Preaching with power
By Jessica Brodie
View all retreat photos on Flickr, here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/155978790@N02/albums/72177720326395695
MYRTLE BEACH—Church leaders from South and North Carolina gathered at Kingston Plantation in May for five days devoted to the power of the preached word.
With the theme “Ascension: The Power of the Preached Word,” the Carolina Black Clergy Leadership Retreat—hosted by the South Carolina, North Carolina and Western North Carolina conferences of The United Methodist Churc—brought together pastors hungry to learn new ways to fulfill their calling in a way that creates engaged, empowered and informed disciples.
Convener Regina Moore opened with a heartfelt prayer, acknowledging that many in the room were tired and beaten down from the ways of the world. She asked God to restore all gathered for the retreat, “That we might ascend and go higher and higher and higher through the power of the preached word.”
And that’s exactly what happened May 18-23 as church leaders gathered day after day to hear wisdom from a host of men and women eager to help others understand new ways to tap into the power of God Almighty as they ignite hearts and lives for Christ directly in their communities.
For it is through preaching that we can take our role as proclaimers and offer peace and justice to a world in need.
In his opening remarks, South Carolina Resident Bishop Leonard Fairley recalled how the late Bishop Joseph B. Bethea would ask one critical question without fail: “Can they preach?”
“We’re in desperate need in this world for moral voices,” Fairley proclaimed to a chorus of amens. “We need your voices, your leadership, your preaching—not only in word but in deed.”
Walking with power
Tuesday’s session kicked off with a powerful devotion from Dr. Emanuel Cleaver III, senior pastor of St. James United Methodist Church In Kansas City, Missouri, who addressed the spiritual consciousness of the Black church and Black people in America.
Cleaver brought a word from Luke 10:1-4 on how Jesus sent out the 72 disciples two by two to do his work in the world. That’s what we’re supposed to do today, Cleaver said, and the Black Church is doing this in ways that get to the root of the Gospel by addressing inequitable systems in the world around us.
“The Black Church is the moral conscience of America,” Cleaver said, adding, “There’s no person in American history that has done more to advance the calls of justice and equality for Black Americans than the Black preacher.”
Yet this is in spite of devastating and difficult obstacles, from Jim Crow laws to institutional racism.
“Even through lynchings, even through an unfair system, Black folk have walked with Jesus, and to walk with Jesus means to walk with power,” Cleaver said.
Cleaver reminded attendees that Jesus sent his disciples out “like lambs among wolves,” and today, we face the same.
Whether it’s today’s version of the Roman empire or health disparities, food insecurity and poverty, Cleaver said, “Jesus says go, not stay.”
“Don’t keep the power all in this one building,” he urged. “Bring power where there is no power.”
And fear not, he concluded, for when we walk with Jesus, we walk with power.
Spiritual first aid
Next, Minister Christal Heyward, of North Charleston, led the first plenary of the week, on self-care and spiritual first aid.
Acknowledging the important work the Black preacher must do and the role he or she has in the community, she noted there is much trauma the preacher endures while walking in this role. Heyward lifted up the importance of “self-care before you put on the collar and the robe.”
“We are constantly pouring out and leading God’s people,” she said. “Some of us are running on fumes.”
She said preachers must take care to participate in their own healing and maintenance by practicing spiritual first aid. This first aid includes daily prayer and meditation, forgiveness of self and others, confrontation of grief and past trauma, exercise, counseling, a healthier diet, balance, and getting enough play.
Pointing to bottles of bubbles before each attendee, she encouraged all to take a moment to blow bubbles and release some of the tension, trauma and pain within them.
“Trauma houses itself in the body,” she reminded attendees. “We must give ourselves permission to mourn our losses. Preachers need a place to grieve, too.”
She also shared how people often think self-care is things like a spa day, taking a bubble bath, shopping therapy, or comfort food. But in reality, it’s doing things like taking a break, getting a full night’s sleep, saying “no,” therapy, setting boundaries and asking for what you need.
The rest of the day gave pastors the chance to practice some of this, offering an opportunity for a time of sabbath so people could enjoy the beach or other opportunities for much-needed relaxation and connection with others.
Light, perspective and focus
Wednesday started with a strong message from the Rev. Jasmine Smothers on doing the work of the ascension. Lifting up the week’s theme scripture, Acts 1:3-8, she noted how before Christ ascended, he told his disciples to go into Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit.
“We live in a society that doesn’t know how to wait,” Smothers preached to applause. “We want the power of the Holy Spirit but not the process of the Holy Spirit. … We want all of the benefits but not the responsibility.”
In short, she said, we don’t want to do the work.
But she said, “There is no power without suffering and without waiting.”
