

And we all know that there are laws being instituted by our government that are contrary to the Bible.

So now as a church, we have to address those issues.

We have to address the issues that are condoned by law but contrary to what we believe.

So that is one of the big issues.

And it's a challenge to engage our young generation, especially the millenniums.

Mostly, membership comprise of seniors and older people, at least in my congregation.

We are actively trying to involve and attract and come up with various programs that would attract the younger millenniums and to emphasize the importance of bringing their children to church.

That was something I grew up with and I find that to be a little bit discouraging that they won't come and they won't send over their children.

So that's a big challenge in our church community today.

Part of it, thank you.

- Yeah, Pastor Barry, what's on your mind as we get into the new year and think about our city and the religious community in it?

- Well, one of the big things that I'm thinking about right now is mental health.

The last couple years have been really, really challenging on so many different levels.

And I am really concerned about people's mental health.

We've been dealing with a lot of isolation over the last couple years, but mixed in with that is also, on so many different levels.

There's so much technology that I think we're becoming less social and we need to really pay attention to how that is playing a role in our mental health and how we interact with one another.

So that's definitely one of the main things.

When it comes to the issue of church, one of the things that I know that we have to deal with is, now technology is part of the way that we're gonna have to do ministry, from this day forward.

That's something that we all had to adapt to when it came to Covid.

And now it's gonna be a mainstay.

So how do we keep that as part of the regular routine of how we do church?

- Yeah, so I wanna talk about this group of 100 churches that all three of you are working with to try to make a difference in Detroit.

And one of the things that I think is very interesting about that group is, these are small churches, these are community-based churches.

There are neighborhoods that are very attached to that church.

They aren't some of the larger kind of megachurches that we have in Detroit.

And I always think of the work as being a little different when you're a little smaller and maybe a little closer to a particular community.

So tell me a little more about how that group is thinking about the city and church work, religious work in the city as we get into 2023.

Again, Reverend Estes, I'll start with you.

- Thanks again.

You know, I think it's really important that how we engage this work is we start with a spirit of humility and listening to our communities.

You know, as it goes.

Because we're historic and we've been around a long time and you know, and as our other pastor mentioned, you know, our congregations are, tend to have older members.

You know, we speak with the authority of, we'd done been through some things and we know the way of the world and we're gonna tell you how it's gonna go.

And I think what we need to do now as smaller faith communities, as smaller churches, is to turn on our ears to listen to what the needs of the community actually are and not what we think they are.

And I think that's how we're going to be able to engage more effectively by not coming to the table with a plan per se, but coming with an ear to listen and then seeing what amongst us and the abundance of what God has given us that we can use to respond as faithfully to those challenges as we can.

- Yeah, Pastor Massey, go ahead.

- Yes, one of the things Pastor Barry said, the technology, Facebook, Twitter, different platforms, the media, we didn't grow up with it but if we're gonna stay in our churches, we have to learn how to operate and use them.

So actually we have a larger audience than just the people in our congregation.

We use Facebook and a lot of the pastors are using it, Zoom and the phone, having bible study on the phone.

So that technology is a large piece for today to engage the younger generation.

'Cause they do look at Facebook and they have been responding that way.

But additional programs that will catch their attention, conflict resolution, dealing with their children, violence in the neighborhood, something that's relevant for them, then we'll be able to draw them.

'Cause now it's, our community is saturated with so much this Bible stuff.

So we have to be more inventive and more creative to reach the generation of today.

- Yeah, it's interesting.

Reverend Estes talked about the older population.

Reverend Massey talked about the younger population and we've gotta bridge the gap between the two and connect on both ends.

That's quite a feat, I think, for all three of you, Pastor Barry, what do you think about all this?

- Well, when the smaller congregations got together, when we first began to start talking with the smaller congregations, smaller congregations sometimes have much more of, I won't necessarily say much more of a boots on the ground type of approach, but a lot of the small congregations, they don't have the big budgets, they don't have a large amount of a volunteer force but they're doing great things in the City of Detroit.

And you don't hear about that.

You usually hear about what's happening in the bigger churches.

But these smaller churches are doing great things.

And when we started gathering the smaller churches it was for the purpose of supporting each other.

Finding the ways to support, to share resources, to be able to work together.

So when we first started, back in 2018, there were eight of us, and now it's over 104, I think was the last count that I counted.

It was over a hundred churches.

