| I
am, in police language a WMA (White – Male – American),
sixty years of age, most people take me for forty-eight (better
that than eighty-two). I am divorced and the father of four grown
children, three grand children and a great-grand child.
My first
career, spanning sixteen years, was in Law Enforcement, ending
as a Security Agency Operator (GASA - NJ State Police number 1279).
During that period I served as an advisor for President Carter
on the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, as a Deputy
U.S. Marshall and as an Agent for INTERPOL, the International
Police Agency.
Throughout
my younger years I was an avowed atheist. Ignorant of the fact
that people misuse religion, I blamed God for the plight of African
Americans. I was a freedom rider and civil rights demonstrator.
On March 11, 1975 I became a Christian. In an effort to change
the way the world works I began my trek to Ordained Ministry,
figuring “If the church has the power to foul the world it
has the power to fix the world.”
My first
degree, an Associate of Divinity, came from Southeastern Baptist
Seminary. A Bachelor of Arts followed from the University of North
Florida, a Master’s in Counseling Psychology from Emory University
and my Doctorate in Socio-Psychology (Group Dynamics and Inter-Personal
Relations) was earned in 1992 from Boston University. Talk about
blessed, when I “got out” of H.S. (1962) I couldn’t
even read.
The research
for my doctoral dissertation became the foundation for my first
book Renaissance or Ruin, The Final Saga of a Once Great Church,
1994, Renaissance Institute Press, ISBN 0-9642773-0-1, ©
LOC 94-68169. Today it is considered the premier work on power
in the church and a reference in the study of congregational dynamics.
Clergy have purchased most of the 6,000 copies sold.
For the last
seven years I have served as Senior Pastor of the Cathedral Church
of Saint Matthew, a United Church of Christ. I have been a speaker
at many National Church events including the 2002 Congress of
Urban Churches in Chicago. Guest appearances on television, usually
as consultant on how religious communities operate but occasionally
on political matters involving the church are a regular part of
mylife.
At St. Matthews
I have lead the church from an all white congregation of 60 or
so, all in their mid-eighty’s, to over 200 people, at least
half African American and a healthy mix of the rest. We are a
social justice church with an active ministry with formerly addicted
men and an on going ministry to prostituted women along the Harford
Road –BelAir Road corridor. We have an active presence with
orphanages and schools in Haiti, to where I travel at least three
times per year. I take groups of people with me from all over
the country.
|
|