Smothers shared how during a recent sabbatical she decided to work on her photography skills, and she took a class with a professional photographer.
The photographer taught her that she needed to wait for the perfect shot, particularly waiting for three key things: light, perspective and focus. Smothers realized this applies to preaching, too. For to be a prophetic, power-filled preacher, she noted, we need these same things.
After all, without the light, Smothers said, “We can’t see what need to see.”
Without perspective, we can’t fully know what’s right. Power in the preached word, she explained, comes from knowing God is our ever-present help in our time of trouble, the promise keeper.
“You may see darkness, but I see an opportunity for the sun to shine,” Smothers said to applause.
And without focus, we can’t stay on our mission. Focus means understanding the difference between praise and worship. Praise is gratitude for what God has done, while worship is a great thanksgiving for who God is.
‘Proclamations, policies and programs’
Next, the Rev. Michael McBride offered a perspective on prophetic preaching—what it is and why it is so important.
McBride is the executive director for Live Free USA, a national organizing and social change network committed to ending the criminalization of people of color, reducing gun violence and transforming the policing and the criminal justice system. He is also the co-founder of Black Church PAC and the Black Brown Peace Consortium and serves as the lead pastor of The Way Church in Berkeley, California.
McBride shared how God has always called up prophets to call the people of God back into right relationship with God, and that’s exactly what preachers must do today.
As he put it, it’s important to preach prophetically and powerfully “so we can proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to emerging generation who wants to understand more than our warmed-over doctrinal positions.”
McBride said that despite the fact that there are churches in every city in the country, we are radically disconnected from each other. To be fully connected as God’s kingdom, doing God’s good work with prophetic preaching and power, we must be united around a common purpose and remember that we are not just saving souls but saving bodies.
He offered three ways to structure prophetic preaching: Proclamations, policies and programs.
Dr. Brianna K. Parker, faith leader, scholar and data activist who serves as the CEO of Black Millennial Café, a consulting practice and data resource center, and Tamika Mallory, activist and social justice leader, joined McBride onstage for the conversation, taking McBride’s points even deeper.
Parker shared that it’s important to dive into data on Black churches in order to stay in touch with our neighbors and understand the needs of the community so we can know how to speak what God desires into their lives.
“We must remember: ‘They’ are the people around us,” Parker said.
She teared up sharing how she’d been talking with her dad, and he was complaining about price of eggs. That’s when she realized she didn’t even know the price of eggs. And that, she said, is a problem.
“We speak from this high place because we don’t have enough relationship with people to know where they are,” Parker said, noting that data helps us do this better.
Mallory shared about her new book, “I Lived to Tell the Story,” about the deep trauma involved with her work as an activist and one of the leading organizers of the 2017 Women's March. She said prophetic preachers and all who do this sort of work must remember the challenges before them.
“This work is really, really serious and really, really dangerous, and it leaves wounds and causes PTSD,” Mallory shared.
She noted how boundaries are critical to doing the work long-term and urged those in the room to model this.
‘God will not be mocked, patronized or solved’
Thursday kicked off with a word from Dr. Jerusha M. Neal, associate professor of homiletics at Duke Divinity School. Neal shared how the ascension story in Acts 1 reminds us that sometimes, just like the disciples, it’s hard to see the resurrection in our lives today. As she pointed out, the disciples had just spent 40 days with Jesus, but when he ascended to heaven, we can see they experienced bewilderment and even grief.
When the resurrection is hard to see, sometimes we come up with substitutes.
“We can’t see a risen savior, so an empire will have to do. We can’t see a heavenly kingdom, so we prop up an earthly kingdom,” Neal said.
Fear fuels every one of those substitutes, she said, and in our core we imagine: There’s no God coming to save us, so we must find something powerful, fearsome or seductive enough to save us, instead.
But we must not settle for the powers of this world.
“A promise is unseen, not yet fulfilled, only something you can trust,” Neal said.
Yet in his ascension, Jesus forced us to understand three powerful things about who God is and what God’s power is all about.
First, Neal said, ascension tells us the God of resurrection life is free.
“God will not be mocked, patronized or solved like some theological Sudoku puzzle,” Neal said. “This is the God of the cosmos, unbound by national borders or broken ceasefires, unbound by any law except the law of love, and we the witnesses are called beyond that safety.”
Second, ascension tells us God’s presence is a gift. It’s not for us to know when. We wait, but we do so with faithful expectation.
“It’s not about absence but about a God who shows up, not because God has to but because God chooses to.”
Third, ascension tells us God carries us.
“That is what I have traveled here to tell you today—don’t settle for smoke and mirrors … or the safety of a narrative that you can control,” Neal said. “Jesus ascends carrying you into the very throne of God—where Jesus serves as a witness for you!”