So we started working together and finding out that we had a lot in common.

And we literally started sharing the resources.

Churches were coming together to find out how to buy property, how to rebuild the community neighborhood.

Talked about workforce development, talked about education, talked about putting business incubation centers inside the church, how to make our kitchens commercial and how to directly tap into working with the people who are in your community and neighborhood.

The other thing that was so vitally important is in some neighborhoods you'll have, you know, three or four churches together within a few blocks.

And we started working with them to say, "Let's work together and start sharing those resources "so we won't work on things as just individual churches, "but come together as a group."

- Yeah, Reverend Estes, I wanna go back to something you said earlier about exhaustion which I think is a really wonderful way to express how lots of people in the city, you know, feel after the last three or four, maybe five years.

I mean, it seems like we've taken one blow after another and there have been lots of things that ask us to do more than we normally would do or to be more on our toes about things.

But, you know, what do you do about exhaustion?

I feel like things aren't getting any better in that regard.

There aren't fewer things for us to do, there are more.

(Stephen chuckles) So how do we address something like exhaustion in a city like Detroit?

How do you exhaust, how do you address it in a religious community that's, you know, committed to trying to make the city a better place?

- Thank you.

I appreciate the question and I appreciate the invitation to answer that or respond to that from the position of a faith leader.

I think one of the most powerful things that, as faith leaders we can do, and particularly, because I'm in the Christian tradition, is to create space for lament and create space to name things, right?

And so in our tradition, we believe that God created everything, God gave names to everything.

And I think it's part of our power to name the exhaustion, you know, that we've been so afraid to say, well I just need a couple more weeks of vacation or I just need another stimulus check or I just need another.

But no, I mean, to just actually hold space and say, "You know what?

"This is really hard.

"And I have been trying my hardest "to keep my head above water, but I am exhausted "and if someone doesn't come alongside me, "I'm going to drown because I, "my muscles literally just will not keep swimming."

- Yeah.

- I just can't keep swimming, right?

And I think as faith leaders, how we can address this, is by allowing people to come and lament and to name that, to grieve the sense of self that will be lost.

But as a, particularly as a Christian faith leader, we believe that there's new life after death but we have to let go of the old first, right?

And so creating safe space to mark and celebrate what has been and then allow for the new thing to come forward, I think that's one way that we can move forward as faith leaders to really deal with this issue of exhaustion.

- Yeah, I wonder, Pastor Barry or Pastor Massey, whether you feel that sense of exhaustion not just for yourselves, but also for your congregations.

- Well, for the exhaustion, I haven't had exhaustion because I am partnering with other small churches and I'm working with other ministers and a couple of times I had to had someone to come in.

Also, I balance the ministry with going to the gym, and posting on Facebook.

Other ministers said, "Wow, I see you exercising.

"We're gonna do this in my church."

So finding the balance with the ministry, because it's a lot of responsibility and you have to know when you are tired so that you can refresh yourself.

So you have to find that, whatever it is you need to do to balance that.

Because we wanna be our very best in our presentation with the people that we're working with.

- Yeah, Pastor Barry?

- Wow, powerful, I just wanna say two things.

One, I remember when I first became the pastor of the church, my mother called me 'cause I was working like crazy.

And she called me and she said, "On the seventh day, God rested."

And she hung up the phone and she-- (chuckles) We're not God.

So on the seventh day, God rested and then kind of piggybacking on Pastor Massey, we gotta pay attention, we're Christian, so we gotta pay attention to Jesus Christ, Son of God.

When He started His ministry, He got a team.

So Jesus can put a team together, He went and got 12.

And He put a team together knowing it was not just gonna be Him alone, even being the Son of God, He went and got a team.

And I think teamwork means a lot.

Partnership means a lot and working with other people.

And it's okay to say that you are tired and you need to rest.

And I just wanna say to Anthony, Reverend Estes, God bless you 'cause he has two congregations.

- Yeah.

- I have enough with one.

I don't know how you do it with two.

I just wanna say, God bless you, you doing it with two.

So that's all my brother.

- A lot.

- Yeah, so I wanna spend the rest of the time talking a little about some challenges that I feel like I hear a lot from religious leaders in the city and the first one, and I think one of the most important is the violence that we experience in our city.

And that of course, as pastors, you guys I feel like see more upfront or more frequently, you see the damage it does to families and communities and to your religious community.