There is nothing wasted with our God, Neal said, and that is the gift of ascension.
The Pulpit and Boots on the Ground
Next came a panel conversation titled “The Pulpit and Boots on the Ground.” Moderated by Kendal McBroom of The United Methodist Church’s General Board of Church & Society, the panel included Cleaver, Fairley, Neal and Smothers among with Bishop Julius Trimble, general secretary of Church & Society.
McBroom asked questions on how prophetic preaching can effectively bridge the pulpit with the tangible needs of the community today, how we as an institution can support our prophetic leaders, and how innovation plays into amplifying prophetic messages.
Cleaver shared that bridging the pulpit and the community is about saying, “It’s you plus God—here’s how we resolve that, here’s how we overcome that.”
Fairley shared how important it is that institutions put themselves in a position to support their prophetic leaders in new ways.
“We as an institution sometimes don’t do very well,” Fairley said. “We don’t know what to do oftentimes with prophetic leaders, particularly in the appointive system. I think because we’ve not prepared our local churches for that type of leadership, we don’t know what to do with them as an institution, either.”
Fairley said we must help sustain and make sure our prophetic pastors are being cared for, supported and prayed over.
“We should never have a pastor and particularly prophetic pastor out there alone without support from the institution.”
Neal shared next about how it’s really important to study scripture and do theological education outside of comfortable spaces, outside the box, so we can hear the voices God is speaking through.
Smothers noted that what often works for her church is trying to be sure they offend everybody.
For example, when discussing politics, she notices that everybody in the generation ahead of her hates the discussion, while everyone in the generation younger than her thinks we don’t talk enough about politics.
“We’re always walking this tightrope,” she said, but that’s a good and healthy thing to be uncomfortable and challenged.
Trimble brought a word on greed, noting it is an impediment to holiness.
“Jesus is not a Republican or a Democrat, not a conserve or a traditionalist, not a progressive or a liberal,” Trimble said. “Jesus is a radical reconciler redeemer, the word become flesh, the God who is amongst us.”
He added that it’s not politics prophetic preachers are preaching but rather the gospel.
“And if we don’t want to preach the gospel, we should get out of the business.”
Supporting Africa University
As part of the event, many attendees contributed funds for Africa University, a private, Pan-African and United Methodist-related institution in Zimbabwe.
South Carolina’s Jim Salley, who is the president and chief executive officer of Africa University Inc. and Africa University’s associate vice chancellor for institutional advancement, reported that
28 gifts were made in person, plus others gave online, resulting in $20,950 for the university thanks to the event.
Salley said he will go to Africa University June 3 for the dedication of the solar plant there and its graduation on June 7, and he’ll be able to let one woman know that the Carolina Black Clergy Leadership Retreat was able to raise enough funds to enable her to continue her education.
Salley said it only takes $24,000 to educate a student four years at Africa University. He said this year’s graduation will celebrate 664 students—four with dual degrees from AU and Claflin University through a first-of-its-kind master’s degree in a joint program for biotechnology and planet change, plus 10 with a doctor of ministry degree in military chaplaincy.
“You are the reason I get up in morning and continue to do the work that I do,” Salley said, thanking the crowd.
‘It’s time’
The Carolina Black Clergy Leadership Retreat closed Friday with a worship including communion led by Fairley. Two South Carolinians helped with the service: Walter Strawther as worship leader and Cynthia Williams as prayer leader.
Fairley asked that God help the body understand its role as proclaimers in order to offer all people peace and justice.
“God has not brought us this far just to leave us,” Fairley preached to applause. “I don’t care who’s in the White House and how many executive orders they sign; there is an executive order signed by the blood of Jesus, not signed with a Sharpie but signed with the blood of Jesus Christ.”
Fairley reminded all that God has no feet but our feet and no heart but our hearts.
Drawing from the theme of the week, on the ascension of Jesus from Acts 1, Fairley reminded all that when Jesus was lifted up and taken to heaven, two men in white robes stood there and said, “Men of Galilee … why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11 NIV).
Fairley urged attendees to consider the same message in their own lives as they leave this retreat.
“Somewhere the gazing has to stop,” he said. “Somewhere the rhetoric has to end. Somewhere the theological doctrinal gymnastics has to stop. Somewhere that word has to take on flesh and get back in the valley where people are hurting.”
It can be frustrating, to do this work and to be in “the valley.”
“But it’s time,” Fairley urged to a sea of amens. Today is the day. How can we do otherwise?”
Next year’s retreat will be May 18-22, 2026.
View all retreat photos on Flickr, here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/155978790@N02/albums/72177720326395695