And I wanna talk just a little bit about what you think we can be doing in 2023 to deal with, not that, I mean, I know all of you work all the time on this issue and that it's constantly challenging you.

But what is it about this next year that you think, perhaps, we could do differently or more of to be more on that?

Reverend Estes?

- Thanks again.

I think here in the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan, our bishop has sounded the alarm on gun violence and has been really leading a lot of the charge for Episcopalians in Southeast Michigan to try to stem that as much as we can to lobby legislators to get, you know, some sensible gun laws enacted.

Of course when the Oxford High School shooting happened, that was, you know, right within the borders of our diocese and you know, we responded faithfully and with force.

And so I think one of the ways that we can do that in 2023 is to continue to be loud about that.

There's a line in our baptismal covenant that we recite that talks about renouncing evil.

Renounce meaning, use your mouth and be forceful with it.

You know, say it with your chest, you know.

(Stephen chuckles) That we will not stand idly by while our communities are ravaged by violence.

So I think it's to, we lead in 2023 by continuing to be part of those conversations.

Rallies have been held at Pastor Barry's church for the same thing.

So we're here, we're in it.

And knowing that there are no easy answers but we're gonna keep our feet on the pavement and try to stay as mobilized as we can.

- Yeah, Reverend Massey.

- Yes, that's what I'm doing as he was, Pastor Anthony was saying, be more vocal about the violence, talk about it, give them solutions, challenge their thinking to say, "Is it really necessary to kill someone if you disagree?"

How to communicate with each other more and use the pulpit as much as possible to teach that peace is a better way than violence.

Supporting other groups, Pastor Barry's church, they march.

You know, encourage them.

They have the City of Detroit, they come together.

Anything that promotes peace and love and unity, I think it's very important that we do that.

'Cause they'll have options and thinking the immediate thing is to kill someone, hurt someone.

So we need to be visual and aware and loud.

Let them know, "No, there's an easier and better way."

- Yeah.

- You really wanna kill them?

(chuckles) (indistinct) You know, get right, most of the time, they'll say no.

- No.

- But at that time and the passion, when they're upset, that's when they melt down and do things.

- Yeah, Pastor Barry again, I know that you've been working in this space a long time.

What do you think might be possible in the next year?

- Well, one thing I can say, we were not always violent like this.

This is kind of a new phenomenon and it is unique to the United States of America.

The rest of the world don't have this gun violence issue the way that we have it.

It's crazy to think that there's 330 million Americans and 400 million guns.

There's something wrong with this.

And we gotta look at it from all approaches, whether that's governmental, whether that's community, whether that's law enforcement, you know, we're all in this together.

The Bible says, "Thou shall not kill."

It's one of the things God told us not to do.

So it is mandated by God that we're supposed to be able to look out for one another and not harm each, us, harm anybody in any kind of way.

The other thing that I think that we need to look at too, remember, God did not create this.

He did not create us to be violent.

This is a manmade problem and we need to be able to get this right.

And we do have a mandate where we are supposed to do something.

In the Episcopal diocese, which Church of the Messiah is an Episcopal church, and Anthony and I are in the same diocese, and our bishop did put out a mandate.

And our entire diocese and all of our churches are working to eradicate gun violence as we know it.

And we just need more people to stand up and to make that difference and understand that we are the people of God and we should definitely be able to lead the way.

- Yeah, okay, Reverend Estes, Reverend Massey and Reverend Randolph.

It was really great to talk with all three of you about the coming year and the coming opportunities.

Have great holiday seasons and thanks for joining us on "American Black Journal".

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- That'll do it for us this week.

You can find out more about our guests and view all of the "Black Church in Detroit" episodes at americanBlackjournal.org.

You can connect with us anytime on Facebook and on Twitter.

Take care and we'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] From Delta Faucets to BEHR Paint Masco Corporation is proud to deliver products that enhance the way consumers all over the world experience and enjoy their living spaces.

Masco serving Michigan communities since 1929 support also provided by the Cynthia & Edsel Ford Fund for Journalism at Detroit Public TV.

- [Announcer] The DTE Foundation proudly supports 50 years of "American Black Journal" in covering African American history, culture, and politics.

The DTE Foundation and "American Black Journal" partners in presenting African American perspectives about our communities and in our world.

- [Announcer] Also brought to you by Nissan Foundation and Viewers Like You.

Thank you.

(slow music)